Deep Freeze

[pameladean]

We signed up with a grocery-delivery service maybe four or five years ago. Today is the first time since we did so that, when I was putting the empty boxes out on the porch for the driver to collect when he delivers the new batch, I put on not just a coat, not just a hat, but heavy gloves and, after one trip out, a pair of insulated hiking boots. My hands were numb when I was done, though the entire process took only about two minutes. For some reason this did not bring up memories of miserably scuttling from door to bus stop, from bus to door, on my way to work in Minneapolis; nor of the way the streets downtown guide the wind to frenzies not readily attainable elsewhere in the metropolitan area. Rather, I remembered making my resentful way to school in Nebraska, cursing repeatedly the idiots who were responsible for the rule that girls could not wear trousers while in the oh-so-hallowed educational precincts.

We have a lot of troubles just at the moment, but I must say, it's a thousand times better than high school.

Having said that, I want also to note that while it is quite cold in my office, requiring the donning of a heavy sweater and a silk patchwork jacket padded with polyester, the radiator is nevertheless too hot for me to put my slippered feet on, and too hot for my cat to sleep on it, as he is wont to do when the outside temperature is merely zero rather than down even further.

It was brilliantly sunny when I got up, and cats were lounging in every patch of sunlight, making the footing rather uncertain. Now ribs and ridges of equally brilliant white cloud are coming in, heralding the return to sane temperatures, in the upper teens. I have not gone for a walk since Sunday, not being a lunatic, and the worsening of the quality of my sleep is very apparent. I think I can go trudge around tomorrow, though. It will feel balmy by comparison.

The coldest days of the year almost always occur within a week or so of my birthday, which was Sunday. David and Lydy and I went out to my mother's place, to meet her and David's mother, and we had mushroom casserole, oven-roasted yellow potatoes, stir-fried broccoli and sweet red peppers, steamed green beans, hard rolls, and a vegan chocolate cake. There was a nice variety of bird life -- nothing rare, but a larger number than usual of the little downy woodpeckers and some nuthatches along with chickadees, juncoes, house finches in new fine red staining their heads and breasts, and a few elusive cardinals. I was overwhelmed with beautiful presents. The one I specifically wanted to mention here is that David presented me with "Seven Views," a necklace that elisem mentioned in her Art Log a while back. I hadn't said anything to anybody, but I had thought that her description sounded like something I would like very much. I am very happy to have it.

Pamela