Winter Walks, Part 1

Springtime is my very favorite time of year.

The winter goes away...

The sunshine comes out to play...

The snow melts...

The leaves peek out, unfurl and greet the world...

All sorts of poeticalness happens in the springtime.

It's beautiful, and I love it.

Here in the frozen wastelands of New England, winter has been pretty brutal this year. His grip has been relentless - day after day of sub-zero temperatures and driving snow and general frosty mayhem.

I don't like it.

Neither, I've found, does the Young Master.

See, wintertime is a time of cooped-uppedness.

He doesn't get to go outside and play as often, because the ground is frozen and his toes are tender. He starts limping almost immediately with the cold on his feet. And if there's salt or sand... forget it. I might as well carry him through the yard.


I would look like this, only less photogenic.

Photo Credit:
http://dsmpower.tv/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/oneman.jpg

 So when we had a tropical heat wave the other day and the temperature soared up into the thirties, I knew it was my lucky break.

Two out of the past four work days have been kind to me. I've gotten out of the office early enough that I can make it through my commute home and get there before the sun has completely set. This is due (in no small part) to the sun deciding to stick around longer because it knows springtime is coming. It's also because I found a new way to drive home from work that avoids the string of red lights that hates me through three of my four commute-through towns.

So, on Monday, I got out of work at 2. I went to the eye doctor for my bi-annual** adventures with glaucoma drops and those charts with the little numbers. And then I drove home. The glaucoma drops had given me a bit of a headache, so I took it easy on the commute... but I still arrived home by 4:45. Sweet! I thought. Evening walky time!

Walks with the Young Master can go a couple different ways, depending on the time of day. I'll do a visual breakdown when I figure out exactly how to portray it. But I can sum up here:

• He has the focus to see the walk through with practically show-dog-worthy attention. This is mostly because of his Walking Stick.
• On occasion, he will walk politely until we are fifty yards from the house, and then begin to lolligag because the walk is coming to an end. This is mostly in the morning.
• He does not have the focus to see the walk through with the patience God gave a guppy. This is mostly because:
• Something smells good
• Something that smelled good tastes good
• He has dropped his walking stick and is waiting for me to pick it
• There is something - anything - that has a heartbeat or once had a heartbeat or might have a heartbeat if he stares at it longingly enough

The latter almost always wins out over the former.

It's easier in the wintertime to schedule in morning walks. We leave the house right after the school bus has gone by, and we're back so I can get on the road and into the office before my coffee is cold.

But it's more fun to take evening walks. I imagine, in his mind, it goes something like this:

Hmm... another leaf just blew by the window. I don't think I'll bark at this one. No one's home to see me. But... hark! What noise at yonder portal makes?

Could it be?

Dare I hope?

I must adjourn to the window and smush my nose upon it.

Is it?

Is it?

Is it?

IT IS!

MOMMA'S HOOOOME!

Momma! I missed you! I missed you! I missed you SO MUCH! I don't think you understand. Let me lick your tongue to tell you how much I missed you! Momma! I missed you! I missed you!

Wait.

Why are you standing up?

MOMMA. I missed you. Come back and kneel with me, so I may properly shower you with my pent up adoration.

Momma.

Momma.

Mo....

Sit? Okay... I can sit.

OH. MY. GOD.

We're going for a walk.

WAAAAAAAAALKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIES!!!!

Yeah... that's pretty much how it plays out, but picture it with fifty pounds of exhilarated adorable-ocity and a long, lolling tongue.

Tomorrow, I tell you just what happened on this Monday evening walk.

And let me tell you, ReaderFriend... it'll be worth the wait.

**1 I always have trouble with this. Does bi-annual mean "every other year?" Or does it mean "twice a year?" Semi-annual means twice a year, no matter what. Bi-annual needs to make up its mind.

Excuse Me While I Whip This Out...

Did you shriek? Did you gasp? Did you faint?

Well... you should have.

Try harder next time.

So, today is unseasonably warm in My Little Slice of Heaven. The weather forecast is remarkable:

Yeah. *Almost* 80 degrees. In Northern New England. In March.
That seems right.

In any case, it's too warm for woolies and boots anymore. Which means that yesterday, the Summer Clothes came out. And great excitement ensued.

The cute tops... The swishy skirts... The sandals and flip flops and The-Pastel-Purple-Ensconcements-of-Remarkable-Comfortableness-But-Also-Remarkable-Dorkiness-That-I-Only-Wear-To-Start-My-Car-In-The-Morning-Because-The-Rest-Of-The-Time-I'm-Ashamed-To-Own-Them Crocs... Oh yeah. The good stuff.

