59. Ouch.

Today is my birthday....... I think instead of celebrating this 59th year, I will re-celebrate the 38th year. That seems to be a much better number. So Happy 38th (again) to me. On my 50th birthday, I remember telling my husband's mother that the Big 5-0 wasn't so great. Her answer to me was Honey, I'll change numbers with you any time!

We went out to lunch today with neighbors J & J, to a little Italian restaurant right in town. As far as local restaurants go, this place is the best-- more of a restaurant than a cafe (this town is big on cafe-type places). Homemade bread, homemade everything by an Italian chef who was born in Naples. (Same place that my dad's family was from.)

My husband stopped at one of the downtown Houston markets on his way home last night and brought home two shopping bags filled with birthday goodies..... cooked foods from the organic market, a carrot cake (our favorite), and little birthday surprises. I didn't know he was going to do that, so we had Part I of the birthday celebration last night, followed by Part II at lunch today. (Part III is that I don't have to cook for a couple of days because of all the cooked gourmet foods from the Houston market.)

Pretty day today... not as sunny as yesterday, but just as warm, and we didn't get any of the rain that the local weather-wizards were talking about. I know we need the rain, but I just didn't want to see it today.

The chickens.... PittyPat is sleeping on the very top of the old wooden ladder that I put into the coop for her, so she's quite happy not to be getting pecked by Prissy on the roosting bar. PittyPat is one of the chickens that we got from S across the road, so I'm guessing that PittyPat used to sleep way up high in her old coop. After dragging that old ladder into the coop, I'm glad that it's working out for PittyPat. That little hen used to be very skittish with us... not walking near us if we were out in the yard, staying clear of me when I was near the coop or inside it. For the past few weeks, though, she has warmed up to me, and will come running across the yard right behind Scarlett when she hears me. Guess it takes some of the hens more time than the others to build up a little bit of trust.


I just looked down at the keyboard here. I've typed on this lap-top so much that I'm wearing out the paint on the letter-keys. There is no sign of the E on that key, the R key has just a teeny bit of the top of the letter R left on it, the S and the C are half gone, as well as the D and the T. Hardly anything left at all on the F and B key, and about one-third of the V is gone. I'm guessing my fingernails have been scraping away at the painted letters for all these years and I just never noticed. I can touch-type as fast as the best of them, and never have to look at the letter-keys or number-keys. If someone else needed to use this lap-top and didn't know how to touch-type, they'd have a problem for sure. I'm wondering if they teach kids how to touch-type when they're teaching them to use computers.


That's been about the day... the first day of my 59th (ouch) year. I know about the riots in Egypt. I know about the state of the economy. I know about all the bad things that are happening all over the world-- the storms, the floods, the shootings. I don't write about them here. If you want that sort of stuff, then go read The New York Times or The Houston Chronicle. This is a happy place. This is the inside of my bubble (as my cousin L calls our property and everything on it) and that's just the way I'd like to leave it. A happy place. As in happy birthday.

Spring fever....

.... again. After a nearly-frigid night, the temperature today was just a little bit under 70 degrees. Stupid weather. (The frigid part, not the 70-degree part.)

The chickens are so happy with the warmer weather that they've been strolling all around the yards and not bothering to lay eggs. Rather than the usual three or four eggs, they're giving me one or two on these very warm days. Which makes no sense to me at all, especially since all of our neighbors who have chickens told me that the hens wouldn't lay eggs when it got too cold. I guess my hens have read different books on egg-laying. (Which is fine... four eggs every day is more than we need.)

Tonight when I went to lock up the coop, two of the larger hens (Prissy and Daisy) were picking on PittyPat (the smallest hen). They do that constantly, and will only quit if they see that I'm watching them. Usually, when I go into the coop to lock the gate, PittyPat is sitting on top of the gate by herself, perched quite comfortably and looking very content. Well, I can't close the gate if she's up there on top of it, so I pet her feathers so she will fly down to the floor of the coop. Once on the floor, she will fly up on the roosting bar--- which disrupts the other hens who have already claimed their favorite sleeping spots.

