Letters From New England

Out With the Old...

Saturday

December 29, 2007

Hi,

Can you even believe it's the end of the year already?  And, just like every year, I didn't accomplish most of what I'd hope to do.  I know I'm not alone... we just get up everyday and live our lives and before you know it, another 365 days are in the can and we are where we started a year ago.  Sigh...

I hope you all had a great time on Christmas.  I picked Den up in Boston on Saturday and we drove to Maine.  Christmas, this year (to me) was just enough... No crazy making dozens of people in and out, tons of food to prepare and clean up from, over the top spending on gifts, etc.  It was just me and my ex-husband, Tammy and Denny, Sam and Emma for Christmas Eve.  I got very thoughtful gifts from the kids... sheets and pillow cases, which I need, a coffee mug that says "Let Abundance Flow...The Universe Knows", incense, iTunes gift card, socks, cd's and a Aerogarden!  Den helped me set it up (okay, Den set it up by himself) when we got back to my place.  It's very BRIGHT when it's on (17 hrs/day).  I have it set to shut off from 10pm to 5am.  The kit that came with it is 7 herbs, but you can also buy lettuces, cherry tomatoes, strawberries and flowers.  Really cool...

I missed the winter solstice...completely went by me without a thought.  I like to do a little something on the solstices and equinoxes.  At any rate, I'm happy to have the darkness behind us and look forward to it staying light a little longer every day.

I had a whole list of things I was going to write about, but it's missing from my lab coat pocket, so I can only assume that it fell out when I took an item out of the pocket and I didn't see it go.  I really can't remember what was on it other than Christmas. 

I have a hair appointment at 9:00 this morning.  A much needed hair appointment.  :)  Then, I plan to just stay in as the weather is yucky (raining).  I have housework, of course.  I also bought the ingredients for chili and chicken soup last night, so I'll make those and freeze some.  Other than that, no plans! 

I have to work on New Year's Eve day, but will do what I have been doing for the last decade or so in the evening.   I'll read through my journal(s), then sit with a new one and write about all of the things I would like to accomplish over the coming year (but rarely do :).  I got a bottle of wine from my manager, so I'll probably drink a glass of that, write, watch a movie or read, turn Rockin' New Year's Eve on and try to stay awake until the ball drops.  I won't... I rarely do.  I have no desire to be out and about with the crowds.  It would be fun to have a few people over for appetizers and board games or something, but it's too late to plan that now.  Maybe next year.

At any rate, I probably won't write again before that, so I'm wishing you all a happy and safe celebration and the very best for 2008.

Peace,

Kay

It'll be a white Christmas this year...

Friday

December 21, 2007

Hi,

We've had snow (and snow and snow) all week, so the ground is nicely covered in the white stuff we like to see at Christmas.  Come Wednesday morning, it can all be gone and I'd be fine with that.

You know how things come in threes?  Well, a co-worker told me that her daughter, who was living in Phoenix, then moved to GA last year, decided to move back to MA.  As of yesterday, she was in Virginia and will probably be home tomorrow.  Lucky Nadine!

About an hour after that conversation, my good friend Judy called to say hello and Merry Christmas.  We had a little catch-up chat as we don't see each other much since she left the hospital in the spring.  She told me that her daughter, who moved to LA right after college (6 yrs ago), took a job in Boston and is moving back to MA at the beginning of 2008.

So, needless to say...I'm hoping I'M the third in that "things come in threes" group to hear that my child is returning to his roots.  :)

Speaking of, I am picking Den up in Boston tomorrow and heading to Maine.  I have all of the gifts in the car already and, even though I feel like this every year (I haven't done enough...I need to shop for more stuff), I know it's not necessary (nor is it what it's all about), so I'm trying to stop obsessing about it.  Well, I AM making one stop in Leominster on the way tomorrow, but that's it...I swear!

I need to pack tonight and do some light housework.  I re-injured my back cleaning/vacuuming again this past weekend, but not to the extent that I'd hurt it last month.  I took it easy, took some Motrin and iced my back that evening and wasn't too bad on Monday.  I am seeing a chiropractor twice a week right now.  He's helped with my neck pain and tightness, but I'm still struggling with low back pain/sciatica stuff.  I asked him if he'd heard about True Back and he said no, so I brought in some info from the website.  He seemed to like it and said it'd be worth a try since it has a 90 day warranty.  Good for daily maintenance.  If interested, you can see them at www.trueback.com.

A woman who works in our surgery department lost her 18 yr old daughter in a hit and run car accident Monday night.  No one has come forward yet, and the police haven't found the person who ran her off the road.  Ashley has been described by everyone who knew her as a kind, giving young lady.  Her boyfriend was just coming home from boot camp to spend Christmas with her and his family when she was killed.  They have asked that donations be made to Toys for Tots in Ashley's name, in lieu of flowers at her funeral tomorrow.  Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Merry Christmas, everyone... may you be blessed with all you desire in this giving season. 

