We still have snow on the ground, but it’s half-melted today and rather unsightly.

These are snow droppings. The snow that builds up on trees doesn’t stick for long, and bit by bit, it plops down to earth.

We got our first real snow last night! And, of course, being the first real snow, the entire county flipped out. It was like AAAAAH WHERE DID WE PUT THOSE SNOWPLOWS?! and OMG WE FORGOT TO BUY SALT! and WE CAN’T DRIVE SCHOOLBUSES IN THIS CRAP!

So of course nothing was functioning until about 10:00. The schools had a delayed opening (plus, apparently the high school bus never got around to my neighborhood), and the adults spent the entire morning excavating their cars and driving veeeeeery slowwwly on icy roads.

Good. We’ve finally got this out of our system.

(P.S. So apparently I’m burning holes in my camera when I aim it directly at the sun. Whoops. Must’ve skimmed over that headline in the manual. It was probably in huge bold red print, too.)

On a drainpipe(? I see these things all over the place and I have absolutely no idea what they’re called) wall behind Monmouth Mall. There’s not a lot of interesting graffiti in this area, so you’ve got to look for it. This was even more secluded than the barb-wire-fenced-in relay station behind the parking lot.

Night sky over Monmouth County. The only constellations I know are Orion, the Big Dipper, the Seven Sisters, and sometimes I can identify Taurus.

…Okay, to be honest, you can’t actually see all this with the naked eye. But all those specks of light are there and can be enhanced with Photoshop (or GIMP).

Barrels of who-knows-what off of the main street in Allenhurst.

Today, I learned how to use my camera while wearing gloves. It was about 8° F (-13 C) this morning, which is colder than we’re used to this winter. And although we didn’t have winds ANYTHING like those in Europe last week, the automatic doors of the shopping mall were turned off “due to high winds.”

If it’s called “Save Rite Liquors,” you KNOW it’s got to be good.

You can make anything you want at A.C. Moore Arts and Crafts!

…except this poor soul, who scrawled his frustrations on a dumpster behind the store.

On Tuesday nights, the Greater Shore Concert Band rehearses in the cafetorium of an elementary school in Eatontown. It’s a community band, nothing hardcore, but it gives people an opportunity to play their instruments and socialize with other musicians.

(This is during a break, lest you think we just wander around for a couple hours.)