That's when the pecking starts. Scarlett and Audrey sleep side by side, feathers touching. Prissy and Daisy don't like to give up their spaces, and they both like to have empty spaces on either side of them. Mind you, the roosting bar is about twelve feet long, which is plenty of room for just five hens. You would think. But every night just about, either Prissy or Daisy will start pecking at PittyPat's feet in an effort to get her out of and away from their spaces. Sometimes, PittyPat will just move close to Scarlett and Audrey. Other times, like tonight, she will sit there and let the hens peck at her feet or her neck. Both of which gets me nuts because it looks so cruel. As my Aunt Dolly would say: Can't you girls just play nice?! (My cousins and I heard that a zillion times when we were kids.)

Tonight, enough was enough with PittyPat. Back bad and all, I carried (mostly dragged) an old wood ladder and brought it inside the coop. As soon as Prissy and Daisy saw me with the ladder, they stopped pecking at PittyPat to watch what I was doing. I set that ladder up on the side of the coop near the roosting bar, but far enough away from it to give PittyPat the privacy that she seems to need. Up went the ladder... then I walked to the roosting bar and picked PittyPat right up.... and put her on the top rung of the ladder (which is about the same height as the top of the gate that she likes so much).

All the while, the other hens were watching me. PittyPat stayed quietly in my hands while I patted her head and told her that she really needs to stand up to Prissy and Daisy. Keep your feathers up, girl! Don't let them peck at you! When I locked up the coop a while ago, PittyPat was sitting just as nice as you please up on the top rung of that ladder..... and the other four hens were sitting on the roosting bar, looking up at her.

We'll see if this works...... when I go into the coop to lock up tomorrow night, I'm hoping that PittyPat is on the top rung of the ladder, content on her wooden throne.

Let's do a lunch......

.... and that's just what we're doing..... a Valentine's pot-luck lunch with some of our neighbors (the usual suspects, as we call them), a couple of our friends from Houston, and a couple of new friends we've met here in town.

I called everyone up while I was resting my back-- don't know what I did, but I've had a back ache since Saturday, which is slowly getting better with each day. So while I was sitting here trying not to do much of anything, I told my husband that we really should plan to do something for Valentine's Day. It didn't hurt my back much to pick up the phone and punch in some numbers, and everyone we asked said they would be more than happy to come. I sent out cute little Valentine reminder-cards in today's mail.

So that's the plan. There will be eleven of us, and I think we'll do a sit-down dinner that starts with little picky-foods and punch in the living room. Being that some of our friends haven't met our neighbors, I think it will be easier if everyone meets in the living room before sitting down at the dining room table. The living room and dining room are already decorated for Valentine's Day-- I did that before my back started to ache...... and I spent this afternoon sitting at my desk and making pretty place cards with vintage Valentine post cards.

The seating plan is already worked out..... another reason why I love to use place cards. A dinner party conversation is much easier when you know enough about your guests to know who to put next to whom. We will have an interesting group here, people with enough in common to make for good conversation, but not too much in common so they can't learn something new from one another.

We started off with a small party group in the Clear Lake house..... I think we invited less than ten friends when we began having dinner parties and holiday parties. That group grew to nearly 35 people over the years.... and our Christmas party list topped out at 60 people one year. So we're starting off small again, but I'm hoping that number grows over the coming years.


The weather is starting to get better..... not back to the usual Spring-like winter, but at least we're not deep into a frigid cold snap that lasts for a week. The end of this week looks promising, with temperatures due to climb up to the high 60s and low 70s. A little drum-roll please........ sounds like real Texas weather to me.

Still-stupid weather...

..... but at least it's warmer than it has been all week. The sky has been a tease...... just when you think you're going to have a blue-sky sunny day, the clouds roll in and everything gets grayish white outside. The hard-freeze is over, though, which is a good thing. It would be really nice if we could get through a week without having a hard-freeze warning from the TV weather wizards.

