Chicken Wings and Other Things in the 'Lo

The trick to moving to this city is not to put on fifteen pounds in the first month.  We are the City of Buffalo, New York, and the waves of blue collar food still echo, even though most of the steel mills and granaries are rusted-down hollow.  Ghosts of warehouses, empty brick buildings falling in crumbles, and streets flanked by brownfields tell of long ago industry, when we earned the named "Queen City on the Lake" for all of the production and dispersion of materials accomplished.

Once a major railroad hub, Buffalo was the eighth largest city in the nation with more grain mills than anywhere else in the country.  You can still see remnants of the long-gone wrought iron industry curling around gated yards or up a run of stairs.  Our then factory workers were mostly men whose wives were home, walloping slews of potatoes into boiling pots for mashed with butter, opening cans of peas, and starting the chuck roast early enough in the day so that by supper the meat was a succulent foundation to the meal.  Applesauce.  Gravy.  Bread.  Ready.  Call the kids in.

When younger and headed home, walking down the street at dinnertime provided an impressive panoply of aromas, more so during the cool weather.  You could tell a roast chicken dinner with sage and onion stuffing from the warm tone of spaghetti sauce accompanied by a foil-wrapped garlic bread in the oven.  Roasts, chops, beef stew; the manifestation of household cooking skills filled the street with preferences and you knew when you were passing the Neibrich's, with the redolent fragrance of her sauerkraut laced with chunks of apple and onion.

It is still easy to eat as if you've been loading the furnaces with pig iron all day, or have been outside climbing and running and yelling, if a kid.  Perhaps the newer generations eat less, but I must tell you, it's hard to hold back.  There are so many local specialties; roast beef sliced on a caraway roll also topped with kosher salt, load on the horseradish.  Pierogi are fried in butter, and served with white cabbage, also fried in butter and finished with breadcrumbs: fried in butter.  We seem to have more pizzerias per neighborhood than most, fish frys are a holdover from Lent and served year round, and our char-broiled hot dogs from Ted's make grown people shed a tear for the old place under the Peace Bridge, Theodore's by the Lake.  Louie's has the best foot long that should go with an order of their curly fries.  Loganberry drink is served at both establishments, and is the perfect addition to a traditional dog.

On top of all this culinary manifestation, we have wings.  Having had wings outside the city, it astounds me how much people screw them up.  Add ins are not necessary, and the best thing to do is not mess around too much.  Fry them in properly heated oil until the skin is crisp, then toss them in a balance of melted butter and hot sauce.  No celery salt, Worcestershire, or garlic powder, people, unless you are inventing your own sort of anarchy.

Many places serve wings, one restauranteur mentioned that people eat more of them during winter than any other time, and most stick to the basics.  A bit of a competition exists between the two main purveyors for best wing; Duff's and the originator of the recipe, Anchor Bar.  I haven't been to the Anchor in a while, but I can vouch for what Duff's serves.  Both parts of the wing, the flat and the drum, are equal in crisp excellence and can be ordered from mild up to Armageddon.  We further show our adoration at Buffalo Wing Fest held on Labor Day weekend, being a conglomeration of the most dedicated wingnuts in the nation.

Sharing a meal is one of friendliest things you can do, and Buffalo is called the City of Good Neighbors for partly this reason: we feed you.  Newer immigrants are supplanting the old European stock, and also bringing what they cook for dinner with them.  There are plenty of parks and streets where you can walk it off.  Come on over.

So maybe you've had supper and are done for the day; there is something lucky here, that most of us can say that.  Chores are finished and papers tended, dishes put away and towels hung to dry.  Time to wind down and view the cold night from inside, but notice: the days are warming, and with still freezing nights that means the sap is beginning to rise in the maples.  Buds will swell and farmers will tap the trees for syrup making.  It will be March in a few hours, the month will introduce itself to each time zone as the clock passes midnight.  We look forward to the coming spring, even with eyes shut in slumber.  Good night world, good night friend.  

This Fantastic Earth

Breathe in, and the soil and rain will fulfill your dreams of green growing spring and lush summer gardens, resounding in exuberant flushes of leaf of blossom of acrospire and plumule.  The air is heavy with deliberate humidity, and the glass windows of the greenhouse are fogged, with moss growing in any crevice.  Today a friend and I packed Sunday in and left it home, to view the indoor garden climates designed originally as part of the Olmstead system of parks.  The orchid society was having its show, and the plants were so vigorous and friendly, they seemed ready to climb out of their pots and perform stemmed minuets.

Components of blossoms reveal intricate delicacies complex as a small finch's wing, or as thick and heavy as wax sculptures folded over sunset colors.  They traveled from the grower's home to exhibit, and weathered the trip well.   But oh, the frilled, the rippled, the cupped and cockled shapes threw colors in tropical saturation, beguiling the viewer with a salmagundi of the rainbow, some fragrant as hedonism.

Huge moth orchids, the phalaenopsis, filled their stems with the largest blooms that will last at least two months in hospitable environments.  They had been coaxed into multiple stems and blossoms, their heads nodding to gravity, often requiring stabilization from supports.  Dendrobiums cascaded in falls of over twenty blossoms to a stem; cattleyas, the orchid you usually see depicted in drawings and Eugene the Jeep cartoons, lent their heady fragrance but only last a few days before dropping in exhaustion.  To have benches and tables filled with these beings was like being at a candy shop, an exotic pastry store, or  being momentarily caught in a kaleidoscope.

The two of us rounded the entire greenhouse with its differing biospheres, each room demonstrating in variations of green how diverse the plant kingdom is.  Ingenious cactus, determined vines, and a few carnivorous hoaxes to capture living insects filled the conservatory with plots of success and intent.  You could feel the oxygen given off by the plants; you could feel your carbon dioxide being inhaled by a million leaves.  So sensitive to light, you wonder if they sense your presence as a temporary eclipse of the sun, a shadow that produces both breath and heat.  Do they have rudimentary eyes, such as the third eye of the Komodo dragon that is centered in its forehead, detecting purely changes in light and dark?  Do. they. see. us?  A wonder.

Just as some fold leaves close to stem at night, so do we in our own manner.  Winding down, we call it, and try to end the day on a quiet note in a book, a conversation, a sit on the couch.  My own plants at home are perking up a bit at the longer light of the days, some in blossom here and there; the Christmas cactus, the goldfish plant, the oxalis.  Neither of the two orchids produced this winter, and maybe are waiting for a repot, a bit of extra tending.  We all would like that.

