Ho, hum, winter. Even the geese are dragging their feet.
Greetings, this 19°F/-4°C day. The house is awash in books as T. is approaching the end of her reading session for the Cybils awards, our concerts are over for the year and our house is a disaster and our wits are disordered. (Oh, right, you can say “as usual” if you want to, but just know the ice you’re standing on is very, very thin.) Speaking of ice — it is maddening. For now, the snow has covered the worst of the black ice, but cabs still can’t get up our hill, and we’ve taken to getting into our place around the back. D. took a really bad tumble the other day and we believe that he’s cracked a few ribs. Nevertheless, this didn’t stop him from deciding that he wanted to show T. the fountain with all the ice on it on the way to the museum this weekend. Against her better judgment, T. went along, and we crept, slid, and slithered our way to the park.
A trip which should have taken fifteen minutes took us a solid hour. It is NOT the time to go gallivanting about, unless one has a well-padded backside, and/or the wherewithal to land well and laugh. The city is full of the veritable walking wounded; a choir acquaintance had to have a music stand at our last concert because her arm was encased in a temporary cast, and she couldn’t hold her folder or turn pages. One of our acquaintances who is an adjunct professor at the University fell flat on his back crossing the street, and was up and smiling ruefully moments later. Ten days on, however, he’s still feeling twinges, and is cranky at his much-reduced mobility. The clinics are simply looking people over and sending them on (sans painkillers, our choir friend complained), admitting that they are full up with a rash of bonked heads and bruised elbows. We are grateful that D. didn’t hit harder — really grateful. Hot tubs are sounding pretty good about now, we only hope, with the forecast ramping up for ridiculous weather again, that we can make it on our magical mystery tour.
As previously reported, Sunday night was our final concert for the year, and it was an unqualified success, to our surprise. Christmas songs are tricky to do well at any time; the old standards and favorites turn into either a nostalgic mush or the new ones are so jarring as to be unpleasant, and in a concert, there’s the chance that the audience will be bored out of their gourds, or unhappy that classics aren’t being represented. We had a good mix of old and not normally sung and, oddly, movie music, but we belted out Rutter’s arrangement of The Twelve Days of Christmas and the theme song for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace with equal aplomb.
Baker’s rule: you can eat the ones you have to redo.
The second half of the concert was sheer silliness as the orchestra and chorus donned strobing headgear — Christmas tree hats, fluffy marabou halos, blinky bow ties, strings of garland, reindeer horns, and the works, and encouraged lots of audience participation in caroling, and the uniquely British tradition of pulling crackers. T. felt a tiny bit stupid backstage as she was handed a cracker and two “party poppers.” “Okay, what am I supposed to do with these?” she blankly asked her section leader, who smacked herself in the forehead in apology, and showed T. how they worked. T. waited politely through the explanation — she knew that much; since they’re sold for the 4th of July and New Year’s in the U.S. — but her question was WHY do we have noisemakers, and what are we doing with them in the middle of the concert?! This was never sufficiently answered, so she just popped off her popper when everyone else was making noise, and shrugged.
Sadly, D. had to sit out the second half of the fun, as he almost took a swan dive offstage when his blood pressure bottomed out. As his FIRST fall had only been the previous day, he figured it was the better part of valor to sit down until he could escape.
T. made a rare visit to the kitchen and baked sugar cookies (or butter biscuits, as she heard them called) for her section, waking at six to bake and chill and pipe away. They were accepted with surprise, and though T. is a well-known curmudgeon and Bah Humbug aficionado, her section briefly thought she was of cheerful and sweet disposition. Little do they know.
Cookie fever.
The cold is bringing out an host of unique creatures… squirrels, which run across frozen ponds, begging, pigeons, which run toward people in the park, again, begging, and the most disgusting, fattest, shiniest, largest palmetto-bug sized COCKROACH we had EVER seen, at the pool. Possibly begging, though it looked to just be kickin’ it poolside.
Months ago, when T. crossed several lanes to escape a floating spider, her friend Val said dryly, “Wait til y’see the roaches.” Neither of us really understood… and now we do. And are properly grossed out.
And on that note…HAPPY HOLIDAYS! ::snicker::
D. if your blood sugar is dropping like that you really would benefit from getting off of carbs. Of course you’d have to go to eating, meats, fish, chicken, turkey, pork, vegetables, fruits, eggs, nuts, and seeds, some dairy too. No potatoes, soy or corn. No grains of any kind. I had blood sugar drops all the time when I ate carbs and lots of sugars, no more and I’m never hungry on this Primal way of eating. Let’s face it we were not meant to eat all these carbs they are not natural to how we evolved. Well it’s an idea anyway. I used to be a vegetarian myself and switched over. Question don’t people wear ice cleats there? We have no trouble here in Alaska with ice we drive on studded tires all winter. Nan
Hey, Nan:
People DO use ice cleats. WE use ice cleats, all the time. The ice cleats available here aren’t the mountain climbing sort; the spikes are less than an inch long, so very hard ice is impervious to them. Chains are illegal here, as the Powers That Be fear that they will damage the road (!) and so no cables, no chains, only snow tires and ineffectual cleats = lots of falls. Everyone does what they can, of course, but Glaswegians aren’t Canadians, and they’re having trouble adjusting to the idea that THIS IS THE NEW NORMAL… because it “never” used to be like this, to hear some people talk. (While others find this reminiscent of their childhoods. Who knows.)
As for D’s blood sugar; thank you for your information, but his trouble is linked to his body depleting of salts… a bit more complicated, which is typical D., of course. 😉
I bruised a finger trying to pry one of those cookies off of my computer monitor. Sorry to hear about your ribs, D – will any of that magic Scottish Vicodin work? Meanwhile, wishing you safe steps to the airport to your mystery location!
Wish we could send you cookies!
Happy First Christmas together, you newlywed!
I will echo Barry’s sentiments about those beautifully enticing cookies! Glad to hear the concerts went well–always a balancing act at this time of year between the traditional and newer carols/songs. Please be careful on all that ice–and with the blood pressure drops–had a soprano lying on the floor this weekend prior to singing with that same issue.
What was worse was the LIGHTS! Yikes! We were all either feeling drafts and shivering, or very warm. And of course, we were sitting on risers (during the orchestral bits) and we were just cheek-by-jowl up there. Fun, but hard on the bod.