The Weather Outside is Frightful
15/12/17 08:55
Brrrr rabbit! It's a frigid 10 degrees here on the seacoast. It's a far cry from the minus 9 in upstate NY but that is to be expected. Uncle Wally sent me a text with a map of the temperatures in the region and I replied with an animoji. "Damn, Bro!" "Is it really minus 9 up there in the Falls?" I might have said something about throwing an extra log or two on the fire but probably not since I know for a fact that his fireplace is one of those gas operated doohickeys with fake logs. It looks nice and throws off a little bit of heat but it ain't designed to heat your house. It just ain't. Yes, as they say in the movies, the weather outside is frightful but the fire is so delightful and since we have no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
I'm personally hoping for a bit of a thaw because I don't like the way the frost ridges have formed on our driveway and they are likely to be a problem if I have to run the snowblower anytime soon. It's bad enough that the end of our driveway is a horror show and if I've told Nancy once I've told her a million times we should have gotten the driveway repaved in 2017. How much of a price we pay for that indecision remains to be seen but we are not off to a good start. I gave some thought to running the hose out to the end of the driveway and creating a foundation of ice that will give me a flat surface to work with when removing snow in that section of the driveway with the snowblower. That idea works until the first thaw comes along and then I'm back to where I began. It becomes that much more unworkable when the town plow comes down our street so maybe getting out early and often is the key.
Does it surprise anyone that I have no ideas on what to buy for Nancy for Christmas? This is nothing new. I have this problem every year around this time. I just don't like buying things for the sake of buying things. That is what it feels like if I'm honest with myself. She can have anything she wants but she doesn't seem to want anything. We were talking about her iPhone this morning and all of the issues we've had with her phone since we purchased it with too little memory. I just don't know what we were thinking. I thought I could interest her in a new iPhone but that conversation went nowhere. I know if she had one she would love it, especially if it were a iPhone X, but she wasn't biting so where do you go with that? The right answer is, "nowhere." It is true that she has a hard time giving things up and if the phone that she has works then that is good enough for her. Not to worry, though, I'll think of something. I always do. If all else fails, she will buy what she wants and put it under the tree herself. Really?
We should be getting our tree today. It's on the list anyway. Evan was up and about shortly after Nancy left for her walk this morning. "How bout I make you some scrambled eggs and hash browns, Ev," I asked. "I'm not up yet," he responded. His hair was sticking out at odd angles and he still had sleep in his eyes as he poured himself a glass of water and headed back to his bedroom after taking a few sips. I should have known better than to engage him in conversation or anything else at this early hour being what it is. I mean, it's 9:30 am and for most of us the day is half over. I'm thinking about Christmas trees and he's wanting to go back to bed. Nothing more, nothing less. It's hard to tell how much longer he'll stay in bed since his door is typically closed and for all we know he could very well be awake and on his laptop. We've given up on expecting him to join us when we go looking for a tree and he may or may not call us when we're out to ask us to pick up something for him during our travels. That doesn't mean we won't ask him if he'd like to come along. He knows we know the answer to that question but we have to ask anyway. That's what parents do.
I'm very appreciative of the homemade strawberry jam and cinnamon raisin bread (right out of the oven) that our neighbor dropped off recently. I should e-mail her a note expressing my (our) appreciation. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I'm always quick to say "Thank you" when she delivers the bread so more often than not that seems sufficient. I have even offered to go over and pick up the bread if that would be easier for her. More often than not she declines which is fine with me - it's a short stroll so it doesn't matter one way or another. It also seems that I am the default point of contact when it comes to communicating with Betsi and Nancy relies on me to fulfill our obligations in that regard. In a funny sort of way it is a tit-for-tat kind of deal where I clear her driveway from time to time in the winter when we get just enough snow to have to clear but not so much where she needs to drag out her large Ariens snowblower to do the job. Neither of us has admitted as much but one is free to draw their own conclusions about this so-called faustian arrangement. Her bread, after all, is to die for.
My dilemma this time around is that I chipped the glass rim when opening up the container of jam and shards of glass went everywhere. I decided to throw away the container of jam rather than take a chance that someone would be swallowing glass when consuming the jam. Visions of either Nancy or Evan vomiting blood and convulsing or even lapsing into a coma after enjoying a slice of toasted cinnamon bread with strawberry jam was enough to move me without hesitation to toss the jam into the trash. So, do I thank her for the "delicious" jam or do I tell her the god's honest truth about the chipping thereby shaming her into giving me yet another jar of jam from her stash?
I know Betsi well enough to know that this is what she would be inclined to do and I don't want her to feel obligated to replace the jar that I threw away. I just don't. I've never been a good liar for better or worse and I'm hopeful that putting my note of thanks in writing will make whole ordeal less traumatic for all involved. Saying nothing is not an option. She will get the thanks she is so deserving of and my own words, while twisting and contorting in the wind where good lies go to die, will suffice as words are want to do. This may or may not be ironic, but I bought a jar of jam the day prior and didn't need the jar that she brought over but accepted it nonetheless without any mention of my "other" purchase. It was the neighborly thing to do. I'll do my best to be effusive in my praise of her bread while giving a mention but not much more of her jam. I'm willing to lie but not effusively so.
