Cabin Fever

How is it possible to have Cabin Fever when not confined to the cabin?  State of mind.  We have a state of siege.  Snow siege.  It annoys me that I cannot get to the back yard.  I thought about going out via the cellar door, but it has two feet of snow on it.  The snow in the yard won't bear my weight. I tried walking around the garage this morning.  Impossible.   We found another suet feeder and hung it up on the front porch.  In the meantime, the flicker and friends are on the last pecks of the backyard suet.

Even in Chicago in the winter of 1979, we could get to the backyard.  I have no desire to wade through waist deep snow.  What if I get stuck?  How embarrassing would that be?

The post-Christmas snow caterpillar has morphed into the sinister shape.  The cats have a hard time bird watching, because the birds are way up on the snow and the cats are down on the living room floor.  The orange cat has been inconsolable the past few days.  Does he, too, have cabin fever?  He likes to sleep by the hot air vents in the kitchen and the bathroom.  He sleeps on top of me whenever he gets a chance. 

I-tunes is playing a Latin version of Volare.   The first time I heard this song I was playing water frisbee in a swimming pool in Aurora, Colorado with a guy named Tim.  A million years ago.   

I am making a recipe from Gourmet for dinner, a diet chicken pot pie.  Ye gods, the ingredients list!   And I think I didn't get the sauce thick enough.  Instead of crust it has mashed potatoes (with low-fat sour cream) on top.  Sounds pretty good.  Definitely from scratch.  We're going to have some white chili next week.  In this weather it is temping to make comfort food with loads of calories.  Discipline.  Discipline. Yup.

A long ago Thanksgiving in Puerto Vallarta at Daquiri Dicks

It's hard to write.  It's even hard to rewrite when one has this "siege" mentality. Ah, for I have forty pages of edits left.   Then that book gets put away for a while.  I need to get World of Mirrors on the Kindle because The Shadow Warriors is doing all right.  How about them apples?  I haven't publicized it because I accidentally tossed my hand-written "plan" away.   Just a few modest mentions so far and of course blogging on Suspenseful Sunday with Seven Sentences.

This business in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, and even Yemen is so interesting.  Who would have thunk it?  I watch a lot of TV and read three daily papers, dinosauress that I am.  Astonished to find two women who have never heard of the "Tiger Mother."  Astonished that people can go thru $160,000 for a college education and not learn anything.  Astonished by how high the freaking snow is.

I will never cease being astonished.  Astonished that my book is selling.  It has a good description of the Boston Public Garden and Fanieul Hall in winter.  Normally, I write summer books.  Now I know why.
I long for Southern Climes?  Puerto Vallarta anyone?

Grapeshot                      

Sucking It Up in the Snow

Why do I feel a bad case of cabin fever coming on when I was out  yesterday morning and in New York City from Thursday - Sunday?  Grocery shopping on Monday. 

This morning, with all good intentions I decided to take a cake of suet out to the empty bird feeder.  But I couldn't.  The way around the garage had  5 feet of snow.  The door to the deck is blocked.  I thought maybe the sidewalk and then a slog thru the yard, but the shovellers had a big wall by the sidewalk, too big to plow thru with good intentions and feet.  I seriously thought about jumping out the living room window (crazy, I know), but the icicles were like pointy daggers, and I whacked at them, but didn't get them all.  Besides, (duh!), how would I get back into the house?  Marooned in the back yard and having to call 911.  How embarrassing would that be? I did have my phone along.   I flung bird seed out the open window, and the juncos were there almost immediately.  On the front porch, we have titmice, chicadees, juncos, turtle doves and bluejays.  And one exotic sparrow.  Marsh?  Swamp?  Downy, Hairy, and one big mother of a flicker eat at the suet feeders, one of which either fell down or was ripped down by a ravenous raccoon, and the other is empty.  The third one still has a bit of suet.  When it's gone, I absolutely have to figure out a way.   

In Boston yesterday, a coyote fell thru the ice of the Charles River (in a very urban area) and was rescued.  I hope people have found a way to feed the feral cats.  In New York on Fifth Avenue in a posh neighborhood, a flock of sparrows was all fluffed up and cheeping hungrily.  Doubt if anyone is feeding them.  Maybe feeders in Central Park.  Have wonderful photo of hundreds of pigeons on a power line. 

So, you are asking, how much snow do we have?  See below.

View from our front porch.

East Side, West Side, All Around the town of Old New York

Before the last storm.  Even higher now.  Ye gods!