Blanket Statement

Brought to you by snow days.

The blanket you see pictured here is an old favorite: fleece with a southwestern sort of pattern. The cats are especially fond of it, so it needs a wash. I love it, too, and always feel a little guilty about that, because I didn't love the boy who gave it to me.

His name was Ron, and we met at work about a dozen years ago. Ron was a nice guy who didn't have much going for him besides his niceness and a low singing voice. He was scrawny and homely with — deal breakers — bad teeth and bad breath. I liked him as a work buddy, but he wanted more. He gave me this blanket that winter as a courting gift. I kept the warm fuzzy but ditched Ron when I changed jobs. I've thought of him fondly as I've snuggled under the fleece with other beaux.

Another of my favorites is the red afghan crocheted by my late Grandma Clar. I think Grandma made blankets for most of the girl cousins in the family, and maybe the boys, too. Sister-san has a pink one. They're called wowies, actually, not afghans, because when Grandma would tuck them under the chins of her own children, she'd say, "Wowie, that's warm!" My red wowie clashes with my mauve couch, so it's a foot-of-the bed blanket.

Then there's the down-filled duvet, a legacy of my ill-fated marriage to El Pendejo. He and I bought a house in 2000 and elected to spend that year's Christmas in our new home rather than traveling to stay with family. His sister Snaggletooth gave us the duvet that year. We spread it beneath the Christmas tree while we opened our gifts. It didn't provide much padding on the hardwood floor, but it kept my side of the bed toasty at night. It was in pristine shape until EP spilled coffee right in the middle of it one Sunday.

I kept most of the good stuff when EP and I split, including the duvet. It's in the guest room right now wearing a mossy green cover from Mother Media. I should bring it back up to my bedroom now that winter has come to stay. Again, the cats would approve.

And let's not forget the fuzzy green blanket. I've had the fuzzy green blanket for as long as I can remember. It's lain on every bed I've slept in from childhood through college, apartments, marriage, and the years beyond, which makes it . . . old. It's spread across my lap right now, in fact, as I type on my laptop computer in bed. The fuzziness is all matted and pilly, with a thousand hairs and threads woven into it despite years of laundering. We have history, ol' greenie and me.

My bedroom here at Sensational Acres is in the upper half-story of the house, and since it's a loft, there's no door to the stairwell. That means that most of the heat my furnace kicks out rushes straight up the stairs, leaving the ground floor chillier than I'd like. A couple winters ago I bought an expandable closet rod and hung it at the foot of the stairs with ol' greenie draped over it in an effort to trap heat downstairs. It didn't work, but Warren and Sprite did enjoy springing out at one another from behind the curtain.

Ah, warm memories. This calls for some hot chocolate.

Geeky editor's note: Rather than proofread this entry in the usual way, I asked Word to read it aloud to me using a new text-to-speech function that makes written information available to the visually impaired. The computer correctly pronounced made-up words, including "Snaggletooth," and the Spanish term "El Pendejo," but it pronounced "duvet" as "doo-vet" instead of "doo-vay." So. Mi computadora habla español.

Today around the world: December 12 is Neutrality Day in Turkmenistan, where everyone dresses in shades of beige, khaki, and ecru.