State of The Janet

It's a beautiful winter, almost, day and I thought I'd do a state of the Janet report.

I just finished reading "The Gathering Storm" by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson which I enjoyed thoroughly, more than the last 3 or 4 Robert Jordan books and I'm starting "The Middle Window" by  Elizabeth Goudge, originally published in 1938, it is a beautifully written little book, as are all of hers, I love her use of language.

Last watched on t.v.,  MythBusters, they are an absolute hoot.  Last DVD we've watched is  "Cranford" a wonderful British short series full of extremely talented British character actors, not the least of whom is Judi Dench.

Last shopping, ordering Christmas dessert plates, Christmas salt and pepper shakers, easier to buy new than try to resurrect the old ones,  and new salad forks, Mac likes small forks, hates long dinner ones.  My regular Christmas shopping is all done and wrapped.

Last activity: baking Christmas cookies, sugar ones and Spanish Wedding cookies, though technically not Christmas cookies I wanted to make Spanish cookies and all the recipes called for lard or shortening and I just couldn't do it.

Wearing, most of the ingredients for Christmas cookies.

Next activity, cleaning up the mess that is now my kitchen.  I'm not the world's neatest cook.

Tonight's plan, watch football.

Cousin Isabel

Every family has one or maybe not.  Isabel is a very special lady.  She is Mac's 2nd cousin and emmigrated from Spain in the 1930's with her family, Mac's Mom's Aunt Victoria and Uncle Peter.  I first met her at our wedding in the 60's where she caught the bride's bouquet.  She was a beautiful woman, petite, elegant and Spanish to her fingertips.  She never married, saying she'd stay with her parents until they were gone and then join a convent.  She was, and is, deeply religous, in a very old country way.

When her father died she and her mother began traveling, to Mexico to see her brother, to Spain to visit relatives and then the world.  They rode the Trans-Siberian railroad across Russia, rode the train from Capetown to Cairo, walked the Great Wall in China, visited the Holy Land numerous times, to Rome to meet the Pope, they were always on the go.  And when her mother passed on Isabel continued to travel, to Antarctica, to South America, to Japan and the Phillipines.

We only see her infrequently, the last time at a dinner we had for the family before we left California, but we eagerly await her Christmas card each year as she catches us up on her travels.  This year she has been to Mexico, Spain and Cambodia!  She amazes me.  She is older than Mac's oldest brother Ralph, and he's 73, but she doesn't seem to have slowed down at all. I haven't any recent photos of her, but saw one from Mac's brother George's wedding this year and she looked great.

I'm beginning to think that if you never slow down they can't catch you.  Way to go Isabel.

The Sun, The Sun, The Sun!

After days of misty rain, pouring rain, drizzling rain, fog, overcast skies and gloomy enough weather to make me think I was living in Germany again, and where I spent one of the coldest summers of my life, the sun is finally shining.  I know it won't last, they've forecast a 70% chance of rain today, but for now it is warm, around 70 degrees and sunny.  I feel like I ought run outside and do one of Snoopy's dances of joy.  But unfortunately the ground is so saturated that my yard is underwater and my dance would probably turn into a swandive, and given my lack of coordination would not end well.

We live in a swamp, and I accept that it's going to be wet here, but right now they say we're running about 10 inches above normal in percipitation, and that's way too much.  On our daily walk we go over a wooden bridge that crosses the lagoon and the wood is so wet it feels like you're walking on ice, very scary, because, as noted above my coordination leaves a lot to be desired.  I've been known to trip over the electric light beams in automatic doors!   I need dry terrain in order  to get around safely.  So I guess I'll  stay inside and enjoy the play of sunlight across  my dusty tables.

Authors

I've been reading the Wheel of Time fantasy series by Robert Jordon for years and years.  I read the first book in the series "Eye of the World" sometime in the late 90's  and was immediately hooked.  I've always like science fantasym  dating way back to the days when I read  Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz series, in fact I prefer series to stand alone books, it lets you really get to know the characters.  Which brings me back to the Wheel of Time series.  As I said, I was hooked from the first book and would often have to wait more than 2 years for the next book to come out.  Sometimes the wait was worth it and sometimes not, it was, and is, not a perfect series, but one that I enjoyed immensely.  Then in about 2004 I discovered that the author Robert Jordan was very ill, and though he fought to the end, in 2007 he died of amlyoidosis a fatal blood disease.  It was so sad, through reading his books and his blog I felt like I had come to know him.  So even beyond the lose of a favorite author I felt like I'd lost someone I knew.

Because he knew he probably wouldn't survive his illness and would be unable to complete his series, he left copious notes and directions for his wife Harriet, who was also his editor, and she chose another author, Brandon Sanderson, to complete the series.

It was supposed to be one more book but became so wordy it has been broken into 3 books.

I'm reading the first of the 3 and enjoying it very much.  But there is a strangeness to it.  Though the characters are the same, the plot a continuation of the the series, it is different.  I think Sanderson is doing a wonderful job, but oh I wish Robert Jordan were still here to tell his story.

So to all the authors out there whose series I'm reading, George R.R. Martin, Diana Gabaldon,  S.M. Stirling, please take care of yourselves, I enjoy your books so much and don't want anyone to finish them.

And You Think Cats Can't Read

Under the thousand or so presents under, around, near and across the room from our Christmas tree there is one that is for Miss Kitty.  It smells like nothing at all, has no catnip in it (which she doesn't like anyway) and has nothing besides a name tag with her name on in to differentiate  it from any of the other presents.  True it's large, but there are other large presents scattered about and indeed next to hers.  

But where does Miss Kitty now sleep?  And where has she slept ever since it was put down there?

On her present of course.  So you decide if cats can read.

