Where to even begin with this week?

On Sunday night, I fell asleep thinking about how romantic it was to have snow on Valentine’s Day.  I knew that even more snow was coming.  I knew that the next week was going to be cold.  I knew that the temperature was not projected to get over freezing until the upcoming Friday.  I knew that it was going to be a difficult few days.  Before I fell asleep, I even saw a report that there would be rolling blackouts.  I knew this was all going to happen but still, nothing could prepare me for the experience of waking up at 3 in the morning on Monday, just to discover that the house had no power, the house had no heat, and it was 10 degrees outside!  (When I fell asleep, I was wearing socks and not much else.  So, at least my feet were protected from the cold.  The rest of me, not so much.)

Around 8 in the morning, the power did come back on.  And then, 90 minutes later it went back off and didn’t come back on for nearly 9 hours.  The problem was not just that there were rolling blackouts but also that some idiot crashed his car into a substation.  When the power did finally come back on, it was just in time for me to watch The Bachelor.  As soon as the show ended, the power went back out.

It didn’t come back on for most of Tuesday, despite the fact that it was 3 degrees outside!  And yet, as frustrating as it was, there was a strange beauty to the darkness.  At 3 in the morning on Wednesday, I found myself staring out the bedroom window and just marveling at how the snow seemed to glow in the dark.  When I read a book (Mickey Spillane’s One Lonely Night), I didn’t even have to grab a flashlight.  I read by the glow of the snow.  Call it snowlight.

On Wednesday, things started to improve.  Though it was a less than ideal time to start Lent, Erin and I still observed Ash Wednesday as well as we could.  It was on Wednesday that Erin pointed out that, even if not for the winter storm, Ash Wednesday would still have been strange because of the pandemic.  That was when I first realized that this was the first week in a year in which I’d had something other than COVID to worry about.  In fact, from the minute I woke up on Monday to find myself freezing and my teeth chattering, I pretty much forgot about COVID.

By Thursday, the power situation had stabilized.  The temperature was up to the 20s.  After spending three nights with freezing temperatures in an unheated house, 20 degrees sounded like paradise.  With the power situation stabilized, I realized how lucky we were.  We had power.  We had heat.  We had clean water.  Most importantly, Jeff made sure that we turned on all of the faucets at night, so the water didn’t freeze and we didn’t end up with any pipes bursting and flooding the house.  Even with my asthma, I had made it through two of the coldest nights of my life.

On Friday, the snow started to melt as the temperature zoomed up to 42.  By the end of Saturday, we were in the 50s.  By the end of today, we were in the 60s.  All of the snow is gone and I’m still struggling to figure out how to put this previous week into words.  It may have only been 7 days but it felt like 7 years.  It almost feels like it was just a very long dream.  Looking out at the neighborhood tonight, it’s hard to believe that it was just a few days ago that it was covered in snow and every house was dark.

I want to end on a positive note.  There’s a stray cat who lives in this neighborhood.  She’s a gray cat with dark stripes and white paws.  She’s very friendly and she’s also very …. well, fat.  Everyone feeds her.  She goes from house to house, eating whatever’s on the porch and always stopping long enough to rub up against anyone who happens to be outside at the time.  She’s the entire neighborhood’s cat and the collective love for her is the common bond that everyone who lives around here seems to share.  She’s cute and lovable and even Doc refuses to hiss when he sees her walking through our backyard.  When the snow started to fall on Sunday, I worried about whether or not she had found shelter.  By the time the temperature plunged to 3 degrees, I feared the worst.  As the days passed, I became more and more convinced that I would never see her again.  On Thursday, however, I looked outside and I saw her proudly walking down the snow-covered sidewalk as if she didn’t have a care in the world.   I’ve seen her everyday since.  I’ve never been more thankful to see a stray.

Here’s what I watched, read, and listened to this week.  Because of everything that went on, it’s a short list.

