Step 1: Put the incorrigible machine in time-out in a corner. Drink coffee, run amok in the hallways complaining about people who click on stuff they shouldn't be clicking on, take deep breaths, ommmmm for a minute or two, maybe go to lunch or have inconsequential conversations disguised as Terribly Important Communications.
[Soundtrack for the post below. I do love me some Eric.]
The journey begins
Every year starting about now, sometimes a few weeks later, I end up having to walk my hill.
I live at the top of a very steep hill. The driveway/road is very long. It’s also dirt and gravel.
Since I live in my own little ecosystem where I get dramatically more snow than the city 12 miles away in which I work, I’m always concerned my co-workers think I’m telling wild stories. Since I do, upon occasion, tell wild stories, I can’t say as I blame them. Perhaps the oddest thing about it is that my wild stories are true. I attract drama and insanity and chaos like the cat’s fur to my wool coat.
View after 10 paces.
Winter arrived early this year. I’ve been walking the hill for nearly a month. If the weather folk are to be believed, I may still be walking the hill in June. [Editorial comment: I LIKE split infinitives – who makes these damn rules?] I’m already a month into this seasonal aerobic exercise and weight loss regimen and it should just now be starting.
Going down in the morning is not so bad. Walking up in the pitch dark is another story. I religiously carry the cell phone, but as I can’t generally get a signal on the road it really will only serve to allow me to watch the clock to see how long it takes for hypothermia (or blood loss) to kill me. I ponder the wisdom of getting a Lassie – remember how Lassie was always showing up at Timmy’s feet carrying on and him saying, “What is it girl? What?!!!! Farmer John has fallen into the pond and is drowning while we stand here chatting? Let’s go, girl!” [I do need a Lassie. I’ve never had a smart dog. I can’t figure out if I choose slow-learners or if it’s something I do to them.]
The next 100 paces
I still have snow pack on the road. In a spot here and there, just this morning, I noticed dirt and gravel peeking out. When the thaw arrives tomorrow, it will begin to melt in earnest and then sunset will come and go, temps will drop down below freezing, and the road will turn into glare ice – a toboggan run of sorts. Tomorrow, I’m apt to slide down the hill on my back – head first.
My dad drives a big old honking Cadillac Escalade. You could house a family of 4 in there and the 4×4 is so powerful he can climb telephone poles in that gas guzzler. Last year, while trying to get up the hill, he got about halfway up, lost traction, and careened backwards all the way down narrowly missing the peon’s cars parked at the bottom –aka those of us without 4x4s. The penchant of 4x4s to not be worth a shit on ice is why I sold my Jeep a decade ago. I find it far less terrifying to walk the road than to slide down it – sideways and sometimes backwards. It made no sense to put up with that kind of mpg and still be walking the hill. [I might be misleading y’all here – I did sell the Jeep for that reason, but lately I’ve been experiencing 4×4 lust – the road has not been icy – with a 4×4, I could have been riding up and down for most of the past month.]
300 paces & an offroad shortcut.
Depending on the melt, nighttime temps and whether or not days are overcast or sunny, the road may become frozen mud which is worse in many respects. It looks like it’s easy enough to traverse, until I get my NASCAR Queen’s car a third of the way up and then have to back it down (usually in the dark with a filthy rear window).
Did I mention it’s a one-lane road?
A couple of years ago, I was walking down the back way which is easier if the snow is really deep or the road is badly iced. It was a nice walk. It wasn’t bone-numbing cold; and it was early enough that my little patch of earth was quiet and peaceful.
400 paces and more difficult
With Robert Frost in my head, I arrived at the fork of the road to find a car sitting in – actually in – the fork of a tree growing out of the ravine. Since I’d been reading Stephen King the night before, I imagined all sorts of icky stuff, but the car was empty. [The transition from Frost to King is as awful as it sounds.]
As it turns out, it was my mailman’s car and it had been there since the day before. I had not noticed it on my way up, because it gets awfully dark in my little patch of earth and because my eyes follow the tiny circle of light the flashlight creates near my feet.
The Dreaded Ravine
The mailman had a driven up part way before realizing there was no sign that any vehicles had been the down the hill. Foolish guy – he stopped the car, turned it off, got out to better gauge the condition of the hill and watched his car slide over the edge of the road and wedge itself into a tree.
When they did manage to get the car out of there – [can’t you just hear the tow truck driver at his dinner table?] – they found no damage to the car other than some scratches here and there. Had it been my car, it would have been totaled and I would have had to tell the ridiculous story to my insurance company, friends and family, coworkers and all manner of people – all of them rolling their eyes and thinking, “Here she goes again.” Of course, I still get that when I tell the mailman story, but I take comfort in the fact that it wasn’t my car.
