Happy New Year!

2009 came with a blast of frigid Arctic air.

Yesterday it snowed again, with the snow storm quickly building in intensity.

When I had to pick up Ariana in New Bedford, the driving was so rough that I had to drive down I-195 ~ all the way to New Bedford ~ in second gear.

Going up Union Street in downtown New Bedford I was behind a pick-up truck that was making its way up the road sideways.

As I was driving home, the character of the snow changed. Hard pellets were mixed with the soft, fluffy snow flakes, and I could hear them pinging off my car. When I got home, the front of my car was covered in a sheet of lumpy, grainy ice.

Not only was I bummed out with the snow, the weather was also freezing cold. And when the weather gets like that, I lose all motivation and desire to be productive.

So the most that I got accomplished yesterday was to bag all the stuff that I was going to put outside for Big Brother/Big Sister to pick up.

I had the plumber show up earlier that day to fix the leak underneath the downstairs bathroom sink and to fix the sideways-spraying faucet. Unfortunately, neither problem was able to be fixed because both problems had to do with the rotted-out guts of the faucet. I would need to get a new faucet.

The rest of the day was spent in restless sloth. I had no desire to get involved in cleaning. But I was too fidgety to spend all that time doing nothing.

I played a few games of dominoes solitaire. I played Mah Jong. And I played Free Cell. I watched videos on Maniac World. And I tried to find the Star Wars "Attack of the Clones" movie to watch.

At that point it was getting close to midnight, so I turned the TV on to watch the ball drop on Times Square.

At the stroke of midnight, Ariana called to wish me a Happy New Year. Ten minutes later she was at the house with her friend Isaac.

We toasted the New Year with a bottle of cheap, but tasty, champagne. Then the kids went upstairs while I watched an hour of David Letterman. Then I went upstairs to read a bit of James Michener's Space and eventually go to sleep.

There were no fire works last night on account of the snow.

This morning was even colder than last night. It was zero degrees outside, while the downstairs inside hovered at a constant 50 degrees.

It was so cold that I had multiple layers ~ a long-sleeve thermal undershirt, a tee shirt, a pullover sweater, a pullover hoodie, and a zip-up hoodie. I also wore woolen fingerless gloves, a hat, and a scarf around my neck. And if that wasn't enough, I also wore a bathrobe.

And unlike Donald Duck, I did wear pants ~ jeans to be specific. In addition, I wore my winter boots with the thick wool felt liners.

Yes, it was that miserably cold in the house.

My cup of morning coffee became stone cold in a matter of minutes.

I called Roma to wish her a Happy New Year, and we had a pleasant long chat. After talking to Roma, I tried calling our mother. But her phone just rang and rang.

Carol was going to have us over for lunch at 12:30. However we got there late because I decided to haul outside ~ for the Big Brother/Big Sister pick-up ~ all those boxes and bags.

There were 53 of them, plus one ironing board and a wide baby gate. Two of the boxes were so heavy that I had to put them on Neil's old sled in order to bring them to the telephone pole by the driveway.

I wanted to get that job done while we still had day light. So the best time to do that was before we left for Carol's.

At Carol's we had hamburgers for lunch and leftover sweet potatoes from Christmas.

I called Neil on Carol's phone. And while we were talking to Neil, I thought that it would be neat to also call Scotty in California so that we could have a 3-way conference call. It was nice to have everybody on the phone at the same time talking together.

We didn't stay too long at Carol's. Ariana was anxious to get to Amanda's. And I wanted to get home to call Mam.

I dropped off Ariana and came home to a freezing house. So what else is new? In freezing cold weather this house is a heat sieve.

I called our mother. It's been awhile since I last talked to her, having been overly preoccupied with getting this house in order and ready to put on the market. We had a pleasant chat.

Then I called Roma again after talking with Mam to let her know how the conversation went. I spent a bit over an hour on the phone with Roma, having a very pleasant chat.

Next I called Barbara, and that was also a pleasant chat that went over an hour.

Boy! I have done more gabbing on the phone this one day than I have done in a month, not counting my daily calls to Neil.

Ariana's home now from Amanda's. And we're waiting for Barbara ~ who's waiting for Jeremiah to return home ~ to come over.

It's still freezing in the house. It's so cold that I have brought my laptop upstairs to my room, where I don't have to wear a hat in order to keep warm.

When I walk down the stairs, I feel as though I am passing through a thermocline from the comfortably warm air upstairs to the Siberian frigid air on the first floor. The principle of thermoclines may apply to ocean water temperatures, but they also seem well at work inside this freezing house.

I tell you, I will be SO glad when I finally move to Texas, where the only frigid air I'll encounter will be inside a refrigerator freezer.