Rant #2,555: Mess Around

Yes, I shoveled my tuckis off yesterday morning and into the afternoon.
 
We didn’t get anywhere near the accumulation we were told that we were going to get, but what we got was enough, maybe three or four inches of the white stuff.
 
What made the shoveling difficult this time around is that much of what we got was ice, and shoveling ice is like running up a steep hill; you are getting to the summit, but very, very slowly.
 
And getting my son to work yesterday was a chore.
 
He currently works in a nearby mall, which is great because we are maybe five minutes away from his workplace on a normal day.
 
But yesterday was far from normal.
 
For whatever reason, the cleaning trucks came out later, so many of the main roads were really in horrid condition when he needed to be driven to work.
 
In fact, I had to go a different way to get him into the mall.
 
There was a truck right at the entrance of the mall, moving snow away, and I was the only car in the turn lane to get into the mall.
 
He had to have seen me sitting there, waiting for the light to turn green so I could go, but for some reason, he dumped a pile of snow and ice right at the entrance point to the mall, or exactly where I need to go.
 
When the light turned—and after some choice words came out of my mouth—I told my son to “hold on!” and we drove right into the new mess that the truck created, and my hunch was right—I figured that since he just moved the pile into that lane, it would not have frozen into one thick mass yet—and my car got through it without a problem.
 
Much of the mall was snowbound at that time, and I had to find a way to get my son to the store he works in, so I followed some fresh tire tracks and finally got him to his destination, with time to spare.
 
Getting home, the plows had started to free up a lot of the snow from the exits and entrances, so I had a much easier time getting back home and a relatively easy time picking him up from work.
 
However, the parking lot of the shopping center around the corner of our house was never plowed, and going there after my son’s work to pick up a prescription became completely treacherous, as I could not go forward in the lot, only backward, as I was stuck on a piece of ice the size of my car.
 
And it all wasn’t worth it, because the prescription evidently was delayed by the snowstorm.
 
But anyway, in the comfort of my home, later on in the day I finally completed a project that I had wanted to complete for weeks, months and year, and in between a lot of work I had to do with my remote job, at about 10 p.m. last night, I finally finished this project, a major portion of a larger project that I still have yet to complete—but I am on the right road now.
 
Do you remember a few weeks ago I was considering purchasing a revolving record rack to hold a large portion of my LP record albums?

 
I had asked for help in deciding whether to purchase this thing—at a considerable cost—to help me get hundreds of these albums off the floor of my daughter’s former room and into some type of receptacle to hold them.
 
I also use bookshelves to hold hundreds of albums, but they aren’t made for LPs—they are BOOKshelves—and the records keep falling off the ends because they are stacked full of records.
 
So between the shelves and the floor, this room had become a total mess, and I promised my wife that I would clean it up, eventually, and eventually came when yes, I finally ordered this unit just a few weeks ago.
 
I got the unit about three days after I ordered it, before the Christmas rush set in, and it had to be put together—and after looking at the “million” pieces in the box, I decided to do it the right way, and get a handyman in to do this, which I did, and after about an hour or so, I had this thing constructed.
 
To make a long story short, I had to clean up the room to get the unit in and start to use it, and I had to maneuver records on the floor so that I could get the unit into the room.
 
One evening, a couple of piles of records literally engulfed me, and I fell over with records on my front and records on my back that broke my fall—without themselves breaking.
 
Anyway, yesterday evening, I was not tired, still ready to go after a day of shoveling, so I decided to finally tackle filling up the record rack, and lo and behold, look at the photo—success!
 
I decided to start from a middle point in filling it up, and work backwards doing it, so I did not start with either A or Z on this unit, but I actually started backwards at S—or the first records I have in there are from the (S)tandells, of “The Munsters” fame, and working my way back through the alphabet, I made it to the letter P, to a band known as (P)oor Heart, which included Lou Gramm, who later found fame with Foreigner.
 
So I have, working back, (Zombies) through the albums of (S)tarr, better known as Ringo, on the far racks and the middle of the P’s—as in the (P)olice—through the letter A—as in (A)bbot and Costello—still on my bookshelf racks, with still five piles of alphabetized records on the floor that must be integrated into the LPs on the bookshelf.

 
I also had to shift around the 45 RPM singles holders that I have—actually heavy plastic utility drawers that I have purchased from Target during the past 10 or 15 years or so—and I still have to move around some books that I have out and about the room, but with the revolving record rack now full and in place, I am on my way!
 
And yesterday night was the final night of Hanukkah, a wonderful holiday that was almost crushed in its path this year by the coronavirus.
 
I put the following up on Facebook yesterday, and even though the holiday is over, I think it still rings true:

 
“Tonight is the final night of Hanukkah.
We lit the shamash candle in the middle of the eight candles to provide light--and strength--to those who desperately need it.
"Light sings all over the world."
 
Yes, this had been a difficult year, but I do believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and perhaps that light can guide all of us—and those who need it most—on the right path.
 
Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.