The storm slid on a southwest to northeast slant south of us; Indianapolis got whammed and the snow reached up to the south of Fort Wayne. Der Bingle came up on I-75 in Ohio through slick snow, but entered a perfectly dry driveway here. It was cold here, though, and his car stood out in parking lots – it was the only one with crusted snow on it.

But last night, we had some and this morning we have a 2-hour delay at East Noble. I know; these trivial tidbits are boring. Our Christmas tree is up, but undecorated; that’s boring too. It does have a beautiful shape – maybe we should just go for the real nature look, although I do have that reel of colored lights I bought when the getting was good at Wal-Mart and carried around in my trunk for about a month.

Yes, I bought lights in November . . . because these days buying lights in December is too late. We could have a crazy decorating theme: one person holds the reel and another goes skipping through the house, letting the long, long strand play out. That would probably lead to tripping the light fantastic, which would lead to the ER.

I don’t know; maybe I should just wrap the lights around my head and flirt with electro-shock treatment. Or perhaps I already did that . . .

Der Bingle does not like The Irish Tenors; I have no idea why, but he just does NOT like them. And tonight I am listening to Fairytale of New York from the We Three Kings album.

Does anyone remember my listening to Count Your Blessings all the way from Kendallville to Fairborn? Well, that’s the way I’m listening to Fairytale of New York – over and over and over again. Each time through I wait for the part about the boys of the NYPD choir and Galway Bay. And each time I am relaxed because I don’t have to worry about Der Bingle whacking me on the head – not that he ever has . . . but he does have other ways.

I found a site on the Internet where there are instructions on how to make a 3-D paper snowflake. It is incredibly easy and looks like this when done the first time by a rank amateur (AJ).

I’ve made a bunch of them and some smaller ones, as well as the old standby – the construction paper chain. Actually, this is the most fun I’ve had in a long time . . . and I listened to Christmas songs too.

Now I need some cocktail shrimpies and whiffs of evergreen and the crackle of a fire and sparkling grape juice.

I didn’t click on the view post option this morning and so went all day before I realized there was a massive BOLD font accident. And then when I tried to fix it, I failed the first time. Perhaps it was good that I did not do much today.

The excitement, other than the above, “oh, my gosh” moment, was the arrival of my new ricer. The old one just totally gave up the ghost this Thanksgiving. This new one is all shiny, but the old one had a red handle . . . that eventually bent and was bent back using the handle of a wooden spoon for a brace until that also gave out. Of course, don’t let me confuse the issue – the handle stayed red, it just broke more. Breaking Bad maybe.

I think I am seeing a wisp of the old AmeliaJake in that last sentence.

Here’s a little ha-ha at AJ’s expense:

I have a small collection of old kitchen implements, many having been touched by people of five generations. When I was looking on the internet – actually, Der Bingle heard my “OH NO!” from the kitchen and started the search – I saw a picture of this odd-looking thing that is among my stuff . . . and then exclaimed, “That’s a ricer?!?” I guess all my young life, I was given the training wheel ricer while perhaps in another room the pros were using the sort of art deco-looking one.

I’m going to have to try it, although I can see myself sending a potato sailing toward the ceiling.

Okay, it’s all nice and dark outside just like it’s been the past four to five days that I haven’t posted anything and don’t remember doing much of anything. The pattern may hold, even though I have just stopped in to say “Hi.” I can understand my not doing anything, but it is odd that I am not expressing my opinion/observations about something.

When I was little, my parents were always telling me: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Heck, after all these decades could I finally be heeding that advice? Oh, I so strongly doubt it.
JOE BIDEN IS A JERK!
Okay, I was right; that’s not it.

Gee, you don’t think I’m in my tsunami mode do you? Pulling back, pulling back, pulling back and them just totally bombarding this space with big surges of words?

Oh, you know I can’t hear musical tones . . . but last night Clara and I sang cheerful Christmas carols in the room. I relied on “grin power” to mitigate the tonal part; it kind of worked.

So I have come back here on a quiet Thanksgiving night; I am feeling better and we are having the Turkey Thanksgiving on Saturday. I imagine it won’t be a sit down dinner – more of a buffet with turkey and a few “tasties”. I would guess this is a year of a transitional holiday season and maybe it is fitting it began with a lingering flu. It is the start of a take each day as it comes stage; in face, I think this year will close the door on past traditions and begin a stint of letting each Christmas be what it will.

I think this is the year we take our collective deep breath to do that, letting each be unique. I also think I am being redundant, a trait honed when stretching term papers required to be of a certain length. Do they still do that anymore? And, even if they do, it’s different with word processors and printers. I imagine there had to be a font size maximum set . . .

It was a slow day and we, Der Bingle and I, watched part of the marathon of James Bond movies on the Syfy channel. Then Summer and Cameron joined us for what has become a tradition in its own right – watching bad Redbox movies. When the second one proved to be too bad for all of us, we went back to James Bond.

