Last night was Dot Org's fëte at DMNS, tonight is Solstice chez Scarf and Drums, and tomorrow everyone goes to Blossoms of Light at the Botanic Gardens. This time in snow! We are having a snowstorm, a real one.
I called work when I was already late, and the phone rang twice, giving me hope, and then the receptionist answered. Poop. Half an hour later when I was almost out the door, CoolBoss called. I pranced. I jigged. RDC asked if I was going to be this excited all day, but he's the one who's tipped three shots of espresso down his gullet while experimenting with his new coffees. Who's hyper now?
Whee, a day off. I pranced out to shovel, and what the hell, I shoveled our side of the block, which is only nine houses. Actually eight, because I ignore one house. If they ever shoveled themselves, I might occasionally spare them the effort, but they do not. They're on the corner, and do not shovel either in front or along the side, and that side is in the northern shade of their house and snows gets packed into ice and I have contemplated reporting them to the city. But I am only passively mean, so actively shoveled out the other eight stretches of sidewalk, plus the walks and steps of the two elderly households. Babushka emerged to thank me, just in a turtleneck and vest while her miniature schnauzer wore a jacket. By the time I got back to our house, you could barely tell I'd shoveled. Eh, I won't go out again until late afternoon.
Kal might come over to enjoy the fire, should we ever light one, and to wrap presents. The only presents I still need to wrap are RDC's, which means downstairs in my study not near the fire, but we'll work something out. Oh, I can work on RDC's stocking.
The only thing about the day off and maybe tomorrow too is that I cannot give ÜberBoss his cookies.
Waiting on my desk Monday morning was a package, wrapped in blue, with four rubber duckies swimming across its surface. I brought it to give ÜberBoss's office to open. He didn't know that CLH and I exchange rubber duckies and variations on that theme--there's a rubber-ducky ornament (glass, not rubber) on my tree--and how perfect these are. They are a police officer, a firefighter, a construction worker, and maybe a miner, and therefore looked a little like the Village People. I thought that immediately upon seeing them but didn't say so to him, but he mentioned it so we got to talk about that. I am sure I have given CLH a biker ducky, so all we need is an Indian one.
Opening the package, I told him how much I've enjoyed his previous gifts, that after my cookie-baking party a few weeks ago I got to use my snowman cookie jar, and that this year's card (penguins) would go on the mantel next to my penguin snowglobe, and that Kal and Stick enjoyed Robert Sabuda's pop-up Winter's Tale. He smiled a little at the mention of a cookie-baking party, and the first item I drew from the festive tin was a cookie cutter. A penguin? Yes, looking up. And another, larger penguin, looking down. Plus black food coloring, and orange. (Black and orange? Maybe penguins are Hallowe'en birds too; that makes as much sense as their being Yule birds. When Christmas gets thoroughly secularized to a "winter holiday," then they'll be perfect.) So I was effusively grateful.
Monday night I baked hazelnut chocolate chip cookies and mixed dough for chocolate-hazelnut snowballs. (Hazelnuts will figure prominently in everything I make this Yule because I might have just kinda let the bulk bin empty into a sack at the grocery store a few weeks ago.) Last night after the party, I baked the snowballs (the dough needs to chill, hence the day's pause) and attempted spritzer cookies. The ink on my recipe has faded and I guessed at one cup of flour. But the three ounces of cream cheese, .5 cup of butter and .5 of (non-hydrogenated) shortening didn't make me think that maybe that wasn't enough flour. Even the dough's goopiness in the sprizer didn't set off enough warning bells. I made a tray of misshapen poinsettias, shoved them in the oven, and mixed green into the other half. At this point I looked in the oven, just in time to keep the melted poinsettias from dripping off the tray.
So today I was going to give ÜberBoss hazelnut chocolate chip, hazelnut chocolate snowball, and chewy chocolate ginger cookies, and feel bad about no spritzer cream cheese cookies or ginger- or shortbread penguin cookies. But now I have the rest of today and maybe tomorrow to try again. Except that he will not be in on Friday and possibly the rest of the year. But certainly I will bring him penguins sometime.
This evening when we venture out to Scarf's Solstice celebration I will distribute cards to the block and the packages with the hatchlings' stockings and the jars of faux Nütella (hazelnut-chocolate spread, no surprise).
It's snoooooooowing! The snow won't be fresh but it will be present on Monday: my first white Christmas since 1995, when we were in Aspen. A festive Yule for all, so long as the electricity lasts.