February Coffee Date- A Wintry Mix
Happy February! I’m joining Coco and Deborah once again for our monthly coffee date. I’m drinking my usual earl grey tea out of my Baylor mom mug, because I’ve been missing my Bear lately. Speaking of which… If we were having coffee together, I would tell you that it snowed in Texas! This was an event for my son, who, at the age of 19, had never seen snow before. I know… how is that even possible??? Well, he was born and raised here in South Florida. Of course we tried many times to see snow, but it seemed that we were somehow cursed. Every time we went up north in the winter, we were preceded by an unexplained warm front, which would melt all the snow shortly before our arrival. One year we went up to Chicago for Christmas. The snow they had all melted the day before we arrived, and then the next time it snowed was… when we were on the airplane, waiting to take off to fly back to Florida. We sat on the runway, looking through the window at fluffy white snowflakes falling. Eventually we stopped trying to “see snow” because it just led to disappointment. When my son went to Baylor this year, he was hopeful about the possibility of snow in the winter. Yesterday they had a storm warning, predicting a “wintry mix” of freezing rain, turning to sleet, and finally turning to… It wasn’t a lot, but still pretty exciting for a Florida kid. On the other end of the spectrum, summer has returned to South Florida. It was 80 degrees here today, and we’re back to tank top running weather. We have our AC on at night again, which leads me to my “sleep epiphany.” During our recent cold spell, we slept with the windows open, and I slept soundly every night. I need it COLD for sleeping! When it’s warm out, we put our AC on 68 at night and it’s still not cool enough for me. I don’t think we can put it much lower without the AC unit- and our electric bill- exploding. So, I continue to struggle with sleep and I’m really not sure what to do about it. Possibly a fan trained only on me? (My husband doesn’t want it as cold as I do.) Anyone have any ideas for me? Moving on, I read an interesting and varied quartet of books in January: The House in the Cerulean Sea was recommended by Stephany, and was a bit of a stretch for me because I don’t normally read fantasy. But I liked it! Now I’m back to my first love- mysteries. I’m reading Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke. It was described as a “fair-play” mystery, i.e. the reader is given all the information they need to solve the crime themselves as the book goes on. I love this type of book. However, one thing about this particular book is shocking to me- the racism in the small Texas town where the story takes place. If I didn’t know better, I would place the story in the 1960s- but right at the beginning the author specifies the year is 2016, probably for people like me who are unaware of what’s still going on in the rural south. The author is a Black woman who grew up in Texas, so although the story is fictional, I assume the situation she describes is accurate. One last thing- is anyone else still struggling to comprehend that the Olympics has begun? Opening ceremony is tonight but several events have already started. Maybe I’ve just been distracted, but this seems like the most low-key buildup to any Olympics, ever. So that’s it for this coffee date! What are you reading now? Do you sleep better in the cold? Does temperature make a big difference for you? Do you like snow?