Another Winter Wonderland

Well, here I am again just twenty four hours later! It's not that I don't have anything to do, it's that I don't want to do anything right now. I'm still thawing out from clearing the drive and stoops to the house.

We have a unattached garage that sits fifty feet further back from the street than our house. Forty of that fifty feet is double wide drive. The drive is concrete, poured about ten years ago but now is starting to frost heave so that every other saw cut is raised against you, bringing progress to a startling halt!

I don't know what has happened to Ma Nature these past two years, but starting in November, we get to clear drives, walks, patios and stoops every other day about. This past weekend was a lulu!

First, we had sub-zero temperatures and three ice/snow storms, one every other day. Then Friday the thermometer zooms up to the high forties and stays in the thirties overnight. Then around four in the morning we had a thunderstorm and rain that sounded like it was in the bedroom with us.

We get up Saturday morning to bare cement and cleared lawns with dirty snow only in the piles that either man or nature made. And the temperature is shirt sleeve stuff! Until about eleven that is. Then the thermometer starts a plunge that must have made it's ears hurt! And by three we've got freezing rain that coated everything with a layer of ice. Driving was a nightmare and there were so many fender benders that the police are still trying to add up the numbers.

Then overnight, we get another inch of snow. Oh goody, I get to run the snow blower again. That thrill wore off the second year I had the damn thing! Now I measure my well being by whether I can clear the whole drive before having to stop for a siesta. I made it today by pure grit and venting of hostility on the snow cover. Now I'm back inside trying to think of another job I can avoid.

Isn't this exciting stuff? Wait until I really get on a roll.

Just Gettin' Started

I have tried to start this blog several times over the past year, but always retreat because of lack of verbiage. So why now? I guess I shouldn't put off for next year that which I can screw up this year.

Several of my nieces have blogs and one of my sons posts a very professional blog about his book writing (http://www.lovebruns.com/index.htm), so I guess I'd better get with it or buy a rocker. I'm not ready for rockers yet (either kind).

Several of the blogs I follow are well written, articulate and witty. If that's what you are looking for, better reboot right now, 'cause this ain't the place. Sometimes I can twist a grin from a phrase but more often my prose stalks along like an amateur drill team with lots of noise and not much poise. Oh yeah, I'm addicted to rhyming couplets too, so watch out for them.

I am still recovering from our Christmas celebrations which I do enjoy very much. We have a Christmas Eve ritual of hors d'oeuvres dining that started the first Christmas my every lovin' and I celebrated as a married couple. To steal a phrase from my uncle, "we were so poor we didn't have a pot to pee in nor a window to throw it outta!" We did get a small Christmas tree and had a couple of wrapped presents and several wrapped empty boxes under the tree to give the apartment a Christmassy feel. That Christmas Eve, we sat on the floor by the end stand upon which the tree perched and shared a bottle of cream sherry and a box of party crackers.

So started a tradition that today features steak fondue, pizza rolls, summer sausage, multiple kinds of cheese, shrimp, pickled herring, nachos, etc. etc. The family all gathers at about 3 PM and it's off to the store we go. All are encouraged to pick up their favorite treat, at least one each but as many as they want (or their respective moms and dads will let them put in the basket). Then we retire home with grandma and I watching grandchildren while mom's and dad's hit the five o'clock mass.

When all have regathered, we peel, heat, cut, smear and generally prepare the feast; carry it to the front room with party tables, knees and napkins proceed to decimate said repast. Great fun! And I get my annual egg-nog!

Now a word or two about egg-nog. I have been an eggog addict since I was old enough to say the name. That which grandma made was absolutely nirvana since I would have gathered the eggs just hours before it was made and the milk used was from the morning milking.

I was twelve or thirteen before I learned that some people ruin their egg-nog with booze! Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a beer drinker and enjoy a good scotch or Captain Morgan's rum on the rocks, BUT DON'T MESS WITH MY EGG NOG! Sheesh, let some childhood habits alone! That sweet, thick, milk shake taste, aaahhh I could use one now.

Okay, so now I've started a blog. Let's see if it takes a year to add another thought piece.

Ciao