Experiencing cold and wet exuberantly

The story, as I remember a friend telling it, is that many winters ago, his wife was driving somewhere with their toddler on a snowy day. At some point, she discovered the toddler had completely undressed himself, despite being snugly strapped into his carseat. Friend said that spouse said that toddler said he had stripped down in order to "experience cold."

That wording, obviously, has stuck with me. I like the idea that one does not have to be something unpleasant (or pleasant, if coldness is your thing), but instead one can experience something--and the difference is a choice.

As part of my recent effort to age exuberantly to make my life worth living, I have decided to experience more and be less. One outcome is that I now walk long distances in the rain on chilly days. Rather than being cold and soggy, I get to experience cold and soggy! 

Thus I met friends for lunch a six-mile roundtrip chilly rainy walk from home, and I did not melt! 

Thus I headed ten miles down the greenway to the mega-mall in a breezy drizzle, and then (because it was during my second annual "car-free February") hopped onto a bus to get home. 

Thus last Saturday, I walked 15.5 miles from Durham to Chapel Hill in the rain, to meet up with friends for dinner and an opera. Because wet shoes and socks generate more friction against toes than dry ones, I had the added bonus, just before reaching the restaurant, of mindfully experiencing the exact moment when a blister that had been simmering for days finally gave up the ghost. (Because I am also attempting to age with a smidge of style, at least in public, I had an opera-worthy pair of flats, dry socks, and a dry shirt in my backpack; I changed in the restaurant restroom and left my sneakers behind in the trash can. Thanks for the 500+ miles, shoes!)

Of course, exuberance does not require rain. Posts on sunshine-filled walks coming soon.

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Photos from a Saturday walk to Chapel Hill. I planned my route to go through Duke Gardens...

...where spring flowers were already abundant.

The rain began in earnest as I left the gardens, so I walked most of the way to Chapel Hill under an umbrella.

I've been meaning to post a photograph of this bridge for a while. This is on Academy, where it crosses I-40, and it's the scariest bridge-over-freeway that I've traversed so far. The concrete barrier comes up as high as my kneecap. Fear of tripping and plunging onto a car going 70 mph outweighs fear of getting hit by a car going 45 mph, so I walk in the street instead of on the narrow sidewalk. 

Durham is full of subdivisons that have half a block of sidewalk on either side of the main entrance. This spot was notable for having an entire block of sidewalk. Most of the walk to Chapel Hill looked like this--just without the sidewalk--so this was the last photo I took.

 

Needle ice and ice discs on the Eno

E and I did our annual January Long Hike today. Instead of the 22.5-mile ATT (the length of which apparently I've only blogged about once, although we've now walked it in one fell swoop for two different January Long Hikes) in favor of ~10.5 miles along the Eno, from the Pleasant Green access to West Point on the Eno. E and I have both hiked this route before, although today was the first time we did so together.

The first amazing thing about this adventure was that when I said "hey E, want to go on a 10.5 mile hike with me tomorrow," he said "sure." The second amazing thing--thanks to a cold front that blew in quickly last night--was the variety of ice.

Puddles: after the surface froze, water underneath either soaked into the ground or partially drained away, leaving delicate ice formations with air underneath.

This fallen tree had large icicles draining from its roots:

Ice discs!

E pierced one of the discs with a stick. They were very thin in the middle and broke easily.

This tributary had frozen over and was remarkably flat on top, while the water underneath flowed down through the dam of sticks and leaves.

Needle ice!

The Eno River was impressively full; we've had a lot of rain in the past several months. This is a view looking east from what Schoolhouse of Wonder calls "the secret beach."

This is what the water level more typically looks like, from a warmer time of year:

Penguins

I did finally get outside this afternoon. I learned that 52^oF is really not all that cold for throwing, especially with a container of hot water from the kitchen. I threw a colony of penguins.

S thought they might benefit from eyeballs.

