Queen of Fractal Beauty’s Neighborhood

The snow has gifted me with many things this year:  an interesting, drama-laden, knuckle-breaking drive home; the wonder of precipitating an indoor snow storm in my kitchen; the ability to create a snow angle when I opened my front door; the healthy glow of shoveling 13" deep snow; not to mention the calorie burn of shoveling so much snow not just at my house but at my 101 year old neighbor's house, too; the changing of a flat tire in snow; and the warm snuggles of cats and dogs.

Now, I get to enjoy a shoveled porch, walk, drive, and section of street; a heated sofa to ease the sore muscles of shoveling all that snow with a garden shovel - who needs a snow shovel in Oklahoma? - and a hot pot of lentil stew, fresh baked bread, and spice cupcakes with chocolate chai frosting.  I don't have to go anywhere today or tomorrow or the day after, although the day after that, I'll have to get the flat tire fixed and put back on my car in place of the spare there now and go back to work.

I hear we're supposed to get an ice storm for New Year's.

Yanno, I think I prefer the snow we just had to ice.

In fact, I do prefer snow to ice.

It's snowing inside my kitchen!

I finally made it home from work (a 15 minute drive that took 2 1/2 hours of drama-laden, knuckle-breaking suspense and will result in nightmares and PTSD flashbacks) and put the kettle on for hot tea. And where the steam of the kettle meets the cold air, I have snow flurries - inside my kitchen. There's a snow drift building up between the dishwashing liquid and my Eggy Whip beside the kitchen sink.

It's not enough to have 11 inches (did you hear that - ELEVEN INCHES) of snow in the middle of my front yard, now I have blizzard conditions building up inside my kitchen.

I really need to speed up saving my money to get the wiring fixed in this house. It needs to have working heat if this cold weather trend keeps up around here.

That or I need to sell the house and move to a warmer climate.

I dislike cold weather. I despise snow. I loathe snow on top of ice. Those feelings are mild when compared to finding a snow storm inside my kitchen.

Of course, now that I'm home, I can set about warming things up some.

I turned the sofa on (what, you don't have a heated sofa? How sad for you.), set the stove to bake the bread that's been slow-rising inside it all day, heated water for tea (and was appalled at the resulting indoor blizzard), and set the space heater on. In an hour, it should be a toasty 50*F in here. Except the sofa, which will be much warmer.

I have movies, a remote control, books, notebooks, pens, my laptop, hot tea, and snacks all in reach, so I can camp on the sofa until it warms enough to go to bed.

Did I mention I dislike cold?

If you could kiss anyone under the mistletoe, who would it be?

It depends on exactly where the mistletoe was hanging...

John

I'll see you after the new year!

Hope this time is joyous and peaceful for you and all you love. Best to everyone in the new year as well...

love and chocolate kisses,
gunderson

~
Merry Christmas; Happy Holidays; Best Wishes for whatever you celebrate at this time of year.

I will see you on the other side of the 25th ......

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We will have Christmas day with my three children and my new daughter-in-law.....   firing up the barbie and tossing some prawns and seafood on it.

On Boxing Day (26th)  we start the flights back to DC  -  arriving in Los Angeles before we leave Sydney - LOL -  I love that International Date line!

Every year my kids unwrap the Manger Scene and get it all set up. They put the three wise men on the far side of the house. Then they move them a little bit closer to the manger every day. Today is the day before Christmas Eve and the three wise men are nearing the end of the mantel over the fireplace.

The Journey

The Manger

Lately I've managed to pick up and watch or read the most depressing stories, I want to disappear into nothing when they are over.

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy: The book cover is black. That should have been an obvious sign. The whole book is dark. You want to cough up all the ashy phlegm when you get done with it. Ugh.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father: A documentarian makes a movie for the kid of his murdered childhood friend. Oh yes, and it gets worse from there.

This American Life, podcast #342, How to Rest In Peace. Stories about kids who's parents have died... either murdered or killed themselves and how they cope in adulthood.

I don't know. Those are just a few examples, but I seemed to be obsessed with bad things. Dark things. Currently, I'm considering jumping into the book "Lit", which is a memoir, but now I'm not so sure. My decision-makings skills are a bit twisted at the moment.

Feck.

Chicken butt!

If you would have told me, at any point in my life, that there would come a time when I brought a chicken into my house to wash and blow-dry her tush, I'd have looked at you like you had lobsters crawling out of your ears. Sure, I've washed a lot of chicken in my time, but never the live variety..and I've never blow-dried one, live or otherwise. Well, this afternoon, I did just that.

Poor Esther had made a mess of herself. If it were a chicken like Pearl, I'd have just waited until she cleaned herself up during one of the million and two dust (mud) baths she gives herself everyday. She's a pretty white chicken when she's all cleaned up but she prefers the bad girl biker look. Esther, however, is sort of like Miss Prissy on Foghorn Leghorn and I was sure she must have been horrified having other chickens looking at her in that condition. Kind of like when we went to DeWitte's snobby aunts house and she hadn't done the dishes yet so she wouldn't let us in the house.

So, this afternoon, I let the other girls out into their portable run and brought Miss Esther into the house. I put a warm wet rag on her nether regions, while Nathan held her and said "Gross!" a lot..I can't wait till he's a parent, that kid doesn't know from gross, and put her in a cage on the kitchen floor to give the gunk time to loosen up.  We enjoyed the interaction between Esther and the cat. Esther acted like the cat must have been a ferocious chicken eating tiger, even though she's now twice the size of the cat and would surely win in a head to head match. Don't tell her, though, she thinks she's dainty. We evenutally locked the cat in the bathroom because it seemed like she was starting to believe the ferocious chicken eating tiger hype.

After that, it was time to really get in there and clean her up. I was kind of worried..the last time we tried to give an animal a bath that doesn't usually receive baths with the warmest of welcomes, was Cleo. DeWitte put a leash on her and attached it to the faucet, so she couldn't jump out, and she ended up flying around the tub in mid air like a cartoon cat and we had to replace the shower curtain. Esther didn't seem to mind, though. Throughout her back-end bath she seemed to kind of purr. I thought the blow drier would be a fight, too. My chickens are so chicken that they're eremikophobic, which means that if you put new sand in their run, they think it's gonna eat their face off.  But, no, Esther just sat there and let me blow dry her like it was a five star feather salon. She even offered me a tip but I didn't take it, I just cleaned it up with a paper towel and washed my hands.

After she was dry, I took her back out and put her back with the other hens, who were all fighting over a three inch plot of mud. She just looked down her nose at them, turned around and shook her clean, fluffy butt.