Today is an awkward writing day for me. I will have plenty to talk about this weekend because I have parties and shows to go to, but right now I don't have much to say and I need to finish up today's entry before I start going to parties. And for once I don't have like, old vacation entries to trot out (I think I still didn't finish the ones from 2012, but...eh....the end of that trip was rather dull anyway) or anything pre-written, I'm kinda stumped for today. Plus I just got a Best of Holidailies(!!!!) for writing about driving to Sacramento yesterday, which is thrilling but makes me want to live up to that with something interesting here. But...um.... not so much right now!

At my work party on Tuesday, something like five people were making requests to get my Christmas tree hat. I was all, "Look, if you buy me the yarn and pay me $20 or so" (knitters, calm down: you know how hard it is to charge for labor on knitting stuff and how nobody would buy anything you make if you charged minimum wage per hour of knit--and frankly, I am not doing it as a regular business. If the occasional person wants to pay me to make something, I am going to keep the pricing to something that won't flip 'em out), "I'll do it," but didn't really expect that anyone was going to be that committed to getting one. If someone is, great, but I have lowered expectations. However, a coworker did approach me, so we went out during lunch to find yarn at the bookstore. Happily, they had the same yarn I made on the first hat and in enough balls and on sale, so it was all good! Now I just need to find my dang 10.5 double pointed needles....which are nowhere to be found right now. Dear lord, I need to organize my knitting needle collection, because the little boogers are always falling out everywhere.

In other news, the cold snap finally hit and it is everywhere..... except for my dream locations of SoCal and Hawaii, I guess. I was reading this Best of Holidailies and even though she's in Canada(!) and I am in "sunny California" (har), it's sad that I am relating to this.

For example: I walk to work every day--it's a mandatory half hour of exercise and all that and I live close enough to work to not want to bother with a regular parking permit, and thawing out a car is something I haven't figured out how to do yet anyway. Here's what I am wearing today:
(a) black boots
(b) long underwear
(c) sweatpants
(d) velvet dress over all of that
(e) red sweater over all of that
(f) red velvet hoodie (yeah, that exists) over all of that
(g) giant down parka
(h) giant red scarf
(i) my fuzzy winter hat
(j) fuzzy gloves.

Here's the thing: Technically speaking, I was totally covered everywhere and warm everywhere, EXCEPT FOR MY FACE. And I felt totally frozen ANYWAY no matter what I was wearing, because my face was cold and I could not do shit about it. You cannot wander around in public in a balaclava because people will think you are a robber or perhaps a serial killer. I actually attempted to make a detachable face mask, but not only did that look creepy in the "serial killer" sort of way, my glasses STILL steamed up. I literally cannot keep my face warm and still be able to see to walk down a street. So no matter what, you are going to be frozen just because of your face. DAMMIT WINTER WHY MUST YOU EXIST? And why does everyone rave about how it's so much better to be cold than hot?

Meanwhile, my coworker is going on about how it is going to SNOW tonight/tomorrow morning. Since I plan on driving out of town then, this worries the crap out of me. I'm a dingbat native Californian who lives in valleys or flatlands! I should not have to know how to deal with driving in snow! Oh...and crap, I just realized that my umbrella is in my other backpack and it says 80% chance of rain tonight. DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT. Maybe I should just go home before the party and go find that umbrella...or hell, just get my car and use one of my free permits (I get 12 free parking days a year if I promise to not buy a yearly parking permit) to park on campus later so I have less of a wet hike home. Assuming my car hasn't frozen over that night, that is, because I still don't know how to deal with that!

My temperature scarf for this month is going to be quite a contrast from the rest of it lately.

In other news around these parts, according to this article, various wacky art exhibits are supposed to be going up around campus. I saw (sort of ) the one where there's a temporary movie screen, though frankly it is too cold to stand around watching that movie for 2 hours. Which sucks about winter class installations there. I have been all excited about the sculpture that's promised to be installed in the middle of the lake near my work and have been waiting for it to go up. Well.

Around 3:15 yesterday I went outside on break and saw that they were working on setting it up. There was a large iron frame, and a woven canopy of twigs and other nature-y materials. As I sat on a bench and watched, the folks putting it together returned with two lavender-painted wooden boxes, and some of the kids were putting one of the boxes into the water and then gingerly getting into them to use them as a boat.

Around this time, some strange woman came up to where I was sitting and sat down with me. Which was a little "um....what?" for me, but she turned out to be nice--she was the mom of the chick who designed this sculpture and she was telling me things about it, like the metal part is supposed to go into the lake to hold up the canopy. Apparently the lake is deeper than I thought because that metal frame looks to be around 6 feet tall. She told me they were planning on floating out to the middle to put the sculpture frame out there...."but I don't know how they're going to do it, that frame weighs a few hundred pounds."

Uh....at that point I started to wonder how well this was going to go. And I desperately wished I didn't have a boring day job to go back inside to so I could sit around and watch the impending trainwreck or see how they managed to pull it off. "Uh....well, good luck?"

The lady also asked me if they were going to need to worry about the water levels changing in the lake, and I said no, this is a non-flowing area, all you need to worry about interfering with it is the river otter. And that really perked her up and she told me a story about how she and her daughter had been walking by one of the cafes here and were approached by some spiky-haired hippie psychic dude who somehow got her daughter's birthday right and told her that her spirit animal was the river otter. Later that day, the daughter went by the creek and not only saw the otter, it was hanging out right by her and showing off and playing. Very impressive! She said the guy offered her a free reading and said she needed it, but she declined. I said I hope I run into him sometime, he'd be a lot better quality fellow to talk to than the usual freaky people who find me on the streets.... plus I'd be curious as to what he'd say.

For the record: when I came out of work at 5 p.m. there was no sculpture to be found, either on the banks of the creek or in the middle of the water. This morning I passed by there again and saw the canopy on the bank, but nothing else. I don't think this is going so well....

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