WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY

Dear Santa:

The time for asking for dollies has long passed, but if you could find it in your heart to bring one of your “nice” believers a new laptop for Christmas, it would be greatly appreciated. You see, my four-year-old laptop has been a workhorse, but it might be time to put it out to pasture where old, hard-working laptops spend the rest of their lives. I see that you now use e-mail and author a blog – I do too and you’ll have to check mine out sometime! And you have really outdone yourself with your handy-dandy webcam that allows all of us to check out what games the reindeer are playing. Well Santa, I, too, use my computer many hours a day. I fact, sometimes I feel I am permanently tethered to it. Today, during a rigorous stretch of revisions my backspace key flipped off the keyboard. Oops! Okay, I caught it before it fell on the floor, after it somersaulted through the air and bounced off the screen and landed upside down by the “Escape” key. For a minute, I said “oh my, it’s alive” and I decided it was making some kind of a point quite frankly. I quickly grabbed up the backspace key, but the little bugger was slippery, and then I broke a nail trying to fix the retaining hinge to pop it back on. Grrrrrrrrrr. I persevered and it finally snapped on … whew!!! But soon thereafter, although I mashed it down pretty hard, it started getting a little topsy-turvy and rocking back and forth. I thought a sledgehammer would be in order next, but I managed to get it attached again albeit with a somewhat shaky status now. Even though I like to think I am a near-perfect typist, I do make the occasional mistake and backspacing is key to my job (if you’ll pardon the pun of course). Mousing around is way too slow and Control and left arrow just don’t cut it Santa dear. The lettering on the keyboard keys, especially “E”, “R”, “T” and “I”, “O”, “P” vanished over a year ago, and though I try to keep a stiff upper lip through it all, it is a royal pain when I stray off my “home keys”. Sigh. So, Santa Baby, though I could not attempt to rival Eartha Kitt’s sultry requests to you, I am hoping that since I’ve been nice all year (never naughty … not this girl), that you’ll grant this wish for me. Just to jog your memory Santa, remember when I was a little tyke, I only asked for two things every year which was a moderate request – just sayin’. Also of note, even though everyone said you were not for real, I begged to differ with them … I still do, actually. It is them who are non-believers, certainly not I. So, Santa Sweetie – if you think this Christmas wish is excessive, well I’ll just muddle through somehow hobbling along with my wobbly backspace key and I’ll understand. As a little enticement however … after midnight on Christmas Eve, I’ll leave the side door open, and you just come up into the kitchen. I’ll clear a little space on the kitchen table, next to the delicious cookies and ice-cold milk I’ll be leaving out, just in case you bring a new laptop with you. I’ll be fast asleep, not dreaming about sugarplums, but a solution to my typing dilemma. P.S. I have a high-efficiency furnace so perhaps you don’t want to squeeze down the chimney, as it’ll be a cold slide down. P.P.S. – If the laptop thing ain’t gonna happen, please just pack a new backspace key and send a couple of tech-savvy elves to work a little magic with a quick repair. There’s a five spot for each of them if they do the fix!! Thanks in advance Santa. – Linda

