A little morning whining

You know what I've really gotten sick of? I mean, yes, I'm really damn tired of winter in general and all its accouterments, but the thing that REALLY makes me want to throw a tantrum is starting fires. The last week or so has been clear and gorgeous. Nothing to complain about there, right? Wrong.

The beautiful sunny days mean the house gets very warm during the day thanks to the glories of passive solar. Warm enough that I can just let the fire go out. But also thanks to this lack of clouds it gets positively frigid at night, zero or a little below, so if I don't want to wake up to home temps in the low forties (or worse) I have to start a fire again before I go to bed. And I'm sick of it. Sick of getting my hands covered in newspaper schmutz. Sick of using the bellows and coddling the little flames and breathing in the fine ash the bellows stir up and staying up late enough to make sure the fire is really going before I close the damper. I'm tired (literally) of setting my alarm for 2:45 am so I can get up and add another couple of logs. This wood stove nonsense has altogether lost its novelty and charm. So last night I just didn't do it. And while I was perfectly comfortable all night thanks to the mountains of down that compose my bed, this morning was very cold. I woke up at my usual time and started the damn fire and then went back to bed until it was warm enough to move around. (I don't think the cats appreciated my laziness. Sugar would crawl under the covers once an hour or so to warm up and then disappear again to wherever it is she normally sleeps. This is why I need 10 hours of sleep, Sugar wakes me up many many times every night. I'm chronically sleep deprived.)

Thanks to almost two years of experience and obsessive monitoring of my home's interior temperature, I now know the numbers that mean relative comfort. At the lower end of the spectrum, 48 is the magic number. Any colder than that and I need to stay in bed, but as long as the thermometer reads 48 or above I can wear enough layers to be comfortable anywhere in the cabin. At the upper end, my number is 84. During the day I don't mind at all if the cabin gets warmer than that; I love the heat, but 84 is the upper temperature at which I can fall asleep and not wake up 30 minutes later a sodden mess. In the summer there's just no point in going to bed until the temperature in the loft drops to 84 or below and some nights that doesn't happen until quite late.

And, I'm rambling. But I want to remember these little details, and I will forget if I don't write them down. Weather.com predicts the sun will not make an appearance for a few days so chances are I won't have to start a fire again for awhile because I won't be able to let the one I started this morning go out. We might get up to 10 inches of new snow this weekend. Winter is NEVER GOING TO END.

Hello Again

Today I finally started feeling healthy after whining for days about what turned out to be a pretty minor cold. To celebrate my new health I broke out the snow shoes I haven't used all winter and went for a little winter hike. Um. You guys? Snow shoeing is HARD. My mom has been trying to convince me to make arrangements to retrieve my cross country skis all winter, and I kept saying "Oh no! I don't need to no stinking skis! I have my snow shoes!" But dude. Snow shoes are not skis. Skiing is relatively easy. Pretty much as soon as I got out of the car and clambered over the bank and into the powder I was ready to turn around. But I persevered. I sweated and and I pushed myself forward and managed to make it as far as my favorite summer perch above the river where I divested myself of a LOT of clothing and sat on a warm dry rock and had some tea. And it was glorious! Today is just stunningly beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky, fluffy white snow everywhere, high of about 24 degrees. And it makes me feel like a complete IDIOT for not spending every sunny day this winter doing exactly this. Somehow I had forgotten that in the sun, with the proper clothing, after a little exertion, one can sit outside with a cup of tea poured from a thermos in perfect comfort. What is WRONG with me that I forget these things? I think I need to re-commit to my blog if only to remind myself that actually doing things is good.

