Snow!

Truthfully, more like ice crystals that pinged off the windshield, but I saw a snowflake waft by on the sidewalk. The city could get an inch tonight, then back up to the 50's by the weekend. I still want to stock in a few cans of sterno in case of power outages. Overall, it is warm and safe in this apartment.

I used to trot around through the bitterest weather in a wine-colored leather coat and heeled boots. These days I bind and bundle myself in layers of wool, pulling whatever lined hat with flaps on my head. The boots are flat with treads like Michelins and over everything goes a full length goose down coat from AmVets for ten bucks. There is a hood attached that makes it look like I am peering down a sewer pipe when up and secured. I. Don't. Care. Oh, pardon, I mean, I. Don't. Fluffing. Care.

One cold day in Chicago outside of I. Magnin, a cream colored Rolls Royce was at the curb with the chauffeur handing out a grandmother, her grown daughter, and young granddaughter who was maybe seven. The three of them had on long mink coats. It was like a movie from the early thirties, but that was not unusual in Chicago. You had to do something about that wind from Lake Michigan, and in Chicago, there's money.

Here in Buffalo, there's soup which is better than money especially with noodles in it, the kind you make yourself. Rivels, I thing they're called, little chewy bits of egg dough flicked into the boiling broth by your fingers. They expand as they cook, so make them small; in a chicken soup they are substantial and you will shovel not only your own sidewalk after a bowlful, but the neighbors may see you headed up the next block, discernible only by the plume of snow you disperse behind you.

But hey, this is only a taste of winter, a hint to make you buy cans of beans to make later chili. It can't be snow yet, before Halloween. O omens of December!

Set things right before you go to bed, you'll feel better in the morning. For me, that means getting a cup of tea ready to microwave and pouring cereal into a bowl, ready for milk. A small thing. You find something, too. Sleep happy, sleep warm.

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