Four Degrees. Four!

Baby, it's cold outside.  Clear and cold.  Brrr.  I might have to go outside today, might need to get out the roof rake and knock down the eyebrows of snow that make ice grow under the shingles and the roof leak.  But I also realized that I don't have a card for Durwood for tomorrow and I bet he'll have one for me so I'd better sally forth and get one.  We went on a marathon appointment and errand run yesterday and got most of what we'll need for the next few days--plus some new jeans for me since all mine are ancient and either holey or patched.  That's not a bad look when you're in your twenties and cute but when you're in your sixties and far from being svelte, the looks not for you; I needed new jeans.  I can't imagine not wearing jeans all the time, can you?  I mean, I have a couple pairs of "nice" pants, one khaki and one black, but I wear them so seldom there are pants hanger marks in the hems.  I just wear jeans.  Guess it's a good thing I have the job I have so I don't have two wardrobes.  I'm not a clothes person.  I mean I wear clothes (well, most of the time), I'm not a fashion person.  I wouldn't know a style if it jumped up and bit me on the leg.  But I'm mostly happy, so that's good, right?

I made some "sweet and salty" pecans last night--that I kind of burned.  Bah.  Now that the light's better one of us will pick out the burnededest ones.  I'm thinking that I'll just toss them if they all taste burnt.  Double bah.

December 24--Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates.  Nobody likes a prophet, especially if he's right time after time.  He figured that was why they killed him.  Just as no one liked a liar, no one likes a know-it-all.  He hadn't meant to be a prophet.  He'd blurted out things about love and danger when it got too hard to keep his mouth shut and people got to thinking he caused things to happen.  He didn't have that kind of power, his mind was like a movie screen, he'd see someone and a bit of their future when play across his mind.  At first he ignored it but then when the visions got brighter and the voices got louder, he had to act.  He was right about the car accident that destroyed a family.  He was right about an infidelity and a crisis of loyalty in a campaign.  That kind of prescience couldn't be allowed to continue, so they'd killed him, dispassionately, almost like it was a public service.

Merry Christmas Eve!  The finale of "the season" is approaching as if on horseback.  Are you ready?  I'm not, nowhere near.  Panicking will commence at once. Gotta go--NOW.

--Barbara