E informed me that only Emperor penguins are this tall. "Most penguins are only about"--he held his index finger and thumb about two centimeters apart--"this tall. You know that, right?" He knows such things because he had a unit on penguins in Kindergarten and first grade, and probably second grade too. Penguins were very popular at his elementary school; apparently aspect ratios were not as interesting. (For the record, he knows real Emperor penguins are more than 4 inches tall.)

The problem with a screened-in-porch studio

A gallery owner came by to peruse pots last week, on an unseasonably warm day right before a thunderstorm. On her way out, she wondered whether public schools would escape snow closures this week. "It sounds silly," she said, "but there's this old wives' tale that says if there's a thunderstorm in the winter, snow will follow within 10 days."

We haven't had any snow yet, but temps have dropped, and snow has been in the forecast three times since last week. Schools in some counties east of us operated on a two-hour delay today due to black ice.

I waffled today about moving the pottery wheel back into the house. It's inconvenient, but warm enough to work comfortably. I decided to decide tomorrow--when, most likely, I'll just go over to Claymakers. My plan today, with a balmy forecast high of 52, is to work outside and Experience What Cold Feels Like.

So. Right now. I'm going outside right now.

To dip my hands in warm water and form things from cold clay.

Cold cold clay.

Right now. Yep.

(This is also how I immerse myself in cold swimming pools. Five six seven eight, go. No no no. Try again. Five six seven eight, go.)

Really. Here I go.

Time

When I was a kid, I went to an elite public secondary school that squeezed junior high and high school into five years by combining seventh and eighth grade into a "subfreshman" year. I was already on the young side for my grade and had a hard time keeping up socially, but I did get an excellent academic education.

You'd think with that accelerated pace, time would have flown by, but it didn't. I have a vivid memory from 9th grade--the year of geometry and analytic trigonometry--I was around 13. It was late fall or early spring--probably early spring, as we were well into sines, cosines, and tangents. There was no snow, but wet leaves covered the ground, and I was walking around in circles in our front yard, thinking about how woefully, painfully, agonizingly, boringly, SLOWLY time was passing, and wondering how I would survive into adulthood, let alone the rest of the school year.

That was 36 years ago, and I am pleased to report that time has accelerated continuously since then. I have friends who complain sometimes about how quickly time flies. But I know better, having peered into the depths of cold-molasses-standstill-boredom and survived. While I'm surprised, on a regular basis, by how quickly E is growing up--I miss those adorable-toddler years as much as I love these mature-young-autonomous-teen years--I would not trade this accelerated pace for the slowness of the year of geometry and analytic trig. I suppose time speeds up because every new year occupies an increasingly smaller percentage of my accumulating total. Whatever the reason, I will always be grateful for the acceleration.

Hence I am not complaining, but rather simply explaining, how January 2016 zipped by without a single blog post.

We went to Mexico to visit S's sister P between Christmas and New Year's. Posts will follow.

In mid-January, I flew to Syracuse, NY, to give a science writing workshop. Do to scheduling issues, I was forced to wish for just the right amount of blizzard so that I could miss my return flight, visit the ceramics collection at the Everson Museum (unfortunately closed Mondays and Tuesdays), and then catch a flight home in time for choir practice; but alas, the weather gods did not cooperate. I did get to see a little lake effect snow at the airport, along with a small display of pots on loan from the Everson, but only because my flight home was delayed for other reasons.

Oh, and it snowed in Durham too, last Friday and Saturday, causing schools to close from Thursday evening through late Wednesday morning. My music-gig church closed too, for the second time in at least a dozen years, so I had a rare Sunday morning at home with my family. The photos below capture the intensity of the snow and ice.

I'm honestly not sure what happened the rest of the month, since, as happens these days, it just flew by.