Except yesterday I wore the only skirt in the bunch that I could pull out of winter storage and wear immediately, because it was made to look wrinkled. And then last night I spent my time being outside in the sunshine... and then enjoying Tasty Noms of Social Awkwardness But Total Deliciosity**... and then going out for ice cream *with sprinkles*... So I didn't get around to airing the rest of the clothes out and conquering some of the months-old wrinkles.

Which means that my Morning Garb-A-Palooza today wasn't so easy.

After rifling through the entire box (and two different iterations of "I own *nothing* of suitable cuteness!", followed by "I thought your last outfit was awesome, honey...") I ended up finding one of my favorite purple dresses. It's soft cotton jersey - like wearing Boyfriend's favorite tee-shirt, but without the unfortunate side effect of being baggy in all the wrong places. And, you know, it's purple. I can do anything through Purple, who I'm pretty sure is magic.

But Favorite Purple Dress is clingy and drapey and doesn't have a pocket or a low-slung waistline. Which means that I had to endeavor to find some other accommodations for my badges this morning.

Yes, badgeS.

Being in a new office of markedly higher safety standards, I am safely ensconced within a maze of locked doors that only open for Bearers of The Badge. So safely ensconced, in fact, that it takes a series of badges to get into my Work-Week Homeland.

First, there is the Parking Garage Badge. Larger than its cousins, it contains what I am certain is a chunk of magnet thick enough to render a pacemaker useless. Every morning I flap it idly at the little pad, and the gate opens. I am worthy of parking my car. (It's nice, because it's 24/7 access to secure parking in the part of town filled with amazing restaurants and clubs and Places to Frequent with a Boyfriend of Amazingness. Thank goodness I have one, so I can go there.)

Then I tootle up the little hill and to the back door of the office where I must use Outside Door Badge in order to gain access to the building. It MUST be tipped sideways, though, which made access difficult in the beginning of my employment as it had been punched for my badgeholder on an end that got in the way of scanning. So mostly I just stood at the door looking pathetic until someone else came along and I could hitch a ride on their worthiness train. (Once Someone In Posession Of A Badge Punch found out about my predicament, though, it was quickly remedied. Now I can get in any time, all by my big girl self.)

Finally, once inside the building, I can abandon my other badges in favor of the one I need for inside: my Inside Door Badge. This is the prettiest badge of all, adorned with my face on one side and the splashes from a mud puddle it jumped into over the winter on the other. And whenever I encounter a door within the building, I flap the little badge against the little touchpad, and the lock clicks open.

Which is a pain in the neck first thing in the morning, when I put my badge on my desk so I can "run real quick to get my breakfast" and then can't get back inside. (So I stand in the hallway, looking as though I just got off the elevator and waiting for someone else to come along and beep me in.) And also when I wear pretty slinky purple dresses with no where suitable to clip a badge holder.

I tried clipping it to the little empire-waistline belt that is purely for decoration. It ended up agitating my armpit.

I tried clipping it to my neckline, just under my shoulder, but it ended up thwaping my chest, my arm and my ear whenever I walked. (The ear part boggles me. I wasn't jumping or anything.)

So that's how I ended up in the restroom this morning, trying desperately to figure out how to conceal an Inside Door Badge Of +5 Access To Workplaces in my bra.

It works okay, except for the pinching. It threw everything off kilter when I tucked it into one side or the other, so it's stuffed directly down the front.

Which means that I either need to stuff my hand down the front of my dress every time I encounter a door (a la Blazing Saddles, of course!) or I need to take sexual liberties with wall fixtures.

Either way, it's been an exciting day indeed.

** Deep fried chicken patty with bacon, cheese and a fried egg on top, all in one heavenly little burger called the "Mother and Child Reunion." Don't think... and for the love of all that is Purple, don't judge. Just eat.

Winter Safety

Ah, winter. What a glorious time of year.

- The roads get covered with gooey gunk which rivals the grease trap in the kitchen of the Ol' Home Fill 'Er Up And Keep On A-Truckin' Cafe.**

- The sidewalks become a disgusting mess of frozen puddles and salt deposits with the sole purpose of ruining my favorite "It's Winter But I Don't Have To Admit It Yet" boots.

- The driveway becomes stuck in an infinite loop of Being Shoveled and then Being Filled With Snow From The Rotten NeighborSpawn Who Insist That My Driveway Is Better For Sledding Than Their Own, with only sporadic interruptions for when Lady Nature decides that my yard is a disgraceful mess and needs to be whitewashed.

So, yeah. Winter. Woot.

I'm fairly lucky. While my driveway is a source of difficulty, at least it isn't long. And if it snows overnight while the cars are in the yard, the shovelling isn't awful. Just pull the cars into the road and *kapow.* Instant clean.

