Sun, casinos and gray geese.

The best part of winter is spring. Today was our spring reward for shivering through all those windy, snowy, sub-freezing days this winter. It was oh so beautiful.....sunny, warm and in the seventies. Cathy's Cafe was officially opened for the season and we enjoyed every brief moment of it today. As I was doing bus duty this afternoon I watched the students and staff as they exited the building. Arms outstretched, face up to the sun, shouting "Oh warm", "oh sun", "oh wow". The first really warm day is like no other. It just feels so darn good. I came home and went right to work uncovering my gardens. What a rush it is to see the new shoots pushing their way through the soil.

The staff at school organized a trip to one of the casinos this afternoon. I can think of very few things that would appeal to me less than that. I have absolutely no interest in that at all. In the first place, the casinos have no windows because they do not want people knowing whether it is day or night. That way you lose track of time and can spend days in there gambling your little heart out. How can one wander around in a building without windows on such a lovely day? Given the choice, I would much rather spend my day in solitude outside, smelling the earth and watching the hawks, than dropping quarters into slot machines over and over and over as the cocktail waitresses hand you one free drink after another as long as you continue to feed that machine.

One of the staff members was generating some excitement when he said he had his gray goose in a cooler along with some cranberry juice. Very puzzled I was. Was he going to be offering cold goose meat and cranberry juice to his fellow bus passengers? They all looked at me stunned. Duh. Didn't I know that Gray Goose was a type of vodka?? Heck no, I didn't know that. Where have I been spending my life? Outside, I guess.

As I was working outside this afternoon, I was trying to think if there were any members of my immediate and extended family (this includes aunts, uncles, cousins, etc) who would rather spend the afternoon in a casino instead of alone in the outdoors. I couldn't think of one. Is there some dominant, I-want-to-be-alone-outdoors gene in the Frueh family that we can't escape?

A happy note for Damon! He was promoted to senior security consultant in his company. Congratulations, Damon. Enjoy that raise! Just don't take it to the casinos.

Sharing birthdays.

They were brother and sister born exactly four years apart on March 29. First my Aunt Barbara in 1914 and then my father in 1918. Two very special people. They were so much alike and so different.

My father loved his solitude. He preferred sitting on the sidelines and watching people. Unlike my father, my aunt seemed to enjoy socializing and at any gathering could be seen scurrying about making sure everyone's needs were tended to. Her house was always filled with people. My father was content to accept his world as it was. My aunt wanted to change things, for the better. They were both unpretentious and humble. With them, "what you saw is what you got". They were hard workers. They both were born with a twinkle in their eyes. They so enjoyed being with each other, even if they were arguing. They both enjoyed a good "discussion".

We often celebrated their birthdays together, with my aunt making her delicious yellow cake with her special chocolate frosting that hardened so you could pick it off the cake and eat it like a chocolate bar. I LOVED that stuff.

THINGS I LIKED ABOUT MY AUNT BARBARA.
1. Her crooked smile.
2. Her cooking. Always simple. Always good. Her ham was the best.
3 Her way of making you feel comfortable in her home.
4. How she always was interested in YOU.
5. Her interest and involvement in her community.
6. There was a bump on the White Hollow Road in Sharon that was like a roller coaster. She was REALLY good at taking that bump. Most folks would try to go over it fast for the best effect but would usually chicken out just before they got to it and slow down. But she would barrel full speed ahead with throttle wide open and we would go flying through the air. What a ride that was in that old Volkswagon Bus!
7. She never stopped being the big sister with my father. She was always watching out for him. If she knew he wasn't feeling well she would call me and tell me that I better call him or go see him.
8. I loved visiting with her, sitting in the dinette with a cup of tea and chatting till the sun went down.
9. She was a true lady.

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT MY FATHER:
1. He picked my Mom to marry.
2. He always made me feel safe when he was around.
3. He loved to entertain us with tales of bits and pieces of things he observed as he sat watching people.
4. His honesty.
5. His helpfulness. He would take time out to help those who were in need.
6. His thick hair that NEVER turned gray! (Why couldn't I inherit that?).
7. His practicality.
8. His creativeness. He could make the BEST Halloween costumes.
9. His individuality.
10. His respect and love for the outdoors. For the rest of my life I will always think of him when I hear a wood thrush.

Aunt Barbara never stopped missing my father after he died. When I would visit she would sometimes seem a little wistful and look at me and say, "I miss your father so much". I know how she felt.

