Winter Series: Holy Cozy part 1

Winter is here.  I know this for two reasons: 1-I’ve been overcome with the urge to eat pot pie, and 2- My at-home wardrobe is growing increasingly cozy.

It’s Friday afternoon, the precipitation out my window is somewhere between snow and rain, and I’m in pajamas.  Some of you (ahem, Justin) might think this makes me lazy.  I would argue, however, that coziness is one of the real pleasures of winter, and that today, after a long and busy semester, I’ve chosen to indulge myself, to the max.

 

Perhaps you noticed my slippers in the last post.  Actually, they are not slippers.  They are house shoes, a term I used growing up which I think might be particularly Appalachian, though I’m not sure, but one which makes more sense to me that slippers.  These are shoes–they fully enclose the foot in the same protective and functional way any other shoe might.  The function of these shoes, however, is primarily coziness.  

Oh how I love them: 

In extensive trials I’ve discovered that they produce the most warmth when paired with thick socks–wool is ideal.

I’ve had these house shoes for around a year now, and I cannot say enough about how they’ve enriched my life.  I really could’ve used these shoes a few years ago, when I lived in a drafty row house in Washington DC’s Capitol Hill.  It was yellow-painted brick, the first house (not apartment) that I’d ever lived in that did not belong to my parents.  I loved the house.  And my roommates Erin and Allison did, too, until we received our first winter gas bill.  The drafty house, which, unlike most houses in the neighborhood, was completely free-standing, with an alley on one side and a driveway on another (not to mention a very unfriendly neighbor who wore either a full gray suit or very short purple running shorts, and who once surprised us when we asked to borrow eggs by saying, “oh, I was just making some cookies myself.”  oh really? don’t you have to have a soul to make homemade cookies?) was probably a hundred years old and in no way suited to the central gas heating system.

Anyway, that winter was a cold one; they are all cold in DC, with wind that howls east to west down Constitution Avenue.  When our December bill arrived, we were shocked amazed and horrified to see a total of over $1000–you read right: a thousand dollars!–particularly me, as I was in graduate school at the time and the gas bill was the one that arrived with my name on it (though my roommates were certainly not swimming in liquidity).  By January, we were living at 60 F, keeping all the doors closed and generally avoiding shared spaces as the cold was hardly bearable.  We loved the house even less after it was broken into that winter, and we all sat in the living room at 2:00 am, bundled in winter coats and scarves, not allowed to close the pried-open windows until the Crime Scene Investigator showed.  Finally, a very large black woman with long fuschia fingernails and a yellow tool box showed up. “This ain’t gonna be like what you see on TV.”  She began dusting my bedroom window for fingerprints.  ”I don’t have any lasers or anything,” she said flatly, “and we probably not gonna find much.”

 

 

These house shoes remind me of my friend Erin’s relationship with bell peppers.  Back when we lived together, I was only allowed to cook peppers when she was out of town.  When we went to restaurants, she’d tell the waiter she was allergic to peppers to ensure none came near her food.  I’ve never known anyone who hated peppers with such vehemence.  I remember stir-frying veggies (including peppers) one night while she was out, thinking she’d be home so late she would never know.  But the next day, sure enough, she inquired about my “pepper dinner” the night before.  Eventually she made some peace with the pepper–by peace I mean the intensity of her enmity dampened.  But last year when she discovered on a visit to her doctor’s office that, in fact, she was allergic to peppers after all, she called me immediately, joyfully vindicated in her years of animosity toward to mild and sweet and innocently delicious bell pepper.

I relate this story because I recently had a similar experience.  After years of whining about the cold, years of numb toes and double-layered mittens, years of arguing with Justin over how wide the windows should be on fall evenings, I found out that there’s an actual legitimate condition to describe people like me: Raynaud’s disease.  You can read what the Mayo Clinic has to say about it here.  The most important thing to know, though, is that having chronically cold digits is both hereditary and incredibly uncomfortable, and legitimized by a medical authority.  My doctor suggested that I probably have this very condition, though it’s nothing major, it mainly means that I’m not a baby after all.

So, I’ve embraced the cozy.  Let me recommend you do the same, before it gets colder: