The Return

The computer is back. It works but the screen is slowly dying. I keep thinking I will be able to use part of my tax return for a new computer come February. And then friends say, "If we get a tax return" which starts the worry clock.

I watched more TV in 8 days than I did in the past 3 years, I think. There are some really, really awful Christmas movies out there. Just sticking "Christmas" in a movie's title does not guarantee it will be any good. Far from it. A movie still requires some semblance of a plot which some of these holiday movies didn't seem to have from the start.

I discovered the PBS "Create" channel. Heavily filled with cooking shows, it started off as something fun but I can only tolerate watching people cooking for so long before it's just boring. Another percentage is travel shows and those can be interesting. But again, I can only watch them for so long before it's just another place and you can interchange the country name with a different one.

"Miss Marple Investigates" was wonderful. I've read all of Agatha Christie's books so I enjoy seeing how it gets translated to the screen. There's usually one or two actors whose faces I recognize. In the one Miss Marple I watched, it was Joan Collins playing a socialite from New York. Hmmmm. Casting against type I see.

I watched "American Experience" and WGN TV's Bozo specials. I watched the news and the weather. I usually get both from the Internet. I watched football, all the football someone with free TV can watch. I watched "Bob Newhart" and "Mary Tyler Moore". I watched bits and pieces here and there until it got boring to watch more.

I managed to keep the worry monster away by concentrating on gratitude. At least someone was looking at the computer with an idea to try to get it working for me. Bill Moyers had a great program on Friday night discussing the "fiscal cliff" we've heard so much about. I actually watched a program discussing financial matters. After listening to the two people he had on his show, I am not worried much about the impending "fiscal whatever". That worry has been sent packing. It is what it is and I'll make do as I have before.


So, Friday night, I picked up the computer and set about getting the space ready again. A couple years ago, I realized that my chair made me spend too much time looking down at the computer screen. Ideally, you should look straight across. I looked around the house for something on which to set the computer to raise it up the required 3 inches. I've had this book "Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare" for at least 20 years. It's an invaluable help when I want to muse on Shakespeare's writings. It's also the perfect height to raise the computer up to eye level. So, I dusted around the book, moved a bunch of cables and set the computer back where it had been.

Then came the dreaded downloading. I have a new hard drive. Everything I had on my other hard drive has to be reinstalled. The operating system was an upgrade from the one I had been using. It has a few new quirks that are taking me some time to get used to.

Getting back online and getting my email services back up and functional didn't take that much time. Downloading World of Warcraft has been a trial. I think my Internet service throttles the amount of data I can download at once. I have 20 gigabites of data for this game and I'm downloading it in kilobite fragments. It's so slow. And when my computer goes to sleep, it doesn't download anymore so I have to supervise the downloading. When it's time for bed, however, I let it go and it just quits whenever the computer goes to sleep. There is a program I can download that will prevent the computer going to sleep, but I was able to log into the game on Sunday. I'll just keep going with the time I have. Eventually, the whole game will be downloaded.

I didn't really go through withdrawal without the computer. There were times, especially the first weekend, when I'd think, "I wonder...I'll just go look it up online...oh wait...", but, by Tuesday evening, I would come home, do chores, make supper and then sit in the recliner. Before computers, this is what I did. Had the computer been beyond repair, I would have been okay with that.

So, my eyes forward are toward a new computer. I don't know how much longer this one will limp along so I need to figure out how to pay for a new one. Computers are so much a part of life now and so much of how I entertain myself is tied up with the computer. Let's see if life lets me plan for a new one.

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb

It's Time

If you were here at the beginning of the year, you might remember this guy.

He sits on the desk in my bedroom just smiling at me all year. It's close to time when he would make an appearance but I noticed he was squinting when brought out to the livingroom.

Possibly it's an astigmatism or a myopia, but he's all better now. He still makes the cats give me weird looks when I get him to sing.

Beverage:  Rooibos tea

Deb

Snowflake

It's the time of year when boxes start materializing on your front porch. I have shipped all but the one I'm waiting to hear is framed and ready for pick up. I'm not really expecting any more boxes to come to my address so boxes behind the milk container are always viewed with a, "What the...?"

I bring this one in and it's got "Live Plant" all over it. I have learned, over the many, many years I have given and received packages that what is on the outside of a box is, often, not what is on the inside of the box. It can be exceptionally humorous when a sturdy box labeled "yogurt" is reused for newspaper clippings. Yet, why toss a perfectly good box, particularly at this time of year? You never know when that box is just the right size. Hence, it says, "Live Plant", but is that really what's in it? Let's see.

I don't know who would be sending me something either. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it's Christmas and the potential for gifts exists all month. All into that my birthday at the end of last month, and boxes arrive from the middle of November through the days just before Christmas. I set this down on the floor to have it "cat scanned" and they ignored it. I think they are on box overload. I can almost see the thought bubbles. "Another box? Wake me when it's treats time."

Inside the box was this styrofoam "plug", if you will, It was tight inside the top and you can see that I had a devil of a time getting it out of the box. It kept disintegrating when I would try to pull and grab it. I had no idea what was under this so I hesitated to grab a knife and cut it apart. Finally, it popped out.

Oh look. It's another box. But, in looking at this box, I noticed there was potting soil on the inside of this one. There were an awful lot of packing peanuts, too. Whatever it was wasn't going anywhere.

On the side of this box is the word, "Snowflake". I'm still not sure what that means, nor can I find any card or anything that tells me who sent this. I pull all the packing materials out of the main box. Still nothing.

