Still winter

How can I complain when we haven't really had winter? It just feels sort of tiresome, that's all. I got about 4" of powdery snow this morning at my house, pretty much none everywhere else. That's often the way it is. I was surprised to see it: did they predict this? Did I miss it? It was
-14 on Saturday morning but then warmed up to 20 and it turned into a beautiful winter day, sunny with the bluest blue sky. The sort of day I really enjoy. I was outside in my t-shirt, playing with the dogs, getting firewood, hanging out. Really nice.

My friends the Holts were here for the weekend. I had dinner with them Sat. night. We always have such a good time together. They had the plans for the house they're going to build where one of the cabins on their property now sits, just down the hill from my house. It will be a beautiful house. Rush said the construction cost they were quoted was $150 per square foot. Their house will be 2600 square feet. You do the math. That means that, if my house burned down and I wanted to rebuild a house the same size it would cost me $325,000. Last night Ken and I played with his calculator, figuring out how much it would cost to build what size house. I finally gave him back the calculator and said "I'm tired of this game." It was very depressing. I have to change my homeowner's policy, my house is only insured for $150,000. That would build a small house for me. I wouldn't want a house as big as mine is now (2400 square feet) but I would want 2 bedrooms, and I would want more than 1000 sq.ft.

Anyway, Rush & Annie will have a beautiful home. They will probably never live here full time, which sort of suits me, as I don't really want a full-time neighbor. Annie plans to retire in 2-3 years (she's a doctor) and then wants to be here for a couple of weeks at a time. Rush is a Congressman so they'll need to keep their residence in NJ and he is not planning to retire any time soon. He's running for re-election this year but so far has no opponent. Good news.

We had a long discussion about the definition of evil. I said I thought Rumsfeld is evil. Annie thinks Cheney is evil. We agreed Bush is not evil (just stupid and insane). This led Rush to ask us what we thought evil really means. A complicated concept to explain. We spent the rest of the night referring to things that might be evil. Hitler is the obvious benchmark, but we worked on things beyond that.

My walk home from their camp was magical. Nearly full moon, incredibly bright light, great shadows. It was 0 out so it was crisp and cold but not too cold ("Where's your hat?" I don't wear hats unless it's -10. "Where's your flashlight?" I don't need a flashlight, the moon is very bright). I had a really nice walk, should have gone out on the lake but I was lazy and I thought maybe it was too cold for that. Now I sort of wish I had. I wore my heavy down coat for the first time this year.

They came to Sunday dinner, which was really nice. The combination of Bill and Rush is really great, we have wonderfully stimulating conversation. I think that's what I really miss most about living alone--someone to have conversations with. Ken and I have good talks, and cover a wide range of topics, but he is about the only person I talk with regularly. Bill and I talk on Sundays, but we only have a short time to visit, and we have to be considerate of Ken and include him so our topics are sometimes limited.

I'm listening to a recording of Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of rivals, which is about Lincoln and his cabinet during the Civil War. It's amazing that I'm listening to non-fiction, and even more amazing that I'm listening to history. I have to keep going back to earlier tracks and listening to parts over again because my mind wanders, but I'm really enjoying it. It's really interesting. Lincoln made some very stupid mistakes--like ordering a supply barge to go to two forts simultaneously, not realizing he had done that. Huh? Presidents have always been incompetent? Right now the war has just begun, the South has fired the first shot. There's a whole lot on Seward, who is an ancestor of Jamie's, so it's interesting to hear about him. He was an interesting but frustrated man.

Yesterday I weeded in Upper Jay for the last time. Happy to have that work done. Now five of us will go there with laptops and scanners to barcode their nonfiction in early March. I bought 2 of the books I discarded for Ralph--a book of knots and a book on violins. He saws out violin tops so I know he'll love that book. It has lots of color plates of old violins and close-ups of details of the violins.

This weekend I'm planning on moving the bed from the master bedroom downstairs to the bedroom I've made my permanent room. Lin is going to help me for the day, and we're borrowing Ralph's truck to take a bunch of stuff to the dump. I just heard that the high for the day is supposed to be 11. Doesn't that figure? I'm psyched to get rid of my box spring, it has exposed parts and is really old. The bed is a platform bed and I can't wait to sleep on it. I'm hoping we'll have minimal trouble taking it apart, it's put together with dowels. Jamie built it. I'm also hoping to take a bunch of other stuff to the dump, putting together a list in my mind all week.

And now I'm off to a meeting on our policy for dealing with libraries who lose our books. Our member libraries have lost about $30,000 worth of our books in recent years, so we figure it's time to do something about it. OK, so we're a little slow to take action.