Tend to yourself and your loved ones whether two legged, or four, rooted or other.  Find clean sheets and pillow cases, lucky you if you can hang them outside to dry.  Ach, how I miss a yard!  But never mind, when it is nighttime everything is the same.  Tomorrow is the last day of February, and we slide forth into the windy month of March all filled with hares, Ides, and madness.  I have had enough winter, and wish to be a night nearer to the time of new shoots.  Watch the plants, they will tell you.  Sleep all, sleep well.

Pysanky and Spider Nonsense Already

Last week I mailed a money order to the Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center (CRRC) in Pennsylvania with fingers crossed that there would be an answer.  They have a website, but to order any books takes a form that you print out and a money order or check.  I sent this registered mail, because frankly, I can't remember the last time I sent a money order as payment anywhere.  The list of books they have is an extensive collection concerning a group of people who are neither Russian or Ukrainian, but are considered a separate ethnicity; my interest comes from their traditional Lemko designs for pysanky, the decorated eggs for Easter.  They have an excellent book of patterns that Amazon wanted over $100 for; I got it for $38.  

Lemko is a geographic area that begins in the Carpathian Mountains and overlaps into eastern Poland, they had a brief independence in 1918 after the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, but were made a part of Poland in 1920.  The Easter eggs they create follow the drop-pull method, rather than the lines made by the stylus known as a kistka.  You can order special drop-pull tools, but all I do is stick a pin head in the eraser end of a pencil which works just as well.  Let's see if I can insert a picture:

This image is from the book I received from the CRRC, Rusyn Easter Eggs From Eastern Slovakia  by Pavlo Markovyc (1987, ISBN 3-7003-0695-4), and is the method of egg decoration that I like the best.   It was introduced to me years ago by a friend who sold the decorated eggs for a friend of his, a retired opthamologist whose elaborate last name sounded like Peas and Cabbage.  His home was filled with his artwork and eggs, and it was an immense privilege to be invited to learn this form of pysanky.  I like the clarity and simplicity.  Sure, it's fun to use a kistka, but something about the free-flow of the beeswax works for me.  

I have a small electric hot plate that sits on the metal table and keeps the beeswax melted in an iron pan.    The hot wax fills the living space with the most beautiful, clean aroma of honey and a thousand bees working.  Test a few drops on a piece of cardstock, practice a few patterns; you haven't done this in a year, but it comes back easily.  Make sure the eggs are washed, dried, and room temperature, they really don't spoil even if left out for a week.  I mean, don't expect to eat them, but the rotten egg business won't start for at least a couple of weeks.

When an egg comes out of the hen, she gives it a protective coating so it won't spoil; the USDA washes that off and sanitizes the egg with detergent.  The remnants of the detergent are what you want to wash off, or the dyes will streak and the wax won't adhere.  Put the eggs through a bath of a mild vinegar solution; don't leave them long, or the shell will begin to dissolve in the acid.  Well jeez, I didn't mean for this to be an instructional entry.  Sorry to go on, I just enjoy it so much and besides, we have eggs to make.

On the side of a cliff, there is a chained monster-serpent who sends his minions all over the world to see how many pysanky are made.  If more than last year are counted, his bonds hold tight; if fewer eggs have been made, the chains are loosened to allow him to spread evil.   Nights get dark in Slovakia, and baba sure loves scaring the kids and grandpa.  

Night is just turning the sky from grey-blue to purple.  Much of yesterday's mess has melted, and for heaven's sake, there was a living, small spider tiptoeing across the outside of my bathroom window screen.  I hope the critter went back to hibernation, there is nothing to currently eat unless cat or human are on the menu.  I'll mash you like a tater if you come near anybody, spider.  War on spiders: 2011.  Stay in your proper place, and I will say good morning.  Enter this abode and you are so done you could stick a fork in your spider heiney.  

I will not let any spiders visit you tonight.  Instead, I will send dreams of the miniature Italian greyhound who was at the place I got my hair cut today.  She was so soft, with immense brown eyes and was a polite lap jumper.  A tiny, trembly honey, who probably had fairy wings at one point, she leapt up and pressed herself into me, expecting, as it should be, nothing but affection and awards for Best Dog.  Imagine tiny greyhounds snootzing into your sleeves and jacket, of instant trust and expectation.  An animal has that kind of leeway; if a human instantly, spontaneously trusted, you would rightly imagine loose wiring in the hard drive.  

Dream of small Italian barks, glad you are home meows.  Even you, spider, sleep safely till warmer spring comes.  Forgive me, however, if I shut the window.  Good night, good night all.

ShrimpaPalooza

I drove home, dropped packages at the door and went in to wash hands.  A half hour later, I remembered that the brine shrimp for the loaches needed to go in the freezer, but wanted to give them a bit of the treat first.  The stuff I bought comes in a tray of small cubes, so you only pop out what is needed; this had thawed to the consistency of a brine shrimp slushy.  I poked the foil backing with a thumb and ka-pow, brine shrimp exploded onto the front of me, onto one of the rare brand-new, not from the thrift store shirts.  Oh, for the love of.

I rinsed and washed immediately, and presented the offering to the denizens of the aquarium--they wriggled with fishy joy and hunted for every last crumb.  Brine shrimp, for those fans of the odd, can be packaged as dried eggs, to be revived with salt water and then called sea monkeys.  The package shows a family of them with humanoid faces, arms and legs and of course a kid thinks that's what will appear but by golly, they look more like moving pink dandruff.

If you have the sort of kid who deeply desires sea monkeys because of the otherworldly implications of a whole new kingdom, you may want to explore the website that sells the kits.  Here is a quote:

 "Sea-Monkeys mail-clerk appreciate odor-free letters because they waste less time shooing the bees and process the mail faster."

 So, folks, there must be a problem with bees out where the sea monkey farm is and we don't want to cause more trouble with letters that were handled while you had that slice of pizza.  I get homework from my class that often has potato chip grease or red sauce stains, which is groady enough without any bees hovering by.  Also, don't fill out the form after you've sprayed yourself with Mom's Tabu, either.  The sea-monkey people know it's not adults filling out the letters.

I wonder if there isn't an underground nest of yellowjackets near their mailbox, those buggers are the ones who divebomb your picnic and climb into your soda can when you aren't looking.  Got one in my mouth, once, with a gulp of orange Faygo.  Fortunately, I wasn't stung, the stickiness temporarily crossed his bug circuits.  Unlike bees, they can sting you over and over and boy do they get mad; my son stepped in a nest once, and saved himself by jumping into a pond.  I don't blame the sea monkey people one bit.

