greetings from the deep freeze, featuring pictures filled with longing from week before last.... in shiny things

....when we were strolling lovely historic streets in warmer climes. I feel a little bad bitching about the weather since it is MUCH worse in those frozen wastelands up north ( - 22 in Minnesota?!?!?! Not counting windchill, which is making it like FIFTY BELOW???) .... but it's -3 here with windchills of thirty below. This is bizarrely cold for us. As much as I bitch about the winters here, it doesn't plummet below 0 very often. (And plummet is what it did - it was around 45 when I went to bed last night.) It's so weird that everyone in town is marveling over it and posting pictures of their thermometers on Facebook.

But we have heat, we have electricity, the house is toasty and ... best of all!! ... we get a surprise vacation day tomorrow! The university announced this afternoon that it's closing down Tuesday due to the predicted high of 12 degrees with strong blizzardy winds. And we don't even have to take a vacation day, although I'd have been fine with that--- since it's a Weather Emergency, we get paid for staying home. This has made me blissfully happy, because despite the fact that we've just gone back today after a two week break for the holidays, I did not not not want to go back to work (why yes, I am totally a spoiled princess). I wanted to keep staying up insanely late and sleeping insanely late, in keeping with my natural internal clock. I wanted to keep lounging around like the lazy bum that I am, reading and playing online and napping and reading some more and doing nothing productive whatsoever. Usually after the long breaks I'm kind of ready to go back, just to force myself back into a routine, but for some reason I just really really loved this one and was not ready to give it up. Possibly because I had been getting a fair amount of exercise (in between naps and surfing and reading) and had also been eating relatively well, so wasn't feeling like if I stayed home any longer I'd die of sheer inactivity and sugar consumption like I usually do.

So, finding out today that I've been granted another day to stay up late and sleep late and laze around was like winning the lottery! Without the financial advantages. Another reason I dreaded going back to work was a faculty/staff semester-opening meeting Tuesday that would take up half the day and involve having to socialize (it also involves getting to sip wine and nibble cheese and crackers, but is still boring as all fuck) and a transfer student orientation Wednesday that takes up half the day and involves sitting in a computer room in the library being absolutely bored out of my MIND because we only ever have a few students and there's nothing to do but play on Facebook and read the NY Times and whatever else I can come up with that takes no attention so I can stop as needed and attend to the one or two students who show up. And now we at least get out of the faculty-staff meeting!! It's totally cancelled. I'm sure transfer orientation won't be, since the weather won't be quite so horrific by Wednesday, but I feel that I can manage one of them without completely losing my mind, so that's okay.

And to offset the Siberia-like conditions, I'll post some Charleston pictures. We drove down on Christmas eve and came back the day after Christmas. Christmas in Charleston is THE BEST. We walked miles, drank beer, and had Christmas Dinner at the Blind Tiger Pub. Then we visited the Baker B family and my dad after Christmas.

Our Traditional Christmas Blue Moon Beer at the Tides hotel bar on Folly Beach. (I don't know why it says Sweetwater - it's Blue Moon. It also traditionally comes in a plastic cup, but the outside bar was actually not operating so we got it at the inside bar and carried it outside, which is probably why we got glass and not plastic)

View from the Outside Bar. It was actually pretty chilly for Charleston, but that was okay. It was in the 50s. A whole lot better than 5 below 0, for sure. We had lots of sun Tuesday and Wednesday, making it seem warmer.

Charleston has flowers. In late December. I want flowers in late December.

And Christmasy decorations:

Okay, I'm ready to go back now.