We went to dinner last night at B & G's house, along with J & J, and S.... very nice dinner, with the weather being the talk of the night. (The weather and the economy has everyone talking these days.) Everyone is thoroughly tired of having to 'fret over frozen pipes,' as B said. B & G live in an old house that was built in the late 1800s... their home started its life as a school-house. That particular house is said to be haunted, but B says it's a friendly spirit. Years ago when she had workmen doing some renovations there, one of them ran down the stairs from the second floor and flew out the door as fast as he could..... apparently, he saw the 'friendly spirit' and it scared the daylights out of him. B said he never did come back.

The inside of B's house is rustic-looking, with wood floors, wood walls, wooden beams..... all original windows, all original moldings and trim. The kitchen is teeny-tiny, but there are two pantry-rooms off of the kitchen. No room in the kitchen for a dishwasher, and B doesn't want to put one in because then it would take away storage space, which is at a premium in that little 9x12' kitchen. I'm so curious to see the second floor of that house..... there's one room that has small windows from wall to wall and I have to wonder if that particular room was one of the classrooms from the old school-house days.

During the month of October, B and G set up a wooden skeleton on their front porch.... he was sitting on a square hay-bale and wearing one of G's hats. The skeleton was moved to the back porch after Thanksgiving and now he's sitting at their picnic table, with a beer bottle propped up in his hand. Last night as we got out of the car, the moon was shining on that part of B's backyard and the skeleton had an ethereal glow around him.

It was nice to get together with the neighbors..... and when we got home my husband and I got to talking about hosting a Valentine's dinner. Actually, we've decided that it would have to be an afternoon lunch rather than a dinner, because we would invite friends from Houston and our newest friends from the other side of town. No one likes to be driving home late at night on these dark roads, so a lunch get-together would make everyone much happier. So that's the plan, and I will start making some phone calls this week. I've already fixed up the living room and dining room with Valentine's decorations...... this is our second Valentine's Day in this house, so it will be nice to have a get-together here and enjoy the decorations.

And if the weather gods will start smiling on Texas again, we could all enjoy some Texas-style weather.

One more time...

... for yet another frigid cold snap. We had a beautiful day today... sunny and warm and Spring-like..... so nice outside that I let Mickey Kitty and Sweet Pea outside. Mickey wasn't out there for three seconds before he started to chase the chickens, but as soon as they squawked at him, he backed off.

And what happens in the Spring? The neighbor's goats manage to get out of their field and come marching down their road and up our hill. I was in the TV room watching Oprah's trip to Australia when I heard the cries of the baby goats. I thought they sounded too close... when I looked out of the window, there was a goat parade in our driveway-- about eight of them. I'm long since over calling my husband for goat-chasing. I went out there to tell the goats I was missing Oprah and would they please go back to their own property?! They ran out of the driveway but didn't go much further. Back into the house I went, got my husband's car keys and I drove that car behind the goats all the way down our hill and then up the hill to the neighbor's house. The goats ran right back behind the gate to their field and I was sitting in the neighbor's driveway honking the horn of the car. No one came out so I just backed up and drove back home.

My husband showed me how to shut off the main water valve to the house today.... just in case we have a "frigid spell" (as the TV weather wizard calls it) when he's not home. During the last cold snap, I was upset because we even have to shut the water off if the temperature goes below 32 degrees. I never remember having to do that when I lived up in NY. So why here?! Then I was talking to my cousin T out in Arizona... when we were having the cold snap last week, so were they..... and T had to shut off the water to his house also. Why on earth?! And he used to live in NY also... never had to do that up north either, but now he's in AZ and shutting off the water to his house during below-freezing nights. Seems that they just don't build the systems to withstand the infrequent and unusual below-zero temperatures once you get south of the Mason-Dixon line, I guess.

