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  • Baby, It’s Cold Outside.

    Baby, It’s Cold Outside.

    External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge.

    No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him.

    No wind that blew was bitterer than he,

    no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose,

    no pelting rain less open to entreaty.

    -Charles Dickens,

    “A Christmas Carol”

    It’s fricking’ freezing, Mr. Bigglesworth.

    When I got up this morning, the outside thermometer read 4 degrees.

    In Jeff’s car it read zero.

    When I took the kids to the bus stop, I couldn’t stop rubbing at my face. Because the slightly runny nose I had inside (which I experience every morning for no obvious reason) turned into stabbing ice crystals outside. It felt like I had jagged icicles in my nose.

    But it wasn’t too bad- I had a warm jacket, and gloves, a hat and scarf. Fuzzy sweatpants tucked into tall furry boots. The bus was thankfully only a few minutes late, and walking back into the house was a welcome relief- all 63° of it.

    We keep our house chilly, but it felt great after the frigid outdoors. I made myself some coffee, cut myself a slice of homemade coffee cake, and sat down to work in my cozy bed. Usually I do force myself into my office for optimum productivity, but today seemed like a good day to indulge.

    I am, like, one of the luckiest people alive.

    On days like this I can’t help but be aware of those who have no cozy beds and dogs that act like living foot warmers. (Even if their hound-dog breath can be likened to the stench of month-old egg farts, deep-fried.)

    No hot drinks at will, no thermostat to elect to keep cool to save money.

    People who have to give up their privacy and dignity and possibly their safety, to sleep in a shelter with strangers.

    Or who just keep moving, trying to find a place that won’t kick them back out into the cold.

    Or simply bundle themselves as best they can and hope they don’t freeze in their sleep.

    Many of those people are mentally ill and cannot make the decisions that are best for them.

    Many of them are children.

    Today sucked, weatherwise. It sounds like Wednesday & Thursday are going to suck too- wet snow and sleet followed by yet another cold snap. It hasn’t even warmed up enough to chip away the snow from the last snowfall.

    These are the days that I remember just how lucky I am.

    I have the luxury of complaining about nothing of importance.

    ** I have 3 kids and a picky husband. I went through my closet and found half a dozen coats and an embarrassment of gloves, scarves, boots and hats. If your coat closet is like mine, consider donating to a local shelter through One Warm Coat- you can search for an organization by zip code. Even better, make it easier for those you know to declutter and help others keep warm: hold a coat drive. It doesn’t have to be a big organized effort, just email your friends and neighbors and ask them to drop off any donations at your house and make one big drop at the donation center. What a great way for your kids to perform a service for your community! Just a thought 🙂 **

  • In Anticipation of Precipitation

    In Anticipation of Precipitation

    Weather is a great metaphor for life—

    sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad,

    and there’s nothing much you can do about it

    but carry an umbrella.

    ~Terri Guillemets

    I used to hate it when it rained.

    I suspect I may have a touch of the Seasonal Affective Disorder, or maybe everyone does to some extent; I become depressed every year as winter drags on and spring seems no closer. Waking up on a gray day does nothing for my mood; rain seems like a personal insult; cold winter rain a suggestion that maybe the world doesn’t really require my presence today.

    But, what can you do? Say complain on Facebook and I will cut you.

    The weather- it just is, and there’s nothing you can do about it but make the best of things.

    Or…. you can stack the chips.

    ———————————————-

    Once upon a time, all our umbrellas looked like this.

    Now, I have nothing against a sensible black umbrella. In fact nearly everything I own is sensible and black.

    For a dreary and cold rainy day, though, I have a secret stash of happy hung up in the hallway closet.

    The color wheel umbrella at the top of this post was my Christmas present from Jeff’s Nanny. Is it not lovely? A rainbow in the storm.

    Depending on her mood, Cass can be a monkey, or if she’s feeling a bit girly she can channel her inner Audrey.

    Either way it makes me smile to see her prancing in the rain, even though I know full well she is going to splash in every blessed puddle between our door and our destination. The girl wears mud like a fine cologne- a stage that I both loathe, and fear the day she grows out of.

