Atypical cold front: is it done yet?
Things are, at long last, returning to something that vaguely resembles normal.
The weather is warming up. Today there was still snow thick on the ground; but there were also icicles on the edges of my neighbors' roofs and eaves. (My own eaves were icile-free. I was quite upset. They would have made for some lovely photos.)
Last night, the dark was the right color of dark. Let me explain...no, that will take too long - let me sum up: heavy cloud cover plus a thick snow plus ambient city lights equals reflection. Lots and lots of reflection. The last three nights have been so bright that I could have read outside, in my backyard, without the porch light on.
We're supposed to get more snow tonight and tomorrow, but the temperatures are warming up. While that will mean more treacherous roads (snow packed down turns into ice; snow melted and refrozen is just nasty and dangerous as all get out), it will eventually mean typical weather: the wet stuff falling from the sky will be closer to a liquid than a solid state (rain as opposed to snow.)
It was warmer today, but still cold. I baked brownies, and made homemade pizza for dinner. Double dose of heat generation, plus foodstuffs. Oh, wily crafty me. ("Crafty" my pasty-white ever-expanding geek ass — I was COLD, dangit!!! Necessity is the mother of invention. And some other funny looking children.) I will do my cookie-baking the week after New Year's - partially because I plan on doing some more painting next week, and partially because I want to spread out the holiday eating. (Anyone got a tasty, relatively foolproof, flavorful shortbread recipe? I'll trade you an eggnog snickerdoodle recipe.)
I will also try to take advantage of the warmer weather and the Christmas holiday by sending around housewarming gifts. I'm resuming an old tradition that the Greeks used: the celebrant gives the gifts, not receives them. In honor of my new house, I'm making little gifts for all my neighbors in the complex. I'll drop them off tomorrow night. I'll have to wrap them or otherwise weatherproof them, just in case it does decide to rain overnight. On the off chance that my neighbors are, or ever do read, the blog, I'll leave out what I'm putting in them. Suffice to say I'm wishing everyone health, prosperity, and warmth. (That nicely covers the bases, yet remains nice and vague.) It's not the usual way of doing things, I know: normally when one buys a house (at least in America), one throws a housewarming party and gets goodies. (My realtor even suggested this to me. Yay. How classy. Not.) Since I have a bad track record with receiving real actual thoughtful useful gifts, and since this year's been a bit rough financially for my friends and family, I thought I'd just go the other way around and give, rather than receive. It also endears me to the folks in the condo complex, which can't be a bad thing.
Unless the HOA leader sends yet another passive-aggressive note saying that unsolicited leaflets or packages are "a no-no", unless such packages are HOA business-related. In which case I'll leave another package, but only at that person's door. (The litterbox gets cleaned out every day; and with multiple cats, there's no shortage of...er...raw material.)
