Muzzling the Truffles of Winter

The Christmas merchandise is already out in the shops. Perhaps you've noticed. This time of year, I always feel the urge to stock up on Christmas candy.

Every year at my parent's house, we fill each others stockings. My speciality is usually chocolate truffles or other special candy. And of course, it's pricey candy, or becoming pricier. I remember when Lindt truffles ran about 25 cents each. I remember when they went up to 30, then 35 cents. Somewhere in there, they got up to nearly 50 cents, then over. So now they are reeeeally pricey, considering I buy several per person, often tracking down rare or seasonal flavors. Spending thirty or forty dollars on truffles alone is not uncommon. And that's not even including other specialty chocolates.

I've had to cut back a little. There are some delicious imported "Mozart" chocolates I had to stop buying because they were getting upwards of eighty cents each. If I'm going to spend about a dollar per piece, I want to actually wrap it up for under the tree, not stuff it into a stocking! Or such is my thought. These are special treats that everyone loves to find in their stocking, not gold. I don't have to break the bank.

However, I'm having to moderate my truffle spending for other reasons as well.

I noticed my usual urge to stock up on truffles. Yes, maybe I can get some of them on sale. Maybe I can buy them before the season really heats up, and so avoid going to that crazy retailer after Thanksgiving. Maybe I can stash them in the back of the cabinet or in the closet. You know, to save them. So I don't have to inconveniently buy more later. Uh-huh.

I found myself feeling reluctant to stock up. I was remembering what really happened to that stash of chocolate the last couple of years. I had a pile of chocolate in the house, and no matter how well it's "hidden" or wedged into inconvenient corners, I always know it's there. And of course, we have to sample some every so often. The longer the stash is in the house, the more we eat. And the more we eat, the more stressed our bodies and minds are from the extra sugar and fat. And of course, that does nothing good for our overall diet. Yuk.

There is such a thing as overload, and we have hit it.

It seems clear that the more we have in the house, and the earlier it comes into the house, the more we eat. And if it's in the house, it'll get eaten. You can see where this is going. We're going to have to stop bringing candy into the house.

Horrors!!! Is that even possible? I do enjoy seasonal candy - in moderation. I only eat good chocolate, but that does not matter when I am faced with a large quantity of good chocolate. How many calories, I mean, bars of peppermint bark do I really want to find myself eating this year? Not that many.

So I am resisting the truffles' siren call. When I see the aisles of seasonal candy, I avert my eyes. If I pick it up, I put it back. When I see the tubs of specialty chocolates at the bulk buying store, I tell myself, "You don't want to eat that all by yourself, do you? No!" I will wait to buy exactly what I need for stocking candy when I need it. Like the week before the holiday. Or a couple days previously. Or maybe less of it overall.

A part of me is whining about not eating as much peppermint bark as I want. I'm telling myself gently but firmly that it's more fun to anticipate eating than have had eaten it.

So this year, I'll make my own peppermint bark again, and eat that instead. And bake fewer cookies but more varieties. Fewer cookies, fewer temptations. People might get fewer truffles, but I will too. It's a win-win! I keep telling myself that and eating more greens. Yum!

Not only do I not have to do it all, but I don't have to eat it all, either. Ha.
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NaBloPoMo Autumn Leaf Edition

There is so much to be done before the chaotic crush of Thanksgiving holiday week. Now is the perfect time to continue whipping the yard into shape so I'm not cursing myself in March. So I'm ripping up old vines and shrubs, discretely zapping certain persistent offenders, planting bulbs and digging vines and clearing and mulching and .... Yes, all of that. Haven't gotten to any reseeding or raking yet.

I had a neighbor ask around for extra materials for their composter. I offered a bag or two of our lovely willow oak leaves with some maple and holly mixed in. Funny how she has not lept at the chance. Those oak leaves make such lovely mulch... when I can get the composter open.

The leaves are coming down in earnest now, making a soft crinkly blanket covering everything. I should remember to make a big pile of them for the little girl to play in before I have to bag them up and have them hauled away. The slender willow oak leaves slide together sighingly rather than crunching like a maple or sycamore leaf. The main hazard you'd encounter might be the random holly leaf or sweet gum ball surprising you with a prickle.

I did tell my neighbor that I had too many leaves to mulch and enough to share, but maybe she suspects me of trying to pull a fast one on her. As if I'm not the one doing the work, here. No, no, really! We have too many leaves to mulch! They sit under the Japanese maples and drift over decorative rocks. They block light to what's left of my lawn, is what they do. So I will mulch and haul.

Driving down our street, I point out the changing leaf colors to the little girl. "Do you see the colors? Do you see the leaves? Red and yellow and orange and brown. 'It must be Fall.'" "Yes! I see dem!" she tells me. At home she'll shuff her feet through any drifts in her path. As she should. Is it not the province of children to revel in the senses? The leaves even smell like Fall, the slow rot and disintegration making a new layer of mulch to feed future new growth. I told my neighbor leaves are the perfect recyclable material, but I don't think she believed me.
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Grey Day, Inside Light

Inside it's cool but warm enough, well-lit, cheerful. Outside it is cold and rainy, grey, windy, dreary.

