Frozen in Place

Dearest Rachel –

It’s been a while, but it’s it’s not as if this hasn’t happened before of a winter morning. Yesterday, after texting the folks that I was on my way (and pleased with myself at getting closer to nine o’clock every day for the past week), I got in the car, turned the key… only to hear a sickly growl and a click-click-click of. of all things, the CD player in the car trying to start up, when pretty much nothing else in the car would. Ready to head out or not, I wasn’t going anywhere.

Again, it’s a situation that occasionally befalls the commuter here in the midwestern winter, often resulting in the panic of having to deal with one’s boss and the mounting work at the office in one’s absence. Oddly enough, it appears that the Covid crisis has mitigated this somewhat for the public at large, as telework has become that much more of a thing these days – although personally, I wouldn’t trust it for productivity. That aside, this accommodation arrived too late for me to take advantage of it. Then again, it’s not as if any of this is anything I have to deal with anymore; there’s no boss for me to report to, no requirements that demand my presence across town, so I have that much less reason to panic than the average telecommuter.

Granted, civility insisted that I let the folks know of the sudden change in circumstances, but with that out of the way, and me essentially frozen in place, all I needed to do was to head upstairs to my office here at the house in order to forward some documentation I’d had a soft deadline on. It’s a little more awkward here to do the ‘work’ – none of my equipment here at home has the same setup as over there – but it can be done.

Speaking of the setup here at home, I found myself wandering through certain sites I hadn’t spent much time in since you left, and decided to gather a few new pieces of media through those same old channels. It isn’t going to be the same, rifling through these things without you to enjoy them with me, but that’s probably a topic for another day (or more).

It also gave me an excuse to stay home from the gym, as I wasn’t about to walk there, especially in single-degree temperatures. However, that lack of movement leads to other problems associated with my weight loss journey; not only was I not working out (which actually felt good, in a way, as I had been starting to feel sore in my hips after Tuesday, when I’d been out grocerying with Daniel. They probably could have used the day’s respite), but in my indolence, I felt myself likely to snack out of pure boredom. You remember what that was like; we even coined (or more likely, borrowed) the term “mouth hunger” to describe the situation of doing so just for the sake of doing so, as opposed to actual physical hunger.

Not that I quite succumbed to that until dinnertime, but a fairly large quantity of popcorn with our soup (which I’d added a slice of thick-cut bacon to, in order for it truly to be the “bean with bacon” soup it always claims to be on the can) was probably more than I should have been eating at one time. And this morning’s weigh-in showed that I’d gained a pound from twenty-four hours prior; not exactly consequential, perhaps, but a reminder that I need to get back to my routine, car troubles or not.

Besides, as it so happens, it looks like this morning is already in the twenties, with later highs in the thirties. Not the most pleasant of weather to walk in, but if I’m going to go work out, I’m probably going to have to do it on foot for now. Then, when I get back, I’ll call the automobile association, and have them come out here and give me a jump. Hopefully, if I wait until I get back home, I’ll catch them after having dealt with the morning rush hour demands, so they won’t be putting me on hold for the same length of time as might have happened had I tried to get their attention first thing in the morning. After all, there are so many other people who need to be somewhere else more desperately than I do; why cut in line for my petty need to have my vehicle running?

But yes, at some point, I do need to make sure my vehicle is up and running, and it still just clicks and pings at me, and the growl is barely a whimper (although the dashboard lights still go on, so it’s not a complete loss yet). So, I’ll get them called in to check on this thing, and hopefully everything will be back to what passes for normal these days before today is out.

Until then, honey, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.