![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maeve66It's Christmas Eve in Evanston. There are fat, heavy flakes falling steadily, and a foot of snow on the ground already. For so many years I lamented that I would come back for Xmas from Oakland, and it would be wet and drab and green. Well, brown, largely. But this Xmas is definitely the picturebook variety.
We're scaling back materialistic excess this year, or trying to. We'll see how that goes, I guess. Hm. I haven't even gotten a present for my mom yet, who is usually the easiest person in the world to find something for, as we share similar tastes in most areas. And given the weather, I am reluctant to go more than one or two places to acquire said gift.
So -- I wrote this on FB, in the condensed one-line micro-blogging way that things seem to be boiling down to (not that I like that form of brief expression) -- on Saturday night in Lake Geneva, as I was helping Mary get the car out of the snow banks filling their driveway up there, falling three times in the process, in my inadequate, cheap gloves and gym shoes, I came as close as I ever have to getting literal frostbite on my fingers. Fucking crazy. It was very, very cold -- about 10 below, before windchill is factored in -- and the snow was really dry, and powdery. When the gloves fell off and my hands plunged into snow, it didn't feel like much, because it wasn't heavy and wet, which I am more used to. But ten minutes later of pushing and falling some more, oh, hells yeah it felt SO PAINFUL. My fingers all seemed three times their normal size and I couldn't feel anything very well. At that point I got worried about frostbite and went inside, tucking my hands in my armpits, remembering that as much as I wanted to, running hot water over them was not a good idea. They hurt all night, and the next morning the pads of the fingers on my right hand were all red and looked, and felt, like I'd burned them on the stove. It's slowly fading -- much better today.
Maybe I will reluctantly concede that California "winters" are not a bad thing.
We're scaling back materialistic excess this year, or trying to. We'll see how that goes, I guess. Hm. I haven't even gotten a present for my mom yet, who is usually the easiest person in the world to find something for, as we share similar tastes in most areas. And given the weather, I am reluctant to go more than one or two places to acquire said gift.
So -- I wrote this on FB, in the condensed one-line micro-blogging way that things seem to be boiling down to (not that I like that form of brief expression) -- on Saturday night in Lake Geneva, as I was helping Mary get the car out of the snow banks filling their driveway up there, falling three times in the process, in my inadequate, cheap gloves and gym shoes, I came as close as I ever have to getting literal frostbite on my fingers. Fucking crazy. It was very, very cold -- about 10 below, before windchill is factored in -- and the snow was really dry, and powdery. When the gloves fell off and my hands plunged into snow, it didn't feel like much, because it wasn't heavy and wet, which I am more used to. But ten minutes later of pushing and falling some more, oh, hells yeah it felt SO PAINFUL. My fingers all seemed three times their normal size and I couldn't feel anything very well. At that point I got worried about frostbite and went inside, tucking my hands in my armpits, remembering that as much as I wanted to, running hot water over them was not a good idea. They hurt all night, and the next morning the pads of the fingers on my right hand were all red and looked, and felt, like I'd burned them on the stove. It's slowly fading -- much better today.
Maybe I will reluctantly concede that California "winters" are not a bad thing.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-12-26 05:55 am (UTC)When I was in Sacramento for Thanksgiving, I kept remarking that I had forgotten that the grass turns green again after it rains a few times. If you can stand the rain and fog, California winters are really not that bad.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-26 05:27 pm (UTC)But I am forced to admit after eleven years that I am just as happy not to be digging out cars and scraping windshields every damn day.