I hesitate to post this for fear of bringing on more snow, but I think… I think… it’s over. Now, I’m not forgetting the year that we got hit with a massive, incapacitating blizzard in March, but that melted off (and flooded everything) quickly because… it was March. These blizzards we’ve had over the past two months are still hanging around to the tune of a little bit less than two feet of snow and a driveway that we still can’t use for anything other than walking, but I am hopeful. Ice is sliding off of the roof in avalanche-like quantities. Our friend Big Damn Snow Bank On The Ramp has died an ugly death. Water is pouring through the gutters. The road is totally clear. There are 54-degree days in the forecast.

That big one is the size of my leg.

Darla and Trevor were home for a few days this week and said they’ve never seen this much snow up here in 20 years, which was a huge comfort and made us feel less INSANE. They asked how we weathered the cabin fever, and all I could think to reply was “well, we’re still married.” I really have felt like that… that if we were still friends by the time winter ended I would be satisfied.

While they were here we spent a few days with Mikey’s mom so they could have the run of their own house, so Mikey could still get some school work done (Kelly and the kids were here too – full, noisy house), and so Jan could spend some time with Hazel, who has barely seen her grandmas and grandpas any more than when we lived in Canada since we’ve been stuck up on this hill so much since we moved here. It felt strange to be in civilization again. Hazel needs new sneakers for running around outside (!)… so I just went out shopping (didn’t find anything). I went to the craft store and forgot something so I just… went back the next day. Amazing.

I feel like I can breathe again. I have motivation again. I finally started five Christmas presents that I had given IOUs for… I just didn’t have the time with the move and holidays immediately after so I let myself off the hook instead of spontaneously combusting from the stress, and then when I did have the time after Christmas I was stuck in the house all the time and there was no sunshine and the thought of making five of the same, very time consuming thing made me panic a little. So… they will be March presents.

I also finally finished those pajama pants before we left for the ‘burg. Some bib-to-be-fabric that never made it, a goodwill-ed pillowcase, and an old brown tshirt of Mikey’s:

Hazel is napping. The sun is out. The house is clean. Mikey is gone. I don’t even know what to do with myself. Edit all those Etsy photos I took last week, I suppose.

Oh yeah, I ripped out this scarf. I got about a third of the way in and realized I can make the cables look way better now that I know how to do it. Plus… it has served its purpose – knitting scarves makes snow go away. Now that I see the yarn made into something I rather think it would make a very nice tiny sweater. Anyone have faith that I could actually learn how to knit a sweater? I’m not so sure.

Listening: drip, drip, drip
(I am) Reading: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (yep, I’ve now swaptree-ed almost everything she’s written)
(Hazel is) Reading: Welcome Spring (thanks Grandma & Gabe’s!)
Working on: Christmas presents for 2009 AND 2010 – only in my crafting universe does this happen; not giving up on the blue & gold blanket being done this winter; some custom necklaces

today I:

washed six loads of laundry
applied for five jobs
during four hours on the computer
got three emails
talked to two people on the phone
made one pan of cornbread.

I haven’t had problems entertaining myself since I was seven and I feel like I’m going crazy in the middle of a city with one million things to do. I just want to walk down the street and see someone I know, or hear a damn cricket at night, or something.

I just discovered that in my myspace profile I can click on my zodiac sign and get a horoscope. Your world feels pretty tightly wrapped now, but this doesn’t necessarily upset you. You are willing to live with the restraint.

Now is probably the time to start running. I have NEVER run while listening to music and I don’t own an ipod, but all of a sudden when I see people go round and round with white cords dangling from their ears, I think “how am I supposed to get back into running without an ipod?”. All I need are legs and shoes, and legs and shoes I’ve got.

But wait, tomorrow’s horoscope says this: Yesterday’s struggles continue as aggressive Mars forms an irritating quincunx with electric Uranus. …Even taking action now may not solve the problem.

Well shit.

What’s a quincunx?

3 a.m. : Taking into consideration the advice of Mr. Billy Bragg, I went to youtube and found the cat video that he so highly recommended. Is it bad that, as a cat lover, I am sitting here laughing silently and uncontrollably, watching this over and over?

I have no more Lost for a whole year. It was amazing. I cried during almost every episode. I can’t believe the writing talent behind this show… it’s not human. During the last few episodes I had to take several extended breaks to allow my blood pressure to return to normal.

