...time to take the chairs off of the tables and give everything a thorough dusting.

As you might have gathered, I am newly arrived from the Great White North yet again, and never before has that description been quite so lacking in hyperbole. The two storms that hammered Minneapolis while I was there left three feet on the ground in some places. The park across the street from D's apartment is so completely engulfed that it may not be uncovered come May. D. is six feet three inches tall, and I kid you not when I say that there are drifts and plow-bergs that would be over his head. I'm a foot shorter than him, and I had trouble simply walking in some places because the snow was so deep. Poor Maggie-dog; she loves snow, especially when she's in it up to her chin, but snow, ice, and cold are very hard on her knees.

The weather is hard on her humans as well; D. has a titanium rod in his left lower leg, and the cold gets into it in a very unpleasant way. I managed to get my feet soaked while we were walking Maggie, and he was scared half to death that I would get frostbite before we could get our very stubborn bulldog back home. D's final station in the Air Force was Minot, ND; as a medic, he saw plenty of cold-weather injuries without having them visited upon me. (My toes are just fine, by the way; I told him that if they were in danger of frostbite, they wouldn't have hurt so damned much.)

At any rate, the interview with University of Colorado went well. D. had an unofficial heads-up to watch for a letter bearing an official offer -- a letter which has not yet arrived. U of M hasn't said anything either, which has him rather antsy. He was hoping that all of the offers would be on the table before I left, so that we could discuss the options.

This week, hopefully. The plan is for him to drive down next weekend for spring break, puppy in the back seat, and weather permitting. With luck and the cooperation of the admissions committees of two different universities, we'll be able to make some decisions.

Of course, we've already managed to discuss things at length. Neither of us is particularly entranced with either Pittsburgh or Columbus. More to the point, neither of us knows the cities, nor do we have friends or family in either place. It would make things far more difficult than need be. If we are going to even think of starting a life together, let it present as few obstacles as possible.

In the meantime, I have a show on Saturday to prepare for. Since this show is an hour's drive and a high mountain pass away from here, I hope that the weather on Friday doesn't take a turn for the worse. I can't set up until Saturday morning, which means leaving here at about 6 AM if the roads are in good shape. And I need to finish most of the things on my workbench before then.

It's going to be a long week.