Of Weather and Wordsmithing

For years we Missourians (regional pronunciation guide: the second i is pronounced "uh" if you are from the Missouri bootheel or parts south, or if you are a politician, although neither of those categories includes me so I pronounce it properly) have been telling people about how wildly variable the weather is here, in the face of rampant disbelief. Well, now I have proof. I have the official weather report in front of me.

Today's (Wednesday's) high, consistent with the unseasonably (but delightfully) warm and sunny weather we have been having for the last week or so, was 71 degrees Fahrenheit. When Tom got home from work tonight, he told me the weather was expected to get dramatically worse overnight and asked me to help him put the hard top on our Miata (which sits outside year-round, because we have three cars and only a two-car garage, and it makes sense for the oldest car to be the one in the driveway). We did that and then went for a walk, figuring it would be our last chance to enjoy the nice weather before winter blew in. We took jackets but spent at least part of the walk in just short sleeves, since the temperature was still in the upper 60s. By the end of our walk (which took most of an hour), around 7 p.m., the temperature was beginning to drop noticeably, and it started raining a couple of hours later. Right now, at just after 1 a.m. (officially Thursday morning, although I still think of it as Wednesday night), the official temperature is 39 degrees, and the prediction is for a morning high of 37 degrees (the highest it's predicted to get for the rest of the week), falling to 25 degrees, with the rain turning to freezing rain, then sleet, then snow, with 5 to 8 inches of snow accumulating before this winter storm blows itself out of the area on Friday morning. As we say around here, gotta love that Missouri weather!

I spent part of the evening proofreading/editing Tom's NaNo novel. I make the proofreading changes without consulting him, but the editorial stuff I put into comments so he can decide what he wants to do with them (FYI, this is with his approval; I'm not trying to sneak anything by him!). I found out it takes me a LOT longer to work my way through something literary when I'm officially proofreading it than when I'm reading for enjoyment; I spent about two hours and only got through something like 20 pages, as opposed to when I read it the first time, which I think took me less than two hours to get through all 130 or so pages, even with the occasional time-out to make comments to Tom about a particularly noteworthy passage. (Since I was the first person to read it, he wanted to know what amused me every time I laughed out loud.) For the proofreading, I had to take the dictionary downstairs with me, because I was working on the computer down there and I knew I would need to consult Mr. Webster, both because Microsoft Word's dictionary/grammar editor is idiotically wrong or missing information unbelievably often (and no, it's not a matter of misperception due to conceit about my proofreading abilities), and also because the last time I proofread one of Tom's books, he disliked one of the corrections I made (adding a hyphen) and was upset that I hadn't double-checked the dictionary about it even though I was reasonably sure I was correct. Of course, my dictionary was a high-school graduation present, so it was published in 1984 (yes, the year I graduated; yes, I'm 40 years old; get over it!), which means it is 22 years old and doesn't include terms like internet and e-mail. Hmmm...I suppose I should get a new dictionary. I wonder if I can get an unabridged one that doesn't have too many years on it at the library's book fair? But I digress.

I finally realized I wasn't going to finish the proofreading/editing tonight and quit. Now it's almost 2 a.m., Tom's already asleep, and I would like to be too, so I'm signing off. More later....