Friday, December 09, 2005

Dim the Lights

Jackpot.

Big Doug is entering snow heaven. After a snowless November, the old town is getting hit with what's known as a "weather bomb." This, I'm told, is when two nasty weather systems collide. The result is snow and lots of it.

Environment Canada, the national weather people, say the old town can expect up to twenty-five centimetres of snow. This is the kind of snow Big Doug can really sink his shovel into.

***
Yuletide spirit is sadly lacking in the Sack this year, if the number of homes with Christmas lights is a fair barometer.

Among the twenty-five houses in the Sack, only five have Christmas lights. Oddly, four of these homes have nothing but white ones. The Wonders' place is the only home with coloured lights.

It was only a few years ago that almost every house was shining with lights during the holiday season. People used to drive into the Sack just to look at them.

Gordon thinks the decline in lights is because of the fire at Burning Manor. But he can't seem to explain his reasoning for this. He just knows it's Dirk and Dora's fault.

***
Gordon, of course, has Christmas lights on his house. He also has two mechanical reindeer cavorting on his lawn.

Elizabeth put her lights up several weeks ago. But she still hasn't turned them on. I don't know what to make of this.

***
Surprisingly, the Bitterman family now has Christmas lights. I noticed this today.

Oscar says Mr. Bitterman put them up this morning. He thinks Mr. Bitterman's gall bladder must be in better shape now.

It's also proof, he adds, that Britney hasn't told her folks about the pregnancy matter or her new mate, Maxwell.

***
Oscar hasn't put up any Christmas lights.

He says his lights are buried somewhere in the depths of his garage. Finding them, Oscar claims, would require a government-funded expeditionary force.

He really does have a garage filled to the rafters with odd and unusual items. If you ever need a female mannequin or an old dentist's chair, Oscar would be the one to call.

He thinks a homeless person may have actually lived in his garage during the winter a few years ago. It was either that, Oscar says, or a family of raccoons. He's not really sure which it might have been.

***
Little Doug usually puts up his Christmas lights.

He decided not to do it this year. In the last few months, Little Doug has broken a few ribs and his wrist in separate household mishaps.

He says he doesn't want to push his luck. This is probably a good idea.

***
Computer Doug hasn't put his lights up yet, either. If it was up to him, it would probably stay that way. He's not a big fan of doing house-related tasks. He's just not oriented that way.

There's nothing wrong with that at all, in my opinion. But Computer Doug's wife is oriented that way. So they bump heads about this kind of thing quite often.

Computer Doug's lights should be up by the end of this weekend.

***
Burning Manor, of course, has never been adorned with Christmas lights.

The only flashing, coloured lights ever to shine on Burning Manor came from peeler cars and fire trucks.

Oscar and I were looking at the construction site of the new Burning Manor earlier this evening. They've just about finished framing the main floor. Oscar thinks it would be amusing to put up some Christmas lights on the half-built home. There's even a power connection available for it, he says.

As amusing as this might be, I told Oscar it would be best for us to leave someone else's property alone. People can be funny about this kind of thing. Dirk probably wouldn't notice lights, but Dora certainly would. I have no interest in messing with Dora. Dora bites.

Oscar says he's going to send a message to the Sack Resident's Society email group. He's going to find out what people think about putting Christmas lights on Dirk's Erection.

***
Thankfully, the power keeps going off as the storm intensifies. This will make it hard for Oscar to send his email query. With luck, he might forget about it by tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the snowfall is very heavy. It's thick, heavy snow and it's accumulating on the trees. I'm afraid some of the trees in our backyard will lose some of their branches from the heavy snow. We have enough to contend with, in that area, by having Doo around.

Big Doug is undoubtedly sleeping right now. He has a big day ahead of him on Saturday.

I expect his driveway to be immaculate before I get up tomorrow.

***
It is now very early on Saturday morning. The power was off all night because of the storm. In addition to heavy snow, we had thunder and lightning. It was a very weird combination.

There is a lot of snow, possibly more than forecasted. Big Doug isn't up yet, but he certainly will be soon.

The shovels will be flying in the Sack today.

***

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