Unexpected Free Afternoon

I believe I've mentioned before that my ahem retirement cough, cough covers the bills, but leaves little pocket money left over. To that end, I work part-time as a cashier at local grocery-slash-department store.

The point of this rambling narrative is that my old Navy injury, three crushed lumbar vertebrae resulting in permanent weakness and a galloping case of traumatic arthritis, decided that today was a great time to flare up. So after a few hours at the register, I decided to exercise a bit o' discretion and take the afternoon off.

I'm glad I did: it's a partly-sunny day, with broken overcast here and yonder. The temp's 49°, roughly normal for this time of year, and it's a beautiful day to sit in a chair with appropriate back support and read a book or two.

This evening another contractor will come by to provide a quote on drywall repair from the earthquake damage. The wheels of "disaster recovery" turn slowly, and we've just now finally been approved for our recovery loan. Strangely enough, it comes through the Small Business Administration, only after FEMA approves the original application for disaster assistance.

It's probably a good thing that the President declared the 7.1 magnitude 'quake a federal disaster, or we'd be stuck with whatever pocket change the State might have had available. Given the state of the State economy, I'm not sure we'd have gotten enough to fix anything.

Yes, Alaska by rights ought to be a wealthy place, given the abundance of oil. But successive Legislatures have spent like the proverbial drunken sailors, spreading the wealth far faster than it came in. When one combines that with our lack of a State income tax, and no sales tax, we're "suddenly" hurting.

The "suddenly" came as a surprise only to our Legislators; everyone has seen it coming down the middle of Main Street for years.

So I'll enjoy the quiet, the glimpses of sun, and the books. All y'all have a great day, too.

Hold On, It's Coming

The winter solstice, that is, when we here in the frozen North have our shortest day. But in five days, the sunrise and sunset begin moving farther apart again.

So what does it look like, at 1430 (that's 2:30 pm for you landlubbers)?

What you see here is the sun which has just reappeared from behind the mountains to the south, as it sinks rapidly toward the 1536 (3:36 pm) sunset today.

It's 25 minutes later, now, and the sun is already below that horizon.

You ask, does "all that dark" bother us? A little bit, this time of year: it's hard to tell what time it is, in the afternoon and evening. We frequently think it's 7 or 8 pm, when it's only 4:30.

On the other hand, there's the joyous rediscovery that we have lots more time than we thought. :)