Climate Change

 

Here's the thing, the land of the ice and snow was more like the land of t shirt and shorts for most of the past week. Obviously someone remembered to pay their carbon tax, and then they didn't. Yesterday dawned grey and chill, with the cold seeping into your Arctyrx fleece as a harbinger of things to come, Winter.

the climate has changed

So I took the young 'un out for an enormous burger at the Inglewood Diner, tasty, and prophesied, "Son, it feels like snow." He agreed, and sure enough that's exactly what happened. A biting wind kicked in at around 6 pm and white supremacy fell from the sky, indifferent to the fate of the oppressed.

random Canadian fridge magnet

"Look, Dad," exclaimed Junior LSP, "A winter wonderland!" And so it was, "Welcome to Narnia, Son." We spent the rest of the evening watching John Wick movies along with superlative Chinese food ordered up from Chinatown. Big fun.

brrrrr

Today dawned clear, crisp and bright, beautiful. Climate Change, you see, has its benefits and to celebrate this I shoveled the sidewalk and scraped ice off the car. Then SL's rig pulled up from High River and off we went to the airport, mission accomplished.

Stay Frosty,

LSP

The Leafy Glens Of Old Texas

 

It's a beautiful summer Saturday morning in North Central Texas, so what do you do? What you always do, stroll down sylvan streets to the Pick 'n Steal, aka "Gas Station" for a cheap coffee refill. As you do, reflect on the trees and the generous wisdom of the people who planted them.

Good to look at? Yes, beauty's important. Allies? For sure, they turn persynkind's ancient enemy, Carbon Dioxide, into life giving Oxygen. Oh yes, our friends in the War on the Weather, but more than this, they give us shade.

Don't laugh, this is important when the sun sears down like an incinerating laser. Step into the shade of a tree and feel the drop in temperature; trees make the oven bearable, and that's partly why they planted them. Not just for good looks or their facility for hanging criminals, but as a natural cooling system.

That in mind, why did the genius patrol who run this place chop down all the trees leading up to the Square? Yes, they left the Hanging Trees standing at the courthouse but pretty much everything else had to go.  Their roots messed up the sidewalk, they claimed. Chop them down.

why do you hate trees, 1st Baptist?

Net result? A sun blasted parade square of concrete on the approach to the halls of justice. Walk it at your peril. Did someone profit off the replacement of beautiful cooling trees with hideously ugly hot concrete? Surely not. 

Stay Frosty,

LSP

On The Road

 

On The Road. Did you know that infamous Beat author Jack Kerouac was a Catholic Christian? So was Andy Warhol too, but that's a different story. Studio 54 aside, I climbed in the rig, got on the road and headed West to say Mass.

The church was quiet and beautiful in the evening light while Christ came down to earth to lift us up to heaven, O Salutaris, and time stood strangely still as it always does when we worship God, not least in the Sacrament of the Altar. Then all too soon, "The Mass has ended, go in peace to love and serve the Lord." Ite Missa Est. 

Back in the car park the sun was setting over Texas, no small thing, and I sent the record of it to an old friend who finds himself in LA doing something with pop music. "Look!" I whatsapped, "Sunset. Hope your musicians are behaving themselves." 

Apparently they were, "Big empty production stage. Phase 1 rehearsals. Secret location. All chilled here. Easy. STAY FROSTY." Always. Then back on the road to the Compound with the sun filling the rear-view with its golden radiance. I never tire of the vision and thank God for it, seriously, and therein lies a word to the wise.

Try and make a habit, a discipline of thanking God for the beyond reckoning good that he's given us. Perhaps it's easier to see in the countryside, where creation's comparatively less marred by wickedness than in, say, the DFW metrosprawl. But wherever you are the rule applies, and when followed covers a multitude of sins.

Here Endeth The Lesson,

LSP