Yarn store was open today, so I dropped by on my way to the grocery. It took me an hour to learn the most basic three parts of crocheting. (For the record: chain stitches, single-crochet stitch, how to finish a row and start another.) It'll take further practice to get it into muscle-memory, of course.
The downstairs furnace is on strike (has been since yesterday), and the chance of getting a repaircritter with the incoming blizzard is precisely nil. So I'm planning to stay upstairs and warm.