random thoughts – Day 1,781 – (Friday) – gray with pastries

Gray morning downtown.

It was grayish when I got up and drove to work. Gray has been a popular sky color recently and I barely noticed. It's also a popular color in my wardrobe.

The streets and ground were wet. The temperature was above freezing, so there was some melting of what remained of the snow from the other day. For some reason, the morning routine was slightly “off.” The showering and hair washing, drying, and styling took place, but I almost forgot to play Wordle while drinking coffee. I almost forgot to check my email.  At no time before leaving the house was the weather forecast checked. I just put on the coat that was on the kitchen chair since Wednesday and left.

 During the day, the sound of rain pinged on the skylights. Or did it? Was that today or the other day? Or both? It’s hard to keep the days straight sometimes. What was a certainty was that for most of the day, I was the only occupant on the fourth floor. It was peaceful. A Teams chat message alerted me that there were leftover pastries in the fridge that a colleague had brought in on Thursday. It’s pretty easy to guess where that information took me.

Pastries!

The Purple Carrot pastry box was extracted from the fridge. A cup of coffee was brewed. A layered brownie treat was cut in half and eaten. Then half an apple berry pastry. A colleague came and had a small bit. Throughout the morning and into the early afternoon, the pastries were eliminated a fraction at a time, mostly by me. It was an effort to exercise restraint, but I’m not very good at that where pastries and candies are concerned. Besides, at 5:00, I would be chucking them into the trash. They would turn to rock over the weekend.

At 4:15, it was extra gloomy. The pavement and concrete sidewalk crossing the frozen canal were glossy and wet. The weather widget on my work monitor showed 36 degrees with a raindrop and a snowflake. A “snow statement” special weather advisory had been issued at 3:22 pm. Snow is expected between 6 and 9 pm north of route 2. A map put Lowell in the “mild” range and southern New Hampshire in the “light to moderate” range until 8:00 and the time scale ends.

It was raining on the ride home, but a couple hours later, the snow arrived on schedule with fat, fluffy flakes. They got smaller and steadier and piled up. In a couple hours, a couple inches of wetter heavier snow were on the ground. There might be a beach body shovel workout in my morning, which might help counteract the pastries and the pizza had for supper.