Maine: The Way Life Should Be

I'm a softie for a good, old-fashioned Maine blizzard. And that's what's happening outside our windows today.

It's about time. Just a couple of days ago, I mentioned to Ken that we really needed a good snowstorm. Fields were looking bare; there wasn't enough snow to ski or snowshoe in...and what's a Maine winter for if not for playing in the snow?

Molly has staked out her territory for the day: the end of the sofa nearest the woodstove. It's no coincidence that she chose the end nearest the heat of the stove.

The cardinal has been to the feeder many times this morning, stocking up on groceries.

And, Ken's biggest thrill: he got to use his pickup's four-wheel drive when he took Molly to the vet for a tune-up earlier this morning! What guy doesn't enjoy putting his vehicle into four-wheel drive when given the opportunity? I suspect Ken gets to use the four-wheel drive about twice a year, max.

As for me, it looks like a good day for knitting.

Rejected

I decided a few years ago to become a die-hard, card-carrying Red Cross Blood Donor. I'd made a couple of half-hearted attempts at this commitment once before, but the first time the nurse who injected the needle to start the blood flowing must've been using a dull-tipped instrument, and the second time I nearly passed out a couple of hours after the donation.

That was it, I told myself. No more blood donating.

Then Ken, who has given literally many gallons of blood over the years, had open-heart surgery. As a result of his double-by-pass, he's on various medications which prohibit his donating blood.

Consequently, after mulling this over for awhile, and after realizing Ken regrets not being a blood donor any more, I decided to quit my whining and fussing, to quit making excuses, and to put on my big-girl panties and become a bona fide donor.

Yesterday I was to give yet another pint of blood. I looked forward to having my blood donor card updated with yet another pint given. I arrived at the donor site, read the multi-page manual, and declared I was ready to give.

A nurse took me to one of the cubicles, checked my blood pressure, drew a smidgen of blood from a finger tip (always the most painful part of blood donating) to check my hemoglobin, then settled into asking me the long list of required questions which a donor must answer before each and every donation.

Had I lived in a foreign country for more than three years? No

Do I have hepatitis? No

Have I lived with anyone with hepatitis? No

Am I pregnant? No!

Have I ever had sex with a prostitute? Definitely not.

Do I take any of the following medications (Coumadin being one)? No

Have I traveled outside the country in the past 12 months? Yes

What countries have a traveled to? Singapore and China

What cities did I visit in China? Chengdu and Beijing

While in either city, did I travel outside that city? Yes.

Where? Luodai, a village just outside of Chengdu

The nurse promptly excused herself and returned to our cubicle a few minutes later with a World Atlas. She found China, had me point to Chengdu, then tried to find Luodai.

I explained that Luodai is, by Chinese standards, a "small village" and is probably not on her map. I then added, humorously I thought, that of course in China, a small village probably has a million residents.

She studied the map some more, excused herself again, came back about five minutes later, and said I'd visited an area of the world which might have exposed me to malaria. Malaria can present itself in a patient up to one year from the date of exposure, so I can't donate blood to the Red Cross again until after May of this year.

I showed the nurse my donor card and pointed out that I had already donated TWICE since returning from China, once last June and again in October.

She excused herself from our cubicle again, stayed gone for quite awhile this time, then returned to tell me, once and for all, that I wouldn't be allowed to donate that day or at all until after May 2011. She asked if I'd answered the usual litany of questions the same way last June and again in October. I assured her I had.

So I left with the same amount of blood in my system that I'd walked into the donor site with.

What has occurred to me since yesterday, though, is that a slight difference in wording of the questions might cause me to answer them differently.

If I were asked, "What cities did you visit in China?" and I answered "Chengdu and Beijing," and I were then asked, "Did you visit any other cities?" I'd no doubt respond with "No."

But this nurse asked if I'd gone outside of either Chengdu or Beijing. That's a horse of a different color, so of course I replied "Yes."

Either way, I'm on the wagon until the end of May, and I'm disappointed.

Christmas in review

So it was a White Christmas here, despite my fears to the contrary. The whiteness wasn't award-winning, but at least it was white. Then a day later we got a good, old-fashioned blizzard, but even that wasn't award-winning. I was hoping for maybe 3-4 feet of the stuff, but we got only 12" or so. It was difficult to determine just how much snow we did get because the wind howled and caused a lot of drifting. Ah, well. Winter is still young.

On Christmas Eve we went to our good friends Jim and Lynn's for a delicious seafood chowder dinner. I wish I could upload some photos from that evening, but Blogger is in a snit, it seems, and won't let me. The chowder was generous and thick and full of haddock, lobster, shrimp, and scallops. I'm salivating just thinking about it.

Christmas Day we went to my sister's, where we celebrated the day with her, her husband, their son, their son's wife, their grand daughter (Violet, whom you've met before), and their son's wife's mother. (Pay attention, please, because you'll be taking a quiz when you finish reading this post.)

Violet comes in handy as the Christmas gift hander-outer, and we've put her to work in this capacity since she was big enough to hold a gift without dropping it.

She received a hot pink froo-froo skirt from her grandparents, and she immediately stripped down in the living room, put on the skirt with matching tights, and wore the new duds the rest of the day. (I'm told she also wore them the next day, and the next, and even wanted to wear them to school, but her mom finally convinced her they weren't the most sensible clothes to wear while playing in the snow.)