A big sister never forgets her little brother's birthday!

Here's to a lifetime of happy memories. I miss you both!

Tax Relief

Oh, sweet relief. My taxes are done, finished, completed. What a load off my mind. The instructions for doing the taxes are so confusing and lacking common sense (esp the Connecticut taxes) that I just KNOW they were written by a man. I worked on them on Sunday while listening to the UCONN game. It's hard to focus on taxes while doing that. So I did discover a little error today. But it was very little and was easily corrected. The returns are in their little envelopes just waiting for the proper moment to send them in.

The weather is really beginning to feel like spring. It will be 70 degrees on Friday. What a great way to start the weekend. The first thing I am going to do on Friday when I come home from school is go outside and rake and clean up the yard. And the first thing I will be doing on Saturday is probably putting a heat pack on my back!

One of our biology teacher was giving a lecture in class today on the human heart. He had a plastic model of the heart and was showing the class how the blood flowed throught the heart. This is how the teacher explained to us at lunch how his morning went. "I'm holding up this little plastic heart and all of the sudden I look over and, Jesus Christ, two boys are swaying and crashing to the floor. All because I'm holding up this little plastic heart!". He called the nurse and she said when she got there she found two boys lying on the floor with their legs propped high in the air on the lab stools. Why is it always the male of the species who can't seem to handle blood and bodily functions?? I've never had a woman pass out on me when I have drawn blood but I have had a man slide away several times.

Time to go back and watch the second half of the UCONN/Duke women fight it out. I'll be glad when this basketball season is over so I can get to bed early and get some sleep.

In a car rut.

Paul bought a new-used car the other day. In our 38 years (has it been THAT long?) of wedded bliss we have never bought a brand new car. It's always new-used. We always buy what we can afford to pay for with cold, hard cash. We both really hate having monthly payments and it seems I was brought up to never buy more than you can afford.

For some reason, it seems like we get stuck in a car groove, a very boring car groove. When the kids were little we bought a used blue Chevy Malibu station wagon. (I'm not too good on car names, but I think that is what it was). After many, many miles, it started smoking and smelling like plastic so we looked around for something "new" and found a brown Oldsmobile Cutlass wagon, which is a clone of the Malibu. We eventually retired that one to Kara when she got her license and found a "new" wagon. Can you believe it?? Another Oldsmobile Cutlass, and a brown one at that. Three wagon clones in a row. Brett always called these wagons "the looooooove wagon". When I once asked hiim why he said, "Come on, Mom. Think about it. The back seat folds down?". Oh. Okay. I'd rather not think about it.

We finally got out of the wagon groove when we bought a "new-used" blue Buick Skylark. Little bitty thing that made me feel like I was 95 years old. After 165,000 miles we were ready for another.........you guessed it........a Buick Skylark. Maroon this time. Damon drove that one to Taft and back and to RIT and back. He even took a picture of the odometer when it went over 200,000. When it had gasped it's last I told Paul, "NO MORE SKYLARKS!" so we got a nice "new-used" Mercury station wagon which is the only car we have had that I really feel a "bond" with. But guess what Paul came home with the other day for himself.............



.........Oh yes he did! Another Buick Skylark. And almost maroon! And it was owned by the same person who we bought our blue one from. I feel 95 again. Will we ever get out of this rut??

I spent the afternoon doing two stressful things at once. My taxes and watching the UCONN game. Arrrgggghhh! What an afternoon. I am glad that is over with. The men may be out but I still have the girls to root for tonight. Is there anyone at all who has any of the final four teams in their bracket?? If so, they are on their way to getting rich in the office pool. It has been quite a strange tournament year.

Basketball heaven

Okay......so these next couple of weeks are just basketball heaven for college basketball fans. I watched BC and Villanova earlier. What a game. We are in the middle of a tense one right now and I have come to my computer at halftime to ease my jangled nerves.

When games get tense (meaning UCONN is down and falling) I can only take it for so long and then I just have to distance myself from the whole situation for a while. I will leave the living room and then come to the basement, get on my computer and log onto one of the sites where you can track the progress of the game. I hit "refresh, refresh, refresh" over and over to follow the game, hoping things will look better. As the new page is loading I usually cover my eyes and then slowly, slowly peek to see what the new score is. I won't go back upstairs until UCONN has made decent progress. But tonight I will go back at the end of half time and watch the whole game. This may very well be the last game they play this year so I might as well enjoy it all, good and bad. But there are still the girls to root for!

