O Christmas Tree

Yes, that's right, I have a Christmas tree and it feels good. My mood, not the tree. On Saturday, when it was cold and windy, very windy, I took my bow saw and wandered around the house. I almost gave up, the stand of balsams I was sure would yield a good tree ended up having only really skanky ones, but then I saw one that was ok. It was hard to get to, had 2 downed trees on 2 sides, but I got it, cut it down and dragged it to the deck. Turns out it has this great curve in it, really cool, like a quarter of an "s." I love it. It's pretty sparse, as homegrown balsams are. Yesterday Bill and Ken came for Sunday dinner and I had Bill help me move the loveseat to make room for the tree.

After they left I brought in my tree stand, which hasn't been used for at least three years, sprayed WD-40 on all the screws and put the tree in. It has a very small trunk so this, coupled with the curve, presented a great challenge. Since it's sparse, though, it's light and wasn't hard to put up alone. Now it's done and will have dried for the mandatory 24 hours by tonight so I can put the lights on it and decorate it tonight. Yea me! Chances may knock it over, since it stands in her sentry point in front of the window facing the driveway, where she watches for my return each night. But perhaps not.

I cooked Sunday dinner yesterday, which meant I had to clean first. The bathroom needed a good scrubbing and vacuuming, but worse: I had to organize my shoes. That effort was not wasted; Ken said this: "I thought I had a lot of shoes..." I reminded him that the collection was not only my winter shoes, but my summer shoes as well. He was not impressed. I was supposed to cook salmon in my clay pot, and you start the process by soaking the unglazed lid for half an hour. The bottom of the pot is glazed on the inside. I wasn't paying attention and soaked the bottom, so couldn't cook the fish the way I intended. This made the meal much less exciting. I roasted the brussels sprouts as an experiment. I liked them but I could tell by the fact that there were 4 left over that Bill didn't like them as much. I used the last of the tomatoes from Ken's garden, which were practically tasteless (as they become when you store them in a paper bag) but were very exciting to Ken. I made apple crisp with whipped cream, always a hit. I used the Rockwell Kent plates, which I love using, and used the RK teapot to serve the coffee from. It was a nice meal and we had a good time. I had a grackle at the feeder, which is a rarity. I showed it to Ken, whose reply was "You have one?" He always has better birds than I do, due to the edge effect location of his feeder. I'm in the woods more than he is.

Saturday night I watched Monster (Showtime had a FREE MOVIE weekend), which was painful to watch but was really an excellent film. Charlize Theron is really a good actress, isn't she. I had to mute the shootings, but I thought she did a masterful job and was glad I saw the film. Unsettling but good to see.

My mother called last night while waiting for my niece Anna to get there from Milwaukee. Poor Anna got to O'Hare too late to catch her flight to Providence (deja vu from this summer) so had to catch a later flight. She's visiting Liza this week. Those airlines have it in for Anna, but at least this time she didn't have to spend the night or fly to Cincinnati.

Cold today but due to get colder this week. We had snow Friday and yesteday, must have about 5" on the ground but it's fluffy powder. I guess that should put me in the holiday spirit, huh.