Randomly Frigid

I would just like to say...Brrrrrrrrr!

We don't often have snow here, but the icy weather has made it this far south to wreak havoc on my fashion sense. I had just put away my sweaters, and retrieved my Capri pants. I even wore my maxi dress on Friday, because I was feeling saucy. Yesterday I wore random warm stuff that I pulled from the closet. A khaki sweater, a mauve scarf from the bag marked for Goodwill, among other stuff. I looked fashionably homeless, but I didn't care. All I cared about was not freezing. I think that the real question here is that I get cold at all. Whales are covered in blubber so they don't freeze. I have blubber...but I still get cold! Also, why do only bears get to sleep all winter and lose weight?  

He's only five, and already he wants the keys to the car!  Lucky for me, his feet don't reach the pedals yet.  We have some old steering columns lying about--the ones that go with a gaming console.  Larry had to have them, and he played with them once...then he was done.   Now they are gathering dust, and should be put to better use, like as a toy for a rambunctious five year old.  

I have not heard from my favorite "church" recently.  The guys who invited me and more than 700 of my close, personal friends to sit and talk about sex.  I wonder if they ever explained how to have sex done God's way, as they advertised?  If so, Easter services would likely be worth the cost of a Sunday hat, I think.

We had the boy's first soccer game on Saturday.  Remember the movie The Incredibles?  At the end, when the family is yelling at their son Dash as he competes in a track race, and they're yelling at him to slow it down and come in second.  Remember that?  That's how good Zane's team was playing.  It seemed as if every time they looked at the ball they were scoring and I started rooting for the other team secretly. I can't help but root for the underdog.  .

Friday night Larry watched the USA team play Costa Rica in a blinding snow storm for a World Cup match.  For those who don't know a thing about soccer, the World Cup is the Super Bowl, World Series, and Stanley Cup rolled into one. It's an entire year of March Madness. If you win, you're the champion of the entire planet. That's pretty darn awesome if you think about it.  Anyway, World Cup matches are gold for the countries that win them, and the USA team did not make it last time, so they're really pushing themselves.  Never mind that they played in a raging blizzard Friday.  They won the game.  Costa Rica, who probably has never played in snow before, is appealing on account of they didn't know it would be that cold.  Maybe when the refs review the footage of the blizzard, they'll see a couple of red card maneuvers that Costa Rica threw out there.  Can they retroactively give out red cards? If so, I know a few people who deserve them.

Zane gets to have an egg hunt at his school on Thursday.  We were asked to each bring 12 eggs filled with candy, so I did.  The boy will be hopped up on candy Thursday night.  Yay.  Good thing that we have Good Friday off!  If the weather doesn't improve,  I intend to hibernate. 

Go see Stacy over at Stacy Uncorked  NOW!! She is the awesome! Plus she is probably cold and needs the warmth!

Colder Than Space

I get cold sometimes.

It usually happens at night. I'll wake up and it will hit me almost like a seizure.

Have you ever been so cold that if you moved at all, you would break out in a shivering so severe that it would post as a seismic event? Have you ever shivered so hard that you couldn't even move to get under the covers? Have you ever felt as though every single muscle in your body contracted all at once, so hard that it makes your head hurt?

I get cold like that. It really feels like my core temperature has dropped; my chest feels encased in ice. If I manage to get a little warm, the shivering just goes nuts, to wear I am surprised that I haven't broken all of my teeth with chattering.

My husband doesn't understand. He wouldn't. He's the guy who wore shorts and a t-shirt to visit a glacier. He's doesn't even own a coat! Is there some kind of rule that says that cold-natured people have to marry warm-natured ones? I admit that when I am locked in my little cell of Antarctic cold, I have called him some names. At that moment, he has what I want, which is warmth. I may be forgiven for thinking mean thoughts about someone who is nice and toasty in those moments, especially since I am so frozen that I can't even move close enough to take advantage of that warmth.

I am no stranger to cold weather. I've lived in the North. I've been camping in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. I've shoveled snow, and I've tried to push my car through the snow. I know how to dress warmly, with the mittens and the long underwear.

But this is South Texas. Even in a "harsh" winter, it rarely gets below freezing. Even if the temperature falls that low, it's only for a day or two. It may be said that I have lost my winterizing abilities over the years. This presents me with a dilemma.

I don't want to wear a coat or sweater all the time, because most of the time I am not cold at all. If I wear flannel jammies*, and get under the covers, then I am SWELTERING, and that's no good. I've tried having a robe or blanket at the foot of the bed, but often I am too rigid to get it.

How do I prepare for spontaneous moments of freezitude, then?

What I need is some sort of science-fiction pajamas. These jammies need to be comfortable, but they need to be able to monitor body temperature. They need to be able to warm up if I get cold, or chill a little if I get too hot. These jammies could monitor my heart rate and all my other vital signs while I am asleep. Someone out there could monitor this information, and send the information to my doctor.

I'm describing the suit that astronauts wear into space, I just realized.

Dang. Those suits are way out of my price range!

It's just as well. I don't think that I could sleep with that helmet thing on.




*I just like the word 'jammies'. It's a comforting sort of word.