Happy Days

It's Friday. That means tomorrow is Saturday and the next day is Sunday and I don't have to go to work for 2 whole days! It's more than 2 whole days if you count this evening which I shall cause I ain't gonna do no work!

Come dance with me

I bought a Dancing With the Stars game for the Wii a couple of weeks ago. It's fun exercise and I've lost 4 pounds without even trying, but I'll never win a dance contest.

I'm not much of a dancer, but I wish I were. I'd love to be able to float through a waltz, or do "flick kicks" to a jive number, or samba while wearing those dancy pants with all the layers of fringe that shimmer and shake "like your sister Kate".

Actually, I'd settle for the pants.

For The Birds

Two of the most noteworthy things I learned last week was that blue herons live in blue heron rookeries and that there are blue heron rookeries in Indiana.

Since you rarely see more than one blue heron in the same location in a pond, I just figured they nested alone. Shows you what I know about birds.

My mother and sisters were all bird watchers. "Look, there's a bird!" someone would shout and the car would come to a screeching halt as binoculars were called into action on all sides. I liked going with them on their bird watching excursions, but that was just to get out of the house, not to watch birds. Still, I picked up some bird lore on these trips and I don't remember any one mentioning that blue herons lived in rookeries in Indiana. (So HA! I know something you don't know.)

I now know that blue herons do not spend their lives alone, there are about 145 blue heron rookeries in Indiana for about 7,000 birds, and Fort Harrison State Park near Indianapolis has one of the larger rookeries with 270 nests. (My source for this newsworthy information was reporter Chris Sikich (chris.sikich@indystar.com) and The Indianapolis Star. )

I don't know if there are herons there in the winter time. Not that I plan on visiting them before spring. I'm just wondering where they go when it's cold enough to freeze one's tail feathes off.

Where are you?

I'm beginning to get in the Christmas spirit. I said spirit, not spirits. Though one may follow the other in either order.

Earlier this week I found the box of Christmas cards I bought in November and I found my address book. I even found a pen without too much difficulty. I began to hum Christmas carols as I sipped at a cup of hot cocoa stirred with a candy cane.

I flipped open the book and turned to the A's, then the B's, then the C's. I need to ask Santa for a new book. At least 90% of the addresses in that book were no longer valid. Relatives have moved. Loved ones have passed away. Friends aren't were they're supposed to be.

I pulled out a stack of saved cards from Christmases and birthdays past. I hoped the return addresses would give me a clue, but that was a false hope. Too many envelopes had different addresses for the same family and I couldn't tell who was were when.

If I were paranoid, I'd think people were trying to hide from me.

Baby it's cold outside!

It's cold outside! I know it's December and winter is only a few weeks away, but it's COLD! Ten to fifteen degrees colder than normal and December in Indiana ain't that hot to start with.

It's making the arthritis in my wrist come alive. It has to be the cold. I don't do enough work to aggravate it.

At least we have sunshine. Indiana's November tend to be bleak and dreary - gray in color from the sky to the dead grass. December, on the other hand, has several days of sunshine in a row. It's cold, but the sun helps mitigate this a few degrees.

At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

This year December is also giving us a Blue Moon. I always thought a blue moon was when it had that blue aura around it, but actually a blue moon is the second full moon in the same month. Learn something everyday, don't you?

Even when you're as old as me.