Speaking of NY, by the way..... when we were up in College Station the other day, we tried a new Chinese restaurant that my husband found on-line. Since we've been in this state, we have just about given up trying to find a Chinese restaurant whose food can compare to the Chinese restaurants in NY. There was one in Clear Lake that came sort of close, but not quite there. We have one Chinese restaurant here in town but everyone tells us not to even bother trying it, being that we've had "real Chinese food" elsewhere (as in up north). There is an Oriental buffet-style restaurant in College Station that we tried a few months back, but it wasn't good enough to make us want to go back there. However, on Monday after the movie, we searched out the little restaurant which is in a corner of one of the shopping centers in College Station. (That big town is like Clear Lake-- shopping centers wherever you look.)

That tiny little restaurant had the most delicious food.... freshly made, beautifully fresh seafood and vegetables, and the best service we've had in a restaurant in a good long while. One bite and we were both saying "This is the real thing. This tastes like NY." We've been to San Francisco and were disappointed in a couple of Chinese restaurants there, for goodness sake, because we didn't think it was as good as NY's Chinese food. So to find a Chinese restaurant that good in College Station was a very nice surprise.

What isn't a nice surprise is this changing weather..... but...... it is what it is. NY is going to get another snowstorm at the end of this week, my cousins tell me.... they're looking at possibly ten more inches, to add to the eighteen inches they've already had (which is no longer pretty and bright-white). I guess if I have to walk into the barn and turn off the water valve when the temperature is on its way to 32 degrees, then I shouldn't be complaining. And didn't I say that last year anyway? That I wasn't going to complain about the weather anymore?

Okay. This is not a complaint. It is simply a statement of the fact: this weather is way too cold for this part of the state.

"The King's Speech"

We escaped from the weather today... drove up to College Station to see the movie "The King's Speech," since it wasn't playing anywhere around here. (Anywhere? We have just one movie theatre in town-- if it isn't there, then it can't be playing anywhere else in town.)

When we walked into the theatre, the sky was grayish white and just plain drippy and cold. As we came out of the theatre, the sky was blue, the sun was shining and it was warm and Spring-like and we were taking our jackets off as we walked to the car. I told my husband that maybe we should have gone to the movies eight days ago.

But... the movie. Beautifully done, brilliantly acted, a breath of fresh air-- especially after having to sit through the coming attractions of the most horrible plot-less films that are being churned out by the Powers That Be in movie-land.

During the drive to College Station, I gave my husband a little bit of the background of Edward, Prince of Wales, and Wallis Simpson, and King George and Queen Mary. My husband seemed surprised that I was so interested in the Royal Family. Pardon me? Where has this man been? I've got at least 20 books on the Royal Family and the history of the British Monarchy. I watch all the documentaries on the Royals, and my cousin F and I are arranging the coming month of April around the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. (F and I have also conjured up at least 39 fictional, but totally reasonable, mini-catastrophies that could befall Camilla, which would prevent her from attending the Royal nuptials. Our apologies to Prince Charles, of course.)

But... the movie. Outrageously good, even if you aren't familiar with the British Monarchy. You are quickly drawn into the life of Bertie who is terrified that he must be King after his brother decides to abdicate so he can marry Wallis. (Such a stupid decision, even though hopeless romantics at the time thought his tossing of the crown (literally) to marry the woman of his dreams (give me a blessed break) was just the icing on the wedding cake of their own fantasies. (The abdication turned into a decades-long nightmare that was never totally forgiven by the successors of Edward or anyone else in the Royal Family.)

I thought my husband would be hopelessly bored by the movie, but by the end of it, we were both caught up in the angst of Bertie, and the wonderful friendship that blossomed between him and Lionel, his speech therapist.

The movie ended on such a hopeful note. Even though Hitler was about to change the face of Europe, you just had to smile for the King as he successfully delivered his speech that couldn't possibly have happened without the friendship and patience of Lionel.

For the life of me, I don't understand why the movie industry can't make movies like this all the time-- movies that make one think rather than cringe. (Shame on Hollywood, who promised that violent movies wouldn't be made after the senseless carnage of 9/11.)

Cabin fever.

I think we're all getting a case of cabin fever here... the temperatures are still low (no higher than 40), the sky is still grayish-white without a drop of blue, and there's not a soul stirring outside (unless you count the chickens and the birds).

