The morning is ugly, pretty much the same as yesterday’s morning, dark and uninviting. It is raining and only 47°. The tree outside my den window has more colored leaves and more bare branches. The wind is pretty strong. Old Man Winter is knocking at the door. He is getting more insistent.

When I was a kid, I dreaded the change from fall to winter. Out came the heavy coat, the knee socks, my mittens and the hat my mother demanded I wear. She always said we lost most of our body heat through our heads. I hated wearing a hat, but I believed my mother. Much later, I found out it is a myth, an old wives’ tale, one I’m sure my mother believed. It probably came from her mother and her mother’s mother and all the way back from there. I have hats stored in a basket underneath my coat rack, but I seldom wear them. One of them, a knitted hat with a pompom, I have had since high school.

I love mittens. I have several pairs. They keep my hands warmer than gloves do, but I do keep some gloves in the car, sort of as an emergency supply. I have two pairs of favorite mittens, both were knitted by a friend many years ago. I remember when I was a kid, my mittens would get heavy with frozen snow. The bottoms sort of hung. I’d shake the mittens and ice would fly. Once I was inside the house for good, my mittens went on the top of the radiator to dry. You could sometimes see a bit of smoke from the radiator heat melting the snow. I loved those radiators. They made the best sounds, gurgling and hissing. I’d sit in front of one and put my feet under it to get warm.

At school, I’d put my mittens up my sleeves so I wouldn’t lose them, but I remember sometimes I’d have an odd pair of two different mittens because one of each pair had gone astray.

Today is a nothing day. I have no lists and an empty dance card. I vacuumed yesterday. I will probably water my plants today. That is all the energy I intend to expend.

This entry was posted on October 17, 2026 at 11:49 am and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.