And it's not like this season lasts forever, either. Yes, it starts getting cold in September. Yes, it's still not tee-shirt weather in April. But at least the snow is only really awful from January until the end of March. And the days don't stay short forever. In fact, just this morning I realized that there was light for my Getting Ready For Work ritual. Which is nice.

However, I do have a bit of an issue with one thing:

Walking.

Walking around My Friendly Home State can be a mess in the wintertime. It never used to be such an issue - Prior to the move, I had to walk around a small parking lot at work. I could dictate how far I wanted to walk on my Shopping Endeavors, and walking up my driveway was a slice of schnitzel. There's hardly any drive to walk up. No complaints there.

But now, I've got a bit of a hike.

When we evacuated our prior Working Establishment in favor of new digs, we gave up our Cooshy Parking Lot of Awesomeness in favor of a parking garage.

Which isn't awful, I admit, when it snows and I don't have to shovel my car.

However, this parking lot is (depending on which side of the building I exit), just under a quarter of a mile away. Which means that I have some hiking to do.

That becomes difficult in the wintertime because:

- I do not live in a flat state, where you can see from one side to the other uninterrupted. I have mountains all over the place Being In The Way. To that end I do not just travel in the X and Y, but also in the Z.

- I work in a lovely older neighborhood whose establishment thought that bricks made a fantastic paving medium for sidewalks. Not the rough kind of brick, either... No, walking on these puppies is an adventure not unlike fresh fuzzy socks on a clean hardwood floor. Careful footsteps can make your walk a little safer, but you never know when the dog is going to come barreling around the corner and send you skittering across the living room on your rumpus.

- I am not old and decrepit, so I enjoy pretty shoes. That means I don't always choose the sneakers or clonky winter boots that would keep me safe... Sometimes I pick the pretty heels that make me feel like (brace yourself...) a female.

Now, that's not to say that residents of my fair Work City don't understand my plight. Last evening, as I was slip-sliding down the sidewalk on my Boots of Sunneriffic Might, two gentlemen passed me and regaled me with a little ditty I hear often on my adventures: "Be careful there! Whoops! Are you alright?"

I forged onward. I have my own little arsenault of tricks that help me feel more in control of my appendages:

- Stick arms out as if to create an A-Frame around one's trunk. This increases wind resistance in case a skid occurs. In addition, it airs out ghastly underarm odors that can occur when Heavy Winter Jackets are installed.

- Bend knees to increase proximity from posterior to sidewalk. This leaves a shorter distance to landing in case of an unfortunate fall, thus protecting That Which The Opposite Sex Ogles.

- Don't pick up one's feet. Just slide them along the sidewalk, lessening propulsion to impulse speed. This takes forces (other than gravity) out of the equation for toppling to the ground, so it's more of a fall and less of a forceful hurling of one's self to the pavement.

By and large, these rules keep me from Eating Dirt during my trudge from the office to my car.

However, it must have become apparent that I wasn't employing teleportation, and was indeed using My Own Two Feet to zoom from my workplace to the garage, and couldn't possibly be making safe choices unsupervised.

And so my employer created Safety Instructions just for travelers like myself.

These commandments have been issued in what I'm sure was constructed to be a whimsical fashion - Trying to catch the attention of the masses and impart their Safety Knowledge without bludgeoning the workers over the head with proper walking practices. Their thoughts aren't unlike my own - arms out, shuffle your feet, bend your knees... However, they took it one step further. For your enjoyment:

Don't Endanger Your Posterior, ReaderFriends. Make Good Choices Instead.

** Thank you, C.W. McCall, for that timeless piece of classic music!

Stinky, Stinky, Stinky!

I love those commercials. Where the rotting fish and angry diaper and dirty paper plates parade across the screen, and then the heroic trashbag comes in and swoops them up to save the nigh-defeated noses from the horrors around them... Good stuff. Advertising gold.

Anyway.

As may (or may not) be apparent, I live and work and recreate in an area that did not go unscathed by our recent Weather Anomaly.** Although she failed to give us the whipping we were threatened, she did louse up many a weekend plan with her Windy Wind and Rainy Rain. Saturday night was spent wrapped in blankets, listening to the sound of the rain pounding outside my window. Sunday morning was spent deep in the heart of heathendom, lounging in my jammies and watching episode after episode of a classic Seth MacFarlane comic rife with political incorrect-ness, and eating some of the canned goods I had squirreled for the Impending Doom. (Don't judge. It was hash, and it called to me. Corned Beef Hash doesn't hang around long in our home... Even in imminent apocalypse conditions.) Sunday afternoon was more of the same, with my still-unshowered-and-lounging-in-my-jammies-and-starting-to-radiate-toxic-aromas condition just beginning to push me towards making a decision to start my day... When the power blinked. And blinked again. And then shut down.

Rawr.