Politics and snakes. Aren't they related??

Last night we started the political process involved in the building of our new porch. If you know Paul you know how much he enjoyed this. The Inlands Wetlands Commission had to approve our plan since the addition will be built closer to a "wetland" than the acceptable distance, the wetland being our tiny little stream that is dry for two thirds of the year. They refer to this as an "intermittent waterway". We arrived at 7pm. Unfortunately we were at the end of a very long list of petitioners. By the time they got to the little Cortesi's we were the only people left in the room and it was 11:40. Oh so late and we were oh so tired. But one thing about being the last ones that late.............the commissioners are pretty quick to grant you what you want because they just want to get out of there and get to bed. They asked us a couple of very stupid questions and voted to accept our proposal.

Some of the evening was unbearably dull because it was filled with talk of catch basins and flow per minute and swales and filters and run-off and sludge. But I also enjoyed listening to the new proposals for Torrington. I learned exactly where the new Stop and Shop grocery store is going to be built and how big it is going to be. I learned that the old Caldor shopping center is going to be torn down and replaced by a Lowes Home Improvement store and a new Big Y grocery store. They will tear up the ratty, ugly black-top and replace it with 300 trees, 2400 shrubs and 3200 perennials. What a garden!!

I also learned that the Kaoud Brothers, a huge Oriental Rug company in Connecticut has bought some land in Torrington and is planning a very large complex. 330,000 square feet and parking space for 600 cars. BUT they refuse to tell who the tenants are going to be, dispite the Inland Wetlands Commission begging and pleading them to do so. What a mystery. The only thing I am sure of is that they won't be building one of their Oriental Rug Stores here. There is no one in this town who could afford those rugs. Because they are right next to Wal-Mart I think that they do not want to reveal who their tenants are because if they do Wal-Mart will try to force them out, which means it must be a tenant that is competitive with Wal-Mart. Do you think maybe Target??? I do believe that the whole city of Torrington would send up a cheer if that were so. So all you Wal-Mart haters........there may be justice! Kaoud Brothers is really keeping a tight lid on it all. They said last night that if they told us who the new tenants were they would have to lock us in the room and shoot us! Guess they really don't want it leaked at all.

And now for something snakey! One of the girls in school related a very unnerving (to me) story yesterday. Apparently one of the staff members was in one of our bathrooms last year. Our bathrooms are very miniscule, 6x6 foot cells with no windows. Your very basic bathroom. As she was sitting there she noticed a movement our of the corner of her eye. She looked down and, you guessed it, a black snake was sharing the facility with her. OMG OMG OMG. She couldn't finish fast enough. To be sharing such a tiny space with a creepy crawly slithery reptile when you are in a situation where you can't immediately jump up and run, that is such a nightmare. Now I am going to have to do a snake check each time I enter the bathroom.

Welcome Spring........at long last.

Spring officially arrived at 1:27 this afternoon. You sure could have fooled me, Mother Nature. It was wildly windy and bitterly cold, as it has been for the past two weeks. We had 50 degree weather most of January and now that it's spring we have the arctic chill.

Spring in high school meant the annual student council's Spring Carnival. There is only one Spring Carnival that I remember with any clarity, probably more for the fact that I blessedly was unable to go. A lesson, children, in how to never be afraid to say no.

That particular year the carnival was sponsoring a "Slave Auction". This is something you would never ever ever ever dare to put on your agenda today. Several young women were picked to prance around the stage in their bathing suits while boys in the audience bid on them. The girls were then "sold" to each high bidder and then had to spend the next week as that boy's slave; carrying his books, fixing his lunch, ironing his clothes. Doing just about anything he asked as long as it was not immoral or illegal. It was a great fund raiser but certainly would be far from politically correct today.

In biology class one day, shortly before the event, one of the girls in my class leaned over and asked me if I would like to be one of the "slaves". THUD.....my heart stopped, the floor dropped out from under my feet and the room started to spin. In a complete state of shock and shyness I could only look at her and say, "Okay.....". Me, little pitiful me?? These were the prom court girls. These were the girls from lovely homes who wore beautiful clothes. These were the girls who oozed self-confidence. None of this was me.

