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Friday, December 9, 2005
Getting Chillier
Well, the eastern seabord is in the grip of a nor'easter. Strong winds, freezing temperatures and tons of snow, sleet, freezing rain. However, here in Camelot we merely had some overnight rain. Woke up to a temp of 60 in my backyard. The maple tree two yards away has finally begun to turn color. Norfolk sits in an odd little tuck of the terrain which does not get cold and snow. Just half an hour north of here in Colonial Williamsburg the temp is 32 right now. Not in Norfolk, though.
I am torture-testing a couple of cheap palm trees I bought last winter. Over the summer they sat on my porch. This fall I tossed them out behind the house near the hose outlet so it would be easy to water them. They're looking good even though one of them is the Washingtonia Palm which supposedly only survives from Miami on down. I would really like to have palm trees in my yard but hesitate to invest since there are only a few types that should do well here if wrapped over the winter. One encouraging fact is that all over Norfolk are homes topped by towering palms far too big to wrap.
Today I've got to suck it up and act like I'm well. Having been sick as a dog for the last three weeks, this won't be easy, but now I have to get dressed to go out and shop. Tomorrow is the day when Angel Tree gifts are blessed at church. Lydia kindly offered to go buy my gifts for me, but I thought last night about how she'd manage all that stuff plus two little kids. Thing is, she talked me into buying a bike for one little boy and a bike is a hard-to-manage parcel for a woman with two little kids to hold onto. The children on the Angel Tree list are quite pathetically poor. So the recommended list of gifts is stuff like socks and sweaters, etc. Each child, though, is allowed to request what they'd really like to have. No kid wants socks. One little boy wanted a bicycle. It never occurred to me to go ahead and buy one. Last time I bought a bike it was for Lydia and even way back then, a new Schwinn was over a hundred dollars. Lydia, however, has sniffed around and she says that at Walmart a child's bike is buyable for around fifty dollars. So, what the heck, that's a small price to pay in order to make Christmas morning thrilling for one little boy. Today I need to help go get that bike.
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