Dododreams

In case you haven’t heard it’s c-c-c-c-cold outside. When I left this morning the thermometer was pegged at -10F (that’d be -23.3333333 degree Celsius according to some random conversion program.) Cold. No, make that INCREDIBLY COLD, DAMMIT!!

I’ll admit that things went about as well as possible during the period between leave-the-house and get-into work. There was actually less snow accumulation than I had feared and apparently when I drove the car back yesterday afternoon I hit the transition period between icy rain and snow so the windshield was not ice coated. On the other hand the doors were frozen shut but a couple hip checks jarred the driver’s side free.

The car’s engine turned over quickly and easily, thank the FSM, and off I went driving very conservatively down to the highway and over to downtown St. Paul. It seemed as though everyone was being cautious — the highway traffic was going around 25 miles per hour — and so there was no trouble for me at all until hitting an intersection at the bottom of a hill a block before the parking. Oh cripes, slippery sliding no sand here honk honk honk honk watch out cars and people, I’m not going to stop in time. Thank heavens I was going only about 10 miles per hour before losing traction and ultimately slid only about 5 feet into the empty intersection.

Finally in at work, I turned on the lovely heated footrest under my desk, took off boots and extra pair of wool socks, and rested my cold toes on the warmth while admiring this new work area adornment:

Cute isn’t it? It changes colors (the photo caught it between red and blue) and is about 4 inches tall and it is — ta da! — my first Christmas present of the year! It is sitting on top of the case of work CDs, in front of a comic strip which represents my work life (ha!) and best of all warms my heart on this cold, cold day.