JOY ALONG THE WAY: ICEBOUND DAYS PROVIDE TIME APLENTY

So, the cold days finally came. Long has the red stripe on my indoor-outdoor thermometer, denoting the outside temperature, had the upper hand, soaring high above the blue stripe. I suppose there was some time when the two indicators stood even, but I wasn't watching. Degree by degree the red stripe descended to stand below the blue. Sometimes I catch a bird looking through the window pane at this device with a quizzical eye as if it is trying to gauge how many of the nearby seeds it must consume to stay alive. Lots, must be its calculations.

All our thoughts turn to warm things now. I reach to a top shelf for the electric blanket, give it a quick test to see if it is still workable, then give it a half day on the clothesline to "breathe" some fresh air. Birds come to inspect it too.

Warm clothes and cool clothes, like the thermometer stripes, meet in the closet and gradually change positions. The fleeces, although put away clean, get a fresh-up in the tumble dryer.

It is soothing to don a warmed up fleece on a cold morning. My fancy knit black wool socks are missing so I make do with my brilliant red leg warmers until "blackies" show up again at some unexpected place.

The faithful, old murmuring furnace cries, "Me too. Give me oil! Stop my creaks!" So I call the furnace man and say, as demandingly as I can, "Send me someone who knows what he is doing." The furnace man comes and demonstrates his expertise. So now there is just a contented purr in the basement, as if some great Tabby is at peace.

The kitchen is the place to be when cold days come. Things bubble and bake and merrily throw off steam, teasing the appetite. My kitchen table becomes my desk as the days grow longer and the cold gets stronger. Notebooks, pencils and letters to answer mix with recipes I've clipped to try out some cold day -- Texas chili, Louisiana gumbo, New England chowder. Well, maybe just to read again and wonder how they would taste.

I re-erected my plastic window pane bird feeder and quite often I have finches dining not two feet away as I dine. Do you dine in a kitchen or just eat?

There is something about an iced-in day that gives me a feeling of a plenitude of time. I haven't decided what it is, but my best guess is that it is the knowledge that my day is not going to be interrupted by going anywhere. If I want to go upstairs and sit among my books for an unspecified time, I can do so for I don't have to watch the clock so as to get to or at the next thing on time. If I want to go to the basement and paint an old storage cabinet, I can count on getting it done without interruptions. Maybe I can design a new quilt block just for fun or try to get all my fingernails about the same length.

My house plants all get tended to, lovingly, on iced-in days. I don't throw away the contents of used tea bags, but cut them open and spread a suitable amount of the tea leaves on the top of the soil around my plants or "lovies" as I call them. Tepid water soaking through the tea leaves, especially the Constant Comment ones which are flavored with orange rind and sweet spices, gives off a faint fragrance that seems to say, "All is well and cozy in this house despite the frozen world outside." When the warm tea fragrance dissipates, I scrap off the leaves and spread some Jasmine, Lemon Lift or Raspberry Royale leaves. My "lovies" seem to like a tissant, too. Every green leaf seems to stand alert and listening. Do they want more than the purr of the furnace and muted motor of the cellar (my refrigerator)? Well, maybe. So I put on some Big Band era records or turn on the TV in an attempt to find some easy music. Oh-oh, there is the weather forecast. Clearing tomorrow with streets opened. Shucks, there's the grocery store to go to, the bank, the library to return books, the prescription shop, gasoline . . . .

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.