Open Me First
Hello World,
Happy New Year! And so here we find ourselves with a bright and shiny new year stretching out before us, brimming with promise and the hope of happier days ahead, and with any luck, all of that will come true. Many of us who had issues with 2010 will not be sad to see the tail-end of that year, believe me, which in so many ways did not live up to the expectations of unalloyed joy and wonderfulness that we might have hoped for after the debacle of 2009. So with renewed hope, we look forward to 2011 with as much unbridled optimism as we can muster, and the eager anticipation of good times, precious memories and sweet dreams to keep us going. And if all else fails, there's always junk food with its many therapeutic qualities, which is a New Year's resolution that I can live with. Everyone knows I always say there's no such thing as too much chocolate, and so I can sincerely wish you a very brown New Year, and mean every bit of it, yum!
Of course, it would not have been the dastardly 2010 without one last trick up its sleeve, and it certainly decided to go out with a bang. There was less than a week left to go before the new year, when the skies opened up and dumped the Blizzard of 2010 all over us, with gale force winds and bitter cold to make things even worse, especially for those thousands of households who lost their electricity in the bargain. It snowed all of Sunday and into Monday, with accumulations of 12 inches and more, far and wide. The howling winds made clearing roads and sidewalks almost impossible, and the drifts were more than man or machine could handle in many cases. I considered myself lucky to be off from work, so it wasn't necessary for me to try and fight my way through it, and Bill also took the prudent course and stayed home, and the heck with name pins for the duration. The peppy landscaping crew, that was so industrious that they chucked out my camping firewood, came back and did only a half-hearted job of plowing out the driveway, going part-way up to the garage and then calling it quits, as well as leaving both cars plowed in at the curb, thanks not. Exacerbating the situation, the city had never gotten around to picking up the last of the leaves that were still in the street, so now we had piles of leaves covered with plow tailings, creating a parking nightmare that was intractable on an epic scale. Fortunately, Bill who has the strength of ten because his heart is pure, was more than equal to the challenge, and soon had both cars dug out and the sidewalks cleared, and lived to tell the tale, which was the most important part. I suppose we should be glad that 2010 didn't decide to hit us with a plague of locusts or raining frogs instead, but hey - at least you don't have to shovel locusts or frogs, after all.
After what seemed like a very mild autumn, with balmy temperatures right up until the beginning of December, we were suddenly plunged into a cold snap of frigid temperatures in the single digits all over the area, that clamped everything in an icy fist and showed no signs of abating any time soon. Alert readers may recall that I had to disconnect the bird bath heaters last year, because the old and beat-up extension cord they were plugged into outside had become so frayed that it was a danger to the local wildlife and the community at large, although frankly I thought the protest marches by our juvenile delinquent squirrels were completely uncalled for. I was supposed to replace it over the summer so it would be ready in plenty of time for the cold weather, but of course anyone who knows me would know that was never going to happen, in spite of my best intentions. I admit that I quailed at the prospect of insinuating a new cord in the place of the old one, through the flower beds, behind all of the thorn bushes, under the crawl space, around the banister, beneath the floorboards, in back of the down-spout, then poked through a crevice in the baseboard of the porch, snaking behind the patio furniture and radiator, and finally squeezed below the French doors into the living room where it's plugged in. But with the abominable weather (and some welcome time off from work) I felt I really owed it to our feathered friends to make the effort, and convert what had become the bird bath skating rink into an actual bird bath with drinking water. Once my resolve was in place, a funny thing happened. It dawned on me that the terrible wind storm we recently had, which was the ruin of our neighbors' dogwood and our vintage wind chimes, also left us with an open window frame on the porch, right next to the French doors, which seemed a big inconvenience at the time, but now appeared in a more fortuitous light. "Why," I found this tantalizing idea popping unbidden into my head, "if I had another extension cord, I could just throw it right through the window and plug it right in from there, and skip the whole flower bed and crawl space part of the scenario at a stroke." Then I remembered that I did in fact have another outdoor extension cord, so I leaped up and grabbed it, threw it out the window, actually found where I put the bird bath heater from last year, pried the ice out of the bird bath with a crowbar, anchored the heater with a brick, and plugged the cord into the living room. It was all done in a trice, or at least a fraction of the time and headache it would have been replacing the cord in the exact same layout as the old one, and all with the same end result when everything was said and done. Of course, everyone already knows the punch line to this age-old story by now, as we have no way of knowing if the bird bath heater is actually working, since the weather has warmed up by nearly 30 degrees after that, as indeed, we all would have expected it to do. So my apologies to all of the ski resorts and ice rinks, for ushering in a sudden heat wave in the middle of the winter in this region, ruining their business and other frosty delights of the season for winter revelers everywhere. While I was at it, I also put new flannel sheets and the heating blanket on the bed, which will probably be the start of a whole new Paleolithic era for the planet, and the dinosaurs will have the last laugh after all.
