Daylight savings dreariness

This weekend we all dutifully turned our clocks back an hour. It's just past 5 p.m. and it's very much dusk here. Andy gets super bummed about having to work from before it's light until after dark, so I'm trying to think of ways to cheer him up when he gets home tonight!

I think, first, I'll have the blinds drawn, so he can't see how dark it is outside, and I'll have lamps going and probably light a couple of candles. I'll also make him some spiced cider, which I know he loves but which he rarely drinks. Maybe, instead of Arrested Development (my choice), we'll watch Parks and Recreation (his choice). And after dinner maybe we'll have some hot chocolate. And maybe we'll add some Bailey's. Because why the hell not?

I don't really mind the time change, except that it feels like it's way too late to do anything by, like, 7:30. I had an irritating day at work - everything too three times as long as it should have, and everything I picked up had some stupid problem that wasn't obvious until I had already spent an hour doing twenty minutes' worth of work - but none of that is related to the sun rising and setting. Pretty sure it was just an irritating day in the office.

I don't think Andy has Seasonal Affective Disorder, but I'm reading through this list and thinking of ways to keep him cheerful: Give me your best SAD hacks! at Metafilter.

How do you feel about the time change? Any suggestions for a cheerful evening?

Heat wave!

I feel like if I yell "heat wave" it sounds like something out of a Beach Boys song instead of something that drives me indoors with even more ferocity than normal.

My grass looks like straw. We could water it, like our neighbor who goes out with a hose and waters his lawn by hand while talking on his cell phone for hours at a time, but that would mean the grass would grow more and we'd have to mow it more, which sounds like a bad idea.

On days like this, when it's 93° and the humidity makes it feel like you're walking in someone's mouth, all I want to do is sit on the couch in my underwear, windows drawn, with a wet towel draped over my head. Sometimes, to help myself savor that feeling even more, I think about how on days like this in, like, pioneer times or whatever, they'd be wearing long-sleeved dresses, maybe even with petticoats. Suckers. And the only escape they had was shade, not central air. I think I'm too whiny to have been a good pioneer. I'd have been one of those pale, wan girls with what the doctors described as "weak constitutions" who laid on the couch and coughed gently. 


We're having friends over for dinner this week, and I'm making a pasta dish zucchini and tomatoes from our CSA and I'll be attempting to make garlic bread in the toaster so I don't have to turn the oven on. We'll see how that goes.


Is it super hot where you are too? How are you dealing with it?

Summer!

Dudes. I spent the first several hours of the day at our awesome public market, drinking iced chai and standing in front of any fan I could find - it's 90° today and sunny. But it was totally worth it, because I got an empanada and iced chai and all of the following:

• Three cucumbers for $1 (some are already on their way to becoming pickles, and some are going in a glass of Pimm's as soon as it hits 5:00)
• A HUGE bunch of garlic scapes - like 15 of them - for 50¢
• Three lemons and two limes for $1 (the limes are for margaritas, the lemons for Pimm's)
• Six peaches for $1
• Four ears of corn for $1.25

A friend is coming over in a few and we're going to make a double batch of chai concentrate and paint our toenails and maybe knit. Then when her boyfriend and Andy get back from a motorcycle ride, we're all having a lovely outdoor dinner in the shade, followed by a bonfire and some marshmallows. 

It's days like this that I really, really love my life.


What's your ideal summer day?

On this heat

WHAT TO DO WHEN IT IS 90° AND HUMIDITY IS SOMEWHERE NEAR A MILLION:

• Nothing.
• Alternate plans that are acceptable:
• Eat ice cream. Maybe some potato salad. Drink an iced chai.
• Give your dogs ice cubes.
• Sit in the basement in your underwear. (True story: our basement is so much cooler than the rest of the house that we slept down there the first few nights we owned the house, because it was August and the air conditioner wasn't installed yet.)

