What a Man Does for Love

Husband started with some landscaping logs -- you know, the ones that are rounded on two sides and flat on the other two -- and made them into a square in the yard, in line with the windows over the kitchen sink but out by the leaf bin.

Then he disappeared into the shop for another day, eventually to bring out something that looked like a table without a top, which he put in the middle of the structure. When he does weird things. I usually don't ask him what he's doing -- try to let him think it either doesn't matter, or that I know exactly what he's thinking. He doesn't mention it to me because he thinks I don't care, or I know exactly what he's doing. (We've been married too long!)

He put a wall frame up on the far side, square to the first wall. I finally decided I'd let him know I'd noticed when he asked me to help him nail the second wall. "What is it?" I asked.

"A greenhouse," he said. "The table is too big to go through the door that's going on." So now there are four walls framed, a gable over it, bracing, and Visqueen -- that heavy clear plastic -- up over it. Son helped with that. Today Husband got screen for the door, and hinges. Using scraps and things on hand, he's up to $40 in cash outlay.

"It's your Christmas present."

I CAN'T wait! It's going to have a door, gable vents -- dirt! Everything I need to start gardening early this year. February 15 won't come soon enough.

I've wanted a greenhouse ever since I was 9. There was a greenhouse in the next block and I had to walk by it every day on the way to school. The kids in the neighborhood were tolerated to walk through it so long as they never harmed anything. I LOVED walking by in the middle of winter and seeing scads of carnations, sometimes even being able to smell them.

So there it is. . .a little more work and I can start making it livable, for plants at least.

A handknitted scarf isn't going to do it this Christmas.

Thanksgiving Report

I've mentioned in other years that our little country church has managed to feed an increasing number of people every year since someone got the great idea about seven years ago. We all pitch in and cook and deliver about two hundred meals the Saturday before Thanksgiving, then all go back to the church and eat together, with some people who would rather eat with us than have us deliver to them.

We've finally gotten organized. In our church program last Sunday, there was a schedule of who was doing what and when. I was down to cut and pack desserts, along with two other women. At the allotted time, however, they were busy elsewhere, so three other people pitched in. I consider cutting desserts a plum of a job. Sure there is pressure to cut and box and count groups of desserts for the different delivery people -- but within reason, I get to sniff and appraise the desserts. I've been known to say -- "I think this cake ought to go in the dessert room." No one argues with me.

This year, the cars lined up at the kitchen door and we loaded in order. We had more people to deliver to, but that was no problem -- most were on the road we live on. And when we got back to the church, it was time for the serving line to open to serves us.

It went like clockwork for the most part. But you know what? It was TOO organized, TOO well-run. It wasn't as much fun as it has been before.

Oh, well, next year or the year after, we may have a new meeting hall/kitchen to work from. We'll have to develop a whole new system. No more steep steps down to the kitchen to deal with, no bottlenecks and traffic jams.

Oh, well, it was the REAL Thanksgiving for me.

The First Real Signs

Winter is really going to come this year. There's always a thought in the back of my head that something will happen and the seasons will take a U-turn -- that never happens.

But yesterday afternoon, Husband and I did a little tour of the town we live near -- gas station, bank, Post Office -- and while I was waiting for him to finish one of his errands, I saw two bits of snow hit the windshield. Darn! We're going to have winter again this year!

I was spoiled those seventeen winters we lived in Florida, far enough south that we didn't have any snow to contend with. Our well-housing froze and split when the temp got down to eight above, and we had water spouting ten feet in the air and forming an ice sculpture, but that was the worst it got.

Anyone want this winter? Make a bid on it? I don't plan to use it very heavily. Sigh -- I guess I'm going to be stuck with it, anyway.

Mr. Fribble's Plan for World Peace

Husband took up baking when he retired. He specializes in chocolate chip cookies and apple-pecan bread. There is a reason why we are not each bigger than a house -- he gives a lot of what he bakes away. I sometimes get a bit peeved, but I'll get over it -- if I try real hard.

Of course, he gives cookies to the girl who runs the "used bread store" and some others. But now he is giving cookies and bread to the girls at the bank branches we frequent. He's gone so far as to shove some cookies at Son to take on his infrequent runs to the bank.

The payoff has been that when our birthdays come up, we get birthday cards from the banks -- not the run-of-the-mill ones, either -- the gals all sign them.

Well, one day he came home from running an errand without his gloves. He explained to me that he had gone by a place where a water crew was putting in a new pipe, and the man holding the traffic sign was barehanded. So he gave him a pair of gloves. He looked high and low for another pair, and insisted that I go out with him -- to give that pair to the fellow controlling the traffic in the other direction. Believe me, I didn't have to talk the other young man into taking them.

Now when we have passed that way, we hardly ever have to wait! They smile. They wave. They've moved on now, but I'll bet if Husband sees them out on the highway again any time soon, he'll start baking cookies!

I guess it's little enough to sacrifice -- a few cookies there, some bread, a couple of pairs of gloves -- in the interest of brightening up someone else's life.