Both Mickey Kitty and Sweet Pea want to go outside but I haven't let them for the past four days or so. Way too cold for Mickey and if a frigid breeze ruffles his whiskers, he's going to run and hide underneath the cottage. I don't want to be out there in the cold trying to coax him out from under there. Sweet Pea would probably run around and try to catch the sparrows, but then he'd climb the mesquite tree so he could jump onto the roof of the house, and then I'd be going in and out of the upstairs balcony doors calling him to come on in. Way too cold for that little game. Gatsby has been going outside for a few minutes each morning and afternoon, but he quickly comes in when he realizes the TV room is much warmer than the porch.

As a result, with three cats confined to the TV room, the breakfast room, and the kitchen, they are finding ways to entertain themselves. Such as jumping from the wicker chair near the window to the end of the kitchen counter-top near the built-in bookcase. (So far, no cookbooks have hit the floor.) Usually, it's Mickey who will try that first, followed closely by Sweet Pea who is probably thinking Well, I can do that too! Gatsby is the only one who's just sleeping the days away in the TV room, but he will get up from his nap if he hears the other cats munching on dry cat-food.


The pecan trees were filled with crows this morning. The crows will go to the uppermost branches and pull the nuts from the tips of the pods. With all the wind we've had this past week, it's a wonder there's a single nut left in those trees. All of the pecan trees with the larger nuts dropped them back in November, but the native Texas pecans still have small nuts hanging by a thread in the pods... and those are the ones the crows are getting. They manage to get that little pecan in their beaks and fly out into the field with it. Then they will peck and peck at that pecan till it splits so they can dig the nut out of the shell. Surely, there must be enough nuts and pods out in the fields to burst forth with an orchard by now.


We heard loud shotgun shells this afternoon out near the edge of the woods. Those woods are partly ours, partly our back-neighbor's, and from time to time, he drives a truck out there and we'll hear a shotgun going off. We have no idea what he's shooting. Either he's shooting at a coyote, or he has a trap set way out there and he's shooting whatever gets caught in the trap. The woods are far enough away from the house that I can barely see what's going on, even with the help of the binoculars. When you live out here for a while, you learn to not pay much attention to the shotguns, as long as you know they're being shot off on someone else's property. But on a cold day like today with nothing happening, you run to the window with the binoculars as soon as you hear a little noise.

Neighbors have told us time and again to get a gun, for the snakes and coyotes, the raccoons and armadillos, and heaven only knows what else. My husband has set cage-traps now and again, but the raccoon he trapped was driven to the nearby lake and let go into the woods out there. Shooting a live raccoon while it's trapped in a cage doesn't seem quite fair.

I'm hoping the Weather Wizards are correct..... that we'll be warming up with tomorrow's temperatures, and warming up with each passing day from tomorrow through next week. And to think we were complaining when the temperature got down to 62 degrees a few weeks ago...

Beyond the cold snap.

We are officially into the frigid, freezing, pipe-bursting, hard-freeze, totally stupid weather zone. Temperatures drop to ten degrees below freezing after midnight, which has my husband out in the yard at 10:00pm turning off the water valves, then he turns them back on in the morning. The water in the cottage and the barn are turned off completely now, and the pan of water inside the chicken coop has been frozen solid for the past three mornings.

This morning when I went out to the coop with some vegetable scraps for the hens, they all came running across the courtyard to meet me half-way. Scarlett flew ahead of the others, and plopped herself on top of my right foot, sitting there until I picked her up. As soon as she was in my arms, she buried her little head in my elbow, just like a cat would. She didn't even seem to care that I was holding a dish of chopped-up celery ends... she just sat there nice and cozy for a few minutes while I stood there holding her in the cold.

Even with these colder temperatures, the hens are laying eggs. They're not running around the yard much unless they can find a patch of sun. Today is much cloudier than yesterday, but without the wind, today's temperature doesn't seem as cold as yesterday was, even though the actual temperature this morning was five degrees lower than yesterday's.

