First? Frost of Fall

 Tonight's the night!

Put on the socks, wrap a quilt around my head and shoulders, wrap my hands around a hot cuppa (for me, coffee) and sit on the porch.

It rained today, so the light is shimmering.

The lowering temperature has the air smelling so clean.

The clean smell of falling leaves and fading greens; of pollen-heavy goldenrod and foxtails, and all those plants. Not so heavy, tonight, the pollen, because of the earlier, settling rain.

of long darkened evenings and darkening days and long nights ahead when warmth is the best aroma and even in our electric or gas or other technology age, the scent of warmth calls to mind woodfires and cooked food and family.

Too soon the coming cold will be tiresome.

Too soon,the wet, dark evenings will be an annoyance.

We'll be over it.

the plants will die, the greens will brown, and the trees will be bare.

But for now, for tonight, we can enjoy the changes in the air.

We can cherish the passing of the seasons.

We can await the coming hours of darkness knowing that, one way or another, the light will come again.

Eventually.

And the cuppa warms the hands, the nose, and the heart as surely as the socks and quilts warm the body

Old is New

Being old is a new thing. At least, being this old at this young an age. There are plenty of people living the dream of 60 being the new 40.
Lucky them.

Me, at not quite 62. I feel more like 82. Some days maybe even 102. I envy those 'young' people. I always thought I'd be one of them.

I thought walking would keep me young(er) forever.

And then it kept getting more and more difficult.

Now, as well, as not walking, I'm grossly overweight.
I hurt. My back spasms. My hips are randomly stiff. My butt muscles tighten and ache. My knees buckle. My ankles roll. My feet swell.

I feel cold.

I'm beginning to have trouble hearing as well as visual problems. Even though my basic vision, thanks to last year's cataract surgeries, is better than it has been for years.

The cold is as much a surprise as the not walking. Cold hasn't especially bothered me much in my life. Put on more clothes, wear socks; that takes care of that.
Except that it no longer does.
The cold is inside me, working its way out.
In my bones.
A part of my bones, liquid and silvery.
And shivery.

Some days I feel frail, fragile, and feeble. It's an odd feeling in a body the size of a cow. Anyone this large should feel somewhat strong, even if it's "only" the strength of a steamroller.

I hate it.
I hate this.
I don't want to be prematurely old.
I also don't want to be an old person acting stupid-young. Although who really gets to define that? After a certain age and a certain amount of living, we should all be able to be ourselves: silly, shivering, happy, sad, glad, mad -- our best or truest self isn't anyone else's business.

It's a New Year, but it isn't a New Me.
It's an Old me.
And getting older.

Weather Winter

What a crazy few days it has been with the weather.
Temps were near or at 70 over the weekend.  Today I don't think we got out of the forties.

Terrible storms Sunday night, just terrible.
Not as bad, here, as it was west of us. Here, we had a few doppler-indicated tornadoes, and there were a few hysterics who saw funnel clouds in the pitch dark and through pouring rain.
In Illinois and Indiana, there were real, visible, man-eating home-wrecking horrific tornadoes. The destruction is -- there are no words.
One air view of the path, you can see that there were several lottle twisters from one storm cloud/ base, whatever you call it. Like massaging fingers from a massive hand, reaching, seeking, pinching, squashing.

Here we had lots of strong winds and heavy rain.

And Tammy and her babies live in a trailer in a trailer park. I had taken Hailey home not many hours earlier.
I was worried about them, as always, but it seemed there was even less than usual to do. I turned the tvs on weather channels and local channels, and kept an eye on the approaching storm, by going in and out on the porch.
But I was afraid in the Old Way, of the storms that I can't stop and can't do anything about.
Who knew Rex sitting in his chair telling me to stay inside was such a fear diffuser? I missed him so, when I wasn't being a quaking coward.
And sometimes even when I was.

Now it is cold, and getting colder. True winter temperatures are supposed to arrive over the next few days, with snow on or by the weekend. We've already had one ground covering snowfall, and a brief cold snap.

And in between these winter weather advance-and-retreat maneuvers, my precious rosebush is sporting a bud from a died-back limb. A perfect teardrop of a rosebud, where there was no green or no growth, and where the very weather itself was against anything growing, let alone blooming.

Even as  winter comes, there can be a flowering.
Even then.

A New Page of the Calendar

Well, October the Horrible is over.
It's November now.
Cold.
The first snow flying.
Thanksgiving.
November 2013. The first November in 27 years that I won't have my chosen companion to spend it with.
There's a germ of acceptance in the turning of the page.
A grimness.

But the calendar is only doing what a calendar does. Marking time passed.

I know that this year, it will be different finding things to be thankful for.
I hope one of the things will be a job.
Another would be a place for independent living.
But even if those don't happen, I will still have my wonderful sisters to be thankful for, my friends (and don't  let anyone tell you Facebook friends aren't 'real'. They are more real than the next door neighbors.), my daughters, my grandbabies. For November, I have a roof over my head and enough to eat.

Maybe December will change that or maybe it won't.