‘Tis the season where a plethora of poundage-creating delights seemingly greet you everywhere you go, and it is no different at work. I heard a statistic that Americans gain ten pounds between Thanksgiving and the end of the year from over-indulging in rich, calorie-laden sweets and treats and goodies galore. I don’t know if I believe that. I always ate what I wanted during the holiday season and gained maybe two or three pounds and that small increase was not due to walking or exercise or a youthful high metabolism … believe me, I never met a cookie I wouldn’t try nor that I didn’t like! Speaking of cookies, did you know that today is National Bake Cookies Day? That’s a new one on me and it did not make the Hallmark card-giving events, but is significant nonetheless. Back when I worked at a the law firm, before Robb and I went out on our own, we had 75 people including attorneys and support staff and we encompassed two floors. Starting after Thanksgiving it seemed every Monday, the counters in the 10th and 11th floor kitchens, were lined with rows and rows of brownies, bars and cookies. Brownies laced with nuts or without, topped with fudgy icing or sprinkles of red and green sugar and one attorney always crumbled up candy canes on top of his batch of brownies. How divine for a chocoholic and a little sugar high going at the water cooler and coffeemaker as you sipped coffee and discussed your weekend with co-workers before you headed back to your respective offices and work stations. Throughout the work week, after the initial influx of treats following weekend baking, more cookies, bars, cake and fudge trickled in. But, the most-famous perennial holiday treat at the Firm was Eileen’s Bacardi Rum cake. She always brought it in the morning after the Firm Christmas party. She was not stingy with the rum in her chocolate and white pound cakes and once she opened the Tupperware container, the fumes emanated out of the kitchen and way down the hall. My offering was usually peanut butter cookies with Hershey Kisses, but I always took in a special treat just for the support staff during Christmas week. I have always loved the Voortman gingerbread men so I’d buy a dozen or so for myself to eat during the Christmas season alongside a cup of cocoa, plus I’d get a gingerbread man for each of the support staff. My mom and I would wrap each one in a form-fitting plastic bag and use festive red and green curling ribbon to secure the bag and put a handwritten hang tag with each person’s name on it. The girls usually pinned the bag on their bulletin board or propped it up in a corner of their work area. As Christmas neared and the workload versus the condensed open business hours made the pace frantic, usually a gingerbread man arm or leg was hastily eaten as lunch hours were shortened or skipped to get the work done and out the door and send everyone home for a much-needed holiday respite.

Pies, tarts and cakes were not my downfall in the past, but cookies were another thing. I’ve sworn off sweets and treats now and while I don’t crave sweets at all, I am also not subjected to them either. There is no wafting of fresh baked goods in the kitchen here to beckon me to indulge in two or three or four warm cookies. The Meijer I frequent does not prepare their baked goods on site, so there is no temptation there either. My mom loved to bake and she would have all her cookie-baking activities done the week after Thanksgiving so she would concentrate on churning out a variety of tarts the week before Christmas. The cookies were stored in Tupperware tubs in the bottom of the cupboard and I was famous for reaching down blindly and lifting the lid and grabbing a few cookies out of the closest container and sometimes breaking the lid in the process. Mom would make something to please everyone in our family: peanut butter and chocolate Buckeyes, Christmas cut-out sugar cookies, Russian teacakes, pfeffernüsses, chocolate pinwheels, almond macaroons, Mrs. Maltman’s raspberry jam sandwich cookies chocolate rum balls, almond crescents, Scottish shortbread and candy cane cookies. My mom made candy cane cookies for me every year as long as I can remember, and long after her “baby” was grown. When I was in grade school back in the 60s we didn’t have “snack day”, but most of the moms sent in baked goods to share with the other kids at Christmastime. My mom always whipped up a batch of peppermint-flavored candy cane cookies for my classmates plus some for here at the house. Over the years, she bemoaned the fact that her huge turquoise melamac mixing bowl was stained a dark red from the food dye used to create the red ropes of dough to braid the unbaked cookies. That mixing bowl is still around and is probably as old as I am. I use it for washing greens now, but often, while gazing into that melamac bowl with its maroon-colored stains that have lingered all these years and long after my mom is gone, I will remember those candy cane cookies, created with love to be gobbled up and enjoyed.

