Sophie's Story

           It's cold outside, the thermometer on our furnace thermostat says it's -13 degrees. It's been cold like this for the past several days. You'd never know it by looking outside. The sun is shining and I think the wind is pretty minimal. Most people don't like weather like this. I don't mind it at all.          I went to college in North Dakota. It was a long time ago, but I remember a lot of below zero days there. I also remember it being windy most of the time. I learned to wear warm clothes especially a scarf if I had to be outside. I also learned  to shortcut through buildings as much as possible to get to my classes. As long as I was dressed properly, I knew I'd be all right. As long as I had what I needed I didn't need to be scared of weather like this.          There is another reason why I'm not bothered cold weather. It's a godsend for introverts like me. Most people don't want to go ou...

           A few years ago a friend gave me a two pound cake of chunky yarn for my birthday.  It is lovely yarn with shades of purple and lavender running to white and then a pale green. The problem was I had no idea what to do with it. It was too much yarn for some projects and not enough yarn for other projects. It sat in the bag it came in for months while I waited for inspiration.           One day scrolling aimlessly though patterns, I found the right one. It was a blanket. This was perfect because, in this case, size does not matter. The stitch pattern was easy and would look good with the varied colours in the yarn. The only thing I needed was the correct size and type of needles.           I wanted to make the blanket a size in between the choices offered in the pattern so I deliberately cast on the wrong number of stitches. It took me while to figure out the pattern as I wasn't follow...

           I think several of my friends are either hurt, puzzled or upset with me. I've had several offers to talk and got some really good chocolate and bouquets of flowers. I enjoy the flowers and the chocolate, but haven't taken up anyone on the offer to talk. This really baffles some people because I lost my Mom, the woman who gave birth to me and the person who took care of me when I was younger. The fact that I'm not devastated is something they don't understand.          What most of the people in my life don't know is that my mother had Alzheimer's Disease. Most people know what that is. It means that someone who has it loses their memory. What they may not understand is that it is degenerative. That's a fancy way for saying that a person with this condition is going to get worse. The decline may be slow or fast, but it is a decline and nothing is going to stop it. (Although there are a few drugs with more on the horizon th...

           The snow is falling softly outside. I am nice and warm inside with a fresh cup of tea.  The brisket is in the crockpot. C and the cats are sleeping.           Normally I would be going around the house taking down the old calendars and putting new ones up. Between work and and all the other things going on during the holidays, we never got around to buying new ones. I had already decided to stop buying page a day calendars. There aren't any new ones that interest me.          I haven't even written down the things I want to do in the new year yet. The time that I would have spent on this task was devoted to writing my mom's obituary and answering condolence messages. I'm honestly not sure if I want to write a "resolution list" this year. Last year I did pretty good starting out and then all the good habits that I wanted to get into fell by the wayside.  The planner I bought to track...

           We have come to the end of another year and some of us will be celebrating the end of this year and the beginning of a new one. Yesterday brought another ending for me and our family, my mother passed away.          Mom and I had a complicated relationship starting in junior high. I was the strange middle child, bookish, shy and socially inept. The only thing I did that pleased her was to make the honor roll consistently.           She hoped that I would go to a liberal arts private college and become a professional writer or become an interpreter. I was of a more practical bent and chose a career that paid well and would allow me to be help people. For many years she made sure to let me know that she did not approve of my career in "the sciences" even though she knew I liked it and was good at it.          That is not what I want to write about though. She was a real...

         It’s Christmas morning. Willow is napping on her pillow. Barnaby is chasing a ball or plotting some sort of mischief. I’m am sitting on the couch in my traditional Christmas pajamas looking at the few decorations I managed to put up this year.       We almost didn’t get a tree this year. Between work schedules and a nasty respiratory virus that hung  on for weeks, we went tree shopping a few days before Christmas Eve. We’ve been getting smaller trees lately so we can set them on a small coffee table. Our hope was that the cats would be unable to drink the tree water, since we’ve learned that is dangerous for the cats.       A few months ago, I had an idea for our tree this year. I thought we should get a Norfolk Island pine. I had one before as a house plant and really liked the look of it. I am pretty sure I can keep one alive. Since it was going to be in a pot, we would not have to worry about cats drinking tree wate...