An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away, Not!

An apple a day may keep the Doctor away, but it won't do anything about the drawer full of pills I have.  I have a friend whose husband says she takes a pill a day for every year they've been married, and they've been married more than 35 years.  I'm not quite that bad, but I take more than I'd like.

More than 10 years ago they discovered that I had high cholesterol and they've been feeding me pills for it  ever since.  I'm not a big meat eater, never have been, I love my veggies, and as an Irishman I have to have my potatoes which make me fat, but shouldn't add to my cholesterol level.  I walk at least 2 miles each day and I measure nearly everything I eat, but I still have high cholesterol.  So they put me on Niacin until it made me sicker than a dog, so I was switched to Zocar until it began to make me sick and then it was Lipitor to which they added Zetia, which they decided was worse for you than high cholesterol, so they upped my Lipitor.  Which is why I was up early today, I had to have a fasting blood test.

I'm now taking more Lipitor than I ever wanted to take and they had to ease me into this level because it kept making me sick, so if my  cholesterol  levels aren't what they want them to be they can just add an apple a day to my pill inventory because I'm not taking any more medications!

It's Christmas Time at the Gutierrez'

It's really starting to look like Christmas here, my inside decorating is done and Mac has a good start on the outside.  I'm actually through shopping and I have the credit card receipts to prove it.  Everything that has come in has been wrapped, except for the ones that came in yesterday when I thought I was through.  I wasn't going to wrap Miss Kitty's present, but she keeps trying to break into it so I guess I'll have to lug it back upstairs and put some paper on it.  I've been banging out Christmas Carols on the piano (which needs to be tuned) and Kitty has been doing backing vocals.  It's the time of year I think about family and friends, near and far, and wish for them many happy thoughts.

UPS

We have lived in places where going to the post office was something you planned for well in advance because you were going to be spending a good part of your life there with grumpy, disgruntled people.  All that change when we moved down here.  Our post office is wonderful, full of smiling clerks (except for the new grumpy lady who we're hoping it temporary Christmas help),  who move you quickly, and I do mean quickly, through the line, help you in any way they can and speed you on your way.

Our mail lady who delivers to the house is even better, holding our mail when we're gone, even if the post office forgets to, finding some way to get all my packages into our box without destroying them and just being a really nice person.

Now the United States Postal Service says you aren't supposed to give Mailmen/women Christmas presents, well I say Bah!  Humbug!  I'll do as I please.

Christmas Cats

As I've mentioned before we've always had cats, which means we've always had cats at Christmas time.  Each of them has reacted differently to the holiday.  Some ignored it and some really  loved it.  The first to really love it was Louis, he would lay under the tree for hours stretched out on the packages.  He'd wander the house enjoying the smells and looking at the decorations.  One year he ate Christmas, literally, he ate some of the tinsel off the tree.  We found out when we saw it coming out the other end, it was gently removed.  Apparently tinsel is very dangerous for cats, it can cut up their insides.  We were lucky, he wasn't hurt but we stopped using tinsel.

Then one year  we gave Louis  Nysea, a large, furry, female cat  for Christmas.  We thought, that though he was neutered, he'd like her.  Well he spent Christmas in the sink in the spare bathroom refusing to come out or talk to anyone.  This was after he'd tried to annihilate Nysea, turned out that as much as Louis loved Christmas he hated female cats more.

Then there was Bear who seemed to dislike the smell of Christmas or at least he saw it as his mission to obliterate its smell by p****g under the tree.  We tried everything to stop him, the cat sprays that are guaranteed  to keep cats away, moth balls an even stronger smell and aluminium foil,  a sound and texture that cats are supposed to hate.  He totally ignored all of these things and when the mood was upon him he p**d.  So we learned to put everything in boxes or bags so he couldn't hurt them.

Fergie  our furiously,  furry orange cat climbed the tree, shot straight up it,  but of course the tree was tied up because we'd learned from other cats that was necessary.

Now we have Miss Kitty and she too loves Christmas.  The first year we had her she brought her friend Tail out and they both lay in front of the tree staring at all the lights.  I don't put glass ornaments on the tree just resin ones and I don't hang anything too low, but knock on wood she's been wonderful.  She naps under it in the afternoon, that's when she's not in the closets going through Christmas presents or upstairs helping me wrap them. Sometimes she spends her night there smiling a little cat smile like she knows something very special.

Our daughter April can't believe it, she says her cat (the evil Renji) would have been up the tree, taken all the ornaments off and used them to escalate the cat wars in her apartment.

I guess we're just lucky!

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas

More decorating has been done, most, but not all, of the Christmas cards are out in the mailbox and I've started wrapping presents.  I'm feeling really good.  Next stop is the sewing machine, I have Christmas pillows to make for an upstairs bedroom.  

I've been loading candles into holders, but either the candles have gotten fatter or the holders have gotten skinnier because they don't want to fit.  Hate to shave candles, hate to shave anything, but it can be done.

I'm starting to think about baking some Christmas breads to put in the freezer, and Mac wants me to make some Spanish Christmas cookies, I've never made any but I'll give it a go.

Fa, la,la, la, la,la,la......

Etsy Shop

I have been meaning forever to set up an etsy shop and finally got around to it yesterday.  It is called "MacQue Art Studio" and you can find it at esty.com by clicking on seller and typing in "macque".  I also have a link off of Facebook.  So instead of getting my Christmas stuff done I've been playing with esty and shopping there, it is such a unique site.  If you haven't used it give it a try, and look for our shop!  I'm trying to figure out how to add a button here on the blogspot to go there, but I haven't figured it out yet.

Here are two of Mac's paintings, wouldn't they be a beautiful Christmas present?