Work Winter And Tuesday Night

Tuesday has been a better day.  My project pile is overflowing and I will be working odd hours around the pain med to get this stuff done before Christmas.  It is the first day of winter, but I think it started six weeks ago when summer abruptly ended.  Maybe I have my dates mixed up.  Numbing cold and wind, barren landscape in days stacked into weeks and I loose track of time.  Of course I am not complaining.  The colder the better in the winter and our service and parts business goes through the roof, and unit sales improve as well.  Summer extreme heat and humidity also benefits us.  So in part my team makes a living off of weather extremes, freeze and break or burn up.  Vanessa will testify I embrace the weather.  Paul taught me the value of layers in my first visit to his Oregon home.  A lesson I brought home with me. 

For me winter wear includes basic underwear, T shirt and long underwear or pajama bottoms and long sleeve pullover or T up top.  Over this my pants or top layer and sweater or bulky shirt and my outfit is complete.  This is the first hear I have incorporated pajamas as a layer.  I have no idea why this never occurred to me before this year.  Wonderful idea and perfect for a insulating layer. 

I spend some outside time each day with Tucker, the outside alpha cat.  She is real affectionate when it is cold or wet.  I have a condo set up for her in the men’s room and service her pan which her highness periodically chooses to use.    The outside time is a time of meditation and Tucker is a warming influence.

The house is filled with the scents of Christmas goodies cooking.  Since we have been married each year Vanessa has made special baskets for Dan and for the past many years Gerald including her famous black banana bread, marshmallow fudge, peanut brittle, and other goodies.  Her chocolate chip zucchini cup cakes are real foolers of men who refuse to eat anything out of the garden that is vaguely phallic in shape. 

Sadly this task which in the past always had some element of joy, even if she was complaining or hollering at some cooking issue, seems to be a difficult chore for her this year.  She goes about her business efficiently and skillfully.  There is no Christmas music playing and she is not happy.  Around 9p she came in, I of course in my rocker, declared that was done and peacefully settled in with Snickers.  She stays out with me every night until around 2 am usually and retires.  I am yet to be able to sleep horizontal for more than an hour or so which I generally reserve for the hour before she awakes.   

The alter to the pagan snowmen stayed in the Rubbermaid this year.  We are conservatively decorated.  The tree is beautiful and artfully done by Vanessa but wrapped empty shoe boxes set underneath.  ‘We’ elected to forgo gifts this year but did each get a new pair of shoes for the gym.  The ‘we’ is the animal, which in one year has stressed our finances to the max and drained most of our ready reserves.  Among my prayers to the Lord is when it comes time to take me let the market be hovering at 15000 or better for my Vanessa’s sake.
I cannot say I am contributing to the spirit.  I have not dug out the Christmas Music and put it on somewhere in the house.  I did not put the outside lighting up, which only amounts to a line along the gutter but never the less was Christmas celebrated in a little way.  All those years I dreaded Christmas, seeing it as more pressure than pleasure have come back to haunt me.  Physically I could do a lot more, but getting into the frame of mind to do it is an ongoing work in process.

I cried tonight, alone and briefly.