Today was asleep on my stomach waking up to you fat wool socks and heavy boots snow blowing sideways coat zipped up to my chin a second cup of coffee scalding my tongue shoveling the driveway crowded supermarket clean sheets purging of old papers and bills and an afternoon's anticipation.
Tonight is Thai food and wine and the futon and a heater that will hopefully keep warming the chilly cabin.
If I weren't here this would be the place I'd be searching for.
Today I tried to see how many responsibilities I could shirk without getting fired. Just kidding. I think about that sometimes, but my responsible self and need for semi-gainful employment always stand in the way of the shirking. Damnit. Now I seem to have taken on the responsibility of helping to plan a parent evening for December. I'm not excited about it, but if I have to do it I am going to try to do a damn good job of it. And to not swear too much in front of the parents.
I have been crafty today. I worked on a Christmas present for someone special. I think I just made the prototype today, though, as I am sure I can do a better job. I also worked on some fabulous handmade Christmas cards. You'll get one if I love you. If I only like you you'll just get a store bought card. Sorry. I bought enough supplies to make 20 cards, but I doubt I'll get around to making more than 10. At last count my Christmas card list was hovering somewhere around 40, which seems like a lot. I may send out the dreaded Christmas letter this year. Of course, my dad's Christmas letter is hard to beat. His best letters, though I hate them, are the ones that make fun of all of us. In my family that's how we show we care.
Tomorrow is wacky hat day, which should be, well, wacky. But I'm all about tomorrow being over so that I can curl up and watch a movie. Or not watch a movie. Whichever. Here's hoping your Friday goes quickly and your weekend, slowly.
We're back on the positive side of the Fahrenheit scale today, which comes as something of a relief. Though I have tell you that, after minus 30, minus 10 doesn't feel all that cold. And I'm sure minus 30 won't either once I've seen minus 50. Which will hopefully not happen too soon. I went out to start my car this afternoon in just a t-shirt. The temp was around zero. I guess I'm acclimating.
I got my car back with the new thermostat installed and the heater still sucks eggs. Next plan– some kind of electrical heater I can plug either into the cigarette lighter or into an electrical outlet somewhere. Driving is tolerable in 15 minute increments at zero and even at minus 10, but any colder than that and numbness takes over pretty quickly. I haven't acclimated that much.
The winter hazards continue to plague me, or maybe it's just my own klutziness. Yesterday I came in the back door to the classroom and slipped in my wet shoes. I landed spread eagle on the floor, hitting my knee on the way down. The other aide tripped over the classroom tool bench a minute later. We're dangerous together.
I had a really good day today, even without my coffee. I made snow angels and let the kids chase me around the playground, and I did yoga and played musical chairs in the teacher's absence this afternoon. It's all about how you wake up, you know.
hey, at least I'm not ice fishing
Minus 30 this morning, and my car seat was like a block of concrete, no joke. I guess the foam was frozen. The engine started just fine, though it devoted most of its power to propelling the car and none to warming me. I wore snow pants, my down coat and a hat and scarf. Now it's a balmy minus 20 outside, apparently to warm up to 5 above by Wednesday. At that point I'll be singing the tropical heat wave song, which probably is an unfunny, overused joke. But it's my first winter here and I'm allowed. (I am still planning on having the car thermostat replaced, as I can't take too many more mornings like this one.)
Winter is still amazing and novel for me, enough so that I'm making everyone around me crazy by calling time and temperature every half hour. During the boiling hot Las Cruces summers when I was in college we would call time and temp just so that we could put a number to the heat. "It's 108 out!" (The hottest day I ever saw was 113.) Now I call so that I can put a number to the cold. It was minus 31 at my house on Saturday night. And "minus 31″ carries a lot more weight than "brrrrrr."
How much longer can I write entries about the weather? Thanksgiving, please come soon.
defining by is rather than does
I watched the temperature slip below negative 30 this weekend and thought about this comedy of errors winter I'm living. I've learned that you can't touch anything metal with bare hands at temps lower than minus 20– I have a burn on my little finger from my car keys. My nose hairs freeze with each inhale and melt with each exhale. I'm leaving my car plugged in all of the time now. (I decided, somewhat arbitrarily, that if it's colder than minus 20 the car will be plugged in all of the time.) There is frost on the inside of my cabin windows, and on the inside of my car windows. (I am going to get a new thermostat, which should take care of the car, at least.) In spite of all of this, minus 30 is a bearable temperature, at least on the sprint from my door to the bathroom and back. I have it on good authority that minus 40 is pretty uncomfortable, and minus 50 is completely unbearable. Lows for the next couple of days are forecast only (ha!) as low as minus 35, so I may not get to experience that bit of Alaskana just yet. Which is fine by me.
I went to a Christmas bazaar on Friday. This will be a great year for Christmas presents, at least for anyone who doesn't live in Alaska. Random Alaskan trinkets and souvenirs are so plentiful that it will be hard to choose what to get. I have high hopes to make some gifts and cards this year, but we'll see how much of than plan translates into reality. No promises. As for me, I don't need anything for Christmas, but I always like new sweaters and new books. If you're paying attention.
Homebound sleepy Sundays are lovely. I think sometimes of all of the projects I used to do and how I haven't been working on any of them. But then I realize that those were things I did to shift my focus from my own aloneness. And I would take a box of unfinished projects and a full life every time, if given the choice.
