Winter Is Icummen In again

Yikes! More snow tomorrow. We're going to a performance of the Seagull, done in punk modern dress with non-Chekov type sets. Rave review in the Boston Globe, so it should be interesting.

My desk is again organized and filing in done. Why did this seem to take all week? My robot Gafftopsail Catfish is swimming along and is awaiting more adventures. I must be very weird to write such a strange story.

And now an agent wants to read Festival Madness, just when I was making a major change to the beginning which will need some retrofitting in the middle. What to do? Too many things going on at once.

And Tuesday is the Inauguration. So exciting. So cold. So crazy. Well, I must confess I have nothing to wear to the ball. As a young woman, I always had several winter formal dresses and a selection of summer ones. La di dah! How times have changed. I still have the long opera gloves, white leather, yet. Once I had silk designer shoes, so lovely. Roger Vivier, I think. Hardly even wore them--worth a fortune now as vintage. The shoe in the photo sells for $600. Do I ever wish I had hung onto those shoes.

We have been suffering from a deep cold spell, and will suffer even more when the heating bill comes. Yikes! I could pawn the shoes if i had them.

May I recommend wool socks? I bought two pair at Clarks Shoe in October. At the time, it seemed a somewhat frivolous purchase, but those suckers are soft and warm and machine washable in cold water and I just dry them on the towel rack. Worth every penny. How did I graduate from ball gowns and Roger Vivier to wool socks? It just happened.

Mexican chicken tonight, with refried beans and fried corn tortillas. Tasty. I am reading an Easy Rawlins mystery and Hallie Ephron's 1001 Books for Every Mood. Drooling over the books. Lots of new ones.

Onward, through the frigid air. Ezra Pound said it best:

Winter is icummen in,

Lhude sing Goddamm,

Raineth drop and staineth slop

And how the wind doth ramm!

Sing: Goddamm.

Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,

An ague hath my ham.

Freezeth river, turneth live

Damn you, sing: Goddamm.

Goddamm, Goddamm, tis why I am,

Goddamm.

So 'gainst the winter's balm

Sing Goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm

Sing Goddamm, sing Goddamm,

DAMM.

Grapeshot

A new calf

Most unexpectedly (for me) one of the Highland Scottish Cows bore a calf today. This is (I think) Mary Ann, who has a half-grown calf that is ailing. He lies in the pasture all day and flicks his ears. The poor little thing must have ear mites or worse. wish the farmer would take action and do something and am debating stopping by and mentioning same. Nothing like a nosy busybody, is there?

The calf with the ear problem is lying on the right, and the brand new calf is a darker brown and lying with his/her mother licking him. Cow mothers are very attentive, at least for a while. We fed them scraps today, and Maggie's baby will eat out of my hand which is unusual for the calves who tend to be more skittish.

The pair of ducks seems to be nesting close by us in the slough. The big obnoxious black birds appeared a few days ago and ate all the suet, even the suet in the feeder for small birds. Their beaks are so long they can reach in and eat it. Major bummer. Do not like those birds.

I had to refill the thistle seed yesterday, and noticed the trillium is blooming, and about 30 solomon's seals are coming up. Bleeding heart is also abloom, and some of the wildflowers look healthy, but the creeping phlox is a train wreck. Spare and no blooms. My heath really looks good. Maybe photos tomorrow.

I would ordinarily be arriving in Gerlach, Nevada right now, had the fates so decreed. Instead I'm leaving Thursday and coming back on Tuesday for a much shortened trip, and the fun stuff like Soldier Meadow and Squaw Reservoir will be what doesn't get done. So it goes, in the words of the immortal Vonnegut.

The Corrections just blew me away. I finished it last night and haven't read such a tour de force since The Poisonwood Bible. God what a joy a long novel that's really fun to read can be. One of life's great pleasure. Hallie Ephron has a new book out: 1001 Books for Every Mood: A Bibliophile's Guide to Unwinding, Misbehaving, Forgiving, Celebrating, Commiserating (and I'm looking forward to getting some good suggestions from that. There must be delights of good reading I probably overlooked or was never assigned. Just like Sinclair Lewis's Oil, also a great novel. I've had a good reading spring and late winter.

Submitted a short story to Glimmer Train and an agent wanted 3 chapters of Festival Madness. No great hopes, because I don't think FM is going to be her thing, but I'm sending them anyway.

Maybe if she likes it, she'll recommend another agent. I have the feeling it's more of a man's book. Crazy, huh?

Onward,

Grapeshot