I went around for days picturing the whole scenario. The only bathing suit I had was that awful orange polka-dotted thing that was so faded from the sun that when dry it made me look naked. I could picture all those well-developed prom court girls standing on the stage with their bright bathing suits and their long,tan, thin legs. And there would be me. Naked suit. Skinny body. Short, white, jiggly legs that developed little blue blotches when I was cold. Should I wear heels like they do in the beauty contests (all I had was bright red) or do I go bare-foot? I was too shy to ask. I knew the bidding would be fast and furious for all the Miss America types and then I would be left all alone on that big stage. "What'll you bid for this little beauty? A dollar any one? A dollar? No one? How about seventy-five cents? No? A quarter then?" The humiliation of it all. This was my senior year and the little Rapp boy had taken off for the Kansas prairie for his higher education, otherwise he would have gladly swept me off the stage for a quarter just so we could enjoy that forced togetherness for a week. There would be no knight in shining armor to save this distressed damsel.

I have, truthfully, never fretted about anything, not even my colonoscopy, as much as that. I wanted to tell them I changed my mind and didn't want to do it but I was way WAY too shy. The only other thing I could do was pray for an illness to befall me. I prayed and prayed and begged and begged for a solid week. Two days before the event I started to get chills in school. Could there really be a God?? Then my throat started feeling sore, very sore. By the time I got home I had a raging fever and my throat felt like I was swallowing glass. Yes, sweet Jesus......I was SICK! It was tonsillitis. Thank you thank you thank you. That was the happiest sick I have ever had. Praise the Lord. Oh, the joy of staying in my warm little bed, taking my big antibiotic pills and gargling with warm salt water.

Now whenever there is something I really don't want to do I think of that and I have no problem saying NO. It just ain't worth the stress and worry!

Opportunity missed

In a letter I wrote to Paul from college dated March 17, 1965:

"Some of the kids from here are going to 'march on Selma, Alabama' during Spring vacation. You don't know how tempted I was to do it. BUT I've got so much to do over vacation....term papers, etc".

I can remember almost signing up for the bus trip down there but decided to go home for spring break instead. To think that I had the chance to experience first hand one of the most significant historical events in modern times and I chose to study instead. The stories I could have had for my grandchildren. What really makes me scratch my head is that I...me...moi, would choose study over anything back then! Well, I think a desire to see Paul probably was a little bit of a factor, since I also added to the end of the sentence "and then, of course, there's you". The strange choices we make when we're young!

Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!

Thumbs Up Items For The Day

1. Breakfast with my friends.
2. Bright blue sky.
3. A spring-time looking sun.
4. Geese seen heading north.
5. Green grass starting to emerge on my lawn.
6. A warm fire in the stove tonight.
7. Watching UCONN win their first game of the conference tonight.
8. A phone call from Damon after the game. (Probably to reassure himself that I hadn't suffered a heart seizure) I love to hear from my kids.
9. A very slight possibility that Sean and Kara may be moving back to Connecticut. I won't get my hopes up but it's nice to dream.
10. Connecting with an old friend I havent' heard from since 7th grade. What a thrill.
11. It's Friday!


Thumbs Down Items For The Day

1. There is a cold wind blowing out there.
2. Corned beef cooked in a crock-pot. Don't...ever...do...it! Someone yesteday told me to try it. I did. Never again. Just can't compare to boiled. Less flavorful and not as moist.
3. UCONN coming close to losing their game. Can't stand the stress. Couldn't watch the first half of the game.

Hey! More "thumbs up" than "thumbs down" for the day. Not bad!

Windy windy weather

I don't know what it is but we have had some very hefty winds the past two months. It's not breezy, it is windy. 40-50 mph sustained winds. I love it. I love to listen to the wind howling and roaring around the house. I love to stand at the window and watch the branches of the trees toss and sway in the wind. I love to drive through "wind-driven leaves". I find the wind romantic and cozy. I love to lie in bed at night and listen to the wind banging at the windows. One of my favorite wind memories is of my mother reading the "Little House" books to us on windy nights next to the warm wood stove. I used to love the song "Oklahoma" when they sang "where the wind comes sweeping down the plain". I love movies that take place in old Victorian houses with the wind banging the shutters against the house.

Another sign of spring today............robins robins robins everywhere, grabbing on to what grass there is for dear life so they won't get blown away in this wind. I think it is time to start going through my gardening magazines and catalogs so I can begin to plan my new flower garden for this summer. I want to be able to gaze at it as I sit on my new screened-in porch sipping a tall glass of iced tea.

