Noah as Steven Cruel

This morning Noah’s fifth grade presented their Christmas program, “North Pole Star.” It was based on “American Idol” featuring Santa’s reindeer as contestants. The judges were Santa, Mrs. Claus, and Steven Cruel.

Noah played Steven Cruel. His British accent was great! He and Owen both can do “British.” They picked it up watching Harry Potter movies.

All of the children were great! They really get into it, even the boys.
Noah is basically very shy, but when he’s on stage, you would never know it. I’m so very proud of him!

Baby, It’s Cold Outside!

Winter is here in South Carolina—one of our four or five days of really cold weather that makes a SC winter season. When I checked the temp this morning about 6:30 am, it was 11 degrees. That’s cold for us. There were a few (very few) flakes of snow Sunday night. We took Cole, Bella, and Levi out for dinner, and Cole was explaining the tried and true method of ensuring a large snowfall for the next day. It involved putting a knife under the bed and then dancing around a hat. He must have forgotten the ritual because no snowfall was apparent in the morning.

Jason called this morning and said they have no hot water. He said they had running cold water, and it didn’t appear that any pipes had burst. He has one of those small water heaters attached to the outside of the house that heats water as it’s needed. Maybe the pipe to or from the unit froze.

Owen was sick yesterday, and he was supposed to stay with us today. His mom decided to work from home again today because of the water problems.

Ben will probably be inundated with burst pipes at the trailer park. Every time it gets cold, the pipes pop like popcorn kernels in hot oil. Can you imagine facing 40 sets of broken pipes? It doesn’t bear thinking about. (Brrr!)

The forecast calls for one more extremely cold night, with rising temps Wednesday. However, along with the moderating temps, a “wintry” mix is predicted for Wednesday night into Thursday. I hate that “wintery” mix crap. That means icy roads, downed power lines, and broken tree branches all over the yard.

I know I’ve said that I like winter better than summer, but sometimes I get tired of having cold hands and feet. Then I remember the weeks of 100+ degrees of summer heat, and this weather doesn’t seem so bad.

I shouldn’t be complaining. I’ve seen news reports of the horrendous conditions in the Midwest. I feel for all who are suffering, and I realize how lucky we are.

Disappointment

The headline on a Yahoo! news story reads, “WH warns (fellow democrats) tax defeat could trigger new recession.”
President Obama is “getting tough” with his own party instead of the other party whose policies put our country and economy in the position it’s in now.
I am becoming more and more disenchanted with President Obama daily. That being said, the bright side is even though I disagree with some of his actions and policies, I feel better with him at the helm than I would have felt if the country had been left to the other party.

Water Towers

I think water towers are interesting.
Some are quite elegant and graceful as this one in our town. It has recently been repainted.

There was no way for me to photograph it without the power lines.
The giant peach is in Gaffney, SC, in an area that has. . .you guessed it, peach orchards.
Westminster, SC boasts many apple orchards, therefore, their tower is appropriately decorated.

(The picture placement is a little wonky. I used a new method of posting. As usual, click on photos for detail.)

Oh, Deer!

Our son Jason lives about 15 miles from us. The route between us is a two lane country road. There are houses and businesses along the way, but there are also large fields, and woods line some sections of the road. The speed limit is 55 most of the way. At night there are no street lights to aid visibility.

At night when I'm driving, I slow to about 45 mph if there is no one behind me because of the deer I've seen crossing the road or standing in bunches along the roadside. If I were to hit one, our small car could be totaled and serious injury could occur.

Not long ago after driving carefully and watching for for deer, I drove through our downtown and turned into the street leading to our subdivision. We live about 4 blocks from downtown.

There on the side of the street waiting to cross was a deer. Now I have to drive slowly on the dark country road and on the city streets leading to our house to avoid the wildlife. There could be more deer in the city limits than in the fields and forests.

Homer and Langley

Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow is not a book that I enjoyed, but I will recommend it. It is the story of two well-to-do brothers living in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue. It spans a time period from World War I to the mid 60’s or perhaps a few years later.

One brother is blind and the other came home from the Great War suffering from the results of mustard gas poisoning and PTSD which became madness. The blind brother is a musician, and the mad one is brilliant. The brothers are recluses who view the world from behind their shutters and occasionally taking part in the changing world.

I enjoy books that cause me to think and that have an emotional impact. This one left me in despair and overwhelmed with pity. If I knew its impact before reading it, I’m not sure I would have chosen it. But, having said that, once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it aside.

Kindling

Out of curiosity, last night I accepted an offer from Amazon to download a free Kindle for the PC. I installed it on the laptop.


I had looked at the real hand-held version in retail stores, and I lusted in my heart for one whenever I saw anyone with one. I know that it is out of reach for me, not only because of the cost of the unit itself, but because book-buying is a minuscule portion of our budget.

I downloaded a free book. (There are lots of free ones available, but they are mostly older books in the public domain.) I discovered that Amazon has a number of free, contemporary books.) If the “real” Kindle is anything like the PC Kindle, then I must say that I am favorably impressed.