Receiving something in the mail that you sent for your own self was one of the fun things of being a kid.  Well, it still is, thanks to eBay, and I wonder if most of the eBay customers aren't the same people who saved boxtops when they were kids.  Most of my shopping is done online, for the prices are way better than the local large store.  Why pay $19 for something when it can be had for $3.75?  Plus it comes to your door or down to the postal office, where you can visit two of the nicest people working behind the desk.  I am currently waiting on owl pellets, which will be another story filled with tiny bones and teeth.

The world spins on even while we sleep, for half of it is in sunshine and even in the half of night, commerce roils forward.   We turn straw to gold to brine shrimp and potato chips, and package them up to be offered as an introduction to animal science with a bowl of chips.  How great can that be, to watch the sea monkeys flitter in their saline while you snack?  Go burn off the calories with a  run around the backyard and see if you can find a praying mantis while you're at it.  Come in at twilight and wash up, get into the jammas, and grab a book to read with a flashlight.  The cat or dog will keep you company.   Love the living things, learn to take care of them as best we can.  Hands to hearts, your own world, your own kingdom.

The Last Box of Jujyfruits

In Walgreens, I succumbed to the purchase of a box of Jujyfruits.  This will most likely be the last Jujyfruit candy I ever have again for the rest of this life, and I find it odd but realistic to think so.  It was an impulse buy for 69 cents, this last box, and I am glad I did for some things don't change much.  Happily, this is one.

The shapes are still the weird vegetable and fruit combination, there are bananas, raspberries, tomatoes, asparagus, pineapples, grapes and pea pods.  Asparagus shaped candy?  Any of the flavors can be any of the shapes; the only apparent change is that green is no longer mint flavored, but has become lime.  How can one get sentimental over candy?  By imagining that it is the last one of anything?

So many never agains, you wonder as the final pea pod is thoughtfully chewed and gone, if it matters.  There is the last dog, the last high heels, the last time that you pick your child up to carry him to bed.  The last piggy back, the last make the bed with him in it, lifting the blankets up to billow over the laughing child.  The final conversation with anyone dear, the final walk down a favorite street to a neighborhood store.  Change moves you ahead, sometimes kicking and screaming.

You must teach yourself to look forward, for there is so much more to do.  Continuously looking back turns you to salt, and you know that we have been told to cut sodium from our diets.  Enjoy the memories, but don't dwell on them, they are only a pleasant visit to another time that is the foundation of who we have become, and isn't that neat?

Some finalities have no regrets, such as the last butterfly fish which is a species that takes its food live, so you have to wiggle the raw liver on the surface with a toothpick to entice the thing.  Beautiful and lacy-finned are they, but in any aquarium you wonder where the expensive glass catfish have gone only to see Igor in the corner, smiling.

I will never downhill ski again, much to my eternal delight.  I never have to take another algebra class or go to a musical.  I have promised myself that I never have to cook a whole turkey ever again.  Looks good, smells hypnotic; too much of a mess to wrestle a dead carcass of a fifteen pound animal, then let the headless skeleton linger in the fridge till it turns greenish for soup that never shows up anyway.  Country music?  Never again.  Whee.  I can take Rascal Flatts in small doses.  Sunday church?  Ha.  Had enough of that when I was younger to the point where I get nauseous and panicky inside a pew, so I just don't go.  However, what triggered the above nostalgia?

I guess that hindsight is twenty-twenty, and there are many things I wish could happen again.  I miss the Grant Street ice cream stand that sold honeydew flavored custard.  I miss the wooden floors of the A & P and the blind man who played an accordion while his boxer dog in harness sat by him out in front.  There was a metal water utility marker in the cement that had salamanders cast in iron.  There was my Grandma Ida, who walked me up to Miller's Drugstore in the rain to buy me a gauze frog mask for Halloween night.  I miss reading bedtime stories, making supper, growing vegetables in a garden.

Here I am, with the last box of Jujyfruits.  There will be other things to try one last time, like maybe Necco wafers.  Riding a bicycle.  Making bread.  Other adventures beckon, and they look delightfully interesting.  You'll hear about them later.  Right now, it's come to be time for turning in.

Your turn to think about where you have been and how you have affected those around you, created harmony, made peace, raised a ruckus.  What represents the last box of sweets for you?  Be happy that you were able to be there, then lock it away and turn the little gold key.  Tell the memories that you love them so, but they should take a magazine and sit down in the waiting room until you want them again.  Skedaddle.

The headlights of the cars glide back and forth over the highway as people head to ending journeys begun during day.  Heads shall find pillows, blankets will be pulled up to chins.  I wonder if the child become a man wishes for one last time of bedtime stories and billowing covers.  I did it for my mom when she became confined to her bed, and she laughed as if she were little again.  Sleep well, sleep deeply, with the innocence of the peaceful.  Everything will be alright.  I promise.

Birdseed and Chopsticks

If you have ever watched a bird take a dust bath, then you know just what the juncos are up to in the snow.   I scatter thistle seed under one of the dying crabapple trees for them, and as it gets covered by more flakes, they sit themselves down and flutter their wings to make little divots around themselves, uncovering buried seed.  I can only hope that this helps them get through, and maybe some of the escaped seed will grow in season, and produce.  I don't know how the wild ones get through outside hardship, what on earth is there to eat?  The competition must be tough, and I am surprised that the chickadees haven't bullied their way in.

Further to the south are General Mills and Adm Mills, both of whom still deal in flour and meal; you can find sparrows drunkenly lolling in the spills of grain any season.   I feed the locals furtively, as feeding birds on the property is forbidden, to avoid vermin.  Technically, tossing the seed through the fence counts as off property, and besides, the feral cats are on task.  Their patron saint told me they once left her a rat tail.  No rat, just the pink, snakey snake tail.  Eek.

I went to a Korean grocery today in search of my favorite chopsticks.  I had recently bought a new batch, but they turned out to be rounded.  Rounded tips lead to dropped food and I longed for the flat sided ones that grab items with determination and industry.  The only place I know is out towards Millersport Highway, and there I landed, and there they were.  Individually wrapped, 100 pairs for two bucks.  What a deal.  The rounded ones will be used for purposes that don't have to do with grabbing.  They will make excellent pokers of holes in dirt, or in cake for glazes.  Really, handy sticks all around.    

Actually I have little to write this evening, as discerning but polite you can already tell.  I have to start research on a paper on influence and well, the enthusiasm isn't gushing forth.  Kai is watching the fish scuttle the bottom of the tank, the clown loaches, the black and yellow striped fiends with red fins that dispatch anything smaller with speed.  They sleep on their sides and have a spine that draws human blood.  Ask me how I know.

