Going off the grid

About time for another hot cocoa, probably with caramel. It's cold. It's winter; it's supposed to be cold. However, being forced by a full bladder from a warm bed into the cold is a shock to the system. The heart flutters and shudders and then beats furiously to maintain the warmth, pulling all resources to the center, to the core, leaving arms and legs, fingers and toes chilled and slowly turned to ice unless more heat is applied. Even with socks and a warm robe, the cold battles with the warmth until the body is left a shivering battleground. It's morning. Again.

I tried to prolong the inevitable by diving back under the covers and into the latest Rachel Morgan adventure in the ever-after (code name for hell), but nature won and here I am with an empty cocoa-rimed cup getting colder even with the heat struggling to keep up. It's too bad this place isn't as cool in the summer, but it's a hot box that I feel frequently to get to the cooler air outside under the molten brass of the sun. Strange how that works.

Except for the rushing tink of the furnace jacked up to 70 blowing cold air down on me, it's quiet. The snow plows aren't out yet and the darkness curdles before the turn toward the sun that probably won't be able to make it through the heavy clouds that turned even the darkness to an eerie red-tinged white all night long. I don't like it when I can't see the stars. Even I look forward to the first flush of spring and expectantly scan the naked straggling branches for the first sign of green leprous buds spreading along the brown ready to burst with yellow flags of forsythia in bloom. I'd look for crocuses and tulips if I had planted any or if I could see them in the dense rattling foliage of last year's spent honeysuckle and foxglove. Even the danger red flush of green that wound around and through the lilac hedges is gone, killed by the sparkling crystalline creep of frost and snow. Yes, I'm ready for spring. NOW!

It's not so bad, though. It's Tuesday and I'll be off on vacation as soon as the sun goes down on Friday. Nine days of doing nothing but reading, writing, lounging and wallowing in a huge bubbling tub of water and bath salts and oil under dimmed lights with a glass of wine ready to hand and soft music whispering in the background. No trash to take out. No dishes to wash. No vacuuming or sitting at the work computer huddling over the keys in a drafty office where spiders busily spin their sticky silken webs and drafts finger through the cracks around the big picture window while melting snow drip drip drips down the window and from nail holes in the plywood ceiling into plastic buckets and containers. Far from the madding world and into the warm caress of feather beds and crackling wood fires and four poster beds that look out on castles and fairy lands of new scenery. I can hardly wait.

Until then, I need to finish reading all the entries in the contest, choose three winners, and write and date the post so it will go live while I am far away from here. I'll have my computer and there will likely be Internet connection, so I have been assured, but I don't plan to use my laptop for anything other than reading and writing and a little bit of editing. I'll check email on Wednesday next to see if anyone remembered my birthday, but otherwise, I'm off the grid.

That sounds so good: off the grid. I will have to do that more often just for the lack of mechanical whispering, rushing and clinks. I prefer the crackle and whoosh of burning logs falling to ash in the grate (that I don't have to clean out) and the hushed quiet of measured breathing (mine) and ecstatic sighs.

Don't you?