After the so-called blizzard, Mr. Cardinal paid a lengthy visit in the bridal wreath bush outside the kitchen window. I love to see the male cardinal year-round, but I especially enjoy him once there's snow on the ground and his deep red color contrasts nicely with the whiteness of his surroundings.

I'd like to ask him where Mrs. Cardinal is, since I haven't seen her in about a year, but he ain't talkin', it seems. Could be a sensitive subject, I suppose.

I've been on a focaccia bread-making kick the past few days. It could have something to do with Santa's bringing me a panini press. I've made paninis once this week and plan to try them again in a few days. Of course, the press is now on sale at Macy's, I couldn't help but notice in the newspaper today, for $40 less than Santa paid for it. That's always the way, and it reinforces the old "Ignorance is bliss" axiom.

I'm reading Bill Bryson's At Home. I love Bryson's writing. This particular book, which details the evolution of the "home" as we know it today, contains a lot of surprising tidbits that only Bryson could dig up. In the section I read last night, Bryson mentioned a fellow who spent three months trying to teach his dog to read. Needless to say, the endeavor was fruitless.

We can't even teach our Molly the difference between the "beep-beep-beep" of a truck backing up on T.V. and the beep-beep-beep of one backing up in our driveway. She goes into a frenzied barking at either. I can't imagine trying to get her focused long enough to decipher letters on a page!

Maybe, just maybe...

...it'll be a White Christmas after all.

Thumbprint cookies

Ok, ok, so these cookies won't win a prize for beauty, but they sure do taste delicious, and they didn't go flat in the oven.

I've never before been able to bake a batch of thumbprint cookies that didn't turn into pancakes in the oven. Today I tried a new recipe, and I like it. Granted, I have a thing or two to learn about the cookies' final appearance, but overall, the recipe is a success.

It's from Parade.com, and here it is.

The mega snowstorm that was supposed to arrive tomorrow, last into Tuesday, and guarantee us a White Christmas has decided to take a route too far south of us. Shoot. There's a chance of some "residual snow" backing into Maine from this system on Tuesday, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm adjusting to the idea of a brown Christmas and moving on.

Last evening I took a few photos in the house, trying to capture the atmosphere. Our tree looks pretty short when photographed from the balcony. We have a much taller tree, about 12' tall I'd guess, but the thing got to be such a dreaded chore to put up each year that we decided to save ourselves some stress and get a shorter tree. I think we made a good decision.

Have a wonderful week-before-Christmas!

Progress

A week ago I intended to finish decorating the house for Christmas. Then I kept putting it off. And putting it off.

Yesterday Ken put up the tree, however, so I no longer had an excuse for procrastinating.

This morning I've been making major progress.

The tree is decorated, and Molly's been enjoying its magic.

The bannister is as decorated as it's going to be. Usually I do more than this, but I kind of like the simplicity of it this year. Or that's how I'm justifying it, anyway.

My carolers are a-caroling.

And Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli, and Susan Boyle have been serenading me as well.

Now if only we could get some snow. SNOW, I said. Come on, Mother Nature. This isn't funny.

A little Christmas cheer...and raisins

We have no snow here in Southern Maine, except for the odd snowflake here and there. The northern half of the state, though, is getting hammered with a nice snowstorm today. I'm envious. I like snow for Christmas, then after Christmas I like it for cross-country skiing. A friend told me this morning that the Farmers' Almanac predicts little snow for us this winter. I hope it's wrong. It's been known to be wrong.

I won't fully get into the holiday spirit until that first significant snowfall, but in the meantime I've begun digging out the Christmas decorations.

The bubble light mantel box is in place, along with the nutcrackers beside it.

Yesterday Ken and I dragged the giant nutcracker out onto our front porch. He's a big fella, weighing well over 100 pounds, so it's a two-person job to take him outside and bring him back inside after the holidays.

In the past we've stored him upstairs, in one of the closets, but this past year we decided to make our job easier and just store him in Ken's walk-in closet. It took me awhile to adjust to his being there: I'd jump every time I walked past Ken's open closet door, thinking a stranger was standing inside.

I'd intended to get a lot of Christmas decorating done yesterday, but once Mr. Nutcracker had vacated his space, I decided to give Ken's closet a good cleaning.

That's a problem I seem to run into a lot since retiring: I used to stay focused on one task until completion, probably because I was always pressed for time and didn't have the luxury of wandering off course.

Now I constantly wander off course and find myself doing something totally unrelated to the original task. I've been known to find myself using Q-tips and rubbing alcohol to clean the vents in my oven door when I thought I was going to do a load of laundry, for instance.

Anyway, I did manage to set up our four little trees in the kitchen, dining room, front hallway, and bedroom. The big tree isn't up in the living room yet, but we'll get to that later this week, probably.

A couple of you have asked for an update on the gin-soaked raisin treatment for arthritis.

Ken is quite sure it's working. He says he's either not feeling the pain or not thinking about the pain, which to me is a good sign the pain isn't there. Once in awhile he feels a sharp jab, but for the most part the constant pain is gone.

I need to mix up a new batch of raisins and gin soon, so it will be ready when Ken needs it. He's being good about eating precisely nine raisins per day. Why that's the magic number, we don't know, but nine seem to work.