dual personalities

Another week has flown by. Last Sunday, after the annual Gratitude Luncheon at church, the DH and I finally got out to our cottage to check on it after that huge windstorm I blogged about last week. Although a big tree had come down, it did not fall on the house or garage (talk about feeling grateful!).

Time to rev-up the chainsaw!!

On Monday, we celebrated the DH’s birthday in the most modest way imaginable — with leftovers of the wonderful roast beef dinner the birthday boy had cooked the night before. Okay, I’m a bad wife. But in my defense a curriculum kerfuffle* at work required me to stay late at a meeting, so I wouldn’t have been able to cook anyway. Past experience has taught the DH that in order to eat well he has to cook his own dinner. Our children sent thoughtful gifts, while I gave exciting items such as a flashlight, socks, and pajama pants. Despite the boring presents, I am grateful every day for my dear DH!

The rest of the week went by in the usual blur, although we did get one surprise, the year’s first snowfall.

Everything looked pretty, but it was hard to feel grateful because it was cold, I couldn’t find a windshield scraper, and the remote car starter wouldn’t work. One of my ‘hardcore nature-man’ colleagues begrudgingly turned on his furnace for the first time. We’ve been using ours since late September or early October. I guess that marks us as sinfully wasteful. What can I say? I’m with old Baudelaire:

“I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on,
The windows and the stars illumined, one by one,
The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily,
And the moon rise and turn them silver. I shall see
The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass; 
And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass,
I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight,
And build me stately palaces by candlelight.” 

If, like me, you decide to hibernate and ignore the outside world until the snow melts, why not watch the great Greta Garbo film Ninotchka that premiered on this day in 1939?

Or, if you feel like something more somber but still involving a communist theme, I’d recommend Lives of Others, a film about the Stasi in East Germany not long before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Those who need reminding of how fortunate they are to live in a free society should definitely watch it.

That’s about it for this week. It’s time to face the piles of grading with gratitude and objectivity. Wish me luck!

* Curriculum kerfuffle = fighting over the composition of the committee tasked with reorganizing the curriculum. Think Black Friday at Walmart and you’ll get an idea of the emotions involved.