I've had quite enough of this damn Winter Wonderland stuff

[infrogmation]

Louisiana Snowman, photo by me earlier today.
Northerners, don't shame New Orleans snowman skills - the last time we had any practice was 1 day back in 2008.

-----
It looks like New Orleans not only beat the 1963 snowfall total, but the all time record from 1895 as well.

----

New Orleans local: I remember a snowfall when I was little. My grandfather put out glasses to catch the snow. He brought them in, put some chocolate syrup on one for me, and bourbon on one for himself.

Me: Haha! How fun. I think I'll try that.

I set out a pair of glasses as it snows. I go back to check on them 2 hours later, to find them buried deep in a snow drift. "Well, I guess I'll get those glasses back whenever this stuff melts."

Comments

I'm Meltiiiiinnnnggggg....

[infrogmation]

Enough of the snow drift had melted by this evening for me to get the glasses back.

----
I watched the DVD "The Death of Stalin". Good dark comedy movie about a totalitarian society.

It takes some liberties with history - the Wikipedia article gives details; from the article I learned the film was based on a French graphic novel series.

After some setup scenes showing the situation before Stalin's death, it mostly deals with the struggles among his successors until Khrushchev triumphed.

Decades ago I read that there were conflicting accounts of Stalin's death. One version, not used in the film, recounted that servants in Stalin's dacha could only enter Stalin's private quarters for specific assigned tasks - bringing in meals and tea at set times, bringing the trays out 40 minutes later, never speaking to Stalin unless spoken to, never interacting with him unless instructed to, and forgetting anything they saw or heard while in his quarters unless specifically ordered otherwise. By this account Stalin suffered a stroke and collapsed on the floor. Servants continued to bring in and remove his untouched meal trays and perform other duties, stepping around Stalin as he writhed on the floor grunting inarticulately and incontinent, for several days until he finally died. Not the type of death one would wish on anyone - with very few exceptions, such as Stalin.

----
A dream last night included navigating narrow aisles to get a seat on an airplane, which turned into a crowded restaurant and I was trying to get to the bathroom but people were seated blocking the doors. Then the scene shifted, I was with some friends from the 1990s, and we were on some high balcony or terrace overlooking a huge marble floored indoor space that started out as the lobby of a shopping mall, but then they cleared everyone away to have an auto race. The race cars were lined up ready to go, and one of my shoes fell off and dropped onto the floor below. I sadly realized it was gone as many race cars then ran over it.