- no more Lost for a whole year.
+ get to see Mario & Jenn tomorrow at the Shakespeare festival in Stratford (and discuss Lost).
+- there will be action figures this winter. I don’t know how I feel about this. Mikey will pout if I have a sawyer toy.
- bread goes bad REALLY fast in this country. This might seem silly, but it’s true.
+ but that’s probably because there are less preservatives.
+ my cousin is mailing me cheese from South Dakota.
- Hershey’s chocolate is not the same.
+ Mikey wallowing on the floor with Dorothy pinned in his arms… “STAY! you aren’t a prisoner, you’re my daughter!”
+ metal-on-metal bang announcing mail arrival.
+ it’s supposed to get warmer over the next few days.

I want to learn how to make handmade books / photo albums. Like… ones that are bound really well. Archival. I also still need glass & metal handling knowledge for some pendant ideas that have been in my brain for months. Why do I have to get a real job. Why?

Also, day 4 sprouts, plus some new babies where we’ve put part of the first batch into salads or pitas or just our mouths:


mmmmmmmm.

How is it possible that I am sitting here, and season two of Lost is sitting on my diningroom table, unopened. Just sitting there? I have such restraint! I wasn’t expecting it until the fifteenth, and when I heard a knock on the door and spied a human with a pile of boxes through my peephole my heart leapt into my throat. I opened the box and shed a few tears (I swear), and then set it down on the table, still in the shrinkwrap. I have a few things I HAVE to do before the insanity begins, and I’m not even letting myself examine the packaging. I’ve had five Etsy orders since I moved here and I’ve mailed out none of them. I’ve been in touch with the buyers so they’re expecting late delivery, but I already feel like a jerk and can’t put them off any longer. I have to package up those things to mail out, which Mikey will have to do for me tomorrow morning because I will obviously be occupied. I was also going to apply for a bunch of jobs this evening, but that can wait. I probably won’t even sleep tonight. Locke-problem first, jobs later. Mikey and I watched the first half of the 9/11 movie on ABC (is that right?) at John’s last night, and the last two hours are on tonight. We were going to go over, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to miss it. I know what happens, anyway.

Yesterday we went to the grocery store and bought tons of food. For two weeks we’ve just gotten a few things as we needed them (two decent grocery stores within thirty seconds of us), but yesterday was The Grocery Shopping Trip. This particular store had vertical poles spaced evenly around their entrance so you can’t take your shopping cart to your car. The spots right by the entrance are designated for parking and loading up your purchases. Strange. So anyway, this elderly woman and myself were waiting for the husbands to get the cars, and she eyed my cart and chuckled and said, “well you certainly did a good job.” I mentioned that we’d just moved here and had to stock up. She asked where from, and I said the states.

“Oh really! My mother was born in West Virginia. Do you know where that is? In a little coal mining town outside of Morgantown. My grandfather owned the company store. She was married there… had to wait for the circuit rabbi to come through town. Then she relocated to Pittsburgh. I was born in Detroit.”

Of course I was on the verge of tears and could barely get the words “I’m from West Virginia” out of my mouth. Then I tried to breathe and told her that my mom was born in Detroit, and she clapped her hands and said, “well we might find that we’re related before these men get back!!” I want this to happen a lot.

Also….

My baby started school today. Don’t you just want to pinch his cheeks?

Our phone is hooked up now. I sent out a mass email that Mikey will forward on to his contacts, and if that doesn’t cover you let me know if you’d like our number.

I can’t believe season two of Lost is right… over… there….

Today Mikey left in the morning, and I spent the rest of the day waiting for strange men to show up at my apartment. In the morning two guys delivered all of our Ikea purchases and yelled at me in broken english about how there’s no building number on our building (yes there is), and then the phone man came and complained about how bad parking is (I know, I live here), and then the pizza guy made me come down and meet him in the lobby instead of going up the elevator and bringing my food to my door.

I put together one bookcase and had some kind of weird heat stroke from sitting in the sunlight and hammering things together (or I’m just a baby), so I laid on the couch for a couple hours and watched the documentary about the national spelling bee that I love. When Mikey came home we put together the other three bookcases and two CD towers, and then spent the evening shelving books and CDs. While all of this was going on, I was watching the last three episodes of season one of Lost. I’m freaking out all over again.

Tomorrow after we go eat lots of yummy veggie food on the harbour, I will put together our table and stain it, and then put together the chairs. Then I will prop my sewing table top against the wall and wish for legs. They’re out of legs for a couple of weeks, and they were out of the dressers we want. At some point next week we have to go back again and get dressers and then put those together. And then we should be all done. And I will be so happy.

Toy shelf. Jesus, Mary, George Bush, GI Joes, Star Wars, penguins, and a bookworm.

I miss Emmalee.

