Tales of the Cold

Perhaps due to global warming, I have not found the climate of Blue State that different from the climate of No Longer Red State. Until the last few weeks. And it's a sense memory, as well as the circumstances, that mark the difference. For the last few weeks, since the thermometer dipped below--often far below--freezing and has not risen, the girls have worn tights under their pants. Sometimes I have worn tights under my pants. Which reminds me of how when I was a little girl, we always wore tights under our pants in winter. M concurs with my recollection that they never wore tights under their pants in No Longer Red State, except when we went ice skating.

Speaking of ice skating, yesterday E went to a friend's house after school, so M and I skated without her. M pointed out, tentatively, fearful of being bad, that it was kind of nice to just be able to skate, without having to hang back and wait for E, whose skating capacities increase exponentially each time she's on the ice, yet who is still cursed with the shortest legs in the family, and who is perhaps made even slower by the bulk of tights under leggings under another pair of leggings under snowpants which is her chosen skating garb (the snowpants are forced upon her by parents, but the multiple leggings are her innovation).

I told M that one of my first blog posts (sorry, can't find it) was about how you do some things with your kids because they are fun, and some things because someday you will be glad you did them, and ice skating with a little kid who is learning to skate is something you do because it will be so great when they finally can skate, like M can now.

The wind was fierce when we first got on the pond, and we fought it out to the middle, then turned around, held out our arms, and sailed back to the beach. We did that several times, often holding hands. Then we skated around the cove and looked into the back of my favorite house. Facing the pond, it is all windows. The people in the kitchen waved at us, and we skated away, embarassed (OK, I've typed that five times and still have no idea if I spelled it correctly). Then we skated to the far far side and touched a branch, to prove we'd made it, and on the way back we went around the island, for the first time.

It's supposed to snow tomorrow, but they say it will turn to sleet and rain, and then it's supposed to be cold again. So maybe the skating will continue.