Friday Shuffle - Happy at Home Edition

As far as I'm concerned, once Christmas is over, we can speed right along into spring. I don't like winter. I don't like cold weather. I like to watch snow falling but hate it once it has landed. The only thing winter related that I like is my birthday and I'd even settle putting off its celebration until warm weather, a la Queen Elizabeth, if it meant that I could avoid even one drop of freezing rain.

I worked eleven years for an electric utility and was married to a transmission lineman to boot, and I spent those years having bad weather control my life. While snow and ice would bring a day off for many people it meant for me coming in to work no matter what and don't be late and by the way, plan on working overtime. I didn't do the standard freak-out of hearing that snow was forecast and rushing to the store to stock up on milk, bread and toilet paper because I wasn't going to be home to use the milk, bread and toilet paper anyway and neither was my now ex-husband. I instead heard such forecasts and considered whether to bring to work a change of clothes or just hope that they'd let me go after a sixteen hour shift so as to not to have to pay me double-time.

One of the things I like about Germany is that people here don't seem to wet their pants over impending bad weather. It's Germany - snow and ice are gonna come. Sure, they warn you for slippery driving but there's no prediction for how many centimeters will get dumped on us and the forecasts aren't given with a sense of doom. There's no panic buying in the grocery stores that I've ever noticed - perhaps because in Germany you can buy H-Milch (for you not familiar with H-Milch it's milk that's super heated to kill bacteria and then it can be stored, unopened, at room temperature for a couple months) and you can't swing a dead cat around this country without hitting a bakery. It could snow up to your ears and you'd still be able to crawl to a bakery and get a loaf of fresh bread.

Still, when I know that snowy, icy weather is on the way, I like to be prepared. I like to make sure that I have my grocery shopping finished. No panic shopping and stocking up - just my regular weekly marketing finished and enough supplies to make meals for a week. I could still get out and shop when it's snowing but I simply don't want to. I want to stay at home and keep warm and dry. I get all homey feeling when it's lousy weather so I like to have baking supplies on hand because nothing makes you forget freezing rain faster than cookies warm from the oven. I like to have lots of movies to watch and books to read and, of course, a knitting project on needles. I get such a feeling of contentment being at home, warm and safe and dry with lots of things to keep me entertained, and knowing I don't have to set one foot outside if I don't want to.

We're supposed to get freezing rain tomorrow and I'm ready for it. And when I see the streets glazed over I'm going to snuggle on the sofa with a good book and have the memory of every time I got stuck working overtime when we'd get bad weather fade a bit more.

Bixente the iPod will be there to entertain me as well. Time to shuffle.

1. Livin' In The Future - Bruce Springsteen
2. Shambala - Three Dog Night
   
3. Back In Baby's Arms - Patsy Cline
4. Ballroom Blitz - Sweet
5. Big Casino - Jimmy Eat World
6. Cold As Ice - Foreigner (Bixente, you're such a comedian)
   
7. Our House - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (Okay, I get the idea)
   
8. I Should Have Been True - The Mavericks
9. Home - Foo Fighters (Bixente, now you're just being a smart aleck)
   
10. On The Moon - Peter Cincotti

Happy weekend, everyone.