The sun is missing. The sky is a light grey. It is cold, down to 31˚. The low won’t get much lower, 29˚. Walking on the snow is noisy as the top is crusty, and any step causes cracks to radiate from the footprints. I walked gingerly to the mail box.

My agenda for today is simple. I have to water plants and change my bed. I am toying with doing a wash, but that seems like overly optimistic planning.

When I was a kid, I’d ride my bike in winter once the roads and sidewalks were cleared. I remember how cold it was riding in the winter air, especially down hills. The ride turned my cheeks rosy and made my nose run. I always wore mittens because any stop meant freezing handle bars.

I don’t wear my winter jacket much, actually not at all. I wear a sweatshirt mostly or a fleece over my long sleeve, flannel shirts. My exposures to the cold are places like the dump or the market. I’m a run in and run out sort. I don’t get cold and neither does the car. I do wear my mittens on the first car ride of the day as the steering wheel gets so cold at night.

When I was a kid, Saturday was my favorite day. I could sleep late, not have to go to church, and if I wanted, I could go to the matinee or just roam around town having fun in the ride or in the walk. Double Creature Feature was on television, and that was the deciding factor on many cold, winter Saturdays. I saw them all, all the classics: Godzilla, Rodan, Gamera, Mothra with those tiny fairies in a cage singing in horrific, chill up your back voices and all those monster versus monster follow-up movies. I always rooted for Godzilla.

Last night was freezing, literally. The water on my top step had frozen leaving a thick layer of ice. I knew to check it. Gingerly is the perfect word to describe how I approached going down that front step.

The light on my house has icicles. I knocked down what I could. One long thick one remains. It will stay awhile as right now it is 23˚. The day will get warmer, to 26˚.

Yesterday, I actually went to the dump. It was as empty as I have ever seen it. After that, I made one more stop before home. Today I could go out or not. I’ll see how I feel later.

Jack sleeps under one of the guest rooms beds near the heater. My Siamese cats used to love lying there. I put an afghan down for their comfort. It is still there. That’s where Jack lies. Gwen is always on the bed.

When I was a kid, oatmeal was sometimes our winter breakfast. It was the old-fashion sort which had to be cooked on the stove. I swear there were always lumps, but with milk and more than enough sugar, the lumps disappeared.

On days like today, my mother sometimes put soup in my thermos. My favorite was chicken noodle. The key to eating it was to be careful pouring the soup into the thermos cover, the sort of bowl, so that the chicken didn’t plop and stain my blouse. It sometimes did anyway, but I was young enough not to care or be embarrassed.

We didn’t have ordinary, living among us vampires to be afraid of when I was a kid. They hadn’t shown up yet or maybe they had, and we didn’t know. Anyway, we had the originals: Frank, The Mummy, the Wolfman, Dracula and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I always felt a little sorry for the Wolfman. He wasn’t responsible for the reign of terror he caused. Larry Talbot got bitten by a werewolf. That’s all it took. The sad part is Larry’s father killed the werewolf with Larry’s own silver cane. Larry turned back to human form after his father had killed him.

The monsters didn’t scare me. Things like breaking my mother’s back if I stepped on a crack did. I never tested it. What if it was real?