Sunday, February 23, 2014

One thing this rotten winter has given me back is the desire to read again.  For weeks about the only reading I could do was the Kingston paper and the weekend New York Times - the Times took me all week.  Anyway, the other day I picked up a book because of a review I had read in NY Times on it.  The review was on a book of short stories and referenced an earlier edition of short stories Birds of America and I thought I have that book somewhere.  I remembered taking it to Cape Cod with a whole pile of books that I just never got to.  Anyway, I found it and am enjoying the stories and her writing.  I just finished one about a woman taking a trip to Ireland with her mother to kiss the Blarney Stone - something Chrissy and I did 30 years ago.  What a risky thing to do, climb spooky, curving stones stairs up to the top of the castle, all opened, no roof, then lean backwards, clinging to two iron rods and kissing a stone, after hundreds of others before us.  The local boys told Chrissy  and me "don't worry, we clean it off every night for the tourists" and we knew they didn't use water.

I stopped reading at night quite a while ago, and as I have told you Timmy and I listen to audio books  at night.  Something about being read to is very relaxing and takes one back to childhood memories of snuggling close to Bucky while she read to me about Curious George.  We are currently listening to Lemony Snicket's stories  of the Baudelaire orphans.  Before this we had listened to the Hunger Games and the last one gave me bad dreams.  So we went back to something more innocent and although the orphans go from bad to worse, it makes me laugh out loud sometimes.  The Wide Window had Aunt Josephine in it, and she was afraid of everything.  Don't touch the door knob, it might shatter and cut you, Don't stand near the refrigerator, it might fall over and crush you.  Bucky was like this too, nothing was safe, everything had a hidden danger, so I would nod in agreement, giggle, and take another sip of fundador. 

So that's the way the days have been passing, back with my nose in a book, and the sorrowful, wretched life of the orphans to put me asleep.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Bucky called February "death Month", but I am thinking of a lot of bad words to put in front of February besides death.  The other day the weather man said that 20 degrees is the "new 40 degrees" - this because our thermometer goes from below zero to ten, or in the teens, never above the beautiful 32 degree mark.  And more snow coming tomorrow.

Not that snowy Februarys are new to me.  In 1969 when Paul was in the hospital with a broken leg, it snowed so much our road was closed off.  They had to bring in a back loader and dig it out, little by little.  And then there was the year it snowed so much, I went nuts and put up a sign on the porch window, next to the Valentine decoration, saying "We need more snow".  My neighbor Mary Alice still talks about that.  Or the February it snowed so much I booked a four day cruise for myself and girls.  We had a great time, got back to Miami and were told that it had snowed for four straight days in New York and all the airports were closed.  The airport finally opened, but as we landed in Stewart it was lit up with plows clearing the runway.  Maria mistook this for ambulances and yelled "we're gonna crash", but we made it home all right.

Snow rage is the new term - people yelling at the plows as they go by and push snow into their newly shoveled driveway.  One man actually attacked the plow with his shovel.  Another brought out a rifle and ordered the plow to go away.  I'm not that bad, not yet, anyway.