Another Couch Day

I decided to give in to the cold so I spent today napping and knitting on the couch.  I think it got into the mid-forties outside today but I didn't have enough energy to even get dressed much less put on shoes.


It was so gray and dreary today that the automatic nightlight in the bathroom never really turned off but at sunset the sky across the street turned that amazing pink/peach/orange that gets me off my sickbed (sick-couch?) to snap a photo.



Like I said, I knitted between naps and got to the crown decreases.  Hooray!  There are five more rounds to go before time to weave in ends and get it felted.  I'll be very glad to have it done.



29 December--Barbara Malcolm, Spies Don't Retire. 

The day that Sonia and Harriet decided to go downtown to cruise the shops was cursed.  Everywhere she turned Sonia saw one of Irina’s groupies.

In Malabar there was a trio of the women who made certain to sit around Irina at Literary Roundtable meetings as if it were their job to cordon Irina off from attack.  Sonia thought of them as Larry, Moe, and Curly, the Three Stooges of the expatriate women.  They were Polish and evidently felt some sort of loyalty toward one of their former oppressors. As soon as they spied Sonia they stopped talking and crossed their arms across their not inconsiderable chests.  Their glares followed Sonia around the store as she and Harriet flipped the racks, discussing which of their daughters, daughters-in-law, and granddaughters might like what they were seeing. It was no better in Littman’s; at least one of Irina’s supporters was in Littman’s jewelry, Littman’s upscale gifts, and Littman’s touristy gift shop.  Littman’s had covered all the bases to serve the needs of each and every visitor to the island not matter what their economic status.
            Irina herself was in Mama Vita’s, the bargain clothing store at the end of the street.  Mama Vita’s was just too small for the three of them to be in at the same time so Sonia pulled Harriet back out onto the street and across to Island Fashions saying, “She won’t follow us over here.  I understand the Russians’ pension is barely enough to survive on much less shop here.”

Harriet kept her mouth shut for once and just nodded.  She had never seen Sonia like this.  The Sonia she had lived next door to for years had been a tolerant woman who tried her best to be a friend to everyone.  Harriet didn’t understand what was so bad about the Russian woman and her husband, she thought they seemed all right, but she wasn’t stupid enough to say that to Sonia.  She had made up her mind to hate Irina and Dimitri and that’s all there was to it.

Along about mid-afternoon I realized that I was going to live even though the cough is rearing its ugly head.  Time to trot out the cough syrup.  It's supposed to start raining around 3am and then get colder and turn to snow.  Yippee.  Rain into snow is a deadly combination.  Good thing I don't have to go anywhere for a couple days.
--Barbara