Peace,

Kay

The Weather Outside is Frightful...

Sunday

December 16, 2007

Hi,

It began around midnight...fluffy flakes swirling around the streetlights.  The "oh, so pretty" snow that Currier and Ives loved to paint.  Then the real storm arrived, batting at the windows all night.  Sleet mixed in with the snow and wind...now it's all just nasty outiside.

This is supposedly "a big one", but since I lived through The Blizzard of '78", less than that always seems, well... less than.  I'm just glad it's taking place on a Sunday, so I can stay in my jammies all day and watch it from behind glass.

I armed myself with a list of who and what, then braved the stores yesterday to finish my Christmas shopping.  I knew where I was going and what I was getting in each place, so it wasn't too hellish a day.  I got home a little after 1:00 and spent the rest of the day putzing around...housework, gift wrapping, etc.  I have 2 people left...the mailman and my hairdresser.  I'm getting the mailman some hand and toe warmers from the sporting goods store and a Dunkin' Donuts gift card.  Donna gets the same thing every year...a box of "french rolls" from the local candy store.  They are TOO yummy and I'm pretty sure she expects them now, so I don't want to disappoint her.  Plus, she shares them with me. :)

Denny's home!  Well, not here with me "home", but back in MA, staying with friends in Boston and doing some visiting.  It's been a year since he was last here...he hasn't seen Tammy or the kids in all of that time, but I had the opportunity to visit him in AZ for a couple of days in June, courtesy of his friends there.  I can't wait to see him.  On Christmas Day, the 3 of us will get a chance to just hang out for a few hours alone.  That will be great...

As you know, my book group met on Wednesday.  One of the things we do every December gathering, besides have a little Christmas party, is to choose all of our books for the coming year.  We used to choose month by month, but members sometimes found it difficult to find the books in time, especially if they had to be ordered.  With a list for the year, we have a chance to pick them up when we see them.  I've ordered mine from Half.com before and get them for a couple of bucks sometimes. 

Anyway, I told you we are doing book, book, movie next year, but I didn't tell you what our choices are.  Last year, when I listed our book choices on my blog, one of the authors, who must have been trolling the internet for hits on his book, emailed me!  That was the coolest thing.  So, I'm going to list them again, and maybe that same cool thing will happen this year.  By the way, our humble little group will begin it's 10th year in January!

January - The Girls by Lori Lansens

February - Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronté

March - movie night - The Kite Runner

April - A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (author of The Kite Runner)

May - Restless by William Boyd

June - movie night - the 1970 version of Wuthering Heights

July - The River King by Alice Hoffman

August - Lighting The Way by Karenna Gore Schiff

September - movie night - Tea With Mussolini

October - The Lobster Chronicles by Linda Greenlaw

November - The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian

December - The original (1951) movie of A Christmas Carol

I'm pretty sure I won't hear from Emily Bronté, which is too bad because that would be fantastic. :) But, the rest of the authors are alive so, who knows.  Some of them are from New England.  Oooo, what if one of them wanted to come to our meeting!  I did that with Joan Anderson as a surprise to our group a few years ago.  It was so great! She was so great... loads of fun and very personable.  Hoffman lives in Boston (Cambridge, I think), Bohjalian lives in Vermont, Greenlaw in Maine.  Lansens lives in Toronto and Boyd lives, according to Wikipedia, all over the place... the US, London and France. 

We (New Englanders) are so fortunate to have, past and present, so many writers.  I've visited the homes of Emily Dickenson, Louisa May Alcott, Thoreau, Emerson...  I've had to good fortune to "meet" Elizabeth Berg, Wally Lamb, Chris Bohjalian, Anita Shreve, Sue Miller, Elinor Lipman, Joan Anderson.  I'm such a groupie! :)

I picked up a copy of The Girls from the library on my way home from work Friday.  It's about conjoined twins (fiction), who are turning 30 and one wants to write their autobiography. 

Well, my coffee cup is empty so I guess it's time to get in the shower.  Clean jammies and a full day of gift wrapping, movie watching, book reading ahead.  Yeehaaaaw...

Peace,

Kay

Early release...

Thursday

December 13, 2007

Hi,

I left work at 3:00 today.  It began to snow around noon and by the time I headed out to my car, we had half a foot or so.  I cleaned off my car, then began shoveling the 18" of snow the plow had pushed behind my car while I was working away.  It was a slick ride home, and mostly downhill, but I made it.  My car is now safely tucked into the garage...that small dwelling that makes the rest of the crap about living here worth staying.  Well, pretty much anyway.

