Iced

Last night I dreamed* I was driving somewhere in the Pacific Northwest (Seattle?), in a golden-beige convertible filled with crushed ice. It was definitely the thing to do, as we saw several pick-ups on the freeway doing the same thing. About six of us were sitting on the ice, although I noticed that I didn't feel particularly cold. There were some drinks stuck in the ice, but the driver was only having iced tea. He could have been tipsy, however, for all the driving he was doing; it was my responsibility, from the back of the car, where I was sitting perpendicular to the direction of travel, to do the steering. By rotating an empty glass in my outstretched hand (when I remembered to), I kept us within the traffic lines.

Later on, I spoke a little Italian.

It's been chilly here. I wore long pants on Monday's run for the first time in months, and although I was able to take off my windbreaker for the last mile or so, I put it back on as soon as we finished the route and were walking. Yesterday I finally closed all the windows in the house, and last night put the electric blanket back on my bed. I'm pretty sure that after I prematurely removed it in April, it ended up staying on until at least June, and now it's happily back in place. I was immensely thankful for it last night, although I still chattered sleeplessly until I woke up enough to turn it up from 3.5 to 5.5.

Then this morning the classroom for the second class I taught was so cold that I pretty much twitched for the entire 50 minutes. The advantage to a supercooled classroom was that I ended up moving around the classroom more than I otherwise might, but the disadvantage was that for at least the first five minutes of class I was shivering so hard that my voice shook as though I hadn't spent all summer defeating (mostly, anyway...) my classroom stage fright.

I am well aware that a short month from now, we could easily have snow, and that it won't be long before temperatures like this week's (there's sunshine, after all, and the wind isn't too vicious) seem like a pleasant, distant, semi-tropical dream.

And, really, it won't be that much longer before these years in Minnesota might, too. Not exactly a pleasant and semi-tropical one... but hopefully not just a cold, dark, nightmare, either. There are definitely bright spots! And if you ask the locals, we still have more warm weather in store.

*This report inspired by Mandy