Are Your Feet Cold, Too?

After a morning on the laptop, I have decided to write. I experiment with differing sleep and wake up times since moving. It is a beautiful day here, and I am determined to write some poetry today, but it is very, very cold. My electric blanket, although new, is dying. I will write the company today.

I have also made two important phone calls this morning. Two dogs in Appomattox County, Virginia are living outside with no food, water or shelter in this horrendous cold. I called the county and the local TV station. I don't know if it will do any good. But, besides the fact that the TV station made me feel like an idiot on the phone, I could not do less.

Meanwhile, my feet are icy cold. I put on thick socks, cover with a quilt, stack a cat or two on them, and settle on the couch with the dog. I watch Star Trek, with Chris Pine; and Game of Thrones to keep warm, but it is affecting my punctuation, as you can see.

After a short walk this morning, Max, the dog, got wet, canned food for breakfast, a rare treat. So did the cats. It makes me feel better. I feel worse because I am coming off the mood stabilizer, and better because I started taking my sleep/anxiety/anti-depressant, again. But overall, I feel good. Except for my feet. Sometimes, after a twelve to seventeen hour day at work, the man I love will come to see me and rub my feet. Only then are they warm. I scratch his back, as he rubs my feet, so that the whole deal is not so lopsided. Such are the comforts of love.

I seem to be subsisting on bread, yogurt, and eggs. At least, that is what I run out of the most. I remember a story by Pearl Buck, I forget the name, now. A conventional 50's housewife leaves all she has or knows, abandoning husband and children, to move out West, and live in an adobe hut alone. She wakes and sleeps as she pleases, eats when and what she likes, and spends her days walking in the New Mexico wind and sunlight. When she is comfortable that she knows who she is, she returns to her family.

I feel as this woman must have felt. I have spent very little time in my life, simply pleasing me. So, beyond my duty to my animals, my monthly bills, and my duty to my own body, I spend each day as I please, to find what I really like.

I am not sure that I know how the experiment is going, but I find I read a lot, for the first time in a very long while. Stay warm.