Oh Darn

 


That's what I said when I put on my mitten yesterday because the right thumb was worn right through.  Oh darn.  Time to get out the leftover yarn and darn the hole.  Hey, wait a minute, I thought.  I can unravel the thumb, pick up the stitches, and knit a new thumb.  So I did.  Took about an hour from start to finish and now my mitten has a non-holey thumb.  It's much warmer that way.















"Darn" was not what I said when I saw the rat trail across the snow when I opened the curtains this morning.  The word I said is one I can't say in front of my grandchildren.  



So I made three poison pellet pucks this afternoon and will tuck one into each of the two reopened holes I found in the yard.  There is a much higher concentration of poison pellets in there than I put in the weenies.  I have my fingers crossed that this works.





Today's bird visitor was a Cardinal.  He stayed for a long time until a squadron of Mourning Doves came and chased him off the feeder.






Here's the last trip-to-Kentucky photo I'll share, I promise.  On Wednesday on the way from Gurnee to Indy I stopped for gas right next to the windmill farm.  I take their picture every time I pass because I'm fascinated by the long ranks of them marching to the horizon.


 

Thursday night's sunset was lovely, all peach and pink and purple.





16 November--Barbara Malcolm, Spies Don't Retire. 

Irina didn’t really have friends on the island; she kept herself aloof from what she saw as the small and petty lives around her. She refused to stoop to being interested in people’s children and grandchildren’s antics and would not get involved in any of the “save the…” groups that were the mainstay of activity for expats.  Irina had hangers-on, supplicants, and toadies.

She had a difficult time being dramatic in her usual way on little Bonaire.  It was too hot to go about swathed from neck to feet in unrelieved black, and she would have looked silly being dramatic and forlorn in candy colored tank tops and pastel shorts.  So Irina wore dark colors, deep blue and purple, long pants made of gauze that billowed like bat’s wings around her shapely ankles and long tunics with loose sleeves.  Her jewelry was primitive and looked at if it might scratch the unwary handler.  Made of bones and stones with silver wires in tortured shapes surrounding the unpolished stone pieces and imprisoning the bones and pieces of coral rock.  The all-over impression she gave was of a prisoner in chains.

When they had first moved to the island she had accented her attire with dramatic makeup, purple eye shadow and dark eyeliner, but the heat and humidity made her perspire, and the sweat had turned the makeup liquid, so she ended up looking like a very depressed raccoon by the middle of the day.  Not the look she was going for, so she settled for wearing no makeup, allowing the pallor of her unadorned face and typical scornful look to convey her habitual boredom with everyday life.

When Dimitri had first retired from espionage and gone fulltime into teaching they had had frightful rows.  He wanted to come home to a wife and meal.  She was used to her years of independence and no one expecting her to attend him or make his meals so she rebelled, telling Dimitri he could cook for himself, that she wasn’t planning to transform herself into some babushka trudging from shop to shop to buy his sausages and bread.  He took to eating in the commissary at the university or meeting old KGB coworkers at restaurants, but eventually the expense became too great and he learned to scratch up a meal on his own.

Since they had come to the island they had learned to be together more.  They ate breakfast and dinner together most nights and shared the cooking duties.  Dimitri was amazed to realize that he had an inventive hand in the kitchen and actually enjoyed shopping for, planning, and cooking meals.  He made simple fare: baked or fried fish, uncomplicated pasta dishes, and lots of fresh vegetables and fruit salads.  The easy availability and succulence of the fruits and vegetables on Bonaire had astounded both of them at first.  They had not been insulated in Moscow, had been able to spend holidays in Europe due to Dimitri’s position of trust in the government, so they had experienced the bounty and excellence of Cordon Blue cooking.  But the ability to walk into a store or stop at a stall and buy armloads of fresh food was a revelation.  At first they gorged themselves on vegetables and fruits until their colons rebelled.  Then their eating habits evolved into a more balanced diet of lean meats, steamed vegetables and a more measured amount of fruit.

Both of them had escaped the Russian scourge, alcoholism.  They each enjoyed wine and indulged in a cocktail now and then, but happily neither of them tried to drown themselves in the fermented potato beverage so common to their compatriots.  Their marriage settled into a comfortable relationship once they had moved to the island.  Dimitri found the bird watchers and immersed himself wholeheartedly in what had, up till then, been a passing interest.  Irina became a leading light in the Literary Roundtable, transforming it from little more than a popular fiction book discussion club to an avenue for the members to extend their knowledge of more classic and literary fiction.  Of course the interest spread into poetry with the addition of what the other members perceived as a famous author in their circle.  Irina did not go out of her way to disabuse anyone of that impression.

Lately she had felt a cold fear and creeping depression that the words came so hard these days.  She would start with a spark but watch it die on the page.  I have lost my passion, she thought.  The fire that had driven her to write scathing diatribes and fiery verses that had to be published underground or smuggled out of the country by sympathetic fellow authors who were willing to risk imprisonment or death to disseminate her works had died.  Even though she decried the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union as it was when she lived there, with distance and the passage of time, the truth of it had dulled and all she remembered now was the atmosphere of dissent and the fulfillment of outwitting the authorities to share her words with others.

I did a couple loads of laundry today but that's not photo-worthy unless you have a clean socks fetish.
--Barbara