Did You Order This?

I wasn't prepared for what I saw when I opened the shades this morning.  Snow, a couple inches of it, so I got out my fleece pants, pulled on socks and boots, and went out to clear the driveway.  It's perfect snowman-building snow and if I didn't have to go to work in about half an hour I'd for sure be out there making one.  Then once I was already sweaty I went out to fill all the feeders since fresh snow covers any spilled seed.  I asked Durwood to take my picture when I was out there, he took about 30.  It kind of made me retroactively self-conscious.  Happily many of them were out of focus and got dumped (one of the greatest things about digital).

I spent most of yesterday contorting myself around cupboard doors and drawers to install safety latches.  I got about half of them done, the most important, most dangerous ones.  I love my little Black and Decker cordless tools.  I wish the screwdriver was a pistol shape rather than straight but it still works a whole lot easier than using a screwdriver, and I ordered a couple new batteries from Amazon so that I don't have to keep switching them from one tool to the other.  It gives me a feeling of competence and satisfaction to be able to do stuff like that and fix little things.

December 8--Camille Pissarro, The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning.  Gayle sat at a table at the sidewalk cafe even though the winter day was chilly and light rain fell.  She refused to miss sitting in a Parisian sidewalk cafe.  She felt like she was in a painting by Toulouse-Lautrec or Pissarro even though the exhaust and horns from the cabs and autos were probably not much worse than the clop of horses' hooves and the grind of carriage wheels would have been a hundred years before.  As the thought crossed her mind the light seemed to lurch and the pace of the city slowed, cars faded into carriages, and the blare of horses was replaced by shouts and the crack of whips.  Gayle's coffee cup froze halfway to her mouth as she watched the world around her shimmer and shift from a winter's day in 2014 to a morning in the Belle Epoque.

Time for breakfast... Cheerios, here I come.  Have a ___ day (fill in the blank as you'd like).
--Barbara