Yesterday I rode in an elevator with Sue-Ellen Mishke. I guess she didn’t actually look like her, but she was certainly wearing her bra as an item of clothing. I almost died… I had to look away…. like staring into the sun…. just get a taste of it and look away!

I wanted Mary or Janet or Andy or Angie or my father in law or anyone who would barely be able to suppress laughter if I turned to them and whispered, “your honor, the defense requests that Ms. Mishke put on her bra!”

I’m seriously not making fun of someone for wearing a bra OVER a camisole… seriously. Go for it. She looked good. But the Seinfeldesque nature………. oh god. I want things like this to happen to me all the time so I can add more things to this “seinfeld moments” category in my blog.

Today is really really dreary, and I’ve got nowhere to watch WVU kill Marshall. I kind of wish I was just there, sitting with my brother on one side of me and Jenn bates in her coonskin cap on the other side. And then when we win, Mary and I would walk around and look at all of the fires.

But I’ll just watch Seinfeld reruns all day. Alas, I only have the first four seasons on DVD (all of my tapes are gone forever) and so I cannot relive The Caddy.

Listening: Denison Witmer : Recovered
Reading: Dominion by Matthew Scully
Wishing for: five and six

Most of you folks probably have the same question as Emmalee: HOW ARE YOU HOW ARE THE CATS HOW IS CANADA??!!@!@@!?????

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1.] I am the sort of person who goes barefoot when at all possible – at work, at home, in the car, in the grass, on pavement and and gravel that is not too hot. I would pretty much go barefoot anywhere except in the alleys of Morgantown or in the Ohio river. Because of this, I ALWAYS think that if someone has shoes on, it means they are getting ready to go somewhere. By this rule, Andy is always getting ready to go somewhere. I don’t even realize this… he’ll be stretched out on the couch watching tv and part of my brain is thinking “where is he going?”. I can’t make it stop.

2.] Yesterday I realized what is possibly the most exciting part of the beginning of Mikey’s phd quest: I get to help him buy school supplies. He has very good taste in pens, but there’s an entire office supply world out there, and I know nothing of his preferences. Small or large notecards? What colors of highlighters? Does he even use highlighters? Does he red-pen things? Spiral notebooks or legal pads? Does he want a backpack, which would be better for his thirty year old spine, or is he just going to carry everything in his usual messenger bag? Does he want an adorable mini-recorder to record lectures? He knows that I have this obsession. One day he sent me a link to a virtual stapler. I can’t wait to send him off to his first day of class with all of his fresh paper and a thermos of coffee. Should I make him pose with his GI Joe lunchbox? Yes, yes I should.

3.] I was looking at drawer pulls online just before, because there is some chest-of-drawer-refinishing in the near future. My favorite ones (sculpted olive branches) cost FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT DOLLARS. For a five drawer dresser, two pulls each, the pulls would be worth about as much as my car.

4.] Tomorrow is my last day of office-wenching. I’m going to have a lot of free time on my hands for the next four weeks unless the temp agency has a really, really short term assignment available.

5.] Most importantly >>>> TOMORROW: Cobra (my baby, et. al.), Librarians (my boys), and Scale Model (Neill is the only one I know, and I sure love him) at 123 Pleasant Street. Come dance and sweat for five dollars at ten pm in our dirty, beloved bar. Everyone who’s usually there will be there, except for the ones going to see Ryan Adams instead (excusable), and the ones who moved to New York (I guess this was a good decision). Even Mandi and Ethan are coming to town for this.

Listening: Pink Floyd : Dark Side of the Moon
Reading: The Most Dangerous Alliance in the World

Some baptists stole one of my windshield wipers today.

I motored to work this morning with two intact wipers, and when I left – in the middle of nowhere along a highway – there was a baptist church flyer where my driver’s side blade should have been.

Even if they didn’t steal it, even if they accidentally broke it off and just threw it across the highway or something, you’d think they would have reconsidered leaving evidence of their identities.

Repent, sinners. You owe me four dollars.

Hand painted wooden sign by the side of Rt. 2, at the end of a gravel drive, messy white paint, no arrow:

water
6:30

Who wants to go? I don’t know what this means, but I want to find out.

My job is fabulous. I spent the whole day xeroxing, sorting, and filing pieces of paper. The whole day. With people that I know, and some that I don’t but already like anyway. Everyone felt very sorry for me, but they don’t know the hell that I have endured over the past three years at Panera Bread. Compared to those demanding, horrid, demonic coffee addicts that I had to deal with on a daily basis, one hundred and forty two papercuts are heaven.