40 things for Friday #159 (Dragging this over the finish line by the skin of my teeth.)

1.  Is it seriously December 5th?

2.  Seriously?!

3.  Alrighty then, moving along.

4.  As I write this they’re calling for wintery weather overnight on Thursday.

5.  It’s North Carolina, though, and our “wintry weather” is probably just an average Tuesday for many of you.

6.  My area is looking at trace amounts of tricky weather — a rain/snow/sleet mix, up to 1/2 inch.

7.  This isn’t catastrophic.

8.  Except for 5:30-9:30am when people still rush getting to work and rain that fell overnight has frozen.

9.  I assume there’s a risk of black ice.

10.  There’s always a risk of black ice.

11.  For the amount of people around here that talk about black ice there seems to be a not-nearly-healthy-enough respect for the dangers.

12.  And that’s where the biggest problem lies.

13.  Because while I have an appreciation for people trying desperately not to lose their jobs in December I have a stronger appreciation for, y’know, living and the cold hard truth is that people are not great drivers in the winter weather around these parts.

14.  Not. Great. At. All.

15.  Which means I will quite frankly be a big fat homebody when there’s any risk of wintry mess afoot.

16.  Nothing says happy day like warm, dry, not-stranded-on-the-side-of-the-road day.

17.  It’s 11:30pm on Thursday evening; I knew I wouldn’t finish this but wanted to get as far along as possible.

18.  I’ll see you in the morning to wrap this up.

19.  Guess I’ll have a wintry weather update for you by then too!

……….

20.  And no snow for us!

21.  The meteorologist guy says the moisture got here earlier than expected when temps were still too warm but once it started getting cold enough the moisture was leaving.

22.  He sounds a little embarrassed — nobody likes getting big calls wrong — but I’m rarely surprised by a miss.

23.  I prepare because nobody likes being snowbound and hungry but 99% of the time we end up with rain or sleet.

24.  For someone who doesn’t love cold weather I sure am talking a lot about cold weather…

25.  Anyway.

26.  Let’s do some random good news.

27.  14-year-old Miles Wu from New York City created an origami structure capable of holding 10,000 times its own weight.

28.  His demonstration took first prize at the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge in October.

29.  Then there’s the story of a Swedish man who rescued a baby otter in distress.

30.  This is seriously worth a watch.

31.  And a bit of current events. I’ll avoid Meta so the sources are accessible.

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36.  We’re on the downhill slide now.

37.  Rolling in almost to noon, I’m really knocking it out of the park here.

38.  Just kidding. The win is in completing the post.

39.  Now maybe I can complete decorating my Christmas tree.

40.  May your December days be filled with comfort and kindness.