This year brought us new understanding of a white Christmas.\u00a0 We had one.\u00a0 There just wasn\u2019t any snow.\u00a0 The whiteness was fog, thickened occasionally by drizzle.\u00a0 The weather was quite pretty, in a muffled, damp sort of way that didn\u2019t involve the creating of any snowman, or any sledding or skating.\u00a0 Christmas lights, and Christmas trees inside houses, glimpsed through the fog, were still lovely and cheerful, as were neighbors met on walks and children outside playing with new toys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The boy across the court received a drone for Christmas and, periodically during the days since then, comes tearing out of his garage with it. He operates it carefully, clearly considering it a most valuable resource. Seeing his excited concentration reminds me of one of our grandsons when he was of a similar age and had a little drone for which he had saved his money. The neighbor has a much fancier drone than our grandson had; drones have come a long way since then. But the grandson\u2019s pleasure was certainly equal to the neighbor\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The neighbor, who gets along very well with his younger sister, has shared the pleasure of watching the drone with her but, so far anyway, he isn\u2019t letting her fly it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fog has continued for days, mixed on and off with rain. It started to sprinkle on the dog and me as we walked the neighborhood this morning, enough that I wished for an umbrella. I tried to turn us for home earlier than usual, but the dog wasn\u2019t having any. Each time I made a move homeward, he resisted. He made route suggestions of his own, too, always in an it-isn\u2019t-time-yet direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He resisted entering the woods by Thurston Pond, but I prevailed. I should\u2019ve acceded, as the path was muddy enough in places to make the going treacherous. On the other hand, I enjoyed the quiet of the pond. The Canada geese and mallards in the water near the path offered no comment about our presence and scarcely bothered to bestir themselves. A couple geese winging into the pond had nothing to say, either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Usually, when geese in the air approach an occupied pond, there is great honking and carrying on on the part of all concerned. The new geese yell, \u201cYou better move, \u2018cause here we come!\u201d while the geese already on the water yell, \u201cYou and whose army? We were here first!\u201d This is all followed by splashy landings and posturing and carrying on. Today, the new geese landed quietly and paddled off, and the old geese gave them no notice. Fog seems to affect us all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Forsythia are starting to bloom around the neighborhood. \u201cIsn\u2019t that a little early?\u201d my husband asked, when I told him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just early, it\u2019s wrong,\u201d I answered. \u201cThat\u2019s not supposed to happen until winter\u2019s over.\u201d This long stretch of warm weather seems to have fooled the forsythias into spring behavior. Frank and Elaine\u2019s daffodils have gotten faked out, too. They\u2019re not blooming, but the sprouts are already up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which reminds me, one of my terrific sisters-in-law sent us an amaryllis bulb for Christmas. We\u2019ll have to find it a pot and some dirt, and get it started. We\u2019re going to start watering our old amaryllis bulbs as well, and see what happens. The only person I know who\u2019s tried doing that said she got leaves, but no blossoms. It will be an amaryllis adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rascal is enriching his life in new ways, also. For instance, yesterday, after he\u2019d eaten his breakfast, I saw him taking full advantage of the living-room Christmas tree by wiping his furry little face all over the tree skirt. He even burrowed under it to clean parts of his face he must not usually reach. What a clever fellow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, he\u2019s recently come up with new sound effects. My nephew Jack gave him some overachieving squeaky balls, a Christmas or two ago. Each one emits a high-volume squeak that can last for several seconds. Rascal loves squeaky toys, and these balls in particular. Lately, he has enhanced his pleasure in playing with them, by growling while he squeaks them. The squeak-and-growl sound is peculiar and disconcerting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dog has always moaned as positive reinforcement for us, when the way we\u2019re petting him brings him special pleasure. He\u2019s nearly given that up. Now, he doesn\u2019t so much moan as mutter. \u201cOh, that\u2019s good, uh-huh, the left ear, oh, boy, the tummy, mmm-hmm, that feels great.\u201d He sounds like Arte Johnson on his tricycle, or a pond full of ducks. Maybe Rascal will be the sound track that takes 2023 out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
29 December 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This year brought us new understanding of a white Christmas.\u00a0 We had one.\u00a0 There just wasn\u2019t any snow.\u00a0 The whiteness was fog, thickened occasionally by drizzle.\u00a0 The weather was quite pretty, in a muffled, damp sort of way that didn\u2019t involve the creating of any snowman, or any sledding or skating.\u00a0 Christmas lights, and Christmas… Continue reading Outro<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moncrieff-in-michigan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moncrieff-in-michigan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moncrieff-in-michigan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moncrieff-in-michigan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moncrieff-in-michigan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moncrieff-in-michigan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":600,"href":"https:\/\/moncrieff-in-michigan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions\/600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moncrieff-in-michigan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moncrieff-in-michigan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moncrieff-in-michigan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}