Frigid

It's cold here. Well, cold for Portland. If you really want to talk about cold-cold, it doesn't hold a candle to Verkhoyansk, but 15 F is pretty cold for here. It's up to 23 during the day, although with windchill that's down to 10. I think that last summer's petunias are finally goners.

K's parents visited this weekend from Chicago, and were dismayed to be partially snowed in on Sunday, the first day of the storm. Normally our 40 F average winters would be balmy compared to the midwest, but these Arctic storms blow in every few years. It really wasn't *that* bad so we went out and rode the train around to get out of the house. We only got about an inch of snow, but cars and foot traffic compacted that down to a nice thick layer of ice on every road they haven't plowed or sanded. I know salting is safer, but all that water flows straight into the river, not even feeding through a treatment plant. It also means that my old 70s Corolla never rusted out.

Frances finally ventured out for a couple minutes today, probably to pee au naturel. When I went out there were sad little cat footprints in the snow. Really, she's doing pretty good. Pissed off at the cold weather, of course. I think she blames me. She can't make all the jumps she used to, but we've trained her to jump onto a box then onto the bed from there, and the other ones she doesn't care so much about. She sort of sinks her front claws into the destination material then jumps/pulls herself up from there.

I just recently lost my favorite hat, probably somewhere in the long-term parking lot at the airport (got it at a post-Christmas sale at REI years ago. Damn. I miss that hat) So I am now using the 2nd tier, not-quite-as-warm hats. I actually just finished one last month, but it's not very tightly knitted and it's no good in wind. I just remembered my meathead hat, though, which is way, way overkill for almost any other weather condition, but might work just dandy for this week. It's not supposed to get above freezing until next Monday.

Meathead, circa January 2007

I'm grateful for the Faina scarf too, because all that alpaca is nicely insulating. The stranded mittens are good too, although I should have knit them tighter. Ah well, now I know. And oh yes, you betcha I am wearing the wool socks.

I'm having a hard time with actualities and possibilities and probabilities and what is and what might happen. It has always seemed like I could accomplish what I wanted if I just worked enough at it and was dedicated enough (within the realm of possibility and all that), but my body has been putting limitations on me that I don't know if I'll ever be rid of. When I fill out the stupid health questionaire at the doctors they ask the dumbest questions. "Do you feel as if your health will get better/stay the same/get worse?" Of course it's only going to get worse. Every day is one more day older. The best I can hope for is local maxima. They're probably not talking about the long term, though.

Sorry, I'm just tired. Tired of how many hours of physical therapy I don't feel like adding up right now. I'm really doing pretty good. I can walk, I can do some kind of workout at the gym, I can do some biking. Well, maybe not on the ice. Don't have any studded snow tires on my bike (neat, how cool are those?). I don't have much pain, except in the mornings, and then it's like a dull headache that slowly ebbs away as long as I'm a good girl and do my exercises and stretches. It's more the fear of what might happen, of screwing things up again, maybe in new and divergent ways. That and I walk kinda funny (don't worry, it's subtle). Something with the psoas and the gluteals and such keeps krinking up. At least I can hold plank pose for 70 seconds now.

Concretely, I never seem to get any shit done. It's halfway through December and I have a mountain of stuff to do, including all the administrative end-of-year crap. I immensely dislike feeling stressed out for the holidays. It's not a holiday if it's stressful, it's just another annoying event. But this year I let it all creep up on me. Got to mail those packages out THIS WEEK. I haven't even started Christmas cards. Haven't even ventured into the basement and cracked the boxes. Man, how do you people do it? I don't have kids and I don't watch tv. Where does my time go? I suppose it's spent scrubbing the tub in anticipation of the in-laws. Hey, that tub *gleams* now. Well, parts of it.

MIL surprised me and gave me a gorgeous skein of Seduction sock yarn for Christmas. It's the softest, silkiest stuff. I've already got a pattern for it - the waving lace socks from the Interweave sock book. I made a pair out of another merino-tencel blend, but they were a little too small for me. Can't wait to start on them. Yeah, as soon as I finish the rest of the ever-growing list. How about I get back to you in June on that?