Brain Freeze

Your friendly, neighborhood Sheep is safe and warm and weathering the storm up here in Maine quite handily overall. But, having been stuck inside all day with no one but the cats to appreciate my acerbic wit has left me a little on the addled end of the spectrum. I've watched a steady stream of cartoons and crafting shows today, dosed my brain cells with far more coffee than is good for the average person and thought deep thoughts. Which would really only be problematic for my classroom assistants tomorrow when I arrive at school after a long weekend with no one to talk to and lots of stuff to share. But, I have a blog. So now you get to hear some of it. Cheer up. I'm the boss of my staff. They have to listen to me. You can change the channel should the urge overtake you.

First thought: Water purification

Annie (I think I'm linking to the right one...there are so darned many of us out there commenting all willy-nilly that I could be wrong) said that she thought it would be super-keen to be able to have safe drinking water should the supply ever become limited. As I am now completely unable to answer a simple query without putting the whole thing into some sort of context, I ask you to consider the following scenario:

Despite the fact that everyone laughed at the warnings of a certain Sheep who predicted this event repeatedly and has been preparing for it since the early eighties, no one was ready when the zombies finally did arise and begin their reign of terror on earth. You find yourself trapped with ten or so of your neighbors, family and the mail carrier with dwindling supplies but a strong will to survive this crisis. In between sitting around and lamenting the fact that you did not heed the wise words of the prognosticating Sheep, you take turns braving the hordes of undead to collect water from the birdbath in the backyard as all utilities have been cut off by the zombies. You wouldn't think that zombies could do this, but they can. Don't ask me how...they just can. We don't have time to get into specifics here! Had you listened to me in the first place then we'd all have been ready for this. But you didn't so now you just have to deal with the condensed version since I am very busy what with being the only person who took the time to research this matter and a lot of people are now clamoring for my knowledge.

Sheesh!

Anyway...the water from the birdbath will certainly slake your thirst, but I think we all know that birdbath water is not hygienic water because birds are not necessarily ones to be counted on to use that water strictly for bathing purposes. Thus, you may want to clean it up a bit. Normally, I would advise you to boil it as this is really the best method for purifying water. However, we can't do that so we will strain the poopy water through paper towels or coffee filters to remove debris then add bleach in the following concentrations: 4 drops per quart; 16 drops per gallon; 1 tsp per five gallons. We will then let it stand for thirty minutes. If we can detect a faint odor of bleach, then we are good to go. If not, then we will add a bit more and wait another thirty minutes. We will not be concerned about the bleach smell because this is what tells us it is sanitized and we are in no position to be picky right now because contaminated water can be fatal and we certainly don't want anyone expiring within the confines of our refuge. That would defeat the purpose of locking the doors against the zombies according to most of the movies I've watched.

See what I'm saying? I've had a lot of time on my hands over the past couple of days.

But those hands have not been idle! No, indeedy! I was feeling a little anxious on Friday morning after being dragged into a particularly nasty conflict between two of my fellow staff members and sought a little comfort in the knitting. At noon, school ended for the students and I went to a three hour training. I have since been trapped in the house thanks to icy roads and a general desire to avoid slipping and falling on my keister. Here's what you can accomplish when a need to be distracted and utter boredom dominate your life:

Not too shabby!

The sock was started Friday morning after "the incident in the school hallway" and the scarf began life on Saturday morning. Had this not been a three day weekend, I doubt that I'd have gotten quite this far. But, it was and I did. I even managed to get in a little bit of spinning. But I'm not showing any pictures of that...I think I need to get reacquainted with my wheel just a bit. Let's just say that this is not my finest work. But it was nice to be behind the treadles again, I have to admit.

I've also been merrily continuing with the light bulb replacement of '07. Bulbs continue to die dramatic deaths around my abode with aggravating regularity. Just to shake things up a bit I overloaded the circuits in the kitchen by accidentally installing a 100 watt bulb in an overhead fixture that wasn't really equipped to handle it. Fortunately, my condo has separate breakers for each room so I was able to get things back to normal in short order. But, I don't mind telling you that Hysterical Mind had a field day with that one. She was convinced that the zombie invasion had begun and that it was the end of life as we know it for all time. She is also afraid of the circuit box. It took everything Rational Mind had to get her to believe that we did not need to garb ourselves in rubber and call in a Master Electrician to supervise our flipping a breaker switch back to the "Let There Be Light" position.

So, all in all, it's been a pretty busy three day weekend for this Sheep. I was rather hoping to avoid tomorrow's almost certain continuation of Friday's work-based conflict through a bonus snow day, but that is looking less like a possibility. I guess I'll just have to put on my, "Now, I don't want to take sides here" hat and hope for the best.

But, if the zombie invasion were to start sometime around midnight tonight, I wouldn't be entirely put out by that fact...

SA