for love of winter

sunny and 30 F today!  i took some more rugs out and broomed them...didn't bother with my jacket, and walked on the frozen snow in my sneakers.  w00t!

had some eggs to use up so i found a simple and delicious quesadilla recipe.  this used up all the eggs (so now am out of eggs) and have now to use up a bunch of cilantro, 1/2 can of black beans, and most of a jar of salsa, 2/3 a package of whole wheat tortillas. 
 there is also cheddar cheese left over but that won't be a problem!

for the book groups i am trying to read Pillars of the Earth, and for the other one, Founding Brothers.  omg they are both so bad.  xtian told me to read Geek Love and the library got it for me -- a paperback covered with tape and well used.  i'm already into it.

what are they thinking?  this looks like it must be popular, can't they spring for a new paperback at least?  but i know it's not that easy accessioning a book, lotta paperwork and stuff.  anyway, Geek Love will save me from death by ponderous tomes.

rug cleaning

it could almost be spring!
i love it after a spell of below 0 F weather how anything 20 degrees or higher feels balmy!
especially with the warm sun and longer days
and yesterday a woodpecker drummed a bit of flirting!

still the sun sits only a bit above the southern horizon at noon, and the shadows are loooong.
any wind takes things back to 0.

yesterday was perfect for rug cleaning.
i dragged the big braided rug and a small asian style rug out onto the snow.
once all the dirt and cooties had frozen off of them, i swept them, feeling like Strega Nona in my too-small plaid wool hunting jacket, the paisley neck 'buff' my sister gave me worn like a babushka, big clumsy work gloves, cords over heavy longjohns, and hiking boots!
after all it was sunny, but barely in the teens temperature wise.

(this is a common fashion look for vermont ladies when they are at home, brown is not advised lest you be mistaken for a bear)

and my broom was the old back porch broom which of course is worn and witchlike!  a good opportunity to practice my cackle.

heart's quilt

a friend of mine is working through a trauma in her life by making a quilt.
witnessing her progress, i understand something new about art.
she's only using patterns of one color, indigo, but shape and arrangement tell the story!
really it seems more like music composition than a visual tale --
long smooth shapes are her life before.  
then small sharp cornered shapes jumbled crazy-quilt style as everything is thrown into sorrow, confusion, shock, and uncertainty.
after that comes the orderly opening freedom of the new future!
it will look amazing. and meanwhile, she recovers and heals.
i wonder how many quilts that i have viewed and thought, "nice", "lovely", "gorgeous", "weird", were opening someone's deepest heart to me, and i had no idea!

0 farenheit and falling

at 10 am the thermometer on the dashboard read 5 F.  the car started right up (Subaru, of course!) and i backed it out of the shed into the sun.  
5 minutes later i came back and it now read 3.
isn't it amazing that it worked at all?  that the tires don't freeze in, that the doors open, etc?
driving through sun and shade the temperature remained steady between 0 and 1.
i had a car for awhile that had to have boiling water poured on something under the hood, i forget what now, for it to start when it was 0 or thereabouts. 
of course by the time i carried the kettle out to the driveway, it was not boiling, but it worked.
brrrr!

mouse portal

there's a certain kind of toy mouse my cats like.
they have others of similar size, shape, covering, noise (a rattle sound) but they ignore them.

Barney will bring it to me to throw for him over and over when he's in the mood. Drop it on my foot or under my chair, then stand on hind legs with paws on my thigh and do the "i'm sending you a telepathic message" thing that cats do.  if that doesn't work, the claws go into my thigh.  THROW MY MOUSE!

after a bit the mouse disappears. totally! i've searched under furniture with a flashlight, used a stick under the fridge, cleaned the house (after my fashion).  gone. 

these mice are sold loose from a bowl in the pet supply store. lest they suddenly stop making them or stocking them, as so often happens, i bought a bunch of them to dole out on days when the cats are bored to crabbyness.  they are popular for awhile, then GONE. VANISHED from the earth.

recently john gave them a new orange one.  hank ate the tail right away. by the next morning the orange mouse was still in evidence, and a red mouse had appeared in the food dish. 
by that evening a green mouse had turned up on the rug behind the rocker.