It wasn't a hardship. I live and work and recreate in a very centralized location (read: much more "City" than my upbringing. Usually a good thing, like when the power goes out and I know it won't last forever-and-a-day. Sometimes not so spiff, like when I forget where I live and run around naked with the windows open and terrorize my neighbors.) so I knew that we wouldn't be without for long. This knowledge is amplified by the understanding that I live in close enough proximity to a happy little Bad Guy Time-Out Station that a power outage will be addressed even more hastily, to keep the aforementioned Bad Guys in their happy little Time-Out boxes. So, minor inconvenience. We can handle this.

First on the agenda: read. I LOVE to read. It has always been an escape for me; however, it was tainted by the dirty brush strokes of Required Reading Lists throughout my educational career. I am slowly working my way back into enjoying more than just the fluffy chick-lit stories and children's books that got me through many a dark and dreary semester, but it's rough going. Sometimes my eyes are tired. Sometimes my brain is tired. And sometimes I've dealt with so much reality that I really can't imagine sinking into anything deeper than a glass of rum and a situation comedy. But sometimes, moments of opportunity present themselves and I can sink into a book that stirs a higher level of activity within my gray matter, and reminds me that not all books need to be fluff. And so, on Sunday, I took this opportunity. I curled up on the couch and stuck my nose into a historical fiction novel...

And promptly fell asleep.

It didn't take more than half an hour for Reading Time to become Napping Time.

And so ended my adventures in The Land Without Power. I read, I napped, I adventured to find hot food (not for lack of ability to make the same in our home: more for the convenience of a well-lit bathroom. DULY NOTED: Someday, I will live in a house. And in that house will be a bathroom... or two... or four... And EVERY SINGLE ONE will have a window. This closet-of-a-bathroom madness has to stop! I simply cannot pee under those conditions.) and came home to a neighborhood brimming with electricity.

This makes me fortunate.

It is now Wednesday - a full 72 hours from when most of the state lost their power - and there are still whole towns without electricity.

Unfortunately, this no-electricity thing is, by and large, affecting people in more rural communities.

Which means that they don't have the privilege of City Water.**(1)

Which means that they don't have electricity OR running water.

Which means that they smell pretty ripe by now.

Which brings me to my Public Service Announcement for today:

Public Service Announcement to Weather-Ravaged Employees

While I admire your persistence in coming in to The Big City for two days in a row after the storm rampaged your town and left you and your family without modern conveniences, I am convinced that nothing is so important that you need to work when only able to clothe yourself in baggy sweatpants, a ratty tee and a greasy ball cap. If you won't use the shower facilities that your employer provide, may I please attempt to convince you to toddle home and return another time? Or perhaps just go sit in the parking lot. You are a lovely person... But you smell like something I wish my Hefty bag would swoop up. And definitely NOT like someone I want handling my morning pastry.

No offense.

With Love,

*Sunny*

**Named as such because she did NOT hurricane at me. Not that I mind that at all. I don't take lightly the fact that she was in other states, that she obliterated other towns, and that there are people who have been badly hurt both physically and emotionally for whom the rebuilding is going to take years after the floodwaters subside. To them, my warmest thoughts and best wishes travel through the Cosmos for healing, health and strength to carry on. 

**(1) City Water is AMAZING! When the power goes out, the water still runs. And it still gets hot, if you have a gas-powered water heater, so you can wash your hands and the dishes and any really offensive laundry you might have [except you wash it in the sink, because washers and dryers don't work]. And your toilet still flushes, so the inevitable Oh My Goodness The Power Just Went Out So I Absolutely Must Turn On The First Light Switch I Encounter And Then Go Pee isn't a problem anymore. Oh, and THE WATER STILL RUNS. I hope you're understanding how epic this is.

And I Feel Fine...

Woah.

I mean, seriously. Woah!

Over the course of the last hour this afternoon, I have caught the following snippets of conversation:

"Yeah! My bobbleheads were going nuts!"

"So there I was, just watching my plant sway back and forth... You know, it was kind of calming!"

"And then I thought, 'This isn't the greatest building. Am I going to die?' But then we didn't. Hurray for that."

The chorus of "Did you feel it?" "What was it like?" and "Wow! Really?"s

But my favorite so far was:

"Yeah, it was hard to tell. This building moves and shakes all the time anyway. Who's to say it wasn't a strong wind or a big truck or someone opening the elevator doors at the same time as the back stairwell..."

Aptly put, EngineerFriend. I couldn't have phrased it better myself.

Long And Short:

We had an earthquake.

And no, I didn't feel it.

Bummer.

(But only because everyone is okay, and no reports of major damage have appeared. No matter your Deity of Choice, please ask them to keep an eye on the goings-on herein, and think warm fuzzies for anyone affected by this. Please.)