wherein Liz bemoans the (hopefully temporary!) absence of her winter coat

My lovely, warm, long winter coat is at the tailor's right now, theoretically getting its zipper replaced. (It turns out that not only has the locking tab thingy fallen off, the bottom of one teeth track is shredding through the fabric it's set into. So it's a replacement, not just a repair job.) Anyway, my coat's absence was survivable Monday and Tuesday, though not pleasant -- I wore my fall jacket and a scarf, jogged part of the way too and from work, and made sure to put on my outdoor layers at least five minutes before going outside, so as to work up some residual heat.

That is not going to cut it on Wednesday. Our predicted high is 27F (approx. -3C) at best, with noticeable wind and chance of snow all day long. By the time I walk home after closing the store, it will be around 18-20F (approx. -7C), with even more noticeable winds.

My current plan is to get up early, walk to work wearing pantyhose under my khakis and a turtleneck fleece vest under my jacket, and change out of the pantyhose when I arrive. Then I will insulate again for my walk home, at 9:30pm.

*shivers preemptively*

I want my coat back!


I am really dreading Thursday, which has a predicted high of 20F. I will have to run around town doing errands and laundry and stuff all morning while it's even colder than that, plus walk home at night when it's back down to about 15F (-9.5C). I would not be thrilled about that prospect even with my coat -- just as I think there is no excuse for temperatures over 80F, I think there is no excuse for temperatures under 20F -- but at least I would not be worrying about frostbite!

my grandmother is dead

My grandmother died today.

Ardis had an appointment for a routine coronary angiogram this morning, as followup for her heart attack a couple years ago and to see if she needed a new stent. During the procedure, she went into cardiac arrest. The doctors got her heart restarted, but she was unconscious and couldn't breathe without a respirator. Her condition was listed as serious.

My mom called me around 3pm with that information. I was on break. I had just returned to the store with a cup of vegetable beef soup from Subway.

About ten minutes later, Mom called back to say that my dad had spoken with the hospital, and Ardis was dead. Her blood pressure had fallen and fallen, and even though the doctors kept her heart going for a while, eventually it stopped.

...

I just. She survived two bouts of cancer, a still-unidentified inflammatory disease she caught in France, two knee replacements, and a heart attack in a tiny mountain village in Croatia, only to die like this?

My dad and Aunt Jan are flying/have flown to Minnesota to take care of the cremation, arranging a memorial service and funeral, finding and reading her will, and stuff like that. Right now, nobody knows much of anything.

...

I was going to mail Ardis her Christmas present tomorrow. I got her a copy of The Mighty Queens of Freeville, by Amy Dickinson. I had thought about giving it to her as a birthday present, but I forgot to change the page on my perpetual calendar, so I missed that date. Now she will never get to read it.

I feel worst for Aunt Jan. She lost her husband in September, right after his birthday, and now her stepmother in December, right before Christmas.

...

This has been a very bad year for my paternal family.

Yuletide writing progress report

I did not want to think much this evening, so after I got my basic tasks done I sat at the counter and wrote about 700 words of my Yuletide fic longhand between customers. I have typed them into the computer and written another few hundred while waiting for family phone calls tonight (the hospital is doing an autopsy, because they cannot figure out why Ardis kept losing blood pressure even though they got her heart restarted), so I am now over the minimum word count.

I suppose that's one good thing for the day.