I call it this, not because it has anything to do with the aftereffects of drinking, but because it’s a matter of getting over the hump, the one that heralds Christmas day.

For some, it’s a matter of doing last-minute shopping, gift wrapping, and baking. For us, it’s a matter of making a few phone calls, and this year, wrapping a few presents. This is because tomorrow we are going to spend a portion of the day with some friends in Anchorage. We’re also going to drop off some books at the Sullivan Shelter, which right now is doubling as a homeless shelter for 260 people.

Burried cars

And so, the heave isn’t over an insurmountable obstacle.

It feels more to me like Christmas Heave this year because I’ve been around more people than usual. People in such instances tend to talk about their holiday plans. In going back and forth from town, I’ve also seen numerous holiday lights. There’s one place on Buffalo Mine Road (two miles from our place) where they went all out. There are huge stars and lights, and they are in multiple colors and blink on and off.

As I often wonder when I see such things, who has the time to do this type of decorating? It must, in some instances, take days.

The wind was blowing hard this morning, less so later in the day, so we stayed at home, venturing out to tend to the disgruntled animals. Swampy the goat is the most put out – as always, the world revolves around her.

Pete had his cooking thermometer in hand. He uses it when making cheese and measuring the temperature of other things. Yesterday he put a blanket up between the door separating the living room and the kitchen – then today he measured the temperature of the living room with his handy dandy tool. He said that it was 36˚F degrees. He also put the thermometer on the table, and it said that the table was 55˚F degrees.

Outside, the temperature, all day, hovered around 0˚F. Add to this the dreaded windchill and it was -20˚F. The wind, finally, is dying down. I considered going for a walk, but the wind, in the late afternoon, was still gusting.

So I spent a better part of my day working on my book about Abundance. I’d been going at it in fits and starts for about a year. I was thinking that I’d never get to it.

Jessie Cherry, the co-editor of Wheels on Ice, sent me an email a few days ago saying that a friend of hers had said that he liked my essay, “The Things this Bicyclist Carried,” and wondered if I’d written anything else.

I thought that if he did get in touch with me, that I’d have to confess to being a literary has been who never even made it as a has been. This motivated me to get writing again. I like what I have thus far. It’s an introduction and may be a template for what’s to come.

I don’t know how or if I’ll find the time to keep working on it. We’ll see.

Time now to focus on Christmas heave activities.

Next: 354. 12/25/22: Mo Ho Ho