A wintry afternoon—and a big little thing

 

Jordan's basket of lap robes.

Ah, Texas! It’s 71 degrees out, but the late afternoon sun has a definite wintry glow to it. Golden and lovely, but it speaks to me of colder temperatures. And the trees which last week still had lots of leaves are tonight almost bare. Tonight the low is 56 and tomorrow a cold front, with cold to continue through the weekend and a storm predicted for Christmas Eve. Tonight, we’ll take advantage of the sort-of-balmy weather and have a fire on the patio. It’s Tuesday night and our regular Tuesday-night neighbors are coming for wine by the fire. Jordan now has a colorful basket of blankets that she brings out to cover chilly laps. It may be 71 now, but it cools so rapidly once the sun goes down.

The big news around here today is that the free-standing basketball hoop and the tetherball, both of which Jacob has outgrown, are gone from the driveway. The tetherball went to a neighbor with young kids, and I think he just walked it home. But loading the heavy and awkward hoop on a pickup was a major production. I watched from my window as Jordan, Jacob, and the gentleman who came for it struggled to situate it in the truck so it would stay. From what I could see, the guy ultimately decided that bungee cords would be superfluous, so they worked hard to balance it. I hope he drove slowly and carefully to wherever he was going.

It’s not so much that Jacob has outgrown the hoop but that his focus now is so totally on golf. I would guess he manages some golf four or five days a week. His Austin cousin, Ford, on the other hand, is totally focused on basketball and has just made a city-wide team. So nice to see these boys find activities at which they can excel and which hold their interest. Ford’s older brother, Sawyer, has chosen bike riding (the gymnastic kind where he shattered an elbow) but his main love is really his guitar. And Kegan in Tomball is an extraordinary soccer player—he now has a kick coach.

I’m glad to have the driveway free and clear once again. With the basketball hoop lying on its side, it always looked slightly like a disaster area to me. Now a car picking me up can drive much closer to the cottage, and I don’t have to struggle with the holes and dips in our ancient driveway. We are notorious for having the worst driveway in town—built for skinny 1920s cars. Those of us who drive it daily (or did) can do it automatically, knowing just where to cut the wheel, but I have friends who refuse to try it and a couple who have given up in the middle of backing out and asked Jordan to do it for them.

Sophie misbehaved this morning, and that’s putting it mildly. The minute she was out the door, at seven-thirty, I knew we were in trouble. She exited barking. Apparently the squirrel network sent out word she was in the yard, and they gathered to taunt her. She runs frantically, yipping all the while, and she gets so excited her bark turns into a squeak. I’m fairly useless at going after her when she’s so excited, so there I was sitting in the doorway with a piece of cheese in my hand, futilely calling out “Cheese!” every time she came anywhere close to me. She didn’t care. She was in another zone. So Jordan came out and announced, “If I was you neighbor, I’d shoot your dog.” She got her in, and when Sophie, having not learned the lesson of the morning, wanted to go out again, I yelled. Yes I did. And then Sophie and I had to make up. And Jordan and I had to start the day over again. And I kept thinking that love conquers all—sometimes not at seven-thirty in the morning.

Barbecue tonight for supper, from Railhead. But from now on, we’re eating slim. Getting read for big feasts on Thursday and Friday. If you can’t celebrate with family, eating well is the next best revenge. Doesn’t exactly sound like one of Jesus’ teachings, but for this year it must do.

A soliloquy on winter mornings

Winter, for me, somehow seems most heartless in the mornings. Growing up in Chicago, winter mornings were cold with deep snow. When I was quite young, I didn’t think much about cold mornings but anticipated going sledding. We lived in a park with a small hill that was just right for a five- or six=year-old to sled.  By the time the neighbor children and I reached ten or eleven, we were bored with the hill’s smallness.

My mom used to save statistics she found in the newspaper about how much soot fell per square foot in Chicago during the winter. I was young long enough ago that many households still used coal for heat. We did at least until I was in my teens, and my dad would get up extra early to light the furnace and shovel coal. And snow never stayed white for long—all that burning coal turned it a dirty gray.

In Missouri, where I was in graduate school in the small town of Kirksville,  winter mornings were even worse. Everyone in that town burned coal, and I remember waking up and looking out the window and wishing just once I could see something over than that vast expanse of gray snow.

I think I found the kind of winter mornings I dreamt of in Santa Fe when the children, as teens and older, and I would go for Christmas. Eventually those became ski vacations, though I never went near the slopes—couldn’t bear the thought of the ski lift nor of standing on top of a mountain and plunging down it. But the snow was clean and deep, and the air was that crisp cold.

