Winter is in full swing (ramblings)

Cliff and I tell one another that winter doesn't seem as long these days, because when you get to be our age, all time flies.  And yet, January and February always find me wishing for spring.  My mom used to say, "Don't wish your life away", and that's really what it amounts to, but it's harder to live in the moment this time of year.  

Speaking of my mother, the other day I recalled how she would say somebody was having a "conniption fit" and asked Cliff if he was familiar with the term.  He was, but neither of us remembered hearing it since we were kids.  I looked it up online and lo and behold, there it was... "a fit of rage, hysteria, or alarm".  I even found an explanation of the difference between a hissy fit and a conniption fit.  By the way, after writing this paragraph, I notice that spell-check approved of conniption but not hissy, wanting me to change it to hussy.  

Things that make you go "hmmm".

Thanks to a smart TV in the living room and a Roku in the bedroom, we have plenty of shows to watch in the evenings.  I discovered a couple of television series' we'd never watched that ended their run long ago: "NYPD Blue" (on Amazon Prime) and "West Wing" on Netflix, which our grandson Brett generously shared with us so we pay nothing for it.  Both of these shows had long runs, so we will be watching them for awhile.  We're in the eighth season of NYPD Blue and just started the other one.  We love them both, especially West Wing.

I'm reading, of course, although the last two "real books" from the library were not my style and I probably won't finish either:  "The Dog Master" is just downright silly.  I've read two books by this author that I really liked, both from a dog's point of view.  This one, though is supposed to be telling how primitive man first tamed the wolf, the ancestor of the modern-day dog.  Once I got to the part where a boy and girl in love wanted to get married but needed the permission of the boss-woman of the tribe, I was done.  I have trouble people that long ago married at all, and I doubt many of them were faithful to one partner.  I'm thinking they all bred like rabbits.  The other book I'm struggling with, "Code Name Verity" is probably a good one, but it's confusing to me and I'm tired of forcing myself to plug on.  Yesterday I got notice in email that a book on my waiting list was waiting for download to the Kindle, so I began that one.  It grabbed my attention right away, but it's a horror story!  I don't like to read those!  For lack of anything else, though, I probably will go ahead with it unless I get too scared, because it does hold my interest.  The book is "The Heart-shaped Box", and it begins with a man buying a ghost on Ebay.  (Insert an evil laugh here.)

Oh, guess what?  I recently found out I have tinnitus, and I'm enjoying it.  Cliff has been plagued for many years with a loud ringing in his ears; it's a real curse.  But my version isn't a ringing, it's a sound like the buzz of outdoor insects on a spring night that makes me feel like I'm sleeping at the cabin I used to have in the woods.  I don't know when, or even if, I would have noticed this except for my thirty-minute meditation time in the mornings.  I guess it's because my mind is quiet and resting with no thoughts allowed to disturb me at that time.  Anyhow, the other day the furnace stopped running and in the quiet following, I heard far-off crickets and cicadas and for a minute thought I was going nuts because... in the winter?  Yeah, I'm not supposed to be thinking, but some things have to be noticed.  I shoved the thought away and pulled it out later in the day.  Now that I'm aware of it, I hear it all the time.  I just hope it doesn't get any louder.

That's all the craziness for this entry.