I open the inner box and find this.

It's an amaryllis. But who is is from? It's driving me bananas. Then, if I'd really learn to read, I notice a plastic bag taped to the side of the exterior box. "Merry Christmas, Deb. Your pal, Bill."

I'm so touched by this. If you go back in time to the summer, you will remember the New York Giants mug I did the insert for. Bill was the recipient of that mug. It arrived last week and he dutifully opened the box and the wrapped gift therein, in spite of the enclosed note that said, "Doesn't need to be opened until Christmas." He says he's very happy with the mug because it's something I made for him and he won't have something that everyone else has. We laughed about how I had blogged extensively about the mug as I was making it but I knew he doesn't read the blog so he'd never see it. "You got that right," he laughed.

I don't give gifts to have people give me gifts in return. I give them because I want to. Some years are flush and I can send out a lot of gifts. Some years are lean and I have to cut back. I send gifts because I want to and, at the time, I have the means to do so. To get something like this in return really touches me.

Now, amaryllis bulbs are poisonous. I've had the bulb sitting on the table and it's been sniffed several times. That makes me rather nervous. You just can't tell if they get enough information via the sniff or if they think they have to "taste" the bulb to be certain it's not food. I know exactly where I'm going to put this but I need to move a few things to make room. The ceramic box is filled with packing peanuts that I want to remove and replace with those clear marble things. I think I have some in the basement. If not, I don't think they are too expensive that I can't get a package at JoAnn's when I go to pick up the framed piece. Then, this will get a thorough soaking and we'll begin the great amaryllis watch. I don't know, for sure, if the amaryllis that blooms will be the one shown on the card. I don't care. This is so wonderful.

"Friends do things because they are friends." Yes. Yes, they do.

Beverage:  Rooibos tea

Deb

The Case of the Missing Snow

Yesterday, Chicago had the 283rd day without measurable snow, which is defined at 0.1 inch. We are to reach 50 today and tomorrow...50! In December. The exclamations for this winter are numerous. We thought last winter was an anomaly, coming as it did on the heels of the 3rd worst blizzard in recorded history. Yesterday, we had 100% of the available sunshine get to us. In December, which is historically, the snowiest month, that's quite an achievement. It usually happens in January, those crystal clear days and equally clear and frigidly cold nights, when you can see all the way to Andromeda it seems. There is rain in the forecast and we need, desperately, the ground moisture, but it's not snow although nighttime temperatures are slated to fall below 40, but not far enough that the rain turns to anything, not even sleet.

It wasn't always this way.

Our first winter in the house. We moved in in December, the very first weekend. That winter was a snowy one, giving us a taste of the shoveling to come. That snowsuit was mine. I don't remember if the hat was mine or one someone bought.

I have vague memories of that first winter in the house. We had storm windows that we put on but which were eventually abandoned as they deteriorated. (I still have some of them and would love to have one turned into a cold frame.) This looks like the light fluffy powdered sugar-type of snow that doesn't roll into snowballs. Obviously, we did have a snowfall that was snowball worthy as represented by the snowman on the left. I do remember Carole wouldn't keep her mittens on and kept taking them off to touch the snow. Eventually, we had to go inside because her fingers were red with cold. I'm pretty sure that snowsuit is downstairs in the trunk. Maybe the hat and mittens are too.

I look out across the still green grass of my front lawn and snow, even the blizzard of 2010, seem a distant memory. I remember the Christmas Eve nights when we'd pile into the car and drive to church for the children's Christmas service. The snow was shoved up so high along the curbs in town and the gravel roads were icy. I remember the blackness of the sky and wondering what it had looked like on the night Jesus was born. I remember being so cold just walking from the car to the church. I don't ever remember a December or a Christmas in Iowa without snow until the 1980's. Perhaps there were, but I don't remember them.

I remember a bitterly cold December in Chicago when we drove into the city on Christmas Eve and walked Michigan Avenue. The shoppers were gone. There were a few people out, wanderers like us, admiring the windows, the lights and the stillness of one of Chicago's busiest locations. I remember the temperature was below zero and the wind made it feel like -24. I don't know why I remember that number but I do. Snow was 3 feet deep in the back yard. We giggled and ooh'ed and ahhh'ed at the windows. The horse rides were around Water Tower Place and I remember the steam from the breath of the horses and their drivers huddled in a circle drinking hot drinks and chatting.

I remember the McDonald's at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Superior Street. It was open when almost nothing else was. It was bright and cheery inside. When we went in, there were a couple of Chicago cops and we were greeted by a very warm, "Merry Christmas!" from the people behind the counter. We got hot cocoa and sat by the window watching the cold descend upon the city. I remember driving home and not seeing a soul on State Street. We could drive by the then Marshall Field's flagship store and look at their windows without leaving the car. There was no one behind us to honk so we could drive and stop.

I do remember a Christmas of 65 degrees. I had a cold but I remember us standing on the deck in the afternoon's thin sunshine marveling that it was the end of December and it was 65 degrees. "Wow, we'll never see this again!" Um...yeah.

Technically, Chicagoland has a 50-50 chance of a white Christmas even if the weather was normal. I think it was in the late 1960's and 1970's when there was talk of an early ice age. Perhaps we should have paid attention to the abnormalities of harsher winters. I don't think any climate model could have predicted this kind of warmth and drought.

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. Just like the ones I used to know." Well, sort of. I'll take 3-5 inches, just enough to line the trees and fence posts, but not too much to make shoveling a chore. Then, I could handle rain instead of snow. It's easier to drive in, for sure.

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb