what will it be like today?

Weather matters. If you pay attention to the outdoors (and who doesn't...), then you have to adjust your mindset, tailoring it to what you'll find when you step outside.

Our December weather this year is quite different from what we've had in recent times. December in south central Wisconsin (where I live), especially early December is mostly foggy, drizzly, cold, but not yet bitter cold. The snow that fell on Sunday, too, is atypical. We've not really had a white Christmas for a while and it's been even longer since we've had a white December 4th.

Unfortunately, the snow isn't good enough for skiing, but still, it gave me enough white stuff to build a snowman! How good is that!

Today did dawn foggy and not so cold, but I know this is just a brief respite. We're entering a really cold period. Really cold. On some days next week the high (the high!) is expected to be around 4F (-15C). I feel only slightly guilty that I picked next week as the week I'm away from Wisconsin.

Because of my forthcoming travel, I have quite the number of preholiday tasks to attend to and so right after breakfast...





... Ed fixes the wheel on his car and I sit down to work.



Picking up Snowdrop is delightful -- it's not cold enough for a full snowsuit...





She asks to go home (to her grand Christmas tree), but when I remind her there is a snowman with a carrot nose at the farmette, she is happy to bounce out of the car...





... and go straight to him for a heart to heart talk. (Gaga, pinwheel for snowman!)





(Okay, Snowdrop!)






Inside, I show her the lovely little chickens that an Ocean reader sent for our Christmas "pine tree" (thank you!).











She loves them and she loves the bears and she loves the bells and she loves... Well, you really get to understand how much this holiday hits at the heart of a young one when you look at her infinite glee.





Ahah comes in... (hi ahah!)












... and as is his custom these days, he attacks her lunch box and searches for unfinished food, especially the cheese slices which she often leaves behind (my feeling is that school lunch follows too closely on the heels of school snack and the hunger just isn't there yet for her: it picks up when she comes to the farmhouse). He toasts some bread, melts the cheese and he and Snowdrop share a feast.





She makes sure that he has a bit of everything. Down to the last blueberry.





It's a lovely afternoon and the three of us play, mingling her stories with his (which these days always include some tragic event to befall a Duplo character -- for example today a tractor rolls over a chicken) and with mine (which undo any harm that befalls a character endangered in Ed's telling of it).











As she naps and I sit down at the kitchen table to catch up on work, I notice that the skies clear...






... and within minutes we have a beautiful winter blue sky.






Our snowman may not like this turn of events, yet I can't help but smile at the delicate prettiness of the farmette now. Yes, it was beautiful yesterday after the big snow, but even with bare spots appearing here and there, it surely looks lovely now too.



In the late afternoon, I take Snowdrop downtown to attend her mommy's office holiday party. I linger for a while, not to crash their fun (though as an emerita, I too am invited) but to congratulate a colleague who is retiring this month. (Ann, with son.)






I walk my familiar blocks -- ones I once walked so often to my former office and back again and I think -- wow! So much has changed in the last three years. Nearly all of it has been wonderful and kind. Gentle, like the skies outside.

Snowdrop is beyond joyous. Party! -- she says again and again. Going to mommy's party! She insists on running from the garage to the university building. Once there, she is full of her happy smiles. Especially since there is, predictably, a Christmas tree to admire.






It's good to be downtown again in the evening. But it's even better to return to the warm farmhouse at the end of a winter day.

A Monday of trees

Warning: on a day of trees, there will be many photos. Many.  Alright, you are forewarned, so let me proceed.

I'm up and out. I need to open the coop. I survey the landscape. For a first snowfall, I'd say it's pretty awesome!







You cannot help but admire the trees.






Yep, the trees.






Back to the farmhouse now...






...for breakfast.






The cheepers will venture out only if you clear a path for them. We cleared a path for them.






I pick up Snowdrop. I'm told that many classmates had issues with going outdoors for play time today. Not her! She struggles in her beautifully warm but bulky snowsuit, but she loves being out. I see this as I set her free once we leave the school.






I built a snowman for her at the farmette. I would have waited for her input, but the snow is wet and difficult, so I finessed it myself, just so it would stand tall when she arrived.






She is fairly indifferent to it. Why? Because she spots the sled at the side.

It becomes all about the sled.





But it's not a satisfying ride. The snow is wet and everything sticks to it. Last year, she was scared of going fast. This year, she is impatient with going slowly.

She perseveres on foot.






And after a while, she has had enough. She wants her building toys. She wants a bagel. She wants ahah.
















(Ohhh.. that last picture reminds me -- parents have requested a Snowdrop bangs trim. Okay, done!)

As some of you may remember, I don't bring a tree into the farmhouse. But I do use one of my plants as a Christmas tree and I put on lights and a handful of ornaments on it and I decide rather spontaneously to do all this today. Snowdrop loves the reject I had grabbed from the stash of our family decorations -- the polar bear that no one wanted because frankly, he looks a bit like a toilet bowl cleaner.






I have just a handful of other decorations. Favorite ones. This one for example.






Snowdrop is very maternal or parental or something. Here she is, caring for the bear... feeding him a Christmas tree...






(Dancing to jingle bells while jingling bells.)






Finding a sparkly boot... I tell her that her aunt made it a long time ago. She tries to take it apart, perhaps because she wants to demonstrate that she too, like her aunt, can put it together again.






The tree project takes all of five minutes. She loves every one of those five minutes.






After her nap, Snowdrop brings some of stuffies and invites ahah to sit down with all of them.






She is one big smile. I hand her bells and she jingles them energetically. Grinning the whole while.






It's time to return to her house. I propose a lighter jacket, just for the car ride home. She's a very flexible child. Okay, gaga.

She may have been disinterested in the snowman before, but this time, she has a long (and I mean long) conversation with him.






Finally, in her own home. The tree has been up for a few days. I string on the lights, Snowdrop helps!






Her parents are home. We eat, we decorate. You may chuckle, but in fact, the little one really is brilliant at putting on ornaments!






A moment of rest...






Her mommy tops the tree with a special bow that is now nearly 40 years old...






One last glance at an ornament...  (Snowdrop examines a sleigh with a Mrs. Santa on it and proclaims it to be gaga!)





There is this remarkable symmetry this season: I am there for the purchase of trees for both my daughters, Snowdrop is there for the tree trimming at ahah and gaga's and then for the big beautiful one at her own house.

You cannot have too many lights, baubles and family mementos in this holiday season. You just cannot.

Sunday, snowy Sunday

A Note: In Friday's comments, a reader (whom I do not know) left links to photos of my Warsaw apartment street. One is from the years of my earliest childhood: it shows the building of my current apartment (and a handful of other buildings) standing proud among the ruins of postwar Warsaw. I knew this Warsaw of course, but as I moved from infancy to childhood, the ruins gradually disappeared. To the commenter -- thank you for for these images. They really do provide a context to my notes on my days in Poland.



This morning, I wake up to a stillness outside. The kind you feel just before a snowstorm rolls in and adds another layer of silence to an otherwise not so quiet city. (Though the neighborhood where my daughter lives with her husband is, in fact, remarkably quiet. Chicago isn't like New York. Here, you can sometimes hear a pin drop on the sidewalk. New York is never absolutely still.)

We walk to a favorite place of my little one and her husband for brunch (Trenchermen).  They're surprised that I'd never eaten there before, but I list all the neighborhood brunch places where we have dined and it's obvious that the list is long: there are so many eating choices here!

And now flakes begin to come down. I see them clinging to my girl's jacket -- oh, it really is going to be a snowy day!






With just a touch of holiday about it.






Brunch is so good! worth lingering over...






But we can't let the day run away from us. I have a task: I want to do what I used to do here in the past -- go to American Apparel and buy thick socks. I haven't restocked since my trip here years ago!

And they have a task as well -- to go to the corner Christmas tree place to buy and cart home their own tree. And so it has come to be that this year, I'm there at the buying of each daughter's tree. Remarkable!

Looks good!






It's a bit of a hike home, but they're up for it. Oh, the snow is becoming so delightful!






I could sit in my daughters' homes for a long long time and just watch them go about their business. But you never want to overstay your welcome. These two have so little free time! And, too, I have a bus to catch.

I take a lovely walk, admiring the prettiness of the snow, of the lights, of a city at the brink of a holiday. Perhaps I take too long for this. Maybe I shouldn't have stopped at a shop with a fantastic sale to pick up a skirt for my forthcoming trip and for the holidays. Because when I finally climb the stairs up to the El train that'll take me to the airport (from where I'll catch the Madison bound bus), I see that the snow is getting to be quite intense. And the trains are not as frequent on a Sunday afternoon.






