Well, so far, this has been the snowiest winter that I can remember in the past twenty years, at least. We just keep getting a steady 3-5 inches every couple of days. This past week, too, it's been very cold (for us) with daytime temperatures in the Fahrenheit single digits. (Today we're having a heat wave: it's supposed to get up to 16.) One result is that the neighborhood looks like something out of Dr. Zhivago:



(My friend Carl stitched that together out of three separate photos I had taken.)

The Miata has steadfastly refused to leave the driveway in this weather - it valiantly and promptly starts up, but its cute little wheels just spin and spin and its powerful motor just revs and revs when it hits the patch of snow-covered ice down at the bottom of the barely-visible-to-the-naked-eye dip at the end of our driveway. So I have been taking the bus to work.

Here's a video of me waiting for the bus, taken so that I could amaze my friends in China with the deserted neighborhood streets. (I also included a few seconds of me walking on the snow so Peter can hear the marvelous Crunch! Crunch! of the snow underfoot.)



Actually, taking the bus has turned out to be quite pleasant despite its inconveniences. The major inconvenience is that the bus only runs once an hour, so I have to be sure to get the one I want. Luckily, it only takes about 15 minutes to get downtown, which is about what it would take anyway - and I don't have to park the car when I get there. The ride home is a bit more involved - 45 minutes on the bus - but I've used the time to read or knit, so it's actually pretty relaxing.

In fact, I like the bus so much that I'm thinking I should just take it all the time. There are a few minor hiccups - like, I have to stay past when the buses run on Tuesday and Thursday - but I can usually work around them.

The big rub is that I don't have any transportation if I want to go skiing, or grocery shopping or something. The shopping isn't much of an issue, since it can be done in the evening after Emil gets home but the skiing is . . . or it is in theory. In actual fact, I have been so tired lately that I haven't even felt much like going. I'm putting this down to impending menopause, which is not any fun, so far.

The common wisdom is that menopause is like puberty, but in my experience, it's really like pregnancy (minus the internal kicks.) I have no energy, and I feel like my neurons are wrapped in cotton batting; I can't concentrate very well and I can't push myself very hard. And it's just beyond unusual for me not to feel like I need exercise.

We're thinking of getting (Yet Another) car so that we both have winter-ready transportation at our disposal, but I'm starting to think it's not worth the expense. We'll see . . .

On the other hand, I do have plenty to occupy my sedentary self. I've got lots of Chinese to study, and I'm teaching an ESL class this semester that is really warming the cockles of my heart. When I came back from China, I asked if I could teach in LCC's Center for International and Intercultural Education, and this semester I got a writing class. It's met twice, and so far I love the students, I love the subject matter, and I am full to the brim with ideas for what to do.

I'll say more as the class winds on . . . for now, we need to dig the car out and head to the pet store to get food and bedding for the guinea pig. And maybe I'll make myself go skiing . . .