I remember the Thanksgiving when I was ten; that was 1989. It snowed on Thanksgiving Day, and I remember being both thrilled with the snow, and a little mad that it hadn't come earlier and given us an extra-long vacation.
Now, of course, I'm hoping the snow won't come early this year. Last year, I don't think we got snow until January, but then again, last year it was in the 60s on Christmas. Bleh.
So it's cold. Not dead-of-winter cold, but cold nonetheless. And Den and I are trying to think of ways to keep warm.
Our house, being old, uses radiator heat. The system was updated before we bought the place--new water tank, etc.--and supposedly it's more efficient than gas heating hot air. Problem is, we're still relying on gas. Natural gas, unlike oil, supposedly hasn't peaked yet, but it's a matter of time. On the plus side, our windows are new, the roof over our heads is good, and we added insulation in the attic when we moved in.
Still, I hope we can get through the winter like we have the last couple of winters--turn the dial back to 65°, wear sweaters, and when it's really cold, huddle. Heh.
In other news, we finally got Kate off to Reading. Den and I drove her down to King of Prussia, where a Greyhound terminal is still operating. It was the day after Halloween--Samhain, November 1. Old Irish new year, a time of ghosts and all that.
According to my stepfather, in the old days you didn't get candy at Halloween, you got cans of food and whatnot. It was more like begging door-to-door. Well, everything old is new again, I guess. Kids came in costumes, and we gave "treats"--raisins, oatmeal cookies (made with honey not sugar), and a few lucky kids got caramel apples.
If I was a kid, I'd be pissed. But the parents looked happy.
The next day, we drove Kate down.
"You'll call me when you get in, right?"
"Don't worry, Mary. It's Greyhound, not an airplane."
"I know. But you'll call, right?"
"Yes."
Den asked, "Do you think they'll finally reopen the Reading-Philadelphia line?"
"Pfft. They've been talking about it for ten years. If this doesn't do it, nothing will," I said.
The bus started it's engine. "Be careful, Kate."
"You too."
And with that, the bus pulled out of the terminal. I followed it, down to the street, down to 202, and I watched it pull away over the horizon and out of site, like ships at sea, like all those people who sailed to the New World, leaving friends and family behind, into the great unknown.
Den put his arm around me. We went back to the car and headed home.
She did eventually call. She's with her family now in Reading, trying to figure out what to do with herself.
I just hope I get to see her again.
Finally, a brief couple of things. The garden did OK, but not as great as I would've hoped. I got some tomatoes, some peppers, but animals ate some of my tomato plants, and I know someone stole the carrots--they were pulled right out of the ground. I guess I dozed off. I've guarded it off and on--I rigged up a system where the lights go on in the garden, and sets off a buzzer in the bedroom, but sometimes I'm too slow to catch the thief.
Still, we've stocked a lot of food, and my folks' garden did great, as did my stepbrother. So hopefully we can mooch off of them to some extent. Sounds bad, but we're offering something in return:
- Den's relatively young and strong, and can chop firewood; so can I.
- I'm a good shot with a gun. I've been going out and hunting wild game for meat--geese, rabbits, deer.
There aren't a whole lot of deer around, though--I think they've been pretty picked over. But there always seems to be more Canadian geese.
The funny thing, is that I remember this one Christmas when I was seventeen. I'd gotten it into my head that we should have a "Dickensian Christmas". So my mom, humoring me I guess, got us a goose from Zerns (she also got a turkey--smart thinking), and I found recipies for chestnut stuffing and plum pudding. Well, we found out a few things:
- geese don't have a lot of meat on them. A lot of fat, but not a lot of meat.
- chestnuts explode if you don't cut slits in them.
- plum pudding has a hell of a lot of ingredients, and yet no plums, just apricots.
So. We're a week from Thanksgiving, and I've got some work--some hunting--to do. Be writing again soon, I hope.
