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Didn't want to get up this morning. Bed so warm, world so cold. Checked my phone in bed and saw 47 has taken to wearing a glove on his left hand to hide the bruising, like Cosmo Gilt. Yeah, could be because of aspirin use-- I used to get amazing bruises back in my aspirin and codeine days-- but someone cheerfully remarked that the Queen had a similar bruise on her hand when greeting Lettuce Liz, and two days later she was dead. Of course if he's taking aspirin he's less likely to have a stroke, which is unfortunate, but maybe the Big Macs will do for his heart.

Is still freezing out because wind chill. Went out and scraped packed snow off front walkway and a bit of the sidewalk, but there's ice underneath. It comes up if you hack at the right angle but that irritates my touchy neck vertebrae so I couldn't finish. Removed a bit of the snow mountain in front of the bins and the gas meter. Bins aren't going out any time soon and new company is making noises about not taking bagged recycling like the city used to, but the gas reader is coming next week. Mind, the gas co. should just do another estimate this month and cut their losses.

Reading is still Dr. Siri but I wanted a break and some easily understood classical English mystery, so I got a .99 special (and why doesn't this keyboard have a cents sign? I can have £ and € and ¥, but cents, no.) It was very silly and I deleted it from my account so I don't even know what it was called. Then had recourse to a Dr. Priestley, but Rhode has a verbal tick that increasingly grates. Whenever a witness is asked about an event, the answer begins with either 'I'll tell you how it was' or 'It was like this.' Ah well. Back to Dr. Siri.

Dead tree is Flora's Fury to get it off the shelf. I should read at least Flora's Dare to refresh the memory, but Libby doesn't have it and it's non-circulating at the library. Still, the world building is a lot of fun and I'm enjoying it.

Yeah, so that was 56 cm/ 22" downtown, setting a record for most snow in one day. The dump of '99 gave us three times that much but over a couple of days. My steps were obliterated last night when I went to bed and I got up this morning steeled to deal with them. No idea where I'd *put* the snow, of course, since heaving shovelfuls of even light powder is more than my elbows and back are up to. But after I'd breakfasted and stretched, I came down to find my blessèd neighbours had snowblown my walkways and steps. The blown snow was the height of my armpits. Snowploughs had created embankments on the street, and maybe bobcats, maybe really public-minded citizens had cleared the sidewalks-- or rather, reduced the snow cover to an inch or two-- as far as I could see. But corners will be impassable so no, not going out any time soon. DW reminds me that I was inside for ten days after the dump last year but SND texted me last night to say she'd pick me up anything I needed. I have wonderful neighbours, one of the many reasons I don't want to leave this neighbourhood.

But snow dumps are the reason I also want to lose weight and get my legs stronger so I can be mobile again. Thus I will not be asking SND to pick me up vodka once the city starts moving again.

No, sorry, that's no 7-10 cm out there. It's damn near the 30 cm/ 1 foot they said would happen with lake effect, if not in fact more. Can't tell with the wind blowing: my porch alone had 15 cm piled up on it. My good neighbour(s) (plural because both J and C have snowblowers-- saw them hobnobbing as they cleared their respective frontages) snowblew the front walkway and sidewalk some time this morning. I went out at noon and did the steps and the accumulation on the walkway. Four hours later I went out and removed a foot off the steps and six inches from the walkway. Came in and as I was taking off my boots good neighbour C came and cleaned my steps again. Yes it is snowing that hard. My icon is exactly what's happening. Am bitterly regretting that dry January I decided on.

My weather memory is off, which disturbs me. I keep thinking this amount of snow is unusual, but it's not. We had a lot last year, not just the big dump in February, a major snowstorm in 2022, and enough in 2023. It was only 2024 that was dry enough for shoes. And for that matter, we had a January thaw in the second week. It was 15 on my birthday.

A balmy 'feels like -9 / 16F' out there so, having survived the high winds and -20 of yesterday, thought to try my luck getting up to Loblaws, because of course tomorrow is Moar Snow. Again, not forecast to be the huge dump of elsewhere. 7-10 cm ie 2-4 inches, like Wednesday. But not easy to be out in and possibly making home delivery a problem, what with snow berms on either side of my street.

Walking wasn't too bad. Ice ridges in the street where snow plows dumped their loads but the corners themselves flattened enough to be passable. A few houses on my block had cut narrow passages for the able-bodied, a few hadn't shovelled at all, but the next block was clear all the way. Except it was clear because someone-- and it must have been the city's contracted snow cleaners because no one else has that kind of largesse-- had dumped piles of salt every few metres and then spread a cm over the entire sidewalk. I do not understand how any of this works, and I'm not even sure the city is still contracting their cleaning out.

Being on a Dr. Siri roll and having exhausted the paperback versions, got the next one in ebook from the library. (Parenthetically, this is a typical winter in that getting dead tree from the library is suspended until at least March.) But either the format or the actual three-strand plot of I Shot the Buddha had me beat. Half way through I had to go back and start again, and when finished, had to go back and reread several passages a third time. Almost as bad/ good as Diana Wynn Jones or early Ima Ichiko for twistiness. I think there are only three more of these so on I go.

I must assume it's the current political climate that has me all wibbly about the impending meteorological one. Polar vortices are nothing new in this town: we had one last year. But of course this year comes on top of snow dumps and is set to last till the end of January, not just a day or two and done.

It starts tonight so I went out in today's sunshine and relative warmth to stock up at Fiesta, even though it meant threadinng my way between ice berms and garbage bins. A bobcat had come up the street and done its best with those houses that couldn't be arsed to shovel last week's accumulation, but of course it had turned to unmoving ice by today. So three houses in a row had ice ridges in front. One or two other places put down salt that had begun to break up the ice, but that will all freeze again tonight. I do so wish I was still able-bodied enough to take my ice chopper to it, because I could have cleared it all in fifteen minutes. At least my side of the Greek gardener's corner lot was clear, though the Follis stretch looked untouched. But insult to injury, the actual corner had a great puddle that I was forced to wade through in my ancient leaky boots.

However am now reasonably set for the next week if I have to stay indoors. But I really need to get a massage for my twinging back since that's what's making moving difficult now. I have money for luxuries because my physio is on vacation next week, I can't get out to restaurants, I'm not buying alcohol, and my dental cleaning cost me $13-- not because of insurance but because I paid for something last year that insurance reimbursed half of, so I had a wodge of cash on account.

My brother texts me:

Snow, snow, go away
Come again some other day
Early August, shall we say?

I tell him the snow has its fingers in its ears singing La la la don't hear you. At least it wasn't the dump we had last week, just 5 or 6 centimetres ie 2 inches. I swept it from the steps and shovelled it from the walkway and sidewalk. More fell in the late afternoon, covering the steps, but the sidewalk remains clear. Either foot traffic or the city salting, though I haven't seen any bobcats. I might try getting out tomorrow, though now they're calling for gusty winds before the bipolar vortex comes back tomorrow night. And of course if I'm up at Loblaws I'll want to buy cream liqueur and if I go to Fiesta I'll want to buy cake, and I mustn't have either. Not merely calories: my innards really don't like alcohol but my spasming back muscles love it.

Have read nothing but Dr Siris because nothing else registers. Can't remember if I'm on 11 or 12 at the moment.

