TREACHEROUS BEAUTY

 

There is everywhere ice.  When I took Gabriel out this morning it was soft ice.  Soft and textured.  I was careful.  I did not fall.  The temperature is iffy.  Some places locally are a little colder than others.  The telephoned Police Alert advises us to stay off the streets and DO NOT TOUCH fallen branches as power lines have been pulled down.

It is so very beautiful.  Hard to understand how such beauty can be such a danger.  It seems like some kind of trick.  Sometimes I feel as though life is like that also -- some kind of trick.  I go along and everything seems peaceful and good and then -- wham -- I get blindsided.  Sometimes that is because I am just unaware and not paying attention to the whole of life.  Zeroed in on my own self too much maybe.  Have to pay more attention to what is going on in the lives of the people around me.  Open myself up to the needs and feelings of others.
 

THE ICE OF WINTER

It was only twenty this morning when I went out for the paper. And there is still plenty of snow. And, of course, all the water in my pretzel containers have turned to ice. Well, they have been ice for a while, because they have been on the deck for a while.

Ever since reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, I have been super conscious about our use of water. Bill would say I am over conscientious, even obsessive. I have been known to just turn off the water when he is rinsing out the sink. And I go bananas when he rinses dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. This water conservation effort isn't new with me. I used to siphon the kid's bathwater out to the lawn. Here in the northeast we have nasty dry periods.

Since The Road this water obsession has led to the saving of water in many ways. The water run until shower temperature is reached is a considerable amount of water. The water from rinsing out the coffee pot is quite acceptable for plants as is the water from cleaning vegetables. We save it in big Utz pretzel containers. There are containers in the bathrooms, in the kitchen, wherever there are plants, and eventually the overflow makes it out to the deck. We have LOTS of jars of water. We also had a great amount of rain this fall and winter so that the containers were not emptied. So, I have jugs and jugs of water -- ice in the ones on the deck.
And a fascinating formation of ice. There is a cone of ice in the center, surrounded by ice. And I don't know which froze first the cone or what surrounds the cone. Whatever, there will be water for plants when the time comes.