Sleep well this cold evening, dream of stars and comets, of portent and omen.  Love those near to you, the ones in big beds and little beds, do tell them their names, they love to hear you say them.  It sends them off to sleep feeling loved and as part of a story we all share; this part of the tale is yours to shape with them, with me, with the birds and the growing bamboo that will one day travel thousands of miles to be held in your hand, perhaps to pick up grains of rice.  The world whirls on.  Good night.

Great Granny's Rolls

Yesterday's reminiscing about the fifties caused another memory to surface after reading a recipe in one of my cake books.  Coffeecake, where have you gone?  I don't mean the circular yeast dough stuffed with almond paste that you find in a bakery and god knows where you can find a bakery anymore, but the one that every relative in my circle had several clippings for, tucked inside the cover of the Betty Crocker cookbook.

Quick Coffeecake used baking powder as leavening to react with a liquid catalyst (didn't know you were doing chemistry, didja?).  Baking powder itself has Cream of Tartar, Baking soda, and Calcium Acid Phosphate.  Please read the label, as some still use Sodium Aluminum Sulphate and aluminum is just not good for people to ingest.  Increased levels have been found in brains of Alzheimer's patients.  Stick with the calcium which may not rise as high by a quarter of an inch, but to me, that's worth a little memory.  Commercial, pre-made mixes usually go for looks, so they often contain aluminum, like Bisquick.  End of rant.

My mom had maybe six different recipes for Quick Coffeecake snipped from newspaper, as it was one of the conveniences for the modern housewife of the era.  Have the girls over, serve a fresh from the oven cake you whipped up just before they arrive in their modern slacks with their Toni perms.  No time at all.  There was strudel on top, with a layer running through the middle, all cinnamon, butter and  brown sugar.  The cake part itself was meant not to be too sweet, that was the job of the crumbles on top.  Nuts made it better, in my opinion.  Fruit wasn't really available out of season, so no blueberries and pineapple only appeared as rings on top of an upside down cake.  Really, it was a plain, friendly cake.

It wasn't until later that I ran into a yeast-based coffeecake produced by the grandmother of the family I had married into.  Great Granny, who was hip before the word existed, would start this sometimes the night before for morning rolls, or midday for dinner.  The batter was the same, considered quick because there was no kneading or second rising in the bowl.  Frosting on top designated breakfast rolls, just butter for supper.  The whole batter plopped into the pan with strudel made coffecake.  Here is her recipe:


Great Granny’s Rolls                        350 degrees  8" square pan, buttered

1 cup milk
3 tb. butter
2 tb. sugar
½ tsp salt
1½ packages of yeast
¼ cup lukewarm H2O
1 beaten egg
3 – 3 ½ cups flour

Scald the milk and butter, add sugar and salt.  COOL or you will kill the yeast.  Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, add to milk.  Add in the beaten egg, then the flour, let rise double once.  Shape into balls of dough (walnut size), put into greased pan, brush with butter.  Bake 20 minutes till brown.  Great Granny would add a confectioner’s sugar icing for morning rolls.  You can start this, shape it and put in fridge till morning then bake.

Because there isn't any kneading, the gluten doesn't develop other than in the one rising so don't expect light and fluffy.  The item we are talking here is a coarsely grained, stalwart roll that will allow you to endure.  A durable Guten Tag.  Get going.  Meet the day.  

Now we are consigned to not so many carbs, so the coffeecake is vanishing like everything else.  You look at a slice and apologize to your neighbor for having one.   Once in a while is okay, I think this from-scratch recipe will do less harm than a bowl of Trix, which appears in the school breakfast program at least three times a week.  Trix is a sugar-sweetened cereal that now comes in five freakish colors, not the three I grew up with.  Blue.  Purple.  Green. Yellow. Red.  Fun.  Really kids, if colored breakfast cereal is the most fun you get in the day, we need to talk.

It is early and there are things to do.  Post office is closed today, rats.  I shall find something to get into which may include making a batch of rolls, it has been a long time and I can use a good memory.  Talk to you soon.  Go make something.

iPhool

Last week I was gifted an iPhone after naysaying the idea.  I crabbed the day a microwave came into the household: my pots are good enough; a food processor: there are knives in the drawer; a VCR: we need this why?  Well, I went from a gadgetphobic to having too many, including the machine that would make a breakfast sandwich till a circuit inside frizzled.  Pared down the population to breadmaker, yogurtmaker, mini food processor, a Kitchen Aid mixer, the microwave and a coffeemaker.  Oh, and a toaster oven.  And a bean grinder.  I use them all, intermittently.

I writhed at the idea of a laptop, but was nuisanced beyond therapy with the infiltration of my computer tower by sleazy infections and worms.  Went to a Mac, not looking back, love the thing.  Own an older version of the iPod shuffle, and now an iPhone.  Well nice, it's a phone, I have a Tracfone, the pay-as-you-go simple device and what do I need this newfangly hipster phone for?  It would be fun, but.

So it happened that one of the most hipster loves I know is upgrading himself to a iPhone 4, and so sent me his iPhone 3GS.  He actually said welcome to the 21st century, and after today I know he is right.  I spent two hours fiddling with apps, sharing music, and programming the thing and it holds almost as much as the laptop currently has in its file banks.  It is genuinely a minicomputer and I am flabbered at the tiny geniuses who live inside its sleek, black case.

Apps for reading barcodes, for taking pictures of an item for identification, a sleep app that plays ambient music, the weather channel, and groupon are now installed into this small miracle.  I won't ever get lost again, as long as I am charged up.  In case of revolution, I am ready.  If Wegman's has samples of crab dip, I will be there.  Already, I am a snob (not really, but if I am meowing about it too much, feel free to get the spray bottle and give me a squirt).

The world has sped up, shrunk, and opened for business.  It will be interesting to see the social impact upon the next fifteen years and if this will create new stratifications of status.  In the meantime, I am going to the gas stove to cook up some frozen broccoli, which was an innovation of my early childhood.  Television, tv dinners, Bird's eye frozen vegetables.  Every Atomic Age Mom had those in her apron pockets, and these products were expected to lead into untold leisure time, since cooking from scratch would become a thing of the past.  Laundry wouldn't take two days, one for washing, one for ironing.  Mom would just strap on a jetpack and pick up the kids from school.  We would come home to tv trays and hot foil dinners to watch Ernie Kovacs or General Electric Theater.  Concentrated orange juice.  Pot pies.  Fizzies.  For heaven's sake, we were kings.