An online friend sent this today and I just had to pass it on.  It's too hilarious and WAY TOO TRUE!  If Bill Maher offends you, you probably don't want to read it.

http://www.rollingstone.com/photos/gallery/17538811/dickheads_of_the_year/photo/1/large

I still have basically no Christmas shopping done.  Bah...

We had our annual Christmas party at book club last night.  The other Kay hosted the event.  Her house, inside and out, is beautifully (and tastefully...sigh) decorated.  Her hubby is a retired firefighter and did most of the decorating.  He also pretty much cooked our meal last night.  Porkloin, potatoes, peas and butternut squash.  Gayle brought wine for everyone and Carol brought chocolate chip cookies and brownies.  I brought toss salad and dressings.  We ate dinner, chatted, exchanged gifts, then chose our books AND movies for next year.  We are doing book, book, movie, book, book, movie, etc. so that we have a bit of a break from reading.  Well, we'll probably all still be reading anyway, but at least we can choose something off the list to sit with.

I got lovely and thoughtful gifts from everyone, as usual.  My gift to each of them was based on a theme that went with our decision to not read a book for December, but to share about a favorite book.  The Who, What, When, Where, Why and How type of sharing.  We got so involved that I ended up being the only one that did that! :)

A few years ago, I found a book called A Box of Matches, by Nicholson Baker (from Maine) on the new fiction shelf at the library.  I'm drawn to small books, and loved the cover...a bunch of matchsticks.  I also discovered that I really liked his writing and enjoyed the book very much... so much in fact that, of the 10 or so times it's been borrowed from the library, 5 or 6 of those times was by me, I'm sure.  It's filled with small stories of waking up before everyone in his family, making a cup of coffee (in the dark), then lighting the fireplace.  As he goes about this daily ritual, he muses on life... introspection as well as observation.  So, as my gift, I bought them each a copy of the book, a coffee mug, small bag of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, a votive holder and candle from Yankee Candle called "Fireside", and a little box of wooden matches.  I also made each of them a book mark with paper beads from Bead for Life.  It was fun to put it all together for them.

Den is coming home tomorrow!  Right smack between 2 snow storms.  I'm so thankful that it will be dry and sunny tomorrow when he lands in Boston.  Welcome home, Den!  It's been a year... way too long.  Time just slips right by, doesn't it?

Well, I've been on the computer for about 3 hours.  I think I'll get some dinner, do the stretching exercises I got from my chiropractor, then flop on the sofa and hope that Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy are not repeats.  What's going on with the writer's strike, anyway?  Give them what they want forcrissake!  Jeez...

Peace,

Kay

Holidaze...

Sunday

December 2, 2007

Hi,

The first flakes of the snow season just began to fall.  It's dusk, and in the twilight, they look like feathers.  There's something magical about the first snow, isn't there?  I probably won't be feeling this way when I have to haul on boots, winter coat and gloves, then wind my way uphill to work in the morning.

This morning I packed up the autumn decorations and hauled a couple of copy paper boxes filled with snowmen up from the basement.  I scattered a few here and there, then Linda arrived.

We headed out around 10:00 to begin a day of shop hopping.  For the second or third year in a row, several locally owned gift shops, nurseries, bakeries and so forth, gathered together to create "Christmas in the Country, offering a weekend of discounts, free coffee and a cookie or two.  The traveling encompasses 4 or 5 small communities right outside of Gardner.  We began our morning at Smith's Country Cheese, makers of the best sharp cheddar around.  We visited about 8 places all together.  I picked up a couple of things... a half dozen apples from The Red Apple Farm, a couple of candles and a piece of fudge at Smith's,  and I don't remember what else.  We stopped at The Brickyard for lunch.  All in all, a fun day.  Got home around 3:45 or so, and it was already getting dark.

Not dark enough, however, to diminish the sight I came upon as I pulled up in front of my house.  Apparently, while I was out ho, ho, ho-ing and humming a Christmas jingle or two, the ugly stick hit the front of my house half a dozen times or so.

The top porch, outside of Dawn's apartment, has colored running lights and big, red velvet bows.  The walkway is now decorated with 20" candy canes, dressed in lights of red and white, making it look like a festive airport runway.  But the show piece is the 12 foot inflatable snowman, glowing from the inside like he swallowed Whoville.  Make sure you catch the 11:00 news wherever you live, because I'm pretty sure Frosty has been already picked up by the Hubble Telescope.

I'm not sure which is worse.  This, or living above the family who carved "Jesus" into a slab of wood, then stapled white lights all around it so that it glowed like the north star.  He may be the reason for the season, but I'm sure he doesn't find it necessary to advertise it on the front of your house.

