JRRT'sBirthday of Celeste
Jan. 3rd, 2025 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ismoThis morning, a nice man named Tony arrived with a flatbed truck to haul our car to the dealer. As you may or may not know, you can't actually tow a car unless you can take it out of gear. Which you can't, if it won't start. So we were relieved to see the flatbed arrive. Jason, another nice man who is the service manager at the car dealer, pointed out the obvious--that he will first have to figure out how to start the car, and only then go to work on the reasons we made the appointment in the first place. I wish him luck. Then there was an interval in which I suited up and shoveled off the walk and drive and back patio, in anticipation of the arrival of the HVAC guys to install a new air conditioner. It was really more of a scraping, as there were only a couple of inches of snow. Ha ha, you may well say--an new AIR CONDITIONER? Now? In January? Strangely enough, yes. They said it would be greatly to our advantage to order a new one in 2024. And once it was ordered, of course they want to get it installed. And their schedule didn't permit that to happen before the latest polar vortex. So cheerful young men with beards and boots were tromping through the house wielding mighty implements of repair and destruction, and leaving the door open for the advent of machinery, making it quite cool enough in our little hobbit hole! When they finally got the thing installed, over three hours later, they had to run it for a few minutes to make sure it worked. This is probably the only time in my life that I'll have the AC on in January. Even in Texas, I don't think we ever did that. But in the end, there were a couple of missions accomplished all around.
The Sparrowhawk decided to go out and get sushi for dinner. I had wanted some salmon roe in lieu of caviar for New Year's, but it didn't work out then. He was on his way to get some tonight, when he passed the Duchess arriving in our driveway to drop off a box of cookies and a Christmas gift--a cheerful felt bluejay ornament for the tree. It's a sweet reminder of our brother. He was cheeky, curious, and indefatigable, and remarkably intelligent for a bird of his size. The Duchess said she had been cleaning all day and was not fit for company, so she declined to come in.
This being the birthday of J.R.R. Tolkien, we decided to watch the first half of FOTR in tribute. At 9:30 pm, we paused the movie and took our champagne out on the porch to look up at the sky and toast his memory. "To the Professor!" I added "O menel aglar elenath!" But alas, we could not gaze on the stars of Elbereth in the garden, because this is Michigan. Thick clouds covered the sky, and a scattering of snow was falling. Le nallan si di'ngurothos/A tiro nin, Fanuilos!
The Sparrowhawk decided to go out and get sushi for dinner. I had wanted some salmon roe in lieu of caviar for New Year's, but it didn't work out then. He was on his way to get some tonight, when he passed the Duchess arriving in our driveway to drop off a box of cookies and a Christmas gift--a cheerful felt bluejay ornament for the tree. It's a sweet reminder of our brother. He was cheeky, curious, and indefatigable, and remarkably intelligent for a bird of his size. The Duchess said she had been cleaning all day and was not fit for company, so she declined to come in.
This being the birthday of J.R.R. Tolkien, we decided to watch the first half of FOTR in tribute. At 9:30 pm, we paused the movie and took our champagne out on the porch to look up at the sky and toast his memory. "To the Professor!" I added "O menel aglar elenath!" But alas, we could not gaze on the stars of Elbereth in the garden, because this is Michigan. Thick clouds covered the sky, and a scattering of snow was falling. Le nallan si di'ngurothos/A tiro nin, Fanuilos!
