Scrubbing bubbles

It is hard to take oneself too seriously when one is prone to doing really dumb things. For Christmas, our son and his womanfriend gave me a basket of bath products that included shower gel, bath beads, body lotion, a shower cap, and a heart-shaped soap. I stuck the bath beads in a drawer until I can figure out what to do with them (seeing that I take showers rather than baths). I started using the lotion. I used the shower gel until it was gone, and last night I decided to start using the hand soap, even though it is one of those fancy soaps that one would put out for company but never actually use. So, before I got ready to go to bed, I released the heart-shaped soap from its shrink wrap covering, which was no easy feat, and took it with me into the shower, and this morning I put the hand soap on the attractive stone candle plate I have with designs cut around the rim (made in India), and lit it, and enjoyed watching it burn. Yep, it took a few minutes of vigorous scrubbing in the shower last night to realize that what I was holding in my hand was wax and not soap, and that one of the decorations on the top was actually a wick.

Ferbruary

A couple of significant events have occurred during the second week of February over the years. On February 12, 1977, our son was born, an event that brought incredible joy into our lives and also, at the same time, pierced our hearts with a sword. And many years later, on February 12, 2003, our precious Dog died, a horrible event (in this case, a Pollyanna I am not), and which I have had a hard time forgetting because of its tie-in with our son’s birthday. (Ask me, “When did the cat die?” I have no clue). Both events I have already written about in previous posts -- at length -- no point in going over it again. And then there is Valentine’s Day on the 14th, which we celebrated by having a wonderful lunch at our favorite place to eat, just a few doors down from the building in this picture, which is the one with all the posts holding up the awning (not a bad idea!).

As this second week of February comes to a close, I have been housebound, except for our lunch out and aside from venturing out the “back” back door to put seed out for the birds. That’s because the thunderstorm, complete with lightening, that settled over the Ozarks on Feb 11 did not pour down rain, it poured down ice pellets and freezing rain. What this truck from the highway department is shoveling is ice, not snow. We’ve had ice storms before – indeed, the ice storm that hit last winter was doozie – but I haven’t seen anything like this since we’ve moved here. Maybe 3 inches of ice covered the ground, and eventually everything was covered with a coating of ice. The beauty of the rising sun hitting the ice-covered trees is hard to describe. It warmed up some yesterday, and today the trees are clear, but our driveway is still a river of ice.

"February, when the days of winter seem endless and no amount of wistful recollecting can bring back any air of summer."
- Shirley Jackson, Raising Demons