Made it to the dentist. Did not die, though I thought I might while waiting on College St for my cab. Wind tunnels at -10C will get you wind chills of -22, whatever that may be F, because 'forking freezing' is not a scientific measurement. Driver kept yawning since extreme cold also leads to somnolence. Am yawning now at quarter to six. Which may be fallout from the dentist or may be tiredness from getting up this morning when I first woke up. Seems I need the extra hours I get from sleeping in.

Cabs always come early so I had an hour to kill. Intended to get something from Tim's and then found I'd forgotten the toothbrush and paste I'd carefully put in a bag for this eventuality. Well, fine, shall mail that parcel I've had ready for weeks since there's a post office in the same building. Had the photo of my QR code for overseas customs declaration. But as ever the PO scanner couldn't read it and a 1 o'clock line was forming behind me. So I went to the side and filled out the form again on my phone-- and let me say, people who live on their phones must have different keyboards or smaller fingers than I, because writing anything on my android is a fiddly heartbreaking exercise. This goes double for Japanese addresses, but in the end my phone was completely readable. So this is what I'll do in future. Asked the clerk what people do who don't have smartphones and she said They just don't send parcels. I begin to lose sympathy for Canada Post. We won't mention sending anything to the US, with customs to be paid in advance via one app only. The customs thing is their current administration (quae delenda est) but I think the mandatory app is pure Canuck bureaucracy.

Because my kitchen floor is technically clean I went downstairs in bare feet this morning to weigh myself. Chuffed that I've lost that Christmas kilo and maybe a little extra. Which will probably not stay off because this evening I made satay peanut sauce to have with stir-fried carrots and cabbage and ohh yum I love peanut sauce. OTOH staying indoors means no alcohol and minimal sweet stuff, so maybe.

But I washed kitchen floor again because it still looks grungy, and bent to get at some of the deep corners. The floor never gets really clean unless I sit down on it and work square by square, which I no longer dare to do, with the Goof-off I no longer have. I also had a go at the front hallway which does look slightly better. Used a squeegee mop and a cut up waffle top that had finally got holey past repair, but for real cleaning you need a cloth diaper and the last one I had of those shredded long ago. Also am out of the acrylic stuff that gives vinyl tile a shine. However I should be pleased that I could do the crouch and push without knees and elbows screaming, or at least, not screaming today.

Hardy Canadian me looked at the sorta clear sidewalks from my window, looked at the weather forecast (3C now, temps dropping rapidly this evening), and put on her boots to go to the supermarket. Going was easy enough, even over the slush of the houses that had removed most but not all of Thursday's snow. Only had to detour once into the street, because the corner house at the end of the block was completely untouched. Suspect the Greek gardener is in Greece or something. But the opposite corner was passable and the Baptists, somehow getting their act together at long last, had cleared the whole width of the sidewalks on both sides of their lot. I'd say snowblower but there were no mounds of blown snow to be seen, so where they put it all is a mystery. Am grateful they did, whatever.

So now I have potatoes and swiss cheese and eggs to make omelets with, and lime juice to make peanut sauce for the cabbage (napa) and carrots I have from the greengrocer. Must boil the carrots first because they don't cook otherwise.

I did scrape the remains of the snow from my walkway and sidewalk this morning. Hope it dries before it freezes but I have salt and sand even if it does. Next door M (age 9) came out to try to shovel his front walk with minimal success because neither if their shovels has a metal edge, which is what you need for icy slush. I lent him my ice scraper which seems to have worked. But their front path has paving stones that makes it difficult to shovel things completely flat. There are benefits to mundane concrete aftercall.

Was out scraping packed down snow from the front sidewalk, now temps are however briefly above 'frozen solid', and had to step back for a gaggle of school kids coming up the street, lagging behind their impatient mother and dragging toboggans behind them. Shortly followed by NND and M heading out down the street with a toboggan. NND confirms that schools are still closed even though the streets are plowed. Whoever else may or jay not be enjoying this old fashioned winter, the kids must surely be in heaven. A four day weekend and infinite tobogganing, how cool is that?

Garbage trucks did make it out this evening, though I shall be surprised if people then put their bins back. Still don't see me going out any time soon. See: snowploughs creating mountain ridges at all street corners. Or pools, since tomorrow will be above freezing. Cooked a turkey roll and did a dark wash and tried to get the kitchen floor clean with indifferent success, and that was my day.

Seeing it's going to be one of Those Winters. Did not put my recycling out last night, not least because the new recycling company have been less than efficient. Horror stories abound. Some neighbourhoods were skipped entirely last time, some they only took one side of the street and didn't come back for the other, one guy called to complain and a truck came by to pick up his recycling but not anyone else's on the street. There have been complaints, so our loathèd premier says Well if you downtown lefties don't like it, you handle the recycling yourselves. Conveniently forgetting that we've always handled our recycling and it was Ford's own idea to bring in a private company. I swear the man acts more like Trump everyday.

But mostly it was because another snowstorm was set to begin last night and begin it did. Hard to tell how much we got with the winds blowing the stuff around, but by day's end the roofs looked like a good eight inches/ 20 cm. My lovely neighbours did my steps and walkway while out snowblowing the sidewalk, but of course I had to go out and sweep/ shovel the new stuff, twice. It was light powder-- which it should be, given the vortex temperatures-- so sweepable enough, but my back still hates me doing it.

I had a dentist appt scheduled for next Wednesday so I booked my physio for Tuesday. Dentist calls me this morning asking can I come in Tuesday instead, so I said sure. Went to rebook my physio and she has nothing available for the next two weeks, and then she's away for a week. So now I'm on standby and fingers crossed, both that there'll be a cancellation and that I can get up the street to get to it.

And the recycle bins are still sitting in front of everyone's houses. Though-- NB, Mr. Ford-- the green bins were emptied promptly this morning by the old garbage company, even with six inches of snow.

Snow and freezing temps. I suppose I should go down to the basement and run a dribble of water to prevent freezing pipes, also to get my underwear before I run out. But hardy!Canuck me thinks it's wimpy for pipes to freeze at a mere -12C/10F and anyway I have underwear till Friday.

Finished a single Dr. Priestley, name and plot forgotten. (OK, Murder at Derivale, about a no-gooder killed by an obscure poison in the back of a truck.) Also vols. 2 to 4 of Siri Paiboun. Am rereading these as a 'get them out of the house' strategy. I know to skip the one set in Cambodia but did wind up reading the other I wanted to pass over. They have a lowering effect, not surprising in a series set in late 1970s Laos. Works as an object lesson, I guess: you think *now* is bad? Look how much worse it can get. But still, I should take a break. If I want mysteries entwined with weird bollocks, I now have the complete Max Carrados, in e-format yet, thanks to incandescens.

Continue with Da Vinci, a few pages at a time because I might actually learn something from it, just, the process is not being fun.

Something I don't quite get in Murderbot is the paranoia the general population seems to have about SecUnits going rogue. I say seems because it's possible Murderbot itself is just paranoid. But the theme does figure in its media so I suppose people really have this fear. And why? Here you have what's essentially a security system that's supposed to keep you alive as its main directive. For all intents and purposes, from most people's pov, it's just a superior robot. Getting wound up about what it might do is equivalent to fretting that Siri or Alexa will try to murder you using your smart house. Which is not why I don't have a smart house, or a Siri or an Alexa, but is still ridiculous.

