Ordinary Days/Magical Days

I'm grateful for Ordinary Days--Tuesdays, like this one, with no appointments and no planes to catch. For me, it's thanksgiving. I can write. My dogs are nearby, and my cats. (The horses, alas, are still up the road at boarding school, but I'll have the barn up by spring.) There are wild turkeys beyond the fence, pecking at the ground and singing their gobble-gobble song. And my beloved pines stand sentinel in the draw, awaiting their lacing of snow.

Speaking of Thanksgiving--Canadians celebrated it yesterday. I think they're smart to have it then--ours is too close to Christmas. I'm nostalgic for the old days, when Hallmark didn't have their cards and ornaments on sale in July. We had time to appreciate holidays back then, it seems to me, and they were clearly differentiated from each other. Halloween was great fun in Northport--there were pumpkins and scarecrows taped to the windows of the schoolhouse, and deciding on a costume was something to savor for weeks. It was safe to trick-or-treat at every house in town, and a night's haul would fill a pillowcase. Thanksgiving, too, stood separate and distinct. Turkeys on the school windows then, and little pilgrim figures in the middle of everyone's table. No one rushed out to shop the next day--we were still digesting the feast. Christmas came in December, not November, and certainly not in July. Dad would take my brother, Jerry, and I up into the woods to pick out the tree, somewhere around the 14th of December. I will never forget that piney, snowy scent, clinging to the lush branches of that tree. I loved to plunge my face into those prickly branches and breathe deep. When we returned home, Mom would have cocoa ready, or cider, and Jerry and I were in a sweet agony of waiting, because the tree had to 'set' a while, dry off and let its branches down. Finally, the time would come to put it up in the corner between two picture windows in our living room. Dad muttered as he untangled the lights. Mom unwrapped precious ornaments, scuffed with memories, from tissue paper and bits of paper towel. We decorated the tree, and that in itself was a holiday--we loved the waiting, the anticipation, counting down the days. We'd stand outside, Jerry and I, in the gathering dusk, marveling at the way the multi-colored lights glowed through the frosty window glass. We looked forward to the lighting of the Lion's Club Christmas tree, at the center of town, and the programs at church. Uncle Harry used to play Santa--he had a mop for a beard, and he was skinny, but it was still utterly magical.

Magical days. It's the ordinary days, Tuesdays and the like, that make them special.

Weather Report

It's crisp and cool this morning, with a bright sun shining its blessings down on all of us.

This past Saturday, I attended the Lael Family Reunion in Colville, Washington (for those of you who don't live around these here parts, it's pronounced CALLville, not Coalville.) There was the usual laughter--the Laels are a witty bunch, inclined to laugh even through their tears. My cousin Dave, the MC, told his jokes. (Some of them, Dave, were even funny.) The senior Lael sibs all read a poem or sang a song--it's still strange that Uncle Wes isn't there, with his silly hats and his bed-pan banjo. Uncle Jack, a famous rodeo cowboy in his time, is confined to a nursing home now. When I went to see him, he greeted me with that old crooked grin of his and said, "Is the romance-writin' racket still being good to you?" I was happy to tell him it sure is. My cousins, who were kids yesterday, all seem to be grandparents now--there was a tribe of little Laels running around. My sisters, Sally and Pam, both attended, as did my mother, Hazel. Dad, being one of the original Lael brood, was there, of course, with his cowboy hat and his friendly smile.

So here's MY personal weather report. Clear, grateful skies. And if the clouds roll in, I know what to do. Laugh.

Because I am a Lael.

Major P.S.

How could I have forgotten????
There is a Christmas anthology out now, called "I'll Be Home for Christmas", and my story, "The Christmas of the Red Chiefs", is the headliner. If you're in a "snowy" mood, as I am, and starting to think of the festive season just ahead, you will love these stories.

Turkeys and Trees

There are wild turkeys behind my house, gobble-gobbling! They seem to know they're in no danger of becoming Thanksgiving dinner. (Or Sadie's dinner, either, though she barks at them with all the good-natured ferocity of any self-respecting beagle!) The deer visit, too--we have seen a doe with twin fawns occasionally, since spring. Now and then, there is even a moose--I've only caught a glimpse of one, since I write at the back of the house, looking out over my splendid draw full of dignified pine trees, and the mooses (meese?) seem to favor the ten acres of flat ground at the front.

The driveway is lined with young maples, now clad in spectacular gowns of yellow that will deepen to rust and crimson as autumn advances. The tall Aspens whisper among themselves, rustling a little in the cooler breezes. "Winter is coming," they say to each other. But they are not afraid. They move so gracefully between one season and the next. How I missed the seasons when I was away.

Although I lived in Arizona for eight years, and am not as used to Northwest winters as my beloved pines and maples and aspens, I look forward to the snow. For we are old friends, the snow and I, eager to be reunited. I remember the way snow muffles the world and makes it peaceful. I remember that particular cast of the light. I remember waking and, before I'd even opened my eyes, knowing snow had come in the night, just by that certain singing quality in the air.

Oh, yes. I shall welcome the snow.

For I have, after years of wandering, returned at last to the place my heart has always called...HOME.

The Blog was Broken

And now, hopefully, it's fixed.

I'm officially halfway through the next Mojo book, "Deadly Deceptions". Meanwhile, the first Mojo, "Deadly Gamble", will be in stores soon.

I'm getting ready for the Lael family reunion this weekend--always a good time.

A bit under the weather, but I expect to be better soon.

Much love,
Linda