Speaking of unexpected openings, we had a plumbing pipe that developed a drip, so we cut a hole in the ceiling to gain access to it and called on the restorative powers of epoxy to solve the problem. We left it that way for a while to monitor the effectiveness of the repair, by whether it continued to drip through the hole, or if we could count on the epoxy to do the trick. It really wasn't as unsightly as it might sound, as the 10-foot ceiling makes the hole seem very far away, and it was located in between two decorative beams besides, further camouflaging its presence, so that it would be hardly noticeable to anyone. Not so fast! I happened to be in that area by the front door, when the mailman, the FedEx fellow and the UPS guy all came calling at the exact same moment, which so spooked our little invisible calico, Potfourri, that she took it into her head to jump from the radiator right into the hole in the ceiling, and disappeared from sight. After everyone left, the full impact of the disaster started to gnaw at me, as I realized that there was nothing that would bring her back down, and we might never see her again, which I already knew as far as she was concerned, would suit her just fine. She'd be perfectly content to spend the rest of her life wandering the eaves and rafters of this old joint, eating bugs and varmints, and if there was any loose board or shingle leading to the outdoors, that would be the end of it. She was afraid of us, avoided all of the other cats except Max, and was never very food-oriented, so I despaired of coming up with anything that we could use to entice her back out of the hole to rejoin the family, if indeed, she hadn't already gotten outside and vanished. It was also impractical to contemplate tearing apart the walls and floors all over the house, and somehow capture her by force, and here again, not knowing if she had already gotten out, and all of our efforts would have been in vain. After losing the other four invisible cats in a year, the prospect of having the very last one of the tribe escape right out from under our noses, or rather, over our heads, was too much to take, and I could feel myself giving way to panic. I found myself running around in circles like a lunatic, trying to figure out what to do first, and thinking of how I could find out how far she could actually go from that part of the ceiling. I shooed each of the other cats into a separate room and closed the door, to eliminate the possibility that this crazy idea would occur to anyone else at the same time, and then went around one more time to tally up tails again to make sure that everyone else was accounted for. It was during this period of charging about in a dither that I stepped in some poop, which had been handily left on the floor immediately on the inside of a door by one of our prized pussies, and thank you so very much not. At that point, I took off my sneaker and hopped outside to clean it off, which did nothing to improve my mood, I can tell you that, and anybody not already familiar with my Evil Twin would have been extremely surprised at the language they would have heard, by golly. When I was finished with that unpleasantness, and just about on the verge of falling completely to pieces, I came back inside, and here was Potfourri sitting calmly on the radiator as if nothing had happened. I stared at her dumbstruck, and mere words would be woefully inadequate to describe what I was feeling at that moment. But you can be sure that we wasted no time in closing up her escape hatch, and grateful for a second chance to be the guardians who care for her, if necessary in spite of herself, and now especially with her safety foremost in our minds. So that was the story of our very own Christmas mini miracle, which came along just at the right time, even without the herald angels and shepherds. Although I have to say that The Wise Men could have come in handy, that's for sure.
And while we're on the subject of Christmas, the big day was last week, and the jolly old man in the red suit did his usual fine job here in our little corner of Paradise, so we have no cause for complaint. The day was lovely, and we even got up at a reasonable time, unlike previous years when we're already up and opening presents in the pre-dawn darkness. There were the usual gifts of apparel and practical items, and not the less appreciated for their utilitarian properties, as well as novelties and entertainment, plus the latest and greatest gadgets to come along lately, or rather, some that hadn't even been invented yet. We had breakfast sitting on furniture like civilized people, instead of scarfing down junk food from our stockings while sprawled on the floor in front of the tree. We enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing, and then had a special dinner by candlelight that capped off a wonderful day. And even though my family is smaller in number than it used to be, it still wasn't possible to get everyone together at the same time in the same place to celebrate the holiday, so we still have that to look forward to, as we make arrangements to get together as a group or in sections, for as long as it takes. Around here, the Christmas Caravan will continue until the last ho has been ho'd, the last cane has been candied, the last egg has been nogged, and don't spare the reindeer. Although if there's going to be plagues of locusts and raining frogs, I have to say all bets are off.
