January 3, 2021.  It's the first Sunday of the New Year.  And, of course, football dominates the TV balanced with lots of re-runs.  So I am spending time here and thinking ahead to what the year may hold for all of us.   

 

No New Year's resolutions, but a few suggestions here.

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Certainly, hopefully, a remission of the pandemic.  Maybe eradication with the new vaccines being developed.  No one to blame for all of it.  But a word of warning here:  don't eat bat meat!  

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If I don't make fun of it once in a while I will instead end up in tears.  Don't eat bats!

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To be more realistic, our weather here in northern Indiana has been beastly this past weekend. Rain, snow, and ice everywhere.  A wet snow turned to ice crystals on tree branches, shining in moonlight like a string of diamonds.  Beautiful, but the ice under the snow on the ground was deadly and people stayed inside.  

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This was enough to endure for a few days, but the ice on tree branches also weighed down electric lines and broke them.  This time our power outage lasted, for me, from 3:12 PM Friday, to 7 Pm on Saturday, the 2nd.

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My house temperature was down below 60 degrees and the sunroom which I'd closed off was down to 53.  I had moved three tropical plants to the inner greatroom to keep them from wilting from the cold.  

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Between the creeping cold and the utter darkness after 6 PM, no street lights, no neighbor's lit windows, and my phone's gradual power loss with no hope of charging, I truly felt alone.  And not in the good way I usually do. 

 

I love solitude.  But not in a dark freezing house with the electric garage door dead.  And the streets not drivable anyway.  I felt very small and powerless.  Estimate of the power company's repair was in four days, my daughter called to tell me.  

 

I wondered what the body's freezing point was and how long I could last. Knit gloves helped and a cloche stopped my chimney-like head from losing warmth I still had.

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Flashlights and LED camp lanterns gave me shadowed light for reading til I got tired of squinting and went to bed earlier than usual, in sweats and five blanket layers from folding them in half. 

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This was January 1st, hopefully not a harbinger of the year to come with difficulties in addition to that virus.

 

I am back to being cheerful and warm now, on the third day of the year.  But am keeping all the flashlights, LED lanterns, and extra blankets handy, just in case. 

 

And praying for an early Spring this year.  

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And praying for all the people sick and dying.  Praying for us all in this New Year.

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Enough said.

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Laine