A Woodpecker Day

 
That's what Durwood had yesterday.  When I was grumbling earlier that it was "too damn dreary to take a picture for the blog" he handed me his camera and said, "here, maybe there's something on here you can use."  Boy, can I!  The male Red-bellied Woodpecker spent time posing on the peanut wreath.  You can tell he's a male because the red on his head goes all the way to his beak.  The female Downy Woodpecker spent her share of time on the wreath too.  You can tell she's a female because she doesn't have a swoop of red at the nape of her neck.

All I have to show for yesterday is more shawl.  I spent a lot of the day figuring out how to enter the last couple months' invoices into the OLD system at work so if Mrs. & Mr. Boss decide to go with another POS system all the info will be there ready to be transferred.  I confess I too have lost patience with the new system.  It seems like what works on Saturday doesn't work on Monday.  For instance, this past Monday it refused to accept credit cards.  It was a good thing that the customer had a pocket full of cash.  It was embarrassing and made me grind my teeth in frustration.  Now the fixer put an icon on the desktop to click if that happens again but after over two full months of debugging wouldn't you think it'd work better?  It seems like every time they fix one thing something else gives up the ghost.  It's just not worth the hassle.  And I'm patient.

I'm also cold.  I haven't been wearing long johns this week because the temps have been near 30 but by the time the day is over, I'm shivering.  I think today I might just put on longies to go along with my undershirt, overshirt, sweater, shawl, thick wool socks, chemical toe warmers, and fuzzy lined boots.  Getting dressed or going to the loo is a lot like a short aerobics class and requires some measure of planning.

December 10--Cypriot, Limestone Statue of a Youth.  The body was as pale as limestone lying under the weeping willow that hung over the river.  "My daddy used to leave the branches of the willow grow long like this," Sergeant Nelson said, "we'd play army in among them.  Stalking each other, like."  Detective Lila Michaels clicked her tongue.  "Shut up, Abe, no one wants to hear about you playing with that poor bastard laying in there deader than Kelsey's nuts.  Just stay out of the way and keep the gawkers back."  She waved him up the path from the gravel road to the river.  He hitched up his pants and his leather gun belt creaked as he climbed the bank.  "Just trying to lighten the mood.  Don't have to get all high and might now that she's made detective."

Speaking of being cold I think this might be an oatmeal day so I'm going to go cook some up.  I might even put a few dried Door County cherries in the bowl to plump up as it cooks.  Yeah, that's what I'll do.  Also I want to whip up a sauce recipe for what I want to take to share at the knitting guild meeting tomorrow night, just in case I want to make something different.  Yum, oatmeal and BBQ sauce, now that's breakfast.  Hasta la vista, babies.
--Barbara