You can’t go out wearing that!

Rain, rain, rain and more rain. And after that, it’ll probably start raining again. My house is right next to a great big parking lot. Nobody ever uses it, so the clever politicians decided that there’s no point in maintaining it anymore, and it’s since been reduced to a collection of very impressive cracks and holes.

Before it started raining, it snowed for a while. Then the rain turned the snow into ice and the parking lot into a skating range, basically. A skating range with large pools built into it. As I walked across it to get to the bus stop, I tried my very best not to slip’n slide directly into one of them. I haven’t bathed in a puddle since I was a kid, and I can’t quite remember what it was about getting my pants full of muddy water that was so hysterically funny.

The morning bus was bursting with teenagers on their way to school, as usual. I don’t get that trend where guys wear pants that only cover the bottom half of their ass. And I really don’t understand wearing half-ass pants with white underwear in the rain, especially if you’re planning on doing a lot of bending over. I’m not interested in looking at either one of these guys' bums for at least another ten years, and probably not even then.

That’s not to say that I don’t have some strange things sitting in my closet, also. I have this huge belt, for instance. It’s got a bunch of gold plates on it. Someone gave it to me as a present once, and I’ve never worn it, because every time I look at it, all I can think is “heavyweight champion of the world.”

Then there was that period in the mid nineties, when I had the animal print outfits and ridiculous plateau shoes. Not to mention men’s shirts and big hats.

I’m hoping that in another ten years, I’ll be able to look back on myself without blushing from shame.

Hat pic by brndnprkns for www.Flickr.com

The snow and I

Saturday was the first day of snow this year. I was standing in the kitchen early in the morning, when I glanced out of the window, and say huge, white snowflakes zigzagging down from the sky.

For a few seconds, I just stood there and stared at it, in disbelief. However late in the year the snow decides to turn up, I always react with amazement. And then the bubbles start. From the bottom of my tummy, at first, then they travel upwards, until they reach my brain where they promptly ring the snowbell. “Snow!” my brain shouts. “Snow, snow, snowsnowsnowsnowsnow!!!”

Once all that is done, I have to run out into the yard, so that I can catch flakes with my tongue. I even caught a few with my eyeballs, actually. Having a snowflake melt on your eyeball, is a very strange sensation, by the way. I also took the dog for a long walk. Before I went, I considered bringing an umbrella, but decided against it. You see, although the ultimate outcome of walking in the snow might be the same as walking in the rain (wet), the process is completely different. Therefore, I decided that I didn’t need the umbrella.

On the first snowday, I always get lots of stuff done. I don’t know why. I think time works differently when everything is covered with snow. And everything goes completely quiet. Snowquiet is like lots of quiets stacked on top of each other.

I wrote lots and spent the rest of the day in a comfy chair with my aforementioned strawberry milk and a book. Every now and then, I’d glance out the window, the bubbles would rise upwards again, ringing the snowbell, and my brain would go “snowsnowsnowsnowsnow!!!”

If it keeps on snowing, this state of mind usually last for about a week. After that first seven day period, it starts to look as if I might have to move the stuff around. I then stop referring to the snow as “the snow” and start referring to it as “the crap”. Also, the ultimate outcome of being out in the snow (wet) becomes much more important than the process.

My general feeling of grumpiness will continue to grow until it’s almost Christmas, at which point it will be replaced with more bubbles and an almost frightening enthusiasm for anything Christmasish. This also lasts for about a week. Afterwards, we’re back to general grumpiness until the snow (now referred to as “the crap”) starts to melt.

And there you have it – the next six months of my life, pretty much mapped out.

Pic by Iguana Jo for www.flickr.com

The strawberry demon

It all started on Thursday, really. At the store. I was hungry, and you shouldn’t shop for groceries when you’re hungry, I’m completely aware of that, but it fitted into my schedule so perfectly. The store is right across the street from the station, where my buss stops. Otherwise, I’d have to go to the marked in Hellhole, which is all the way on the other side of the river. Granted, it’s not far, and it’s not as if I’d have to swim across, or anything, but still… It would have been Out Of My Way. That’s right: with capital letters.

So there I was, drifting up and down between the isles, with my stomach making all sorts of suggestions about what I should put in my little, blue basket. Most of which, I ignored.

All of a sudden, something caught my eye. It wasn’t prominently placed in any way, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that it was bright pink and placed right in between several large bags of white stuff, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all.

It was strawberry milk powder.

Pensive, I picked it up. After having looked at it for a while, studied both sides of the packet and weighed it in my hand, I put it in my shopping basket along with the eggs, bread and a carton of milk.

Half and hour later I was home, feeling completely exhausted. It had already started to get dark outside. Wanting to relax, I stuck a DVD into the machine and made myself a tall glass of strawberry milk. It was pink, and although I’m not a huge fan of pink, it looked nice. And it tasted nice. And then I drank more. And more. And by Friday night, the milk was gone… But there was still more powder left. Lots of it. Potential strawberry goodness just waiting to be completed.

On Saturday, it started to snow. “I don’t want to go to the store today,” I though. After all, the only thing that I was out of, was milk. But at the same time, there was a little, nagging voice inside my head. That voice wanted more of the strawberry stuff. Eventually, I gave in. By then, the snowflakes from earlier that morning, had grown and were now more balls then they were flakes.

I put on boots, my coat, a scarf and my new gloves and headed towards the bridge, while my mind was playing with pictures of pink liquid in tall glasses. Every time I walked underneath a tree or a lamppost, they would drop cold, wet lumps of snow on my head, but I just kept right on walking. Why? Because I had a goal, dammit.

Over the weekend I gobbled up enough milk to dry up a full-grown cow.

Today I think I’m over the worst of it. A slight feeling of nausea has begun to tickle the back of my throat when I look at that brightly coloured pink packet in my cupboard. I will beat this demon. Yes, I will.



Strawberry pic by Social Advances for Flickr.com
Snowflake pic by Captpiper for Flickr.com