Some gifts are just scary

My daughter sent me a link to this story in the NYTimes: It brings back memories of walking into the hospital breakroom and finding huge tins of Danish butter cookies with giant multi-color stickers: "Prozac" or "Viagra" or something else that clearly was never meant to be ingested as food. I was rather leery of these "gifts" - although I really did (I'm embarrassed to say) like the pens that looked like hypodermic needles.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh

At 5:30 this morning I was burrowed into the comforter, enjoying the considerable chill on my nose when Bill came upstairs and said those magic words, "The power's back on." You can have your sonnets, your novels, your lyrics, your children's laughter... nothing could have sounded sweeter than those few words. We were 48 hours without electricity, which now looks like an adventure but I must admit I was getting prEtty bored with pioneer living.

The stove kept the downstairs warm when we closed off two spare rooms. Our room got darned cold, but thanks to the miracle of down, we only suffered that momentary shock of slipping into the sheets. So, it was 40 degrees instead of 60 - the temperature of a nice camping trip, right? And is there anything nicer than coming back to bed in the middle of the night (with cold toes because you're too sleepy to put on slippers) and sliding back into that cozy cocoon? Baby birds are sooooo lucky. Think of little penguins!

The hardest part of the power outage was losing connectivity. We watched in horror as our batteries ebbed and died...first the UPS on the computer, then the laptop, then the radio, then the cell phones...and we were cut off from all but the morning paper (snort!). Of course there was plenty of snow shoveling to do (repeatedly), wood to fetch, candles to change, books to read, walks to take and each other to pick on. We weren't bored.

The boys, who love the snow, also love to hog the best spot in front of the fire:



When the roads thawed Sunday afternoon, we picked up our nephew and went to town for supper, not because we couldn't find food, but we hoped they'd let us charge our phones. Alas, the only open outlet was up by the ceiling (for a TV?), and our hopes were dashed. Good fish, though! Yesterday we went in so we could both work a few hours, and brought home take-out from Willamette Noodle. We carried it in one of those insulated, zippered shopping bags, and it was still warm after we drove 11 miles at 30 mph. Mmmmm!

We won't thaw for another four days or so, but we'll just keep the bird feeders full and make fun of the cats until things get normal and soggy again. And take showers, and bake rolls and blog and, if we're realllly bored, clean house.

Merry Christmas to all.