A Lovely Mid-Winter Week

The weather is well below freezing and feels even colder with a hard wind attacking; then a thaw comes and it’s mild and springlike and in the 50’s or sometimes even the high 50’s; then back into the freezer again. Snow/thaw/snow/thaw/freezing rain/thaw. We actually picked our last parsley of the season yesterday.

My left ankle that I injured in Detroit more than a year ago seems to heal, almost stop hurting for up to four days at a time and then something happens to reinjure it.  Then you can’t believe how much it hurts.  I can’t even hobble around then, can’t put any weight on it. I had an accident like that at our solstice party.  It was so bad I had to have X-rays.  No bones broken, just a bone bruise near the big toe. I can’t do anything but wait for it to begin to heal all over again and apply ice –carefully not to get frostbite again.

All the seed orders went off last Monday.  Woody and I were quite efficient this year at  ordering.  Soon as they come, I’ll start looking at a couple of plant and summer bulb catalogs. I like to get canna lilies, acidanthera, different kinds of begonias, colocassia.  I order some herbs every year and a few perennials.

I am in a phase of trying to get control of my office and bedroom.  So far I’ve made far more progress with the office than I have been able to do in the bedroom.  I even got to vacuum the rug in the office.  But my bedroom is layered one very surface with endless stuff: sweaters, leggings, dirty and clean socks, adress or two, three books I sometimes read in bed, cat toys, a extra pillow that can’t be kept on the bed.  Jewelry waiting to be fixed.  Items that need mending or maybe hand washing. Gadgets I bought for some long forgotten use.Shoes I can’t wear now because of my injured ankle. 

I start on some cluttered, or more like buried, surface stuff and I end up dealing individually with every object there.  Yes, now I remember why I got this object –pillow, gadget, tool.  So now I have to find a new place for it.  How many storage crannies can I locate in one room? Then things turn up like a particular teal sock.  Did I throw away its mate when it vanished? I look for it for twenty minutes, decide I discard edit and then toss its newfound mate.  Of course, next week I’ll find the other sock.

This kind of activity is necessary if I’m not to end up buried under an avalanche of clothes and thingies, but it feels futile. I know that by next week, the pile of clothes that don’t need cleaning but have been worn once or twice will tower again and all surfaces will begin to turn invisible. 

We saw friends this weekend, one I hadn’t seen in years, and some new people we had met but never really got to know.  It was a fun evening. 

This weekend the Patriot-less playoffs.  On a way, it’s easier.  No anxiety about whether they can win or not.  They’re out. When I don’t have a stake in a game, I can enjoy it quite simply in an appreciation of the play itself. Of course sometimes I pick a favorite in a game, but it’s a choice that doesn’t carry any emotional weight.

So far at the feeders, many chickadees from two distinct groups and many goldfinches who don’t seem as hierarchical, red bellied woodpeckers that do not have a red belly but instead a red head—names are deceptive – and downy woodpeckers, cardinals, a nuthatch, some mourning doves who eat the sunflower seeds that drop, our usual contingent of grey and red squirrels. No bluejays this winter. I thought I saw a junco yesterday but I’m not sure.