Snow time: how to beat the cold

by Pat Laster, author, A Journey of Choice

How ‘bout that snow??? Oh, wait. That’s how I began a previous post. Tsk, tsk! So I’ll piggyback off Paul Greenberg’s annual Arkansas Democrat Gazette offering by responding to it.
To wit: Longjohns. I don’t wear longjohns, though I sometimes wear pajamas under my fleece pants. Does that count?
Fireplaces. Though mine burns gas rather than wood, it still radiates heat into the room and gives the nostalgic hint of the real thing. Except for the aroma. Last week when grandson Billy and his friend Sam played in the snow, they left boots, shoes and gloves on the hearth to dry. Talk about nostalgia. I almost cried. I DID take a picture for proof.
Bathroom heaters. Never take them out, Greenberg says, but I didn’t have a choice. When the gas line had to be re-placed, the inspector, well, inspected, and demanded that the ancient wall heater go. “Old Ark-La,” he said, dismissively, and out it came. A portable electric heater warms the small room enough for baths.
A goosedown comforter. I’ll take whatever fills the comforter that covers my bed—the pricey one I found at Tuesday Morning last year. Billy took my previous one and I couldn’t stand to hear him whine that he needed it for keeps.
Exercise the mind; turn off the teevee (sic), which Mr. G opines is a good idea any time of the year. Amen to that—for myself. In a rocker pulled close to the fire (see above), feet on a footstool, and a throw (see below) over my legs, I tackle another in the Oxford Anthology of Short Stories borrowed from the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow.
After my novel came out, I decided to work on short stories, so I brought the book home and have been slogging through it. Now, I try to read at least one, sometimes two if they’re short, every night. Any unknown words—and there are many—I transcribe in my chair-side journal to look up the next day. I go online to see reviews and essays about the stories I read the night(s) before. I’m using my mind all right. Pushing its limits perhaps, but I keep at it.
Back to P. G.: Sweaters. Galoshes. Gloves . . . “Do I have any boots?” Billy asked before he and Sam went outside. “Where are those I used to wear?” He’d outgrown those about five years ago and hadn’t needed them since, so he didn’t have anything but his regular sneakers (see Fireplace above). Gloves I had, so Sam used them; BJ found his, but went out bareheaded, though somewhere amongst all his clothes he has a new Old Navy cap.
Galoshes remind me of those horrid yellow rubber boots that I had to wear as a child. Guess what? In TJMaxx recently, I saw some high-top yellow boots! (What do they say? ‘What goes around comes around’?)
I’ll add something Herr Greenberg didn’t mention: throws—those large squares meant to be thrown over your shoulders or—as I use them—over your legs. My relatives were fond of giving our late mother throws so that I inherited at least a half dozen. Plus those I’ve received since becoming the eldest--the matriarch. I keep one on every chair, the sofa and the love seat, wherever people sit.
Another way—not in Mr. Greenberg’s list––to keep warm during this cold spell/ season is to read John Greenleaf Whittier’s Snowbound, a seven-hundred-fifty-nine line poem, and be thankful we don’t live in New England where winters are much, much worse than in central Arkansas.