I think I prefer the Victorian days.  A little green bough, a little red bow, a white candle in the window... singing Christmas carols in long velvet gowns with bonnets on your head and sharing gifts of homebaked goodness.  Ahhhh...the good ol' days.

Peace,

Kay

The Luck o' the Draw...

Saturday

December 1, 2007

Hi,

Today, Alison and I went to Amherst and got the 90 minute tour of Emily Dickenson's home and her neighboring brother's house, as well.  We had a cute, little old lady with an ornate cane and bright blue eyes for our tour guide.  She had a fondness for saying, "Dontcha know" when talking about the family.  "She was a wisp of a thing, dontchaknow."  "Her father was determined not to lose the house and be run out of town like his father, dontchaknow."   As usual, being in the homes of people like Dickenson, Thoreau, Emerson, Alcott is awe-inspiring.  Like us, they had no idea of the fame that would come to them after their deaths.  Will anyone be touring our homesteads 100 years from now?  Makes you want to crack your knuckles and pick up a fountain pen, doesn't it?

It is so cold and windy here today.  We are having our first of the season snow storm tomorrow, due to arrive in the early evening.  Rumor has it we can expect about 12".  We'll see. 

For about 15 or so years now, the Hospital Aid Association has held a winter/Christmas fair in the hospital to raise money.  Each year, different departments collect money for a "theme" basket to be raffled off at the fair.  Over the years, these donations have grown from a small basket with the fixin's for making a gingerbread house, to the incredible (and expensive) baskets this year.  It's become a bit of a competition between departments to "one-up" from the year before.  This year, however, they reached the peak.  I don't know how they could be topped unless we began offering cars.

I walked into the dining room with my $5 worth of tickets to find myself face to face with a stainless steel bbq grill that must have cost at least $500, topped with a basket of bbq goodies.  Beside that was a beautiful wooden wine cabinet filled with wine, gorgeous wine glasses and a basket with cheeses and movies and whatnot.  Beside that was a wheelbarrow full of gardening paraphernalia.  There was a sled and a big plastic tub filled with toys and games.  Another basket full a Red Sox items, including 2 tickets to a 2008 game.  There was one of those outdoor fire pits, also filled with alcohol and such.  SO so many more different and wonderful things!  I can't even remember them all.

I went around with my $5 worth of tickets (26 chances per $1 donation) and tossed my tickets only into baskets that I had any interest in.  There were a couple that were only alcohol, the gardening one was out since I don't, and so forth.  I ran out of tickets and headed out to buy another $3 with the singles I found in my lab coat pocket.  Satisified that I'd hit the ones I wanted with a goodly amount of tickets, I finally went back to work.

When I went to the dining room at lunch time, I bought $5 more.  I usually spend $10 every year... what the hell, it's for the hospital, right?  :)  This year, I donated an additional $3 .   I sold tickets from 2-3 and was tempted to buy more...there were some awesome prizes, but I abstained.  I'd only won 1 basket ever (that gingerbread house basket of yore) and the odds of winning anything are something like 5000 - 1 these days.  It's a huge community affair.   I was telling Denny about it yesterday and he said..."Well, we'll put it out to The Universe that you would like to win this year", and we both laughed. 

Anyway, I got home from Amherst today and had a message from Sue, the woman who coordinates the event every year.  She said, "I'd try to call you on your cell phone, but I don't know the number.  You must be out cruising, but you're not cruisin' with your NEW GPS SYSTEM! 

OMG!  I won a basket!!!  The theme is traveling by car and here's what's in it:

First of all, it's in a 70 qt tub with rope handles. 

$50 gas card

$50 Dunkin' Donuts card

Disposable camera

Microplush throw

2 travel mugs

Flashlight

Shovel

First aid kit

93 piece Auto safety kit

Armorall gift pack

Address book

12v powered portable cooler and warmer

Black & Decker jump start

Windshield washer and de-icer

Ice scraper

Lock de-icer

Tire gauge

Anti-freeze tester

Pop-up trash can

Bungee cords

Microfiber wash pad

Anti-fog glass wipes

Air freshener

Kleenex

And... A Garmin GPS Street Pilot C330!!!!

I get lost everywhere...honest!  Driving home from Amherst today, it was beginning to get dark and I was worried that I would miss my exits.  Alison was following me (she lives in Marblehead) because she had dinner plans with friends in Groton.  I didn't want to get us lost.  As I was driving, I actually thought about this particular basket because of the GPS system.  I started my litany of pleas to the decease relatives to get me home safely and without getting lost.  They took it one step further and gave me an instrument to keep me from getting lost ever again. ;)  For someone as directionally challenged as I am, it was probably the best choice The Universe could have made in my behalf.  Besides, who would cook on a $500 bbq grill?  Not me!

Peace,

Kay