In Which I am Distracted by Snow and Cold Weather

The cold and snow wouldn't have been a problem at all if I didn't have a deadline to meet on my WIP. I like cold and snow. It could snow this hard every week all winter and I'd be good with that. When people say they hate the cold weather, they get blank looks from me.


But when it snows this much and gets this cold, and you have to wear a face-warmer up over your nose and neck, and jam down your beanie to meet the face-warmer, and take off your glasses so they don't fog up when you breathe, and you wear a million layers and cover all the remaining exposed skin with olive oil, just to walk the dog (yes, that picture you're generating of me is as alien-weird as you think), and your bum still feels frostbit when you get home, and the cat turns into a fluff-ball and the old dog gets all frisky and puppyish just because there's all this white stuff on the ground...well, that's when cold-weather Russian-related story-thoughts fly in with the wind-chill whether I asked them to or not.



It happened last year, too.

Sorry, Rat-brat, I still love you, and I'll get right back to work on your story soon, but Alex and his grey wolf and Firebird were calling. And my olive-oiled cheeks and the frost on my eyelashes and the sense that yes, winter could kill you if you were stuck out in it for not very long, pushed my thoughts in a Russian Fairytale and Gods of Winter direction. The cold felt personal. Like something was behind it. It's easy to see how ancient people in cold countries could think of Frost and Snow as personalities when you're freezing your eyelids off just walking down the street.

At least it's not brain-freeze, right?