Oh, Wow, The Echoes In Here...

     Some mornings, I am bereft of ideas. Like this morning.

     So you're going to get a collection of small whatevers.

     --It was 40 when I woke up.  Forty above, Fahrenheit.  After spending so much time in the deep freeze, it seems faintly ridiculous.  Outdoors can go above 32 degrees?  Rilly?  Yes.  Yes, it can. We hit 49 yesterday and while the temperature is presently in the pre-sunrise dip (down to 38, which still makes me feel giddy to think of), we could well break 50 today.  Thursday is expected to reach the upper 50s and then we'll get thunderstorms.  Back to the 20s next week, and more snow besides.  Welcome to the Midwest!  Welcome to Indiana! 

     --Yesterday, my lunch was something I bought thinking it silly and faintly pretentious, snobbed-up comfort food: a frozen dish, Truffle-Parmesan Mac & Cheese.  Might as well give it a try, though my expectations were low.  Surprise!  It smelled great, tasted good and had a nice texture.  I snuck in some protein by slicing a hardboiled egg into it.  (Yes, Internets, I have sunk to blogging lunch.)

     --I may -- may -- be able to coax my car, an aging Hyundai Accent known as the Hottest Needle of Inquiry,* down the alley to the garage tonight, after several days of parking along the street.  Hooray!  It wasn't so much snow depth on the alley, though that was increasingly a challenge: the frozen-hard ruts, hollows and false turns in the short driveway where I park had become impossible to navigate without getting stuck at least once every trip.

     --I have been watching the FX series The Americans, set during the Regan presidency and about (fictional) USSR spies -- "illegals," dropped in with fake backgrounds to live as ordinary citizens, mostly.  It is interestingly convoluted and morally murky, a high-stakes game of blindfolded chess played out in D. C. suburbia and the inner city.  So far (I'm nine or ten episodes in) it's very good, a cross between James Bond and a night-time soap opera.  I got Tam watching it and she's catching up; the episodes hold up well on second viewing.
      Suspending disbelief:
      1. Spies seem to require zero sleep.
      2. Their disguise skills are astounding, it's like they have a Hollywood-level makeup team-- oh.
      3. Speaking of Shakespeare (that disguise thing), the coincidence level is staggering
      4. Coincidence aside, the Soviet spies on this series must have the least-nosy neighbors in the history of the world.
      5.  Also, spies do not age like regular people.
     ...And despite all that, it's engrossing, at times edge-of-the-couch exciting.
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* This is the third of three 2002 Accents I have owned, despite paying too much ($8K) for the first one and having to get the brakes redone frequently.  The Hot Needle of  Inquiry (#1, blue, $8K) was T-boned by an uninsured driver and totalled, no harm to me, insurance paid it off and put money in my pocket besides; The Even Hotter Needle of Inquiry (#2, red, $5K, sport package including a rear wing, Ghu alone knows what for) was hit at the left front by an insured motorist and totalled, no harm to me.  The Hottest Needle of Inquiry (#3, red) was bought for under $2K and is the only one with a manual transmission.  The synchronizer for second gear was shot, so I double-clutched it until I could get a rebuilt transmission put in.  It does not get good oil mileage. (The other two did.)  I'm thinking about a rebuilt engine and some body work.  It definitely needs new wheels and tires.  They are very, very basic cars but they just keep running.