Toast!

It's fifty-three degrees in the house! It's like toast! Toast I tell you!
(All the exclamation marks curtsy of the fifteen cups of tea I've just drunk, thank-you very much.)

Okay. Maybe toast that's been sitting on a cold plate for a bit. Like, oh, maybe ten minutes. But I just know it's going to warm up here real soon because there is gas in the tank! There is hope in my heart.

I went to town, leaving behind my shivering dogs, to go take care of that boy for a few hours and when I got back there was a bill for the gas in a lovely yellow envelope which said, "You have received a delivery of gas." Oh yes, I thought. Oh my dear god, yes. Then I opened the bill and almost passed out.

But anyway, slowly slowly the house is warming up. The sun is going down now so it's going to be awhile. But it's only supposed to get down to twenty-five tonight so hey- all is well.

And both my next-door neighbor, Ms. Petit Fleur, AND my yoga teacher offered me a bed in their houses. Now that is sweet. And I am fortunate to have people like that in my life.

And I am ever-so fortunate to have a heater that works (knock wood) and money to pay for the gas to make it work and while I'm counting my blessings, a grandson who is giving out the biggest smiles you ever saw these days, even to me, the Crazy Chicken Grandma and a daughter who can write like this, and a son who can write and find pictures like this and like this, and another daughter who studies like a demon and make all A's and makes me laugh so much and play the mandolin, and a daughter and son-in-law who trust me with their precious Owen and who work so hard and are such good parents that I can hardly believe it. I mean, I thought they would be, but the proof is in the pudding and honey, they are the chocolate, the banana, the tapioca, the rice and the bread of puddings. With bourbon sauce. Mmmm-mmmm.

And let us not forget Mr. Moon, the patriarch, the man who makes it all possible, the coop-builder, the deer hunter, the man of my dreams.

So I'm sitting here feeling grateful and warmer by the minute and if I could just have a damn hot flash, I'd really be quite warm and it's about time to go let Miss Betty and Sukie back into the hen house. Maybe I'll take my camera and see if I can record some of that crazy chicken bedtime ritual stuff that goes on in there at night. I told May today that I have a new name for myself- the Chicken Wiccan. Hah! I could start a whole new blog and call it that. May pointed out that people would expect me to talk about the goddess if I did and I told her that they would be sadly disappointed.
I guess Wiccans do talk a lot about the goddess, don't they? Well, I talk about the Virgin of Guadalupe a lot and she's like a goddess, right? She's a mother. And mothers are, by very definition (mine) goddesses. Some of them, anyway.

So I can be the Chicken Wiccan if I want to and right now I'll just say that I bless my lucky stars and all the powers-that-be including the goddess and the Spirit of the Rooster and the eons-dead dinosaurs for heat and health and love of all sorts and let it rest at that.