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We have begun to take the decorations down
I have just finished packing up a small box of Santas and little ceramic houses from the table on the porch. A couple of days ago, I took down the raffia and bells and ornaments that formed a sway on the den door and put it in a firestarter box. This taking down of decorations is not particularly sad; I talk to them and wrap them in paper towels and gently put them in the box. They will be waiting for me there next year.
The nutcrackers will be moving into off-season quarters soon, billeted in another firestarter box, I suppose. Usually, I leave a couple out to watch over things until next year. Right now they are up there on the windows sashes with the wooden, flat black-spotted cow that stays there all year.
Christmas songs are still on the CD player in the corner; the Irish Tenors, if I remember correctly. I listened to John Denver and the Muppets a lot as well, especially When the River Meets the Sea.
BACK ON THE GRID
I woke up this morning in the dark and I didn't have my watch on; I had no idea what time it was or even if it was actually morning. I went to the bathroom with the time dimension missing from my orientation. It felt odd, but not bad. To get up or go back and try to sleep for more hours? I had no idea where I was in this routine, then I walked past the microwave and it was 5:50 am. It is now almost 8; I have been reading Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, a blog I heard about yesterday, for most of that time.
Daylight is now at the window as well as the last morning of 2007. I am going to be 60 in 2008. That is incredible; I grew old but never grew up.
I'm worried about Edgar
In today's "For Better or Worse" comic strip, Ellie's dad makes a reference to this being his last Christmas. Maybe so. But lately, I have been worried about Edgar. Farley, the Patterson's former dog, died saving April from a spring flood in 1995. That was 12 1/2 years ago and Edgar was a pup at the time. Well, Edgar is getting on in years now as well . . . and I still cry when I think of Farley. Maybe the comics are better when no one ages.
I HADN'T THOUGHT THIS THROUGH
Some time ago, I came upon a blog about Thomas Bickle, who was discovered to have a brain tumor when he was around six months old. I think I have been reading about him for seven months now, and late last fall read his mother's entry that the cancer was winning. She said they were going to enjoy the time between the discontinuation of chemo and the appearance of symptoms from the growing mass in his head. She said they probably wouldn't blog much during "this cold season."
A couple of days after I read this, we put up our outside Christmas lights while the weather was favorable and it popped into my head that these lights - red and white and floating on air in the darkness - were Thomas Bickle's lights. Somehow they were sending a message for him and about him. But now, it is nearing the time to turn them off and take them down . . . and I hadn't thought about that.
Early, early Saturday mornig
Not that early, 4:58 by the computer clock, and a lot of people routinely get up at this time to get a start on the work day. Now it's 4:59 - see, definitely not that early. Now that I have established that, I think it is still too early for me to have anything much to say . . . so, I guess I will wander off and maybe get a Diet Coke and a couple of aspirin.
Oh, before I go, for years I have wondered about the necessity of sleep and a quick look at the news shows they have found a nasal spray containing a brain hormone that seems to revive sleep-deprived monkeys. Is this all sleep is? A manufacturing time for a brain maintenance chemical. Wow.
This Year
I was born in the Year of the Rat; today I vow that 2008 will be the year of the unpacking of the packrat I have been for all these years. Going to travel light - sort of Thelma and Louise style. I'm not sure about the off the cliff thing at the end yet.
Once my grandmother got rid of excess baggage by throwing everything out the upstairs window to the west; my grandpa came around with a small wagon and toted most of it out to the work shed. Well, at least then it was his problem.
SNOW!
12:24 and time for a weather update, because, well, the sky is no longer that gloomy grey white; it is white and snow is falling and piling up on the shrubs by the windows - already it looks like the Sunday a week and a half ago. Let's see what would be a good song for the season? Hmmmm?
Pushing on the snow shovel,
Scooping up the snow,
Snowbound in our hovel.
With no place to go. HO! So why are we shoveling?
But wait, the snow has stopped and the temperature is supposed to go up to 34˚.
Had I known . . .
Okay, if I had known people were going to sleep in when I awoke at 5 am, I would have done something productive. As it was, I assumed that anything started would be interrupted and just totally savored the quiet - sucked it in, hugged it, cuddled in in . . . became the quiet. Ahhhhh.
But now people are stirring - Alison probably her oatmeal - and I guess I will go . . . look . . . at . . . the . . . laundry. ACK.
Hello, I am back
Yes, here I am. I had to get away for awhile - this blog had just started out too organized for me. I am a rambler, though not a rose. Yet, I do have thorns . . . does that make me a bramble?
God, it was dark here at 7:30 this morning - about a quarter of an hour ago. Finally, the sky has begun to lighten, but it doesn't look like it is going to be sunny. We'll see. One way or another, there will be daylight at the fairgrounds and Sydney will like that.
Of course, today is the day after Christmas . . . and I think I like it better than the holiday itself. It is restful here on the porch with the tree lit up at the far end and tens of nutcrackers standing watch on the the middle sills of the windows. When I awoke I could hear one of the fountains we use to help keep the tree from drying, calling out to me . . . SUUUCCCCK, GASP, SUCKK, GASP, GASP. A little infusion of distilled water - this is Indiana, remember - and it is now making babbling brook sounds.
I am on my favorite corner of the sofa and Sydney is at my feet on a soft, downy throw.
The sky is now a washed out whitish-grey and morning birds are chirping
