The Wind Blows Out Candles, and Kindles Fire*

This weekend has been brutally cold.  Temperatures are in the low 20s but for two days straight there has been a howling wind bringing the air down into single and minus digits.  My Beloved and I have been holed up, thanking our lucky stars to have heat and warm cozy mugs of tea.  We take turns braving the elements to bring out the dog who - in an act of perfect timing - has become really slow and finicky about where to drop her business.  When I go out with her, I try to hide from the wind, but there is no safe place.  Even on the leeward side of the house, the wind swirls and gusts and any exposed skin is quickly paled and bitten with frost.

The last time I remember this kind of cold, we lived in a very small town in rural Pennsylvania.  I was in 5th grade (6th?) and wanted to give my "boyfriend" the Christmas present I had so carefully selected for him:  a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure paperback (remember those? *sigh*).  (Writing this I just remembered I had asked one of my teachers what you get a boy for Christmas and she recommended a book.  Why I asked a teacher and not my own mother is a mystery.  Maybe I asked her, too, who knows.  I just remember the suggestion came from a teacher.  Continuing...)  I asked Mom if I could meet Boyfriend at the local park (about a 1/2 mile walk?), but she refused citing the risk of exposure.  Wise woman, my mom.  Me?  Not so much.  Fearless for the sake of love, I left the house anyway.  All told, the walk and exchange took less than an hour.  I got an ice cream headache from the wind and my eyes teared incessantly.  Boyfriend gave me a homemade bracelet with my name (you know those white beads with the letters in black outline?  macrame bracelet; very early 80's) which I thought so precious that I was immediately ashamed of the un-romantic gesture of a book.  One, it turned out, he already had.  And then we went back to our respective homes.  The end.  Of the romantic moment I had built up in my mind and consequently, later, our "going steady."

* quote from François de la Rochefoucauld