Couldn't sleep last night in spite of exercise in the day. I refrained from checking my clock but will guess it was well after 3 when I got off and was awake at 9:15. Did not go back to sleep and paid for it with chronic semi-headache all day. Or could be the pressure changes from approaching fronts though the real change doesn't happen till tomorrow evening when temperatures plunge yet again, and the current rain turns to snow. House down the street had a crate of National Geographics out front, plus a box of mugs and glasses. I took a crystal wineglass and left the highball glasses, even though my body currently hates wine and I broke my one martini glass. I don't need incentives to drink. But I do hope the guys took those magazines back in, because periodically someone on the neighbourhood FBs will ask if anyone has magazines for school projects.

In January one must play Weather Roulette, with the usual disappointment when weather doesn't do what the forecast says it will, and equally when it does. Thought of getting a massage today but probs said snow so didn't book. There was no snow and sidewalks were still dry, but forecast said rain and snow all week, so I went up to Loblaws for everything I forgot to get on the weekend. And still forgot the Voltaren my doctor recommends for cysts because I'm running short. I must put everything into my phone or I will never remember what I need.

Because my downstairs stays cold unless the thermostat is bumped up to 21C/ 70F and because I am of a saving disposition when it comes to gas usage, I wear a jacket or a shawl when couch potatoing. But my indoor jacket doesn't zip anymore and the shawl keeps shifting about. So I pulled out a high end Polo hoodie my bro gave me yonks ago. I'm pretty sure it's the real deal because it has various features I've never encountered elsewhere, like velcro tabs where not needed. It's bright red and therefore goes with nothing else in my rose-pink and purple wardrobe, and of course at an early stage I got bleach on the sleeve. Consequently I don't wear it outside. But it works marvellously indoors and, as I discovered, under my winter coat when outside. Blow away, winds. I am now triple layered, and I have a hood that I'm not afraid to use. Bonus is that I can wear it with the red scarf that A. gave me years back, because I can't wear any of my neck warmers and cowls with it either. My other hoodies are ragbag ancient and only used as nightwear. I was debating getting a respectable hoodie for spring and autumn wear, but not buying cheap fashion from the dollar store is doubtless a virtue.

A bright blowy day and sidewalks still dry, so off I went in shoes to have eggs benedict. Temps were just at freezing: I should have checked the wind chill, because it was -11C/ 12F. Needed mitts over my gloves, which I did not have. Anyway, eggs were reasonable, though no one ever gets them the way I like ie soft but not runny inside. Kind people helped the walker in and out of Pauper's and I headed back west. And almost immediately turned around in the opposite direction because wind gusts and Mirvish Village high rises make walking both unpleasant and nearly impossible. Walked to the next stoplight and then through Annex streets and laneways to home. 5000 steps is the best I can do these days, shoes or not, because cysts and neuromas are just not fun at all.

And Bateman's Bicycles have closed their Bathurst shop and moved up to Eglinton so if I ever buy a city bike it will not be from them.

Not so belated, because it must have been delivered yesterday and slunk down in the mailbox, which annoyingly is just wide enough for a regular sized envelope to get stuck on its side at the bottom. Do people not think if these things? Anyway, was a thick envelope from the city, clearly my property taxes moan groan tremble, unless someone has factored in the 5% drop in housing prices in the last year. Though I think they've been factored already: I seem to recall a 200K drop in my assessment that took it to 'still badly overpriced' from 'are you effing joking??!!'

But is not my taxes. Is a utility bill for water and garbage. Um yeah. That would be the water meter reading I sent them after who knows how many years of estimated usage. People in this situation have been faced with high four figure adjustments so I was preparing for the worst. And the damage is... a credit on my account because I'd overpaid to the tune of nearly $150. So all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

Slept in today as my birthday treat, thought about staying in bed all day, but eventually got up after 11. Sun kept peeking out and temps soared to 10C/50F, stretching helped the iffy right leg, so out I went in blessed shoes and took a load to the laundromat. Downside of not doing this for a month and change was not being able to take everything so dressing gown, fleecy, etc will have to wait, but I do have clean hoodies now, so am content.

Bro messaged me this morning because FB was being weird and insisting we weren't friends. It's still saying that even though we can see each other's posts, so shrug. S-i-l is all holidayed out so meeting up will have to wait until she decompresses. Which is fine. Mild temps mean mucky sidewalks and the need to keep cleaning the walker's wheels. Mild temps did clear the sidewalks of snow but not the gutters so yeah, getting to cabs is not fun. Though I must get down to the subway station to see if the elevator is working at last.

Wild winds were blowing in a cold front by the time I came home amid wild grey November clouds, with golden patches on the horizon where the sun was going down.

No idea why both my knees should be having conniptions today but suspect the recurring Baker's cyst on the right one, oh dear. But went out in the one day only!! sun to return my library book at long last. It will be spring (10C/50F) and wet tomorrow and snow thereafter so will doubtless go back to my wonted lethargy. Some day I may get to the laundromat but that day will certainly not be tomorrow. Am relieved I was even able to get my dark wash from the basement.

Did have lunch at the Pour Boy, a cocktail and fried chicken sandwich that put me in a good humour. Bill was 29 and change with tax, I gave my attentive Vietnamese waitress a ten and a twenty and went merrily on my way-- until I realized, twelve feet up the block, that I hadn't tipped her. So had to go back to retrieve my ten and give her the twenty I should have given her in the first place. Very embarrassing. Ginkgo biloba has not taken hold yet, obviously.

And I feel lousy, actuallly.

Grey, dank, depressing weather doesn't help, of course.

Finished nothing but The Coroner's Lunch, first of the Dr. Siri Paiboun mysteries set in Laos in the mid-70s after the Communist revolution. Am currently reading the sequel, Thirty-three Teeth. Might as well stick the Anglo-Saxons and Leonardo in the donation pile, because I doubt they'll tell me anything I'll remember. The A-Ses are all about church buildings for pages and pages, and do I care? Leonardo is maybe he did this or possibly he did that, and I came here for biography, not speculation.

More snow, of course, if not the dump other places got. When I finally got out I discovered that SND's fiancé had shovelled my sidewalk, front walk and steps, so I was happily spared that task. Dull grey dank made things hurt enough that I wasn't looking forward to it. Temps are supposed to rise in the next few days, with rain of course, but it may clear the snow the way the warmup a week ago did. Or we might get freezing rain, which I shall hope also avoids us.

Otherwise sat indoors and did nothing but a dark wash.

The garbage trucks did indeed appear after dark on Friday to get my recycling, and then cruised the neighbourhood all Saturday for, I assume, those who'd left their garbage out and not put the bins back in disappointment when they were passed by on Friday.

Otherwise is grey and cold and snows off and on, and I am grumpily disinclined to do anything but sit on the sofa and read things that don't interest me. Did have another go at the bedroom shelves, still no sign of Little, Big, but at least reunited all my Diana Wynne Jones in one place. Should move them up a shelf for handier reaching, but that would involve reshelving lots and lots of manga, and I can't stand for that long while doing it. With a chair and some sorting boxes, possibly.

The city has hired a private company to handle recycling, and because recycling has now happened two weeks in a row, added a little line to their handout saying this week only the city would pick up regular garbage as well as the green bins. I read this on a FB page but had my doubts. With reason. Green bins went early today, garbage did not. Recycling truck came up my street at 4:15 and took the recycling from the west side only. Shall lay bets on whether they come back later. Am doubtful.

