I completed a big project on my new Elna Lock serger. (More on this later.)

Martin cut a hole in the floor of the kitchen

to install a fan that will bring warm air from the wood stove directly to the upstairs,

thereby bypassing the gaping hole of a front door. (More on this later, too.)

Meanwhile, Iris helped me clean my machine.

 Martin blew snow

off the whole neighborhood.

I think that the proper name for a grouping of children would be a “chaos.”

As in: “There was a small chaos of children at Heather’s house again.”

Hymie was Dan’s friend for longer than he’d like to admit. Hymie went into the attic with other childhood toys when Dan left home. Mom and I were going through the attic, looking for toys for Iris. There are a lot of toys in that attic.

There are also a lot of mice in that attic. By some fluke of box location and Hymie location within the box, the mice had not yet met Hymie. However, despite lack of mice, there is still not much left of Hymie’s integrity.

Dan’s bravery in saying goodbye to Hymie today has given me the strength to say good-bye to any and every one of my stuffed animals should I run across them— the multitudes of which, in total, did not hold as much meaning for me as one single Hymie held for Dan.

Mom spent all day cooking. She made turkey,

sweet potatoes, broccoli, stuffing,

and cranberry sauce,

and we all ate together.

Afterwards there was some pie, but I forgot all about taking pictures when it came out of the kitchen.

November 11, 1972 – November 20, 2014

Love Explained to a Mountaineer:

Love is not
a tingly feeling all over,
a weakening of the knees, akin to the sense
of leaning over a tall cliff. That is passion.
Love is bolted deeper. Love is the rope
that keeps you from falling.

August 16, 1999

We were down in the basement cleaning and organizing and building. The current project involved working in the small, 2 ½ foot-tall cave under the stairs. We had headlamps, hammers, and an assortment of hardware.

“Ready for eating, Mama?” said Iris

“Are you hungry?” I asked. She nodded. “What would you like to eat?”

“Just mushooms,” she said. And then, “And broccoli.”

What wonderful snacks my little girl asks for!

Iris crawled into bed with me early in the morning. “I want to climb trees like my momma,” she said.

“You want to climb a tree?”

“Like momma. Wif mine friend Joshua.”

I thought a minute. “Maybe we can bike to the community garden and climb a tree.”

“Wif mine friend Joshua,” repeated Iris.

So we did.

& later, a duet—