Beyond chicken-eyeballs humid

The weather has gone back to hot and humid--so humid that even chicken eyeballs are out of the question. E came home from school today and asked if I had heard about the impending hurricane. (I called it hwa-KEEN, he called it jo-AH-keen.) The rumor among his classmates is that schools might be closed on Friday; even the level-headed noaa.gov is already predicting 100% chance of heavy rain.

It has already been raining all week, and the trees have had enough. Yesterday, a carpool of kids and I saw a large branch fall off a tree, pulling some phone lines down with it. This is not the week to park near trees.

The pervasive humidity has slowed progress on the porch, but after three days, these teapot parts were firm enough to assemble. I'm trying to get through my last bag of Standard 266 so I can do a major clean and switch over to some lighter clays. Coming soon: the second Durham County Pottery Studio Tour (November 14-15).

I'm not entirely convinced by the slip on the lid knot-knob, but it might look less distracting once the pot is fired and receives a reed handle.

Chicken eyeball weather

I moved my wheel back outside a few weeks ago and reclaimed the foyer for regular foyer duty. With the move came a new idea for chicken use (to be revealed only if it works), so I've been preparing a new flock for that. This involves throwing egg shapes off the hump, forming the eggs into chickens, and adding beaks, eyeballs, and feathers. Because these are Orpington-inspired birds, I'm using a dark brown-black clay (Standard 266) and making the wee eyeballs out of porcelain. If the weather is too dry, the porcelain eyes dry out and crack as I form them between my fingertips, or they crack when I add the pupils with a needle tool. Very frustrating. But one morning last week, the weather was warm and so foggy-humid that the porcelain stayed beautifully hydrated. Prefect chicken eyeball weather.

This past weekend, a cold front moved in, and the weather is no longer perfect for chicken eyeballs--it's just plain perfect. Clear, crisp, cool in the morning and warm in the afternoon; lovely all around. This makes it easier to work outside with Standard 266. It's a relatively heavy clay, and tends to soak up lots of water. It's pretty gummy in humid weather, but quite nice to work with on drier days like today. This morning I decided to make a few teapots, and I set the pots-in-progress in the sunlight on the porch to speed up drying. Woe! After a mere 30 minutes, they were toasted almost beyond saving. Here's hoping all the parts stay attached to all the right places! Toasting wouldn't have happened during chicken eyeball weather; nonetheless, I'll take crisp and sunny over hot and humid any day.

A flock of chickarinas mingles with New Idea chicklets and assorted zigzag pots.

Toasted teapot: will all the parts stick together?

Snowmageddon 2015, Episode 3

Earlier this week, we enjoyed Snowmageddon 2015, Episode 3. I'm losing track of which one was which, but Episode 1 or 2 looked like this:

Frightening, yes? It shut down public schools for about a week across several counties. The tail end of Episode 2 had public schools closed on Monday and Tuesday, even though Tuesday was sunny and relatively warm (you can never be too cautious). Then Episode 3 hit,

and kids all across the Piedmont rejoiced.

As Snowmageddon is becoming an annual event in these here parts, I thought it would be useful to research its proper plural form. I believe there is no plural to the seemingly similar word Armageddon, since sources project but one Armageddon in the course of all human existence. It would be simple to assume the -on suffix is Greek and is made plural with addition of an s, thus Snowmageddons, but that's a little boring, so I solicited suggestions from knowledgeable friends. One offered Snowmageddae (rhymes with reggae). Another posited Snowsmageddon, as successive snowfalls combine for a cumulatively destructive effect. This indicates an etymology similar to the word passerby (pl. passersby), which derives from a phrasal verb (noun + BY, from to pass by). Interestingly, passerby dates back to the 16th century, while Snowmageddon dates back to approximately 2014.

Let it sleet!

Oh, "Bad Weather!," websites now are posting,
But smart me--I've bought bread for toasting.
With warm wool socks on my feet,
Let It Sleet! Let It Sleet! Let It Sleet!

