Cool new mittens, and "The Stairs"

As much as I LOVE cold weather, and cold weather clothes.... sweaters, jackets, knitwear, I despise being cold. I would MUCH rather be hot than cold. I especially hate trying to get warmed up after being cold. I finally had to give up swimming for the winter when the water got to be 68 and even in my wetsuit, I would get so cold that my feet would cramp when I got into the warm shower afterwards.

I HATE going into our Vons, because they keep it so darned cold in there you could hang meat. Sooooo cold! Even in the middle of summer I wear a jacket to Vons. On already cold days like today, its completely miserable.


I hate being cold. I'm a California wimp. I know it. I'm quite sure I could never live where it REALLY got cold.

So, every morning lately when I'm out walking, I've been wearing my new mittens, knit for me by blogger friend from Finland, Uhoava Gnu. Aren't they pretty?! And check out the matching sock yarn she sent along with them. That's 420 yards of purply warm goodness!

Yeppers, I've wearing them every morning on our walks. They're getting a lot of use. It's been cold lately - well, I'm calling 40 degrees cold, and I bundle up, in layers, wearing my Calorimetry and mittens, and tell myself that the slight shivering when we start out just burns more calories. I'm loving my new mittens.

I usually warm up when we get to "the stairs." The famous stairs. I have no idea when these stairs were built, but they've obviously been here a LONG time. They connect the lower part of town to upper part of town, and save about four blocks of walking around the long way. That's great, except that there are 92 stairs, and depending where you get your info, that equals anywhere from 6 to 9 flights. It's a lot of stairs.

Everyone knows "the stairs." Every kid who lives in the lower part of town and walks to the high school knows the stairs. They connect the two. Whenever you mention to a kid that you run the stairs, on purpose, they always look at you like you're crazy.... and then with a little respect. I like that.

My walking buddy and I now walk to the stairs, run them up and down twice, then walk home. Pretty wimpy, I know, but at first we could only walk them once, and were completely out of breath at that. It'll be interesting to see what we can work up to. When we were there this morning, there were 8 little rocks in a row on top of a larger rock. If this is someone's rudimentary counting system.... I'm impressed. I want to see the person who can run them 8 times. Now THAT would be something! Right now I'm happy with twice.

Twice, that's all I've got in me so far.... then I strip off the mittens and take off the jacket.... THEN, I'm warm. I love being warm.

Remind me of that this summer when it's already 80 degrees at 7:00 AM and I'm running the stairs, and complaining about how stinking hot it is. Oh, I'll be complaining, but it'll still be better than being cold, I'm quite sure of that.

Oh wait.... by that time we'll be back in the pool. YES!