What is also good is answering my phone when it rings. Winter is depressing. I've been depressed. There, I said it. And when I'm depressed I don't have the energy to deal with people. Or do anything really but bake and make tea. But this weekend my friend L and her husband came into town to empty out the townhouse they own at the local bankrupt resort before it goes into foreclosure and they change the locks. And so on Saturday night a group of spa people got together for dinner to catch up with her and it was so much fun! It was fabulous! And as I was getting ready to go out my phone rang and on a whim I actually answered it and it was a friend I hadn't talked to since October, and while we didn't have a lot of time, it was fun to catch up. And I decided that I would answer the phone whenever it rang for a whole week and just see what happened. And you know what happened? I've talked to two other good friends I haven't talked to in ages. And I talked to my grandmother without feeling guilty for dodging her calls for three days before finally calling her back. Good things all!

There are a lot of exclamation points in this post, and I apologize, but I'm feeling downright peppy. Blame it on a really wonderful combination of sunshine, renewed good health, and the early arrival of DST. Hope the four of you who still check this sadly neglected blog are equally cheery.

Winter Stinks

So . . . long time no blog!

This winter has been CRUMMY. The snow was late in coming, and now every time we get a nice snowfall, it's quickly followed by a couple of days of rain and above freezing temps. So the snow turns into ice, and the roads and parking lots are horrid, and I haven't broken my neck yet, but it's only a matter of time.

For all the complaining I've done about my driveway, I've never actually not been able to get up it, or even come close to sliding off. (As opposed to straight up DRIVING off which I did early last winter.) Until this morning. The entire driveway is a solid sheet of ice, a couple of inches thick, and this morning, with the rain, the ice was covered with a nice skim of water. And as I was turning the corner at the cemetery, headed down the steep section, my car lost all traction and began a slow slide toward the edge of the road and the trees. It was completely terrifying. There was nothing I could do. I kept hold of the wheel and just hoped that the trees would stop the car from rolling to the bottom of the hill as I slowly slid toward the edge. And then the car sort of gently bounced off what remained of the snowbank and somehow it was pointing the right direction and I went on my completely freaked out way. I'm anticipating a return to my normal heart rate sometime in February. Because now, I'm going to spend all day wondering what's going to happen when I try to get home tonight . . . and try to get back to work tomorrow.

So, if you love me, pray for nice sticky, tractiony snow.

Well, That Was Quick

Fall appears to be over for now, and winter has arrived. It hasn't gotten out of the 30s in the last couple of days, and there was even a skiff of snow on the ground when I woke up Thursday. The first few days I have to admit I was bitter. This is an unusually early cold snap, and I'm not really emotionally or physically prepared for it. Winter isn't that bad. It's just . . . I didn't think I'd still be here. I thought I would have found a real job by now, but that's not working out. (I know, I'm not exactly shocked either.) And I'm finally flat broke and busted. Remember how I was cold all last winter because I didn't get all the wood I ordered and had to be uber conscious of how much I used? Well, this winter, I didn't even order as much as I received last winter. So. I will be putting to good use all those wool socks I packed away in July. Which, you know, whatever. I still have my little spa job and that nets me enough to cover the essentials, like my Tivo and Netflix subscriptions and plenty of dried legumes and cat food. (The latter is for the cats, I promise!) This is all my own fault for being self indulgent and, let's be honest, lazy.

But before you think I'm feeling sorry for myself, I'm really not. Truth be told, it's all kind of exciting. The world economy is getting stripped down, and so is mine. I was talking to Zach about it the other day, about how I feel like I should be depressed, or anxious, but I'm not. He said he wasn't surprised, that my D.C. malaise made perfect sense, and this almost thrill in my currently reduced circumstances does as well. It's true. This is an opportunity to revel in my essential nordic-ness. To exercise frugality and simplicity and to make-do. I've got tea and books. I hand sewed a draft stopper using this fabulous and insanely cheap green houndstooth upholstery fabric I've had socked away forever. I'm embroidering gingham that I'll turn into an apron eventually. I'm poring over my expenditures, seeing where I can save. I'm looking forward to taking a thermos of tea and my snowshoes and spending hours wandering the hills around my house when winter really comes. I'm living like it's 1932. (Except for the Tivo and internet and Netflix - some of which should probably go away.) And it's all deeply pleasurable.

