Staying warm

We are not hibernating, although I certainly understand the impulse.  With temperatures dropping below zero and not getting above 20 for several days the world is brittle and crunchy.  The deer leave tracks with sharp edges where their hooves break through the frozen crust of snow.  When there is sun, the hard snow gleams.

Coming into the gym through the second set of doors there is a blast of warmth and the hum of friendliness.  I see people I don’t know, of course.  In a town of fewer than 2000 people, the gym has over 5000 members, drawing folks from surrounding towns.  People drive half an hour and more over snowy roads to get to this wonderful facility.  But if there are people I don’t know, or know only by sight because our schedules are similar, there are always people I do know.  Some days we could have a mini board meeting of the League of Women Voters in the gym lobby.  And Deb at the front desk knows which locker Jay likes.

In the locker room there is talk of staying warm, of good base layers and boots, and approaches to home heating.  There is talk of road conditions and clearing driveways.  But a lot of the talk is of staying warm emotionally, of going to concerts or dinners with friends, of making cookies with grandchildren, of getting quilts finished for the February quilt show.  I suppose there are people who get morose during the winter, but the people who come to the gym have found ways to stay active and happy through the short, cold days, and there is plenty to do.  The Cabin Fever Film Festival is over, but this week Winter Carnival starts Thursday night with hot chocolate and fireworks over the lake at the beautiful Otesaga Hotel.  It ends Sunday evening with Grilled Cheese for a Cause at the Farmers Market, an amazing array of approaches to the no-longer humble grilled cheese sandwich put on by local restaurants.  And our wonderful Fenimore Art Museum has done a series of zoom tours of various parts of the collection. 

On the home front, we have high hopes of getting our garage erected next week.  It’s been ready for a few days, but the weather has made it challenging to work outside.  It will be lovely to have it, and to not have to start the day clearing snow and ice off the car.  It’s only Mondays and Wednesdays, when I have an 8:00 class at the gym, that we’re on a fixed schedule.  So most days we don’t have to hustle to get the car ready.  But still, it’s a chore we will be happy to give up, mostly Jay who does most of the work.

The other big development is that we finally have a tenant for our downstairs unit, a lovely woman and one of her adult daughters.  They have deep roots in Cooperstown.  Susan’s mother started the Cooperstown food pantry many years ago as a closet in the library.  Many of you know that I worked for years with the Ecumenical Hunger Program in East Palo Alto which had a similar beginning in a closet in one of the churches.  The Cooperstown food pantry hasn’t grown quite as dramatically as EHP did, but it’s a substantial operation now, involving many volunteers. So folks know the St. John family through that association and many others.  Susan’s mother adopted her as an infant from China, and Susan in turn adopted her two daughters, now grown, as infants from China and Korea.  It’s a lovely family, and they’re in love with the apartment.  Having missed the main rental market this past summer we thought we’d have to wait until spring to find a tenant.  But the building where Susan has lived for many years has been sold and she could hardly believe her luck when she found our place.  She says it feels like paradise.  Amen.