Looking for an Antidote (or Pollyanna Takes a Vacation)

to the winter blahs that come creeping in uninvited after the weather went from too hot and windy and dry to garden to too cold and windy and wet to garden in just half a week. And the art is going pretty well but I collect too much and it doesn't all fit and I only use a fraction of what I acquire and there is no working surface left and not enough production to justify my consumption.

And every twinge from head to toe feels like the start of something terminal, something that will cut my life short and cause increasing amounts of discomfort, disfiguration, mental decline, etc. etc. etc. And when there's no way to walk enough to feel healthy and really, just rolling over and going back to sleep sounds more appealing than doing anything invigorating or creative or even utilitarian.

And when the ants start scouting the kitchen, because they don't like the cold any more than I do.....so first there are just a couple of them, casually strolling about, "nice place ya got here, nice and warm and oh, what is that, a bit of left over turkey grease? Hey, buddies, com'mere take a look at this!" Or, for some unknown reason, a half bag of stale, discarded crackers, for gawd's sake, becomes a crowd drawing attraction. Or when the cat food bag gets invaded and I'm realizing that as I'm sticking my hand down to bring out more food.....

And when politics is going rapidly to the nether regions by way of a hand basket and the ropes that you hold to keep the thing suspended are starting to fray and burn the hands as the speed of decline increases. And when humankind seems to have lost the ability to analyze the situation and come up with some emergency solutions that don't involve one tribe planting its feet firmly on the heads of the other tribes to keep their personal feet out of the rising waters. When it seems like we will not come to our collective senses before a tipping point has been reached, when perhaps that point has already been passed and we are poised like the roller coaster seems to pause at the top before making a headlong, teeth rattling, bone chilling, hair-raising descent.....When history also seems more terminal than cyclical.

All that.

Ah, life.....

[there now, nothing that a good lunch and quilt store visit with a friend, followed by ginger/turmeric tea and a warm lap-cat couldn't put to rights.....I sound so British here! But it's working for now, which is good because there are about 3 days of solid rain ahead of me.]