it seems cats have access to some parallel universe.  perhaps our missing socks will begin to reappear now that the portal is open.

mudpie's unmeds

i mentioned briefly in a previous post that mudpie is making placebos for friends for such ailments as colds, anxiety, sleep problems, and even arthritis.  she is qualified to do this because she has a nurse outfit she sometimes wears in second life on hallowe'en.

turns out she's ahead of her time. a recent article in Harvard Magazine tells of the serious research being done with placebos...why they work so well!!  even when subjects know they are placebos! 
or do they?  it's WAY COMPLICATED and you can read it yourself if you wish to by clicking here .

one of my favorite parts is that they are also experimenting with the doctor side of things to see how different behaviors and attitudes affect the patient's recovery.  
in one experiment practitioners were "...required to touch the hands or shoulders of members of the third group (of subjects) and spend at least 20 seconds lost in thoughtful silence."

the lost in thoughtful silence part amuses me no end. next time i'm at the doctor and she becomes lost in thoughtful silence as she ponders my symptoms, i'm afraid i'll start laughing!

mudpie posing for her picture for the label of the pseudoceuticals

 and being photobombed by her pet mouse

 

$5000/week for AS LONG AS YOU LIVE BUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

there's this mail i got a long time ago -- maybe more than a year?  i don't remember exactly. to win a bunch of money.
i looked through it in an idle moment, and did the "paste this here" "scratch this off here" things, and sent it in. why not?
since then i've gotten lots more!  each time there's stuff you can order, but nothing i can't just go buy somewhere if i wanted it, which i don't, so i just paste and scratch and mail it back.
now they are telling me, a year or so later, that i am about to win $5,000. a week for life!
so i sent that one in. 
oh boy!  
maybe i'll win!
liz says i should send it in the name of a younger person, then it would be worth way more.
which started me thinking -- how long do the people who win these things live?
has anyone checked to see if they are dying young, or after a certain amount of time?
do they die mysteriously in small plane crashes like popular democrats?
after i win, should i change my name and move to another country?

turkeys

eight turkeys went through our yard in the snow this morning. right under the window and crossed to the neighbors' garden 
then on over the ruined road and up the hill by the frozen falls.
they are huge!  birds big as dogs.
i want to toss some food to them. 
a universal human longing -- a powerful urge to interact with other animals.
for me it's toss them food. for small boys, scatter them with a rock.
for bigger boys fell them with a stone.
if nothing else, they should acknowledge me
it isn't acceptable that they go their way and i mine.
if i were very hungry i would follow them and kill them.

time for a change

it's been a month since my last post.  my life has changed quite a bit in the last 2 years, and just a note here to myself to change my blog. instead of telling stories, i'll try writing short bits about what i'm thinking about.  we'll see.

meanwhile back in raglan shire

mudpie is ready for xmas in her cozy houseboat.  there are nice cottages available, but this is perfect for me!  almost perfect -- if only my shire had a road or a canal right to raglan shire!  

waiting for xmas can get boring, so the tinies have constructed a race track!  mudpie is hooked on racing and has made the scoreboard for 2 days in a row -- (but now everybody's getting better so no longer on it)

 and one other thing -- mudpie's gone into the placebo business in first life.  lots of studies show them to be effective, and in a recent study they worked as well as drugs even when the patient was told they were just placebos!  
i'll try to get a picture of this great new product before they are all snapped up.

An autumn of visitors!

it's true -- Vermont is the new North Carolina.
here it is december and no snow covering the ground.
how will santa even find us?
here's how it looks:


















a little time off now after such a busy fall.
first came college friends to brookfield,
then halloween kittens

we blew up our 'scream' and had it around for halloween
and again for thanksgiving, when there was a wedding
at our house!


















28 years and they are finally legal
at least in the Republic of Vermont.
the scream was not part of the wedding,
altho we considered including it.















saturday morning a flock of turkeys went through our yard

but crossed the road just as i found my camera.
why did they cross the road?

