.the.day.after.

i've been waiting for this day since the first bags of halloween candy hit the shelves in early october. the first orange-wrapped kisses and fun-sized snickers bars struck up a momentum that would gain frenzy with each approaching holiday. witches and goblins tumbled quickly into turkey's roasted with pumpkin pie, which grew monstrous on black friday and became-- if you can believe it-- increasingly fierce on every shopping day until the 25th of december. it's still not safe to go outside, as the last boom of day-after sales are setting off their tired, fire-crackered finale as i type.

today brings the great relief of carrying boxes of crinkled and torn wrapping paper, wrought with twisted candy-canes and tattered reindeer, out to the recycling bins once and for all. my morning coffee sickens my tongue with nutmeg, the last of the eggnog, and i begin to think already about gym discounts and spring daffodil's. the cableknit scarf on my knitting needles, a project so pertinent as i watched "it's a wonderful life" just yesterday, seems tired and silly as i begin to imagine which bikini will flatter my figure this year.

it's amazing how anticipation trumps present time on every occasion. i know from previous magazine covers and catalogues that once summer is ripe and hot and sweating, i'll be concerned not with lemonade and fresh blackberries, but with the length of this year's pleated skirts, argyle vests, turtleneck sweaters. is it that only from some distance can we appreciate approaching seasons?

.thaw.

last night was one of the windiest, iciest evenings i've experienced in the pacific northwest. the chickens (of which i now have two, more on that later) were pelted with freezing rain and their only protection was a loose-fitting green tarp that i found in the basement. the porch-couch looked as pale and gelatinous as a giant marshmallow peep, and the walls of our frail old house rattled like the phleghmy cough of flu.

needless to say, i did not set my alarm for work this morning, but rather passed out somewhere around ten o'clock next to the half-drunk mug of eggnog and brandy on my bedside table. it was with dissapointment that i woke up to the sound of rain.

this leaves me at work, 3:57 pm, precisely when the day turns from the tedious thumb-twidling of mid-afternoon to the anticipatory thumb-twiddling of the late-afternoon five o'clock countown.

it's not one of those days where feet stomp down the maroon corridor outside my door, on the way to the printer, the fax machine, the coffee pot. it's the week before christmas, and the few of us to drove to work in this morning's sleet and slush have no mind for business. the loitering around the box of cookies on the kitchen counter and the freuent, lolly-gagging trips to the bathroom indicate that we only have mind for play.

at this very moment, i'm engrossed in embroidery. my eyes open wide as i split a crimson stitch in the dim light of my bedroom. gordon, the docile ginger cat-- russet on july afternoons, golden on a spring morning-- licks a fat paw atop his carpeted perch. there's chatter from the radio: npr, all things considered, terry gross laughs in her warm, slightly wicked way, and i imagine that she tosses back a head of thick, brown hair. i'm sipping from a dark bottle of dense winter beer, warmed already by my fingers.