the day like this

I should be asleep!

This day was more productive than it started out looking like it would be. I felt like crap this morning and was tempted to go back to bed after I dropped the fellas off. The couch looked so warm and cozy. So I did lay down for a while. But I was doing laundry at the time. The parts where your machines do it all for you but you're still "doing something" therefore may possibly be justified in napping because so much work is being done meanwhile.
The thing is, this is a cold climate, the temptation is to lay there and let the day pass because the terrible grey sky is never going to be anything but the terrible grey sky. The wind will continue to blow, the trees will thrash their ice coated limbs. The ice will continue to shatter down, no longer a fascination because this is day three. I have gotten over "wow, all the ice on the trees falls off." The ice crashes to the ground, or onto the roof of my van as the temperatures rise slightly. The limbs bend and the ice snaps, sounding all at the same time like distant rifleshot and sudden isolated hailstorms.
The other thing is, being in a cold climate, where the elements will at any moment turn on me, I need to get things done while the getting is good. Especially me, a non-TV-watching creature. A person with no interest in watching the evening weather needs to be aware of the weather in real time. The grey sky doesn't give away any secrets. There are no clouds these days, the uniform covering of whatever that is out there does not reveal the intent to snow or rain or freeze-fog. Or whatever that is out there.

I first figured out my problem with the photo I wished to frame for the student show. I guess I had it cropped non-5x7. So once I re-cropped it, it printed out just fine and fit the mat I had for the frame. Beautiful. I wonder if anyone else will appreciate the style and grace with which my 8 year old son jousts with a bubble wand.
I wrapped the photos up in their frames with the sports section and set off to campus. I dropped off my artwork and had a one-sided discussion about Paul Soldner with the department head. I asked some off-hand question about the coating of a ceramic wall hanging thing and he began to explain on a molecular level the difference between the low-fire glazes used there, and the chemicals in the glazes for copper raku I used to fire.

Making my way to the school nurse, I explained that NLU sucks ass and didn't keep immunization records for anybody who graduated before the year after I graduated. I have yet to exhaust my resources though, so I need now to write the parish health unit. She wants to give me an MMR shot but I don't want to spend the money. Especially after the fabulously pathetic excuse for health insurance I have seems more than willing to refuse to cover the eighthundredsomethingdollar heart monitor test I had in October. I make too much (?) to qualify for medicaid, I learned that recently.

I got all that done and came home. I vaccuumed. Vacuumeneded? However that's spelled that's what I accomplished all over the floor. I threw some stuff in the laundry. I did something else. Oh then I started to paint. I did some painting, nearly finished and then someboy called and said "Um, Mom, I missed the bus" - sure you did kid, that's great. So I dropped my brush into the water and made my way on over to his school to pick his little booty up, because no, son, you are not going to walk home in this weather. The trees will drop ice grenades upon your unprotected scalp. Driving back it seemed they threw down especially to try and hit my van. They were good yesterday but today they seem to have grown tired of holding up all that ice. I wondered if the radiant heat from the engine of the car transmitted up to the branches and melted the straw on the camels back, causing the ice to fall as I drove underneath.

I didn't blog about how wonderous this was yesterday. Yesterday I was in a better mood, not yet so sore from the ice chopping extravaganza. Yesterday I died about three times wishing for my camera because the trees in front of the school were so poetic. They were so full color black and white. The sky was the most perfect grey and the branches were wet black and the ice was white like reflecting muted mirrors of the snow. They looked like bizarre calligraphic bonzai. But no camera. I was forced to stand there and watch as the branches shed their icy skins with no documentary made.

Then my oldest appeared and confessed he fell in the ice on the way from the bus. He is so funny. He makes the most embarassing revelations seem like humor. The ice covered snow in the schoolyard was fascinating to us. (As is the stuff in my front yard. It makes me want to slide around on my belly on it, like a penguin.) My oldest is a tall skinny young man and he threw himself down into it. The depth is several feet, the top coating is about a quarter inch of ice, and below it is soft and snowy goodness. I was thinking snow-angel but his impression looked more like a reverse bas-relief of a murder scene chalk outline.

Yeah well that was yesterday. Today I felt better after I took some Aleve. That boy made some chocochip cookies, most of which I plan to send down to the boys downstairs. They are most deserving of some cookies.

Ugh it is too late to further elaborate upon this undeserving day. Tomorrow will not be better. It is raining already tonight.