I've never really been able to accomplish anything until I was pushed to the wall and simply had to or the consequences would be too dire to live with. That is not an admirable trait by any means, and it's one I wish I didn't have. But, it's there. It's one of my strongest and least likely to be overcome personality traits. And it, along with my truly remarkable powers of denial and selective memory have gotten me this far in life relatively unscathed. I'm really, honestly, curious to see what happens next.

Depressed or DST?

I've been having a hell of a time getting out of bed this last week. It makes me nervous. This lingering drag when the alarm goes off, the desire to fall back into dreams and darkness, is usually the first sign of a bout with depression. But this time I really think that it's just the switch to DST last weekend. Am I the only person who loathes DST not because it steals an hour of my life (which it does, and yes, I hate it for that reason too) but because it steals an hour of daylight from my already dark mornings? Evening sunshine is fine, I don't object to it, if given a choice I would choose more of it . . . but not in exchange for going backwards. I would not choose to undo the earlier and earlier sunrises that were telling my body, naturally, that spring is on its way. Because that is a message my body desperately needs this year. It's been such a long dark winter. There will be snow on the ground for months more. DAMN YOU FOR MAKING MY MORNINGS DARKER!

Not So Fast

My interview has been postponed. Both my interviewer and I were going to be flying into Chicago today and there's some sort of winter storm warning there too? Maybe? I don't know. I'm too obsessed with my own weather to bother looking up anyone else's. It's still too dark outside to see if we got the 6-10 inches they were predicting for last night. Anyway, the interviewer thought there was a good chance that one or both of us wouldn't actually make it, so we're going to re-schedule for next week. Or the week after. I hope.

I suppose with this unexpected free time I should be studying for the bar, huh?

By the way, snow shoes are just as fun as I'd anticipated. And I haven't fallen down once yet. Maybe this afternoon I'll go farther than the woodshed on them.

Also by the way: Go Obama!

Home Again

I did spend the night in town yesterday. I didn't get out of work until dark, and it just seemed like tempting fate to try the reverse of my morning adventure at night. But I unexpectedly had the morning off today so I ventured home to find what the storm had wrought . . . three feet of snow that had drifted into my carport and neck-deep drifts between my house and the woodshed. An hour and a half of digging took care of the first issue, but those drifts between me and the woodshed . . . they look damn near insurmountable. Seriously. Some effort and a lot of stumbling could get me through them, but how the hell could I carry wood enough to raise the temperature of the house even a degree? I just don't see how it's possible. And there's no point in digging a path, because the wind is still blowing, and that's just where the snow settles. The only thing I've been able to come up with is a sled to carry the wood, and snowshoes to carry me. Doesn't that sound like fun? I actually think that sounds like fun! I have a real, practical need for snowshoes! They're not toys, they're equipment. Maybe you think I'm a nutjob, but extreme weather leaves me so happy (as long as no one gets hurt and I don't have to drive in it obvs).

I'm heading to Seattle tomorrow, the home of REI, and I think I might come home with snowshoes. But before that, I have to make my way back into McCall (and then home again). Wish me luck!

Update

For the two people who read this blog: I made it to work. It was harrowing, to say the least. Have you ever driven in a whiteout? I had only the vaguest notion of where the small snow drifts that made up the road ended and the bigger snow drifts that made up the rest of the world began. I don't recommend it. And an hour later, they've closed the highway I drove in on. Really glad I have that overnight bag now.