The plethora of bins and frozen snow berms made getting up the street a bit of an undertaking. Snow berms must have been from insufficient shovelling on Boxing Day coupled with cars pushing snow onto the walks, because we have no such phenomena on my block. But anyway, got eczema cream for my cracked and flaking thumb, which would probably profit from a humidifier in my room as well. I have a humidifier, I just need to get it out and fill it, which is one of those minor tasks I unaccountably drag my feet on doing.

Spent yesterday evening transferring icons from LJ to DW, now it looks like the former may shut down. It's been months since LJ let me select individual icons for my entries anyway so I won't miss it if it happens.

Having another crack at that ancient outdated book on Anglo-Saxon England. In my last conversation with Vice-fearless Leader, she opined (and I restate) that the history of any country defaults to slaughter, slaughter, and more slaughter. Which is certainly the case of A-S England. This strikes me as a batshit way to spend one's abbreviated lifetime. But then I wonder about what people drank back in those days and was it possible that entire populations were suffering fetal alcoholic syndrome? It would certainly explain the Icelandic sagas.

But a casual mention of the Battle of Maldon sent me to Mr. Wiki to look up same. I read that in my Old English class half a century ago (and more) but nobody *then* mentioned that Byrhtnoth's ofermōd, his overconfidence, that made him give a disastrous concession to the invading Vikings, is a word that in every other appearance refers to Lucifer's attitude that led to his fall. Yeah, Tolkien was right about that one. Hubris, man, hubris.

My new year's eve was quiet, though there was an early party at NND's and desultory fireworks. Today was too cold to go anywhere even if there'd been an anywhere to go to. I mean there is because I live north of Koreaville, but equally I know this burg's Koreans make the most of the few holidays they get and the restaurants would be crowded with families having bbq.

I have made no resolutions but if I find myself doing a few minutes housecleaning, I will politely turn my head so as not to register that's what I've done. To which end, the kitchen floor and the study are both marginally cleaner/ more dust free than they were. Put out my recycling, second week in a row for same, because Reasons. Thought I would trun more manga but in the event I have another full bin this week, which is what eating at home will get you.

Did a reread of an Edgar Wallace thriller that impressed me a baker's dozen of years ago, which I'd kept to reread in my old age ie now. One or two cringeworthy sentences but still, a sympathetic and generous Jewish character, rare for the time. But alas, it occurred to me that Faded Page might have his works and yes, yes they do. Hideously prolific man, that. Hope I won't fall into the rabbit hole of same, because I know for a fact that he can be very iffy. Tell myself sternly that I prefer mysteries and to stick to Dr. Priestley.

Just FTR, what did I read in 2025? Well, among miscellaneous others:

Finished Patricia Wentworth's oeuvre in the winter, George Bellairs' Inspector Littlejohn in the spring and summer, Charles Finch's Charles Lenox in the summer and fall, all of Miles Burton's Desmond Merion I could get a hold of in the fall, and John Rhode's Dr. Priestley ever since.

Reread almost all Rivers of London in the winter, and reread a buncha Vlad Taltos plus Paarfi plus his Monte Cristo hommage plus Brokedown Palace ditto. Reread Garner's first two, four Austens and two of DWJ's Howl books. Thumping big books were Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Terra Nostra, Ada Palmer's Inventing the Renaissance, Varraclough's Embers of the Hands, Selected Letters of Horace Walpole in the Yale edition (much better than the Everyman), and Nancy Mitford's Madame de Pompadour. This is a better nonfiction score than most years, especially if you add that still unfinished bio of da Vinci. Whom I still have confused with Leonard of Quirm, needing to remind myself that no, da Vinci was not totally uninterested in the practical use of his inventions.

Comfort rereads were the three best of Pratchett's five Witches books and all but the last Murderbot books, read and reread until I finally had a vague idea of how the action takes place in these space stations. Since I have four of these only in ebook, it's been hard parsing what's going on anyway, but I think I'm on top of it now. I went to Kobo from Kindle and am reasonably content with it.

Personally, money went on many many dentist appointments, a new toilet, and an upright walker. Started listening to opera on Saturdays and radio after, finally began downsizing my manga and doujinshi collection. Major snow in the winter and two elections, and I suppose it would have made no difference if Ford had postponed the provincial one until after the federal, because Fed Liberal invariably means Prov Con. Having the election in February was still a dick move. Smoke all summer, the new normal. My two favourite restaurants both closed and are desperately missed. There's also this little boycott thing going on since the inauguration. I have only ordered one thing from amazon.ca in that time and only because I couldn't get it anywhere else. Having comprised my principles to do it, I had better start making use of it, and I will post if I do.

I know intellectually that six days is not the longest I've spent indoors, but I notice that even the knee replacement four years ago only kept me in for seven. Oh dear.

Dreamed of having to leave my dream!house at night to consult a professor? police detective? some kind of expert? because there was an unwrapped mummy!!! under my bed eww yuck. He sent his minions in and discovered that there were actually four of the things so I couldn't go home till they'd been disposed of. Turned on my other side and dreamed of going to what passed for the daycare to see my old friend L who was still business co-ord, but problems kept cropping up and she couldn't get away. So I wandered into the Infant section where my old coworker S was changing a baby. Neither L nor S have been at the DC since the turn of the millennium, or possibly before-- unreliable memory says both left in 1999-- but that baby I remember well. He had no off switch when it came to food and we always had to cut him off after three large bowls, to his extreme displeasure. His umm leavings were in proportion to his intake, which was bad enough when he was still in diapers but disastrous when it came to toilet training. Ah yes, I remember B well.

Woke in cold and started downstairs to see if it was just the thermostat set to moderate or if the vent had somehow got blocked. Furnace came on as I was still descending, but since I was there I steeled myself to check what damage holiday indulgence had wrought. A kilo, which could be much worse, but eventually I must stop drinking Black Russians and start drinking more water. And moving more somehow.

Anyway, went up to Loblaws for pharmaceuticals. No sane person shops on New Year's Eve but it wasn't that bad. Of course there were fields of ridged ice at several street corners and driveways, but that's winter in this here burg. Snow and snowflurries expected all week but will eventually get that book back to the library. And my backup lenses from the Extremely Expensive But Reliable company arrived in good order, so I now have eight weeks' worth, by which time maybe my preferred company will at last get the two boxes of 90 each that I ordered out to me. Knew I shouldn't have ordered two boxes-- absolutely tempting fate-- but I'm tired of having to a) order a month in advance every two months and b) wait on tenterhooks to see if c) they have them in stock or d) if they're on backorder and if so, e) will there be a postal strike that prevents them getting to me? This got old years ago.

Reading-wise, finished Silverlock. Mr. Google cannot in fact tell who everyone is, even though there's a webpage that has some annotations.
http://anitra.net/commonwealth/refindex.html

As the current joke has it, I change from my daytime pyjamas to my nighttime ones and then back again. The fleece daytime ones were bought as night wear a while back but only now can I get into them. Mind, others (I am not the first) have worn loungewear as pyjamas and also as suitable leaving the house clothes, but I'm not yet quite dead enough to shame as to wear fleecy tartan patterns outside the house. Though when exactly I'll get to leave the house is another question. Nearly a week indoors on the sofa with beanbags has calmed the bitey pain in the lumbar but I'm wary of testing it in boots in case it all comes roaring back.

