Today we are in for some snow. 11:00 a.m. was the projected starting time, and things were right on schedule. The weather service is forecasting 8-10″ so I dashed out to get my exercise early, and was it ever cold. East wind, 28 degrees, but penetrating right through the Gore-tex, or so it seemed.
On the other hand, being snowed in on Super Bowl weekend isn’t all bad.
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An entry from earlier in the week:
Monday, January 28: The “bare ruin’d choirs” were sure being tossed about this morning. Running in the wind has never agreed with me. I have enough trouble resisting the backward pull of my reading chair and a cup of coffee. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a good run, and I am grateful.
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The other evening our long-lived group of four couples – friends for 43 years – went out to eat following the play, “Tuesdays with Morrie” at the Repertory Theater of Saint Louis. We hadn’t been to Zinnia for dinner in years, always fun and delicious food. As we sipped a Cabernet from the Russian River Valley, the conversation turned to receiving shipments of wine from wine clubs joined by some during west coast vineyard tours.
It isn’t our style to join such a thing as a wine club, but we did order a case of very good red table wine from a vineyard we visited in the Anderson Valley southeast of Mendocino. Why not? Per bottle, including shipping, it was the same or less than going to the local wine shop. So, we thought we’d give it a try.
Never having received wine by UPS, we wondered about the condition upon arrival to our doorstep. I was impressed with the packaging ingenuity to assure an intact delivery. It was much preferred to receiving a box with a wet, reddish bottom.
Now that the thrill of receiving our own special wine shipment from the west coast has worn off, I am waiting to set the empty box out on the curb. It’s too large to keep the bottles in, our basement is crowded enough. Picturing this thing in a landfill – along with untold hundreds just like it — has me wondering if we will do this again.
Compared to going to the local wine shop and buying an assorted case, the carbon footprint is quite large. The wine shop’s boxes are totally recyclable without 500-year life plastic packing materials. Somehow, all this has managed to take much of the fun out of it. My whims shouldn’t have such an environmental impact.
What a waste!
In a dim light... 