Winter Days

This is a winter picture from Timisoara. This is kind of my feeling at the moment - the wintry road goes on and on and on and on! However, I'm trying to combat the feelings of frustration with trying to do a bit of hibernation - and by this I mean just relaxing into the weather because I can do nothing about it (Steve called in 'beavering' in his blog which made me thing of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, Peter et. al. in that 'warm and cozy' cave hiding from the White Witch's secret police of wolves). Helping me ride it out is: good reading (Chesterton, Norris, Austen - a change from my normal winter reads of Dickens, Dostoyevsky -White Nights is a great winter read, and Flannery O'Conner all of which sort of depress me even more); good music (loads of Shins, Cary Brothers, Joshua Radin - 'Winter' is nice, Jack, John, Nora and Jose Gonzalez); and of course yummy food (big steaming bowels of chili and soups are always good comfort food!). The good thing about winter is that you make more of the indoor activities. This weekend, I made an attempt at celebrating St. Patty's day ( but I didn't plan enough in advance and we had neither Guinness or soda bread at our local shop) so it was a miserable failure. However, I unexpectedly took on kitchen duty at church and had a fun time serving tea and coffee and washing soup bowls with Papa Brower, JoJo, Gid, Olga, and Andy. It was so hot and the windows were so steamed from the hot water that we couldn't even see out - but the time flew as we chatted while we worked- sweating profusely and laughing about it all the while. In my mind are jumbled funny snippets of conversation about 'real men not wearing aprons', food conservation in soviet block countries (reminiscing about fighting over chicken organs in the soups and sucking marrow from overly boiled bones for a little more nutrition in empty bellies), and good books. That many people stuffed into a hot kitchen would never have happened in summer (we would have all had heat exhaustion!) and so for this I am thankful. Winter days have their moments...