A sudden whump on the window alerts our attention. I'm quick enough to see a large winged body bouncing off the window. Was that a blinded owl? A hawk plucking a small bird off the eves? I peer outside, but I don't see anything on the ground. A hawk, I decide. Now only if the hawk would take out the groundhog making underground condos in our backyard.

The rain brings down even more loose leaves and plaster them them to the grass.

The cool air brings a distant wind-tunnel hiss of highway traffic.

Inside, the cats snore softly as the curl up on the fleece bed blanket. Cozy, cozy, they have no inclination to move.
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'Tis The Season

'Tis the season for relentless ads and desperately enticing sales. 'Tis the season for tinny schlocky music drifting or blaring out of any sound system. 'Tis the season for expectations of gifts and I-Deserve-This and I've-Been-Very-Good.

'Tis the season for extra calories and red-and green-wrapped or candy-striped goodies of dubious merit. 'Tis the season of lights and candles. 'Tis the season of shopping among the over-heated press of other shoppers.

'Tis the season for want and guilt and desperation and exasperation. 'Tis the season for bills and budgets and spending over one's means. 'Tis the season for fearing to disappoint.

'Tis the season of hand-made decorations and piping children's voices. 'Tis the season for snuggling and and hot chocolate or tea. 'Tis the season for singing the old tunes, the old lyrics, the ancient pagan celebration married to an old story.

'Tis the season for rhymes and stories, verses and readings. 'Tis the season for making cookies with children, of smearing the frosting and spilling the sprinkles.

'Tis the season for raising a toast and getting tipsy on mulled wine or eggnog with rum. 'Tis the season for friends and parties, plays and concerts, pageants and silent meditations.

'Tis the season for ethereal choruses and arrangements of strings and horns. 'Tis the season for Gramma-Got-Run-Over-By-A-Reindeer.

'Tis the season for remembering our losses, remembering those in need. 'Tis the season for wrapping paper and icicles. 'Tis the season for oh-g-d-isn't-it-here/over-yet?

'Tis the season for imperfect manifestations of the heart's yearnings and the light's wanings. Hang in there; Solstice is only eleven days away.
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Drought to Deluge

Walked through water this morning on the way to meet a student. Predictable exclamations about the changeable weather. Ridiculously warm last week, now back to freezing. Drought to deluge. Oh, this weather! Next up, we will be talking about The Speech from March. Ah, American politics, so many quirky, complex workings, so rich with vocabulary and nuance. "Voter apathy" and "partisan politics."

By the time we finished a couple of hours later, it was really "coming down." Boldly messy. Students and shoppers dashing about either covered to the gills (as I tend to be) or lightly covered with a light jacket or a Tshirt (!?) and no umbrella. It makes coming back inside feel that much more cozy.


And then.

... God dammit. I just saw news of another local woman killed by someone who she'd had a restraining order against. I have to pause to scream in frustration. *Grrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaiiiigh!!!* When are we going to find a solution to protecting people who are beset with crazy, violent, and controlling people?? *siiiiigh*

I've known controlling men. I've been lucky to extricate myself with a middling dose of drama. Except for that one guy I was engaged to... who for years later would call me up long distance and talk nonsense. Yeah. I'll tell you that story some time.

On Da Udder Blog, I told the sordid drama of an ex-friend who perpetrated a lot of controlling behavior, culminating in a few unhinged crazy scenes before I slammed on the door on her for good. I could see it coming, but I didn't nip it in the bud, and then that...

I've even been controlling myself, based on fear, but I've let most of that crap go. These days, I find myself resisting any hint of controlling behavior, however innocent.

It's so easy to get sucked into other people's weird patterns until one learns the hard way. I don't blame this young lady at all... my god, she was only 18!~~ Too young to have learned to firmly avoid the controllers... to slap him down, leave him in the ditch, and walk briskly far, far away... And even then, a really persistent stalker can make your life scary hell. What else could she have done? That's the sad thing, really. Are we so helpless in the face of societal vultures that they pick off whoever they please? Don't answer that--it's too depressing.



What? Too much drama already? I agree. I get worked up about these things, but I'm trying to ... let it go a little. I don't want to *live* there. (What did Schmutzie call it? Congenital morbidity?) So let's get back to the rain. Please.

Considering the amount of drought we've been suffering in the last year, this kind of soaking is very welcome. Although it has been truly *messy* weather--no half-hearted sprinkle here-- I was struck by how *clean* it looked, sluicing away the dust and dirt accumulated from 10+ months of no car washes, washing away the early pollen, washing the pink cherry blossoms to bedraggled silk. I am reminded of a German word: gließen. It's pouring, flowing, sluicing, even. "Es gließt." We need a good sluicing. Renewal.

Bright, sherbet-colored tulips glowing against the dark wet ground.