Musings & Thoughts for Tuesday, January 2, 2024, or: Night Falls, and One of My Remotes is MIA

Evening/Nightfall, Tuesday, January 2, 2024, Madison, New Hampshire

It’s dark outside. Then again, here in the Northeast, it’s supposed to be dark after 5 PM in early January. Sunset today was at 4:18 PM Eastern Standard Time, and since that’s slightly over an hour ago, it’s pitch black outside now.

Currently, the temperature is 30°F/-1°C under clear skies; the wind chill factor is 27°F/-3°C. I’m glad that I have no reason to go outside – right now, the only thing that could coax me out of this house is an invitation to a romantic dinner with an attractive, intelligent, and single (or at least divorced) woman. Otherwise…nope. The mercury is going to drop to 18°F/-8°C, which is not something I could withstand for more than a few minutes, even if I wore “layers,” a hat, gloves, and snow boots.

I did go outside around 2:40 PM when the sun was still out – but already well to the west – and the temperature was 36°F/2°C. It was a gorgeous day: the sky was blue and free of clouds, and the sunlight was still bright and yellow white. I deliberately didn’t put on gloves so my hands could get a dose of sunlight. Of course, the air was a wee bit nippy, so I snapped a couple of photos of the path leading to Huttwil Drive and, by extension, the house across the road from here and quickly dashed back inside the house.

Vexations

I’m still vexed by the disappearance of the remote control for my 4K UHD player. I left the remote control to the “big” TV back in Lithia – my former hostess said she sent it here via UPS, but it has not arrived yet – and the control for my smaller 4K UHD set is not fully compatible with the set in my bedroom. The control for the Blu-ray player – also 4K UHD – does work with the big TV, but only when the player is running, and then only uses that device’s functionality.

I last used the remote on December 31 to watch the behind-the-scenes Blu-ray of my 2021 Indiana Jones 4-Movie Collection box set, but I have not seen it anywhere since yesterday morning. It has to be in that room, somewhere, but I can’t find it.

I can still watch the digital copies of movies for which I had Movies Anywhere codes, and if necessary, I can do so on my PC or my Amazon Fire HD 10 – itself another vexation because it replaces a smaller but similar Fire tablet that I bought in 2015 and misplaced somewhere en route to Madison. I can also watch the DVDs that are unboxed on this PC cos it has a DVD-ROM drive – a feature that my two laptops do not have. But the point of my bringing my 50-inch TV was so that I had a decent set to watch in my downtime. And without either that set’s remote or the one for the Blu-ray player, I would have to rely on my tablet to watch anything while I’m in bed.

I ordered a replacement remote control in case the lost one doesn’t turn up, but even in the best of circumstances, it’ll get here no earlier than next week.

Thank goodness that I do have the digital copies option, and that I have books to read as well. But I’m already still stressed over the move and all the stuff I need to do; I didn’t need a missing remote added to the stew of worries.

Oh, well. That’s life, I suppose.