Wow, where has the time gone? It is only one week until Santa’s arrival. I came across this picture yesterday. It made me smile, as it reminded me of myself as a youngster. The look on this little girl’s face is priceless as she wonders about the mystery present and its contents. I am sure all of you wrap presents and place them under the tree and as Christmas Day nears, the gaily-wrapped gifts are often eyeballed and examined many times by the soon-to-be lucky recipient. That’s just a small part of the joy of the Christmas exchange of gifts, and our small family was no different. It sure wasn’t hard to guess when a doll-sized box or a flat Barbie case was wrapped up and laying under the tree. But my parents were also ingenious for wrapping presents in bigger boxes as decoys to thwart my inquisitive fingering of the gift, then guessing ahead of time, thus ruining their surprise. One year, when I was nigh into my twenties, a box about 8 X 8 inches square suddenly was plunked atop the other presents just a few days before Christmas. The gift tag said “To Linda: Something you always wanted. ~ Love, Mom and Dad” … well, my curiosity was piqued and I shook and rattled the package over and over based upon that message. The contents rattled around, not unlike uncooked macaroni in a box, and I could discern items which slid back and forth as I turned it every which way. On Christmas morning, we always opened our presents in a round-robin fashion and it was always my turn first since I was “the baby”. You can bet that I grabbed up that present, tore into the paper and ripped it off the box which to my surprise contained a miniature farm set. When I was growing up, the neighborhood where we lived was full of little girls all about my age. Of the many children in the cul-de-sac, there were only two boys and they were younger brothers of my two girlfriends. We girls all played together, rotating from house to house, sharing young girl secrets and pushing our dollies in their prams along the gravel road of Sandmere Place. My best friend, Linda Crosby, lived next door. Her younger brother received a farm set one year for his birthday. There were multiple buildings – a quaint home with a huge porch, a big red barn for the animals, a rustic brown barn which housed the farm equipment and many pieces of split-rail fence that encircled the “property”. There were farm animals of every type roaming within the confines of the property and there was even a small family and a speckled dog with a mangy tail. Steven would play endlessly with this farm set while I was at Linda’s house and I decided I wanted one of my own. My great grandfather owned a farm in Guelph, Ontario but I don’t remember visiting it since he died and the farm was sold when I was just a toddler, so the whim to have a farm set was not heritage based, but strictly desired by me as I watched Steven playing happily for hours on the floor with his farm set. My parents pooh-poohed the idea of playing with a farm set – I was a girl after all! “You have your Etch A Sketch, Pick-Up-Sticks and Tinker Toys to play with if you get bored with your dolls or your dollhouse, but a farm set is for boys” they told me. I didn’t whine or become petulant about their decision since my parents were very strict regarding my behavior, and, though I was just a kid, such childish temper tantrums or pouting were not permitted by their only child, so I sucked it up and resigned myself that I’d never have a farm set to call my own. So, imagine my surprise to find over a decade later that this much-coveted toy was finally mine. It was the fodder for a good laugh that Christmas morning and now is just another fond memory to share with you in this magical season. I hope you get everything you are wishing for this Christmas.

More snow on the way? An additional one to three more inches of the white stuff is arriving tonight and then “real” Winter is looming large on the horizon … Saturday, to be exact. I do believe this pesky snow has settled in for the long term and we won’t see the green grass or experience a snow melt event ‘til Spring. Despite how much I enjoyed yesterday’s walk, I didn’t venture out this morning … once again, the sun up is too late to go out walking and return timely during the work week, plus I have several big projects in the hopper, so I’ll just cool my heels and stay put. Perhaps I should meander out to the backyard and make one of these frosty snow pals and then I would embrace the snow more than I do now?

Well, I just couldn’t help myself. It was a week today since I went for a walk and I needed a “fix”. I figured the snow would provide a cushion on any lingering ice on the sidewalk, and, if I walked in the street to the park two blocks from my house, I could just plod around the entire park in the snow like a Clydesdale draft horse, nice and slow and steady. I bundled up, strapped on my pedometer and pulled on my comfy and cozy lug-sole boots and away I went. My original intent was simply to take a short walk to get the kinks out and amble over to look at the living nativity scene at the First Baptist Church which is adjacent to the park. For decades, this church has put on the two-night living nativity event. I’ve popped over to watch a few times over the years and it is very beautiful, peaceful and embodies the spirit of the season. There is a makeshift stable, straw strewn all around and Mary, Joseph and of course Baby Jesus in a manger. There are even live animals inside the crèche. I noticed the stable had been created, but there was snow everywhere, and I didn’t see any hoof prints or tracks in the snow from last night. One of the parishioners came out of the church to tell me they had cancelled last night’s living nativity due to the inclement weather and were hoping to hold it tonight as scheduled. Then she invited me in to attend Sunday services. I told her I surely wasn’t dressed for church in my sweats and she said it didn’t matter. I politely declined and wished her “Merry Christmas” and felt just a little warmer after our conversation. Hopefully the living nativity will be presented tonight as scheduled for there is always a large crowd in attendance. I’ve heard the weather reports for Jerusalem the past week and they had three days of non-stop snow which is very uncharacteristic weather for them. They usually don’t get snow until February and certainly not to the extent they’ve seen the past few days. Weather weirdness has become a worldwide phenomenon!

