Time to serve supper, gotta run

 

   I keep going back-and-forth on the lights opinion:  They did not look so spectacular to me yesterday as they have in past years. Still can’t help loving them  Though Red obviously likes the snow better. 

    OSU lost the big game and Conference championship to Indiana last night in a late game, which was exciting enough to keep me up till 11 PM. Of course I’m sorry our home team lost, but can’t say I’m sorry Indiana won… What does that tell you?  I do like the Hoosier quarterback, and will look forward to watching his career in the future.  

   Ta ta for now. I’m hungry and the soup smells done.  

I take it back: GREAT city lights, WBK

 Not exactly wonderful, but jolly enough in person. And proves my point today.

   Which is that I often speak with unwarranted authority from presumption.  My judgment of our town Christmas lights is the example.  Yesterday’s comments were based on daytime, unlit viewing.  I saw them after (frigid) dark last night and will say now, “Best Ever!”  The colored strands were apparently moved to the park and also to augment some side streets in very effective contrasting concentrations of green, blue, red.  Well done, city maintenance workers!

    Perhaps relatedly, I’m seeing fewer individual neighborhood displays so far, including in my own house.  If I neglected to say it before, lights are my favorite Christmas tradition.

Snow squall me

 

   Yes, I do edit my photos, but some things just don’t look much better:)  I never was a fashionista;  I do like the snowflakes in the picture in the pic. And my blue glasses.  Color is my jam, so I happily report that I put up multicolored Christmas LEDs in the back room last night. So cheery.  Strangely, I’ve lost track of my pre-lit tree and other ornaments, so little newbies and fresh greens—wreaths, maybe a centerpiece—this year. Don’t think I failed to notice, Town Public Works, that you have replaced most of the colored lamp post lights on Main Street with white this year. I have boasted several years about my town’s Christmas lights, but the change to me is not for the better. It’s not “elegant,” as the debate used to declare. At best we might call it “more illuminating,” like a porch or store light.  It is color that brings the cheer in the cold, dark entree to winter.

Last year in the park

  

LLB Freeport a few years ago.  Then they switched to white lights.  

This is one of my all time favorite pictures.

Full moon tonight

 

   Can you tell this is a cut crystal sphere hanging in front of a full moon?  Super full moon, actually, October 6.  Pause and see what effects it has on you.  Might help account for my “communications issues.”  Must always bear in mind some friction improves things, even though uncomfortable.

Breakfast, she titled it

Barbara P’s picture, from Brother’s home, Colorado, in October 

   I lifted this image from a video B sent me after I mentioned in webinar the red tailed hawk I photographed in the park a couple of days ago.  The bird’s catch adds much emotional weight to the image.   Not exactly “Breakfast at Tiffany’s :)”  I am honored. We have a shared experience with observing these birds.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against  the dying of the  light.

DYLAN THOMAS

              I just spoke by phone with my dying sister eight hundred miles.  Very unhappy.

Beauty, at least its memory, remains.

   

   

 

What a noble little beast!

 

 This is from our canal trail walk yesterday. C said Red could be in the LLB catalo.  Dogs are just the best.  Such love and comfort as they give, I wish returned to all of them in full measure.

  I’m trying to list my grandson’s video blog on my Important Links so you can easily check it out. It’s YouTube@cursedsk1y. He’s nearly out of adolescence nownow and posting regularly since he was nine or ten, so a good place to meet him if you wish. He reviews music, games, electronic gear, and platforms; he posts music of his own composition with fine constructed images.  And occasionally he speaks about his own problems, a bit of autobiography, that is.  He has 770 subscribers.  I particularly like his music, which has shown real growth over the years, and of course his bio material.  Can you tell Gramma is proud of him?

Going back in time and memory

       Lots to remember and pictures help:  Timmy, beloved Peki, Cyrus and Sammy, playful bichons, and Allan with black hair.  Dec 22: 2005

This is hard to reopen

 

   S passed away and was celebrated then cremated March 3, 2021.  Her husband and son, I, took her ashes to California and placement in the K family plot.  Her boys  were fifteen years old.

Dessert and a Floor Show

Here's a picture recipe geared for young cooks,  particularly my grandson, Eeny.   No doubt it looks familiar since there's a Hershey bar variation usually completed outdoors on a campfire. (Don't need to say the S word, do we?)   I like this version because I don't have to wait for summer or set a fire but mostly because I get a giggle watching marshmallows puff up to three times their normal size.  Seeing the "show" is as much fun as eating this quick treat.

Nuke it for 15 seconds then "put the lid on it".
OF COURSE you can add chocolate on the bottom or peanut butter to the top...

  

...if you're not a marshmallow purist like me! 

I do think chocolate graham crackers would be right tasty, too,

but I haven't passed the thrill of honey-made and cinnamon yet.

So many delights, so little time!

True Vacationland

  An old biblical proverb declares that a prophet hath no honor in his own home.  A minor modern variant surely postulates that a tourist shuns vacations in her own state; until visitors come round and get the wheels rolling, anyway. The last week of July (2017), my three sisters arrived mid-afternoon in a driving rain storm.  We met up at When Pigs Fly, York, ME, to eat pizza then take home five different loaves  of their exceptional bread. We chose chocolate, orange  cranberry,  New York rye, apple cinnamon, and jalapeño olive.   I was having car troubles, so we pulled off at the rest stop between Route 1 and I-95.  A handsome black man  also stopped and offered his assistance to us four old biddies parked  in two aged cars under the dripping pine trees.  Interestingly, his name is Mr. Bible, and he works from Atlanta as a visiting nurse.  He helped me rig my fender and wheelwell back together  with dental floss and a rubber band, which, if you're wondering, did get me home  45 miles away.   That auspicious beginning launched us  to Benny's, Reny's, and Marden's--seafood, "a Maine Adventure,"  and our governor's former employer--among other places.
  A favorite was Temple Heights in Northport, a 19th century Spiritualist camp on a mountain by the sea facing Islesboro, only $45 per room per night and all the peace, healing, and relaxation you can stand.   We indulged ourselves in private readings, group message circles, and making smudge pots  under the auspices of two very competent mediums (media? I never know the correct plural in this odd case!).  One sister discovered a past life as Sarah Ruth McAllister, a missionary's daughter  who married into the Ojibways along the Dakato/Canada border in he early 1800's.  I, sorry to say, had been hanged  for something I didn't do as a slave somewhere in time.  My other sisters were waiting respectively for "William" or "Williams" and "Thomas" to enter their lives.   Sure enough, L's best friend is a Williams, and Shertle  started reading Thomas Merton to her delight when we returned home!  Besides our psychics, the Nickawa Lodge staff deserves mention for their kindness and friendliness.  And they all recommended The Whale's Tooth restaurant in Lincolnville for dinner,  where Shertle sampled her "Best Meal Ever!"--scallops and 'shrooms over linguine with a side of puréed butternut squash.  How did I miss that place when my son brought us all to Point Lookout cabins/resort in 2011?  No staff suggestions, presumably.  Whereas. it was Matt, our Temple Heights manager, who also recommended Bar Harbor over Boothbay for our whale watch adventure Sunday. And you can read how great THAT was on my other blog, Sandy's Shift.  Maybe, though, the proof is in the pictures.