The little bobcats with their flashing blue lights trundled up and down the sidewalks last night, leaving diagonal salt trails in their wake. But today the wind blew in, dropping windchill to forking freezing C and F, and blew snow around tumultuously. Tomorrow the wind may drop and the sun may shine and I *might* get my library book back, before the polar vortex returns our overnight temps back to objectively hideous cold. And nothing happens on New Years Day of course.

So the Dead Days tick away, leaving no trace and not disturbing the grasses.

So the rain and the 6C temps yesterday removed the snow from the sidewalks as far as I could see, and the wind got up overnight and the temps dropped. So I was prepared for dry pavement today. The corners would still be pretty ridged, but easier to get over than Friday's slush. Only of course I woke up to more snow. This is clearly going to be one of Those Winters. Can only hope the Old Farmer's Almanac is right about December being the worst of it.

However snow on Friday did bring my nursing friend and her son to Christie Pits on Saturday, which is prime tobogganing territory, and they came up the street for a visit. A. has a car now, which is excellent news, because having a job and a kid who must be picked up from after school is extremely dicey with TO's unreliable transit system, especially in winter and especially in a winter like this one. She still has trouble with her rotator cuff: those things take forever to heal. But she brought me a box of chocolates and conversation, both of which were appreciated.

Rearranging books the other day, thought I might as well do a reread of Silverlock, especially now that there's google to tell me all the references I didn't get at 17. The 60 year old paperback is falling apart-- the front cover fell off almost immediately-- so best to read while the reading is good. This counts as putting my enforced homestuckness to a useful purpose, though kanji and Greek would be more so. Five years since my last review of the former, and ohh but those Papuwa doujinshi are reminding me of that fact.

Note to me: don't order groceries through UberEats.

So I put an order in for milk and stuff yesterday and wait for a confirmation of any sort. Does not come. Not from Uber, not from my credit card company, nothing. Can only conclude it hasn't gone through. And because I'm stuck inside and staples are running out, I put an order through Instacart, who acknowledge and update me and update again in case I want to add stuff, and put separate charges through for tax and delivery and everything else, that my credit card company informs me of in a spate of emails, which is a bit headscratchy, but fine. And text me when my buyer starts shopping and when he's finished and when he's approaching and when he's here, but better too much info than nothing at all. So all is copacetic though he forgot the scones, not that I need scones, and I put my 2 litres of milk away and go about my day.

There's a book supposed to be delivered yesterday or today, which I'm not sanguine about because rain all day on top of snow dump makes the streets unpleasant, but as the dark draws in I check my porch once again just in case. And sitting on the table by the door is a heavy Farm Boy bag with my Uber order. And finally an email saying they've delivered the order. Heigh-ho. But if I'd known I'd have four litres of milk I'd have asked for a different brand entirely because Neilsons does not cut it.

And what a good thing I topped up my card the other day because that wiped out the top up.

Woke to snow this morning, several inches/ cms of same. Went and shovelled steps, front walk, and mine and NND's sidewalks. Came in and drank a lot of water. Snow kept falling, snow on snow, mixed with ice pellets. Someone with a snowblower-- SND orGood Neighbour C-- came by and redid sidewalk and front path. Have just been out and did steps (delivery coming tomorrow or Sunday) and the next inch on walk and sidewalk. If the city sends bobcats out I may be able to leave in a day or two, but otherwise not. Also is supposed to be above freezing on Sunday, which will turn all this into a sloppy paradise. I may have to have recourse to grocery delivery.

This would be far more bearable if I didn't have bursitis or something up my left side, but I do. Sofa and beanbags it is.

Christmas eve was nothing much but a chance remark on FB led me to Google and YouTube, so I now know what a descant is. It's notes sung *above* the main melody and not, as I thought, something sung below. Or falling, or whatever. Requires a choir because you can't sing descant yourself unless you're Agnes Nitt-- though I vaguely recall some kind of singing where one person does sing two parts somehow.

The sun shone today, for a single interval in what has otherwise been a string of grey Dead Days. Slept in, took my time over breakfast and squaredle, then opened my presents. A marvellous knitted cowl from incandescens which will be greatly appreciated when I have to go out again, because my aging floppy hats no longer suffice to keep me warm. Also a Gladys Mitchell for my collection, for whichmany thanks. From Finder Jean, a year of the horse papier-maché horse and a canvas tote bag with Miyajima's torii on it. Aesthetic and useful both.

Cooked up my turkey roll with frozen veg and unfrozen potatoes, which turned into satisfying stodge. Turkey rolls don't naturally make gravy but with a little water can be induced to produce something like. Otherwise stayed tiddly on White Russians and may well do the same tomorrow if it snows as much as it says it will.

Put out my recycling for tomorrow's deferred pickup and that was that.

I believed the forecast that said rain Monday night and thus was disheartened to find snow on the rooftops Tuesday morning. Slidy slush, not quite as bad as two weeks ago. Had to wear new boots which, even with thick socks and gel bunion pads, hurt to walk in. But had last physio session till the new year and bought a turkey dinner at Farm Boy while temps rose to above freezing.

Today was sun and old boots. Debated walking in shoes but luckily good sense prevailed. There's still a lot of ice at street corners and laneways, and lower back having conniptions for no good reason, unless boots count as same. But went out for Pauper's Christmas dinner anyway. Turkey was dry, and there was too much of it, but the root veg, mash, and stuffing were excellent as ever. But filling, very filling. My stomach is shrinking, not that it affects my weight at all.

Finished Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments, next installment in Huchu's Edinburgh Nights series. Was a bit of a downer to start cause Ropa can never catch a break, but very satisfying by the end. Shall read on when I'm assured I can get to the library without pain.

Still with Petty Treason, the Sarah Tolerance Regency mystery, and a Dr Priestley, The Bloody Tower, which I just know will end up hinging on obscure ballistical knowledge. Dr Priestleys almost always tend to John Dickson Carr levels of odd and unlikely murder methods.

After that who knows? Friday is supposed to be unspeakable and I will be indoors for a while. What I wanted to do was reread Little, Big which should be on the shelves in the front bedroom-- I can see it there clearly-- but I combed them this morning, back screaming like a banshee, moving many ancient volumes back and forth and filling a bag with To Be Donateds, but it's nowhere to be found.

She has turnèd, she has turnèd, she has turnèd (everyone to her own way)-- I mean, for the first time in 75 years I am actually *glad* for the solstice. Sympathetic magic: may the returning light bring a lightening to this dark world, and may I soon read that big, beautiful obituary. Why yes, I have frequently wished someone dead, whatever it does to my karma, and still do.

Lie-in dream today was of being at a spa/ onsen of sorts which was also the family cottage but enlarged, with my cousin F but also my sister, and an unpleasant woman I was supposed to share a room with. Decided I couldn't hack this, I was going back to TO, but couldn't find the owner/ o-kamisan to tell her this and the mostly Asian staff didn't know where she'd got to. Told my sister but she couldn't help. Told F, who was in a bathing suit, who said something about her dad (dead 50 years this month) taking me back but he was at their real-life cottage, two over from ours. Did I make it home? I think I may have-- vague memory of counting the cars on the 401 highway, which is not the way you get to the cottage, that's the QEW, a sink.

Hit the LCBO and have vodka and Kahlua to see me through the hols. Many white russians in my future, since the black ones rot my guts. Gov't money comes in early so I splurge on alcohol and food banks, though am accablée that the Muslim one seems to operate only on the west coast. Will no one think of the Toronto delivery guys?

