Pre-Storm Breakfast and Some Pampering

 I keep wanting to start blogs with "The storm is coming," but I don't want the Q-Anon connotations That brings. 

But really and truly: the storm is coming tonight. I mean the winter storm, where we're expected to get 2-4 inches of snow? Maybe? Or maybe ice? Or "snow showers" mixed with sleet and freezing rain? So much depends on one or two degrees either direction.

My city sits right on the demarcation line between "snow" and "ice" on all the radar forecasts, so who knows? Everything will freeze for at least a few days, no matter what happens. The whole city is scrambling to prepare: flooding stores, emptying shelves, stocking up on non-perishables. Foods that need refrigeration pose no problem. If electricity winks out, just put the stuff outside or in the car. The problem involves reheating. 

We have a fireplace in our house. We've never used it, but the prior owner says he often had a fire in there in wintertime. I give it the side-eye myself--not because it seems suss but because of my ignorance of all things fireplace related. Is the chimney cleaned out? Is the flue open? How would I know if the flue is opened? What exactly is a flue? Do I have an ember screen? (I don't think so?) Pokers? My partner wants us to have a duraflame log or two just in case, but I don't know. I can all too easily imagine our house burning down because we couldn't go 12 hours without central heat.

Meanwhile I have one last-minute set of errands to run today, and all of them involve my best friend. I hope to get one last fancy breakfast with him at our current favorite place. Then we hope to get mani-pedis. Will anywhere be open today due to MLK Day? Due to the coming storm? Dunno. But we'll try. 

He'll go for both mani and pedi. I'll probably stick to pedi. I want to give my feet and toes some love. I went so long thinking they were ugly. My genetics predispose me to hammer toes and calluses, and age twists my feet toward boniness. I had a few years where I ran a lot, which was murderous on my feet and toes. Nowadays I have only to walk a bit one day to find that I can barely get down the stairs the next day.

Thus: my toes are due some love. And by "love" I mean the professional scraping and filing and cleaning and pampering that folk at those places know how to do. It's an absolute indulgence--a pretty dear one, too--but I'm doing it today in the spirit of joy-producing activities.

Yeah, I got a lot of work after this, even with the likelihood of closed schools Wednesday. I have to write a sermon. I have to put a ton of stuff online. I need to think about pitching a paper to a conference, writing an article, recovering my book project from its purgatory, cleaning my office...

But for now: food and pedis.