Whew.

I got hailed on twice today.  Not a whole lot of fun. The first time I made it to a nearby garage and lurked under the eaves.  The second time I had to crouch under a tree.  The branches blocked most of it.  I also got pretty wet from all the rain this morning.  Working in the rain always makes me extra tired.

When I got back to the office late in the afternoon, I found a tire had gone flat on my truck.  For the first time in my life, having changed probably hundreds of tires, my truck fell off the jack and broke the jack handle.

Two of our company trucks are also Rangers, so I scavenged them.  I knew neither one had a spare tire, and it turns out neither one has a jack, either.  But one of them had a jack handle that fit my jack (and for some odd reason, it had two lug wrenches).  Then I accidentally put the flat tire back on, and had to take it off again and put the good spare on.

The day did end well, since I had a Sonic jalapeno double cheeseburger for supper.

Today is my official blogiversary.  I think I'll just take a shower and go to bed.

In honor of the ancient fest of Yule.

---

There is snow on the ground,
  And the valleys are cold,
And a midnight profound
 Blackly squats o'er the wold;
But a light on the hilltops half-seen hints of
  feastings unhallowed and old.

There is death in the clouds,
  There is fear in the night,
For the dead in their shrouds
  Hail the sun's turning flight.
And chant wild in the woods as they dance
  round a Yule-altar fungous and white.

To no gale of Earth's kind
  Sways the forest of oak,
Where the thick boughs entwined
  By mad mistletoes choke,
For these pow'rs are the pow'rs of the dark,
  from the graves of the lost Druid-folk.

And mayst thou to such deeds
  Be an abbot and priest,
Singing cannibal greeds
  At each devil-wrought feast,
And to all the incredulous world
  shewing dimly the sign of the beast.

---

And in case that's not enough for you, here's one I wrote myself, inspired by Lovecraft's story, The Festival (hey, more readers than last year!  it gives me a chance to bore a whole new bunch of people).

Yule Fest

Gathered together for the centuried rite;
Across snow-covered ground we walk bleakly t'ward home,
Through archaic Kingsport and streets seldom trodden,
After sunset's last rays have sunk into the gloam.

Only the lonely and poor still remember
Why we have come to this place out of time;
In this strange haunted city where once lived our elders,
With its gambrels and gables all covered with rime.

In the last ancient house at the end of the alley
We are met by the priest in his waxen-faced mask;
From blasphemous books we relearn the rituals,
Through tunnels beneath we descend to our task.

In green-litten caverns we hold dark communion,
Near a subterrene river where ghouls fear to tread.
With wild harmonies and songs cacophonic,
We sing and we laugh as we feast with the dead.

Then beyond the blackness from over the river,
Where the green flame burns bright and the black waters fall,
Come our mounts that are neither a mole nor a buzzard,
But something a sane man could never recall.

Far back in the shades of these gangrenous caverns,
In the depths of this cosmic Tartarean hall;
Are shapes of vile things that somehow are moving:
Vile things that walk but ought only to crawl.

Maddened, we rush down that black, oily river,
Past chaotic cataracts that thunder and boom;
Through caverns infernal on wings gaunt and membranous,
Our steeds flop and fly as we rejoice in our doom.

Yes, only a few of us old ones remember,
Only the cursed and the sad demon-kissed;
And snow fills the footprints that wend through the alley,
And the last ancient house disappears in the mist.