The Holidays are Really Over

I always hate taking down the tree, not because it's much of a job, but just because it means the holidays are really over. Of course, for us retired folks, that's not all that big of a deal, but I like all the lights and decorations and glow of Christmas. I think I'll leave the glass balls in the other window up for a couple more weeks though. They're not officially Christmas. They are Art.

I think I had already mentioned that Paula had found our boat -- that after what appeared to be an auspicious launch, it had come back into the backwater, bringing our hopes and dreams with it. She rescued it and suggested we make it bigger and better, and suggested this palm frond version. I bent the old boat a little and glued it into this frond, and it seems to work pretty well. I wasn't too sure how well it would do in the current, but it floated right along.

Had a bit of trouble on the land, because the lighter I brought only had enough fuel to light one candle, and since I had glued them down, I couldn't light another candle from the first one. And then of course, there was nothing dry on the ground to use. So I tried to use a napkin, I had in my pocket, with predictable results. And I only had my little cloth water shoes on, and I wasn't going to stamp it out. Fortunately, Zoe had real shoes on and stamped it out before we started a fire. This time, I had my water shoes, and I waded out into the COLD river -- not very far, as you can see, but far enough to freeze my feet. Also far enough to actually get the boat into the current. This is a much better boat, and actually floats. For a moment, it looked like these ducks might attack, but they veered off and left the boat alone. It made it out into the big current this time, and the last we saw of it, it was heading for the Howe Avenue bridge. It's been several hours, and I haven't heard of any fires downstream.