I left the church and set out for a good place to tromp out a trail. There is a sidewalk in a portion of this park and it appears the City plowed it sometime on Saturday, but it was covered with snow again. I incorporated the plowed-and-salted church parking lot with the park path and just kept walking around in circles. It was a little monotonous, and, not quite so heady of a trip as Council Point Park would have been, but I heard the chatter of several beautiful blue jays and looked up in a tree to see them looking down at me. I remembered I had peanuts tucked in my coat pocket from last week so I tossed a few into the snow but they quickly sank down and were not visible, to the jays anyway. I fished them out, then did a little grape-stomping dance on the snow and flattened an area to put peanuts out for them. I began walking away and moments later heard the very loud honking of geese and I looked toward the Heavens to see a large flock of Canada geese flying in V-formation. Bet they were wishing they hadn’t hung around here so long and opted to start their migration south earlier. I know I’m wishing it was still Fall – oh, wait … it is still Fall. At this rate, I don’t want to think what Old Man Winter has up his sleeve for us. I added three miles to my 2013 walking total and came home with rosy cheeks and a spring in my step.

All across the country for the past month, we’ve read about and commiserated with those suffering the Winter weather woes in other states, so I guess we were overdue. Well, this weather looks like a blizzard, yet it can’t be called a Winter storm (not technically anyway), so I guess we’ll just call it “The Big Snow of Fall 2013”. I ventured outside early to get the mail and check on the furnace pipe to ensure it wasn’t blocked up from the sideways snow and possibly run the car in the garage for a quick minute. The snow had drifted and was banked up high in front of the garage so I dismissed that chore. Then I got soaking wet from the three-minute excursion around the house. I guess if you’re a Winter enthusiast or a kid eyeballing the snow to make a snowman or snow angels, this is your kind of day. If you have some snowshoes to get around, it might not be so bad either since it sounds like the roads are treacherous. The neighborhood is still humming with the sound of snow blowers as I write this post. When I last looked, the snow in front of the house was still softly falling and looked very pretty, those pristine white crystals as-yet untouched by a passing dog, street dirt and salt kicked up by the City snow plow, or littered by dark purple plum tree leaves that are still wiggling in the wind, anxious to be freed from my neighbor Marge’s tree. When I was growing up, I lived in Oakville, Ontario, so close to Toronto’s Snowbelt that our Winters were very harsh and oh-so-snowy. We lived on the “bend” in the cul-de-sac and a snowy day and night like this one would bury my father’s VW Beetle until you could barely see the domed top. Somewhere in my photo albums are black and white photos of members of our family standing next to what looks like an igloo.

Well, Mother Nature … the special effects have been grand, but now would you please turn the snow globe right-side-up?

The number 13, unlucky or otherwise, has resurfaced for the second time in three months on a Friday on the calendar. Well, I’m thinking I’m fairly safe today since I don’t have to leave the confines of the house – in fact the majority of my day will be spent in the kitchen where I remote into work from my laptop which sits on the kitchen table. Enough of me since you all know about my work gig. The weather forecast for tonight and all day tomorrow is sounding rather ominous and every time I listen to the WWJ and WJR meteorologists, they are adding more inches of snow to the original prediction. Well, a light dusting over all that ice that accumulated last Sunday night would have suited me just fine … sigh. Not so great either is that the majority of office/company holiday parties will probably occur tonight or Saturday night. Indeed, it is a weekend to stay in the house, if possible, in your jammies and bunny slippers or your cozy sweats, and embark on such holiday adventures as baking holiday treats or perhaps writing out all those Christmas cards since time’s a tickin’ and the busiest post office mail delivery day will be Monday. Perhaps you want to just veg out in front of the TV and catch up on all the holiday movies. Go ahead – put your feet up because you’ve earned it. If cookie-baking is on your agenda, before you head home to hunker down, better stop at the grocery store to ensure you have all the ingredients for your holiday treats so you won’t be running to your neighbor for a cup of sugar. (Do people still do that?) If there is a silver lining to the number 13, the only one I can think of is a baker’s dozen or 13 treats instead of 12! Happy baking and stay safe everyone.

