Only Jane

I washed my rain coat and it was still dripping wet after the spin cycle. And if you think about it, that is a good thing, because it is supposed to shed water.

But I couldn't hang it to dry on the laundry room door, letting it drip on my wooden floors. So I thought I would hang it outside on the birch limbs, which I have used before for rare air-dry occasions.

Got outside and saw the tree trimmer had shaved all the limbs up well over my head. But spotted my Kousa Dogwood with a lower branch.

I hung the coat out to dry and headed back in to wash my hands and continue frosting Christmas cookies. Luckily Neil put a window in over the kitchen sink, because I saw my coat swinging wildly in the wind and in danger of dropping to the flower bed below, aka good Maryland dirt.

So I got the package tape and taped the hanger to the tree. It could still swing to help it dry in the wind, but was no longer in danger of swinging right off the branch.

Could You Bring .....

Since we were having Christmas 2.0 later in Austin, up came the special request, could you bring those coffee cookies? Suzie's Christmas Cookies.

I got the recipe long ago when I was working as a secretary in the Law School at the University of Illinois in Urbana, while Neil was still working on his PhD.

My God-daughter had a free afternoon on Monday and that is all the encouragement I needed. She would make the cookies, help bake and best of all, do all the cookie dishes.

Here is Katrena up to her elbows in suds, the primary motivator for getting those dishes extra clean. Thank you for the help! And the Austin kids thank you for the cookies. : )

Red Maple Discovery

It is a sunny and very windy day here. We didn't get any snow from the storm which dumped 15" on New York City, but we do have up to 55 mile an hour winds until 9pm tonight.

I was coming back from taking Kay's birthday card to the mailbox, and was looking for wind damage on my old Empress Queen maple tree when I spotted this bird's nest.

It is a glob of building material without the apparent bowl of a typical nest on top, but more like a beaver's house. You enter the side door to keep out of all weather. Now I know it is there, I will have to watch for occupants.

Christmas 1.0

I got a new Rachel Ray teflon lined 9x13" cake pan, which I mostly use to make my Christmas fudge. Total surprise as we opened a few gifts that would not be making the trip to Austin where we plan to celebrate Christmas 2.0 with the grandchildren next weekend.

I have used this pan for forty years and it is very thin on the bottom, verging on being sliced through. These striations represent all the happy years fudge went to friends for Christmas.

My daughter says with a teflon lined pan, the fudge never sticks. That just means no more snacking for the chef who makes these culinary treats. Ah, progress.

4:15 am And Wide Awake

Who wouldn't be up early, it is Christmas Day. But the other half of this household was snoring, so I printed my two five-star sudokus. Only 50% success rate today. That must mean I am operating on an impaired mental basis. Watched the weather channel to learn the announced Christmas snow would miss the DC area.

Decided to work on my China "book". At over 100 pages it is so cumbersome, I found a section of duplicate words on page 75 and again on page 93. Continued editing (more tedious than creation writing) and since my ankles were freezing, I decided to use the winter neck scarves to wrap my ankles while I worked on the pictures and text. While wrapping my meat-locker cold ankles, it came to me, the whole book thing would be much easier to work with in smaller Chapters. So I broke the thing apart, another hour or so, we are at 18 smaller packets.

By this time my husband was up. Hooray! We could now have omelet for breakfast and open presents. I came down to ask him if he would like breakfast now and realized I was still wrapped up! He took the picture above. I hope Jack isn't reading this, because you can see I haven't quite finished a "Crayola" scarf for him for Christmas. But my ankles were warm!

Merry Christmas 2010!

Never Before

This morning I was a little late in getting to the Metro parking garage, so I didn't drive in until 6:25 am. I knew the federal government was taking Christmas today, but our company was taking the holiday on the following Monday, so we were to report to work.

I didn't realize how many people worked for the federal government until I got all the way to the front of the garage and found the very first, primo, non-handicapped spot was empty! I took it - proof is in the photo. It was nearest the entrance door, and on the ground floor, that is what the GA stands for in front of my left fender above, Ground Section A, you can't get any closer than that for parking. Amazing.

Then a man approached me and asked if Metro were closed. He had driven in from West Virginia and the door was closed and chained at the entrance. That's puzzling. Have you checked the other entrance? There is another entrance?

He got his car and followed me around. It was locked also, but the paperboys said it should open in about ten minutes. It was on a holiday schedule. This was not announced on the news this morning and it wasn't until a few ordinary folks like myself contacted the news stations to ask why the stations were closed that they started announcing, "oh, by the way, the metro is running on a holiday schedule."

So my boss said there was no postal service either since the feds were off. But that turned out not to be right, because we did get mail later this afternoon. Puzzling day when the feds take off the 24th of December and it is on a Friday.

Positive note: I have never parked this close to the entrance of the Metro Station before and probably will never get this close-in spot ever again!

Your Tax Dollars At Work

I work downtown in this historic restored office building, the Victor Building. Much of the office space is taken up by the National Portrait and American Art Gallery Offices....the Feds.

We were working along today when my boss announced, "the Feds have gone." Eh yup. They have Christmas Eve off as a Federal Holiday, and so they started three or four hours early today to "get ready" to be off tomorrow.

Consequently, I got to leave an hour early and even with the commute home arrived when it was still light outside. Must be nice to keep those hours.....