-
I won.
That’s called bargaining, ladies and gentlemen.
(there’s sun in them there hills)
-
Blues
Up, I see it’s 4:57 again. Time for darkness to set in. Not that daylight ever really had a fighting chance. It’s now the time of year where I keep glancing at photos of wafer thin models in gorgeous swimsuits and cheerful, if snooty, beach hats, and thinking “okay, Jess, you can do this.” And then I indulge my fantasies of eating a high school-like 400 calories a day for five minutes until I remember that there’s a cold piece of ravioli calling out to me from the fridge.
I am rattling around the joint these days; the divinity of winter is done. Now I’m waiting for birds to chirp and snow to melt and things to grow green and start making me sneeze again. But I really would like to emerge from this awful month with a couple of things. 1. Restored sense of fairness/ equilibrium/ faith in imaginary creatures/ whatever you want to call it when the groundhog decides tomorrow that we’re all in for a quick departure from this hellish season. (One thing I’ve never done is watch Groundhog Day on groundhog day. Maybe Bill Murray can make winter stop.) 2. The ability to wear a size 4. 3. My dignity after all the sweaty work toward No. 2. 4. [redacted] 5. [redacted v2]
-
Snowed
Eleven days later and people are still digging their cars out and skidding on patches of stubborn snow. For you Canadians, people who live in Fargo, and other hearty types, this is absolutely unheard of in New York. Snow is typically grey the next day, black two days later, and melted by the end of the week. But since we lived with this for so long…
People are freaking out about tomorrow’s snowstorm, so they’re trying to get their cars to …higher ground? Whatever the motivation, rubber is burning (and being rapidly cooled) outside.
Anyway, a week full of uncommutable conditions left me pretty stir crazy, and also tree crazy, because we were forced to play host to our really fantastic but also really large tree for much longer than I would typically allow. (No room for discarded trees* among bags of trash and piles of ice.) *This makes them sound so sad. Our tree is actually not discarded. It’s emancipated.
The snow stuck around so long that I had to shovel this iceberg out of my mother’s driveway SIX days later, sans melt-help.
It got Shining-level claustrophobic up in here.
But here’s Eric enjoying it when it was still fun.
We were finally able to ditch free the tree last night, and it turns out I did such a fantastic job of lighting this year that Eric had to cut off the bottom branches to untangle my work!
Before:
After:
Here’s hoping we don’t get more than a fleeting four inches tomorrow!
-
Doldrums
(I’m in them.)
1. Winter won’t quit.
2. It’s cold as [something really, really cold].
3. There hasn’t been a drop of sun for the past four days and it is not expected for the next three.
4. I’m calcium-deficient. (Obviously.)
5. It’s still insanely dark, morning and night.
6. The fluid behind my eyeballs is pushing them in the wrong direction. (Though I guess too far in the right direction is the wrong direction too.)
7. My feet are cold. (What, you thought #2 covered that?)
8. People are being demanding and whiny this week.
9. The kid upstairs is better at Italian than I am. (He knows the word for “ferret,” which I definitely do not.)
10. Other annoying things.
11. See? I’m too SAD even to finish my doldrums list.
12. Static electricity.
(Yes, I know there are worse things, but you know what they say, He Who Never Complains Goes Down The Drain.)
(No, nobody says that.)