The Big Chill persists and I slipped outside this morning to run the car – even took it out of the garage. Woo-hoo! I grabbed yesterday’s mail to read while I was idling in the driveway … just a catalogue from The Swiss Colony. It would be a tad late to be ordering I would think unless you do it online. This is the only catalogue I have received the entire pre-holiday and holiday season. I started subscribing to a junk mail service and it has eliminated at least 99% of the catalogues and most of the annoying advertising that I used to receive. I was leafing through the catalogue while willing some warmth to come my way because the heated seats weren’t doing their job and having the car sit in place wasn’t cranking out any heat either. Ahhh, perhaps a warm memory or two will make the chattering teeth, frozen lips and numb fingers and toes begin to defrost. We only ordered from The Swiss Colony one time – their trademark chocolate Chris Mouse which we got to send to my grandmother. She was tickled about it, and the mouse was very cute but much smaller than pictured, and my grandmother saved it in her fridge for such a long time that it developed that milky bloom over it and lost some of its charm. I sure don’t remember all those catalogues ever coming to the house when I was finally old enough to run and grab the mail and bring it inside. In 2011, I stomped my foot and said “enough already” when I was bringing some five to ten catalogues into the house daily all year ‘round. Then, the companies would mail them out the following week, by just slapping a different cover on the same catalogue! It was annoying and a waste of paper and trees.

When I was a kid there was only one catalogue that counted, and that was the Eaton’s Christmas Catalogue. When the Eaton’s Christmas Catalogue arrived in the mail, I’d sit in the big easy chair, legs sticking straight out in front of me, and ponder over what I would ask Santa for that year. My mom told me I could only pick two things, otherwise Santa would think I was greedy. Those two items on my wish list would actually be divided between my parents and my grandparents so I always did get what I wished for and felt a secret smugness that I was nice and knew Santa was paying attention to me. Smug … and a little precocious. In my mind’s eye, all the time expended in making the final painstaking decision of what two items I most coveted, was time well spent. After studying the catalogue and dog-earing all the items I liked, then the angst would begin as I narrowed down the list to my final choices. Then, I’d show those items to my mom, and together we would write and ask Santa Claus to put them under the Christmas tree. The Christmas Catalogue always preceded the mid-November arrival of Santa at the Eaton’s Santa Claus Parade in downtown Toronto which I would attend with my father. Then we’d stroll, through Eaton’s and Simpson’s department stores, also downtown, and visit Toy Town and a tour of the animated extravaganza in Santa’s Village. We’d queue up in long lines to visit with the Jolly Old Elf so I could reinforce to Santa what my wish list entailed in case my letter didn’t arrive at the North Pole. With my face pressed to the glass, I peered through the store-front windows with their animated scenes and an ice-cream waffle sandwich in the Eaton’s Tunnel topped off a perfect day before we headed home. The big-picture strategy worked every time since the fun items I hand-picked were always under the tree, along with gaily wrapped packages containing clothes, or slippers … less fun but surely functional items.

Santa always brought a stocking which was laid at the bottom of the bed, sometime after I fell asleep on Christmas Eve. My parents told me when I was older that the stocking was to keep me occupied so that they could sleep in on Christmas Day, but with all the excitement about opening the presents under the tree, I usually awoke early and clambered down to the end of the bed to retrieve my stocking and investigate its booty. There were childish shouts of delight for every little treasure as it was unwrapped, so no doubt my parents were immediately awakened and just reconciled themselves to the fact that sleeping in would have to wait for another morning.