I find it hard to switch from Pierce Brosnan and Judi Dench’s relationship of seasoned and trusted spy/spymaster to Daniel Craig and Dench’s introductory phase of Bond’s career. I think somewhere along the line they should have dropped the James Bond continuing link and followed the story of the 007 spies. But, of course, these are not movies one watches for character development or mature dialogue. At one point, I suggested to Der Bingle that the writing staff probably brought in 13-year-old boys to script some of the “wit” of Bond. And it occurs to me as I type that perhaps only now am I realizing the meaning of male bonding. Oh, well.

I am out of my groove, or rut, and maybe that is a good thing; it is somewhat unsettling, however. So I will talk with Rose and she will listen . . . because she is, as all those who know her are aware, most kind. No one can deny it.

Because I have been under the weather and on the sofa, I have done nothing. I often do nothing, but this time there has been a legitimate reason . . . and since my stomach is still a little unsettled after a bit of food, I imagine I will come to a “legitimate” decision about tomorrow.

(In the back of my mind is the thought right now: If I puke after having just taken a shower, I am going to be really pissed.)

However, today I decided to lean the artificial and very skinny Alpine tree toward me and maybe wrap some new lights on it. Even leaning, it was a little awkward and then this happened.

But that’s okay because I remembered this tree was one of three – like THE infamous bears – and, being the tallest one, its top was supposed to come off. I need to remember this when I move it in its decorated, with sock monkeys and cows, state. I WILL be moving it because it is the tree that leans a lot and I have to put it someplace where I can use raffia or ribbon to anchor it upright. It also lifts right off its X-shaped faux wood stand, if anyone forgets this and tries to hurriedly adjust it.

I wouldn’t call it a problem tree or a troubled tree and certainly not a delinquent one, but it is a bit unstable and thus the counselor sock monkeys and the soothing lowing of leaning cows.

Although I once vowed to use informative post titles, I must have been lying, because I almost never do. Today, however, I am making it real clear, because today, I am introducing an Etsy Shop, where you can get the softest, most comfortable knit things to order. I know because I have some. Remember this post:

SCARVES? Okay, the title was really This made my day and I scarfed it up, but we’ll call it scarves today. No, the “but we’ll call it scarves today”, wasn’t part of the original title, but my brain’s a little off.

(Excuse me while I brace myself for a torment of sarcastic remarks about that last clause. . . )

Okay, back to SCARVES:

Sue now has a shop – Strands of Purls and it is HERE. Sometimes I wear one of her scarves for style, sometimes for extra warmth, and sometimes I just wrap the softness around my neck and head and relax – you realize you can breathe through knitting, which helps.

She’s creative and will knit to fit your taste . . . and requirements. Here’s a little evidence of that:
Iowa City tree knitting.

You have to give and take when you read a lot of books, especially now that more writers are able to make their work available on the Internet. I have really enjoyed the storytelling ability of some authors and then grinned an an ending that, if visualized, would look like a present wrapped by a clumsy four year old. Some others have good plots but the writing is lacking; of those I am more judgmental and often just wait for a better writer to steal the plot and run with it.

Sometimes an author, yes, you Robert Ludlum – for one, will launch into a political diatribe and I just pick up those pages in my right hand and flip them over unread. Every now and then some writer will take out his disdain for a recent historical figure by making a thinly veiled character seem like a total bozo. I have discovered that, in my opinion, authors who do this tend to be not that good overall at all. Reading  ingredients is better than reading what they have written.

So I do stop reading bad books; I make that call. I have stopped reading some books of good reputation because the subject matter has upset me so – Little Red Riding Hood being one. They have been fiction books and I haven’t seen the need to torture myself for the dubious honor of finishing what I began.

There is a book, non-fiction, from which I had to take a break. It is extremely well-written and the story it tells is riveting. It is Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. I wrote quite some time ago that I had coughed up a double-digit price for the Kindle version. I started reading all about this young Italian-American fellow named Louis Zamperini whose ability to run took him to the Olympics. I read about his flight training and missions in a B-24 and about the long time he spent adrift in the Pacific.

Then I got to the part where he and his lone companion finally reached an island, only to be picked up by a Japanese ship, whose captain turned them over to the military. I made it some pages into the account and then just had to stop. The short but vivid paragraphs about the Rape of Nanking had jolted me into seeing what was to come for this Olympic POW. I had to take a break.

Then I found myself afraid to go on – tense and close to tears, sort of like when I told my father “No more,” and slipped off his lap at the Red Riding Hood fiasco. I just stopped thinking about it – that is thinking about when I would finish – and now I realized that I am too good at putting it off.

I have started reading again, but to prepare myself, I looked up some facts about what is to come in the book. I am embarrassed that I am wary of my feelings of just reading about what others actually endured, minute by minute. And I am reminded of an American POW I interviewed who told me of returning to see enemy POW’s working fields and being well-fed in the United States, as he made his way home to Indiana.

I also found out that Zamperini came to forgive them, that Billy Graham influenced him. I’m not one to understand that, but that doesn’t surprise me. I’m just hoping that at the end I find that Zamperini and Graham at least added, “but don’t ever do it again.”