Such stupid weather. Totally stupid. I drove into town yesterday to get my hair trimmed, and had I not cancelled last week's appointment, I would have been cancelling yesterday's. It was just so cold that I didn't want to go out, but I did keep the appointment and then came right home afterwards. I wasn't even in the mood to browse through the shops in town, and I certainly wasn't in the mood for WalMart--- much too cold to be dealing with the wind that whips through that parking lot up there near the highway. The best part of going out yesterday was the drive back and forth in my car--- it has heated seats. By the time you're halfway into town, you feel like a piece of toast.

I watched the TV news this morning and saw the snowstorms that are blasting through the northeast. My cousins in Suffolk County were unable to get into work today, and their kids didn't get to school. A snow day! Do kids today get as excited over a snow day as we used to when we were kids? When I was in the third grade, there was actually a kid in our class who would light candles in church, praying for enough snow to close the school. He was one of the smartest kids in the class, but he hated school, especially in the winter. All he wanted to do was take his sled to the park and go flying down the hills over hard-packed snow. Makes me wonder if he grew up to become a Winter Olympics champion.

Well, there's no snow here, but it sure feels cold enough for that. We did have a bit of snow last year.... everything here was cloaked in white and these hills looked like a giant Christmas card. The snow didn't last long because it warmed up shortly after the snow fell. I think we had about half an inch or less of snow..... and they closed up the schools and most of the businesses here. Less than half an inch, and it was a snow day! Half an inch in the northeast, and no one would even notice it much.

Yet another cold snap.

After a few days of warm and Spring-like weather, we're having a drippy dreary damp wet day. So dreary that I didn't let the chickens out of the little yard by their coop. These cloudy wet days are prime-time hunting days for the hawks, and (knock on the proverbial wood) we haven't lost any chickens in the longest time. (Knock once again.) Either this group of hens are smarter than the first group, or I've gotten smarter and been more careful with their adventures around the property.

On days like this, it's hard to get warm. Especially when you have to go outside to check the nesting boxes for eggs, or give the chickens some diced-up lettuce and carrots to keep them a little happier because you've got them fenced in by the coop. My guilt offering to the hens-- cut up vegetables. Plain old bits of white bread just don't cut it on a day like today.


The Royal Wedding brouhaha has begun. On one of the cable channels tonight, there's a program called "William & Kate & 8 Royal Weddings." (Did they have to make that title so close to "Jon & Kate Plus 8?!"-- I didn't like that show. I loved the kids, but that show was just an exploitation of those kids by two parents who were clearly disconnected from one another, from the beginning of the series.) Anyway, I will watch the show on the Royal Weddings. And I'll probably be watching all of the shows on the Royal Wedding of William and Kate. Or should we be calling her Katherine now?

I remember watching the wedding of Diana and Charles so many years ago. I think I had to set the alarm for 4:00 in the morning so I could see it all from the very beginning. And I wanted to see it live as it happened, not later on with a taped version. My dad was here in Texas the year Diana died in France, and we both sat there watching the funeral from beginning to end. My cousin F in NY is the family's expert on history-- both American and British. We will both be watching tonight's show, and we will both be tuned into the coverage of William and Kate's marriage on April 29th. F is so seriously into the Royals that she is already planning to take a week's vacation in April so she can watch every blessed program leading up to William's wedding. I have already mailed her a rhinestone tiara to wear with her wedding attire as she watches the festivities. When she told me that she might be watching the TV coverage in her cozy pajamas, I told her that a tiara is just what she'd need to accessorize her favorite p-j's.

Hopefully, the London weather on April 29th will be sunny and glorious and beautiful.... not drippy and dreary and damp and wet like it is today.