Stupid Snow

The Valley County schools are closed. They don't close schools here for a little snow, they're only closed if the roads are REALLY bad. I guess 6 inches of snow overnight and 40 mph wind gusts qualifies. And I have to go to work today. Stupid work. I like work, really I do, but I like it a lot more when the roads aren't death traps. I'm actually considering bringing a change of clothes with me today so that I can get a hotel room and not drive home tonight if the roads make me too nervous (the forecast calls for another 5-8 inches today, and 2-4 inches tonight.) That's insane right? I mean, a hotel room costs more than I make in two days of work. But . . . I have to make it in (the owners are out of town) and . . . tonight Lost comes back, and if I had a hotel room I could watch it . . . Hmmm. That is sounding like a better and better idea. Assuming, of course, I make it into McCall at all this morning and don't get stuck in a snow drift. Fingers crossed for me y'all.

Mild Panic Creeping In

I'm still not studying. I've started feeling that little fluttery tightness in my chest that means the procrastination has gone on too long, that if I don't suit up and start working this mild panic will turn into a major freakout and I'll be mired in self-loathing and dread and completely unable to function.

And I'm really cold. When I poked my nose out of bed this morning it was to find that the indoor temperature had fallen to 38 degrees while I slept in my very warm down cocoon. I've had the fire roaring for about three hours which has gotten the temperature up to . . . 45. Not exactly balmy. Temps like these make me really miss the snow. When it's snowing, it's not this FUCKING COLD. (Have you noticed the patterns of my posts? I have: weather, weather, ohmyfreakinggodwhatamigoingtodowithmylife, weather, weather, procrastination, procrastination, weather, ohmyfreakinggodwhatamigoingtodowithmylife. Sorry I'm so boring. At least this post will hit the trifecta.)

I was google chatting with a friend this morning who suggested I send her my resume and she could try and get me a job with her employer in [a suburb of] Chicago. And I'm thinking about it. Yes, I said I wanted to stay in Idaho, and yes, I'm about to take the Idaho bar. But . . . I LOVE Chicago, and I love my friend who lives in Chicago, and I'm really fucking COLD and I'm weak, and I haven't gone skiing once this winter, and I went hiking about twice this summer so who the hell am I kidding with this mountain girl shit, and the thought of looking for a job sends me into a blind panic, and a year after leaving DC I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up (since lady of leisure is not looking to be a viable long-term option) so why the hell not commute from city to suburb to work in-house for a huge corporation? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have to keep track of billable hours.

1984

This fall, my mom did a little excavating in her storage unit and gave me some of her old winter gear. I've been wearing her wonderfully warm down jacket for months as my designated wood gathering wear, but hadn't really looked at the rest until today. Today I put on the full kit and spent half an hour shoveling snow and bringing in wood. Picture it, me in a scene from 1984:

Coat: imagine a simple western-wear shirt (gray and blue and complete with mother of pearl snaps) in hip-length down jacket form.

Pants: Skin tight (on me, because I'm larger than my mother was at my age. sigh.) navy blue bib overalls with suede patches on the inside cuffs.

Accessories: These were partly my own, a rainbow striped beanie, black snow boots, and my mother's old thick fingered grey leather gloves.

I remember my mother here, doing these things, wearing these clothes, and now I'm here, doing these things, wearing these clothes. It sort of befuddled me a little. But I liked it. A lot. I think my mom is amazing, has done amazing things, and I like walking in her overalls for awhile.

(As a side note, is it strange that I actually looked forward to shoveling snow as a study break? That's strange right?)

Stormy

I jumped ship early at the spa yesterday. It started snowing and blowing around noon, and I kept hearing sirens all afternoon. In a town as small as McCall, that spells really bad roads. So I closed up shop a little after 4 so I could get home before dark. It was really warm (in the low 30s), which made the roads even worse, a slushy slippery mess. I had a death grip on the wheel until I pulled safely into my carport a little over an hour later.

I had trouble sleeping last night, the wind howling around the house and the hail on the tin roof sounded lovely and dramatic, but was not soothing.

I have no plans to leave the house (well, no plans to go farther from my door than the wood shed at any rate) for the next few days. In case you were wondering, I've already fallen a little behind in the BarBri study schedule. I've been distracted by my DVDs of The West Wing's third season. That ends today.

Merry Christmas!