All those decades ago when I uttered “Oh Santa, I would be the happiest little girl in the world if only you would bring me Betsy Wetsy or Chatty Cathy and a pretty pram to push them in” … sweet treasured memories, all which I vividly recall. I also relived some nice memories via the way-back lens, not just in this recitation, but by spending a delightful hour or so tonight just whiling away the time on The Archives of Ontario Eaton’s Christmas Page and meandering through the Christmas Past gallery of black and white photos.

While I’m tucked in the cozy, warm house with my cheerful Buddy by my side, I can’t help but wonder how my feathered and furry friends at Council Point Park are faring? Every time I open the fridge I see 1½ long loaves of “duck bread” spilling over the middle glass shelf. A tote bag filled with grab-and-go Ziploc bags, chock-full of peanuts for the squirrels, hangs from the cellar way railing so I won’t forget to take it as I hurry out the door for an excursion to the Park. One minor detail – there still is no walking for me to the Park. I thought about a short walk this morning, but I’m still reluctant to tackle the ice and snow on the sidewalks for a trip that is nice, but not really necessary. And, as we head toward the shortest day of the year, the sun is getting up later and it is not hardly worth it on a weekday to get bundled up, and perhaps even strap on my trusty Yaktrax to thwart the ice, for a measly two-mile trek. A round trip to the Park and one lap is 3 ½ miles and that takes me about 50 minutes. I will try to visit the Park this weekend, when I can walk in late morning and it is lighter out and I can take my time. I might wear boots and swap them for my shoes once I get there since I am told by the avid walkers that the City shovels the entire path very early in the morning whenever it snows. It’s an idea on paper for now since snow is predicted Friday night into Saturday morn. Well I shan’t whine about myself anymore, but I do feel for the critters. Sure, they survived before I started going there nearly daily with my bags of food and treats, and they will continue to survive, but once you start feeding the outside critters they stop foraging for natural food like nuts and berries and start to rely on the handouts … when the handouts are not there, they must rely on what precious little food there is available to eat. The trees and bushes are bare at the Park now, so hopefully they’ve built up a cache of food and they will be fine. My little squirrel who follows me around is not as chubby as his counterparts so hopefully he has stashed away some of those extra peanuts I kept tossing him.

I fed the birds and squirrels in my backyard on a daily basis for decades … that is, until the advent of rats in 2008 then I ceased all food and water. On any given day, I’d walk out the side door to find a fence full of birds huddled together and lined up in a neat row waiting for me to fill the feeder. The squirrel, whom we nicknamed “Sammy”, was sitting on the gate, looking ready to pounce down as soon as I opened the door. Lucky for this 2013 generation of neighborhood critters, my good-hearted neighbor, Marge, feeds “her” birds with the traditional seeds or suet, plus she doles out stale bread slathered with peanut butter for “her” squirrels – they just love it. But, hey … who amongst us doesn’t love peanut butter?

