A Date With Fate by Tracy Ellen

Author:Tracy Ellen [Ellen, Tracy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Amazon: B009D9FI3S
Publisher: TracyEllen
Published: 2012-09-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter XI

“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper

Saturday, 11/17/12

7:00 PM

Somehow, everything got accomplished on my mental check list by seven o’clock. The quick shower I took had me raring to go. I was ready to put this day behind me and party.

Outside of Bel’s Books, I was waiting to be picked up by Jazy. The November night skies were clear and the cold air was refreshing; I could see my breath. The temperature had steadily dropped over the day and now hovered in the high twenties. There was a big snow in the forecast for early tomorrow and I thought about sledding in the afternoon.

Pacing and rubbing my chilled arms, it was easy to conclude I came close to smothering in the birth canal as I arrived in this world. It’s the only explanation for my irrational dislike of being bundled up in coats, or constricted, in any way. I’d reluctantly brought a light jacket tonight with mittens stuffed in the pockets, in case of an emergency. Not that I had any plans to wear it. It still took wind chill factors of around thirty below to get me to admit winter had arrived in all its frigid glory and dress appropriately. I was proud of myself that I’d brought a jacket along for the ride. This was a positive sign. Maybe by the age forty I’d bring a hat, too.

When I was young, it was a common winter theme in my life to endure endless trudges home from impromptu, fun sledding wearing only wet shoes and sopping jeans. In my own miserable world, I’d chant a mantra of negotiations with that higher power to “Please, oh please just get me home before amputation is necessary, and I’ll be a good girl forever.”

I regularly suffered through the pins and needles pain of frozen feet and ears thawing out. I often had chapped inner thighs that burned like a son of a gun. I worshiped the manufacturers of petroleum jelly. I am super-depressed Stella found my hidden cache of Vaseline during her most recent “search and destroy” sortie into my apartment.

I slowed my pacing to admire the street before me. Like Bel’s Books, many of the buildings lining Division Street were built in the late 1800’s and stood only two or three stories tall. Up and down the blocks, the buildings shared common walls in the thrifty, expeditious mode of construction popular during frontier times. Their storefront facades were designed to be unique from their attached neighbors by the different materials used, such as painted wood, brick, stone, and decorative awnings. It made for a quaint, charming downtown, even allowing for the occasional modern building thrown into the mix.

Now fancied up for the holidays, up and down Division the streets lamps were swirled with evergreens, red satin ribbons and bows, and aglow with white lights in the shapes of large snowflakes. Many buildings were similarly adorned; it reminded me of a village on an old-fashioned Christmas card dusted with glitter.

I love this time of year.

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