Now, just as my family tried one of those plastic films you plastered over the television screen to add color to the black and white, (green on the bottom, brown in the middle, and blue on the top, I think...did nothing for Ed Sullivan) and realized it was far from what was expected, so might it be said of my graduation from a pocket cellphone used for emergencies and ordering fish fries to a smartphone.  I am giddy at least for another few hours until bedtime, when everything will close down, and little machines will be plugged in for a recharge.

There is a rumored snow storm on the way at the end of this sunny day.  I want to change the fish tank before then and have supper.  Take a look at the assignments for class.  See if I can figure out how to set the iPhone to play ambient music for sleeping without the thing going all night till it's daid.  Sleep well, all, the ears of the world listen for the soft sounds of breathing, as each time zone finds its own bedtime.  Goodnight eastern seaboard, goodnight Mississippi basin, goodnight monoliths in Utah and all the living things that draw together for the evening.  Goodnight Pacific, goodnight Tasmanian Sea; goodnight to near, goodnight to far.  Moon be still; paws and feather, leaf and foot.  You, too.  Love.

Blur

It was night, heading down Main Street just after dusk, when headlights started to click on motorist's vehicles.  My smallish car was traveling next to a heaving, snorting Metro bus that was bouncing forward after the light turned green.  There was still light enough to see pavement ahead, and as one corner of my eye watched the metal beast in the left lane, a small black ghost darted not thirty feet in front of us as fast as anything I have ever seen.

When a cat runs, usually there is a lope as the back end rises to gather legs under for the next plunge of propulsion.  If there is desperation, the whole body stretches into a horizontal line low to the ground and time stands still with the best of hopes, as the animal breaks laws of physics like eggshells.  This was a young cat, her head level as the rest of her body spun straw into gold, and she made it ahead of us into the parking lot of the U-Haul Rental.  She was almost invisible, she went so fast.

No sign of her as I went by the scrubby area, this phantasm of black lightning.  Most likely a feral in a poor area, a cat that thinks to cross Main Street at rush hour has to have some sort of street smarts, especially being so young.  I don't think the bus saw her, there was no braking evident; she is purely lucky to have made it.  Little one, please keep your head on straight and no more daredevil escapes across city streets.  I wish I had a blanket for you, a bowl of food, a place to rest.

It is only afternoon, a starling sits on my windowsill squawking about the snow blowing in off the lake.  My own family is burrowed into midday naps, all rescues from shelters, the vet, or my Min from a back porch further north.  Count your whiskers, cousins all; snow and wind, door and roof.

Do Better, Loafhead

It was a long day, I have a class that goes till 9:30 p.m., and so I ran into hockey traffic after the game let out from the arena near where I live.  The people toddled forward in rivers of hoodies, arms, and legs in wide swathes across the road, and mostly scooted over for me to legally get by in the car.  They become car blind, and assume that it was Festival in Toledo, Spain where they have the running of the oranges and everyone Not in a car is entitled to gaggle down the middle of the street.  It was funny, sort of, if I wasn't so tired, because they weren't really walking.  Their bodies were sort of unbalanced, and some looked as though they were being carried along by the crowd and I realized these folks were the unblinking staggering.  They. Were. Schnockered.  Not all of them, so if you were there I don't mean you.

It took some time to get to the parking lot, as I was very careful about nosing the car forward gently so as not to startle anyone.  The night was cold and I had a work tote, college books, the laptop and a purse to haul in.  Well, buck up and get going.  Nearing the gate, there was a silver car with the engine running at the opposite curb in front of my building.  Surrounding the large, old tree in the snowy yard were three big galoots in knit caps and college jackets peeing on the tree.  Idiots.  Whizzing.

I kept my head down and gave them a wide radius, even though I seethed inside.  How dare you, you drunken, pinkfaced, overfed morons?  People walk there, kids play in the snow.  I hope they got tree herpes; I hope the squirrels rallied and attacked; I hope your business got caught in your zipper.   One lump was leaning in so close he was drooling open-mouthed on the tree, which was kindly propping him up.  Go ralph chilidogs in your car, jerks.

I trudged into the building only to find that both elevators were out and ten flights of stairs stood before me, ten o'clock at night.  Any muggers hiding in the stairwell must have heard the champion blue streak I let loose at the beginning and fled.  Swearing can be your friend, under proper circumstances.

This morning I heard the familiar whoosh in the shafts, indicating elevator repair had taken place overnight.  Thank goodness, for we have many elderly and disabled neighbors, lord knows how they would manage.  As an extraordinarily long week, I am glad it is done.  I look forward to now, when it is time to begin closing shutters and windows and to putting the things of the day aside.  Sleep well, sleep safe.  Almost spring is nearing, and we will gladly lift our faces to fresh sun and warmer air.  Let the day curl into a corner and wrap it's tail around it's nose, while you go forward into your own bed with your own thoughts.  Blankets to chin, head to pillow.  Good night, good people; lay all to quiet through this deep and good, refreshing night.

21st Century

This past bad Saturday I went to my cousin Ginny's home for supper.  I have been to her place many times over the six years she has lived in a community-style tract where the houses all look alike, all white, all the same freaking weeping cherry trees out front.  Now, cover them with two feet of snow and guess what.  I couldn't remember which house it was, and furthermore, have no memory of house number.  I don't send her letters other than a once a year card or two, nor do I have to remember her phone number as you just push one button to connect, and the day was sad as it was.  The phone I had with me didn't have her number catalogued, so what the hell do I do?  I called my son in Washington, DC.

He went online to look up her address and phone number for me while I was waiting in the car as denizens of the Eep peered at me from behind their all-the-same curtains.  Sidenote: my cousin actually received a letter from the Association regarding her choice of curtain for the window facing the open desolate field of teasels and dead Queen Anne's Lace across the highway where the speed limit is 45 mph.  Who has time to look at curtains when you are traveling 66 feet per second?  She had made the curtains from fabric with a large, translucent, green leaf design that cheers the room by lending a garden sort of atmosphere, which is what she yearned for.  The curtains are still hanging.

Bri found the address information and I drove up maybe six houses on the left, full of business about the technology that I just successfully employed.  Forgot, completely forgot, that I had Internet capabilities as well, even on my Tracfone.  No matter, it worked out and I am glad to have these tools.  I wonder that hand-cranked energy will become more available as we move forward, to restore battery power in our gadgets.  There are now crank radios that have cell phone ports, as well as backpacks with solar panels that let you charge as you walk in light.  Good ideas, I think.