For years I subscribed to a combination garden/birding magazine called “Birds and Blooms”. As the title suggests, this magazine was filled with pictures of birds, some butterflies and beautiful flowers, and all the images were snapped in readers’ gardens. These home-grown photos would rival the finest work from any top-notch photographer. The magazine often gave hints on gardening in general plus the best flowers to draw birds and butterflies like magnets to your yard and what particular seeds to load in your birdfeeder depending on the birds you wanted to attract. One issue in late Fall concentrated on the best treats for your backyard friends during the Winter months. After reading the magazine, my mom and I decided to treat “our” backyard critters for Christmas one year. We made natural popcorn in the microwave and then strung it along with fresh cranberries onto button and carpet thread and I wove it all along the barberry bushes at the side of the house near the backyard. We imagined dozens of colorful birds munching on the treat-laden garland with a snowy backdrop – perfect for picture-taking. We also purchased a couple of loaves of cocktail bread, and, as the articles suggested, spread an inch-thick layer of crunchy peanut butter on each piece and spaced the treats atop evergreens and low bushes along the fence line. Of course, while making up the treats I had to keep sampling them to ensure they were fit for critter consumption, and, as to the peanut butter sandwiches, I can still hear my mom saying “stop eating the squirrel’s sandwiches – there won’t be any left for him!” … soon they were done and I packaged up everything on an old tin foil plate and ran them outside. Then we stationed ourselves, one at each window, and I had my camera handy as we awaited the arrival of the beautiful cardinals and blue jays and, of course, the cute chickadees to sample our Christmas treats. We also hoped to get a look at “Sammy the Squirrel” and his look of delight at his unexpected peanut butter sandwiches and to watch his antics. We were disappointed when the birds didn’t go right to the garland, despite them giving me a watchful eye from their perch on the cyclone fence as I threaded it through the barberry bush. I was all primed to take an award-winning photo of Sammy as he “pigged out” on the peanut butter sandwiches. Well, that rude squirrel came nosing around, and picked up each slice of bread, promptly licked the peanut butter off the bread then cast the slices into the garden uneaten and ambled over instead to gorge himself on the birds’ cranberry and popcorn garlands. The birds were blasé about the whole affair, preferring the simple seed from their feeders, and the blue jays didn’t even bother to chatter at Sammy for invading their territory. It was the first and last time for that “let’s-get-up-close-and- personal-with-the-wildlife” endeavor since, obviously, the “Birds and Blooms” editor had backyard critters with way better table manners than ours.

“Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.”~ Dostoyevsky

It is even acceptable at Comerica Park these days where the field is slowly morphing into a huge outdoor skating arena in advance of the various upcoming hockey fests. But, in the driveway and sidewalks, well … not so much. Robb had a breakfast gathering with some old friends so I eased into my day, knowing in advance that the weather was not in my favor for a walk this morning. I stayed curled up in bed, with headphones on, listening to portions of the memorial service and tributes to Nelson Mandela. The media is reporting that this gathering may surpass any other attendance at a memorial service by current or former world leaders and the public. I probably learned more about Nelson Mandela since his passing last Thursday than I ever knew before. The retrospectives about his life have been very comprehensive. I reluctantly got up and plodded out to the kitchen to get my day rolling and start by having breakfast. I felt badly about tabling the walk again, but that freezing drizzle yesterday took its toll on the roads and sidewalks and the “fraidy cat” that I am, I did not want to risk falling and going down hard. I chuckled at the weather forecaster’s remark that “Mother Nature is giving us the cold shoulder” – well, that is putting it mildly, if you’ll pardon the pun. I did venture out, just to start my car after hearing that it was 13 degrees with a wind chill of 1 below zero. Even though it is an attached garage and I had to buy a new battery last year, I thought it prudent to go out and at least turn the engine over. I wish I was able to access the garage from the house, but that is not doable, so I had to traipse outside. It took longer to dress for the short excursion than the actual trip for goodness sake. I opened the door … yikes! I walked gingerly along the side of the house. Whew … I made it to the garage without taking a tumble and was glad to be on non-ice terra firma inside the garage. I didn’t try to back the car up as space is at a premium on either side of the car and since it was slick in the driveway, so I just turned the engine over, ran it for a minute and then I high-tailed it as quickly as I could on the lightly glazed cement, back into the house. Home sweet home … oh wait – I was home! Then everything was a blur so I had to stand by idly before I could lock up, fix the rag rugs at the door, then head downstairs to deposit my warm weather gear. I hate when my eyeglasses fog up and I just started wearing my glasses again after wearing contacts for 35 years. While I am okay with “the look”, I forgot about the aggravation of waiting for my glasses to clear so I could see again after coming inside out of the cold. But removing my glasses would have been worse since I’ve worn corrective lenses for 50 years and cannot see anything anymore without my spectacles. Oh bother!!! The deep freeze is expected to last at least all week so walking is iffy for now and perhaps my year-end goal may now not be met. Grrrrr. There is always next year, she grumbled resignedly.