It's late and I am going to snuggle in my bed, read "My Antonia" and listen to the wind!

Storms, satellites and Sopranos

A foggy and rainy morning. The rain had stopped by afternoon and we were told that the temperatures had reached a warm 60 but it sure didn't feel like it. Maybe because it was windy and cloudy. A quick change tonight with thunder storms as a cold front has moved in. I truly love a good thunder storm. I am very thankful that we didn't have the severe weather that some other parts of the country have been having.

When I came home from school today Paul had DVD/VCR and Satellite TV intstruction books and wires spread out all over the floor. The tv and cabinet were pulled away from the wall. He had obviously spent a good part of the day trying to figure out the taping mysteries of our DVD/VCR player. Should it really be this difficult? I tried to contribute a little bit of "help" but that was not appreciated. He did have success in that we can finally tape a program. He thinks we are unable to tape one thing and watch another with our satellite dish. I think the only way we can do it is lease a DirecTV/DVR from our satellite company for $5 a month. That isn't worth it for the rare instance that we would need it.

I did watch the season premiere of the Sopranos tonight. HOLY COW...WHAT AN ENDING! I jumped as if I had touched an electric fence and almosts fell off the sofa. They certainly know how to get you to come back next week.

Book Madness!!!

Nothiing makes me happier than to be in a room full of books for sale, so when I heard there was an antiquarian book sale in Litchfield I could not be held back. Doesn't that look like a happy face? I'm in book heaven. I actually enjoy plain old used book sales better because you can get better bargains, but you can usually find more unusual and interesting items at the antiquarian book sales.

This was one of the nicest antiquarian book sales that I have been to. Usually they are noisy, crowded and hot. We found this one not to be very crowded. Maybe the rain kept people away. The floor was carpeted which kept the noise down and was much more comfortable for my old feet. Soft classical music was playing in the background which made you want to move slowly and stay a long time, which maybe was their intent! All in all, it felt like being in my own home.

It takes me a long time to get through one of these things. I have to look at everything for fear that I will miss something very important. Ellen and mother are the goddesses of patience when they go with me. I think Henry is the only person who can spend as long or longer than I at one of these affairs. Consequently, Paul zipped through this morning in half an hour, LONG before I was finished. He said he would wait for me in the car. An hour and a half later I finally exited the building to find Paul taking a nice nap. There were some very interesting Americana books that were very tempting, but at a cost of $175+ they lost their appeal.

I found one book in my price range that I bought and really love, "Round the Year With the Poets".

It was written in 1900 and has a poem for every day of the year. Some of the poems are by well-known poets, but some are poems which were taken from journals and scrap books with no known author which makes the book all the more interesting. What a nice way to start and end each day. I also found a little surprise for my mommy! I won't say what it is on this site because I want to keep it for a little surprise.

When we came back home I thought I really should start on my taxes. But the Duke/Boston College game was on. Which should I do? Basketball...taxes? Basketball....taxes? Heavy decision but basketball won! It was a nerve-wracking, nail biter of a game. I was cheering for Boston College because NO ONE around here cheers for Duke! And they almost made it.

Spent some time tonight trying to figure out how to tape one show while watching another. Neither Paul or I can figure this out, and Paul is usually really good at this stuff. It used to be so simple, but now......! I am postively absolutely sure that men write these instruction manuals. A woman would be much more clear. But I guess men don't know how to write instruction manuals since they never read them anyway.

March Madness

If it weren't for college basketball winter would seem much longer. And March would seem like such a long, endless month. This weekend has been basketball heaven. Basketball everywhere. Even though my favorite team was sent packing fairly early I've been enjoying the wealth of basketball right in my own living room. And it's not over yet. There is still more fun stuff to come.

Yesterday was a fantastic day, weather-wise. There were parts of the state that reached 70 degrees. We weren't that lucky, ONLY reaching 64. We were able to let the fire go out in our stove. I took a walk around the yard when I got home yesterday. The yard is still pretty mushy and wet so I guess I won't be doing any raking soon. The yard is covered with sticks and branches from all the high winds we had this winter. It looks like I have lots of yard work ahead of me. I found a spot near the swimming pool where Paul cleared lots of brush and debris away from a stone wall. It is a PERFECTplace to plant some flowers. I can't wait for the warm weather so I can start on this new "beautification" project. The soil in this spot is rich and moist. I have had to pass up so many plants that require rich, moist soil because we are blessed with such good drainage that most of our soil is pretty dry and un-rich. I can't wait to load my car up with all those plants that I have wanted and couldn't have.

