Warm Front//A Date

I put on my wool socks and then I pulled on my leg-warmers up over them. I readjusted my pants legs, buttoned up my wool sweater, shrugged into my down coat. I checked to make sure my Polartec gloves were in my coat pockets. I reached for hat and scarf. Pocket of Bolts was sitting on the couch with his computer. "Could you check the weather for me?" I asked him. I don't typically wear hat and scarf for short excursions unless the weather is in the teens or single digits.

"Sure thing," Pocket of Bolts said. "... Right now it's 38 with a high of--"

"You're shitting me. What did you say?"

"Thirty-eight, as in, above-freezing 38. Melting-snow 38."

Neither of us could quite believe it. I looked out into the courtyard. It was an expanse of thick white buttercream, with only the two paths carefully cleared. "It doesn't look like it's melting," I said skeptically.

"Well, it's a glacier out there," Pocket of Bolts said. The sun was shining through the windows. It did feel, well, almost a little bit warm.

I dropped the hat and scarf, shucked off my down coat and leg-warmers, and shimmied into my wool coat instead. After weeks of looking like a black puff-ball every time I walked out the door, I felt quite dashing with my figure almost visible in the slim charcoal lines of my medium-weight coat.

Fancy that, I thought as I stepped out into the courtyard. The feeling of the air on my face, which had of late varied only along the limited spectrum between "cringe-inducing" and "agonizing" could now be characterized as merely "bracing." Out on the sidewalks, the dog-shit encrusted snow-banks were shrinking a little. The sun was doing its best to be warm. It was actually enjoyable to walk along.

Later when I got home from my reading group, Pocket of Bolts and I went for a run. An actual run, outside.

We weren't the only ones to have this idea. Along the lake-shore path in the last hour before sunset, it was almost as lively as it was last June, although everyone was a lot more heavily bundled. The atmosphere was downright cheery. The harbor was so frozen up, but the path was quite clear and clean.

This evening we decided we deserved some fun, so we went out to dinner at Miller's Pub (which turned out to be an awesome restaurant--we hadn't been there before) and saw a strange but interesting film, Fear(s) of the Dark, at the Gene Siskal Film Center. We love going on dates, and never fail to have a good time. This one was no exception!