Dearest Rachel –
What is it about Beach Night at Sparks that causes it to always be on the coldest night of the year? To be sure, it’s usually scheduled like this in the middle of January – presumably because, like that song about needing a little Christmas, everyone needs a little of the tropics by this point during the winter – so of course it’s going to be cold that day. But for some reason, it usually tends to feel like that particular Monday is so much more so than any other, even for the season. Thankfully, we aren’t required to wear swimsuits to go along with the theme (although you used to go that extra mile and do just that, more often than not); an aloha shirt over our regular gear is quite sufficient. Still, it feels like we have a knack for provoking Mother Nature or something by our scheduling this particular event when we do, and she brings the full force of the weather she commands upon us out of pure spite.
Here at home, we can already feel the full force of her spite even as the day barely begins. I’ve got both heaters running in the bedroom (albeit not at full blast, since that gets uncomfortably hot) and I still woke up shivering, even under the covers, despite the fact that the one whose light I try to cover up during the night is reading 70ºF, which should be perfectly comfortable, but somehow, I’m not buying it. Those chills helped me to shake a couple of pounds from last night’s informal reading, but I’m still a bit too close to the two-fifteen line for my liking, thank you.
This leads to the next question of why I don’t simply bundle myself off to the gym and work up a good sweat, in order to keep me warm and drop a few more of those unwanted pounds? Especially since I eschewed doing so yesterday, and spent the afternoon doing laundry – a necessary task, granted, but one that didn’t take up the entire time by any means. Well, for one, I don’t “bundle” myself up to go there; there isn’t much in the way of locker facilities, so I head there in gym togs – or at most, one extra layer over my T-shirt as a concession to the cold (which I don’t wear on the way home, since I don’t want it to get as sweaty as the rest of me).
For another – and I’m not sure why this is happening; maybe it’s that phenomenon of how things simply move slower in colder temperatures – I just can’t seem to get moving like that (or at all) first thing in the morning anymore. You’ve already heard from me about this, but it keeps getting more obvious over time. This morning, I opened my eyes for the first time just as my alarm clock (which I haven’t set in years, but it still keeps time) was turning over to six o’clock. Remember how I used to walk to the gym at four or five in the morning during the summer? Well, now even six feels too early. Granted, Daniel and I were up watching stuff until ten-thirty or so – my traditional bedtime before a weekday, you’ll recall – so waking up any earlier, especially without an alarm, would have been unusual. But to see what time it was, feel the ambient temperature in the room, and simply draw the covers back up over me and close my eyes again, well… something’s happening to me, I think. I hope it’s just the lethargy of the cold.
For that matter, I also hope it’s just of “the” cold, as opposed to “a” cold. Daniel has been dealing with the sniffles for a day or two now. Although he insists those are his only symptoms – which does seem light for a cold, even for him – it’s still not exactly “situation normal,” either. And since he and I spend more time together that usual on a weekend when I’m not assigned to the booth, whatever he has – IF he has anything – I’m probably going to wind up with some enough, usually stronger and quicker.
But for now, it’s not as if I’m feeling out of sorts, exactly; it’s just a matter of having trouble getting started with the day (especially the whole “working out” part of it which, as you know, I’ve never really enjoyed in any event). Hopefully, getting up and over to the ‘office’ will be sufficient to get me to go through the rest of my routine; adding a “well, as long as I’m out, I might as well stop at the gym on the way home” attitude to the day may keep me on the straight and narrow. As long as I don’t show any other symptoms than lethargy (which hopefully, getting up and out will put aside in any event), I shouldn’t be a danger to those around me. And even if I do have something (or more to the point, will have), I’m in the basement, separated from the folks by an entire level through most of the time I’m at the ‘office,’ so whatever I have shouldn’t transmit too easily.
Still, we’ll all be better off if you could keep an eye on us honey, and wish us luck. I’m sure we’ll need it.
Letters to Rachel 