I won't know until it is once again time to turn a new page on the calendar.

I Want Summer

I want summer! I want it to come. I am tired of rain and fog, rain and clouds, rain and … you get the idea. I want it to be summer, and I want it now.

I want the flowers; the roses and honeysuckle that sweeten the air. I want to see fields glowing with greens, from the first fuzzy yellow haze of beans to the grass green of corn. I want to watch the colors of the treetops deepen; from spring green to their deep summer shades.

I want it to be warm. No, I want it to be HOT. I want to sweat, I want the air to sweat, and bring closer all the sweet perfumes of growth.

I want the dry scent of dust to clog my nose and tickle my throat. I want to smell the ripening of tomatoes and blackberries. I want to open the window and know that some neighbor has freshly mown his lawn.

I want days that linger, even after the sun has gone. I want light to remain in the sky, coloring the white puffy clouds above me. I want long gorgeous sunsets that last for hours, painting the brilliant blue skies with petal pinks and vivid oranges. I want to listen to the children playing up and down the street, to hear the roar of the crowd at the Little League games behind the school. I want to go to sleep to the purr of a weed-eater, and waken to the roar of a lawn mower. I want to hear the gentle spitter-spat of water sprinklers and the splashings from swimming pools. I even want to hear the nerve-grating chorus of cicadas as I try to sleep.

Come, summer, with your warmth and your beauty. Chase away these rainclouds that cause the days to drag and the nights to blur. Bring to me your clear sharp colors, your clean, crisp scents, and your soul-awakening sounds. Bring me your warmth, your light, your joy.

My Good News/ Bad News Life

We all knows what happens during the coldest part of the winter, right?

Several of my friends know. Your furnace quits running.  (Adams County Heating and Cooling is currently getting rave reviews on my Facebook. They are Johnny-on-the-spot, and get the job done.)

If only that was my problem.

 

We're out of fuel. We do have some Kerosene, got it for that first big snowstorm. Have credit at Community Fuels in West Union. We can use that to buy jugs of K, but had hoped to get enough paid in to get a delivery. Guess that won't happen now.

But I also have electric heaters for every room, as long as we keep them on the low setting. Just what you need to do during a freeze wave. If we put them on high, they trip the breakers. Hooray for old houses.

 

EXTRA NEWS:The wick is all burnt up in the stove we have here at the house! We have other stoves, in storage, miles away across the ice and snow and cold.

 

I'm back in my good news/bad news Life Story. Someone screwed up -- I wasn't getting bored yet! Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter!

More Snow, More Cold -- but less of "The" Cold

It is winter, after all. We aren't even out of January yet.
I have some curiosity about what February will bring. February is usually when we get the worst of winter, although there have been a few 'big snows' in early March.
Recent years, though, the weather has seemed to have shifted about six weeks in its changes -- which would have us warming up for spring in February, if that were to hold true.

I don't think it will. For one thing, in spite of the perceived pattern shift, our recent winter storms have been in February. On one 02/10/09 and then on 02/09/10 -- I have the dated pictures to prove it. For another thing, the early nature signs are lacking. No greens peeking and poking out of the ground, no subtle changes in the dull gray branches of the trees.

I know, because I've been looking.

Time will tell.

On the home health front, this nasty cold is finally loosening its grip. I can stay awake now, and when I'm awake, I can actually do things, like dishes. Like sweeping. Like taking out garbage. I am thrilled, even when I have to stop to catch my breath. Because I got so much more done before I had to breathe this time!

Hooray for healing!

In the Box

Advertising is weird, and keeps getting weirder. At the least, it is out of touch with how people actually live. And I wonder if the package designers are the ones selling the product instead of the product manufacturers.

I am talking about cold medicines. The monkey on the cell phone, the man watching the movie. Especially the man watching the movie. He coughs so his wife can't hear the denouement, so she runs to the bathroom and takes a BOX of cough syrup out of the medicine cabinet. Then, when the child comes down coughing, she gives him the box.

Wouldn't it be more effective to give him the medicine? How many of us keep cold medicines in their boxes, after they've been used? If we have vast spacious medicine cabinets, we may put the boxed product in there until it's opened, but wouldn't we throw the box away after that? And do we hand off the package to our children so they can self-dose?
(My evaluation of the situation is that people who keep medicine in boxes in their cabinets must be a little on the stupid side. Just my opinion.)

As for the monkey-- well, he's either in his bed on the computer or standing in the cold aisle with his $ell phone. He's choosing his symptoms and picking out which ones he has to choose the proper meds. In the at- home- in -bed ad he then goes out to buy what he needs.

I want that monkey's cold. He can have the one I've had this week. My version of shopping for the cold has been to go into the store and grab something that has worked in the past. Standing waiting for checkout takes all my energy. I ain't standing in the aisle reading labels or applying phone applications.
I'm sick, I want medicine, and I want to go home.

And if the medicine is a bottle in a box, you can bet I'm not going to put the darned bottle back in the box before I go to bed -- without monkeying on my computer!