We Brake for Trees

We Brake for Trees

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I can’t remember how we discovered Snicker’s Gap, the Christmas tree farm in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. But I do know that Claire (pictured below with her puppy Bella; her beau, Tomas; and their older doggie, Reese) was in middle school. So it’s been a few years.

And in those few years, a few other people have caught on that trekking out to the country and felling your own fragrant Douglas fir provides more seasonal cheer than driving to the shopping center at the corner and choosing a tree from the parking lot. We did that often, too, when the children were younger. But Snicker’s Gap has been the tradition for 15 years now.

What’s become abundantly clear, especially since yesterday, is that many others have made the same calculation. We waited 30 minutes to get into the place. The lesson for next year: Leave earlier, arrive later … or find a nice tree in a lot somewhere.

Shopping Season

Shopping Season

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What’s the saying, when the going gets tough, the tough go … shopping?

As Americans hit the malls and big box stores, as they weed through websites in search of cyber deals, I think about the pastime of shopping, what it can do for you and what it can’t.

My mother liked to shop. If she had time to kill she would while it away in a store or two.

This is not the way I unwind. Put me in a darkened movie theater or downstairs in the basement with an episode of “The Crown.” For me, shopping is a means to an end.

But the shopping season is upon us, so today I’ll do my bit for the economy. Not with joy or gladness but with a sense of duty.

Gratitude on Ice

Gratitude on Ice

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It’s one of the coldest Thanksgivings on record here, with wind chills in the teens and temperatures that won’t make it out of the 30s. A perfect day to stay inside, chop onions, peel potatoes and baste the turkey, all in a steamy kitchen.

Though it’s tempting to put heat at the top of the list of things I’m most grateful for today, I’m going to push it aside for friends and family. We haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving here for a couple of years, Suzanne and Appolinaire having stepped in as the hosts with the most lately, but today the clan (minus Celia, who’s in Seattle) is gathering here, and by late afternoon there will be a full house.

It has lately been made clear to me (as if I didn’t already know it), just how important family and friends are. Not just for celebrations like today’s, but for the dreary mornings and frantic evenings of life. So on a day for giving thanks, my heart is full of love for the people who make life worth living for me. Not just today but every day.

Give a Little Whistle

Give a Little Whistle

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The old Russell Hobbs tea kettle gave up the ghost a few weeks ago. It seems like just the other day it was the new Russell Hobbs, so I was unprepared for the breakdown, at first thought I must have been turning it on the wrong way.

But oh no, it was truly broken, could no longer be babied along by turning it every so slightly to the right on its base, like cracking a safe. Now, the search for the new tea kettle will begin, but given the craziness of the season I could see it taking a while.

In the meantime, there is a stand-in I brought up from the basement and dusted off. It’s the trusty whistling tea kettle, decades old. It may be made of aluminum, it may be hastening our senility, but I love the jolly way it announces that the water is tea-worthy. Not with a click of a power switch but with a shrill whistle that brings me scurrying from the far corners of the house. It brooks no interruptions, knows its own mind. And the water it produces makes a fine cup of tea.

Switching Browsers

Switching Browsers

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Continuing on the tech theme, I write today from the office. It’s been many weeks since this was possible, all due to a log-in problem I could have solved much sooner had I just switched browsers.

Switching browsers is often the remedy to the problem at hand. I should know this by now. Is there a stubborn streak at work here? Am I making things more difficult by failing to switch browsers first?

Possibly, but it’s unconscious on my part. It’s part of being a digital emigre, someone not born to swim in these waters. I may find a solution, eventually, but it will never be an easy one. It’s as if my brain circuits won’t work that way.

Maybe writing this post will help me remember that before I pull my hair out, before I decide to completely redo my blog (which I hope will happen soon anyway), it’s better to take one simple, elegant action — switch browsers.

Calmer Computing

Calmer Computing

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It was a day to rake leaves, plant bulbs, do laundry and prepare the house for visitors later this week. It was also a day to be frustrated by various computer glitches.

