In Winter's Icy Grasp

I believe that we're in the absolute pit of winter and there's no where to go from here but up. The weather is gray with grayer, windier, wetter weather on the way. Everyone is listless and bored and on the verge of putting on their grouchy pants. Little motivates us and procrastination is threatening to derail any progress we may attempt on anything we need to do.

I don't know about y'all but I could use some fun and stuff that simply makes me feel better. Or at least thinking about good stuff that makes me feel less in the grip of winter.

• I'm reading a good book right now - The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen. It's a novel set in Washington state (Do you do that too? Always add the "state" when referring to Washington to make sure people don't think you mean DC? Maybe I always do it because I used to live outside of DC and if you said just Washington people knew you meant DC.) during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. A lot of parallels can be drawn between that time in history and now and the author intends for us to see those parallels - they can be a little heavy handed. I'm enjoying it because I tend to really like historical novels.
  
  
• On Sunday I'll be going to Berlin to see my friend Elaine. I find myself sweating over what to wear, which seems ridiculous because of all my friends from childhood, Elaine was probably one of the least interested in being thought of as fashionable. She wore was suited her and that was one of the things I liked about her. Elaine wasn't much of a blind trend follower. I, on the other hand, have been known to say "Baaaaa!" a little too often.
  
  
• Know what else I'm sweating? What knitting project to take with me on the train. I will be on a new project by then and I want it to be a project that has a pattern repeat that's easy to memorize so I don't have to drag around the pattern with me.
  
  
• I miss babies. I see babies on the street all the time but they're not babies I know. I'm at that point in life where no one I know has kids that are babies and their own kids are too young to have babies on their own. I suppose when you reach your forties you have a baby deficit that lasts until you and your contemporaries hit your fifties. I miss giggling with babies though. They're so easy to amuse and their heads smell good.
  
  
• I'm glad I'm seeing Elaine on Sunday because that means we can go out to lunch. Few things cheer me up like going out to lunch. It's not so much the eating part, but the being in a restaurant and having someone wait on you. It feels a little more luxurious to have someone wait on you in the middle of the day. In the evening it seems more expected but taking time in the middle of the day to go out to lunch feels more - well, decadent isn't quite the right word. It seems more leisurely. And going to lunch with girlfriends makes me think of classic movies where ladies did such things. It just seems so girly to have lunch with friends and talk. It always cheers me up to go out to lunch with a girlfriend or two.
  
  
• I'm thinking that two of the greatest feelings a kid can wake up with is waking up and knowing it's their birthday and waking up and seeing that it's snowed a foot outside and school will be canceled.
  
  
• I'd love to go to a flower show. Something held in a place that's warm and a bit steamy and filled with color. That's one of the things that drives me crazy about winter - the utter lack of color.
  
  
• Red velvet cake and a big glass of icy cold milk. That's all.