Tales of Winter

It was still sunny outside when I got up this morning. Started off with breakfast and a couple of cartoons revolving around snow and winter. Jack Frost is one of the better 70s Rankin-Bass specials. The title character falls for a human girl and begs to be made human himself in order to woo her. Unfortunately, an evil Cossack king and a handsome knight are also interested in her. When the Cossack threatens her village, Jack gives up his new life to save his friends.

An earlier Rankin-Bass special gives us another version of Jack Frost. In Frosty's Winter Wonderland, the little sprite is jealous because Frosty's getting all the attention from the kids. He becomes determined to keep a mere snowman from showing up the creator of winter! Meanwhile, Frosty's lonely. The kids create a "snow wife" named Crystal to be his companion. It's good-natured Crystal who finally stops Jack Frost from disrupting the wedding and shows him that he can be their friend, too.

The Backyardigans are having their own problems in the snow. Uniqua wants to know "The Secret of Snow," but Ice Lady Tasha has no time for her queries. She keeps sending Uniqua to warm places. Uniqua keeps coming back, with Tyrone and Pablo joining in later. They show Tasha and her bored assistant Austin that there's no real "secret of snow," but friendship is even more important.

Olive chooses Popeye to accompany her on a skiing jaunt in "I-Ski-You-Ski," but Bluto doesn't want to share the lanky lass. He does his best to put their romance on thin ice!

I spent most of the day at work. I ended up there until 7; I was originally only supposed to work until 5. We were steady, busier than yesterday, but still not overwhelming. While the main roads are mostly clear, the back roads are covered in ice and congealed salted snow. They were afraid they wouldn't have enough people to help them when some stock people called out and they had to pull cashiers to help stock shelves.

There was a package waiting for me when I got home. Mom sent me all of my old school information from various Child Study Teams for me to show my counselor to explain why I ended up in Special Ed schools and classes in the first place...and to explain it to me.

I've always had trouble with my peers, going back as far as elementary school. Even in high school, I had trouble, though it wasn't as pronounced as it was in grade school. Simply put, I had emotional issues and didn't get along with my peers, thanks to my early puberty, years of being Cape May Elementary's favorite butt of every joke, the teachers' inability to admit there was a problem, and my parents' ongoing war.

Some of the emotional issues did clear up once I got away from Cape May Elementary and my parents got marital counseling. Others linger to this day - I still prefer to work alone and have trouble getting along with my peers. I'm not good at dealing with my emotions, and I just can't be "logical" like Mom and Rose can.

Mom also sent me a really interesting book called The Tao of Womanhood. I'll see if I can go over that starting tomorrow.