I'm personally hoping for a bit of a thaw because I don't like the way the frost ridges have formed on our driveway and they are likely to be a problem if I have to run the snowblower anytime soon. It's bad enough that the end of our driveway is a horror show and if I've told Nancy once I've told her a million times we should have gotten the driveway repaved in 2017. How much of a price we pay for that indecision remains to be seen but we are not off to a good start. I gave some thought to running the hose out to the end of the driveway and creating a foundation of ice that will give me a flat surface to work with when removing snow in that section of the driveway with the snowblower. That idea works until the first thaw comes along and then I'm back to where I began. It becomes that much more unworkable when the town plow comes down our street so maybe getting out early and often is the key.
Does it surprise anyone that I have no ideas on what to buy for Nancy for Christmas? This is nothing new. I have this problem every year around this time. I just don't like buying things for the sake of buying things. That is what it feels like if I'm honest with myself. She can have anything she wants but she doesn't seem to want anything. We were talking about her iPhone this morning and all of the issues we've had with her phone since we purchased it with too little memory. I just don't know what we were thinking. I thought I could interest her in a new iPhone but that conversation went nowhere. I know if she had one she would love it, especially if it were a iPhone X, but she wasn't biting so where do you go with that? The right answer is, "nowhere." It is true that she has a hard time giving things up and if the phone that she has works then that is good enough for her. Not to worry, though, I'll think of something. I always do. If all else fails, she will buy what she wants and put it under the tree herself. Really?
We should be getting our tree today. It's on the list anyway. Evan was up and about shortly after Nancy left for her walk this morning. "How bout I make you some scrambled eggs and hash browns, Ev," I asked. "I'm not up yet," he responded. His hair was sticking out at odd angles and he still had sleep in his eyes as he poured himself a glass of water and headed back to his bedroom after taking a few sips. I should have known better than to engage him in conversation or anything else at this early hour being what it is. I mean, it's 9:30 am and for most of us the day is half over. I'm thinking about Christmas trees and he's wanting to go back to bed. Nothing more, nothing less. It's hard to tell how much longer he'll stay in bed since his door is typically closed and for all we know he could very well be awake and on his laptop. We've given up on expecting him to join us when we go looking for a tree and he may or may not call us when we're out to ask us to pick up something for him during our travels. That doesn't mean we won't ask him if he'd like to come along. He knows we know the answer to that question but we have to ask anyway. That's what parents do.
I'm very appreciative of the homemade strawberry jam and cinnamon raisin bread (right out of the oven) that our neighbor dropped off recently. I should e-mail her a note expressing my (our) appreciation. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I'm always quick to say "Thank you" when she delivers the bread so more often than not that seems sufficient. I have even offered to go over and pick up the bread if that would be easier for her. More often than not she declines which is fine with me - it's a short stroll so it doesn't matter one way or another. It also seems that I am the default point of contact when it comes to communicating with Betsi and Nancy relies on me to fulfill our obligations in that regard. In a funny sort of way it is a tit-for-tat kind of deal where I clear her driveway from time to time in the winter when we get just enough snow to have to clear but not so much where she needs to drag out her large Ariens snowblower to do the job. Neither of us has admitted as much but one is free to draw their own conclusions about this so-called faustian arrangement. Her bread, after all, is to die for.
My dilemma this time around is that I chipped the glass rim when opening up the container of jam and shards of glass went everywhere. I decided to throw away the container of jam rather than take a chance that someone would be swallowing glass when consuming the jam. Visions of either Nancy or Evan vomiting blood and convulsing or even lapsing into a coma after enjoying a slice of toasted cinnamon bread with strawberry jam was enough to move me without hesitation to toss the jam into the trash. So, do I thank her for the "delicious" jam or do I tell her the god's honest truth about the chipping thereby shaming her into giving me yet another jar of jam from her stash?
I know Betsi well enough to know that this is what she would be inclined to do and I don't want her to feel obligated to replace the jar that I threw away. I just don't. I've never been a good liar for better or worse and I'm hopeful that putting my note of thanks in writing will make whole ordeal less traumatic for all involved. Saying nothing is not an option. She will get the thanks she is so deserving of and my own words, while twisting and contorting in the wind where good lies go to die, will suffice as words are want to do. This may or may not be ironic, but I bought a jar of jam the day prior and didn't need the jar that she brought over but accepted it nonetheless without any mention of my "other" purchase. It was the neighborly thing to do. I'll do my best to be effusive in my praise of her bread while giving a mention but not much more of her jam. I'm willing to lie but not effusively so.