Eeks! Long time between posts, I know. You can blame it on our weather, mostly. I mean, Tom was home, sick, two days this week so I could have driven here to the library, but alas! Freezing rain coated all sidewalks, roads and our car almost like some kind of a horror movie. Oy!

Anyway, the weather now is sane and yesterday I walked down to the convenience store along the road which reminds me of country. Sometimes, hey, don't we city folk need a country road? 

Anyway, needing eggs and onions on Thursday, I walked down our street (not the countryside one) to the new deli on the corner and that was a treat. Two women practically tripped over each other to serve me and I felt a little sad. Small businesses struggle in our area so I try to do what I can to help. They had no eggs, but they did have onions, so I bought one and a bit of potato salad. 

Then on my way home, an older woman stood out in the snow and asked if I'd seen her black and white cat. He'd escaped last night and she'd searched for him at 1 in the morning and a policeman asked what she was doing. She pointed to her windows three stories up in case I found him and I hoped he'd only meandered into another apartment and not outside. Way too cold for cats, it is.

And then later a friend of our neighbor-behind-us was barbequing steaks outside on our sidewalk and I had to smile at seeing the barbeque smoking with snow all around. He even shoveled the sidewalk out to the front for me--I told him our daughter was coming by soon and I thanked him. And later I taped Valentines and red heart doilies to Tom's and my white door to make the neighbors smile when they enter the always-smokey vestibule with the peeling grey paint and missing slats.

What a difference a house makes! I am surrounded by people in our new neighborhood, people rather different than the ones only blocks away where we lived so long. I am in the same town, but a whole other world. 

And I love the adventure of it all.


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P.S. On two nights now I've seen Amtrak trains fly by outside our kitchen with their lighted windows. Oh my. How Orient Express. How dreamy. How delightful for my imagination.