    I plan to add some blue skies to our collection soon:

    Especially since it reminds me of one of my favorite prints, hanging in our living room.

    Oh, hang on, Mr. Squirrel! Who knows what fine adventures await you!

    I’ve mentioned before how much I love the “polite umbrella”— for when you must venture into a crowd in less-than-ideal weather conditions.

    I feel like it should make a little embarrassed murmur when you pull the cord. “Oh, my. Pardon me, good sir.” (For the record, I also think there should be an alternate horn on your steering wheel that does the same thing, a little “excuse me” for when you accidentally cut someone off or simply must get over into the next lane before you miss your turn.)

    ——————————————–

    I eagerly await the day that someone loves me enough to fashion me an LED umbrella. Then, I will be straight-up volunteering to take long walks in the dark in the rain.

    Because, come on. How incredibly awesome is this?

    What, are you going to let that languish in a closet when you could offer a ray of sunshine to everyone whose path you cross?

    ——————————————

    It’s the little things that make us happy. I hate the sound of my telephone ringing, so I changed the ringtone to the theme song from “Sanford & Son.” Granted, I am no more likely to answer the thing, but at least now I dance when it goes off, rather than cringe.

    If you hate waking up in the morning, tape a funny picture to the front of your alarm clock so that it’s the first thing you see when you open your eyes.

    If you hate being assaulted by the cold air when you first get out of bed, splurge on a pair of cushy slippers and a plush robe whose coziness you’ll look forward to.

    And so on. You know what your triggers are… no reason to keep allowing them to mess with you.

    How do you cheer yourself out of a funk, weather-induced or no?

    —————————————–

    No affiliate links here, meaning I make no cash monies if you buy anything through the links in this post. However, if you’re looking to add some sunshine to a cloudy day:

    The color wheel umbrella and the sky umbrella are both available through the MOMA museum store.

    The Paul Frank monkey umbrella came from Target. Cass has matching sneaks and sheets. She likes monkeys.

    The pink frilly umbrella we got to shield us from the sun at Epcot (while in France!) Since it was reasonably priced, I suspect you can pick these up at a craft store for next to nothing and spray with a weather sealant.

    Hold On Mr. Squirrel is a print from the hushmouse Etsy shop. We’ve purchased a number of Maggie’s prints over the years and framed them as baby presents. And, ohmygawd, she now has adorable stuffies to boot. Somebody lock up my credit card!

    I’m hitting a dead end with the polite umbrella- I think maybe it was just a design concept and not something you can actually buy 🙁

    And you can find DIY instructions for the LED Electric Umbrella at Instructables if you’re handy like that.

  • Don’t Tell Dad the Mailbox is Dead

    Don’t Tell Dad the Mailbox is Dead

    Sometimes accidents happen in life

    from which we have need of a little madness

    to extricate ourselves successfully.

    -François de la Rochefoucauld

    On Monday night it snowed.

    After midnight, it changed over into ice- little pellets bouncing in the snow.

    At some point, it slid into a freezing rain, “glazing” what had already fallen. Making it slick and deceptively pretty, but potentially deadly, quite like a Krispy Kreme doughnut.

    I live on a rural road and my house sits ominously between two sharp curves, both indicated by obscenely large signs in screaming yellow. Most cars tend to drive by hesitantly, on tiptoe, as if afraid to disturb us.

    Tuesday morning, I handed Jeff his lunch cooler and coffee mug and told him that the roads seemed fine, people were driving past at a decent clip.

    Apparently I was wrong. As were many of those drivers, I guess, as tow trucks were kept busy all day long.

    At the end of our road is a one lane bridge, and Jeff was forced to swing off the road to avoid a collision from a car that couldn’t or just plain didn’t stop. His car suffered a broken tail light and some body damage.

    Another car came around one of our curves and lost control, driving through my mailbox, sliding down a hill, maiming my magnolia and seriously turfing my front yard.

