Well, Emil took the Miata today, so I finally got myself out the door to go skiing:



That has got to be one of my favorite sights in the world - the waning afternoon sun casting shadows on the snow as I ski along. (Might be better if it were high on a bluff overlooking the ocean, and there was a faint salt tang to the air . . . )

I don't know what lame-o excuse I had for not going on Saturday when the snow was actually falling (but getting up at 11:30, as I did, certainly put a crimp in the available daylight hours). Yesterday I went to Ann Arbor to have lunch with Brenda and I took my skis, thinking I'd hit Eddy Geology Center on the way home, but it was quite dark by the time I was passing by there on the freeway. (OTOH, I did manage to make it to the Asian market, where I got about ten jars of various stir-fry and braising sauces. I had veggies with the spicy bean and garlic sauce today - yum, yum, yum!)

Today I nearly didn't make it, either: I'm still really, really fatigued. But finally I decided that since {a} the fatigue is probably menopause-related and therefore "normal", and [b] it never goes away no matter what I do, I might as well try to ignore it, or fight through it, or however you want to put it. (I do have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday to check for anemia, but I doubt anything will turn up.) I don't want to wake up three years from now and discover that I have no cardiovascular endurance and no muscle tone . . .

As for the neurons-in-cotton-batting syndrome . . . as luck would have it, I don't really need all my neurons for my day-to-day activities. I'm probably at a low point as far as absorbing Chinese is concerned, but oh, well. I'll do what I can and trust that this, too, shall pass . . . as soon as Em was born, I could work on my dissertation with no problem, so I know how these hormone things work.

In the meantime, it truly is glorious out there:



Those are some pretty darned impressive icicles.



I love the way the snow is distorted on the railing, there. It hasn't fallen off . . . but it's darned close. Probably we'll lose it on Wednesday, when we're supposed to hit the mid-20s. (I keep hoping they're over-optimistic about that temperature.)

And here was the sunset as it appeared as I left the grocery store after skiing:



I love those colors. We just don't get 'em unless there's white on the ground. I can't wait for February sunsets; I'm thinking this year we'll have snow, and there's nothing better than skiing at sunset on a snowy February day; there's a long "crepuscule" period and the colors are just fantastic, both in the sky and on the snow as the light changes before your very eyes.

Well, but now it's nearly 9 pm and the sun has well and truly set, and I better finish up what I need to accomplish before my classes tomorrow . . . I won't have much time to ski any more this week, so I'm glad I shoved myself out the door today.