I've finally finished wrapping gifts, and I've unwrapped the ones addressed to me, and now I'm sitting in my old wool bathrobe in front of the fire watching Sugar try and fit in a box half her size while Freckles chases scraps of ribbon and tries to kill some paper with her teeth and claws. It's all very peaceful.

Unlike last year, I will be spending the rest of Christmas day with family (fingers crossed). Even though it means everyone will have to wait for me, I'm not starting until ths sun is up. Rain on the 23rd followed by a freeze last night has turned the driveway into a solid sheet of ice. So . . . I will be installing chains, by myself, on my tires before I make the attempt, and then taking them off, also by myself, when I safely (fingers crossed) reach the bottom.

I hope you all had a really lovely holiday.

No Snowman

In case you were curious. Instead I shoveled snow. And shoveled snow. And then? I shoveled some more snow. I don't think I'll be able to pick up so much as a paperclip at work tomorrow. Winter is really healthy. Except for all that shortbread.

Can you see my driveway? Yeah, me neither.

Yesterday, with 6 inches of snow in the driveway, and the flakes falling steadily, I called my boss to let her know that I might not be able to make it in to work today. And then, last night, I heard my neighbor plowing the drive and thought "FOILED!" But that was premature. Becaue I woke up this morning to another 6 inches of fresh snow. And even after someone plows again, I'll have to spend an hour or so digging out the few feet between my car and the area the plow can reach . . . so I'm snowed in. All official like. Yippee!! I really wish I had a sled, or some cross country skis, or snow shoes. I want to bundle up, and go outside and play. I might have to build a snowman or something.

I finally have a snow shovel!

Today I had my first experience with a car stuck in a snowbank. Thankfully it wasn't mine. I woke up this morning to four inches of fresh snow and the threat from weather.com that "this is just the beginning because there are storms piled on storms and holy hell stock up on canned goods because the end is nigh!" Or something like that. I figured with as much as a foot of snow forecast for the next two days, it might be about damn time for me to buy a snow shovel.

So I eased my car down the driveway and into town. I picked up some groceries, then poked on down to the hardware store where I spent some time staring in complete confusion at the 50 different shapes and sizes of snow shovel on offer (they're two aisles down from the cookie sheets in case you're curious) finally grabbed one that looked like it was sort of in the middle of the pack shape and size wise and made a quick stop at the spa (closed on Monday) to get directions to this thing I'm supposed to be going to tonight.

And found Bethanie. Who had gone to our bosses' Christmas party the night before (I had an attack of social anxiety lameness, not to mention irrational terror of the copious amounts of drinking everyone had kept reminding me to expect and had stayed home in my pyjamas watching a marathon of Dirty Sexy Money with Sugar and Freckles. Yes. I am COOL.) and had managed to get her car stuck (in that snowbank I mentioned) on her way down the mountain from our bosses' bachanal. Oops. Armed with a new snow shovel and delusions of my own competence, I offered to take Bethanie back to her car and see if we couldn't get it out of the snowbank our own damn selves. Yeah. We couldn't. Mostly we stared at it. And for some reason the power of our hopes and wishes did nothing to move that damn car. So we called our boss. And he sucked up what was undoubtedly, from all reports, a killer hangover, and like the hip father figure he totally is, he met us in his Astro Van and pulled Bethanie's poor little car out of the snowbank.

And I stood there shivering, with wet feet, thinking . . . I'm really really glad I didn't go to that party. Because, while I really like the people who I knew would be there, I don't really drink much any more. (To be fair, other than a brief period in law school, I never really have. And certainly not when there's any chance I might have to drive.) And is it really fun to be sober around fun drunk people who you know will be getting behind a wheel? I have to say I come down on the side of "no". BUT this thing I'm going to tonight? Isn't so much a party. It's a bunch of women getting together to exchange cookies and maybe drink a hot toddy. It's a gathering. And I love gatherings. Especially with dessert. See, I'm not anti-social, I'm just 80.