WHAT NOT TO DO WHEN IT IS THIS HOT:

• Cook. Anything.
• Do anything strenuous, like biking or jogging or sexing or watching shows with complicated plotlines.
• Be outside for more than three minutes in a row.
• Drink warm beverages.
• Yardwork.
• Let any patch of skin remain in contact with any other patch of skin for more than a few seconds (this is best managed by laying like a starfish on a blanket on the basement floor. Bonus points if you moan dramatically while doing it. Double-bonus points if you didn't bother to bring down any of the four loads of laundry you should be doing.)

EFF THIS HEAT. What would you add to either list?

Lessons from working at home

My day was a little like this but with less hardwood floors and fire hazards.

I mentioned yesterday that we were supposed to get a lot of snow overnight. Well, the snowpocalypse missed us - we got about six inches. But we don't have my new car yet, so today would have been another ten-hour day for me. Luckily, I have a job that's flexible enough for me to work from home once in a while. I brought home a bunch of stuff yesterday and spent my day working from the kitchen table. Here's what I learned:

• My house is cold. We keep it at 65°, which is fine when we're snuggled under some blankets on the couch, but way too cold when you're in the kitchen trying to edit.
• My dog's life is pretty decent. He spent the whole day on the couch, sleeping. Only a slight departure from his usual weekend routine of spending all day sleeping on the floor.
• It's a lot harder to focus on reading legal stuff when you're watching Bones or The Office. 
• Don't try to run the dishwasher when you're sitting right next to it trying to read.
• If I don't go outside for at least a few minutes, I get a headache. 
• I would be terrible at being self-employed. I barely talked myself out of baking cookies midafternoon. Deciding factor: I was pretty sure the butter would be too hard, even at room temperature.

Do any of you work from home? How do you deal with impulse control? Anyone get more snow than I?

Long freaking day.

German secret police spy kit, with really interesting information about the Stasi, via. Sorry for such a depressing connection to a secret disguise hidden in a briefcase.

You guys, I worked ten and a half hours today. We don't get my new car until tomorrow, but we returned the rental, so Andy has been driving me in and picking me up. But he works closer to nine hours a day anyway, and with travel time, I worked over ten. It has never been more clear to me that my job can be boring.

Something I noticed today: I was commenting on a blog, and instead of just "Comment as" and then a drop-down menu for you to select from, it said, "Choose your identity."

I'm so in love with that idea. I know we can all be anonymous and whoever we want to be and all on the internet and everything, but that's not what I am thinking about. Sure, at first I was like, do they think I'm in disguise? Like a spy? Because that's awesome. But then what I started thinking about is this idea that we each, with every single thing we do, are choosing our identity.

So instead of complaining about working a long day at a boring job, I can choose to be psyched to get out early on Friday. Instead of grumbling about how we're supposed to get ten-plus inches of snow in the next 24 hours, I can be excited about having a job that's flexible enough to allow me to work from home if there's a weather emergency. I can choose to be identified by the way I handle not-optimal situations.

Or, another fun part to think about, is to think about the identities we already have. I have always been what you might call an extreme extrovert. I'm the one who talks too much. But I can choose my identity! I can spend more time listening and less time hogging the conversation. I get to invent myself! Isn't that neat?

Is this preachy? It's not intended to be. I am seriously intrigued by the idea of choosing to be who I want to be. I like meeting new people because it's a chance to be someone new. I am just thinking about how I can apply that idea all the time!

What identity would you choose? Do you ever feel like you are a spy?

It's snowing.

If you live on the East Coast, you'll already know that. We have a plow service (it's been Andy's dad's Christmas present for us for the last two years) but this year the guy decides not to show up sometimes. Like today. When we got six inches of snow after I left for work.

BUT I am dealing with this in a healthy way: I have chicken defrosting to make fajitas, I'm going to drink a few beers, and Andy and I are having a movie night. We borrowed In Bruges and The Professional from friends, and we got Dinner for Schmucks from Blockbuster, so I'd say we're all set.

I hope it snows all goddamn night and I get a snowday from work tomorrow. Miss that, for real. Snowdays are the best.