Elle
Happy New Year! And so here we find ourselves with a bright and shiny new year stretching out before us, brimming with promise and the hope of happier days ahead, and with any luck, all of that will come true. Many of us who had issues with 2010 will not be sad to see the tail-end of that year, believe me, which in so many ways did not live up to the expectations of unalloyed joy and wonderfulness that we might have hoped for after the debacle of 2009. So with renewed hope, we look forward to 2011 with as much unbridled optimism as we can muster, and the eager anticipation of good times, precious memories and sweet dreams to keep us going. And if all else fails, there's always junk food with its many therapeutic qualities, which is a New Year's resolution that I can live with. Everyone knows I always say there's no such thing as too much chocolate, and so I can sincerely wish you a very brown New Year, and mean every bit of it, yum!
Of course, it would not have been the dastardly 2010 without one last trick up its sleeve, and it certainly decided to go out with a bang. There was less than a week left to go before the new year, when the skies opened up and dumped the Blizzard of 2010 all over us, with gale force winds and bitter cold to make things even worse, especially for those thousands of households who lost their electricity in the bargain. It snowed all of Sunday and into Monday, with accumulations of 12 inches and more, far and wide. The howling winds made clearing roads and sidewalks almost impossible, and the drifts were more than man or machine could handle in many cases. I considered myself lucky to be off from work, so it wasn't necessary for me to try and fight my way through it, and Bill also took the prudent course and stayed home, and the heck with name pins for the duration. The peppy landscaping crew, that was so industrious that they chucked out my camping firewood, came back and did only a half-hearted job of plowing out the driveway, going part-way up to the garage and then calling it quits, as well as leaving both cars plowed in at the curb, thanks not. Exacerbating the situation, the city had never gotten around to picking up the last of the leaves that were still in the street, so now we had piles of leaves covered with plow tailings, creating a parking nightmare that was intractable on an epic scale. Fortunately, Bill who has the strength of ten because his heart is pure, was more than equal to the challenge, and soon had both cars dug out and the sidewalks cleared, and lived to tell the tale, which was the most important part. I suppose we should be glad that 2010 didn't decide to hit us with a plague of locusts or raining frogs instead, but hey - at least you don't have to shovel locusts or frogs, after all.
After what seemed like a very mild autumn, with balmy temperatures right up until the beginning of December, we were suddenly plunged into a cold snap of frigid temperatures in the single digits all over the area, that clamped everything in an icy fist and showed no signs of abating any time soon. Alert readers may recall that I had to disconnect the bird bath heaters last year, because the old and beat-up extension cord they were plugged into outside had become so frayed that it was a danger to the local wildlife and the community at large, although frankly I thought the protest marches by our juvenile delinquent squirrels were completely uncalled for. I was supposed to replace it over the summer so it would be ready in plenty of time for the cold weather, but of course anyone who knows me would know that was never going to happen, in spite of my best intentions. I admit that I quailed at the prospect of insinuating a new cord in the place of the old one, through the flower beds, behind all of the thorn bushes, under the crawl space, around the banister, beneath the floorboards, in back of the down-spout, then poked through a crevice in the baseboard of the porch, snaking behind the patio furniture and radiator, and finally squeezed below the French doors into the living room where it's plugged in. But with the abominable weather (and some welcome time off from work) I felt I really owed it to our feathered friends to make the effort, and convert what had become the bird bath skating rink into an actual bird bath with drinking water. Once my resolve was in place, a funny thing happened. It dawned on me that the terrible wind storm we recently had, which was the ruin of our neighbors' dogwood and our vintage wind chimes, also left us with an open window frame on the porch, right next to the French doors, which seemed a big inconvenience at the time, but now appeared in a more fortuitous light. "Why," I found this tantalizing idea popping unbidden into my head, "if I had another extension cord, I could just throw it right through the window and plug it right in from there, and skip the whole flower bed and crawl space part of the scenario at a stroke." Then I remembered that I did in fact have another outdoor extension cord, so I leaped up and grabbed it, threw it out the window, actually found where I put the bird bath heater from last year, pried the ice out of the bird bath with a crowbar, anchored the heater with a brick, and plugged the cord into the living room. It was all done in a trice, or at least a fraction of the time and headache it would have been replacing the cord in the exact same layout as the old one, and all with the same end result when everything was said and done. Of course, everyone already knows the punch line to this age-old story by now, as we have no way of knowing if the bird bath heater is actually working, since the weather has warmed up by nearly 30 degrees after that, as indeed, we all would have expected it to do. So my apologies to all of the ski resorts and ice rinks, for ushering in a sudden heat wave in the middle of the winter in this region, ruining their business and other frosty delights of the season for winter revelers everywhere. While I was at it, I also put new flannel sheets and the heating blanket on the bed, which will probably be the start of a whole new Paleolithic era for the planet, and the dinosaurs will have the last laugh after all.