    Inside the house, the kids and I were completely oblivious to the excitement outside, until a knock at the door revealed a downtrodden and sheepish young man in a sopping wet leather jacket. Water dripping off the end of his nose, he told me he owed me a mailbox. I looked past him and saw the car in the yard, and- I couldn’t help it- clapped my hand over my mouth and laughed.

    “Oh my,” I said. I’m not even kidding. Oh My. It appears that at heart, I am an elderly Southern woman.

    “I’ll pay for it,” he murmured. “The tow truck is on its way.”

    “I’m so sorry,” and he started to back away.

    I felt so sorry for him. He looked like a kicked puppy.

    “It’s okay,” I said. “Are you all right?”

    He nodded and shuffled back up to his car.

    I don’t know, maybe other people know what they’re supposed to do at this point. Call Geico or whatever. I had to do work, but I know what’s really important, so I told Jake to take some pictures for the blog. (They all focused on the screen in the window. Note to self: show Jake how to use camera.)

    The tow truck came, as did, somewhat surprisingly, a police officer, who gave me an incident report (do they have printers in cop cars now or what?) and the guy’s phone number. “He wants to pay for the mailbox,” Officer Freezing Rain told me. I was completely distracted by the form-fitting plastic bag that was protecting his- what? Hat? Cap? Is there a special word for the thing officers wear on their head? “You can settle it between the two of you, or you can go through insurance, it’s up to you.”

    He left before I got up the nerve to ask if I could photograph his head gear.

    Here’s the photos of the carnage.

    The top of the mailbox actually flew into the middle of the road and then someone else hit it, so that it skittered to the edge.

    At this point I decide to call Jeff and tell him the mailbox has gone on to the dead letter office in the sky.

    “Did you get the name and license number?” he asked with suspicion in his voice.

    Uh, no.

    “Did you get his phone number?”

    No. Wait! Yes! I have the incident report thingie.

    “Did you ask him WHEN he was going to buy us our mailbox?”

    Well, no. See, I hadn’t really thought this through. Certainly I didn’t expect him to show up next day with a shiny new mailbox wrapped up in a big red bow, but…

    I got a scolding for being soft-hearted, being too nice. A bleeding heart treehugger liberal. Same old song.

    When I tried to explain that I felt bad for the kid, and I really did think he was going to make good on the mailbox, and that I honestly didn’t care anyway, it wasn’t like I was emotionally attached to our mail receptacle, that only made it worse. Jeff doesn’t believe the things that people say. He pretty much thought that I had been scammed.

    “You are going to call him tonight and demand to know when we are getting our mailbox.”

    Pout.

    But, before we had even finished our dinner, the doorbell rang and there stood Mailbox Boy, checkbook in hand. Jeff gave me a look and said he’d handle it, going outside and shutting the door behind him.

    A while later he came back in. “That kid is a gentleman.”

    Jeff had taken only half the amount the kid had tried to pay.

    “I felt bad for him,” he said.

    I laughed. And he laughed. And it felt so good to laugh at ourselves, after the most stressful, tense, dark month that I can remember living through in a long time. The sound has been so long absent that the kids looked at us doubtfully, not sure how to process this madness.

    Kid drives into our front yard and all we can talk about is how we hope he doesn’t think we’re upset or mad about it. The address on the check is only a few houses away. We worry that he will feel badly every time he drives by. We feel like the guilty parties for not being nicer. And dude, I feel old, getting all mother hen over a kid who must have been at least 24 or 25.

    But I feel good. We could have been nicer, sure, but we were pretty nice. It paid off, reaffirmed my faith in the basic goodness of strangers. I like when that happens.

    Plus, I get to buy a new mailbox 🙂 Whoop whoop!

    Tomorrow it’s supposed to snow, AGAIN. I’m thinking of strategically placing my trash cans…

    ** By sheer coincidence, this post is a very loose interpretation of one of the writing prompts this week in Mama Kat’s Pretty Much World Famous Writing Workshop (photo journal entry of what winter looks like in your town). So we’ll pretend that was totally intentional. Go check out the other entries! **

    Mama's Losin' It