It was so unbelievably cold today. I forget when I am walking in a beautiful spring breeze, with the sound of birds chirping and dragon flies making kamikaze dives at my head, while my toes dance among the grass and dandelions that sometimes, it gets this cold here. Blech.
Getting my boys ready for school today took far longer than I remember it taking before and they are older now. I would have thought it would get easier once everyone was out of diapers and had a fully developed set of fine motor skills. And yet, I find that I am still putting boots on, tightening mittens, searching for hats, zipping zippers and making sure that everyone is going to have as little exposed skin as possible.
And add to that, it's Monday. If you have read my blog with any regularity, you will recall that Mondays are Jury Duty day and it means that county employees must park in Timbuktu or today, Iceland and hike to work. And since I now have a laptop computer that I must take home every night and bring back every morning, this compounds the number of burdens I must carry. So today, I walked from Iceland to my office carrying my laptop bag, my purse, a paper bag full of cookies and a box of Kleenex (because I have caught a cold over the weekend). My shoulders are hunched over so that I can tuck my ears into the folds of my hood on my wool coat. I have two pairs of gloves on my hands. I look like a big blue Emperor penguin shuffling across the frozen tundra with my egg on my feet, trying to keep it from dropping on the ice but in this case, I am trying to reach the door before 9 am without dropping anything or slipping upon my keister in front of the construction crew (and considering how cold it is and how I am sure they could use a good laugh, I would prefer that it would not be I who provided the morning guffaw). I am supposed to be at work by 8:30 but since the boys were non-cooperative and the roads were slippery, I adjusted my goal.
Winter is the great equalizer. Only on the cover of a magazine can a woman look polished and sophisticated in her winter wear. And that is because she is not actually standing outside when it is 14 Brrrr-low with a windchill of -28 and the threat of impending frostbite on her exposed skin, particularly, it would seem, upon her cleavage. Clearly, she has never been to Minnesota or she would know that we Minnesota women do not expose our cleavage. We barely show our chins in the winter. Occasionally, you might see an eye brow peeking out from under a hat or the tip of a nose from the top of the scarf we have fashionably swaddled around our necks in a noose-like fashion.
I dare say, my winter attire nor my goal for winter attire is ever to be "cute". Warm, yes. Functional, absolutely. Matching and coordinating, well, on a good day, sure. But at my house, if you can find two mittens that fit the correct hand then God-speed and you are out the door and I really don't care if one is purple and one is green or belongs to your sister and makes you look like a girl, you will be warm and you will live to see the frozen sun rise in the morning, so quit complaining while I tie this noose...errrr...scarf around your neck and kiss the tip of your nose before you go to school!
As I shiver away, and chip off the icicles that have formed beneath my nose, I remind myself that Minnesota has many wonderful qualities. Winter is just not one of our best. And yet, for some reason, I am willing to forgive the state every year and I stay. Maybe that is why God gave us the brains enough to invent hot cocoa and marshmallows. And don't forget the warm socks. I also really, really like my fireplace. Yup. Maybe that is why I like Minnesota. It's all the excuses I get for bundling up, staying inside, hanging out by the fire with a warm kid on my lap and watching movies in semi hibernation until the spring thaw.
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