What i learned in Brookfield in October

Modern cars have slightly tinted windows unsuited for viewing autumn leaves.
Looking at photos of me with my southern friends:
    Practice smiling bigger
    Practice sitting more ladylike
People from away are not as inspired by healthy food produced in a healthy manner.
People from away have funny ideas about cold and snow.
A GPS can be useful on a foggy night, but is not as much fun as getting lost and asking strangers for directions. 
RTFM means "read the friendly manual" -- oh really?   

STRIPES

don't you love it when the log on the fire
matches the cat on the rug?

Rude Veggies

in one of those british tv shows, as kind of a casual aside from the plot, there was a box for collection of rude vegetables.  apparently there was to be a contest judged by  -- of course --the parish priest.  

i had no idea what a rude vegetable might be until the contents of the box were shown!

what a fun idea!  carrot growers especially have had many a hoot over their crop.  i mentioned it to my neighbor, and she brought this one by yesterday. 

could my town have a contest like this?  not likely!  this is america - we are above that sort of thing.

*giggle snort*

Les Miserable by Theatre on the Hill

(click any picture to enlarge)

 minding her own business in her pumpkin-head psycho nurse hallowe'en costume, mudpie got a message from Skyblue Earthboy that Theatre on the Hill was doing Les Miserable (which they've been working on for a loooong time!) right now!

(scene 1)

 she tp'd right over and sure enough the seats worked for tinies too!  hooray for tiny power!  my snapshots are not very clear, but you'll get the idea.

(the flames were wild and crackling!)

 the singing was beautiful, and the sets stunning. the acting was a bit robotic in places, but perhaps that's as good as it gets.

ordinarily i don't go for seeing something in SL that would actually be better in RL, but i'd never seen Les Miserable, and i did enjoy the music.

(the river flowed toward us!)

 michael heard i was the only tiny attending and came to be my wingman, as he put it!  as you can see we are both mesmerized, even tho he was watching on his CELL PHONE!

actually i have no idea what the plot was about, but still it was lots of fun with lots of good energy in the troupe. made me miss Lucy's days on the SL stage!

out beyond wifi

(View from the house -- photos by Josephine, not me)

the floating bridge (photo by josephine)

a friend from college borrowed a house in Brookfield -- a totally out-of-the-way town.  the house is on a narrow dirt road off a wider dirt road off a back road.  thank goodness another friend lent me her GPS or i'd never have found the place in the dark in total autumn fog!

 we had a great time, 6 friends from all over the country who see each other once a year or so.


Brookfield is known for its floating bridge - currently closed for repairs - and surprisingly there's a wonderful restaurant there, too, Ariel's.

vermont's leaf show was not up to par this year, but vermont is always beautiful (except maybe in November)

garden buddha & squirrel

the little kid who came 
a few years ago to our door
pushing a lawn mower he barely topped,
and asked if we wanted to hire him to mow our lawn, 
is now a big tall kid!  
strong enough to pick up the picnic table 
to move it out of the way of his new riding lawn mower
and mow several lawns in town and out, 
and the library as well!  
he's a good businessman, and now 
that he's old enough to be driving (legally) (yes, we've recognized you) 
he mentioned that he's twice failed to pass the test to get his license.  
but since then, 
he did pass it. 
i'm not asking and he's not saying, 
but i did notice someone left a 25 cent piece on our garden buddha.

CLICK TO ENLARGE AND LOOK AT TOP OF LARGE ROCK FOR A SURPRISE!  HEH HEH

early one saturday morning

me:       what's all that noise in there!?
hank:    dis box had spider innit mebbe
me:       who's going to pick up all those styrofoam pellets and put them back in that box!
hank:    i haz to wash dis foot now

summer's end

labor day was summer blue and pink
shy autumn played around the edges
tuesday never dawned
cold rain down your back


and rain and rain and rain and rain
and i opened my eyes to dreams of yellow pencils
and the smell of paper wrappers on crayons
chalk dust squeak


oh to be in second grade
and the cold rain falling
my new desk shines smooth under warm lights
and my teacher is so beautiful!

castle cats

lucy's second life cat went missing.
i finally rezzed another one
fluffy turned up lost in the castle!
now there are two, fluffy and fussby.

they play together -- and when lucy's not online
they really like getting lost in the castle.
lucy put some chairs down to block the door
it works!