We Hate November

Catman reading. Deb Marshall photo.

 

We hate November.

Grey. Cold. Freezing rain. Snow layered with freezing rain. Slippery stairs. Cold wind. Garden turned white. Stuff frozen in. The end of flowers. Continual woodstove. Dead furnace. 

Pissed off cats. Hairballs. Woodstove dust. Leaves buried under snow. Snow tires not on. Other people’s snow tires not on. Black ice. Overheated public rooms. Underheated public rooms. Overdue library books. Needing to sign up, again, for the ACA – guaranteed hours of frustration, completely incomprehensible, too expensive choices followed by throwing hands in the air and signing up for the cheapest option available because that’s all we can afford, anyway. Aches and pains. 

Nothing foodish appeals or is anything I want to be bothered to cook. I want one of the pears off my tree, which were so delicious this fall, and are long gone. I don’t want to get into a cold car and drive for 15 minutes before it warms up enough to be bearable. I can’t find a single pair of gloves that are warm enough, but not over-heating. Nothing is quite right about any of my winter hats. I haven’t won Publisher’s Central Bureau $2000 For Life sweepstakes, yet, nor the Lottery. Bills are mounting faster than I can make money. Dead furnace – oh, did I mention that already?

Ears in the radio morning assaulted by lying, ball-less, Republican minions being rude and not even slightly entertaining or creative as they twist and warp reality in an attempt to protect the worst so-called President ever. Immigrants still being trashed and tortured, just-barely adult DACA children who have lived all of their conscious lives here being forced to live in fear, endlessly, because of same, said, nasty, ball-less Republican minions and their satanic master. People dying because they can’t afford health care because we don’t have the national soul to man up and do the right thing. Children, amongst other people, dying because same, said ball-less minions, can’t bring themselves to vote against a noisy but actually unimportant NRA. People shouting vile things at other people, because they’ve been confused into thinking that’s an heroic thing to do. People doing vile things because their souls are lost. Let’s not even think about the environment – I daily reflect on how happy I am that I’m 63, not 23, and didn’t have children who will have to live – maybe just exist - all their lives through what’s coming.

My office is too cool. I put on a sweater, and then I’m too hot: there is no right place. Nor is there a right mental place. I need to take another continuing ed class before mid-December – a weekend-long process, time spent that can’t be shared with anything else, time I can’t afford. And then the more hours of filling out license-renewal forms, trying to figure out where to squirrel the money for the class and the forms out of a too-small budget. That’s what credit cards are for, but the balances grow higher, and they’re built of necessity after necessity, not out of fun things we did or got. 

Flu; pneumonia; stomach bug; strep; upper respiratory infections – all going around, waiting in hidden places for a slip in hygiene, an exhausted immune system or over-stressed body to stumble arcoss them. Year-end inventories that need to be taken. Bird seed to buy – are the bears in their winter beds yet, or is it too soon? Friends with worrisome, debilitating health conditions. “Health conditions” rather than illnesses because, in one case, no seems to be able to discover what’s causing it, and in another, there’s a perfect storm of many chronic diseases that the medications don’t work for, anymore. I miss my old office-mate, and don’t yet know my new one. How can almost every family gift-giving occasion fall within eight short weeks?  Are left-overs an acceptable  gift? End-of-year office hoe-out needs to take place. Before January.

Holidays coming…wondering what that will mean for a couple of troubled people I love. A few too many things to worry about, and not enough time to do it, or do anything about them. Has this “water cure” I’ve been swallowing been poisoning me? How’s the patient doing, who had a major operation last week? Will it snow or be freezing rain the day we have tickets for a Hatbox play I’m really looking forward to? Body hasn’t adjusted to early darkness yet: will I be able to stay awake to listen to a friend’s concert tonight, or will the conductor be forced, once again, to turn and conduct my snoring during pauses?

Sigh. Thanksgiving coming. Turkey? Really? I discovered several years ago that I actually kinda hate turkey. And most of the other things that are served at that meal. Worse, now that I seem to be sliding back towards the vegetarianism that was my happy eating place for 30-plus years. Except now, most vegetables, fruits and grains make my blood sugar do scary things. What can I eat? Food is no longer safe. Even water can be wrong. The evil store isn’t stocking the body warmers I need for me and my patients this winter, but an almost useless something-similar instead.  Dead furnace – still.

The garden, source of stress and pleasure, is over for the season. I have lengthy notes about what needs to be done first thing next spring, lists of what didn’t get done before frost in the ground and first snow, lists of perennials newly planted, possibly too late – will they survive the winter? Ditto the new peach trees and cherry bush? The garlic that’s only grown once for me in decades of planting it?  Will the parsnips that get left in the ground over winter to sweeten still be there in spring, or will mice feast on it over winter?

On Hallowe’en, I played the Dark Lady all day, frightening and mystifying adults, and had more fun than I’d had in months, maybe years. Last weekend I had a couple of hours to lie on the floor while Sherlock and Clare, a friend’s two dogs, attacked me and licked me and jumped all over me until I was screaming with laughter from being tickled and nibbled and dog-dog-dogged. Two days later I realized my shirt still stank of dog. I chose not to wash it right away. This week, I figured out how to sign up for Acorn tv – finally, the shows I loved are available again – my limited tv life will be full if I can figure out how to get it to play on the tv and not just the computer. I'm reading a couple of really good books. 

The milkman delivered a wedge of really fine blue cheese two days ago. The annual flower-whose-name-I-don’t know, which I moved into the kitchen, is covered with flower buds. My Christmas cactuses bloomed beautifully on Hallowe’en. The crows, cawing, wake me up most mornings, and I lie warm and sleepy in bed and think, oh, oh, how sweet. The full moon, shining on the new snow this week, made the outdoors a miracle of magic and mystery for two glowing nights.

Joy arrives unexpectedly.  There are little pleasures; there are big, rollicking soul-shining grand delights. 

Be ready, because you can’t guess when they’ll arrive. Be ready. 

Even if you hate turkey.


A slightly different version of this blog was published in the Concord Monitor, November 26, 2019, as "Stay alert - there's joy to be found in the November gloom"