Let It Snow

After my car skidded past my driveway on my way home after tutoring this morning, I realized it was more slip-a-dee (as my daughter used to say) out there than I thought at first. I’ve been monitoring the snow as it falls at a furious slant outside my upstairs window, and as I look over my shoulder to watch it fly, I can hear the voice of my weather-phobic friend ringing in my ears (along with my usual tinnitus), telling me to call and cancel my noon doctor’s appointment, because driving in this weather is dangerous.

I feel like a wussy scaredy cat doing it, but I do it, anyway, so I’m now officially stuck inside, all dressed up with no place to go – a new doctor’s appointment under my belt, so to speak – an afternoon of leisure lying before me like a white blanket.

I am either going to: (1) watch all the DVR’d TV shows taking up space on our TV’s hard drive (2) watch Adam, the movie I rented from Netflix (3) cook up something yummy for dinner (4) read one of my library books that’s waiting patiently for me in a pile at the side of my bed (5) learn how to use my camera by reading the camera manual that came with my new Canon PowerShot (almost two months ago) or (6) noodle around on the computer.

Groovin’ on a Thursday afternoon…

What Would You Think?

Since writing my previous blog, the one in which I vented about my annual winter hatred so I could get it out of my system – I’ve morphed back into my official (well, official since 1994) winter persona: Ms. UConn basketball sports fanatic. Hell, yes – the yelling, screaming, knit one, purl two, critic-at-large I turn into until March Madness ends and April showers begin has officially re-entered the building.

Check me out: My tush is mush and my weight is up, since all I do every other night and sometimes day (on weekends) is sit in front of the TV in our comfy Stressless leather reclining chair and cheer on my favorite winning women and more-often-than-not losing men. Oh, yeah, baby (as Dick Vitale would say) – you’re looking at me.

I’m an equal opportunity fan, oh yes I am, someone who religiously reads the sports section of the Courant, listens to her husband’s daily statistical recitations (well, I try to listen, but I often tune him out, because statistics are not my cup of tea), tunes in to AM radio before each game so she can hear what the coaches have to say, and watches each and every The Geno Auriemma Show on CPTV so she can soak up even more details on the women’s team.

I’m also someone who rarely misses a game, thanks to DVR, unless I’m struck down by one of my vicious migraines (but never fear - I make up for a miss by reading about it and then listening to my husband recap it in detail the next day).

Hey – wait just a minute, here. I have a sneaking suspicion that my true basketball confessions are making you drowsy. You’re suddenly thinking you need to shut down your browsers, aren’t you? Yawns of boredom are popping out of your mouths, aren’t they? Some of you are actually shaking your heads or laughing at UConn-basketball-focused maniacal me.

If any of the above describes you as you read my newest Splog (sports blog, for those who’ve never heard this word I just made up), please stifle your big sighs of oh-shut-up-already. Instead, buy into my obsessive, little ole sports-crazed exhortation to check it out.

Seriously. I beg you not to miss one more night of Maya Moore, Tina Charles, Jerome Dyson, and Stanley Robinson – just to name a few of my 2010 faves. I know I’m merely the me nobody knows – that oldie-but-goodie basketball diarist holed up in cold, grey, not-New-York-City-but-only-CT. I admit to being a little bit of a crazy lady (I wear blue and white UConn-themed T-shirts to exercise class), but even so, pay attention to my pleas.

See me. Hear me (but no touching, please). I’m down on my knees, begging you, please: Join my team. If you do, you might just end up like me, surviving another season, stayin’ alive, watching “my” guys, chasin’ away the blues.

Go Huskies.

I've Got Plenty of Nothing

It’s one week into 2010, but I have very little to write that anyone other than poor, pitiful me would like to read, because my thoughts aren’t very interesting or newsworthy in the winter. They abound in the spring and summer, start falling off in November, then die out completely in January, because…drum roll... I’m a bona fide winter hater.

I haven’t written since December because I am convinced that only other haters like me would want to read about why I hate living in ice-cold New England in January and February (and sometimes March). Who but another winter-hater would care that I can’t plan anything, because I worry it might snow or ice up and the roads‘ll get slippery and cancel all activities? How I hate that it’s dark when I wake up, dark again at 4:45, and darker, still, in general? How it’s so dry inside that I have to slather anti-skin-crack cream on my heels and thumbs? How my scalp itches and flakes so much I can’t wear my beloved black because of schmutz fallout? How the wood and paint on all the woodwork in my house is cracking? Why the heat seems to be on more than off (or how much oil costs - a fortune)? How my car is covered in salt and rime, but if I take it to the carwash, my hands’ll get chapped after I dry it off, then the temperature will fall just enough to melt the ice and filth up that just-cleaned and dried car and I’ll have to start all over again?

See, I told you that you wouldn’t want to read about my day-in-and-day-out, once-the-temperature-drop-into-the-teens-I’m-a-mess winter-hating, even if I try to make it sound like I’m just a crazy crank or explain it away, like I do, most often to complete strangers (since everyone I know learns to avoid me from January 1^st to March 1^st). Who but a stranger (or another winter-hater) would want to hear me describe in vivid detail how cold and miserable I am, how I hate, hate, hate snow, how I have to rub my hands together (it feels so handwringingly effective) like I’m Lady Macbeth, or how chapped my lips are, because no product out there blocks that freaking wind chill?

You winter-loving people out there, and I know you outnumber me – I am writing down this stuff so you’ll read my pain and weep…err - empathize. Please?

Oh dear. I should’ve kept all this to myself, right? I should’ve just detailed, instead, how I’m knitting an interesting Dofuku jacket, watching hours of UConn basketball on TV, reading (but nothing worth mentioning…yet), cooking the usual repertoire (unlike my daughter, who’s turned into an updated Cook’s Illustrated), catching up on a few new movies (Up In The Air, Invictus, and It’s Complicated, La Danse), planning a short trip to NYC (here I come, Jane Austen, get ready for me to check you out at the Morgan Library), exercising, or planning to tutor elementary kids in Hartford.

But – don’t you know? It’s so much more fun to winter-bash, because it warms my heart and gets my blood boiling. Keeps me on my icy-cold toes, and stokes that brrr-ning, brrr-ning, yearning feeling inside me. Oh, yes it does.