Hot Dice, Cold Bets

I was assisted with my second major auto dig-out today, which was nice as the most recent snow dump was heavy.  Temps soared up to +32F, generating lots of powder, which was good for skiing but calamitous for tourists hoping to see the aurora.  The three questions I never want to hear again are: Do you have wifi? When will we see the aurora? Is the hot water free?

We do not have wifi.  You will see the aurora when it is good and goddamn ready to be seen, which is not when it is snowing.  And there is a sign directly above the hot water spigot that proclaims "HOT WATER - $2.95."

Maybe I'm just a little salty ending a seven-day workweek with hosting, after the actually-more-fun annual kitchen deep clean and awkwardly being filmed for Japanese TV.  Luckily my weekend aligned with the solstice, and we combined Silent Dance Party with Craps Night.  The backstory is, when covid first hit, things shut down and the coworkers here used the extra time to build a craps table and play a bunch so they could travel together to Vegas and win big when things reopened.  We brought out the table and I was given some vague and bewildering explanations; there was excited shouting and nickels and quarters won and lost all around.  And then the true kindred spirits pranced and spun and kicked and swam through the waist-deep snow, jamming out quietly under the stars to help pull the sun back in our direction.

After first accidentally throwing the dice in Derrick's face, I redeemed myself by rolling for over an hour.

Pretty colors the last clear day.

Delightful moody blue light.

Powder Blue

Krista came through with room breakfast and story time this weekend.  We had a floor picnic of eggs and bacon and hashbrowns and yogurt and fruit and giant pancake, then read aloud from classics and new literary delights, like "We Found a Hat" and "This Is Not My Hat."  It was lovely to stay inside and sit around in pajamas for hours.  Otherwise, I have been getting after it -- skiing every other day, re-breaking the trail after 18" of snow, miring in the woods where it's thigh-deep, farcically crashing through thin ice coating a huge culvert, even...rowing along to Ke$ha in the gym.

The days have narrowed to the extent that it's dusk when I wake up at 11:30am and nighttime at 4pm.  The beautiful blueish light of the muted half-tone landscape, the subtle pinkish-peach airbrushed hillsides when clouds part, and the snow's seeming luminescence meld into an alluring, mellow palette.  Soon we'll reach the nadir, and again the light will grow; but for a time we pause, becalmed in the quiet cold.

Other Claire mushing while Dan breaks ahead

Ptarmigan(?) tracks by the river  

Got the Honda free again.