St. Valentine's Day XXIII

When you're married to a guy who works in a supermarket produce department, any meal he cooks for you inevitably features an abundance of...roughage.

No complaints.

And he's so cute when he fusses in the kitchen. I often wish I still had my old reporters' mini-tape recorder to document the sounds of a man who rarely sets foot in a kitchen trying to put together a romantic meal surrounded by four dogs who are just waiting for him to turn his back on that steak he has sitting on the counter. (By the end of the production, three of the four had been kicked out into a snow drift. Only Zsa Zsa Goody-Two-Paws remained.)


Unfortunately, Dirtman was called into work last minute and our romantic evening was moved up to a romantic lunch and I was the only one drinking wine. Romance is all well and good, but there is nothing romantic about the lights going out when you're not the one who shut off the electricity.

There was time enough, though, even for dessert.

A Large Swath of Insanity

I'm still not apologizing for my love of snow.

Yeah, we got almost 2-1/2 feet, I've had to rely on the kindness of strangers (Well, the kindness of neighbors, anyway. Hardly strangers.) to help plow my driveway and I'm ultimately going to suffer financially for working at a farm that is unreachable during such weather.

I will admit to a bit of a negative attitude last Thursday when the power went out and I hadn't made coffee yet. I can lose my house, declare bankruptcy, endure joblessness, be threatened with homelessness and shed ne'er a tear; but take away my first cup of coffee in the morning and I dissolve into a sniveling, sniffling basket case requiring every dog in this house to circle the wagons. If they'd had opposable thumbs, they would have made my coffee, a danish and supplied me with my own personal rawhide to gnaw on. But all they could do was sit in their signature semi-circle, facing outward, and look noble and protective (except for Zsa Zsa, whose antidote to everything is to lick my knee).


Eventually, though*, Heir 1 woke up (it may have been the wailing) and immediately shoveled a path to our gas grill outside, turned on the gas, lit it and, thumping his chest, declared he had made fire. Finally, thanks to a mortar and pestle (Note to self: place a few pots-worth of ground coffee in freezer, for just such an occasion), I got my coffee and Heir 1 (who, by the way, was in the throes of the flu) had tea. Thanks to a propane fireplace, we had heat. I had plenty of Britta water and, thanks to the abundance of precipitation, we had enough water to flush toilets (not as easy as you would think -- a spaghetti pot of snow yielded barely a pint of water. This was an on-going project. There are those among you who understand why this would be a priority).

Once I got the coffee in me, I began to enjoy myself. I made homemade chicken soup for dinner (with some -- though not as much as this time -- garlic) and snuggled in with my knitting and several books. Power would come back on and promptly go out again, just when you were in the middle of something, so I learned not to take it for granted.

After awhile, I developed a routine and it was almost with disappointment I realized that the power hadn't gone out in quite awhile and it seemed the "storm" was over.



I've yet to get back to work, but I can't help loving how pretty everything is. Dark Garden will probably have something to say about this -- he does not winterize well. In fact, I rather annoy him with my preference for cold weather (you should see the view from his front window). He is counting down the days until he can move as far south as possible; I lament that I will never be snowbound in some wilderness.

Well, I guess this winter is as close as I'll ever get.



*Dirtman spent this entire time at work, sleeping wherever and helping to keep the store open -- hoping against all hope that his diligence will lead someone in the organization to promote him to a Real Job with Real Benefits and a Real Salary. I won't turn this into a commentary on the sloppy work ethic of younger generations and those whose minds are numbed by the philosophy of union dogma, but I am often flabbergasted by the laziness of aforementioned workers who manage to hold on to their positions. Just saying.