But I do make it -- with two minutes to spare.

It's a very slick and snowy ride north! Still, a few hours later, I'm in Madison.

The bus rolls in, my car -- left in the parking lot -- is covered in snow, Ed calls me with news of a flat tire on his car and I have the young family due for dinner in an hour. A challenge!


But the fact is -- it's a beautiful world out there. The first big snow is like the first crocus or daffodil in spring -- it reminds us of all the bounty the coming season has to offer.

Dinner -- a simple but favorite spaghetti one -- is on time.

(I remember when Snowdrop first enjoyed spaghetti... She is so much older now...)






A few quiet moments...







Oh, how I wish I could put up a photo with both my daughters in one frame right now! But -- there are plenty of good things to include here. Tomorrow - Ed and I will test the snow and Snowdrop will come over and there is the matter of the tree... Hmmm: I wonder if the Chicago couple has decorated theirs yet...

Plenty of really good things...

Saturday

The conversation goes like this:

Just wake me and I'll open the coop in the morning.
But you mumble an "okay" and then roll over and say -- "in a few minutes." And I say -- oh, I'll just go. And you answer -- "no, you need your beauty rest, I'll go in a few minutes." Rather than staying awake to nudge you again in a few minutes, it's easier to just go.

And in fact, this morning, the conversation played itself out exactly in this way.

Breakfast is a bit rushed because I cannot get my small tote bag to close. (It's carrying a bottle of good whisky from Islay.) But we eat our cereals and fruits, or rather -- gulp them down quickly.






I am running low on time and we still have the coop to move. The forecast for Madison for the next two weeks is for snow and cold. Days and days of below freezing temperatures. The coop needs to be in the barn (for the winter) before the snow comes.

The reason for the rush is that I want to catch the 10 o'clock bus to Chicago. My younger girl and her husband live there now and they just moved into their new home which I desperately want to see. It's good to be riding the bus to Chicago rather than to Minneapolis (where they lived the last three years) -- it's half the distance and makes for a very pleasant getaway.

It's a gray but dry day (the snow comes tomorrow). Glancing out the window I see that dramatic Midwestern sky and I reach for my camera.






A commenter noted how I always seem to reach for the camera without necessarily interrupting the flow of life. It's true that I am within reach of my camera at all times. It has always been this way -- probably since I got my first Kodak Brownie at age eight or nine. I think my brain has grown (or shed?) extra layers and this has helped me compensate for my camera attachment. That lens is my third eye. I recently read a quote in the New Yorker from Dorothea Lange who appears to have said "the camera is an instrument to teach people how to see without a camera." By now, I would walk a set of blocks looking through that third eye even if I were cameraless. I'm programmed to always consider life through it. And here's something I'm quite sure of: that little black box has taught me more about living in the moment than living in the moment would have. Strange how that works.

I am aware, however, that it takes some getting used to being around me and my black box. Not everyone gets acclimatized to that third eye so often staring them down and it's tricky sometimes to figure out when to shut that eye tight -- not for my own enjoyment, but because third eyes sometimes make others nervous exactly for the reason that third eyes often see things differently.

(On the El train to town, she holds on tight to the suitcase, he holds on tight to her...)






In Chicago, my daughter greets me at the Blue Line El station. It's so good to see her here, in the town she first moved to after finishing her schooling. I associate it with her leap into an adult existence.

The neighborhood is the same as when she lived in Chicago before, but of course it's ever changing. We stop at a new coffee shop for a sweet treat...






... stroll along a new walkway and bike path (the 606)...






... visit a favorite grocery store and in general breathe in this corner of her life which, as a result, is now also a corner of my life.






Their home is in an old building that once housed a convent. Their unit is stunningly put together. No matter where you look, there will be the details of their life -- warm, artful, full of caring.






I help in small ways with some final unpacking and arranging but really I don't help much at all.






In the evening, my girl brings out a home cured salmon and we open their bubbly -- a present they received when they moved here. We're feeling celebratory!






Dinner is late so you wont get much of an account here. It's at the Table, Donkey and Stick. What a name!  It's sort of Swiss, but mostly it's warm and wonderful.





Nighttime. From my window I see the contours of an old church across the street. They tell me there is a Polish service each Sunday. Threads have a way of weaving this way and that in my life. I fall asleep with a smile.