Ice Station Zebra

It’s 8 degrees below zero as I write this.

It’s frigging cold! I’ve been up for 2 hours and the house is still cold.

We had snow starting Sunday afternoon and this is what it looked like on Monday morning.. I’d say we got about 4 or 5 inches. It was light and fluffy, so Don was able to shovel the long driveway. My back was bothering me – too much bending over repeatedly as I removed all the ornaments and lights and packed them away in the bins on Saturday morning. We were moving fast so as to beat out the storm.

Did I say it was cold out? We are in a subzero stretch here which should improve by Friday. “Ice Station Zebra,” – a reference to an old movie that takes place near the North Pole.

(I just got up from my chair to add another layer of clothing.)

Oh and I went outside late in the day on Monday to start my car (because it was so cold) and the battery was dead. Somehow Don had turned the lights on without knowing when he moved the car the day before. So, there we were outside in the frigid weather jumping the battery. I ran it again yesterday and I’ll do it again today. We don’t have a garage, unfortunately.

So that’s what has been happening. COLD, batteries, COLD, shoveling, COLD, wearing extra layers, and some cuddles thrown in.

I spoke to my friend Jan yesterday – it’s been hard to make contact, lots of voice mail messages. She’s still in rehab, but she’ll move into hospice care next week. Her voice is weaker than it was and Joe tells me she’s not eating very much. It’s so hard to know what to say. I could hear some guy shouting continuously from across the hall. Jan said that he should be “voted off the island,” which made me laugh. It was good to hear some of Jan’s particular brand of sarcasm. When I asked her about her state of mind given her prognosis, she said she mostly felt numb. She wants to know more about what to expect going forward and hope to get more information when she moves into hospice care.

It’s so heartbreaking.

I did another tour of the studio because I was unhappy that YouTube cut off the top of the first video. The Gene Marshall dolls were missing their faces, Don’s Japanese print was cut off, as well as the Putz sheep. I’ll post it here and you can watch it if you want to. Or ignore it, if you want to do that! It’s all part of the process of learning how to do videos via YouTube.

Okay. Don just made my second cup of coffee and I’m going to try to warm up.

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.