Saturday Afternoon Post

I let the weather beat me today. The current temp is 6 degrees, and it's windy, so that brings it down at least another 10 degrees. The kids really wanted to go sledding with friends this afternoon, despite my warnings of frostbite. I honestly couldn't think of many things I'd rather not do. But it's sunny for a change, and that always improves any winter day, so I begrudgingly agreed to take them, thinking that they'd be ready to leave after 10 minutes of downhill fun. I felt pretty grouchy getting everyone ready, and Husband must have realized this because he stepped in and offered to take them. He thought it was foolish that I put warmers in their boots, but even though I hope he wishes he had some too, I'm pretty grateful (and surprised) that he read the situation correctly and dug out his long underwear. They're gone now, and I should be cleaning the house. But I'd rather clean my brain by blogging.

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I don't drink coffee, but I am a big fan of (i.e. addicted to) Coca-Cola. I've talked often to myself about trying to break the habit -- I know Coke is probably the root of all my bad eating behaviors. But I like it.

At any rate, I've taken to replacing my 10 a.m. Coke with an occasional green tea. And I've discovered that buying a green tea latte from Starbucks is so satisfying. Why is it that Starbucks has the effect? It's just a cup of tea, but the experience of going to Starbucks, with their hip CDs and Japanese mugs for sale, and leaving with that cup wrapped in that hand protector is so deluxe. So Nancy Botwin. So ungreen. But I like it.

I took Mia and Max to Starbucks after swimming this morning. They had coffee cake and milk. And now they like it too.
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I think one of my hens spent the night outside of her hen house earlier this week. I remember noticing her roosting outside late one afternoon -- unusual in the winter -- and she was still there the next morning. Overnight temps had gone down to zero, so I was afraid that maybe she had frozen to the roost. So Tom and I went to check, and she was still alive and not stuck to the branch that is her roost. I went into the pen, grabbed her (by holding her wings down and grabbing her around her body) and tried to put her in the hen house. She took issue and flew over to the other outside roost. So I grabbed her again and forced her inside the house, where she jumped up on to the inside roost next to her sisters and stayed for the rest of the day.

Hens don't seem very smart.

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I finished reading Beloved this week. I'd read it once, about 20 years ago, but didn't remember much about it. What a heavy experience that book is. It certainly paints slavery in all its proper shameful horror, and the ghost of the story is terrifying. But man, that Toni Morrison sure can write:

"...in all of Baby's life...men and women were moved around like checkers. Anybody Baby Suggs knew, let alone loved, who hadn't run off or been hanged, got rented out, loaned out, bought up, brought back, stored up, mortgaged, won, stolen, or seized. So Baby's eight children had six fathers. What she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children."

I find this humbling, for I'm absolutely sure nothing like this could ever come out of me.

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It's been at least an hour, and the family hasn't returned from sledding. Must be because of those boot warmers.

Now it’s time to clean the house.

(646 words)