But today something came in the mail as old as God.  I had ordered two, a Voluta magnifica and a Neptunea intersculpta from a navy fellow who took up shell collecting when he was stationed in Japan and who continues to deal in mollusks.  These whorls of sturdy architecture enchant me.  Just think how clever to develop outside protection from predators wanting to make dinner of you. Tiny, mineralized shells tentatively appear in the fossil record 530 million years ago, and have developed either into the  columelliform of the univalves, or into the lamellibranch family of hinged bivalves.

Who else was so smart?  Insects, crustaceans, arthropods, diatoms; the top half of a turtle, the plates of a pangolin, and the chitin found in mushrooms. Hermit crabs must steal an exoskeleton to set up house, and men in elaborate plate armor have shone forth since the early 13th century, till gunpowder arrived in the 16th.  Next to a smartphone, so what?  I'll tell you what.

Technology is developing intricate ways in finding solutions for the mass extinctions that are happening at a critical rate; it is the most crucial component to reviving our oceans and allowing the viable species to recover.  I read last week that oysters, for heaven's sake, are functionally extinct in the wild.  The BP oil spill wiped out about half of the oyster beds that were left in the Gulf of Mexico, and considering that North America has the most of what's remaining of wild oysters, we humans are in trouble probably more than the oysters.


"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.  Lewis Carroll

Sustainable methods through technology.  It will happen.  You help, too.   Take care of garbage and try not to make as much of it.  We are the little people, but the big corporations could give a willysnoot, so it's up to us at the moment.

Today was a warm winter day that melted drifts down, revealing lost birdseed, papers, and mittens.  A wind is supposed to come in, with fresh snow and face it, we are still in the throes of winter regardless of what Uncle Groundhog's big behind thinks.  Sleep well, sleep well in your beds and hope the oysters do also; tuck into that space between sleep and dreams and travel over salt and brine, slip into the depths, visit our first us under layers of cold liquid blue.  They are us as we are them, live your oyster days between two hard shells of mineral calcite, throw out a pearl now and then.  Salt mother, water, life.  Sleep.

Who Was Never

Last night just after midnight, my brother called to say that Dad was taken to the hospital and wasn't expected to make it.  This morning I got the news that he had died around 6:20 a.m.

It's not news to many that my relationship with my father was not good.  He was an angry alcoholic who was dictator, loudmouth, and spoiled-brat king of the house.  After Mom died in 1999, I didn't see him for eight years until hearing that he stopped drinking and then visited him once a week to see what he needed.  These visits went on for two years until I couldn't do it anymore and estranged myself again for another few years knowing it was better for my health.  The knots in my stomach never stopped, and I would be sure, when he was still able to walk, to have a safe exit open if he lunged at me.

He was funny in rare times, mathematically brilliant, and missing many screws.  I am hopeful that he has found some sort of peace after all.  I hope he has a chance to reconcile with himself, and learn that there was a foundation of decency that took a wrong turn.  Goodbye, Dad.  See you later.  It will be better.  Love.  I wish you loved m...

February Twelfth, Twenty Thousand Eleven

Just fate.  My once father died at 6:20 this morning. Rest in peace.

Is it Thursday Yet?

This has been one very long, blurry week.  The pastyface downstairs is playing karaoke guitar and yelling "Woo!" at the parts he likes.  He isn't very good, more of a chord-changing strummer with a plastic pick, which further underscores the personal relationship skills he also lacks.  By 2:30 this morning, he'll be ska-reeming at the top of his distraught lungs, "F-YOU, YOU EFFING B," over 'n over 'n over while slamming doors loud enough to knock dust off knicknacks.  Asshole.  I never hear Effing B respond except in tears and futile explanations and wish wish wish that she would get away from him.

Two nights ago I did another sleep study and have been experiencing a jet lag where evening sidles into the next day, except it feels still like the same day you started with.  It's weird, because the technicians that watch you sleep obviously have to stay up all night to do so.  They are inside-out people who live in a world of softness and sheets, with conductive gels and wires and darkened rooms.

Oh wait, pastyface turned on the 'monster voice' voicechanger and is making heavy metal monster pronouncements along with his alleged crapola guitar weirdness.

The sleep study ends at five a.m., when they scoot you out so they can go home and sleep.  Half dozed, the biting, frigid wind blew my tailfeathers wide awake as I scraped ice from the car, so the drive back home at 5:39 was frosty, yet elevated the godawful coffee they supplied to religious status.  Heat, it supplied heat even though it had squirted out of a plastic coffee cartridge from a Keurig machine and tasted like, well, hot plastic from a Vac-U-Forms toy factory.

I've tightened up my sleep mask, which seems to keep things in place better than before, and am still digging stubborn conductant out of my hair.  The stuff doesn't dissolve that well, and ends up as surprise white goo in the tub drain and elsewhere.

But yes, this is Thursday and tomorrow is blessed Friday.  I have been sleep studying, working, going to class, back to sleep, working, and going to class for two days solid and the cats say who are you when I appear at the door.  I am looking forward to seeing Cousin Ginny and her husband Frank on Saturday for an early supper, as this week has been too much fast food and bags of chips, with a raw carrot thrown in occasionally for balance.  Har.

I am tired, my own good coffee machine is primed to go off in the morning, and I am tired.  Sleep well, say a small prayer for the tiny things that live outside.   The moon is at a quarter and piercingly cold.  Good night, good night.

Dorothy Mae

Remnants of my grandparents include a mug made for me on my third birthday by my Grandma Ida, and the black leather handle of a razor strop imprinted "Medal of Award" from the Panama-Pacific  International Exposition, held in San Francisco, 1915.  Five years before my mother was born.  "Us kids got the razor strap," she would say, and I wonder if it was this one.  She was frail, tiny, premature in an age before penicillin, when ether was given to sedate the mother and thus most likely the coming baby.

My mother was a "blue baby" for unknown reasons, but survived in spite of a heart murmur and Rh-negative blood, a factor that influenced the spacing between me and my brother, and the miscarriage of what would have been her third pregnancy.  I remember her being pregnant both times; with my brother she seemed happy, with the third a pervasive sadness overwhelmed her.  My brother and I picked up on it, for the spontaneous hugs disappeared, and her face was a mask above a small protruding stomach.

