The rain started last night and is just now stopping. It has left behind yet another dreary day. It is 56˚ and as warm as it will be for the whole coming week when we’ll drop to the 40’s every day. I’m inclined to stay close to hearth and home.

Watching the Macy’s parade dates back to when I was five or six. I remember sitting on the floor in front of the TV eating snacks. My mother always put out mixed nuts for us to crack and eat, tangerines and M&M’s. We had those silver crackers and matching forks to pull out the nuts. Brazil nuts were my favorites. I liked tangerines because they were so easy to peel. I just didn’t like that they had nuts. Those I’d spit into my hand then put on my plate. I never missed color. Black and white was all we knew, but the parade still had magic from the floats, the sounds of the bands and Santa arriving at the end.

When my mother baked, the windows in the kitchen fogged. At night the window water would freeze in a thin layer like on our car windshields except it was inside the house. Sometimes the window ice looked like mountains ridges, some higher than the others. The ridges, though, never went beyond the middle of the window. I used to like to scratch pictures or messages on the ice with my fingernail, but once the heat kicked in, it didn’t take long for the ice to melt.

Our first frost came the other day. When I went to get the papers, I noticed my car windshield was wet, and the part of my neighbor’s front yard filled with mulch still had its layer of frost. When I went out about an hour later, the frost was gone.

I always hated scraping my car windows. It was early in the morning, around 6:15, still very dark and cold. Now, I seldom go out all that early so the frost has usually melted. When people ask me about the best parts of being retired, I’ll have to remember to tell them about never having to scrape a window.