Winter Wonderland. I cannot take much more of it.

It's snowing again. We had enough melting that the immediate danger of not being able to plow the driveway seems to have passed. It has (somewhat lower, now) frozen mini-Alps on either side, extending a yard or so out from each side of the roadway. The tractor can only lift and dump so far. The Alpinini are frozen solid; I have suggested dynamite.

Doug and Sarah C (not the former housemate Sarah D),perhaps GFSarah (for girlfriend, not gluten free; and she's a real, interesting, lively person, so you should understand that GF is a very minimal description) are on their to Spa, or perhaps not. I was supposed to be in Northampton, MA, but discretion overcame valor as the path from here to there is apparently exactly the path of the heaviest snow this evening. I wanted to go. I wanted to have wild creative time with my daughter (the last hurrah of a china-painting shop), and see Grace and Dahlia, and also get a haircut, but it is not to be.

So I am having wild creative time with the cats. It is strongly to be hoped I will pack for the trip to Texas in the next couple days, as I am leaving here Friday ( a week from tonight)(not that I am counting. My mother is even counting, vicarious trips to warmer climes being better than none. And she's sending me camping equipment. Very kind). If it doesn't snow obscenely. It's not that it isn't beautiful, it's that you get kind of ENOUGH ALREADY and start remembering that once you could wear short-sleeved shirts.

The thermostat where I work always says 70 F. The more-dedicated-than-I- ever-will-be, environmentally aware person who is working for all too short a time for another non-profit in my office, Olivia, says she thinks it's maybe 65F. The floor is carpet over a concrete slab and one's feet are cold unless one wears TWO pairs of handmade socks and the furry-inside Merrells. At home, I can wrap Polarfleece around myself and drink tea, or more to the point, go to bed. I do wish we had a tradition of hibernating, or at least officially sanctioned torpor (as opposed to the slackjawed drooling torpor I try to fend off at work).

My mother's hat is nearly nearly done; I need to make the other braid. It is curiously shaped; if I had made it as deep in the crown as the pattern suggested, my mother could have worn it quite comfortably like a turquoise paper bag over her head; it's kind of wide. If, however, you pull the earflaps down it feels very snuggly, and she says she doesn't mind looking funny. Perhaps a picture tomorrow. Willow, who is now capable of being within a few feet of Marten without turning into an insensate spitting fury (Toby is just never in the same room, and I wish he would get over his fearfulness), is sitting on my feet. This is a warm thing for both of us and makes me unwilling to move her off.