Well, here we are, two-and-a-half weeks out from the Big Dump o’ Snow we got last month, and some folks still haven’t dug their vehicles out from the roadside.
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Spaces are cleared from either side of this pickup, but
clearly the driver is just, “Nope, nope, nope. Not gonna.”
This one is interesting—in the cluster so really not all that much to clear. But: nope.
©2026 Bas Bleu
In the past three or four weeks, we here in the environs of The District They Call Columbia have been freezing. No, seriously—temperatures have only once or twice risen above the freezing point, and that for only a few hours.
Saturday morning, I checked the weather before going on my
walk; Android said 17F, and I thought, "Okay--I've gone out in 12F, this’ll
be okay.”
And then I got outside and heard this roaring sound. Which
turned out to be the wind. I barely got 20 yards along before I realized I was
not going to make my full snow-curtailed circuit, because that wind was
absolutely shredding me. I checked Android again: Oh
As someone posted in the r/nova sub:
So I am filled with greater and abject awe and gratitude
for the people in Minneapolis who for months—come day, go day; in fact day and night—continue
to fill the sub-zero streets with whistles and jeers to protect and witness for
their neighbors, who are being targeted by our own government. They suit up (in
many layers), charge up their phones and put themselves in harm’s and cold’s
way as testament to decency and humanity.
God bless them all.
©2026 Bas Bleu
I believe today’s earworm is appropriate for our times. Our times being two days after Jeff Bezos and his ex-Murdoch stooge publisher Bill Lewis completely eviscerated The Washington Post because reasons, but also because of the ongoing federal police riot in Minneapolis and other US cities. It’s Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?”.
Gaye wrote this with Renaldo “Obie” Benson and Al Cleveland
in 1969/70, after Benson (a member of the Four Tops) witnessed police brutality
at an anti-war protest in Berkeley’s People’s Park. Gaye released it in 1971.
I rather feel like judges all over the country have been
asking Gaye’s question for the past 12 months. They’re getting testier and
testier about the lack of response from the DOJ and DHS clowns. Viz: this
ruling from District Judge Fred Biery, releasing the 5-year-old boy who was
abducted by ICE agents, along with his father, in Minneapolis and shipped off
to a Texas concentration camp. The whole thing is quite short and well worth
a read, but the final page is a WTF broadside:
(The Bible citations are Matthew 19:14: “Let the little
children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs
to such as these.” And John 11:35: “Jesus wept.”)
Turn up the volume and listen to Marvin.
©2026 Bas Bleu
Okay, now we’re at the tricky stage of snowfall:
When the piled snow melts in the sun (and temps in the
mid-30s, yay!) and then freezes. As a pedestrian, you don’t know whether that
slick patch is water or ice.
For the record—this one is ice.
©2026 Bas Bleu
Since Fairfax County no longer accepts glass for recycling, you have to schlep jars and bottles and whatnots to designated dumpsters. Yesterday I took the accumulation of glass over to one of them and discovered that it’s apparently been a rough couple of weeks or so.
Pretty much filled to the brim.
Gonna be a tough winter.
©2026 Bas Bleu
Eight days after the Big Dump o’ Snow and Sleet, our snow removal contractor finally got around to actually clearing the cluster parking lot.
At the South exit, they piled all that snow up at the street
corner, so you have to creep out into the middle of the road to see whether
anyone’s coming from the right.
Yay.
©2026 Bas Bleu
We here in the environs of the District They Call Columbia have had sub-freezing temperatures for well over a week. We still have mountains of snow from last weekend’s storm, and—while I’m grateful this weekend’s bomb cyclone missed us—this stuff won’t go away for a while.
So on this Groundhog Day I’m grateful for these gloves that a friend knitted for
me:
She chose the open-finger pattern so I can take photos with
my mobile without having to remove my gloves. The material is wool, so it’s
really warm. They are a great blessing on my morning walks, where temperatures
have been in the low double digits for weeks.
Being from LA, I’ve never grown used to wearing gloves (or
carrying umbrellas), so I have to remember to put them on when I go out. A couple
of weeks ago, I stuck my head out the back door to toss seed to the birds and
it seemed okay. So when I left through the front door a couple of minutes later
I thought, “I probably don’t need the gloves.”
I didn’t get two houses away before I realized I needed the
gloves, so I went back and put them on.
So grateful to have them.
©2026 Bas Bleu
A couple of days ago I saw a clip of a Minneapolis community brass band riffing on “Stand by Me” at one of the memorial gatherings for Alex Pretti, the latest victim in that city of our homegrown Gestapo. I was struck by how vibrant the music was—with everyone’s breath coming out in frozen puffs, but no damper on the authenticity or the energy.
And it brought me back to the Playing for Change
organization, and their version of the Ben E. King hit, originally released in
1961. Man—different time, and yet so much the same.
I think I saw the Playing for Change video about 10 or 12 years ago; it was such an interesting notion, editing in multiple
musicians playing the same piece literally around the world. And that particular
song was the perfect one to debut the concept. They’ve since done it with lots
of songs, including my last
Friday’s earworm.
Both “Stand by Me” and this amalgam of performers perfectly
represent what we’ve been seeing for weeks in Minneapolis: people of all
backgrounds standing by their neighbors, despite the weather and despite the
very real danger of masked thugs intimidating and committing crimes against
them.
Minnesota nice will crack the ICE. And we need to stand
with them.
©2026 Bas Bleu
To my knowledge, the snow-and-sleet storm that hit the region of The District They Call Columbia on Sunday has not been given a name; no Snowpocalypse or Snowzilla. But—at least in the environs of the People’s Republic, it looks to me like we got right much of it, and—since temperatures are not to rise to even the freezing mark for days—it’s going to be with us a while.
I finally took a walk around the block and took some pix. I think some of these cars are going to be there until at least Groundhog Day. You decide.
These guys got dug out by Wednesday; they’re hopeful about
getting their spots back.
©2026 Bas Bleu
