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ShortDays of Celeste
Jan. 17th, 2026 08:01 pmIt's been a busy few days. My visit to Madame went all right. I brought her coffee and cake. She tried to get out of her chair at one point, and it was very difficult. I do most of the talking now, because she doesn't remember current events well enough to say anything about them. Sometimes I can get her started on events of the distant past, and then she'll tell me some stories. Wednesday night, the Sparrowhawk was getting ready to go to the gym, but Coach canceled it. The snow didn't seem too bad here, but some of the people come from the lakeshore, and it was pretty slick out there. I stayed up a little bit late on Wednesday making the chicken pot pie filling and rolling out six pie crusts. One of the things that made the filling good was to blend it with cream as well as chicken broth, to make the gravy smooth and tasty. The good thing about doing the pie crusts the night before was that they spent the night on the back porch, where it was freezing, so they were well-chilled when I baked them. I think this makes them more flaky.
Thursday morning, I made four loaves of bread before Dragonfly came over. When we went out for lunch, she needed to pick up a couple of things at the store, so I went with her and got my salad fixings. When I got home, I set to and baked the pies and mixed up the salad. It was romaine and boston lettuce with blueberries, slivers of red pepper, and pomegranate seeds. I wanted some of that crumbled goat cheese, but the store didn't have any, so I got some Wensleydale with blueberries in it and chopped it up in the salad. It was well received, especially with some maple balsamic dressing. We also had a tray of plain crunchy carrots, cucumbers, celery, and peppers in case the kids didn't care for cheese in their salad. One of our friends brought an apple cake from Mary Berry's recipe, and it was delicious. We had a lot of fun at dinner, but didn't make too much progress discussing the Paradiso, because we got off on some other topics, and then the parents had to take their kids home because it was a school night.
I thought I'd get up bright and early and get a lot done on Friday, since at last I had no social events. It was not to be. I didn't sleep well, and when day came, I was bushed and unable to motivate myself. I had to take a nap. We were planning to go see the extended version, 25th anniversary FotR on the big screen at 7, but it snowed more and more, and I groaned at the thought of shoveling the car out again, and the Sparrowhawk was very tired and worried about staying up until 11. We mutually agreed to chicken out. I WANTED to want to go, but I didn't. We watched our DVD of the extended version (because of course we have one, darling) instead. I made the last of the popcorn. An added benefit to being at home is that we were able to take a break to FaceTime Aquinas, wish him a happy third birthday, and sing him Happy Birthday. As we were going to bed just before 11 (another good thing about movies at home is that it only takes five minutes from movie to snuggled up in bed) I looked out the window and saw really huge snowflakes floating down. The all-day snow had been that thin, mean, stinging, wind-driven snow, but it turned into the Silent Night variety. I was still glad not to be driving home in it.
Today I went out in the morning and shoveled everything. It was pretty thick. It seemed like 4-6 inches to me, although the official weather report said not. It was bitter cold, too. We had one pot pie left over. I was going to freeze it, but then I got into a text chat with my sisters, and learned that both the Duchess and Dr. Nurse have bad colds, which they probably caught from Bird Baby via preschool. It occurred to me that Dr. Nurse could probably use some comfort food, so Uncle Sparrowhawk took the pie over to them. He reported that the roads were pretty good, so we drove to the theater at 3-ish to see The Two Towers on the big screen. It was a great experience. The landscapes are so gorgeous when they're full size, and every detail is so involving. The theater was packed full of people, many of them wearing elven cloaks and other garb. It was snowing like mad when we emerged. Not quite as bad as the Redhorn pass over Caradhras, but not very nice either. We were glad to get home. I anticipate more shoveling tomorrow . . . .
Thursday morning, I made four loaves of bread before Dragonfly came over. When we went out for lunch, she needed to pick up a couple of things at the store, so I went with her and got my salad fixings. When I got home, I set to and baked the pies and mixed up the salad. It was romaine and boston lettuce with blueberries, slivers of red pepper, and pomegranate seeds. I wanted some of that crumbled goat cheese, but the store didn't have any, so I got some Wensleydale with blueberries in it and chopped it up in the salad. It was well received, especially with some maple balsamic dressing. We also had a tray of plain crunchy carrots, cucumbers, celery, and peppers in case the kids didn't care for cheese in their salad. One of our friends brought an apple cake from Mary Berry's recipe, and it was delicious. We had a lot of fun at dinner, but didn't make too much progress discussing the Paradiso, because we got off on some other topics, and then the parents had to take their kids home because it was a school night.
I thought I'd get up bright and early and get a lot done on Friday, since at last I had no social events. It was not to be. I didn't sleep well, and when day came, I was bushed and unable to motivate myself. I had to take a nap. We were planning to go see the extended version, 25th anniversary FotR on the big screen at 7, but it snowed more and more, and I groaned at the thought of shoveling the car out again, and the Sparrowhawk was very tired and worried about staying up until 11. We mutually agreed to chicken out. I WANTED to want to go, but I didn't. We watched our DVD of the extended version (because of course we have one, darling) instead. I made the last of the popcorn. An added benefit to being at home is that we were able to take a break to FaceTime Aquinas, wish him a happy third birthday, and sing him Happy Birthday. As we were going to bed just before 11 (another good thing about movies at home is that it only takes five minutes from movie to snuggled up in bed) I looked out the window and saw really huge snowflakes floating down. The all-day snow had been that thin, mean, stinging, wind-driven snow, but it turned into the Silent Night variety. I was still glad not to be driving home in it.
Today I went out in the morning and shoveled everything. It was pretty thick. It seemed like 4-6 inches to me, although the official weather report said not. It was bitter cold, too. We had one pot pie left over. I was going to freeze it, but then I got into a text chat with my sisters, and learned that both the Duchess and Dr. Nurse have bad colds, which they probably caught from Bird Baby via preschool. It occurred to me that Dr. Nurse could probably use some comfort food, so Uncle Sparrowhawk took the pie over to them. He reported that the roads were pretty good, so we drove to the theater at 3-ish to see The Two Towers on the big screen. It was a great experience. The landscapes are so gorgeous when they're full size, and every detail is so involving. The theater was packed full of people, many of them wearing elven cloaks and other garb. It was snowing like mad when we emerged. Not quite as bad as the Redhorn pass over Caradhras, but not very nice either. We were glad to get home. I anticipate more shoveling tomorrow . . . .