There was a new system update with all of its attendant woes, the retrieval of passwords once entered automatically, the held breath that formerly well-oiled systems would start up again.

There was the banishment of junkware called Gilpierro, which slipped onto my machine when I was downloading a schedule from a third party. That took about two hours.

With each snafu I worried that I wouldn’t be able to access this blog or my email or the document I’d just been working on. But so far, so good.

I like to think I’m becoming a little saner during times of software distress. One might not notice this by looking at me, but I have a little more faith in the power of machinery than I used to. It’s a calmer computing I engage in now.

(The photo doesn’t have much to do with computing, but it’s a calm scene.)

Waylaid

Waylaid

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It was one of those days, one that seemed to start without me. I meant to write when I came back from my walk, but was waylaid …  then waylaid some more. And now that it’s evening I wonder, why bother?

Because writing here is a creative comfort, a way to soothe jangled nerves.

Because writing here is a way to celebrate walking, which also soothes jangled nerves. (Notice a theme?)

Because I try to write every workday no matter what.

Because there is much to be grateful for, even on a wind-whipped November evening.

Early Snow

Early Snow

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There are still leaves on the trees, but that isn’t stopping the snow from falling. What was first billed as sleet and freezing rain has turned into snow that’s sticking on deck and railing, yard and street.

Roads, mostly untreated, are slick and getting slicker.

It will turn to rain later, they say. They being the Capital Weather Gang, my go-to weather source.  But they also said there wouldn’t be much accumulation, so I’m not believing them at the moment.

What I am believing is what I see from the warm confines of my living room. The snow is falling, and there may be a little sleet mixed in because it’s making a sound when it hits the ground. No silent snow, secret snow here. It’s early snow, loud snow.

National Landing

National Landing

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It was before 8 a.m. when I landed at National Landing, landing in my usual way, which is to say via bus — not plane or boat.

National Landing is the former Crystal City, transformed overnight from a slightly down-on-its-heels and not-so-aptly-named set of office buildings, hotels, restaurants and parking garages to half of Amazon’s new HQ2 (HQ 2.5?).

As I walked from Metro to my office, I noticed a car with broadcast equipment staking out a spot for a stand-up shot. It was parked near the basketball courts that were painted with pink and green flowers a few months ago and accessorized with a ping-pong table and life-size chess board. A few steps away, on the other side of the street, was my building, now being shown in a promotional video with a faux glass-walled eatery in front.

I don’t know whether it’s the winter or the weather — or the fact that the HQ cat is out of the bag — but the basketball court isn’t protected from vehicular traffic like it was earlier this year during the “courtship” phase. And I saw no evidence of the painted bicycles that had been adorning the area until recently. I was feeling a little bereft, like the bride who wakes up the day after the wedding and finds that her beloved isn’t quite what he seemed before the nuptials.

It’s not disappointment, not exactly. But something very much like it.  I must remember the mantra that the building pictured above (formerly Noodles restaurant) reminds me every time I walk to the office. … “Good things coming.”

Let’s hope so.

Damp, Drizzly November

Damp, Drizzly November

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A walk at lunch time yesterday, a dash outside and back before the rain moved in. Crystal City was almost deserted, federal employee haven that it is, so I had the sidewalk almost to myself.

I made my way down to Long Bridge Park and back, Gershwin in my ears, a big, soothing sound.

It was cold enough for gloves but I left them in my pocket. There will be time for them soon. For now I counted on the brisk pace to warm the extremities. And it almost did.

On the way back to the office, I looked up at the sky. The sun was trying to break through. It never quite made it, but I liked the way it was trying, the way clouds gathered and puckered, the pockets of light they let through.

It was a November Monday, not yet the “damp, drizzly November in my soul” that Melville describes in Moby Dick. It was just Monday, just November. The damp and drizzly, that would start a few hours later, would continue on through the night and into the dark morning. I hear the rain now, a steady beat on roof and road.