This morning out my window...

I see thick fog hovering over the valley like a pall. It seems to muffle everything, and not a branch stirs.


I read the words and consider whether 'pall' is the correct term.


Yes. and yes again! As a true believer in Google I dutifully type "define: pall" in the search engine and up pops the information I'm seeking.


Definitions of pall on the Web:


1. become less interesting or attractive
2. daunt: cause to lose courage; "dashed by the refusal"
3. cover with a pall
4. cloy: cause surfeit through excess though initially pleasing; "Too much spicy food cloyed his appetite"
5. cause to become flat; "pall the beer"
6. chill: a sudden numbing dread
7. die: lose sparkle or bouquet; "wine and beer can pall"
8. burial garment in which a corpse is wrapped
9. lose strength or effectiveness; become or appear boring, insipid, or tiresome (to); "the course palled on her"
10 curtain: hanging cloth used as a blind (especially for a window)
11 tire: get tired of something or somebody

http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn


After checking my mail I move on to take a nice shower, and dress half-heartedly. Days like this sap all traces of energy or interest, but by the time I return to the computer the sun is making a valiant attempt to stab through the heavy clouds on the near hill to the south; the temperature has risen to an encouraging 40 degrees. I open the drapes in both bedrooms with anticipation, even though the east is still dreadfully lacking dimension. Obviously we are in the midst of an air inversion. In the distance I can just make out some chimney smoke...suspended in the still air. The whole view reminds me of a boring photograph negative. Hopefully by noon, there will be some patches of blue to break the monotony.

I am SO ready for an end to winter, yet a little worried that rain might come too heavy and fast, in which case we'll be in serious trouble from flooding. The one big advantage to our old rental house was that it rested on a hillside, far from the river. The spring melt would seep through the foundation of the house...meander across the concrete floor, and whoosh out the garage door and on down the driveway in it's rush to join the river. Unfortunately now we are situated in the flood plain, probably even lower than the river which runs parallel to the freeway. And there's been so much snow this year...

How obvious is my dislike of winter? More exactly I should say snow...

This photo doesn't look like much unless you know that we place a table and chairs under the lowest branches in the summer time...it's a SHADE tree, and the berm you see in the foreground was nearly 6 feet high when this photo was taken; at the end of our last big snow that berm was at least 10 feet high. We ran out of places to push the vile stuff, and at one point our access/egress path very nearly disappeared altogether when there was 4 feet of snow level with the veranda. I know a lot of people had worse weather than we did...but no one in the world hates snow more than me. Period.