Taking stock on Groundhog Day

Good afternoon, friends....I write this knowing that those to the north of our home area are mostly getting slammed by heavy wet snow and lots of it, and those closer to the Great Lakes will get some lake effect snow on top of it.  Yikes.

Here in Kentucky, we're bracing for the absolute worst winter weather we ever see--ice.  It's been raining since sometime last night, with a few breaks here and there, but it's going to keep raining and during the night tonight our temperatures will dip, and then we'll have that lovely sleet/freezing rain stuff that glazes over most every road surface and knocks us out of commission for a couple of days at least.

My wife is out for a couple of errands and is going to pick up a few supplies, providing that the bread-and-milk panic shoppers have not wiped out the grocery shelves.

If you keep track of such things, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning (how could he not, with all of those lights?), meaning that we're in for six more weeks of bad weather.  Seems to me he sees it most every year, but I could be mistaken.

As I said to my son yesterday, our long national nightmare is over, as NFL quarterback Tom Brady officially called it a career yesterday.  And with apologies to those of you who are or were Patriots or Buccaneers fans, I have never liked the guy.  He carried the same curmudgeon posture as his dour coach and in his two years with Tampa Bay he has obviously tried to be more likable, and in my view that's for his post-football life.  Glad he's gone, but for the sake of him and his family, glad he got out with his health, as many players do not seem to be as lucky.

The Super Bowl should be interesting, as our local favorite team, the Cincinnati Bengals, finally won a playoff game, and have now won three on their way to representing the AFC in a little less than two weeks.  They are led by a young head coach and a brash young quarterback and a whole lot of players who don't remember being losers in Cincinnati.  They'll take on the Los Angeles Rams, who beat Brady and his team a couple of weeks ago.  I'm looking forward to it.

Things appear to be escalating somewhat for the former president, who continues to do rallies and fundraise but is not yet ready to announce whether he's running for another term in the White House.  He may be waiting a while to see if he needs that money to help with legal bills, as there are investigations being conducted by district attorneys in Georgia and New York, an attorney general in New York State, and, of course, the January 6 commission, which now has a pretty substantial set of records, correspondence and other written information.  In written and verbal responses in interviews, he's saying the quiet parts out loud, which may not be his most effective defense. And he is apparently not the only person under such scrutiny, as his children, business associates, White House staff and political operatives are also under investigation.

The best news right now is that COVID cases appear to be declining in a lot of places right now.  Kentucky is finally seeing a decrease in their volume, test positivity rates and the like.  We can only hope this trend continues, for all of our sakes.

Fingers crossed that we'll still have power this time tomorrow!