The daily workload has ground to a halt, really.  For me, anyway.  Sal always has something to do, quilts to quilt, paperwork to shuffle and emails to write and return.  Plus, of course, there is always dinner to consider…..

“What should we have for dinner tonight?”

“Oooh, oooh!  How ’bout that yellow chicken goop-thing you do?”

“Nah.  What else?”

“Ummmhh…there’s that great prawn Linguine you are famous for?”

“Nah.  What?”

“Unh, Sal?  Do you just want me to list meals we can maybe do and then you pick from a list that might take me an hour to go through?  Or maybe we could just cut to the chase…?  What do you want to make?”

“Unh…I dunno…something white, tasteless…you know, potatoes, British stodge?” 

The truth?  Sal never says that last sentence.  She should.  Because that is the truth of it but she thinks that I should KNOW what she wants (spice-free, unseasoned, white foods like chicken or fish, cauliflower and potatoes) and then I should pick that.  I have gained some fluency in ‘fem-speak’ and I now respond with something like, “You know, make something easy, not exotic…maybe a baked potato, maybe something like chicken..?”

“Great!  That’s what we’ll make.”

“Glad I had a say in it.”

“Waddya mean?  It was YOUR choice!”

Fem-speak, eh?  Brilliant.  Pure genius.

As for our life off the grid….it is very cold.  But it is beautiful.  I am toasty warm (but ugly).  The balance in the universe has been restored.  Yin and yang.

Our community work has slowed somewhat….Xmas lethargy hangover and freezing temperatures coupled with short days tends to keep the hoi polloi home.  I am one of them.  But, I DO have some things I have to do.  And so I’ll get on it…..just not too quickly….

I am keeping politics to a minimum here but I do have to point out that Putin/Trump have managed to put a wedge in NATO.  The Great Subterfuge is alive and well.   The UK just announced a separation of ‘sharing information’ with the US.  And all the NATO countries have said ‘they do not trust Trump’.  And, of course, we just lost 50+ citizens in the plane crash caused by a nervous Iranian with a button to push….because the US impulsively put Iran on a war-footing.  Our political pundits say, “We should be mad!  Trudeau should be angry!”

Don’t hold your breath.  Canada will do nothing.  That’s the way we roll.

Still, I want to leave you with a little OTG beauty…so here…INSTEAD of 1000 words….a picture instead!

Elephant Mountain