We Feast and Give Thanks

On Thanks- giving morning, while some people were watching the Macy's parade or the St. Louis parade on TV, I was dabbling in the kitchen, making pies for our Thanksgiving feast at the Myers' house later in the day. I miscalculated and tried to take a shortcut, using frozen piecrust. The pans are always too shallow for my recipes, so I had some of each mixture left over. The pecan mix bubbled to a hard ball candy stage in the small glass dish. I tried using a thawed out frozen biscuit in place of piecrust for the small pumpkin pie. (It wasn't all that tasty when Norm and I tried it later.) Anyway, the pecan was especially a hit and not a crumb was left. The white flower in the picture is our late-blooming chrysanthemum, still going strong at the end of November. Plants can amaze you.

These blooms in my upstairs closet window like having sunny days. The geranium cuttings are struggling, even with rooting hormone, and I think they are not going to make it. Meanwhile, the plants I took the cuttings from are still alive on the front porch, even after one 28-degree night a week ago. Maybe I'll just bring them in later in the week instead! The African Violets really like this spot and have bloomed almost continuously. The three spider plant babies are almost ready for a new home...maybe someplace semi tropical?

Early Bloomers

When a freeze threatened about a month ago, we moved all of the houseplants in from the front porch, where they had spent the summer. The north light in the dining room is one of the best spots downstairs for green plants, although it's not great for bloomers. Most striking is how much the rubber plant that Doug gave us about 3 years ago has grown. This was its first summer to go outside; I had been worried about wind or insect damage, but finally gave in and sent it out with the others. It grew an additional foot tall, with huge leaves.

Also spending every summer outside are the Christmas cacti, a white one we received as a gift one Christmas, and the pink one at left that grew from a sprig Aunt Doris Linville gave us eons ago. This year, both plants had set buds by the time we brought them inside and the white one bloomed for Halloween. The pink one will still be in bloom for Thanksgiving. So much for Christmas this year. We can always hope for one of the amaryllis to mark the holidays.

This has been a busy week. Norm had his eye checkup at UMSL Optometry Clinic, and although they are still checking him for glaucoma, he doesn't need to start any drops yet. When he went to volunteer at the food bank on Thursday, he was kept busy breaking down boxes from the huge amount of food donation that was coming in prior to next week's Thanksgiving distribution. I worked at the sewing machine on Thursday to catch up with "block a month" projects for quilt guild and made it--just under the wire. I didn't get any pictures taken of them, but I'll try to remember next time. On Monday afternoon and on Wednesday evening we visited in the homes of a couple of Compton members about the accessibility fundraising campaign. Far from being a chore, these visits help us to learn more about the history of the church and of the people involved.

Last night we had a bon voyage dinner for Matt and Sam, as they left by car this morning for Florida. Matt's parents and grandma joined us for another adventure in Judi's Daredevil Cuisine--my habit of trying out new recipes on unsuspecting guests. The greek-style lasagna was a hit, along with the greek salad and some purchased baklava! We pray for safe travel for our "boys" as they finally get reunited with Doug in Ft. Myers. This morning Norm and I enjoyed meeting with Compton Heights book circle to discuss A History of Love by Nicole Krauss. Neither of us is finished with it yet, but we had a good time anyway. A total of 8 readers met at the Thurman Cafe, a neighborhood eatery at the corner of Thurman and Shenandoah in South St. Louis, not far from Missouri Botanical Garden. They have wonderful breakfasts, scones, muffins, cinnamon rolls and coffee! (No we didn't have all of that at once, but we did bring extras home for tomorrow.) We'll be back!

It's Cold, and The Juncos Are Here

Yesterday noon it was 72 degrees and I sat on the porch reading the mail, knowing that the warmth wouldn't last. The weather forecasts all predicted a sharp cold front, rain and possibly even snow flurries overnight. As I came back around the house I saw a flock of sparrows at the bird feeder and then a small gray-on-top, white-underneath nervous bird landed on the garage roof, flashing white on its tail as it hopped. Yes, Virginia, the Juncos have arrived. It can freeze and snow now.

The rain last night did turn to snow flurries around 10:30 p.m. Norm and I were standing on the driveway with our huge flashlight scanning the electric lines leading to and from our pole to see if there was any clue to the power outage that had just struck, and the tiny snow crystals stung our faces. We didn't find anything amiss with our power lines, and a call to the electric company informed us via an automated voice that some 1,000 people were affected by this outage, and that crews expected to have power restored shortly after midnight. So, we went to bed, along with Sam the poodle who is visiting us for the last time before he moves to Florida. And this morning, as promised, the power was on and the house was warm. But outside it was gray and cold, and winter seems to be with us. The Juncos say so.

A Political Season

In Thursday's Child, the companion blog to this one, I've posted a few thoughts about yesterday's election and the genesis of my obsession with staying up late for election returns. The link to Thursday's Child is to the right, below my profile.

On additional note: I wonder if finally the fascination of political campaign planners with the negative ad will wane. It seems to me we have hit new lows in willingness to attack the other person's age, gender, religion, financial status and family members instead of vigorously critiquing a candidate's public record of accomplishments or lack thereof. We received calls that all but threatened the apocalypse if the candidate who "was wrong" for Missouri and "didn't share our values" was elected. We also received calls that warned of a complete dissolution of American democracy if the other candidate won. None of these claims were true, and all of them had one basic appeal: fear. Maybe if anything has been learned through this process, it is that the age of selling fear is over. One can only hope.

More Fall Scenes

Some time back, I wrote that frost was coming, and one of our chrysanthemum plants still hadn't bloomed. This hardy little late bloomer finally opened last weekend. It looks for all the world like a shasta daisy, but it's a mum, no doubt about it. Doug gave the plant to us about three or four years ago, and it persists, if on its own schedule. Since today is Doug's birthday, this bouquet is for him.

One last autumn glory picture is of the euonymous, or burning bushes, along our fence by the driveway. Before last weekend's rains came, I caught them on a peak day. Soon, maybe Norm will haul out the garland and white lights to adorn the fence for the holidays. Last week he cleaned out the bird feeders, outfitted the poles with new squirrel guards, and filled the tubes with seed. One with a sunflower mix is in the back border, and one with thistle seed is just outside the office window. The sparrows have already found the mixed seed one. Any day now, the purple finches and the gold finches should try out the thistle. We will know that the winter season is truly here when the juncos arrive--so far, no sign of them. Last weekend we had one last migratory visitor. Two small, plump golden birds, about junco size, were flitting from branch to branch in the maple. I couldn't positively identify them, but they seemed to be warblers of some sort. It was kind of late for such visitors to be coming through, and I had never in my life seen this species before!

Our week has been pretty routine since Halloween. We spent a quiet weekend, had a man come and vacuum up leaves, watched our neighbor's house and collected her mail because she was on a business trip. We went to exercise and took some walks. Norm did some sorting in the basement, and I did some sorting in the upstairs office, unpacking boxes of files and books and "things" I brought home from my University office last spring. They sat dormant over the summer, while we concentrated on family reunion, knee rehab, and travels. We went to the grocery store and paid the November bills--more of them online than by writing checks any more. Our printer/scanner/copier quit working in the midst of a printing job for a church project, but Epson is going to repair it for free and pay the shipping--we just have to figure out how to pack the thing securely. Today I went to a meeting to see what the benefits changes for University retirees will be in 2007. I'm thankful for a pension, for health benefits, for bills to pay, possessions to repair and projects to plan. For freedom and the ballot box, which we can exercise tomorrow. For life and friendship and love.