Ahhh, December.
The joys and lights of the holidays.
Seeing family and friends.
Busting my tail to get things done that I need to before Christmas.
(Maybe a kinky fantasy or two. Both naughty and nice.)
And... Death Fog.
It creeps in overnight. You wake up one morning and it's here: This greyish white shroud that covers everything, blocking out the sun, reducing visibility to as little as half a block. Dreary, depressing days made even drearier and more depressing by the endless, socked-in feeling.
Go to work in the dark. Come home in the dark. Sometimes the only time you see the sun is when you go for a walk at lunch to get food. But once the Death Fog rolls in, you don't even get that.
Sometimes it stinks, literally. The sugar beet factory is about 16 miles in a straight line from here but yet, occasionally during a death fog spell, you can smell it all the way over here. It smells like burning sugar beets. There is no other way to describe it other than a rank, somewhat sweet, organic smell.
The weather nurdz will say "When a high pressure system creates an inversion layer, trapping cold, moist air in the valley, the fog and cold will linger." Blah blah blah; but they are right about one thing; often it will be sunny (And warmer) when you get up high into the mountains. And you look down at the death fog covered valley, it's like looking out over the ocean. Somewhere underneath that grey ocean is the city.
But right now I'm stuck in it, while I finish all my Christmas errands. Maybe if I get everything done tomorrow I'll head up and out of the death fog, if only for a short while.
Maybe that's why the holiday season is in December, because otherwise it would be pretty grim.