There are places in the world that are windier than Nebraska (no, Chicago, you "Windy City" you, you're not one of them, not even close), but I don't know precisely where they are. Siberia, I imagine, because, why not? Siberia is more extreme than anywhere on earth except maybe Antarctica, and nobody really lives in Antarctica, other than scientists, who don't really "live" there. You know, they don't buy houses and send their kids to Antarctica public schools and vote for Antarctican mayors and governors and legislators. It's not a real place, in other words. My genius stepson tells me that the winds in New Hampshire routinely top 200 mph, but, with all due respect, I think he's kind of full of shit, at least with respect to this.
It was pretty windy today is I guess what I'm saying. I never checked the weather reports regarding the actual wind speed, but I'd estimate it was between 30 and 40 mph. Enough to blow our trash cans down the alley while they were empty, and then again after I filled them, blowing then down the alley again, even filled with garbage. I eventually dragged them back and put them in the yard.
My project for the day was to sweep, vacuum and mop the front porch. No big deal, right? Well, in addition to being windy, it was also pretty cold. High twenties, though it felt colder because of the wind. I decided I would sweep and vacuum no matter what, but I wouldn't mop unless the temperature hit at least 32 degrees. I didn't want to turn the porch into an ice rink. It was 28 degrees when I went for a run, at about 10:30, and had climbed to 30 by the time I got back, the wind still howling so loud I could hardly hear the usual constant buzzing in my head.
I took a shower and had some lunch and by noon the temperature had climbed to 31. I took the broom outside to start sweeping. When I opened the door, the wind caught it and nearly snapped it off its hinges. Sweeping in the wind is an odd experience. It almost seems pointless, but it's not really. For one thing, you don't need a dust pan. You sweep the debris off the ground and it rises up, gets caught by the wind, and flies away. Who knows where it goes? Who cares?
The vacuuming was easy enough. The vacuum cleaner doesn't care how windy it is. After vacuuming the rug, I checked the temperature. Thirty-two degrees. Damn! Now I needed to mop. I slung the rug over the railing, noticing how clean and white the floor was where the rug had been, compared to the rest of the porch, then went inside to fill the mop bucket.
We're a little short of cleaning supplies. The only suitable product we had was a nearly empty bucket of ammonia. I splashed some in the bucket, filled it up, and headed out into the wind and cold to mop the porch. It took very little time to realize that this would be wholly inadequate. After just a few strokes of the mop, I was basically just pushing muddy water around. I refilled the mop bucket and returned to the porch, and again, quickly used up all the "clean" I had. After two more re-fills, I was out of ammonia, and just pushing a filthy mop around. I was done.
The porch is slightly cleaner than it was yesterday, but I think this is due more to the wind than to any effort on my part.
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