Winter plans to stick around a while

 I had to drive to a place called Attica, about halfway between Flint and the very bottom of Lake Huron, and it was quite a hairy drive.  There was a fine icy rain and my windscreen quickly became almost opaque, and only using up my entire tank of wiper fluid maintained even a window of visibility.  See the top right corner of the picture below.

 You can see the temperature if you embiggen this one.

Celebration!

Jami was given this when she was about to be promoted to Full Professor but somehow never felt the celebration warranted it... until she got a certain piece of news this week.  She will elaborate soon.

It was good.  Jami thought it was dry, I thought it was sweet.

A Valentine to For-Mar and Bluebell Beach

Swearing fealty for a piece of paper

Well, today was finally the day for my "citizenship ceremony". Pretty fast turnaround, and I only just got the official letter (which you had to fill out, saying whether you'd committed various crimes, joined the Communist Party or served in some armed force or other since the interview, which would've required a very active life on my part, given that that was barely a week ago) on Saturday. So, off I set to Detroit:

One of the things you had to do was hand in your Green Card, so here it is.  It served me well, lo these past 20-odd years (actually this one was just the past ten, because you have to renew it every decade, which is actually the reason I decided to go for citizenship, because it's about as much trouble to renew the card as become a citizen.

Unfortunately, you're not allowed to take in your cell phone (because you could use it to set off a bomb, said one of the parking attendants, fresh off relieving me of $15 and my car key) so I didn't take any pictures of the inside of the above building, which is a shame because it's beautiful.  Check it out here.  (The only thing that spoils it is that the last and largest portrait in a complete set of pictures of the presidents is this ghastly visage.)  The actual ceremony took a while, mainly because we had to wait for the judge.  While we were doing so people circulated with forms to register to vote (watch out Trump, here I come!) and info on getting a US passport.  I asked one of them about Dual Citizenship and I _think_ I now have it, because she said (a) it depends on the country (and I checked, and according to The Internet, all it takes to get a dual citizenship with another country if you're a British Citizen (okay, "Subject") is to acquire the other citizenship.  Apparently the UK is fine with open marriages) and (b) she said she had _THREE_ (which would be "triple citizenship" I suppose).  Anyway, they only ask for your Green Card, they don't make you hand over any passports.  When the judge finally did come, he regaled us with tales of his Irish Immigrant parents (and how they did so much better than their siblings who went to England, Scotland, Canada or Australia - so sucks to you, Commonwealth!) and expressed sympathy with Muslim immigrants who have to face the kind of accusations of terrorism that were accusations of Communism in the McCarthyite days of his parents' arrival.  Finally, we all got to stand, raise our right hands and say all kinds of things (I substituted "rhubarb rhubarb" when it came to the part about promising to take up arms if asked) and then we were called up one at a time to get our certificates.  (The Judge got his young, also pasty white assistant/clerk to read out the names of each person so they could come up and shake the Judge's hand (all but the woman in full burka).  I half suspect that he did that so he wouldn't have to be the one mangling all the Indian/Arabic/Turkish names.  The poor young guy was practically sweating over some of them.  After he'd heroically struggled through one RIDICULOUSLY long Indian name (and its owner had recognized it and started the trip towards the judge) the whole room spontaneously applauded.) And here's mine, along with the tiny flag they handed out, in the expectation that we would be suddenly rabidly patriotic.  All in all, a bit anticlimactic.  But now I get to serve on juries!  Yay!

A trot across the ice

Another cold and dreary February day. Not to worry, another arctic storm is headed our way in two days so things will be exciting again.

Frederick tried to negotiate for a shorter, closer walk (preferring to spend the day laying on the couch and watching movies) but Simon was having none of it so to Seven Lakes they went.

Not appealing lake weather.

Frozen fish?  Dead body?  Just what exactly is that under the ice?

New stove in the basement

I had the idea last year, but procrastinated and then summer arrived and it didn't seem important. Then another polar vortex arrived and I was reminded of the desirability of a stove in the basement.

I had expected something smaller, more like a small microwave rather than a giant 1990's style television, but it was on clearance and the price of the gas stove and installation (which took about 6 hours) was less than half of the price of a newer, smaller model.  So, given that it's in the basement, we went with price, not appearance.

Simon took these pictures.  Not sure what the point of this one is.

And here it is, all ready to go.  

I justified getting this because it was simply unbearable in our basement.  I couldn't even stand to go down there to do laundry because it was just too cold.  (So cold that the pipes in the basement walls froze last week so that our downstairs shower didn't work.)  Now, it's just too damn hot.  You can work bare feet and still feel woozy from being overheated.  We need to figure out a way to crank the heat, shut it off, and then crank it up again, then shut it off, over and over again so that we somehow manage a comfortable level.

Icy then wet

 Closeup of my finger as a special bonus.

Temporary thaw

We've had an absurd shift in temperature here in the Midwest.  From around -20 it's swung all the way round to 50 degrees.  This has led to a sudden thaw and newfound joie de vivre in the chickens.

Brave souls are still prepared to go far out on the ice (now about an inch deep in water on top) at Seven Lakes to go ice fishing:

We gave it a go but stuck close to the shore: