sitting this one out

Covid test negative, thank you God. But I've been hit with something, as I was last Xmas — this time, aches and raw throat. Luckily, as Anna wrote, they've all been hit with something too, so we won't be afraid of transmitting bugs tmw. In the meantime, the city and province are chaos, the roads and airways impassable, power out for thousands. Here the snow has stopped though more may come; the house is warm, the internet works. What more do I need? I might ordinarily have run out for last minute gifts, but that won't be happening.

Made the stuffing and the leeks, need to get the Brussels ready and the broccoli. All else ready for the onslaught.

Last night, Monique and upstairs tenant Robin came to help eat leftovers, and then I watched the last episode of The Crown, with its surprising portrayal of an insecure Prince Charles desperately trying to drag his stuffy, intransigent family into the twenty-first century, and leaving us just as Dodi and Diana are about to meet, with, as we all know, tragic consequences. 

So I'm sitting under a blankie watching the birds at the feeder in the white white landscape. Will do as little as possible today. That's all I've got.

Photo: My mother, 89, at Thanksgiving 2012, with Eli, 5 months, and Anna, 31. Mum died two month later on Christmas day.

Eli's first Christmas. Then, chewing everything. Now, eating nothing healthy, a tall ten-year-old. Ten years. In a flash.

And another celebration of the hairy grandson, posing with sublime gravitas, who has brought much love to our family this year. May there be much love in your family today too, whether hairy or not, or simply in your heart. Merry Everything!