I feel mildly guilty for
spending a cozy weekend at home instead of braving the
elements to seek pelagic birds blown in on the storm or
some other winter recreation. I fear I'm turning into a
weather wimp. What with watching an SUV go off the road
in front of me in the Xmas weekend storm, worrying about
icing on the rainy drive home from New Bedford earlier
this week, and slip sliding thru the
snow/sleet/ice/rain/snow storm to and from work on
Thursday I was just not up for attempting to drive
anywhere in yesterday's snow storm. I spent yesterday
settled in with a pot of tea and the latest Cat Who
mystery until I'd finished the book and had developed an
overwhelming desire to have flannel sheets on my bed
before bedtime. The snow had slowed down by evening and
the parking lot patrol wanted the cars moved, so I
chanced the drive over to TJ Maxx to look for sheets. The
road out of the condo complex was awful. I could barely
get enough traction at the toip of the hill to get out
onto Rt. 125. I waited until there was absolutely no
traffic coming either way before I pulled out, just in
case I got stuck part way. Once I made it out of the
condo complex things weren't too bad until I got to the
parking lot of the strip mall where the TJ Maxx is. It
hadn't been plowed. Just a little slippery. Anyway, I
found a lovely set of flannel sheets in a color that
claimed to be cranberry but seems closer to russet. For
good measure, I bought a new cotton blanket too as the
old one is ripped and torn in a zillion places.
When I got back to the parking lot
I realized I had forgotten to go to the gas station,
which was the other part of my mission, and I noticed
that the Crazy Lady was out and about. I quickly turned
the car around and headed out of the lot again with the
Crazy Lady gesturing at me to stop. I ignored her. I have
no idea what she wanted but I am so afraid of her that I
avoid talking to her as much as possible. She was indoors
when I got back -- watching me from the upstairs window.
She watches the parking lot and everybody who enters or
exits during snowstorms. I don't know what she is looking
for. Anyway, later on I heard the plow again and looked
out the window to see the Crazy Lady standing in the
middle of the parking lot lecturing the plow driver. The
plow then cleared her parking space but no one else's and
she went back inside to watch from the doorway. She stood
there for hours.
Plows and snow blowers and guys
with shovels kept coming and going until 1:00 AM this
morning but nobody asked me to move my car again. I don't
think they'd have had too much luck getting anybody to
move their car at 1:00 in the morning. I curled up with
Wilbur among my new cozy flannel sheets, which are every
bit as cozy as I fantasized they would be, and, having
already finished The Cat Who Went Bananas, read
Among Flowers by Jamaica Kincaid. I even stayed in
bed petting Wilbur, reading, and listening to NPR this
morning until I got hungry enough to haul my ass
downstairs and make breakfast. Guilt, guilt, guilt.
I'd actually been looking forward
to Among Flowers in the National Geographic
Directions series since I heard Jamaica Kincaid was
writing about a plant hunting trip in Nepal. OK, so she
was with a botanist hunting seeds of flowering plants,
not conifers, but there are similarities to conifer
hunting with Zsolt. I noted on the book jacket that her
expedition encountered the Maoist insurgents who were the
reason that the Nepal government wouldn't give Zsolt a
collecting permit back whenever it was we were supposed
to go there (2001?). I haven't come to that part of the
narrative yet.
Speaking of Zsolt, he and his
mother were supposedly going on an expedition to the New
Jersey pine barrens over the holidays right around all
those east coast snowstorms. He's in Hungary again now
and hasn't communicated to me whether they went through
with the pine barrens expedition. I should drop him an
electronic line. John McPhee got a good book out of the
pine barrens, maybe I could write a "Zsolt and Maci in
the Pine Barrens" thing for National Geographic
Destinations -- only if I were a famous enough writer I
guess. Still, it's an interesting idea, just not for
National Geographic.
Now I'd better get back to reading
Among Flowers so I can keep up the new faster
reading pace for 2005.