Films I Watched:

1. Carrie (1976)
2. The Fighter (2011)
3. Mystery Liner (1934)
4. Slugs (1988)
5. Spellbinder (1988)
6. Wildflower (2016)

Television Shows I Watched:

1. ‘Allo ‘Allo
2. American Idol
3. The Bachelor
4. Bar Rescue
5. Court Cam
6. The District
7. Friends
8. Hell’s Kitchen
9. Hill Street Blues
10. I Lived With A Killer
11. The Masked Dancer
12. Open All Hours
13. Saved By The Bell
14. Saved By The Bell: The College Years
15. Seinfeld
16. South Park
17. Temptation Island
18. Tough as Nails
19. WandaVision
20. Yes, Minister

Books I Read:

1. One Lonely Night (1951) by Mickey Spillane

Music To Which I Listened:

1. Adi Ulmansky
2. Big Data
3. Britney Spears
4. Cage the Elephant
5. The Chemical Brothers
6. Daft Punk
7. deadmua5
8. Dua Lipa
9. Fatboy Slim
10. Haim
11. Hans Zimmer
12. Icona Pop
13. Jake Bugg
14. John Carpenter
15. Joywave
16. Kaskade
17. Kedr Livanskiy
18. The KLF
19. M/A/R/R/S
20. Muse
21. Phantogram
22. The Prodigy
23. Public Service Broadcasting
24. Saint Motel
25. Sleigh Bells
26. Tiesto
27. Upsahl

Awards Season:

1. The Satellite Awards
2. WGA Nominations
3. Seattle Film Critics Society Winners
4. Black Reel Nominations
5. Makeup Artists and Hair Stylist Guild Nominations
6. Vancouver Film Critics Nominations
7. Nevada Film Critics Winners
8. Iowa Film Critics Winners

News From Last Week:

1. Edgar Wright to Direct Adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘The Running Man’ for Paramount
2. ‘Fortnite’ Is the First Video Game to Host a Film Festival, with a Potential Audience of 350 Million
3. Kanye West and Kim Kardashian Are Getting a Divorce
4. L.A. Sheriff’s Department Investigating Marilyn Manson Abuse Allegations
5. Inside Hollywood’s Rush to Make the First GameStop Movie
6. Prince Harry, Meghan Markle officially resign from all royal duties
7. Half of all Brits don’t want to watch Oprah’s interview with Prince Harry, Meghan Markle
8. Prince William ‘sad and shocked’ by Harry’s behavior toward the Queen: report
9. Axed ‘Mandalorian’ actress Gina Carano: ‘I’m going to go down swinging’
10. Living Dead Museum rises again to salute classic horror film
11. ‘Silence of the Lambs’ Buffalo Bill house to become a bed and breakfast
12. THE LINCOLN PROJECT’S IMPLOSION HAS DERAILED ITS FOUNDERS’ PLAN FOR A MEDIA EMPIRE
13. Golden Globes voters in tumult: Members accuse Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. of self-dealing, ethical lapses

Links From Last Week:

1. Are streaming algorithms really damaging film?
2. Hey, Remember That Florida Grim Reaper Guy?
3. Why Do Democrats Pretend Andrew Cuomo Did a Good Job With COVID?
4. Media’s gushing promotion of Gov. Cuomo looks pretty bad now
5. Andrew Cuomo and the Lincoln Project were media-created debacles. What now?
6. The Real Lincoln Project Scandal: Political grifter Steve Schmidt used homophobia to distract from his own sins—and everyone just let him get away with it
7. 20 Black filmmakers who have changed Hollywood in the last century
8. Who Else Is Ready for a Horror Video Game from the Marvel Universe?
9. Overlooked Moments of Terror in Classic Disney Animation
10. Grave Marker and Monument For Charles R. Saunders

Links From The Site:

1. I reviewed One Lonely Night and announced that the Texas offices were down.
2. Case reviewed Prince of Darkness and COVID!
3. Erin shared: Your Most Intimate Problems, Mardi Gras, Laypeople Distributing Ashes, The Green Man, Wandl The Invader, The Lost Eagles, and Sirens and Clouds!
4. Jeff shared music videos from Natalie Merchant, Earth and Fire, INXS, R.E.M., Public Enemy, Live, and Lisa Loeb!
5. Leonard shared the trailers for Cruella and Mortal Kombat!
6. Ryan reviewed Death Plays A Mean Harmonica, Mothers Tales, and Spiny Orb Weaver!

More From Us:

1. Ryan has a patreon!  You should definitely consider subscribing!
2. At her photography site, Erin shared: Domain, Snow on the Roof, Snow in the Morning, Snow in the Morning 2, Snow In The Morning 3, Snow on the Patio, and Morning Birds!
3. At my music site, I shared songs from Hans Zimmer, Haim, deadmau5 & Kaskade, Fatboy Slim, Queen and David Bowie, Upsahl, and Dua Lipa!

Want to see what I did last week?  (Last week feels like it was 8 years ago.)  Click here!