She disappeared and my brother and I stayed with Aunt Dorie's family till her return.  We weren't told much, but I heard bleeding had begun just before she was whisked off to the hospital.  The stress of being married to my father exacerbated her sorrow, and her loneliness was so magnified that she began confiding in eight year old me concerning matters.  I don't blame her, but it was the final ending of childhood for me as I metamorphosed into becoming her caretaker.  The physical reality was that the pregnancy happened too close to my brother's birth; it took five years for antibodies in the mother's blood to dissipate to allow a safe delivery in those days.  Relief was in her voice when she returned, and we kids tried to help by drawing pictures for her and staying quiet.  We were so glad to see her again.  She was like cool water in her slow movement and stories of swimming in the Chemung River near Elmira, New York.

Her dreams were not apparent to anyone.  She just lived from day to day, hanging on through the tumultuous, hateful, unbalanced and unfair tantrums thrown by my father.  I wanted to save her then, ever since I was two and figured out that the man who came home just before supper was an angry nuisance, and we would be better off without him.   After moving from the wilds of farm fields to suburbia, she took off most every afternoon with her sister, to sit in a local bar.  As long as she had a cooked dinner ready, my father didn't seem to mind her sudden change towards alcoholism, most likely because he was the mayor of Drunkenville himself.

Christmas became them exchanging cases of beer, her Carling's to his Genny.  We kids had clean laundry and meals, but neither parent knew anything about what to do with children.  My brother got the sun and the moon and the stars handed to him by my father, and I buried myself in the library books to avoid the turmoil and remarks from both parents.

My aunt, who was beloved by me, died early on at age sixty a few years after a massive early stroke,  leaving my mother adrift and without an outlet.  She aged quickly.  Drank at home.  Clung to my brother.  By this time I was out of the house and out of state before moving back to begin a family.  The grandson gave her new life, a fresh start at looking at things and she became an adoring grandmother when my father would let her.

I miss her.  So much.  She taught me to string wild strawberries on a grass stem, to love animals, to clip roses just above a five-leafed shoot.  She had relatives in Elmira that we would visit, her cousin Otto was a glassblower at Corning Glass, his wife Tesse was the daughter of Jesse, who was as old as when the first springwater trickled through the first rock.  I miss who she was before the drinking, before her fragile self had been emotionally and physically crushed.

Sleep, Mama, sleep.  Yet I know you are stronger now than before, and watch from a place of fullness.  Is it all one?  I am not in a position to suppose, but I like to think that we will see each other again.  I am proud of how you went through various tunnels of hell and didn't let it change your beliefs or who you really are.

Evening has come to be a quiet night, as here in this country many are watching the final football game of games.  I have more study work to do before turning in, just enough time for completion.  A cake is wrapped and ready to be taken in to work, the papers for the sleep study are filled out, and lastly, a fish tank change should be done.

Good people, look at what you do and if it is good, rejoice.  If you contribute to the safety and joy of your home, be at peace.  It is a far-reaching act of kindness to add to someone's day, make it be someone known to you, the one you love best.  Under covers, the cats and I.  Good night.

Hello!

Today I ran into five different people I know.  One in Target and four in Wegman's, which the best grocery in the world.  G, K, and Mrs. S work with me; C used to be my neighbor, and W is a friend of a close friend.  I actually met K and her sister over at Target, but when I met G in Wegman's, she told me K was also scouting in the bread department.  You think you're dizzy?  Every time I turned a corner, there was a familiar face. So many initials, if I had met a friend with a vowel name I could spell something.  Amy?

So I am good to go.  Ink cartridges and paper plates, Brussels sprouts and eggs.  The snow started just as I left the lot, and became ice pellets closer to home.  After putting things up and settling on the couch to read news, I remembered that library books were due.  I try very much not to borrow books, for they rarely get returned on time and paying fines irks me as a personal failure; there they were, right by the door so's I would think to take them back.  On time.

Well, even with snow coming fiercer, I bundled and went back out.  The juncos were glad to have another handful of thistle seed tossed their way, and it was early enough that I could drive out to a different branch to get an Indian cookbook that they own.  Steering was tricky on the expressway, the sign of the route being closed was still up from a serious early morning accident.  I got on further ahead, and took it slow.

Here is the trouble: being in the library is like visiting Fairyland for me.  So many good ideas,  obscure hobbies, and in-depth information in book form to be handled and perused.  I found the desired book and sat down at a table, mulling if I indeed wanted to be accountable for it's punctual return.  My dears,  I was being such a complainer; for goodness sake if people don't take books out of the library, well there's the end of something good for all of us.  Put your big girl pants on and get over it.  I went back to the stacks and found another cookbook from America's Test Kitchen.  I also signed up for a pin number, so they can be renewed online in case of imminent delay.

The car ride back was worse, for the slush and ice were thickening before the plows could push it away. There were two accidents on the opposite side of the expressway, both seemingly minor with minimal damage, but harrowing especially when you end up facing into traffic and disabled.  Most people were driving with caution, but as ever, the ego-fueled maniacs were barreling about as well, cutting off others with maneuvers and tricks.  In a hurry to get someplace where nobody wants to see them anyways.

Kai is next to me on the couch, we are both full of supper.  Tomorrow is Sunday and I hope to bake a cake.  The past two weeks I have taken one in to work, and it seems to be appreciated; baking is fun and something I haven't paid attention to in years.

Nighttime is now here, traffic is lessening, sky full of snow, birds huddled, crockpots maybe working on tomorrow's feast for during the Super Bowl.  Always good to see friendly faces, that first glance of happy recognition is warming to the bone.  I have seen eyes light up in humans, cats, dogs, and birds.  Harder to tell with fish since they don't have eyelids, but some will come to the top to have their noses rubbed.  When I volunteered at the pet hospital, a particular cat that I would massage would widen his green eyes if he saw me coming.  It was pleasing; he graduated to being well and went home.  Don't think they don't have hearts, the animals.  They are just as glad if not more so to love and be loved.

Ah, time to turn in and outen the lights.  Let that head hit the pillow in this mid-winter night, and let go, let go of time for the next few hours.  Eggs are ready, sugar is waiting, flour shall bind them in tomorrow's cake.  Tonight stirs of other things, of slumber and dreams, of Blynken and Nod; last thoughts before slipping away of loved ones here and there.  Sandman spin your stories, I listen.

Sinner

My gosh, my gosh, I had received a bottle of Irish Cream for a Christmas gift and only just opened it this night.  No ice, no coffee, just a couple of spoonfuls in a small glass and you'd think I was the derelict of the world, gone straight to hell.  I drank in my twenties, nothing productive came of it, the phase was a waystation in a sea of malaise.  It seemed like I was doing something.  Anything to fill the empty calendar. God knows I was smart enough for school, just not motivated or expected to go.

