You know what cold is? Thirty degrees. It is a completely different 30 than usual here. In November in New York, the mid-20s felt warmer. Possibly because we woke to blue skies for the first time in days, the cloudy cold of early afternoon felt worse. When we left REI at 1:30, I was sure it was in the teens. Also, I wore only a fleece vest over a rolled-sleeve shirt and it was damn cold.
I might have to revoke my heretofore complete backing of REI. Out of all the dozens of bikes hanging from the ceiling, not one was a women's bike fitting my specs--aluminum frame, front shock, mountain but not too techy. The clerk didn't say none was a woman's bike--maybe if I'd asked for a racing bike I'd've seen one--but I don't think I was looking for anything that obscure. Also they had already sold out of a lot of models.
I am so crippled by nostalgia. When we went to DU Wednesday night, we parked by the English building, whose name I don't remember, and walked to Magness Arena, where the talk would be. When Moore came in, he ogled at the nearly 7000 people and and realized this must be a sporting hall. "Hockey," the audience yelled. While we waited beforehand (Moore was about 20' late for us and the preceding reception hadn't happened at all), RDC and I reminisced about parking at UConn, which was abysmal for students of course. You could pay your annual fee for a parking sticker and still be booted if the university decided your spot was necessary for an attendee at the ConnDome.
(The pavilion's name is now Gampel for the single largest donor. While it was still only planned, a dome at UConn, and being built, it looked like a condom with a reservoir tip (the crane tower out of the top of the roof). Hence.)
Because of course, a funder's attending a basketball game is so very much more important than a commuting student's attending a night class. Also, more shuttle buses plied the shorter distances between game lots and the Dome than did the greater distances between student lots and academic buildings, which shows priorities.
Anyway, RDC, who lived off-campus longer, grew much more familiar with the various lots than I. And, I am so proud, I did not consider my forgetting the letter names of the various parking lots at UConn to be a betrayal of my love for my alma mater. Now that's progress.
Where was I? Crippled by nostalgia, right. My bike, which is almost nine years old, is not one I ever developed much of a relationship with. It's served me well, gear shifts aside, and I like having it of course. I name my cars and I named my first bike (my first real (that is, geared) bike that I bought myself) but I never named this one or its predecessor (my third and second bikes, respectively). What am I being paralytically nostalgic about? That my next bike (which might be the one I try out on Thursday, by which time it will have been built) won't say "Scott's Cyclery/ Willimantic, Connecticut" on its frame.
Where was I? Freezing my ass off in the REI parking lot. I could easily have spent the entire afternoon in front of REI's (gas) fireplace reading the Colorado Hut to Hut and Cycling France books I whiled away RDC's bike-browsing with, but it was not to be.
We took the other, unnecessary lamp back to Restoration Hardware and browsed in Sur la Table for a while. RDC asked, "Doesn't that mean south of the table?" "Sud," I told him. "This is on the table." Just yesterday I asked him what vaqueros means after passing a store on east Colfax. I have already forgotten whether it means "blue jeans" or "cowboy." We found a roll-up pastry-rolling sheet, which is a fine and necessary thing for bread and pies as long as we have tiled counters. I eschewed bread pans, as anything that seemed thick enough to make a real crust was four millions dollars and the rough peasant loaves I formed on the pizza stone last week turned out okay. Whatever was wrong with them--plenty--would not have been solved with breadpans.
And in Whole Foods we bought a bag of King Arthur whole wheat flour for more bread, and if I don't use the cherries soon they'll probably get freezer-burnt and ruined. I would like to make a pie for friends who just adopted a baby they'll call Scarlett, because of how appropriate the color of a cherry pie would be, but RDC sagely pointed out that the first such attempt should not be sicced on outsiders. I should probably just make sour cherry jam and be done, but I don't think I have enough.
When we got home with the groceries and toys, I was stunned to see the thermometer at 30. I seriously expected to read 10. Okay, I wasn't wearing the right clothes, but the raw wind and humidity didn't help. It is too cold to have a fire, but we are snuggled under the fleece on the couch, reading Underworld and The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and tucking our beaks into our wings and planning to have tomato soup for dinner. Because it's damn cold.