Speaking of unexpected openings, we had a plumbing pipe that developed a drip, so we cut a hole in the ceiling to gain access to it and called on the restorative powers of epoxy to solve the problem. We left it that way for a while to monitor the effectiveness of the repair, by whether it continued to drip through the hole, or if we could count on the epoxy to do the trick. It really wasn't as unsightly as it might sound, as the 10-foot ceiling makes the hole seem very far away, and it was located in between two decorative beams besides, further camouflaging its presence, so that it would be hardly noticeable to anyone. Not so fast! I happened to be in that area by the front door, when the mailman, the FedEx fellow and the UPS guy all came calling at the exact same moment, which so spooked our little invisible calico, Potfourri, that she took it into her head to jump from the radiator right into the hole in the ceiling, and disappeared from sight. After everyone left, the full impact of the disaster started to gnaw at me, as I realized that there was nothing that would bring her back down, and we might never see her again, which I already knew as far as she was concerned, would suit her just fine. She'd be perfectly content to spend the rest of her life wandering the eaves and rafters of this old joint, eating bugs and varmints, and if there was any loose board or shingle leading to the outdoors, that would be the end of it. She was afraid of us, avoided all of the other cats except Max, and was never very food-oriented, so I despaired of coming up with anything that we could use to entice her back out of the hole to rejoin the family, if indeed, she hadn't already gotten outside and vanished. It was also impractical to contemplate tearing apart the walls and floors all over the house, and somehow capture her by force, and here again, not knowing if she had already gotten out, and all of our efforts would have been in vain. After losing the other four invisible cats in a year, the prospect of having the very last one of the tribe escape right out from under our noses, or rather, over our heads, was too much to take, and I could feel myself giving way to panic. I found myself running around in circles like a lunatic, trying to figure out what to do first, and thinking of how I could find out how far she could actually go from that part of the ceiling. I shooed each of the other cats into a separate room and closed the door, to eliminate the possibility that this crazy idea would occur to anyone else at the same time, and then went around one more time to tally up tails again to make sure that everyone else was accounted for. It was during this period of charging about in a dither that I stepped in some poop, which had been handily left on the floor immediately on the inside of a door by one of our prized pussies, and thank you so very much not. At that point, I took off my sneaker and hopped outside to clean it off, which did nothing to improve my mood, I can tell you that, and anybody not already familiar with my Evil Twin would have been extremely surprised at the language they would have heard, by golly. When I was finished with that unpleasantness, and just about on the verge of falling completely to pieces, I came back inside, and here was Potfourri sitting calmly on the radiator as if nothing had happened. I stared at her dumbstruck, and mere words would be woefully inadequate to describe what I was feeling at that moment. But you can be sure that we wasted no time in closing up her escape hatch, and grateful for a second chance to be the guardians who care for her, if necessary in spite of herself, and now especially with her safety foremost in our minds. So that was the story of our very own Christmas mini miracle, which came along just at the right time, even without the herald angels and shepherds. Although I have to say that The Wise Men could have come in handy, that's for sure.
And while we're on the subject of Christmas, the big day was last week, and the jolly old man in the red suit did his usual fine job here in our little corner of Paradise, so we have no cause for complaint. The day was lovely, and we even got up at a reasonable time, unlike previous years when we're already up and opening presents in the pre-dawn darkness. There were the usual gifts of apparel and practical items, and not the less appreciated for their utilitarian properties, as well as novelties and entertainment, plus the latest and greatest gadgets to come along lately, or rather, some that hadn't even been invented yet. We had breakfast sitting on furniture like civilized people, instead of scarfing down junk food from our stockings while sprawled on the floor in front of the tree. We enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing, and then had a special dinner by candlelight that capped off a wonderful day. And even though my family is smaller in number than it used to be, it still wasn't possible to get everyone together at the same time in the same place to celebrate the holiday, so we still have that to look forward to, as we make arrangements to get together as a group or in sections, for as long as it takes. Around here, the Christmas Caravan will continue until the last ho has been ho'd, the last cane has been candied, the last egg has been nogged, and don't spare the reindeer. Although if there's going to be plagues of locusts and raining frogs, I have to say all bets are off.
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:37 PM
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