Merry Christmas to Me!

Yeah yeah, I know it's early, more than two months early, but I've been getting increasingly frustrated with the paltry RAM in my cellphone, mostly taken up by the operating needs, so yesterday when Durwood and I discussed how much we'd be spending on Christmas gifts (ballpark) I mentioned that there was an AT&T prepaid phone with twice the RAM for $130 at Walmart.  He said, "Order it.  Order it now."  Not being a fool, I did (and it was only $99!) and picked it up last night after my caregivers group meeting.  Got all my contacts and photos and the phone number moved over (thank you, transfer app) before bed last night.  The only caveat is that I keep the empty box and act really surprised when I unwrap it on Christmas morning.  Gotcha.  Can do.  Now I need to be extra careful handling it for the next week because the protective case won't arrive until after the 13th.  But all day long I've been humming, "I wish me a Merry Christmas..."

 


 


Today has been the poster day for Autumn--gray and chilly and breezy.  I still managed to do patio yoga this morning and thought I'd use my new phone to take a picture of my mat while filling the feeders at the top of the hill in the backyard.  As you can see my yoga spot isn't the idyll we all hope for but it's outside, I plug in the fountain so there's the sound of running water, and the birds oblige by singing to me.  At times a bluejay or chipmunk scold me because I'm either yog-ing in the chipmunk's path or haven't yet put peanuts in the wreath for the jays but I maintain focus.  La la la la.




 
After catching up with a friend over lunch I zoomed through the
grocery gathering ingredients for Sweet Potato & Corn Chowder that Durwood plans to make tomorrow.  Doesn't that sound yummy?  The recipe is vegan but we'll de-vegan it by using evaporated milk instead of soy milk and our homemade chicken broth instead of vegetable broth.  I'm really looking forward to a nice, steaming bowl of soup for supper tomorrow night.  Speaking of Durwood, this morning I realized that I needed to try out my new phone's camera so here's the old guy reading the paper as I got ready to go out to yoga. 

The only other noteworthy thing I did today was go up to Sears (a block away) and buy a new fridge for the rental side of the duplex.  What I thought was a plugged auto-defrost drain hose when he mentioned it to me more than a month ago turned out to be rust on the face of the fridge that breaks the freezer door seal sending a steady trickle of water down onto the it-only-looks-like-wood laminate floor.  Both Durwood and I have scary visions of weeks of that water seeping between the fake wood planks and buckling the subfloor.  No, thanks.  A refrigerator is cheaper than a whole new kitchen floor from the rafters up. Besides fridges are on sale at Sears this week and if you apply for a credit card you get free delivery. (Yes, Lifelock, I did apply for that credit card but thanks for asking.)  It arrives on Friday sometime.  Hip hip hooray.

October 11--France, The Properties of Water and Wind, MS 993, Fol. 142.  Such a simple explanation.  Logical too.  At each of the cardinal directions rests a being, or the head of a being.  The whim and mood of the being sets the wind to blow and the water to flow.  When Dame North is in a foul mood, cold, ice, and floods spread over the land.  Mistress Summer can blow hot and dry or wet the land with her soft rain.  Maid East warms the frozen land and coaxes the trees to bud.  She lures North's frozen places to melt and brings forth violets and ladyslippers in the hidden places.  Lady West paints the trees in red and yellow, then amuses herself by blowing the leaves into tempests of color and decorating them with a frosting of white.

Look at the time.  The day has galloped away again.  Time to shove a couple of the last ears of fresh corn into the microwave and heat up the sautees teriyaki chicken and squash.  Toodles.
--Barbara