Cold, Heat, and Diminished Capacity

Picture it: the family room, last night.

K had subbed at the high school yesterday, and we were talking about some kids here and there, and she said, with a chuckle: "Youth is wasted on the young."

And I said "Oh, Grandma used to say that all the time when I was a kid. I was so insulted, until I got old enough to get it. It wasn't original with her, you know."

She nodded.

"Hmm," I said. "I think it was George Bernard Shaw. How do I know that?" And I looked it up and damn, it was George Bernard Shaw who said it. Yes, this is my nature as a librarian, to know such things, but let us gently fade out on last night and fade in on this morning. (With a very soft focus lens. I was in the shower.)

And I thought to myself, for some reason, that I wanted to see if I could remember the names of the conditions I have, because the knee thing, especially, keeps escaping me. So I thought, okay, what I have in my back is .... symbiosis, and what I have in my knee is ... acoustic nervosa?

Um ... no. So I tried to remember something else, someone's name -- I forget now what it was -- and I made up something for that, too.

An hour later, I realized sadly as I was leaving the house that I actually needed to put on a jacket of some kind, it was that chilly outside. :< I don't like the cold; I've been saying more or less since birth that I hate the cold, I hate it like poison. When my kids were little and we would go out on a cold day, I would say "I hate the cold!" and they would say nothing, so I would prompt "How do I hate the cold?" and they would chorus in bored unison: "Like poison." So this is an established fact. But I also hate bulk, and will put off wearing any kind of jacket as far into the season as I can.

Shortly after that, I think on the short ride from Dunkin" Donuts to the high school, during which I customarily consume a small egg and cheese wrap, I thought to myself: "Huh. Spondylitis in the back. Avascular necrosis in the knee. Okay." And I remembered the name then too, although I forgot it again now.

3:15. I walk into the house -- from outside, where it's cold -- and think Damn, it's cold in here! Now, the Hubs is well-known for having no temperature sensing cells in his body, but K was huddled on the couch in the family room wearing a jacket, socks, and hat. So I says to the Hubs, I says, I know this is a crazy question to ask you, but have you been comfortable in the house today? And he says, It's freezing in here!

Shockeroonie, Batman. I check the thermostat and it's about 64 degrees, which is chilly in the little Mouse House, and I turned on the heat, which hadn't been on yet, and the whole time I'm thinking: How long do you have to send people to college and graduate school before they have the sense to turn on the heat when they're cold? Because I think if I had been away for a few days, I would have come home and found them both frozen like popsicles.

Who's got the diminished capacity now, hmmm?




watching L & O :: ENTRY #2125
READING: Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan
READING: Reading Lolita in Teheran by Azar Nafisi