Saturday, December 4, 2010

Snow

Hey, it's snowing! The cats do not approve. First Loquito was staring out the window with his ears flattened, watching the flakes come down. Then he tried hissing at it. Then he scratched at the window the same way he buries things in his litterbox or "covers up" his food. Now he is at the bargaining stage, meowing at me for more food because the stuff in his bowl is a whole hour old. I am not moved.

Timido watched the flakes for a little while but then I raised the blinds more to get a nice view and that scared him. He came back later to watch from more of a distance but the wind changed and some flakes flew against the window and now he is completely in hiding.

And I hear Loquito eating now. Cats --- they are quite predictable, aren't they?

So anyway it's a nice day and I don't have to go anywhere, so I am watching the snow fall but not stick. I see my car, which is quite covered. My plan was, as it is every Saturday, to go to the next town over and eat a breakfast bagel sandwich and drink a fancy coffee while grading, as a nice way of getting out of the house and motivating my work. But I decided not to bother with the car and potential driving difficulties today.

Of course, you see me working hard on those essays right now, don't you? Heh. It helps to have a productive routine --- when I am at the coffee place I associate it with working, while I associate this couch with being comfy and lazy --- and it helps a lot too to only have the essays with me, so that I can't check the internet for distractions even if the wifi is working.

If you remember, a while back I posted about making an emergency kit and having supplies and stuff around the house. Well, as part of that project, I got some of that Starbucks instant coffee, both the hot and the cold versions. I totally don't want to sound like some sort of testimonial or whatnot, but I am drinking the instant stuff right now, and it is pretty good. So soon I will be nicely caffeinated and hopefully that will prompt some good work habits. And the cold stuff you can make with cold water, so even if we were to have a power outage I could have my coffee ... and probably grade all day by the light of a lantern. Wow. Suddenly my life sounds very 19th-century prison, or maybe like the 10-year-old pieceworkers who would bring home sewing for while they watched all their younger siblings. Ok, it's totally not like that. It's just depressing that my teaching load is so high I have no time off grading and even if I were to be snowed in and with no power I'd still have to try and keep caught up.

My scaredy-cat just came out of hiding. Loquito jumped him and they wrestled for a minute, then when Loquito won, Timido ran off and went into hiding in a different place. So funny.

And now the snow appears to have slackened. Does this mean I have to start grading? Oh, coffee, let me prolong your sweet liquor just a little longer!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The first time my cats saw snow they tried to pounce on the snowflakes, neglecting to take into account the windowpane between them and the snowflakes. I also survived a rather stressful summer thanks to Starbucks instant coffee so I would agree that it is actually, surprisingly good.

Dame Eleanor Hull said...

Start grading. I will check in on you later to see how much you have done. This morning, I have marked up 6 papers, with 5 remaining in one section (but I have yet to take any of this marking-up to the computer to fill in the rubric & comment sheet). We can do this.

Belle said...

Poor cats. Snow - they'd well & truly freak if you put them outside in it, wouldn't they? Are they mostly okay now from the move?

And neener, neener - you have solid weather and I don't=-) We're due tomorrow. And since you've reminded me - it's nicer to shop in non-snow than snow, so I'm off to the market. Thankyouverymuch.

P said...

I love when cats wrestle.

Hope the grading blues don't stick around for too long ;-)

Dame Eleanor Hull said...

OK: how's the grading going?