Festival of Ice

First of all, Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate it! Today is the first day of the Jewish Feast of Lights. I'm not Jewish, but there were several Jewish families in Cape May when I was a kid. One December, each class in Cape May Elementary was assigned a different country. They'd study it's holiday customs and even do a craft or recipe related to the country. Rose's class did Poland. Mom hung her "Polish angel" in the house for years. Because of the Jewish kids in our class, mine did Israel. We had a wonderful time playing with dredals and making potato latkas. To this day, I still love the dredel game...and potato latkes are sooo good!

Second, the weather has not been pleasant here, a reminder that today is also the Winter Solstice, the first day of winter. I awoke this morning to sleet and a porch that was sheer ice. I didn't want to call for a ride after what happened last week, and I couldn't ride my ice-covered bike, so I lowered myself down the icy steps (soaking my pants doing so) and walked to work. I was fifteen minutes late...but as it turned out, so was everyone else. The rain had stopped by the time I arrived at work. By the time I was finally finished, the sun was out, and most of the ice had melted. I told them I'd stay an extra fifteen minutes to make up for my lateness (and make sure I got the money)...and ended up staying about five or ten minutes more because, like yesterday, it was just so darn busy! Thankfully, a co-worker was nice enough to give me a ride home.

I had settled into listening to the Eagles game (they played poorly and lost to the Washington Redskins 10-3) on the radio when Jodie called. They had hoagies and wanted to know if I was up for joining them. I'd just finished the cranberry bread I'd made for my neighbors and was only going to listen to the game and watch The Bishop's Wife for the rest of the night, so I figured...what the heck?

Jessa drove me there and back. Dad's finally home. He, Jodie, and Jessa bought their (huge, natural) tree today and were going to decorate it tonight or tomorrow. Dad put up the lights on the house, too, and all the house decorations were out, including their massive collection of Christmas stuffed animals and Jessa's stocking. (Only kid in the world with a flamingo on her stocking.) We had hoagies and soft pretzels and chatted with Dolores as she showed off what her granddaughters had given her for a Christmas party - a Nintendo DS. (For those of you who, like Jodie, Dolores, and me, are video-game illiterate, the DS is the fancier, more interactive version of the hand-held Game Boy.) I watched the Eagles-Washington and Jets-Seahawks games with Daddy while Dolores, Jodie, and Jess worked on figuring out Brain Age 2. (I don't think they ever really got very far.) The Jets-Seahawks game was really interesting. They played in a snowstorm! (The Seahawks won, incidentally.)

I'll be doing cupcakes for Christmas presents tomorrow. It's really windy out there now. Gusts are supposed to get up to 40 miles an hour and stay that way until tomorrow afternoon. I don't think I'll make it to Yogawood, but if it does calm down by the afternoon, I'll try for the Acme luncheon.