The amaryllis story continues—and a bit of cabin fever

 

My amaryllis today
on my messy desk

My amaryllis is glorious today and a great source of cheer during this snap of winter in Texas, although today was sunny and bright. Subie’s amaryllis story is not so happy, although I understand she has a second plant. Jordan and I gave her one for Christmas (she is hard because her birthday is just before Christmas, and I am sometimes stretched to choose two imaginative gifts). So we saw amaryllis on sale in November, and I thought it was perfect for one or the other of those occasions.

Subie's amaryllis

Recently she told me when she opened it, it had already bloomed—in the box. There were stubs at the stalk where the blooms had been and died. I was embarrassed to say the least, but she saw the bright side—the plant was growing a new plant. She plans to leave it in the pot and see what it does. I’ve never heard of one doing that before.

And on the subject of plants, the orchid Subie brought me went into the house today to what I consider Christian’s orchid hospital. He has a remarkable record of getting them to bloom a second and third time. This one had a lovely striated cream-colored petal with a dark purple center. The thing is I sometimes have to remind him that a certain plant that is reblooming needs to come back to the cottage. The main house has two west-facing greenhouse windows in the kitchen, and orchids love it there.

Cabin fever got me yesterday. These are the things I did not do: write my daily quota on my work-in-progress; get dressed; make my bed; cook my supper; do my exercises. These are the things I did do: spent the day in the clothes I slept in (Jordan would frown); took a long nap; reheated frozen leftovers for my supper; spent way too much time on Facebook; started reading a new mystery, the eighteenth Coffee House Mystery by the husband/wife team who write as Cleo Coyle. (Reading for an author can always be justified as continuing education.)

Today is a much better day. As twilight sets in, I have gotten dressed and made my bed, fixed a good lunch, and planned dinner for all of us—we’re still quarantining, so we’ll transport part of it from cottage to the house. I’ve written a bit more than my thousand words for the day and am writing my blog earlier than usual, and I’ve put away clean linen and done some other household chores, including watering my plants.

The world outside this evening reminds me of Chicago or Missouri—the snow is melting, so what’s left is dirty, gray, sparse. My patio looks like a swamp, awash with dirty water. But because we are north-facing my front steps are still iced, and there’s a patch of ice on the driveway and snow outside my desk window. My mom used to complain long and loud about the gray snow in Chicago, because when I was young so many households, including ours, heated with coal. And it’s true—clean white snow was dirty gray almost as soon as it fell.

I remember the same when I was in school in northeast Missouri. I was in a relatively small town, Kirksville (12,000 population not counting students at the two colleges in town). Most people heated with coal, and snow stayed on the ground forever. They don’t call that northeast corner of the state an icebox for no reason. I remember getting up morning after morning and seeing a dirty gray world. And I drove a VW bug which didn’t fit the ruts in the roads, so getting to and from school and work was an adventure. I really longed for spring. The nice thing about Texas (except last year) is that we are pretty sure the snow will disappear in a day or two.

A friend said to me today she doesn’t understand how I can stay in the cottage day after day, because she was stir-crazy being in for two days. I think one reason is that, with my walker and because I no longer drive, getting out is a bit more complicated. And when Covid was new and a much bigger threat, I got used to staying in. In fact, I kind of liked it, and most days I still do. I have lots to do and a comfortable pattern to my days. When it’s six and I pour myself a glass of wine, I think, “Well, there goes another day.” That’s a bit of a mixed bag, because at my age I don’t want to wish the days away, but on the other hand it’s good to come to the end of a day and feel satisfied about it. Can you tell I’m feeling a bit defensive?

A soliloquy on winter mornings

Winter, for me, somehow seems most heartless in the mornings. Growing up in Chicago, winter mornings were cold with deep snow. When I was quite young, I didn’t think much about cold mornings but anticipated going sledding. We lived in a park with a small hill that was just right for a five- or six=year-old to sled.  By the time the neighbor children and I reached ten or eleven, we were bored with the hill’s smallness.

My mom used to save statistics she found in the newspaper about how much soot fell per square foot in Chicago during the winter. I was young long enough ago that many households still used coal for heat. We did at least until I was in my teens, and my dad would get up extra early to light the furnace and shovel coal. And snow never stayed white for long—all that burning coal turned it a dirty gray.

In Missouri, where I was in graduate school in the small town of Kirksville,  winter mornings were even worse. Everyone in that town burned coal, and I remember waking up and looking out the window and wishing just once I could see something over than that vast expanse of gray snow.

I think I found the kind of winter mornings I dreamt of in Santa Fe when the children, as teens and older, and I would go for Christmas. Eventually those became ski vacations, though I never went near the slopes—couldn’t bear the thought of the ski lift nor of standing on top of a mountain and plunging down it. But the snow was clean and deep, and the air was that crisp cold.

By contrast, winter mornings in Texas should be easy, but I have let myself become spoiled. I have pushed those extreme cold memories so far back that I moan and groan on mornings like we had today. Thirty-seven and wet, dismal, damp, bone-chilling. Today, it set the mood for a stay-at-home day, and I cancelled plans to go to a breakfast meeting. Of course by noon, things changed, and the sun came out, though it’s been cold all day. But we didn’t get the snow that had been promised—and I am just as glad.

When my children were little, we had a beloved housekeeper who used to predict cheerfully that it would “fair off,” and sure enough today, it faired off enough that I felt guilty about not doing my errands. But I’ll do them tomorrow when it’s supposed to be warmer.

Even Sophie with her thick curly coat doesn’t like the cold. Tonight she doesn’t want to go outside, though I have tried to explain  that she needs to go pee now, because we aren’t going at three in the morning. She is curled up in a chair, regarding me with baleful eyes. I’ll have to resort to bribery with a piece of cheese.

I’ve been feeling sorry for myself even before the weather turned, because I’ve been fighting off a cold. A couple of nights ago I couldn’t sleep because a scratchiness in my throat kept making me cough. It turned briefly into a sore throat, then just a tightness in my throat, and tonight I am left with just an annoying cough. Wish I knew what I did with that abundant supply of cough drops I used to have.

Jordan and I had a lunch fiasco which didn’t brighten the day. I opened one of those boxes of tomato soup from Trader Joe’s. It turned out that the foil covering was punctured before I opened it, and I had stored the soup in the pantry, not the refrigerator, We didn’t figure all this out until I’d taken several spoons full and found it quite good. But discussion led us to figure out that neither of us opened it, and that was a bad thing. Jordan refused to eat it, and I threw out mine, hers, and the remainder. I hate to waste food!

Sophie has just gone outside and quickly come back in, and Jacob has brought me some cough drops. All is well with the world—I hope it is in your world too.