Another Holiday -- Now Past....

Holiday spirit on Waukazoo Street

A lot of people mentioned having trouble getting in the Christmas mood without snow. With daytime temperatures up to 50 degrees, it felt more like spring than winter. I was happy that the rain held off until nighttime on the 25^th, because Sunny Juliet was invited to come with me to dinner at the home of friends, and while I was already dubious about how my wild child would behave, “wet dog” would have been a whole ‘nother ball game. 

Is this a December sunrise? Where is the snow?

On Saturday evening (Christmas Eve Eve), I made cheesecake and was up early Sunday morning making the roux for a shrimp gumbo, both of which I took to the home of the friend I’d taken Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks back. He was having a good day, and we had an excellent visit: He not only recognized me but remembered my name! I guess that’s how it goes in early stages of dementia – the person can be very different from one day to another. Anyway, this visit was easier than the last. There was even sunshine.

Morning sun on winter trees

(By the way, you shouldn’t get the wrong idea about the real me. The truth is that taking dinners to a homebound friend was as much for myself as for the friend. Planning and cooking for someone else – thinking about someone else -- takes the focus off holiday aloneness.)

That evening I had a nice, long phone conversation with my son, and in the morning, after Sunny and I got out for plenty of good exercise, my sisters and a couple of friends texted each other greetings of the day. Merry Christmas!!!

Before opening presents....

Sunny and I had another walk and then stopped for a session at the dog park on our way to our friends' house, because I figured there was no such thing as “too much exercise” before Sunny visited indoors in a new place. How would she be, amid beautiful holiday decorations and while humans were having a meal? Oh, my heartstrings! She was such a good girl, I could hardly believe it! Only when we got back home, three or four hours later, did I realize I had forgotten to give her the calming treats beforehand, and then I was even more impressed with and grateful for her good company manners.

Good dog and her dog mom got matching cozy blankets!

Christmas Day 2023 for me wrapped up with finishing a Steve Hamilton mystery novel and beginning, before falling asleep, a novel by Susan Straight, one of my new favorite fiction authors of the year. And so ended my second Christmas without the Artist. I can’t say I didn’t revisit memories of other Christmases, especially 2021, our last together and a cozy, contented, happy day – David and Peasy and me -- but this most recent one was good, thanks to friends and my little canine companion. 

Now in the last week of the year I find myself looking forward to closing out this year’s Books Read list, along with this year’s business accounts, and starting fresh with new, clean pages. As always with election years (especially recent ones), I’m apprehensive about what the next 12 months will bring, but there’s no way to put a hold on Time, is there? So here is my last quarter’s list of the year, books read in October, November, and December 2023:

 

129.        Hull, Cindy L. Human Sacrifice (fiction)

130.        Minka, Dzidra Kepitis. The Empty Sleeve (nonfiction)

131.        Atwood, Margaret. Hag-Seed (fiction)

132.        Dimaline, Cherie. Empire of Wild (fiction)

133.        Shipman, Viola. Famous in a Small Town (fiction)

134.        Straight, Susan. I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots (fiction)

135.        Bourdain, Anthony. A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines (nonfiction)

136.        Markoe, Merrill. What the Dogs Have Taught Me and Other Amazing Things I’ve Learned (nonfiction)

137.        May, Katherine. Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age (nonfiction)

138.        Conley, Susan. Paris Was the Place (fiction)

139.        McGilchrist, Iain. The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World(nonfiction)

140.        Beresford-Kroeger, Diana. To Speak For the Trees: My Life’s Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest (nonfiction)

141.        Lee, Leslie. We Are the Land: Ireland, 2^nd ed. (nonfiction )

142.        Nevin, David. Meriwether (fiction)

143.        Wickens, Kim. Lexington (nonfiction)

144.        Mosley, Walter. Walkin’ the Dog (fiction)

145.        Airgood, Ellen. The Education of Ivy Blake (fiction)

146.        Enright, Elizabeth. Gone-Away Lake (fiction)

147.        Smith, Alexander McCall. The Good Pilot Peter Woodhouse (fiction)

148.        Campbell, Bonnie Jo. The Waters (fiction – ARC)

149.        Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. The Sorrows of Young Werther (fiction)

150.        Lee, Leslie. The Hole Made by a Waterfall: Ireland (nonfiction)

151.        Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents (nonfiction)

152.        Hamerton, P.G. The Unknown River (nonfiction)

153.        Maugham, W. Somerset. Cakes & Ale (fiction)

154.        Casebeer, Karen. Calling: A Northwoods Mystery (fiction)

155.        Garvin, Ann. I Like You Just Fine When You Aren’t Around (fiction)

156.        Williams, Justin Michael & Shelly Tygielski. How We Ended Racism: Realizing a New Possibility in One Generation (nonfiction)

157.        Ariyoshi, Sawako. The Twilight Years (fiction)

158.        Godwin, Gail. The Odd Woman (fiction)

159.        Hamilton, Steve. Let It Burn (fiction)

160.        Straight, Susan. Mecca (fiction)

Happy New Year, Friends!