Romantic Interlude with Snow

From my phone, cemetery across the street from the hotel

My son John was married on December 4^th. to a lovely woman Arlette.  We flew to Chicago for the weekend and witnessed a beautiful wedding, which filled me with tears and happiness.

It was cold, just below freezing.  Not 1° like it is today, but just cold enough for flakes of snow.

Bare trees, as we never see them in desert California

By the time we returned to the hotel after the wedding, big flakes of wet snow were falling heavily.  My granddaughters were with us, and they ran in and out onto the balcony.

Falling snow as seen through my phone, with streetlight below

It was an amazing day.  We are blessed.

All is at peace.


This is my last post until after the New Year.  May God bless you all, and keep you, make His face to shine upon you, and grant you peace.

This is REALLY What Happened on Christmas Eve

Now, after all the shows--Scrooged, White Christmas, Christmas Story (Red Rider BBgun with a compass in the stock), Rudolph, etc.--it is time for the real story of Christmas to be heard and seen.

And, who better to do this is are children at Southland Christian Church.

Rejoice! For unto us has been born a Saviour...

Now you know what really happened.

Wednesday Words from 2012: Maniacal Old Woman

Violin music scratched from Miss Violet Ramsey’s record player, volume turned up high, pouring music directly at her head. Her deaf ears scarcely heard even a note, which did not seem to be a problem.

By the window where Miss Violet sat, she stroked her calico kitten and sipped hot cocoa topped with melted marshmallow.  "How about we have another, Kitty?" as she set a fresh cup next to six empties. It had been a long cold day, and six cups were nothing.

Violet had barely taken a sip, when she cried out, “Oh, look, Kitty!  There’s another one!”  Even with her glasses steamed and fogged, Miss Violet did not miss a man  in a dark overcoat as he rushed by on Albany Lane, now a very slippery street.  

When he tumbled and cursed, Miss Violet giggled and marked another hash mark on her writing tablet. “That makes 13 today!” Marshmallow spittle splattered onto Kitty, who was not in the least bothered by it.  

Her joy was disturbing on so many levels.

This is a re-post from Nov. 29, 2012.  The italicized, underlined words were a gift from Delores (her blog at the time "thefeatherednest") and Wednesday Words challenge she instigated. Being the clever girl she is, Delores managed to capture and pique the interest of many bloggers who delighted in using 6 unrelated words and playing with them.

This writing challenge still exists!  You can find the words at several bloggers' sites, mainly Elephant's Child, River-Drifting through Life,  Please head over to Delores' site, as there is always something going on there!

Squeaky's Great Send Off

Squeaky died sometime in the night.  Scotty said that he noticed when the hamster wheel suddenly went silent.  Oh, well.  It was his time.

Scotty was always pragmatic about things in his life.  Lose a favorite car?  Oh, well. It'll turn up somewhere.  Dropping a slice of pizza?  Oh, well.  Things happen.  So when Squeaky's little ancient hamster heart stopped beating, we both thought about how to give him a send off.

Scotty had been into Vikings after watching "How to train your Dragon" for the twentieth time.  "Let's throw a Viking funeral!"

He retrieved a canoe/barge made of popsicle sticks at church camp last summer.  We put Squeaky on a pile of twigs layered in the water craft.  After pushing the funeral barge out in the swimming pool, Scotty used the "Hunger Games" bow with a burning marshmallow at the point of the arrow aimed at the barge.  

Again and again.  

When the canoe finally caught fire, it initially went up in flames and the thing burned before hisssssing out and sinking, leaving a singed Squeaky floating on the top of the water.

Oh, well.  

I managed to scoop Squeaky from the failed Viking send-off with the pool  skimmer.  What now?

Scotty had watched some warrior movie where the slaughtered hero was placed on a funeral pyre.  "Let's do that, Dad!"  So we did.

We lay out some sticks criss-crossed and carefully placed Squeaky on it. Scotty once again used the Kingsford wand lighter to get a good burn going on the bottom layer.  But, with us being novices at funeral pyres, the whole pyre thing collapsed, leaving Squeaky lying on the concrete surrounded by embers.

Oh, well.  

I didn't know how we were going to give Squeaky a big send off.  But, Scotty, being the boy scout he is, had an idea which made me wince and cringe.  It made sense, but man....really?

I pulled out the old rusty Coleman barbecue and built a pyramid of Kingsford guaranteed-to-light charcoal briquettes.  Scotty placed Squeaky in the center above the coals, using my brand new set of BBQ tool set.  Then he used the Kingsford lighter and got the coals going.

At first, it seemed that Squeaky was finally heading to his fiery hamster Valhalla.  But Noooo.

Squeaky had some sparks here and there, but clearly the charcoal was not enough.  It developed a nice white ash like briquettes do.  But that was it. Instead, the odor of grilled Squeaky told us the truth.

Oh, well.  

By this time, Scotty had had enough.  "Let's just bury it."  He retrieved a shovel from the garden and quickly dispatched the hamster with minimum effort.

"Dad?"

Oh now, what will he ask?  What do I say?

"Dad?  Can we go to Famous Dave's BBQ tonight?  Mom has a coupon for free appetizers."  He wiped a charcoal streaked hand across his nose.  "I'm kinda in the the mood for ribs, aren't you?"

Well, then.‎

Susan Kane

This was first posted on 22 March 2014,  Decided to re-post it, since I really enjoyed writing it:
Sorry about the lengthy story; just got going on it, I guess.
My daughter's hamster Max died on the first day of middle school.  My son, in an unusual act of kindness, placed it in a shoe box and buried it.  Nothing elaborate, mind you.  She has never recovered from the loss, she says (at age 32).