31 In The Shade

It's one of those northern late winter days when the sun is warm enough to melt snow and ice on rooftops and driveways but the air is cold enough to freeze the puddles once the shade moves in. These are the treacherous days; the ones when the ice sneaks up on you and surprises you because you've become so blasé about winter. You've accepted it. You're taking it in stride. You're strutting about, all cocksure in your Vibram lug soles when all of a sudden before you're aware it's happening, your heels are flying through the air next to your ears and you have to utter a quick prayer that you come down on your Valentine chocolate-enhanced rump instead of your spine or your tailbone or an elbow or some other rare-to-find-these-days bony protrusion.

The thermometer and wind chill may say it's still winter but there's an entire flock of robins in our backyard begging to differ. I've never seen them congregate. I always thought robins were solitary souls. It's a little freaky in a Hitchcock Birds kind of way. The chunks of ice breaking off the roof and dropping onto the deck make me jump because I keep thinking it's a bird flying into the house so it can peck our eyes out. Yes, I suffer from the sort of hubritis (inflammation of the ego) that has me believing a flock of literal bird brains has it in for me.

It's naptime. The Jujube is flying free today. No, she's not going commando or even wearing her Dora underpants. She's still in diapers. What I mean is, she's actually taking her first nap alone in her Big Girl Bed. I neglected to move the monitor from cribside to bedside so I can't tell whether she's being well behaved and contained by the bedrails.

We are wallowing in cabin fever lethargy, certain there must be thousands of household tasks which require our immediate attention, but completely stumped as to what they might be. I don't really know why I look forward to the weekend so much. I always wind up bored and restless. Good old fashioned Catholic Upbringing guilt prevents me from kicking back and relaxing with a book or some knitting or an audiobook AND some knitting. Or maybe it's good old fashioned Virgoan (both parents) Upbringing guilt standing in my way. Let me decipher that for the Astrological neophytes among us: Virgo = Workaholic. If you've got someone in your life who is constitutionally incapable of sitting down and completely mystified by your participation in our sedentary team sport, that person was either born between August 23 and September 22, has Virgo rising, or has a cluster of planets all lined up in the Virgo part of their natal chart. Either way, there's a clutching, nagging, bastard of a conscience in my gut harping on about how an adult person's waking daylight hours are supposed to be filled with loathsome, mucky, sweaty, tedious, repetitive chores. The little fucker. I thought by quitting The Church I could successfully evict the internal tyrannical dictator. How long does it take for Head and Gut to follow Heart?

The Englishman reports that Jujube is fast asleep half-in-half-out of the covers of her Big Girl Bed. Today, quiet boring Saturday, has just morphed into Day Of Major Triumph. This calls for a celebration of the Lion Brand Wool-Ease and audiobook variety.