Friday, February 10, 2017

Winter Is Here

There are two weathers that inspire me to cook Burn You Twice Chili. When it's very hot and when it's very cold. It's very cold. I have achieved Winterfullness. Yesterday we had a foot or more of snow (at this point who counts), today is very windy. It whips around the courtyard in a whiteout whirlwind, disappearing the world from my windows. Then it drops, and I expect to see the White Walkers

lined up by the recycling bins. This may be The Year of the Bugged Out Eyes. I am a Snowflake. Winter Is Here.

HildeBeest Underfoot must learn that she will get run over if she's in the way. Today's  "ROWrrr!" wasn't the loudest ever, but she took off and is now throwing me shade and filthy looks from the bedroom. That tail she doesn't watch gets it every time. It was already broken when she came here. Still, no fur on the floor, so it wasn't very bad. She'll come out when she's hungry.

Today I had a short but deep chat with a friend, and we noticed how events look a lot like Gotterdammerung, and how The Hair is very Loki-ish. There's been a lot of phone time lately. A long-lost cousin we didn't know existed found us on the Ancestry DNA matches. This is the daughter of my Aunt Ruth, dead 4 years before I was born. Aunt Ruth didn't marry- it was 1954, she was 23, her lover was married. She came from wealth and social position via her adopted parents, and they sent her to Denver to give birth, and dispose of the baby before she could return home to Rochester. Which she did. A year later on Xmas Eve, she ran her car into a tree there, killing herself and 2 passengers. She was 24, a sorority girl college graduate. She taught PE. She was a perky blond, had been overprotected, and never had a chance to balance out because she died too young. We only found out her whereabouts in 1995, after my mother had spent 60 years wondering what had happened to her.

Ruth's daughter, Mary, grew up in a family that would never pass muster to adopt nowadays. She went to 12 grammar schools, lived in several southern states, and left them at 17 to marry the guy she's still with, in Oklahoma. They've done very well, and have a huge family and a great big house in a tiny town of 39. They're happy. I've spent almost 5 hours on the phone with her this week. She is definitely a Hendrickson.

Another of the cousins, a Ron who lives an hour from Billy in NJ, has also been in touch, sending photos of extended family. The Hendricksons rarely had less than 10 children each, and 8 or 9 would make it to adulthood and beget away. My DNA cousin matches go on for 250+ pages, at 50 people a page. Ron's gr-gr-grandfather was my great-grandfather. His grandmother lived to an old age and told family stories we never heard in our branch. I'm looking forward to sharing with these new peep! It takes a Hendrickson to understand a Hendrickson. lol

This Winter is reminding me of  Winters when I was small. The snow is heaped high, and now being seated, is up to my shoulders when I push by. Today the sky is such a pure blue and the snow so white it makes your eyes hurt. Time to have some chili that'll clear my sinuses.
This Snowflake is resolved to resistance.
Winter Is Here.
x

3 comments:

Geo. said...

Wow, that's an amazing roundup of relatives. So much to be learned --mysteries solved. I was admittedly ignorant of White Walkers and thought the photo depicted the four-horsepower apocalypse from the N.T. Your 2-alarm chili warms me just thinking about it and should enhance "winterfullness" quite well. All my best wishes to you.

only slightly confused said...

They mentioned on the news that there was a snowflake or two out your way. It sounds like an old fashioned winter. When I was young I loved winter..not so much now lol. The chili sounds good.

Starting Over, Accepting Changes - Maybe said...

We have found out about a lot of hidden secrets on Ancestory also. It is fun to investigate and connect the dots on many things we wondered about. I come from an Irish family that seldom talked about the past and their closets were full of skeletons. Just think how much our descendents will know about us with all the social media that is around today and information that will never go away.

We got our first snow yesterday. It was a winter wonderland for a few hours and then those winds came. They were not fun.