Whitman's Chocolates

My dad loved chocolate, and his favorite was Whitman's. When he was here with us in Texas in 1997, he would ask me to stop at Walgreen's on the way to the Senior Center and he would go into that store and buy the familiar yellow box of Whitman's. He wouldn't even let the clerk put the box of chocolates into a plastic shopping bag because he said they always turned the box sideways instead of keeping it top-side up. Into the Senior Center he would go, holding that box of Whitman's as if it were filled with gold. After lunch was served, he would share the large box of chocolates with everyone there.

My dad always bought Whitman's chocolates to my grandmother's house. My grandmother and Aunt Dolly would save those yellow boxes for buttons and zippers and ribbons... anything that could be saved in a pretty box ended up in the empty Whitman's boxes. My Uncle Mino would use a thin knife to slice the Whitman's chocolates in half, which seemed ridiculous to my father. Uncle Mino's reasoning was that he wanted to see what was inside the chocolate before he ate it. My dad's answer to that was Just ask me, Mino! I know what's inside all of them! And they're all good anyway, so what's the difference?! But Uncle Mino would always take his little knife, cut the candy in half... and sometimes he would slice off just a thin piece from the edge if my dad was watching. Which would get daddy to saying If they wanted the chocolate sliced that way, they would have put a knife right in the box!

There were a few rules about the Whitman's in my grandmother's house--- you ate the piece that you bit, you didn't touch any of the pieces except the ones you wanted to eat, and the little "Messenger Boy" piece had to be saved for me. The Messenger Boy was just plain chocolate, no nuts, no chewy centers, no caramel. Just a thin block of Whitman's chocolate with the etching of a Messenger Boy on top-- plain chocolate with nothing else added. When daddy opened a new box, he would hold the box out to me and say Take the little Messenger Boy before your uncle cuts him in half.

About a week before Christmas when I was in WalMart shopping for groceries, I looked in the baking aisle for sugar cubes. I haven't found one sugar cube in this entire town, and haven't had sugar cubes in the sugar bowl since we left Clear Lake. The Hill Country is just a loose-sugar part of the state, I guess. Right there on the shelf with the bags of sugar was a small size box of Whitman's chocolates, the tiny four-piece size, and that box had Christmas paper on it instead of their usual yellow box. That little box was sealed with the usual cellophane wrapping, and I found a WalMart person and asked if they had any more of those. She told me to look in the aisle with the holiday candy.

Up and down that aisle I went, never did find another little box of Whitman's wrapped in the Christmas-design paper, or any other small-sized boxes of Whitman's. I bought that little box and enjoyed it myself, one piece at time over a few days, and I saved the cute little box. Today was another WalMart day, and I looked in the Christmas aisle for the wire-edged ribbons that I knew would be half-price. Right there next to the green sparkly ribbons was another small box of Whitman's in Christmas paper. Unopened. Wrapped in cellophane. Again, I found a WalMart person to show them the box and ask if they had any other Whitman's in the Christmas paper instead of the yellow box. That girl told me she hadn't seen those little boxes before. And just where 'bout did y'all find that little-bitty box?

It didn't matter where I found it. What matters is that I found two small Christmas-wrapped boxes of Whitman's when I wasn't looking for them, in aisles where they shouldn't have been in the first place. What matters is that my dad always bought Whitman's, and what matters even more is that when he found those small boxes wrapped in holiday papers, he would buy me one to put in my purse. "Just in case you're out and want a piece of chocolate," he would say.

I have a tiny box of Whitman's filled with paper clips-- the box is made of tin, like the old tin boxes that band-aids used to come in. The tin box was a special holiday edition box, made in bright shiny gold for Christmas. Daddy found that one in the store years ago when he went in to buy a box for the Senior Center. He bought the big yellow box for the Seniors, and the little gold metal box for me, to keep in my purse. Just in case you're out.....

Finding both of those small boxes of Whitman's on the WalMart shelves was a nice surprise. Two nice surprises. Of course, I could imagine that my dad put them on the shelves for me to find. But of course he didn't. He couldn't have.

I thought of daddy a lot this Christmas, especially when I set out the Nativity that we had back in the 'old house on 97th Street' when I was a kid, and when I found the little boxes of Whitman's.

