In a context of having heat again, I'm not facing another night like the last one. I can relax and be more festive. That said, I do have the late shift to monitor things; Gary's solution for the hot water line was to hope for the best. My reaction to this wizardry of a solution is a callback to Shania Twain's That Don't Impress Me Much. I've got a couple of sinks that have shyly opened up, but the tub, well, the tub is going to take a LOT to woo over. And in the context of low water pressure from MLGW, I don't know if I've got the charm.

I'm fortunate that I was not among that half that got a lump of coal as an early Christmas present from MLGW. The cynical side of me really did expect to experience a rolling blackout as soon as the heater was resolved. But, hey, I musta landed on the nice list this year 'cause I was flush with power—my Christmas Eve for tonight's featured presentations: Christmas Vacation and Daddy's Home 2. Got my yearly tradition with them right under the wire!

I had so many magical Christmases I can remember in my childhood. I was fortunate, I see that now, you don't notice that sort of thing as a kid. Come to think of it, most of life is like that Cinderella song, Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone). And we don't know how good we've really got it until we don't got it. I mean, sure, there are a few moments of clarity when we stand outside of ourselves and understand we are creating something special in the moment, but so much is...that next thing. Targets. Dreams. "One day..."'s. And I don't want to get old and swoon to that ol' rock ballad every day.

I do that now with my knee; I miss those days where I could crank out lunges: forward, reverse, alternate, with weights, ones followed by front kicks—you name it. And today, I can't even do a single one. Maybe in 2023, I can live a life where I see with eyes that have looked back. Any hey, maybe I can train my body to pull off a few lunges at year's end?

Drip...drip...drip...

This is the beat of the long night ahead; this is the darkness of cold air and even colder water. My family is sequestered off with a space heater in a bedroom. Our other space heater maintains the bathroom. As for me, I am alone, say for the 45-minute countdown of my Google Assistant, a night laid out cycling the stovetop heat on every hour, hammering back against the icy night with my framed barricade of Hefty bags. These hours are lonesome.

I am the night watch.

A pair of pliers is at the ready for that brazen attempt to stop the fomenting cascade wrought by the frozen hot water line. I hold on to the hope that I will be relieved in the morning's light by...Gary. And yet, it is the Eve of Christmas.

Yes, a MacBook Pro's metallic case is elegant, but if I were to lick it, I reckon my only recourse would be a Bear Grylls maneuver. My fingers cut through the biting air.

I am cold.

I can go most places with a hoodie, a pair of shorts and my sandals. Memphis is not a coat town. When I ventured to the North, I had to purchase a coat in Ketchikan, Alaska on the night of Christmas Eve '12. Southern society is short duration; being uncomfortable for a moment is trivial. We pop out of the car to the store. When one looks down at the clock and sees a window of 12 hours of endurance, the stout can falter. A winter sunrise comes far too late in the morning. That blessed 7 AM seems another world away as I watch the door's glass frames turn to ice.

I have a mug of butter coffee at my side, butter that is on the cusp of clumping together in that once warmly inviting, now cooly calculating cup.

I am tired.

The residual waves of last night's slumber beneath the kitchen table remain. Dodging the clouds bellowed by me as I constantly move falters. Unlike my night at Cherbourg, I cannot pong between the 3 km boat docks and the train station to stay warm in this living room.

The alternative of merely laying on the floor next to a space heater is a hammock, a book, beneath the Caribbean sun.

Drip...drip...drip...

2 for 1 Manager's Special: here's the second post of the day!

I find that it being 1°F out so we're grounded with road conditions, the house heat went out, there's a frozen pipe for the hot water line and sleeping underneath the kitchen table makes for the perfect setting to begin Piper's Providence. He quotes from Spurgeon:

I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes—that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit, as well as the sun in the heavens—that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses. The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence—the fall of … leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche.
...
Providence says, Whatever God ordains must be; but the wisdom of God never ordains anything without a purpose. Everything in this world is working for some one great end. Fate does not say that. Fate simply says that the thing must be; Providence says, God moves the wheels along, and there they are.

Yes, there remains a reason for even this winter waste—err, wonderland. This morning, I shimmied out of bed at 4 AM to quietly read my Onyx, giving my blanket away to my son, my toboggan hat to my 8-year-old and my secondary blanket to my other daughter. Maybe this is the first of many 4 AMs to enrich my life?

Around 5:20 AM, my toboggan daughter and I had a lovely chat, sitting down in front of the blue-flamed fire. I even snuck her a Lindor truffle.

I am Jeremy Camp's Walk by Faith