Oh, the skies outside right now are sunny,
And I wouldn't really bet any money
on the forecast--still, go brine your street!
Let It Sleet! Let It Sleet! Let It Sleet!

In the ice storm of two-thousand-and-two,
When our power went out for a week,
S.Z. wired marine batteries to
an AC/DC converter--I love my geek!

Let the ice accumulate on the transformers,
Let the branches fall! No problem, we'll stay warmer
Cuz the thermostat is wired! We'll have heat!
Let It Sleet! Let It Sleet! Let It Sleet!

Oh, it doesn't show signs of starting.
Weather forecasts? Can I trust them? So disheartening.
But some real winter weather'd be a treat!
Let it Sleet! Let It Sleet! Let It Sleet!

The long winter

Durham, NC, 2013-14, ain't got nothing on De Smet, Dakota Territory, 1880-81, but we've had a long winter by local standards. In the fourteen years since we moved to Durham, we've had noteworthy snow or ice maybe once or twice each winter. This year, we've had multiple accumulations of snow, sleet, ice, and "wintry mix"--all occasions of which, in these here parts, enjoy the honorific of "weather event." Whether anything actually accumulates, it's pretty much guaranteed that drivers will freak out, cars will slide into ditches, schools will close, and children will rejoice.

Nothing this year has rivaled the Great Ice Storm of '02, but the yo-yo-ing weather did bless us with about 8 inches of snow back in mid-February. Just as WRAL's Greg Fishel predicted, we went from zero precip to heavy snowfall in a matter of a few minutes, starting, as predicted, at about 1:00pm; despite the advance warning, half of the working adults in the Triangle didn't shift into Snowpocalypse mentality until after it started to snow, leading, predictably, to traffic chaos.

E's school dismissed students early, at 12:15, even though the principal, freshly imported from Vermont this past fall, didn't understand what all the fuss was about. Welcome to North Carolina, Mr. N.

E and I went straight to Costco after school to buy a marine battery, in case the power went out. By the time we got home, we already had an inch of snow on the ground.

The next night, we walked downtown through deserted icy streets to see a movie at the Carolina, where we had the theater pretty much to ourselves.

We've experienced multiple weather events since then, with lovely, warm, wannabe spring days (non-events--good weather doesn't get "event" status) alternating with sleet, ice, and snow. I forgot to take photos during the previous ice storm, but this morning I did take some shots of the melting remnants of last night's freezing rain.

Inspiration

The east coast was brought to its knees by snow this past weekend. In a flippant twist, Durham is supposed to enjoy temps in the 60s this coming Saturday. That should be warm enough to melt the hunk of ice in my pottery water bucket out on the porch, and maybe even warm enough to allow me to wear short sleeves as I throw my next clay geeksperiment: the Bagel Box.

The Bagel Box probably has a tidy mathematical name, but since it's inspired by George Hart's nifty website on how to cut a bagel into two interlocking halves, it's going to be "the Bagel Box." In the absence of a tangible clay torus, my brain is unable to decide whether I'll need to devise some sort of key to hold the two halves together--a box is no good if the lid won't stay on--which is why it's so urgent that I get outside and on the wheel. (I've been contemplating setting the wheel up in our living room for the next month or so, but I'm happy to hold off if it's going to be 60 on Saturday. Let's add "devise a more practical winter studio" to the list of New Year's resolutions.)

If the Bagel Box is a success, I'll attempt a trefoil knot Bagel Box.

"Success" here means "aesthetically and intellectually pleasing." It's hard to imagine this will be a practical box, given that part of the container will be the lid, part of the lid will be the container, and parts of both lid and container will be bottomless and lidless sides. Indeed, it isn't as though you see Bagel Boxes everywhere--although that might be less a function of function as of a gaping void (or box) waiting to be filled. Or not.

I found the bagel-slicing page via Vi Hart's brilliant mathemagical website, another fantastic fount of inspiration.

Annual North Carolina standstill

It snowed.