Winter Wildlife

On Friday evening, just as it was getting dark, I got an excited voicemail from one of my neighbors telling me to look out my window because there were six elk grazing in the pasture between our houses. Unfortunately, I was working and by the time I got home they were gone. But yesterday I went for a walk and just as I was approaching a bend in the road, two elk leaped across my path. I stopped and watched in awe as a steady stream of them came bounding up from the river and started climbing a ridge where my mother pastured horses before I was born, and where, when I was a child, we had a memorable encounter with a black bear while picking huckleberries one fall. I lost count at 15, and they just kept coming. There must have been at least 40. I was both too startled and too slow to get a decent picture. Can you even see them in the trees?

On a smaller scale, but just as startling, I saw this tiny creature skittering through the snow 15 yards or so from my front door when I set out for my winter walk. Guess what direction he was traveling? It had never occurred to me that spiders could survive in the open in such cold. He made good time. By the time I saw him on my return trip he'd covered about half the distance to my significantly cozier home (where, sadly, he'd find plenty of other creatures to keep his strength up until spring when I wouldn't feel so evil about banishing him back outside).

I Hurt

Just so you all aren't picturing me in a beautiful snowy wonderland, I should let you know that Tuesday, the day after the big snowfall, the temps reached the high 30s and it rained all that night, melting most of the snow and making everything (very much including my driveway) muddy and gross.

BUT! Not all the effects of the snow have disappeared this week. Oh no. One, very personal reminder, lingers. I actually pulled on my completely inadequate footwear and went out on Monday and shoveled the dense, wet, very very heavy snow (using a normal shovel, because of course I haven't gotten a snow shovel yet) and now, almost a week later, I still ache. Isn't that pathetic? The muscle soreness is finally gone but my neck/shoulder region is seriously janked. (I know, I should take advantage of the spa discount and get a massage. But . . . it feels strange to get a massage from someone I work with. Brow waxing? Facial? No problem! But a massage just seems too . . . I don't know. Something. It's my own hangup. The therapists are always getting massages from each other, so I know I'm being stupid. I'm sure I'll get over it before this little interlude in my life ends.) Of course, the fact that the snow had mostly disappeared the day after I had killed myself shoveling it out of my way just adds the proper coda of wasted effort to the physical discomfort.

Definitely NOT snowed in

Because one of my awesome neigbors is plowing my driveway as I type. Thank god I'd just finished baking cookies so I could give him something in return. It's really not nearly enough. When I ran out in the snow to give them to him, and thank him, he said "Well, we're all in this together!" Which, yeah. But some of the "we" who are in this are fucking useless and end up relying on the rest of the "we" a whole hell of a lot more than the useless part of the "we" is entirely comfortable with.

Snowed in?

Maybe. I'm not sure. It's possible that I could get down my driveway without getting stuck, but I have grave doubts that I would be able to make it back up. Luckily, I don't need to try. Because I have nowhere I need to go!

A classic winter storm has been hammering the Oregon coast for the past few days, with winds gusting over 80 miles an hour and buckets of rain. (Poor Zach lost power in the middle of a game of literati yesterday afternoon, and the power was still out when he got home from work last night.) That same system reached my little corner of the world while I was sleeping. I woke up to five new inches of snow (on top of the three we got yesterday), and a power outage of my own. But I was prepared. I'd filled my lamps with oil, baked bread, and made a big pot of squash and bean soup that I can reheat on the wood stove if necessary. But so far it hasn't come to that. I made my tea on the wood stove and read Sales by lamp light and just as I was starting to think that it was awfully quiet without my usual background of NPR, the power was back. And I stopped reading Sales and got on the internet to check the forecast (and blog).

Of course, I'm not entirely prepared for this storm. I still don't have boots. Or a snow shovel. But I have fresh bread! And lots of books! And now that the power is back, I can make cookies! Who needs a snow shovel when one has cookies and atmospheric mystery novels?