I spent the day puttering on the computer. Never got around to making the turkey soup I’d planned to make – didn’t feel up to it. Was freezing until ten minutes ago when I woke up sweating. But I’m feeling lucky, even though I’m sick, because I have a warm cozy house to feel sick in.

The dogs left piles of non-returnable presents all over the house today, apparently their statement about the weather. (Chihuahuas don’t like getting their dainty feet wet, don’t you know.) But even though I’m annoyed with them, I’m lucky to have them to cuddle with when I don’t feel well, and to bark at every noise they deem threatening, and to have their sweet faces reaching up to mine whenever I feel sad or grumpy, or come home after an absence of greater than three minutes. And puppy-kisses make everything better.

My parents emailed me to say thank you for hosting Christmas, and so did my aunt, and you know? Even though my family is damned annoying at times, and even though there’s a REASON I live 2500 miles away from my mother, I’m lucky to have parents who encouraged me to be independent and a free thinker, and an aunt who, when she’s not being just a little too neurotic, will listen to whatever I need to talk about. I’m also lucky that Ira, my stepfather, cares for my mother so tenderly and with such patience. I will never have to worry about her being alone in the world.

Fuzzy and I bicker a lot, and don’t go on dates as often as we should, and yes, sometimes we IM or text each other’s phones, or even just call each other within the house, and he can be really stubborn, and I can be really bitchy, but I’m lucky to have someone who supports my ideas, and encourages my dreams and gets my jokes, and even better, helps with the dishes and the laundry, and is RIGHT NOW out buying groceries.

And maybe this post would’ve been better for Thanksgiving, but as the year draws to a close, I’m struck by the thought that luck is what we make it, and that in a world where there’s far too much strife, it’s a good thing to take a moment and count up all the good things we have.

Good friends, good family, good dogs, good home.
Good luck to us all.

Sick with a major cold that has settled in my ears and throat now, I spent yesterday curled up in bed with dogs and tea, alternately napping and surfing the web from my trusty laptop. At times, I flipped the television on, but it was a “500 channels and nothing to watch” sort of day, and anyway, there was entertainment provided free by Mother Nature herself.

Wednesday had been a grey day, but in the soft, innocent sort of way that basically makes you feel as if the entire world is wrapped in pale greyish-lavender candy-floss. Yesterday was aggressively grey, and the rain showed up accompanied by a symphony of wind, thunder, and lightning, as well as its own sound – the slick staccato of drops falling on the deck, on the glass table, different pitches melding together, or the soft hiss of the water landing in the pool, sounding for all the world like a simmering cauldron.

And the lightning, oh, the lightning.

I love lightning, and one of the things I love about living where I do is that we get amazing, tremendous lightning storms. Yesterday was not disappointing. I remember crossing the living room, lit by only the Christmas tree and the bannister lights (which will remain until Epiphany), and turning my head to see long fingers of Dracula lightning arcing across the sky, not once, but three times in succession.

Another time, I’d have been awe-struck, and stopped just to watch, but yesterday I laughed. We have a wreath on the front door that has a motion detector. When someone stands in front of it, it begins to dance and sing “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” and, like something from a horror movie where a child’s toy plays innocently just before the axe murderer comes, each flash of lightning was triggering the wreath.

The dogs did not like any of this.
And my head and throat were achey, still are achey, so I returned to bed, and cuddled them, soothing Cleo so that she stopped barking at the thunder. She finally burrowed under the covers where she was mostly oblivious to the lightning, at least.

And I?
I turned out the lights, lit candles, and watched the flashes of light in the sky until sleep claimed me again.