230203 spoons

Friday, Feb. 3

Wednesday's dawn:

Spoons!

I woke up on Tuesday feeling well, with energy and purpose. Rocky and I went on our usual first-thing walk, and then, through the morning and on, I found spoons enough for each next job. I began the laundry, which is an ongoing chore through a couple of days, made home-baked beans, and salad. 

Perhaps I felt better in Tuesday's sunshine. There is so much light, with the snow. Perhaps I recovered from whatever was ailing me. A vaccine reaction, quite normal, except that the symptoms were more mental than physical.

I worked on the long room, which has to be sorted into keep, not keep, garbage etc. It is a move-this to move-that, so I can move-the-first-thing task. I have to be careful what I lift, not to over-do it. But it is very difficult to ask for help. I am used to lifting my own boxes and carrying my own baggage. * I had an excellent, productive day; I felt confident, able, and ready to face the challenges before us. One day, one step, at a time.

Here is the long room, in the basement. 

Nick moved my whole craft room and its mosaic stock into the long room to re-make the craft room into Robin's bedroom. A huge undertaking, and Nick didn't break a single rabbit:

I have a rabbit mosaic project which is going to be so much fun!

I must rearrange the long room to allow complete access to all the storage, and make a workspace for  mosaicking, and my sewing machine, for occasional sewing work. A major first step is getting the shelf at the far end to a place by the south wall, to allow us to reach the main water shut-off, and the windows. There was a (second) doorway between the craft room and this room which would give one a fire escape route out the craft room window, but Nick blocked it off for the new bedroom, so we now have to be able to reach the long room window in case of emergency! 

I emptied the shelf and got it this far. But now I cannot proceed without another body, so I must ask for help. I hate that!

As I do all this sorting, I am putting some stock into a Value Village/garage sale pile. An accident made a decision for me: I wanted to mosaic this fish, I loved its shape; it would have made a good "base", but it fell and broke during manœuvres so I must abandon it. 'Bye, nice fish.

*****

Our friendly snow-neighbour is a daily smile and heart-moment: that we are not alone, but share these streets and our days.

Garbage day! GIGO is an old aphorism in computer programming. To our faithful garbage crew, "Thank you!"

 

Groundhog Day, snowman wants more winter, of course. 

On Groundhog Day, K and I usually watch the Bill Murray film (of the same name): it is a good start to a new month and a beginning of the end of winter. I was too tired last night; in bed by 8:15. Maybe we can get to it today. This has been, as I mentioned already, the longest January I have ever lived through! Time, so constant and magical, can telescope, or it can pull, like taffee, and still it is inexorable and beyond comprehension. It travels on starlight and on the mechanical hands of the analog clock on the wall. 

*****

Baked beans, a regular on our table, is a day in the making, from soaking the beans, to pre-cooking the salt pork and dicing the onions, to baking several hours in the oven. The recipe I use has small tweaks, but is based on a recipe found on-line for maple baked beans.  * It can be made vegan, although I am still pondering the best substitute for the pork, It must be a pungent, earthy ingredient to sing the bass note, if you will. Soy sauce has been in some of the vegan recipes, but it is too far from the cuisine of the baked beans "geographic" for my liking. Ketchup is a common ingredient in baked beans recipes, but did the early Eastern Townships and New England cooks have ketchup? The "ketchup" on Quebec grocery shelves, besides the Heinz' kind, is a different beast, more like a tomato chutney. (Beast! Perhaps this is the alternative to both the pork and the "ketchup" of the recipes. It might even be the ketchup that was originally meant. I will try using it, when we are back in Quebec.) 

*****

Small sanctuary, I spend a few minutes by myself, in the quiet privacy of our back yard. It is a luxury of the best kind.

And here is another: a chair in the garage. But this is not an aberrant situation! How many men, in the twentieth century, made a sanctuary of their garage or some basement workspace: called it "workroom", or, in the nineties, "man-cave"? *  (I don't know if, in today's world, it is still a thing.) I take phone calls here or smoke a cigarette out of the wind.

*****

The sky, on Thursday morning, was a sand beach of cloud waves. I cannot be unmoved by the - creativity - I must call it, of the world. 

 

Auspicious: I love to see this sun-circle; it is related to rainbows, and to sundogs, which can appear at the "corners" of the circle, sun mirages as bright as the sun itself. 

Today it is cold, for Toronto, though not for Edmonton, or Quebec even. Rocky and I will do a half-dozen short walks, instead of two or three longer ones. He does not have the furry feet that my other dogs had, which tend to insulate against the cold and keep out the salt, though they are prone to "snowballs" between the toes. Rocky sticks to cleared paths, finicky, except for the occasional plunge to get to a tree!

Thank you for visiting! Keep safe and well!

Mumma Yaga

* When we were in Japan with our friends, in '83, they (our friends) referred to one's responsibility to carry one's own baggage, (be it actual or emotional!). In Japan, even little children and kindergarten students were seen with their little packs on their backs. 

* man cave, Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_cave

* thekitchen.com, Fèves au Lard or Maple Baked Beans. When I revisited the recipe, I saw that they, themselves, include a vegan alternative.

END