PERPETUAL WINTER

We woke this morning to another breath-taking display of hoar frost.  It made me wonder if this was Mother Nature’s way of apologising; a token of appreciation for hanging in there while she tries to fix her furnace.  While I welcome her gesture, and the frost is spectacular against the bright blue sky, I am none-the-less very done with 35 below zero.

As I sipped my first mug of the piping hot, caffeine-laced nectar of the gods that keeps me on an even keel these days I opened the weather app on my phone, steeling my fragile mental state for the inevitable ... sure enough ... no hope for warmer temperatures for as far as the Weather Network is willing to gamble on predictions.  At least two more weeks, but I already knew that.  Other sources have gone out on a limb and forecast this deep freeze to continue well past the middle of March.  I don’t want to believe such things but I think my cup-is-half-full disposition is broken.

I just want to go outside and not have to worry about body parts freezing and falling off.  I want to take the garbage out without having to dress like I’m making for the South Pole.  I want to wash my car without worrying about the doors freezing shut. 

I dream of wandering around my gardens, searching for the first shoots of green to appear.  I long for the warmth of the sun on my shoulders.  I can’t wait to smell the heavenly scent of fresh-turned soil. 

Lord help me, but I’m actually having a hard time to accept that in 2019 March will not be the ‘month of mud’.  I should be celebrating the possibility of a shortened version of the spring melt, but if that means hideous sub-zero temperatures until after St. Patrick’s day I think that’s a price too high to pay.  The old adage “be careful what you wish for” comes to mind.

I’m not the only one disgusted with this perpetual winter; the dog is not amused either.

Well, I guess I should clarify that – he’s not so much disgruntled with the winter, it’s more me he has an issue with.  The winter me.  The me that won’t go outside with him.

The spring, summer and fall me is much more to his liking.  That me goes for walks, or works out in the garden, or at the very least sits out on the deck and keeps him company while he surveys his kingdom. 

The winter me is useless.  I hear his judgement and disdain every time I step up on to my elliptical for a half hour’s worth of fake walking.  He has this groan/moan/disgust noise that comes through loud and clear.  Heck, even if I were deaf I would know from his body language what he thinks of the silliness of walking without going anywhere.  I’ve explained to him several times the advantages he has that I don’t: the husky made-for-the-Arctic fur coat, the fact that he has four feet to keep him stable on icy surfaces whereas I have only two, and that even if he should fall he has a much shorter elevation to fall from.  At the moment I’m older, but he’s catching up fast - you know how that ‘in dog years’ math goes.   He does not worry about broken hips like I do now but there may come a time ...

But there I go, thinking about the future again.  Like there’s going to be one.

Meanwhile ... back at the ranch ... winter goes on.  And on.  And on. 

In a normal year we would be in the middle of a February thaw; the curling surfaces in natural ice rinks would be down to mush by now.  In a normal year there would have been enough sun to leave the rural gravel roads full of ruts.  In a normal year I would need more than two hands to count how many times I’ve been outside since New Years.

I’m even beginning to get a little nostalgic about mosquitoes.

IN MY FEVERED BRAIN

This all started because my sister’s fridge is an odd size.

Back when they built their house they planned their new kitchen around the appliances they already owned ... including this unique sized fridge.  The resulting kitchen is a pretty and efficient work space and has served them well for 30 years.  The fridge has served them even longer and lately it’s been talking retirement in growly, thumpy language that they understand all too well.  The problem is though, its demise is much more complicated than buying a replacement; it means remodeling the whole kitchen to fit a new one in.

This is not the end of the world because after 30 years other things are a bit outdated as well.  They have been exploring options all winter and are getting kind of excited about the project.  My problem is that that kind of excitement is infectious.  I have been infected with the remodelling bug.  There’s no other excuse - my fridge is regular sized and is working fine, but the kitchen it sits in is even older than 30 years and has definitely seen better days.

You have to understand, this is the dead of winter and there is literally nothing else to do.  It’s too early to start plants – I did that last year and they all got so weak and spindly they fell over and died.  I lobbied for a sunshine holiday but was ignored – he’s been playing out in his shop so he’s busy and happy. 

If I bake we just get fat. 

I could go into some kind of house cleaning frenzy ... but let’s be serious here, why would I start that kind of nonsense in my sixties? 

The dog does his part by shedding enough hair to keep me vacuuming at least once a day, but other than that, I’m bored.  I’m sure you’ve heard it said “an idle mind is the devil’s playground”.

