I don’t have to go to work today, but I do have another distasteful task to perform – getting my car inspected. I typically like to let it lapse so that I get an “extra” month out of the deal (kind of 13 months for the price of 12), but now that I’ve gotten it to December the sticker color changes for 2014 so I’d be driving rather obviously with an out of date inspection. Plus I drive a pretty fair distance back and forth to work, and you never know when you’ll pass a gung-ho police officer (it helps if you only drive when the weather is really crappy, but you can’t count on that, even here during the winter). So for once in my life, I’ve decided to be proactive and get it done ahead of time.

As far as I know, everything is OK with the car, but you really never know. I keep trying to tell myself “it’s only money” but for some reason I’m as nervous about this as if I was taking the dogs to the vet (or, worse, if I had to go to the doctor myself). So I didn’t sleep all that well last night (though I did drift off at about 5:00, which is when somebody’s phone alarm went off and I had to get up and find the damn thing and turn it off).

Last night was better than the night before, though. I’ve been having my recurring problems with my feet again. This time it’s my right Achilles tendon and, worse, my left foot in general. The left foot is all kinds of swollen there’s a big old knot on it, and the night before last it felt as if somebody was jabbing my big toe with a knife all night long. Last night it only hurt when I moved it, so that was pretty good, and I can walk around without looking totally ridiculous today, mostly thanks to Ibuprofen and turmeric.

But enough about my toe. Let’s talk weather. They had some nasty ice storms “up north” (something like 30,000 homes without power – which is a pretty significant percentage of the population since there’s not exactly a high density of people up there) and to the west of us, but we just had rain. Lots of rain. The sump “pond” is definitely full. Good thing it wasn’t snow, I guess, or we’d have had a couple feet of it. Right now it’s still about 40° out there, but that’s supposed to change and the cold and snow’s a-comin’. White Santa better wear his long-johns, ‘cuz it’s supposed to be down into the single digits come X-mas morning.

Oh well, I suppose I ought to take a shower and get ready to be inspected. Probably ought to trim my beard, too. I’m starting to look like I should be on Duck Dynasty. Wonder if they need a new guy?