While I’ve been enjoying semi-hibernation, Avdi has to get up on a Saturday at the crack of dawn, shovel snow (which the kids mostly wouldn’t do) in order to take kids to their extracurricular school activity, then not get to finish sleeping because they can’t coordinate when and where they need to be retrieved, or rescued as the case may be.  So he has to spend much of his day interpreting their ambiguous signals and needs, and driving around.

They won’t wear cold weather clothing or outerwear, then complain it’s too cold to walk.  (This happens to be a warmer, sunny day.)  They seem to expect grownups to show up at their confusing beck and call, then complain when they don’t get instant gratification.  They don’t get how hard their single parent works day and night on little sleep to make sure they’re provided for in every way, with limited help.

Am I sounding too grandmotherly?  Good, I think I have that right.  Too boomer behind the times?  Yes, times are much more complicated and demanding now, but teens remain self-centered and needy, possibly more so.  They don’t always get cause-and-effect.  Or where the money comes from to indulge their every whim.  Or how to empathize and contribute to the family.  It’s their world now, and grownups exist to cater to their needs and clean up after them.  Or so it sometimes seems.

I was an ungrateful teen once, too.  Temperamental and spoiled, but also punished for the slightest infraction, and I didn’t have to grow up as fast in such a complex world.  So maybe I can’t really compare.  Cultures change, as it should be.  Kids have to learn for themselves, the hard way.

Also I can’t really talk, because I can’t help out with all the things my son needs, and I get to be snowed in so as not to be one more ride for someone to provide.  I’ll get one anyway, and sleep over so he can get out for respite.  I just feel like once in a while, someone should be speaker for the quiet desperation of a single parent.  Thanks to anyone still reading.

Part 2:  First time in a while I’ve done Shabbat at my apartment.  I didn’t really do much except finish the final book of The Expanse, sleep, cook, research free food sources for the future, and get some of my free gifts.  It looks homier already.  One of them, the one I wanted most, got lost in transit and refunded.  Maybe it went by way of China and will still find its way to me.

So, it’s Friday, everything that managed to get shoveled is being covered by more snow, and of course the kids got another day off!  Even my Food Outreach delivery got rescheduled.  Although it’s erev, I decided the challah gods will forgive me this one time if I also take another snow day—what are they gonna do, send thunder-snow?  This way everyone can stay in bed!  Or get stuff done.

Snow is best appreciated from inside the comfort of hibernation, IMO.  If I were a rich dictator, I’d pay all workers to stay home.  I’d sentence all the trump criminal mobsters to hard labor plowing and shoveling for us.  Then I’d deport them to Mars on a one-way Musk-ship.  They’d never get away with murder as they’re doing.

The kids finally went back to school, and I got rides to and from to help Avdi out.  There was plenty for me to do.  Now we’re expecting more snow on top of the last round, which is still not completely cleared.  I guess if there has to be winter, might as well go all the way.  It is rather pretty.

Here’s an ironic story for you.  I may have the one type of cancer (CLL Leukemia) that may not requalify me for my healthy food assistance for cancer patients, because I’m not on chemo/rad/meds, because it’s throughout my blood and can’t be treated or cured.  So my only source of affordable (i.e. free) healthy food to help me live longer may be cut off.  Isn’t it ironic?

But–I got this (free gift) new rug, so it’s all good.

Day 5: The schools were still closed today (for “hazardous road conditions”)!  (Cue old wives’ tales about when we were kids…).  I remained home under a snowdrift as it were.  Needless to say, lots of procrastinated chores were gotten around to.

Later, I finally rejoined the human race when Jess gave me a ride to Avdi’s, where I did some cleaning and laundry, and stayed with the kids so he and Y could go to an appointment.  The extended vacation has really set him back with his work.  I made dinner, and then J took me home.

Day 4: Still snowed/iced in, frigid out.  It sounds like the roads are still being dealt with and not much traffic in or out.  Schools are still closed.  The kids and Avdi did indeed bundle up for the arctic and go sledding.  Fortunately so far no power outages here, though I can’t speak for others.  I haven’t seen a human in days!

Which is fine, though I’m starting to fall into surreal dream territory more of the time, as I do in isolation.  My unconscious mind is clearly continuing the wayback trip into uncomfortable, unresolved personal history and trying to find some resolution, if not closure.  We’re not talking nostalgia here, more like cringe.  So many twisted, misguided paths I could have taken!  Who was I?!  It’s a relief to wake up alone in my own apartment.  But hard to detach from the haunting of my ghosts.

I suppose one of these days I’ll have to dig myself out and go see people again.  I’m running out of things to reorganize or photograph–and booze!

Photo courtesy of Avdi.

Day 3: I’ve never heard Rt. 66 so quiet!  Just the occasional tires struggling to find traction.  Apparently as promised it continued to snow/ice/ whatever during the night.  It’s going to take some traction of my own to eventually pull me out of hibernation mode.  The dreamscape is getting into serious fantasy depths.  Do bears dream of past bear lives?  Somewhere I imagine some kids are sledding.  I did my time working in freezing conditions, so I think I’ve earned this temporary luxury.

But enough about sensible people.  It’s January 6th, with all that entails.  Ihr führer got what he wanted, and I hope he and his horde of vile bosses get what’s coming to them.  I wish we could all just hibernate until the violence is over, but then there’d be nobody to stand up for victims and resist the injustices.  For some of us humans, this is just an escalation or sequel of what they’ve been enduring for hundreds of years in this country, nothing new, nothing changed.  We could stand to learn survival skills from them.  Some irony there!

Here’s what hibernators do when “snowed in” by an “Arctic Event” (pathetic so far but who’s quibbling?):

Day 1:  Shopped online all day to make sure I spent my gift card appropriately (not too frivolously but not too utilitarian-ly?).  Easier said than done when you normally have zero disposable income.  Many revisions later, I finally achieved a satisfactory balance, involving décor to warm up and personalize my apartment, while hibernating.

Day 2:  Slept half the day.  Dreamt I was being harassed by a gang of juvenile delinquents, so instead of fighting them (and messily losing), I decided to join them, using diplomacy, and go through their painful initiation process.  Every time I woke up and went back to sleep, the plot picked right up where it had left off.  I had only a vague idea of what I was getting into, but it seemed like the lesser evil, and we seemed to have a connection.  I left things hanging right before the stabbing part of the ritual.

Here’s the (snore) Big Blizzard so far…and the scene of the crime.

I’m posting now, in case the big winterpalooza shuts us down and we revert to ice cave dwellers.  Allie and Billie will evacuate early tomorrow to avoid the worst.  What will we do without the funny puppy face?  I suspect she’ll feel the same.

Anyway, erev Shabbat went nicely, and now I’m home preparing to be “snowed in”.  Knowing the Family, they’ll go dog-sledding (without the dogs).

S made this intricate Lego machine with flowers on it, all from some random pieces I got him.

I’m falling behind again, what with all the eventfulness, so have some photos!