Oh dear. I hadn't registered that Saturday at the Opera broadcasts start in December. Missed Bohème, Andrea Chenier, and an English language Flute that actually I can do without. But there's Handel next week.

It seems I can't have caffeine later than 4 pm now. Had a Pepsi yesterday while it was still light, so probably 4ish, and was rewarded with a nuit blanche. Read one-eyed until probably close to 4 am and then finally got five hours sleep. Usually this leaves me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but have been heavy-eyed and headachy all day. Possibly to do with the wild winds all night and day.

However, place around the corner from me was having a cookies and hot chocolate fundraiser, so I went off to that in the grey wind and tiny snow flurries. In spite of temps they were outside and I trundled up in good time. Except the guy ahead of me insisted on thanking everyone involved, and shaking hands all round, and making everyone sing Hosanna-- no, not that one, which I could have borne, but something else in a foreign language that had a lot of Hosannas in it. And after a good five minutes, when he was finally done and leaving and I was moving up to the table to order, back he comes because he has to tell the little girl standing by her dad that Jesus loves her, and he has to shake her hand, and then shake everyone else's hands again as well. I wish at such times I could keep my face Japanese blank but I never learned that trick, so I'm sure I was broadcasting 'God save me from religious enthusiasts' far and wide. Mind, it's equally possible that he was just drunk. I shall never know.

I think I may have to invest in some ginkgo biloba because my memory is nonexistent these days. That may be because nothing much ever happens now: I go nowhere, I see no one, I sit at home and read, and then forget what I've read. But still: even in lockdown I registered events-- possibly because things like new roofs and surgery and queens dying aren't easily forgotten. The last three years though seem to default to which detective series I was reading, and nothing more.

I ordered six months' worth of lenses from my usual place and now, of course, they're on backorder and will arrive who knows when. I have five weeks worth left but there's also a week of holidays to factor in. So I went to the other place and ordered 30 from them, and hopefully that small an order can be filled immediately. If I ever get back to an ophthalmologist I might ask can I go back to monthlies at least. It would save a lot if money, not to mention packaging.

SND drops a card and a package of almond chocolates in my mailbox, so now I know how to spell her fiancé's name. Which turns out to be Arabic and thus makes problematic the bottle of wine I was going to give her for Christmas, once the steps became clear again. Of course I have no idea if he's even muslim or practising if he is, and she did give me wine when she first moved in. Oh well. Presumably she can take it to parties.

More gusty winds blew in rain and cold, putting an end to our false November, so I stayed indoors and finished Maskerade. Which is an end to my reread of the Witches arc unless I start on the Tiffany series. But Tiffany, for all she's hyped as YA reading, is much darker than the Witches IMO. The witches are a genial, largely comic, read, while Tiffany is anything but. Still militant decency but much more real world, just like the later Watch books.

I suppose I could have another bash at Raising Steam but hell. I want old women and there aren't many of those around.

Oh, and G, your parcel arrived safely and is waiting for Christmas to be opened. Just so you know.

A brief but welcome warm-up saw me in shoes, going out to Sushi on Bloor. Should have gone a half hour later, closer to 3, when half the lunching parties departed. But I did get a table, even if it was next to eight people having, I assume, their Christmas office party. I had the tempura lunch rather than the fish I'd vaguely intended, because the very busy waiter came for my order almost immediately and I didn't want to send him away, in case he never came back. The vegetable part of the 'shrimp and vegetable tempura' was all sweet potato, and came with rice as well, and there was no way I could eat all that, so I have leftovers for tomorrow.

Speaking of sweet potato, Loblaws finally got Canadian yams in, but only in bags of five each. I like sweet potato more than it likes me, and five is three too many. The loose ones are from the U.S. still, and I'm still boycotting American produce. Oh well. Won't hurt to do without.

And speaking of rice, the shawarma last week came with long grain rice and it was delicious. My rice of choice is basmati but I bought a small sack of long grain to see how it tasted with my usual recipes (lima beans & rice, omuraisu, etc.) It tastes exactly like Uncle Ben's. I suppose I could do a beef fried rice with it as in the olden days, but that was a definite disappointment.

Me, mostly.

Item: I have an entry on my phone. Dec 22, 2:15. No idea what or who is happening Monday at 2:15. Presumably I knew perfectly well when I wrote that and didn't think I needed to add a name. My doctor, my dentist, and my investment woman all email me reminders when I have an appointment, and no one has. I hope I don't actually have to *be* somewhere at that time.

Item: a new bottle of ibuprofen with the usual 'press down and turn' opening mechanism. Could not press down hard enough to get the whatevers lined up enough to open. Elbows screamed at the very attempt. Did without ibuprofen until today up at Loblaws when I collared a clerk and got him to open it for me.

Item: my razor needed a new blade today so I opened up the cardboard package and then tried to figure out how to open the hard plastic case with the blades in it. There seemed to be a hinge at the bottom so I should be able to open the top. But I couldn't do it-- fingers and fingernails both too weak. Clearly it's time to move into assisted living. Eventually I broke off a piece of plastic and got a single blade out, resigned to going after the rest with a flathead screwdriver. Post-shower I looked at the case again and this time turned it over. The back is already open: you just insert the body of the razor into the slot of the blade and pull it out of the case. I knew this but of course had forgotten.

Otherwise: finished Lords and Ladies, and Carpe Jugulum. Currently on Maskerade. Object being to discover how many times Greebo uhh humanizes. I thought it was in three books, but maybe it's three times in two books.

Couple of Dr Priestleys, still not to the level of Desmond Merrions. One I figured out the murderer just because he was so obliging, though the actual murder method was John Dickson Carr levels of mechanical. The other was almost a reverse mystery, where you know who did it and then watch the detective figure it out. Ah well. Passes the time, at any rate.

Next up is Petty Treason, a Sarah Tolerance mystery. Regency A/U, I think. Second in the series, the first not being borrowable in the library system. If good, might be worth buying in ebook.

Happy 250th birthday to Jane Austen.

Went out in the dank grey on complaining knees and got my library hold finally. Then stopped by the Pour Boy which, whatever else it may be, is kinda sorta Vietnamese (mural of the Buddha on one wall, statue of same in an alcove) and had a very good chicken sandwich and salad. Bless the owners for not playing 'Christmas' music. (Yes I have been Whammed. Three notes only, but still.) I ate my sandwich to the strains of Steely Dan's Do It Again and Billy Joel's She's Always a Woman, and very nice it was too.

Will say it to have it said: I hate moving. I especially hate moving around the house. Outside is sort of OK because there's somewhere to go. But inside, doing housework, everything bloody hurts. I want only to sit on my sofa with my warm wool shawl around me and read and doomscroll on the tablet and essentially *not move*.

Have been making me do little housework things like dusting lampshades and tidying the pointless little things that have been sitting out since forever and moving fans back into closets until next summer so they don't accumulate dust, and the amount of sheer bloody Don'wanna!!! this involves is unbelievable. Because everything hurts.

Vacuumed the side bedroom this morning. If I finally swifter the kitchen floor, I will have justified my existence today, and I still don't want to.

Back in November I offered to take bro and s-i-l out to dinner and they said they'd get back to me. They got back to me three weeks later suggesting this week. Yeah well: this week we have cold and then snow and then rain, and I don't want to be out in any of that. So maybe in January, which might behave better than this month has.

