Cabin Fever

So my car has been malfunctioning and, for the last week and a half, my little sonshine and I have been housebound. It's currently in the shop and what happens when I drive my rental home today? It gets stuck in the driveway so I'm still without the use of a car. (Merde.) And because we're a bit remote to begin with, I have begun typing, "All work and no play makes Jane a dull girl. All work and no play makes Jane a dull girl." on my laptop. Endlessly. Crazy-like...

Also, lately, I slosh out to the garage in my mukluks to gather an armful of firewood and start to scream, "Heeeeeeeere's Mommy!" as I open the door to re-enter the house, with a maniacal grin and bug-eyed glare. It's kind of scaring me. But it only makes my son giggle incessantly. I never could pull off a Jack impersonation all that well. I lean closer to a mixture of Chris Walken meets Björk, which is pretty scary in and of itself, but still only evokes snickering on the part of my baby boy.

It has been an odd month. For one thing, it's January and I see grass all over the front lawn this week as the weather begins to grow warmer. Sonshine and I watch it pierce the snow along with our hearts through the window with not a little melancholy and I think to myself, "This. This is how a snowman feels when he melts." Seeing green in the middle of Winter makes me see red. As a snow-lover, grass in January just bites a Yeti-sized arse, in my opinion. I figure if we're going to be housebound, we might as well be snowbound, too. It would provide the opportunity for us to actually leave the house and roll around in some white stuff just to relieve ourselves of this cabin fever, if nothing else. Call me Smilla, but I happen to miss terribly those fluffy, nightmarish blizzard-ridden winters of my youth. The ability to make snowangels while still standing, leaning back into great, big drifts higher than your head. Where did those winters go?

I hear Vancouver is worried about the weather for its Winter Olympics. No shit. I mean. No snow, obviously. Who plans a WINTER Olympics in Vancouver in mid-February? As Karl from Uptown Waterloo Men's Hockey Glob so wisely and astutely puts it, isn't that their Springtime out West? The only saving grace about Vancouver in the wintrytime is it reminds me so much of Ireland. Same weather, really. But I was in Vancouver two Februaries ago and massive rhododendron bushes were in full bloom everwhere! Yet, even Vancouver had snow last January (a sure sign of climate change). I recall watching a breathtaking snowfall there, December of 2008.

Only yesterday, I took my temperature and I'm pretty sure either I've come down with cabin fever or possibly Olympic fever. More likely the latter, especially since my wee laddie touched the torch when it ran through a nearby town just after Christmas. This is the very kind of circumstance which makes me question whether not having a televison in my home is the right decision, after all. Guess I'll have to feed my fever via radio and print media. (Is it 'feed a fever, starve a cold' or vice versa?)  I don't have cable so if I plug in the telly currently on the shelf in the garage, the only image I'm likely to get is some white noise. Maybe that won't make me miss the snow so much. I'm not a religious girl, but I'm praying for a snowsquall. I'm praying for snow to fall here and I'm praying for it to fall on all those gold-medal-hopeful Olympians. I'm down on my knees, baby, beggin' you please please. I'm listening to too much Otis Redding, apparently. But can one ever listen to too much Otis Redding? I think not.

Allow me to reiterate, standing on a melting lawn in January is not fun (I'll add a miserable photo or two tomorrow). I thought the one good thing about global warming, if there's any good to be had of it, is that we'd be absolutely deluged with those winters of my youth in spades. Shovels, rather. Since it has to be fairly warm to snow and since the planet has been warming a few degrees the last while, I thought for sure it would snow snow snow until we were all buried in the white stuff. And I miss it. I'm crossing my fingers for a ginormous blizzard this week or next. At least one or three before end of March. Only then will I feel satiated, snow-wise.

For now, I've put Jadis-Snow-Queen-slash-White-Witch-of-Narnia, Bing Crosby and the Snow Miser all on speed-dial so I can text some emergency personal messages to them ASAP. If one of those characters can't make it like we're all living in a snowglobe, then either I'm going to start chopping down doors instead of kindling or I'm going to don a swan dress and play russian roulette.

I'll tell you this much: if that kid so much as starts to crack a smile, well...at least I'll be secure in the knowledge that my heart can melt right along with the front yard.

Music: The Shining, Badly Drawn Boy