At the first taste, the sting of the liqueur was as harsh as stubble.  This is whiskey.  This is what my family smelt of, from grandmother to father on one side; from grandfather to mother on the other and most relatives in between.  Uh oh, do I want this stuff trickling down my throat?

What I want is a release and ease from the tension.  Is that why people drink?   Truth be told, I don't know the difference from being a social drinker to lout.   When is it okay?  It adulterates the brain from the liver being overwhelmed and not processing the toxins fast enough.  Is that it?  It feels like sin, or the license to.  As I age, I am more frightened by deviation from normalcy, and drinkers do that to me if to a lesser degree than when I was young.  Subsequently, I don't drink.  But I will watch as you do, and become more judgmental with each glass you swallow because you now are something to be feared.

O normalcy, you elusive twit.  Will I ever know or understand you?

Candlemas Day

Today began with a large glass bowl hitting the linoleum, shattering into millions of tiny shards as if a bomb went off.  Auspicious beginnings.  The cats stayed out of the way while the vacuum cleaner tallied up points by gleaning the razor-edged breakage from the green tile and every crevice in between.  

It was a snow day from school, even though the predictions didn't span out into the foot of snow which became more of a suggestion than a commitment.  The wind has picked up, and I went up and down the building stairwell, closing windows left cracked open for ventilation.  The groundhog was declared to have not seen his shadow, hinting that an early spring will arrive sooner rather than later.  It is this time of year that we who live in the north are skullcracking nuts with desire for less darkness and more light, for  the shoots of early bulbs to emerge, for watching squirrels come out and chase each other in Valentine's romance.  Oh, for the drip of melting snow.

Till then, the squirrels sleep in semi-hibernation, and lord knows any local groundhogs have sense enough to stay deep in their burrows.  The very beginning of spring is showing, however, in the grocery stores with pots of crocuses and daffodils, with the next flush of vegetables from Mexico looking fatter, greener, and more palatable than what was coming in from beyond Chile.

Darkened skies come as the invisible sun slid down the trajectory below the horizon.  A hush of snow fills the empty spaces of air like fog, making the view milky white blending into dull blue, with the buildings of the city veiled like the ghosts of castles.  Trucks push and pull piles of snow back and forth; salt is poured in biting scuds of sodium drifts, its melting trails are as circular punctuation in the ice, the remaining acidic saltwater evident in both the rusting cars and dead grass found along the sidewalk edges come spring.

I think it may be time to start dying eggs.  Beeswax always cheers me up.  Clean off the table, pull out the colors.  A genuine precursor for spring.  Frogs, there could be frog designs.  Rabbits.  Cats and suns.
If you are lucky enough to have someone in the house with you that loves you so, tell them you love them back even if only by taking one of their dishes back to the sink.  I shall listen and mend that motion into an egg telling a story of human closeness, of sacrifice and beauty emulated in simple measures.  Red for hope, yellow for happiness, blue for good health, black for eternity.

Sleep well, nothing ever stays the same good or bad; just don't give up.  It's okay to complain a bit, believe me, I know.   Let the planets and stars glide overhead, more brilliant because of the dark, with their distant light pinpricking the black above.  Sleep with a squirrel tucked under your chin, draw in the little birds, call the cats and dogs and children.  Sleep safe, you are good.

Carrot Cake

 This town is on the edge of a snowstorm predicted to bring a foot of snow pushed forward by thirty mile an hour winds. Don't know if it will happen, but many surrounding school districts have already closed for tomorrow in anticipation.  Good idea to err on the side of caution, particularly when parents need to make child care arrangements ahead of time.  I am waiting for the news of this city closing, but if you look out at the evening sky there is not a single harbinger snowflake fluttering down.  

The circus of snow and thunder and ice is to begin around ten o'clock this night, and continue well throughout the next day.  I am lucky in that I am warm, safe, and have a cupboard full of cat food.  The package containing a cake for my son is now traversing the roads and airways down to Washington DC and will hopefully arrive not jiggled into delicious sludge.  

I made a sturdy cake of almonds and semolina which then was soaked in an orange syrup.  It's a Greek recipe called Revani, made by angels and tender grandmothers.  A cake that can get jounced around a bit without losing integrity.  Besides, if it does end up as crumbs, mixing it together with vanilla ice cream is not a bad way to go.  

If there is a snow day, tomorrow's adventure will include either making a Black Rock cheesecake or a carrot cake.  Or baking bread.  Or sticky buns with caramel bottoms and walnuts.  Always a good thing for a cold day when you are locked in.  My introverted self loves an unexpected day off, for it means art, egg dying, baking, reading, research, or pushing furniture around.  Tossing stuff away, enjoying when it gets picked up for use by my neighbors.  I, ladies and gentlemen, am a rabbit.  

 According to a website, "Rabbits are private individuals and a bit introverted.  People born in the Year of the Rabbit are reasonably friendly individuals who enjoy the company of a group of good friends.  They are good teachers, counselors and communicators, but also need their own space."  This is the revelation from a Chinese calendar, whose New Year is on February 3, the day after Groundhog Day.  I think I like this! A whole year to accomplish rabbit ideas and rabbit deals.  Hmm.  I think the carrot cake is winning approval for tomorrow's bake-a-rama.  How to be more like a rabbit...

Tonight so far is cold and clear.  It puzzles me how resilient the outdoor animals who live through the pounding cold are, surviving to greet the spring.  Tomorrow is Candlemas Day, the observance of the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, when the medieval folk brought their candles to the church to be blessed.  Toss a handful of birdseed out before going in the door, it's a tough life out there.  

No moon or stars, there is a low cloud cover reflecting city lights.  I have an assignment to read for class before bed but will keep most papers still for I am tired.  Sinking into slumber will be nice, and the many wakings I have in the night will mark the plight of the snowstorm.  Right now with roads clear, trucks and cars rush about noisily caroming through the over and under passes.  Snow slows that mess right down, and turns the sky orange from reflecting the sodium streetlights on white flakes.  So tonight I will listen for nothing, and if the soft cotton air of nothing is washed in an orange glow, that will mean the storm has come.  Who knows what it will leave behind?

Sleep, Uncle Groundhog, sleep.  Tomorrow is your day to let us know how much more weather we deserve, and what stores we need to keep till brightened days melt the frost and dull ice.  We human folks could put on socks, and if the room is cold, a nightcap.  Tuck under, you are safe; make it better for someone or something tomorrow with a bread crust for the birds, or a carrot for any winter rabbits searching in snow.  Sleep well.