Sunday December 29th
When the rain let up for a few minutes, we popped over to our local wetland for a walk.
Tuesday, December 31
We stayed up late on New Year’s Eve, working on a puzzle and a bottle of champagne. At midnight we turned on the TV to see what we could see. We saw Ryan Seacrest introducing Carrie Underwood at Times Square. We watched Carrie for a moment and admired her outfit. But it was a weird scene. We switched over to Channel 1962 and watched Perry Mason instead. Amazingly, Perry hadn’t changed much. As the story went along, handsome Paul Drake dug up some important information; attractive Della Street made a perceptive observation; and Lt. Tragg proved himself to be plodding but honest. DA Hamilton Burger–he whose sole mission in life was to condemn innocent people to long prison terms–was again outwitted by the wily Perry, who for some reason was walking around without his wheelchair.
Wednesday, January 1st
It rained most of the day here, which was no great surprise because it’s been doing that for about as long as we can remember at this point. We turned on the wipers and drove out to A’s place in the country for a very nice New Year’s Day gathering. To start off the year she made a pot of black-eyed peas–peas for peace–as is her custom.
We also found time to finish the puzzle that we started last night. It’s called Mushroom Boy and was harder than we expected. It was expertly crafted though, and the pieces had interesting shapes and were easy to handle. Made by the New York puzzle company.
Thursday January 2nd
Most of the action was at the bird feeder.
Sunday January 5th
We took a walk in the forest today and found lots of mud. We don’t have any good pictures of the mud, but we do have these three gems, which we plan to display in the next Lying Captions Showcase at the county fairgrounds.
Today E received an unusual message from one of her contacts in the state of New York. Her informant recently had a medical appointment at a large, newly constructed clinic. After finishing up with the doctor, our source came back into the waiting room and found that it was much more crowded than it had been earlier. According to our witness, many of the new arrivals were sitting with their heads hanging sideways and some had their tongues hanging out. We hasten to say that this message was received under less than ideal conditions and that we cannot be sure that the information is accurate. But if it is, things look to be getting pretty tough back there in the east.
Monday January 6th
Unsettling weather phenomenon today. As E began her walk, she was astonished to see her shadow on the grass, along with the shadows of various trees cast upon the house. There was also an extremely bright yellowish disk up in the sky. The two phenomena may be related. More research is needed.
Tuesday January 7th
E went back to Smart Reading today, down at Lincoln School. She had a wonderful time, meeting with three separate third and fourth grade kids, all of whom seemed enthusiastic about books and reading. Also, the location for the reading has changed from last year’s use of the open plan lunchroom to this year’s placement in the library, which is a lovely second floor room with lots of light and a great view. The most popular books, however, continue to be the Who Will Win?/¿Quién Ganará? series. (Sample titles: ¿Quién Ganará: Oso Polar o Oso Grizzly? and Who Will Win: Triceratops or Stegosaurus?
Much as I love this reportage for its focus on nature, in prose and photography, and willingly though I accept the mushroom theme, I was slow to recognize the humor of a 50’ mushroom photo.
But how nice to hear reports of a yellow orb!! We have one here that appears almost every day.