Good heavens. I have a 'save the date' Christmas card/ wedding invite from my younger nephew and his fiancée. Next May. How very nice of them and do I have to go, in about equal measure. I have no expectation of being walker-free in the next six months, they live a good ways outside of Toronto, and Catholic ceremonies, even weddings, require a lot of up and downing. Ah well, sufficient unto the day etc.

Did not make it to the library. Sidewalks are still ice-fringed, even with two days of near 0C, and a pain to walk over. Thursday is supposed to reach dizzy heights of 7C/ over 40F, which will be soon enough.

Did get to Fiesta which has turkey rolls for less than Lobiaws or Sobey's, also Dufflet cookies, Dufflet chocolate rolls, and a single gingerbread person with a broken leg, all of which I bought, alas.

Was also accosted there by a mother from the daycare and her daughter, the former of whom recognized me while I couldn't quite place her. Trouble was she looked like she might be the Young Ladies' mother's (non-existent) sister, and her 7 year old-ish daughter not only looks like but has the same name as L, so my mind kind of stuttered for a minute, before remembering that L is in uni. Mom says we date from 2018 so maybe she's the Swiss mother we had then? whose kid had moved to toddlers by late 2019. Must confess I kind of stopped registering the individual babies by then, which was yet another sign that I needed to retire.

Yesterday was sunny and frozen so I stayed in, certain that the slush ridges of Wednesday would have turned into impassable ice ridges in the -7C/ 19F windy day. Got shawarma delivered instead and tipped the brave delivery guy heavily. I mean, for all I know Mohammad Iqbal Hussain comes from Edmonton and laughs at what a Trawntonian thinks of as cold, but equally he may be suffering as much as the Indian guys. Today we were flirting with just at freezing so I went up the street. People had put salt down, sort of, so the ice ridges were starting to break up, but were still solid enough to catch on the wheels, leading to much heaving of the walker and snarling and swearing. Ah well. Life as a cripple was never going to be fun.

Loblaws says they'll get turkey roll in a week before Christmas. We shall see.

Then came back and took my ice scraper to the tracks of the six or seven houses up the street so there's now a clear stretch. Unfortunately I'm going the opposite way tomorrow. Library hold comes in, so. I should know not to put holds on things in winter, but December isn't usually this snowy.

Turns out the soft rubber protuberance on the back of my solar lights' solar panel is an on-off switch. Is covered up because panel is exposed to the elements. Lights come on, a bit wanly, partly because you need actual sun to power the thing and we haven't had much of that this month. But at least I now know it works.

Snow, slush, semi-melt: nasty weather, basically. But still went out to physio, shoving the walker through the recalcitrant berms. Something passed along the sidewalks at one point earlier: there were tire tracks a metre wide that hadn't cleared the slush but pushed it to either side, and in the middle a clear patch maybe a foot/ 30 cm wide ie not wide enoough for the rollator. Bobcats don't do that. I don't know what does that but it's remarkably inefficient. Thought the bobcats must have done Christie at least so took the side street over and no, no they had not. Was in fact worse than my street. But I pushed on, noting that-- cult though they may be-- the Jehovah's Witnesses alone had shovelled their frontage, and then the smoke house at the corner. Am sure this expedition counts as exercise, so go me.

Finished, I went over to Loblaws who hadn't shovelled either, obviously thinking the clear path under their overhang was sufficient to anyone's needs, and if one had to push through a sea of slush to get to the walkway, well, too bad. I hope I never have to use a wheelchair, even a motorized one. Of course there's still home delivery, and if Blawblaws persists in not having turkey roll, I may use it.

Coming home people either had shovelled or were shovelling, including in front of the vacant lot that will someday, in the far future, be yet more condos. I thanked the shoveller nicely, who grinned back at me and asked how I was doing. Obviously dire conditions bring out the best in Trawntonyans.

Finished Nancy Mitford's bio of Mme de Pompadour finally, so can put with the donatable books. Charles Finch, The Hidden City and Kashiwaba Sachiko's The Village Beyond the Mist. The last being a veeeery distant ancestor of Spirited Away, the only semi-common element being the character who turned into Yubaba. Also did a fast skim of Witches Abroad as a library ebook because I wanted something to read at the restaurant and Kobo is iffy on the phone.

Also finished the first set of Phantom Moon Tower side stories, some of which are parseable and some of which, um, aren't.

Then bought a couple of Dr Priestleys for the tablet because I need to get back to the bike machine. Though now am tempted to just reread Lords and Ladies and maybe Maskerade. This is hibernating 'line of least resistance' weather, and I have vodka and a comfy sofa. A pity to waste that on, say, the biography of Da Vinci.

The art gallery with the trompe l'oeil painting now has an artist who does houses in fresh acrylic colours and boy do I want one of those. I'm a suck for houses in paintings, so much so that people have commented on it. The three Yoshitoshi up the stairs all suggest houses with their verandahs; the Albert Franck my sister passed on to me when she moved into her apartment is a street scene; the fake Franck in the front room is a view of the back of some very Toronto houses; the Evening at Kuerner's Wyeth print in the bedroom has a house, the only light in that brown autumnal landscape; even the Foxfires at Musashino in the side room shows the far off thatch roofed houses, which many printings black out. Yes I have other prints with no houses (Hiroshige's lumberyards, Hasui's Magome, Petit's Mt. Fuji) but those synchronise with colour schemes. Houses are what I want. But I already have a large picture of a house, a watercolour that needs to be reframed except that, when framed, I can't see it properly. And those acrylics cost: 5000 for the smaller 12x16 inch ones, probably over 10,000 for the large ones. But still...

In other news, if one turns on the overhead lights in the middle room, one finds the ID fallen on the floor under the table and half underneath the carpet. So all is well on that front. My fridge does still leak if it's opened but that I can live with until spring. Got out before the worst of the snow fell and have vodka and coolers enough to see me through to next week, so shall hibernate until then.

Fingers crossed, my freezer seems to have stopped leaking into the fridge area.

Only now I've lost my new Ontario ID card. It was supposed to be on the kitchen table and it isn't. No, actually, it was supposed to have been in my wallet, which will learn me to put things back where they belong the minute I finish gazing at my strange unnatural beauty. Am not up to doing the Lost please replace routine, and certainly not in December. Of course I cut up my old one and threw it out. Let's hope there are no elections in the near future.

Yes it snowed and no I didn't go out, even if the sidewalks kind of got clear by midday. Kind of. West side of street must have been salted, my side wasn't. Anyway.

Fridge started leaking water inside yesterday. Did it again today. Googled about, something that should drain in the freezer doesn't, caused by gunk or maybe ice though self-defrosting fridges shouldn't have ice. I cleaned the back of the freezer as best I could. Anything further they say requires taking the back of something off which no, not gonna do. Fingers crossed.

Have discovered that adding vodka to hot chocolate makes a lovely warming drink that doesn't upset my tum the way Black Russians do. Doesn't make me tiddly either but relaxes the muscles still. This may become my winter drink of choice.