Tomorrow there is an antique book fair in Torrington that I may go to. We are expecting rain so it is a good rainy day activity. And then there is always the income tax that I can work on........................ Tomorrow night The Sopranos is back. How long has it been since that show last aired?? Two years?? I certainly hope they give us a little review because I can't remember anything at all that happened that long ago. There is a problem because it airs at the same time as Desperate Housewives and I just cannot give up Desperate Housewives. What to do.

We've been having mastery testing in school all week. Consequently it has been a very quiet and EXTREMELY boring week. Another week of this and then things will be back to normal, as normal as can be at our "kook bin".

I was talking to my mother about the old phone book I bought on e-bay. She said the number after the dash in the phone number signified the number of rings for that phone. Our number was 339-4. The 4 would signify the number of times the phone would ring for our number. She told me the number was read as "339 ring 4". I noticed that one number in the book had a 13 after the dash. Can you imagine counting all those rings everytime your phone rang?? There must have been lots of people on THAT party line. My mother can still remember her phone number from when she was a child. Why is it we can erase completely from our memory seemingly important and nteresting things but not forget something as mundane and trivial as a phone number?

UCONN lost their first conference tournament game today. The game was played at noon so I had to sneak a peek on my computer at school. We used to turn our tv's on at school and watch these games but that is a big no-no now. We also have received a directive that we are to use our computers for school related business ONLY and we will be monitored and then "dealt with" if we are found to be violating this policy. Oh dear. I really could not help it. I did turn my computer on to MSNBC Sports where I could get an update on the game each time I refreshed the page. But from what I hear almost every computer in the school was doing the same thing. I know the students in the computer class next door were doing it by the sounds of the cheers and groans that I could hear through the door. They are going to have to "deal with" a whole mess of us, I guess.

I'm reading Jodi Picoult's "Vanishing Acts". I stayed up last night until 12:30 reading it. I think tonight I will go to bed early and try to finish it. Such a luxury.

Signs of spring..................

I came home from school today and I just had that feeling you get in the spring when you know that things are starting to push their way out of the ground. I checked around and sure enough, there were my little lillies poking their brave little leaves into the chilly but sunny spring air..............

.......and here are my little brave daffodils. A new season is coming. The sun is up before 7 and doesn't go down until almost 6 and is getting brighter every day. The air smells different, fresher and a little greener. There are new bird songs. The ground is getting muddier. After a few warm nights the peepers will be singing me to sleep at night. In another month and a half these daffodils will be in full bloom, rows of yellow and white and peach against the emerald green grass and smelling so sweet. The apple blossoms will be out and I can sit under the apple tree and marvel at the sight of the white white blossoms against the incredibly blue sky. And then will come the lilacs that will make my whole yard a sensual wonderland for my eyes and nose. And in 4 months I'll be able to drink my morning tea on the bench, in the warm sun, while enjoying the pinks and yellows and reds of my lillies. Sometimes the best thing about winter is spring.

My telephone book from e-bay came today. What fun. What a "blast from the past". I opened it up to the Canaan pages and there it is, on page 33 under the F's. Frueh Robert H Falls Village........339-4. 339-4? That number goes waaaaay back. Much farther back than I can remember. This was probably the first time that my mother and father had their phone number published after they bought the farm house. Did my mother grab the phone book as soon as it came and open it to the F's, smiling when she saw their number, a symbol of the new life they were starting together?

When this phone book came out I was 10 months old, the same age as my little grand-daughter. My mother was happily blossoming with her second pregnancy and like it or not, I was going to be presented with a little sister in 5 months. It's such a strange feeling to look at this book and picture one just like it hanging around in the old farmhouse. Or in my Aunt's house in Lakeville or the Bornemann's house. How many times was it thumbed through to look up the number of a doctor, dentist, grocer, repairman, tractor dealer, lumberman???