By contrast, winter mornings in Texas should be easy, but I have let myself become spoiled. I have pushed those extreme cold memories so far back that I moan and groan on mornings like we had today. Thirty-seven and wet, dismal, damp, bone-chilling. Today, it set the mood for a stay-at-home day, and I cancelled plans to go to a breakfast meeting. Of course by noon, things changed, and the sun came out, though it’s been cold all day. But we didn’t get the snow that had been promised—and I am just as glad.

When my children were little, we had a beloved housekeeper who used to predict cheerfully that it would “fair off,” and sure enough today, it faired off enough that I felt guilty about not doing my errands. But I’ll do them tomorrow when it’s supposed to be warmer.

Even Sophie with her thick curly coat doesn’t like the cold. Tonight she doesn’t want to go outside, though I have tried to explain  that she needs to go pee now, because we aren’t going at three in the morning. She is curled up in a chair, regarding me with baleful eyes. I’ll have to resort to bribery with a piece of cheese.

I’ve been feeling sorry for myself even before the weather turned, because I’ve been fighting off a cold. A couple of nights ago I couldn’t sleep because a scratchiness in my throat kept making me cough. It turned briefly into a sore throat, then just a tightness in my throat, and tonight I am left with just an annoying cough. Wish I knew what I did with that abundant supply of cough drops I used to have.

Jordan and I had a lunch fiasco which didn’t brighten the day. I opened one of those boxes of tomato soup from Trader Joe’s. It turned out that the foil covering was punctured before I opened it, and I had stored the soup in the pantry, not the refrigerator, We didn’t figure all this out until I’d taken several spoons full and found it quite good. But discussion led us to figure out that neither of us opened it, and that was a bad thing. Jordan refused to eat it, and I threw out mine, hers, and the remainder. I hate to waste food!

Sophie has just gone outside and quickly come back in, and Jacob has brought me some cough drops. All is well with the world—I hope it is in your world too.

Winter, pause for thought, and a thought on vanity

            It’s a wintry cold day in Fort Worth, the kind of damp cold that chills to the bone, or as old-timers would say, to the marrow. A morning trip to the grocery made me cold for the day. My cottage is cozy, but it has lots of windows, and since it’s an old structure at heart, it’s drafty. I long for a fireplace, but there’s no room for it.

My ego has suffered a terrible blow. A couple of weeks ago, Jacob confided he had asked a certain girl to be his valentine. When I asked what that meant, he shrugged and said he’d probably take her to dinner. I heard no more about it, but Jordan announced the other day that she and Christian would be going out that night, and I would have Jacob for supper. Valentine’s happens to be a Wednesday (and also, in an odd twist, Ash Wednesday). That’s the night my weekly dinner pal Betty and I go to supper, and she said Valentine’s didn’t matter. So I asked Jacob if he’d like to bring said girl to dinner with me and his “Aunt Betty.”

The answer was a definite negative shake of the head. I have to say it was delivered with one of his charming smiles and a sparkle in his eye. But he was clearly appalled at the thought. “Why?” I asked. “Is it because we’re old.” The head shake was affirmative this time, though the grin stayed in place.

I have to admit I was taken back. I don’t think of myself as old, and it . .. well, it hurt my feelings a bit, that he sees that as my defining characteristic. Jordan said he wouldn't even let his parents take them to dinner and is trying to get up some groups event. Still, I’ll have to get his oldest cousin to talk to him. Once last summer she drove over from Frisco to have supper with me, and when I thanked her for coming all this way to see an, old lady, she assured me I’m fun. Maybe when Jacob’s eighteen instead of eleven!

I’ve been thinking about the occupant of the White House and vanity. A friend posted that 45 has done so much bad that people attach anything bad to him, whether it’s his fault or not. I agree, but he bulls through life with such belligerence and such lack of grace that it’s hard to muster any sympathy.

I saw a picture the other day of him boarding his plane. The wind was up, and it played havoc with his hair, exposing the very bald back of his head. I might feel sympathy for another man—or woman—similarly exposed, but all I could think was what crashing vanity compelled him daily to construct that elaborate and unattractive hairdo. Why doesn’t he adjust to baldness, like thousands of others do? Or at least wear a hat.

Thought for the day: The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. So, folks, adjust your sails and stay warm this wintry weekend. And, Mr. Trump, get a fedora.