At Loblaws on Friday a woman was handing out samples of Parma ham, which was so good I bought some from the deli counter. Asked for 200 grams, she accidentally cut me 250, which was a hideous price but hell, Christmas. And figured hell again, sheep lamb, and bought fingerling potatoes, Swiss cheese, and eggs, so that I can subsist on Savoyard omelettes for the next week. Loblaws fingerlings come in bags and are not to be trusted, but I can cut off the bad bits easy enough. Fiesta's are better and their Xmas music is nowhere near as annoying, but Fiesta also has cake slices and I must stay away.

This past week I've stopped taking prophylactic pain meds on days that I woke up not actually in pain. Made it through Tuesday on nothing until evening Tylenol in my sinus meds, and yesterday on nothing at all. Yesterday the thing that really hurt by day's end was my elbows, which noted. Today, well, was no longer sunny and cold: was above 0C and dank and yeah, the operated knee complained loudly. Tomorrow is friends' Christmas bash which I said I'd go to if it isn't snowing. Tomorrow will snow, of course. And their station has no elevators, which surprises me. I'd have thought all the stations north of Eglinton would, since they're now spaced over a mile apart (2 km, evidently.) Cabs cost and the dispatchers muddle the name badly so the cab goes to somewhere way downtown and the driver gets pissed off. So I suppose I'm glad it will snow tomorrow.

In an attempt to brighten the season I bought solar operated Christmas lights from Canadian Tired. The ones I had before operated individually. These ones have a solar battery like you see on bike shares. No instructions of course. Maybe I'm supposed to turn something on, but there are no switches, and my lights don't. I am disappoint.

Fuhreeezing cold today, with snow squalls and wind, so stayed in and did nothing but dishes and a dark load of laundry currently spinning in the machine. Did have to go out to sweep off steps and front path and bring bins back in. Luckily lid of green bin did not freeze in place as it has done before, but if this polar vortex continues I might try putting it up on the porch where the snow and ice can't get at it.

Puzzling thing: my feet are different sizes and ten years ago (good god) when I bought my Toe Warmer boots, I ended up buying two pairs to get a proper fit. The heel of the right or shorter boot has worn away so I thought maybe I'd use the longer boot instead with insoles and thick socks. Only I can't find it. Left boot, yes, but the right one has vanished, lord knows how or why. And of course the online pair I bought last year or whenever don't fit at all, but rub and pinch where they shouldn't.

At least my new ID card arrived. Much better picture than last time FWIW. But they still have my height as 5'8.5/ 174 cm. which is surely no longer true. I suppose that's what I put down when I first got the thing, which was also ten years ago or so. Really don't remember when, and of course COVID screwed up the record keeping. But if they kept to every five years, then it was 2016 and yes, I have shrunk since then.

Dreamed I was at an apartment/ dorm room/ residence in Japan and my mother, brothers, and sister came to visit. Mom asked how things were going. I complained that I had fruit flies. 'They come from Belgium,' my mother said. 'Yes, that's what someone else told me too.'

Many decades ago, almost before the advent of email, I had a letter from a young man in one of my APAs talking about one of my fics. 'I finally got around to reading your story. To my surprise it was actually quite good!' (direct quote, were you wondering.) Then he went on to say, in effect, 'Now tell me more about what you liked about mine.' I wrote him back advising him that this was perhaps not the best line to take with, well, anybody. I thought I was being straightforward but not unkind, but I ran it by my sister just in case. Who said 'No, you absolutely cannot send that. You have no idea how you sound.' This phrase has haunted me ever since because no, I don't have any idea how I sound. It's like an Aussie friend in Japan who was traumatised back into monolingualism when it finally hit her that in Japanese it's not so much the way you say things-- as in English your tone of voice can soften your expression, for instance-- it's what you say, and she didn't know if she actually knew the right form to say stuff. Like, were her verbs and verb forms giving unintended offence or not? (Someone else harrowed my soul by recounting a run in she'd had with the head of her company. He'd said something and she'd asked why? But she'd said Nande?-- just that, which would be brusque and bad enough. But even worse, nande is familiar Japanese that she'd learned from homestay, used within your in-group or to inferiors, and never ever in a million years to a superior, let alone the head of the company. I think that for once I was shocked into silence.)

Am recalling this because there's someone who regularly crops up on my FFL and whose comments, and responses to comments, are what my Brit-influenced soul registers as gratuitously ungracious and abrasive. Yes, they're American, but from an area that I understand to usually prefer roundabout phrasing. Maybe they've outgrown their roots. Or maybe they just don't know how they sound. Or maybe they really are a jerk. What I *know* they are is a fandom gatekeeper, so you pays your money and takes your choice.

Have finished nothing this week except maybe a Dr. Priestley, and maybe not even that. Read on, desultorily, in Madame de Pompadour, and (rationing myself) in Diana Wynne Jones' Unexpected Magic. I'd wondered if there were in fact two of her story collections, because I remembered none of these until I got to Little Dot and her encounter with the closest Puccini got to shriek opera. Len Iggmy son of Trey, etc. Also the latest Charles Finch, with a bunch of people waiting for me to finish it.

Will get back to not!Spirited Away eventually.

My house was so warm last night I slept without my hoodie and figured I must have accidentally bumped the thermostat up to over 20C, ie nearly 70F, which is when the house becomes tropical. Wasn't going to limp back downstairs to adjust it again so just enjoyed the luxury of heat. But when I checked this morning, no, it was at its usual 18, which is the famous 'warm when it's on and freezing when it's off' setting. Evidently that only applies if there's wind. None last night though we were below freezing and it snowed as well. My house. Also do not be confused by the fact that the downstairs is cold unless the thermostat is at Tropical. My living room is the coldest place in the house, for no good reason at all.

Have been earwormed by The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The disaster happened when I was living in France and I have a memory of talking about it with K. But I couldn't have because the song wasn't released until the following August, long after I came home. Can't think why it connects in my mind with our apartment in Pau-- we wouldn't even have had news about the sinking then. And can't believe now what an isolated time that was. We communicated by letter, and if I wanted to talk to my mother (I didn't, but she wanted to talk to me) I went to the post office and secured a booth there and paid at the caisse.

And after all that heartburning about I must must must have those Phantom Moon Tower side stories, I dragged my feet on actually reading them. This because of my known inability to parse manga online and my difficulty with Ima Ichiko even in wide-han paperback. And boy howdy are both true here. It's not that these are twisty early Ima type stories: they're too short for that. But I still tied myself into knots trying to figure out who killed this particular geisha, what with Young Dork saying he thought there was an understanding between her and the older uhh 'house raconteur' he's talking too. No way! the guy says, 'that's absolutely forbidden!' which yeah, that's one of the main points of the series. Geisha house personnel do not get involved with each other. 'I thought it was you she was with.' And then Young Dork is going on about 'we had an agreement that we'd elope together after she finished her apprenticeship but she had a lover I didn't know about and when I found out I strangled her in a fit of jealousy and hung? maybe? her from a tree out back'. Er wait what? No. Young Dork is putting on an act, and other guy calls him a ham for it, and then Yosaburō shows up and raconteur goes off and then there's a twist.

These six or seven pages took me an hour. And the other drawback of online is the difficulty of switching back and forth between the .pdf or whatever it is and jisho.org which gives me vocabulary, because the ebook keeps going back to the first page. Can't use my upstairs tablet for vocabulary because it doesn't have Japanese, can't use the Japanese function on my phone because it doesn't give me a full keyboard and requires me to poke at tiny hiragana options: and I still haven't figured out how to enter voiced consonants on it. A pain.

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