There are instructions in the book, oft repeated, on how to be a good, friendly and considerate party-line neighbor. "When you pick up your phone and hear someone talking, hang up quietly". it seems like I remember our neighbors more often giving a long, disgusted sigh and banging down the receiver! Not too "friendly". There are instructions on how to make a call if you have a dial phone versus a "manual" phone. I notice that some of the businesses in neighboring towns have toll free numbers. I imagine that would be the equivilent of an 800 number today. Back then you called it an "Enterprise" number. I hadn't thought of that in years but I now I have a flash back of my father picking up the phone and asking the operator for "Enterprise" followed by a number. There are ads for stores that I had forgotten about and for some businesses that are still thriving today. This book is just about as old as I am. I only wish I were in as good condition!!

Lazy Sunday

It's been a very lazy day. March is one of my least favorite months. Maybe because it is such an in-between month. Winter is not over but it seems to be running out of steam and leaving me wishing for just one more snow storm. There are signs that spring is not too far away.....the longer days, the brighter sun, the sounds of the birds......but it is still too cold to work outside on the lawn and gardens. It is a waiting month and I get impatient.

Today the temperature rose above freezing so things started to melt and get sloppy. Trying to get rid of a little cabin fever Paul and I went up the road to Wright's Barn, a local flea market. We haven't been there in a while and it is fun to poke around in people's old stuff. My poking and Paul's are two different things. He can accomplish in 20 minutes what it takes me two hours to do. I have to look at everything because I don't want to miss anything. I did buy two books, Willa Cather's "My Antonia" which, surprisingly, I have never read and "Thoreau's World", which has miniature excerpts from his journal. Paul bought a cowboy book, one of a series of cowboy books that one of his clients, Matt Braun, wrote. I also found a neat little antique stick pin to match an antique goldstone cross necklace that was left to me by one of my Aunties. I got it for a steal at $10. It is hard to find this goldstone jewelry. I am trying to find a pair of earrings to match.

When we came home I found a sunny spot on the sofa and settled in to read. It wasn't long before I fell asleep. I always envy cats who can spend their days contentedly curled up in a sunny spot. What a life.

I planned an early dinner tonight so I could watch the UCONN women play the first game of the conference tournament only to find that it was on CSTV. What the heck is CSTV?? Something I've never heard of and something that we don't get.

I started to watch the Acadamy Awards but there were way too many liberals in one room for my viewing pleasure so I turned it off. I'm keeping up with what is happening by checking in on the internet every once in a while. Bah Humbug. I think March is getting to me and it's only begun!

We have been having some really truly cold weather. Probably our coldest weather of the winter. To make matters worse the wind has been roaring and howling. I love it for curling up in my warm bed at night or sitting in front of the fire, but it is really nasty to venture out into that frigid air. The middle school, situated on one of the highest points in Torrington, is particularly frigid and arctic like with gale-like winds. As we were walking from the parking lot into the building on Friday we looked like lost polar explorers pushing our way into the wind. But a warming trend is on the way and we may even reach the 50 mark by next week.

Watched UCONN's last regular season game today. They won but it was a really close game. I pretty much have a nervous breakdown when it is that close. When they are taking foul shots I cannot even look. It just makes me too nervous. I have to hide my face in the sofa and listen to the reaction of the crowd to see if the basket was made or not. Now comes the best time of the year......tournament time. After that is over I will go through a serious period of basketball withdrawl.

We went out to dinner tonight with friends Gail and Charlie. I had a steak. It has been months since I have had a steak and I enjoyed every little mouthful. Cleaned my plate up really well. I hate to think of what my cholesterol was after that enjoyable meal. After dinner we went back to Gail Charlie's. Charlie built a fire in the stove and we watched a movie, "Two for The Money". Good movie. Finished the evening with brownies and ice cream. It was a very simple evening but very pleasurable. There is nothing nicer than to spend a quiet evening enjoying good friends.

New England's changing weather.

This was yesterday.......................

........and this is today! Our warmer than normal January is a very distant memory. Yesterday I saw red-wing blackbirds at my birdfeeder, a sure sign of spring. And today we have snow, a sure sign that spring is still 3 weeks away. We were dismissed early from school today. Nice! I came home, made a cup of chamomile tea and relaxed with a book, "Vanishing Act". I never have time to read in the afternoon. What a luxury. Then I made a pot of Tuscan Pasta and Chickpea Soup. Click and try it. What a delicious and quick soup. And very good for you. I didn't bother with the "herb infused olive oil drizzle". There is a limit to the energy I will put into my cooking. Although it did sound good enough that I would like to try it next time, especially if I make a little extra to dip my bread in. Yum.