I wish daddy could have seen this big old house. He would have loved it. He would have made sure there was always a box of Whitman's on the dining room table, just like in 'the old house' and just like at my grandmother's.

I love Christmas. I love the whole idea of Christmas. But after taking down all the decorations, I'm also glad that it's over. Christmas makes you think of everything that was and everything that could have been. Christmas makes you nostalgic and senseless. Or maybe it's just all that chocolate.

De-Christmasing the house...

Young Miss C is still with us..... we spent today taking down Christmas decorations in the living room and dining room. The process went much quicker than usual, with C taking charge of the 1950s aluminum tree, and helping me go back and forth from the front of the house to the very back of the house as the little table-top trees went up on the shelves of the storage closet. Instead of me having to go up and down the step-stool with each one, I just stayed there while C handed me each tree.

It was the perfect day for this job..... cloudy and dreary outside, with not a drop of sunshine. Started out cool this morning, but then warmed up after dinner-time. I'm hoping that tomorrow is a prettier day.

The only sign of Christmas in this house is the big tree in the dining room. We left that up for one more day, and tomorrow we'll take off the ornaments, then my husband can take off the lights.... and then out the tree goes into one of the pastures. It will become part of one of the brush-piles, and as the tall grasses grow over it, the brush-pile becomes a refuge for small animals and birds. Last year's tree is out there on a pile, and if you didn't know there was a fir tree under that mound of tall grass, you would think there's a little mountain in the middle of the field.

So that was the day.... taking down Christmas, getting lunch and dinner on the table for the three of us, C playing with the cats from time to time, playing cards, talking and laughing, C asking me what it's like to be in an Italian family ("Is it like being Sophia in The Golden Girls?"). It was just a nice normal day, like it used to be in the old house when we lived in the same subdivision and C would pop into our house several times a week. C does love this big old house, she loves the property, she is an outdoor girl... and when she comes out here, she doesn't want to leave.

C is older now, almost 20 and living with roommates in a rental house in Galveston near her college. She has grown into herself and is trying to figure out how to get what she wants out of life. My husband and I both told her to do something that she loves, so her life's work won't seem like a job... nothing worse than having to go into a job every morning without a smile on your face.

I have a feeling that no matter how many years pass, our 'young Miss C' is always going to be just that. And that is just another little miracle for which to be thankful.

Happy New Year

We have our young Miss C here for the weekend, along with her parents. We didn't get to see Miss C for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we're bringing in the New Year by celebrating Christmas together. Whatever works..... as C says.

I had started undecorating the house a few days ago, taking all the Christmas decorations out of the kitchen and the upstairs rooms, but I left the living room and dining room looking like the Christmas elves had come out to play. C's parents will go back to Clear Lake tomorrow, and C will stay with us for a couple of days. They came in separate cars, so C can leave whenever she wants. She doesn't know it yet, but when her parents drive off, C will become an elf and she will be helping me de-Christmas the house.

The first day of this new year didn't get as warm as expected, but the chickens didn't seem to mind. After having to coop them up earlier than usual yesterday (before we went to the 5:00 New Year's in Paris get-together) the hens were thrilled to be let out of the coop this morning. And the coop looked like the hens had a party in there after we left yesterday. The chickens aren't happy when they get locked in the coop before the sun goes down, and they let me know it by turning baskets upside-down, pecking at the paper that I spread out underneath their roosting bar, and leaving little surprise-puddles on the coop floor. When I went into the coop this morning, it looked as if a dozen teenagers had a slumber party in that coop. It took me twice the usual time to get everything straightened up and cleaned up in there this morning.

I'm just about all done-in for the day..... but the kitchen is cleaned up, the dining room table is set for the morning...... and I don't even have to cook breakfast. C's dad brought everything he needs to make homemade waffles in the morning, so he will be the chef. He has made waffles here before and they're very good. But truthfully, I wouldn't care what he was cooking, as long as I can just stand there and watch for a change. C's mom asked me what I missed about Clear Lake and I immediately told her All the great restaurants!