If you're going to be home tonight, check out Peter Bochan's Shortcut through 2002. I caught it once several years ago and it blew my mind. He broadcasts from WBAI in New York so if you are around NYC you can tune into 99.5FM or from a distance try WBAI online or 2600.com. I can't get the streams to work from either place right now but maybe it'll be working tonight.
We will have been here exactly one year tomorrow so I hope to post a list of recollections of the past year. We are going to my sister in law's tonight to have a fine night of sledding, trying to recreate a very fun new years eve we had there several years ago. Here's a pic of Steve there in 2000 (not a sledding year - in fact I think we all kind of sat around nervously).
Have a safe and happy New Year!
Several things have been conspiring to keep me away from the computer lately. The first, I already mentioned, was all the sewing I was doing for Christmas. Another thing is that it is really cold downstairs where my computer is. I'm writing now on my laptop upstairs, but the internet cable is downstairs, so I'll have to go down there to upload this entry. We have the thermostat set to 62 degrees F and my computer is in a corner between two windows. There is a wood stove next to it that caused us grief all winter last year, smoking up the house. When we used it last winter it made the little technology corner the toastiest in the house, but now we know that there is a hopeless configuration of chimney, coupola and silo and it's not unseasoned wood or lack of wood stove experience that was making it smoke, so we don't use it anymore. The other thing is that Aidan has pretty much stopped napping, so I have to come up with a new blogging routine for myself.
We spent four days on Long Island for Christmas, driving down on Christmas Day in a very intense snowstorm. We left here at 1pm, about an hour after it had started to snow fairly hard. My landlord came over for breakfast with his friend that he stays with up here (he lives in Manhattan) and told us that it was supposed to be rain south of Poughkeepsie. He was wrong. The two and a half hour trip took four hours and we listened to Otha Turner's trancey drum and fife music for much of the way. The music and the weather made for a dreamlike experience - in a storm like that, so many things that you usually take for granted become uncertain: that the roads will be plowed, that your car will work, that someone will be able to help you if you need it, that you will EVER make it to Grandma's. There was a lot of traffic and cars spinning out onto the shoulder or ditches regularly. We were so grateful to make it there safely and the snow was unspeakably beautiful.
We came home to about 18 inches of snow and the wind had done the most remarkable thing - there is a space around three sides of the barn about 20 feet wide with absolutely no snow at all and at the end of it is a tall drift. It made the task of shovelling slightly less horrifying. Steve did it this time thank goodness. I am still damaged from the last snow. The mailbox still has to be dug out, which is a big job. My landlord shovelled a little path to it, but the mailcarrier won't deliver the mail unless s/he can drive right up to it, which means shovelling out about three car lengths of plowed up snow. We did come home to some mail in the box though, so maybe not all the mail carriers won't leave the car - and I am so grateful that this package isn't languishing in a post office somewhere, my dear Aunt Alexa sent some memory laden Hungarian Christmas comfort food that I was thinking about and missing regretfully on Christmas Day. Köszönöm szépen.
We had a little incident the weekend before Christmas that I feel compelled to report on. On Friday night we ran out of oil. We heard the burner give a belch and then went out to a friend's house for dinner in denial. We came home to a cool house. I didn't even notice at first, but Steve knew right away, having grown up with this experience. I grew up in Texas. The next morning I called the oil company and they only do emergency visits on the weekends. There was some mix up with the phone and the name the account was in so we waited half of the shortest day of the year for ten lousy gallons of oil that we ran out of again on Monday morning. The temperature inside got down to 52 degrees. We were very lucky that the outside temperature was above freezing. This is why we have the thermostat set so low downstairs now and although it feels cold, it's positively toasty compared to the night we spent without oil.
And on a totally different note: I went outside this morning to help Steve get his truck through the ice in the driveway so he could go to work. When I came inside, Aidan had his pants down and his diaper off and he was handing me a swim diaper to put on him. He wanted to go to the beach. I sat him on my knee with my nose in his washed-last-night hair and said "oh you smell so nice and clean" and he said, "that's because I used the potty. I went pee in it". -- I can't coerce this kid into anything. He has to do everything completely of his own free will.
We spent three days on Long Island because Steve has been working there and we missed him. We drove back last night to a nearly full moon in a clear sky on fresh fallen snow - is there anything more beautiful? The snow reflects the light and it was so bright outside that I could turn all the lights out in the house and still get around. The moon's path went right over the length of the barn, from one big window to the other and at some point in the night or early morning, Steve said "look out the window" and there was the moon, looking in our big palladian window. It would have been a great night to go hiking. The full moon is actually today and the solstice is Saturday. If it's a clear night, maybe we could make a fire.
I'm making four separate Christmas presents and so I haven't been on the computer much. They are all quilt projects and I've been toying with the idea of making a quilt blog - like here's the project and here's how I did it blah blah blah. Maybe even a group blog. I did a quick search and didn't see anything like that around - if anyone knows differently or would want to do it with me, let me know.
We had a terrific snow and ice storm last night and I did a superhero snow shovelling job today. Steve is on Long Island and his truck doesn't have 4 wheel drive, so I shovelled a path for him to pull in when he comes home. I am going to take advantage of our glorious bathtub tonight - I'm achey already. It was about 7 inches of wet snow. Aidan loves the snow and I'm so happy about that. Last year it was still too hard for him to get around in it and he hated it. We've been toying with the idea of taking him skiing - everybody tells us he's the perfect age.
Roxy (that is what we finally named our cat) has found a spot on the counter next to the compost bowl where she can easily and consistantly catch mice. I would be overjoyed, but THREE times since last night, she has brought a live mouse upstairs and dropped it near my feet so she could play with it up there and I guess to honor me as well. The first time she did it I was having some precious boy sleeping quilting time and so my desire to keep the boy asleep overrided my desire to shriek. Every time she did it the mouse got away and she eventually goes downstairs to get another one. There seems to be an unending supply for her amusement. Wes on the other hand, has a knack for finding mouse nests in the field next to the house. Today he was there shoving his head into seven inches of snow and he actually found a baby mouse. I'm not really sure how to feel about this behavior.
