Well, after seeing snow in one form or another for eleven days straight, I finally saw the sun break out and stream through my living room glass door at about three in the afternoon. I haven't seen it in nearly two weeks!
It got warm enough yesterday to melt off all the icicles and create slush in the parking lot, but it then foze over last night and stayed pretty stiff all day today. Every car I heard that went through the lot (and there weren't that many people oout and aboot) made crunching sounds. That's got to be terribly hard on the car's tires, given the height of the ruts and the fact it's all ice, for the most part.
My dad says there are so many branches that came down from his fir trees that it's going to take him about three months to get his yard cleaned up; luckily nothing came down here, though the trees around here were pretty laden with snow. In the nearly 30 years I've lived in Oregon (aside from the few years I lived in Texas while in the Air Force and then in California after college) I've never seen it last this long, and this has been the only solidly white Christmas I can remember. Oh, we've had some where there were large-ish patches of snow, but that doesn't really make it a "White Christmas" worth singing about.
I am going to be working from home again tomorrow; there's no way I can get out of the parking lot, and, while the main streets are now okay, getting to the cleared main streets is rather dicey. Better to just wait it out. I do have to go out and get the food for Saturday (I had to move Xmas Eve dinner to Saturday), but the store I'm going to is just down the road and things should be much clearer by tomorrow afternoon when I'm planning on going.
I have developed so much shoulder and neck tension from being house bound it's slipped into a habit of clenching my jaw; I have been doing my daily yoga practice every morning, but that can't outweigh not moving as much as I usually do during the day. Coupled with the posture I've had to have for working on email from home (sitting on my couch, back supported with pillows, laptop on a TV tray -- not the most ergonomic way to work) I'm not surprised.
I did go to the apartment gym today to get moving on a treadmill, only to find none of them were working for some odd reason. They were plugged in, but they wouldn't come on when I hit the buttons -- and so I had to use the crosstrainer. Which was fine, but I really wanted to do some hill walking. After 30 minutes of that, I came upstairs and did another hour of yoga, putting my focus on working my uppper back and neck. Towards the end as the spasms started to release my jaw started shaking as if I were shivering; between that and massaging my shoulders and neck and jaw throughout the day has helped make my jaw feels a lot better. Downing a bunch of Advils every 4 hours has helped, too. Teeth still ache, as does my back jaw, but not as much.
Jane is supposed to come and visit Monday and Tuesday, so hopefully the weather will have cleared out all the mess up here by then, as I have to drive to Woodburn to meet her parents and her Monday around lunchtime, and then get her to the airport on Tuesday. I guess if all else fails I can stick her on the train out to the airport, but I'd rather not do that. It's a long ride from here (about an hour).
I began my Christmas morning by watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas (I watched A Christmas Carol yesterday afternoon) and then working through the Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon my DVR's been working on all day. It's been decent, but it's kind of ironic. Out of all the years where I was in Texas or California and Andrew was a way for college, we still managed to all get home for Christmas. Here we are, within 15 or so miles of each other, give or take, in the greater Portland area and we couldn't get to gether. This is the first Christmas in 37 years I've spent alone. I always thought that would occur if I moved away from Oregon and couldn't get home. It never ocurred to me it would happen while I still lived here!
For dinner I made fennel-encrusted lamb chops, yellow curry rice and steamed veggies; to drink I had water and a nice glass of red wine. I also ate at my table with my Christmas tablecloth, napkin and some burning candles. It was very nice, but kind of lonely. Despite also listening to some very nice Christmas music on the Classical station, it still didn't feel very Christmassy.
I do hope everyone reading this had a nice day, and that you were able to spend it with friends and family.
Technically I guess, to be politically correct, I should say Happy Christmakwanzunnakah, but I'd much prefer to close by saying Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
-- H
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