various details of a day (and night)

Sleeping Arrangements

Evening. Ed retires upstairs early. I hear him wheezing and coughing and I think -- this does not sound good. I go upstairs to join him. Isis is sprawled out on my side of the bed. I look at the two of them, take my pillow and say -- I'm sleeping on the couch.

Ed feels bad for chasing me off like that and so he comes downstairs, spreads a quilt and goes to sleep on the floor next to the couch.

So Isis has laid claim to the bed?

No. Within minutes, Isis comes down. Okay, so now the three of us are sleeping downstairs in various ridiculous arrangements. Not for long. Isis climbs up on top of me on the couch and demands a thorough petting job. In the alternative, he meows. I pet him. He settles in on top of me and purrs loudly. I'm happy he's content, but find the arrangement suboptimal.

I suggest to Ed we try the upstairs again. There, we have a more or less restful few hours. I say more or less because, though Ed has stopped honking and coughing, I have begun heavy duty sniffling. And Isis finds opportunities to demand a face rub now and then.

And so begins my Spring Semester of teaching: a runny nose, drooping eyelids and two classes to teach on this day.


Photos

It seems unlikely that I will come across stellar photographing opportunities. So when I look outside a few minutes after the sun cracks the horizon, I am delighted to see pnk tones on the patches of snow outside. That'll do it. I throw on a jacket on skimpy sleeping attire to take one or two pics.





Understand: it is a wretchedly cold day. Below 0 F. I'm thinking -- it is so cold that my sniffles have stopped their downward journey. I shocked them into momentary silence.

To be released again when I go inside. But outside, now, in these pretty minutes of early morning, the world looks sweet and kind.





With those two lovely morning views I am reminded how much I love living at the farmhouse. (The warm farmhouse.) Rare is the day that something outside doesn't look positively ravishing to me.





Hero of the Day

Watching me bundle up to high heaven (it's at least a ten minute trot from the parking ramp to my office) and perhaps remembering my restless night, Ed offers to take me in and pick me up. Wonderful news!

And now I am hot. Because if you bundle up for - 20 wind chills, you're not appropriately dressed for a ride in a decently heated car. Or maybe it's the sniffles thing: sniffles often make me feel hot and bothered. Anyway, I have beautiful door to door service.

Which means Ed is there to pick me up at the end of the day. And we drive to Paul's Cafe and we go inside (first visit in 2013!) and take a few minutes to unwind.

Life is good again.