Keep the Coffee Comimg

Today’s weather is a bit scary. The wind and the rain started last night. Both are continuing this morning. The paper described the storm as a possible bomb cyclone, a winter hurricane, with winds between 40 and 70 mph. Gusts could get as high as 85 mph. I can hear the wind howling, and even now the trees are swaying and bending. I expect pine branches to fall in the backyard. The few leaves still on branches haven’t a chance.

My cold took a break but is now back in full force. I’m coughing and wheezing. It isn’t pleasant. I made a phone call yesterday, and the woman I was talking to kept calling me sir. I didn’t bother to correct her.

When I was a kid, we always hoped for a white Christmas, but that was a rarity. We rode bikes instead of sleds. I loved my sled. It was wooden with metal steering at the front and metal rails underneath. It always got rusty over the summer. The first ride down the hill was anti-climatic. The sled kept stopping. It left a trail of brown rust on the snow. After a couple of runs the rust disappeared then it was smooth sailing, so to speak.

I have to go out. I don’t want to go out, but I have to go to the post office, and I need a few essentials like cream for my coffee and bread. Nala stole my last loaf of bread. I foolishly left it on the counter. That dog is quick.

This won’t be long today. I’m already tired, and I just got up a bit ago. I’m thinking today will be a wash but not because of the rain. I’ll need a nap after venturing into the storm. The dogs are already napping. They had a busy morning of going out once and getting treats twice. I don’t know how they survive.

Today is cloudy, but it is warm, in the 50’s. It will be cloudy all day. I am staying put today. My cold is back, worse than it had been. I’m going to stay nestled under a warm afghan and hope to feel better. The dogs will love it. Nala sleeps beside me against the the back of the couch while Henry sleeps at the bottom by my feet. They are comfortable. I am not.

I love Christmas carols. It doesn’t matter how often I hear them. I play them all, over and over because their time and season are limited. My mother used to play the albums on her hifi. We had the Bing Crosby album which I think every family in America had. My mother had her Frank Sinatra Christmas. I had Guy Lombardo. We had albums from Firestone and W.T. Grants, each record had a variety of singers and songs and new albums came out very year. I have four of the Firestone collection. I sing along with each of them.

We used to stencil the picture window. We used glass wax on Christmas stencils. It was easy. All you did was dab the glass wax on the stencil and voila, the stencil was transferred to the window. All of the figures were white. I remember Santa the best. He was a bit roly poly, was coming out of a chimney and was waving. We had trees and Santa in his sleigh with the reindeer. We took turns doing a stencil. The window was covered. We thought it was beautiful.

School seemed to last longer and longer the closer we got to Christmas vacation. The nuns had to work harder to keep us busy and quiet so they had us reading stories or coloring, most nativities. I remember a lot of brown and blue. The baby always had yellow hair.

We kept the tree lit, but the window candles didn’t go on until the late afternoon when the day started to darken. No one had white lights in the windows. Ours were orange but there were other windows with red or green lights. We always took a ride to see the lights. There was a lot of oohing and aahing. We went to Saugus to the street where very house was covered in multi-colored lights. The traffic moved slowly, all the better to see everything.

This year I have noticed more lights. I move slowly so as not to miss anything. My head swivels from side to side. I ooh and aah!