Sunday, yesterday, was the fourth day in a row that I didn't go out of the house, just once next door to Sabra's and a trip to the Tivoli Thrift Shop on Saturday. But no car out of the garage. Yesterday it started to get to me. I looked at all the Christmas curios (junk) in the window and thought only of clutter. I looked at the manger scene on the nearby table and thought "that looks more like an oversold rock festival than a manger scene". (I can't resist buying more and more manger figures, there are about 5 Marys and the Wise Men are a crowd, not three.) Anyway, I guess that is what "Cabin Fever" does to you- you get sick of your surroundings.

When I was a kid going to the Howland Library the children's section was way in the corner, you had to pull a cord to get the light to go on so you could find a book. At one time I was hooked on the Twin Series, 26 books by Lucy Fitch Perkins (1865-1937). She wrote about twins around the world, The Irish Twins, The Dutch Twins, Japanese, Mexican, even cave twins. The twins were almost always a girl and a boy (one time they were both boys) and I got drawn into their worlds, so different from mine. The book I loved the best was the "Eskimo Twins", the girl was Monnie and the boy was Mennie. They lived in an igloo, freezing cold, dark half of the year and yet they had the best times....playing in the snow, tracking polar bears, jumping on a fur skin held by the men in the village. I loved their life and wanted to be an Eskimo. A typical scene in the igloo would feature their mother sitting in a corner, making a needle out of a whale bone, their grandmoter chewing on a fur to tenderize it....God it was so exciting.

I just looked up the author, that's why I have that little bit of information, and her books were reprinted in the early 2000's. Then I checked the Tivoli Library, and sure enough, there was the Eskimo twins, so I requested it, and will let everybody know if it still has the appeal that it did 60 years ago. Also, it just might make me appreciate the winter a little bit more.