After 1123 paces, I get to de-ice/de-snow the car. Again. Still. Sigh.
With the weather of late, I arrive at my car only to have to de-ice and de-snow it – day after day after day after day. I won’t even get into the ongoing windshield wiper problem.
Even with the predicted thaw, I reckon it will be Saturday before I can get up the hill. Already, the weather folk are talking about the next system due in which may or may not be snow. It seems that my driving up the hill like a big girl will be short-lived. Oh, but really, I’m so looking forward to it.
[I’m thinking Subaru Outback. Do they make them with heated seats? I’ve become addicted to heated seats.]
Until Connie tweaks her privacy settings, she will not be updating Faceboard Flitter.
Nap Haven
The art of the nap is one I developed late in life. From the age of 3 to, oh, 40 or so, I could no more take a nap than I could sing lead at the Metropolitan Opera. (Trust me, folks, I cannot sing.)
Naps are a gift most wondrous.
The best ones are the ones that sneak up on you. Planning a nap sucks the essence out of it – like planning a laugh. The pleasure of the nap is inversely related to the intention to nap. Conducting one’s day in productivity mode and then suddenly finding oneself in bed drowsy with increasing lethargy is oh so good.
Even though I’ve discovered the joy of naps, I am still unable to sleep anywhere other than in a bed – preferably my bed.
Even sweet Babette needs a blanket these days.
Winter naps differ significantly from summer naps. Both are pleasant. The winter nap, however, also serves as a body warmer. Recently, and particularly, I’ve enjoyed the dichotomy of being snuggled in my bed while gazing at the frozen tundra which is my yard outside the French doors. Listening to the wind cause the barn to grown and creak has been a nice backdrop to puppy snores and the hum of the nonstop furnace.
Since I haven’t, for the most part, worn anything but pajamas for days, I’ve enjoyed the feel of thick silk against my sinfully high thread count sheets. We hedonists enjoy such pleasures. There have been incidents of crawling into bed in jeans and a sweatshirt. There’s something somewhat illicit about burrowing into the bed clothed in something other than nightwear. Napwear?
I’ve been running at full tilt for months. I knew I was exhausted, but I’d underestimated the extent of it. When downtime hit, I had a number of ambitious projects lined up. I knew I’d need a couple of days of R&R before launching said projects, so I did plan naps.
I’m not sure you could call them naps. I woke in the morning, drank a half a pot of coffee, went upstairs to change clothes and, instead, ended up crawling back in bed where, with some resemblance to a coma, I clocked another 3 or 4 hours of deep, drool on the pillow sleep. I’d get back up, drink the second half of the pot of coffee and end up back in bed for another 3 or 4 hours of sleep before giving up on it all and just going to bed for the night. I reckon that I slept 18 hours a day for a week or so.
I should be well and thoroughly caught up on sleep by now, but it appears maybe not. [The first order of business tomorrow is to make arrangements to have my thyroid re-tested – even if exhausted this is an insane amount of sleep.]
Eyes of Love
If not for the impending arrival of the houseguest and Chef Boy ‘R Mine’s arrival, I think there’s a good chance that absolutely nothing of those ambitious plans would have been accomplished. Mind you, I didn’t make a dent in any of them, but some order has been restored in my living environment which is a great comfort.
Today is my last day, for sure, of downtime. Last Sunday should have been, but snow storms, car problems, plumbing problems, and electrical problems kept me home much of this week. These problems allowed me good time with Chef Boy ‘R Mine and Girlfriend O’His, but the New Normal is knocking on the door and it’s time to get my stick shift out of neutral and rev the engine.
While I’m not planning a nap, I think one is likely.
Puppy Pile
The puppies are champion nappers and if I do succumb to one, I’ll put them in bed with me where Trudy will serve as a foot warmer, Willy as a stuffed animal to clutch as I snooze, and Babette slumbering on top of the covers while completing the tableau of the Still Life with Snoring.
A normal nap does involve street clothes unless it’s summer and I’ve been gardening. In such cases, I strip down and really wallow in the texture of the bed linens. But it is winter. Most likely, this afternoon will find me in jeans, sweatshirt and accompanied by puppies snoozing (and drooling on the pillow) away a couple of hours. (A pox on the power nap! Anything less than a couple hours can’t properly be called a nap.)
It’s all good. While the past ten days have been anything but Total Zen in 2010, I’m feeling pretty grounded and centered. Restored, if you will. The renewal of the New Normal schedule of my life seems doable. A couple of weeks ago, I was ready to wave the white flag of surrender. The opportunity to nap has made all the difference.
W. Va. Fur and Root 