It snowed and snowed and snowed last night, wild whirling white flakes for hours. Already at 10:00 p.m., Anders’ previous shoveling efforts were completely undone and recovered with several inches of perfect powder. This morning the damage looks to be about 5-6 inches. Snow is a constant wonder. Every time it’s equally amazing. Nothing frozen solid, despite the -11 temperature. Both kids took their sleds to school. Martin’s class (and the entire school of classes above him) are going to Krankesjön (or Cranky Lake, as I like to translate it) to iceskate and sled and grill hotdogs this morning. They have the perfect, the ultimate, the quintessential winter day for it. The sun came up at 8:14 a.m. in a blaze of glory, reminding everyone and sundry that it really IS a ball of fire, and everything it touched reflected back in admiration.
Mimi Smartypants unwittedly added to my semi-depression today by reminding me of the Red Lion Pub in Chicago, where many good times were had in my past. And their sausage rolls and chutney were SO good and totally put the lie to the notion that all English food is crap. So very very good. sigh.
I spent about an hour yesterday evening curled in a ball on the bed in my darkened bedroom, wallowing in self-pity about this stupid work move, and it helped. A little bit. I feel like I’m being a huge baby about this, but it FUCKING SUCKS. I discovered years ago that the fastest way out of this sort of depression is to wallow in it until your sense of the ridiculous takes over: long hot candlelit baths with Barry Manilow playing helps a lot, but I don’t have any BM and I’m more of a shower kind of girl and it’s hard to take a bath in peace when you have kids because they want to get in with you and play with the Finding Nemo squirty fish. So the wallow in the darkened bedroom had to do.
Then I got up and edited a boatload of pictures and dealt with another poetry submission (!) for Mosaic Minds and went to bed and read more of Mrs. Dalloway. I’m enjoying it but I’m pretty sure I’d enjoy it more if I were in a different frame of mind. Virginia Woolf’s writing is wonderful, and like one big poem of the most gorgeous language choices, but enough with the 8-mile long sentences already, how many commas are ALLOWED in one sentence, for heaven’s sake?! I think it would have been better if I had read her in college. Then again, maybe not. Maybe it’s just as well.
cap_killer made me laugh this morning, reminding me of one of our college canoe trips. We used to plan weekends on the Manistee River in Michigan and they were very well-attended canoeing parties that went from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning. The first time I took Anders with me on one, we drove up in his Porsche. The ultimate camping vehicle, no? Anyway, long before that, during one of these canoe debauches, it rained and rained and rained. It rained so hard that the campsite was a sea of mud and we were in danger of washing away. Everything was wet and everyone was miserable, and finally we gave up and packed up the wet tents and wet stuff and wet food and set off in search of a hotel. I think we had several cars in a convoy driving through the downpour, in search of a hotel. They were all full. Every one we stopped at had the same story: sorry, full of campers already. After several of these rejections, Julie wailed, “It’s just like the inn and little baby whats-his-name!!” 🙂
Thank God, it’s not just me: Holy Crap, What a Bad Day from One Good Thing
Funny, and sadly, true: A Day in Marketing from Geese Aplenty