The on again-off again rain has, on the one hand, been a welcome sight since we need to add as much precipitation to our reservoirs as possible; the high Sierra snowpack also got a needed boost. On the other hand, it plays havoc with high school and youth sports spring schedules, makes it hard to get my dog to go outside to do her business and is problematic for my footwear when the only place to park at work is in the middle of a small lake. These are just observations, though, and I am not complaining about the rain or the somewhat chilly and blustery start to spring; soon enough it’ll be 100-plus and some of us will long for the return of gloomy skies.
My daughter’s dog is a very low-to-the-ground Corgi who weighs more than my three-year-old granddaughter and we have to wipe off his feet and his belly area every time he comes in the back door on rainy days after he has been out in the yard. You’d think it was torture, the way he squirms and wiggles to try and avoid the dreaded towel.
I also keep track of the weather at my dad’s and saw that on one recent day, their high temperature was warmer than ours. That’s saying something for upstate New York in mid-March.
Here in our Oakdale office, co-worker Marissa was off enjoying a trip with her family this past week and it seemed as though those of us left behind were thrust into an episode of The Twilight Zone. In that old Rod Serling science fiction/fantasy TV show, things were never quite what they seemed and the ending always featured some sort of twist.
Monday and Tuesday are routinely hectic as we work to put all the pieces in place for our three papers. A lone wolf in the front office while Marissa was away, co-worker Michelle did an admirable job of keeping all the balls in the air as she juggled everything under the sun. Then some sort of labeling issue caused a disruption in deliveries so people were calling about not getting their paper or stopping by the office to see if their subscription was still intact, starting Wednesday and continuing through Friday. We did a lot of explaining and handed out plenty of papers to people that got missed. And we still get a chuckle when they step into our little house-turned-office on West F Street and ask “How long have you been here?”
It has been over two years now since we moved from our former spot on South Third Avenue, a cavernous building that didn’t seem that big from the outside but just kept going once you stepped inside. That office could often make you feel like you were in The Twilight Zone, too, what with occasional strange noises, unexpected whiffs of cigar smoke or women’s perfume – smelling of a bygone era – and sometimes sensing that you weren’t quite alone, even if you were the only one there late at night or early in the morning.
On the home front, we’re all still trying to adjust to the time change and personally, it resulted in me turning off my alarm instead of hitting ‘snooze’ a couple of days this past week and getting up an hour or so later than intended. Luckily, it was later in the week when my days are a bit less hectic and I actually could afford a few extra minutes of slumber.
My granddaughter has been having some trouble, too, waking up at odd hours, thinking it’s time to get up when it’s really 4:52 a.m.; not wanting to go to bed at night but then not wanting to get up when it really is time to eat breakfast and get ready for preschool … her internal clock is just not syncing with the outside world right now.
But I guess that’s what it’s like in The Twilight Zone.
Marg Jackson is editor of The Oakdale Leader, The Escalon Times and The Riverbank News. She may be reached at mjackson@oakdaleleader.com or by calling 209-847-3021.