So, as of this week I have entered into stage two of this fever.  Stage one was just listening to my sister’s plans.  I understood their desire to be proactive with their planning and not wait until the fridge forced their hand.  Stage two hit when she showed me the computer generated images of what her new kitchen was going to look like.  I was intrigued ... what could mine look like?

If I hadn’t had a dentist appointment the very next day I might have been saved, but that took me to the town where the kitchen planning place was.  I tried to tune out the voices telling me to “Go and see!” but they won and I went home with  all kinds of pamphlets and the promise to be in touch for a home visit the next week.  I just made that date this morning for next Tuesday, and in the meanwhile I’ve toured the company’s showroom in the city with my sister with the dying fridge.  My fevered mind has examined payment options and speculated about budget restrictions.  It is possible that price shock therapy may cure me, but it better happen soon; I’m fading fast.

There are so many things to consider, though. 

Of course, there are the obvious ... colors, styles, storage options, appliance placements, lighting, extras ... you know, the nuts and bolts of the operation, but my mind doesn’t stop there.

Oh no, I have to get into the existential reasoning that always haunts me.  Should I, or shouldn’t I?  Should I be sinking that much money into a farmhouse that may or may not be used again once we retire?  How many years of our use would make it worth it?  Is this the best use of the money I have?  There are people who need kitchens much worse that I do, do I really deserve to improve mine?  I worked hard for that money – it’s mine to spend ... and it’s good for the economy to keep that money moving. 

“Eat your broccoli, there are kids starving in Africa!” 

AAAARRRRGGGHHH!!!!

All of this because my sister’s fridge is an odd size.  I’ll keep you posted.

                                                  ME AND MATH

It’s tax time again.  The gal from our accountant’s office just called to confirm our date … so romantic – Valentine’s Day.  If I play my cards just right, and everything adds up, we may celebrate by going out for lunch.  I mean, we’ll already be in town and everything.

But that’s the least of my worries at the moment.  First I have to ‘do the books’.  I haven’t touched them since this time last year when I swore a solemn oath to never let the job slide for a whole year ever again.  I suck at solemn oaths.

I’ll tell you what else I suck at.  Anything to do with numbers.  Give me letters and I will write you a story, or a letter, or even a book.  But give me numbers and the result is anxiety and self doubt and rumpled paper made grungy by sweaty palms.

Personally I blame Miss Seagle, my first grade teacher.  Or maybe it was more of a wide spread, institutional thing.  Maybe all Grade one teachers distributed mammoth sheets of addition questions, and held up their evil stop watches, commanding all the tender innocents in their charge to do a week’s work in two minutes, or less. 

In our classroom everyone else would snap to work.  I would freeze in my tracks.  Numbers were hard enough, but numbers under pressure?  I would stare in awe of my friends’ ability to scribble down answers on their papers while I sat there unsure of which hand I was supposed to hold my pencil in.  I remember Judy Dangstorp crying because she didn’t get 100%.  Her bar was obviously much much higher than mine – my goal was to be at least halfway down the page before Miss Seagle told us to put our pencils down.  Getting the right answers was a whole other ordeal.

Given enough time, though, my arithmetic education did progress.  Grades 1 and 2 kept up the repetition and slowly built up my confidence.  “I can do this!” I would tell myself.  If it didn’t get any harder I was going to be fine.  Then came Grade 3.  After one week of addition and subtraction review Mrs. Leiter sat us all down and told us of the magic of multiplication and division.  She seemed quite excited about it, bless her soul.  I felt deceived.  After all my hard work had paid off and I had mastered ‘plusses and minuses’  I was being ‘rewarded’ with something even harder.

They did it to me again in Grade 6 with geometry and in Grade 7 with algebra.  Who knew that was even a word?  “Al – ge – bra” with all its problems and equations and sneaking in letters that masqueraded as part of the solutions we were supposed to find. 

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Grade 10 threw two more classes at me  – chemistry and physics.  Both used the same alien language.  When would it ever end?

Apparently not in Grade 11 when Mr. Johnson introduced us to trigonometry with its sines and cosines and tangents – the results of an unholy marriage between algebra and geometry.

The day I heard the words ‘quantum physics’ blowing in the wind I decided marriage and child rearing was the easy way out.

And look at me go!  Decades later I find myself still doing arithmetic under the gun.  A whole year’s worth, and eight days to do it.  It’s like I can still hear Miss Seagle’s stop watch … tick tock tick tock.