The Weatherman Is Really Getting To Me

   The weatherman says we're in the middle of a blizzard...whiteouts, high winds, cold temperatures...with 4-8" of snow by the time it's moved on .  I just know it seems to be a summary of our winter so far...lousy weather.  Everything is closed east, west, north, south of us.  The schools were given a free day by the governor to close(!! Unheard of!!) and the towns and villages just followed suit.  I don't know about stores and offices but then I'm not going to go out and investigate, either.   The noon news on TV said there were about 2000 customers in the counties hit (Oneida, Madison, Lewis, Herkimer, Otsego) that were without power.  We're lucky...so far.  I talked to my cousin Ed (because power on his road is always going out) but it's still up although National Grid trucks have been going up and down his road all day.  (Remember the old Glen Campbell song 'Wichita Lineman'?)  I keep looking out the window next to my computer watching the big, old oak trees swaying.  So far, nothing except small branches have come down.  Let's hope that's all that comes down during the rest of this episode.
   I finished my size 6 sweaters yesterday.  No knitting involved, just working in yarn ends and sewing on buttons.  (The other sweater is pink with lavender buttons and flowers) Had some embroidery on the black sheep cardigans (the bk is on the back)

but I can do that in my sleep!  I still want to do another Guernsey vest...in gray, this time...but I'm not racing to Walmart to get the yarn!  I can wait until tomorrow.  I'll go after my INR...if I can get out!!
   I had some sad news this weekend.  My oldest friend died after years of fighting cancer and MS.  She was a couple of years younger than me and we met when my family lived on Dewey Ave in Herkimer across the street from hers.  When we moved up here to the little house in the little woods, she would take the public bus (Central NY Coach Lines, back then) from Herkimer and get off at the florist, cross the highway and walk down the road to our house.  I remember her walking in one time laughing like crazy because she heard someone on the bus say...as she crossed the road...'oh, look, the little girl is going to the cemetery!' (There are 4 cemeteries between our road and the highway.)
  My family took her camping with us.  We even pretended to be asleep in the back seat on the way home from a trip to Canada one time...with a couple of bottles of Canadian Club and several boxes of cigars under us!  For years we laughed about the outhouse door at that camp on Mississippi Lake.  It seemed to sink into the ground more every year!  We were positive one year it wouldn't open any more but before then our neighbors from here had bought a camp down the road up there that had indoor plumbing!  
   My mom was so pleased when my friend asked her to make her wedding dress.  It came out beautiful, too.  My friend and her new husband camped with us, and when their first child was born, the little girl came camping, too, but by then we had bought the camp at Lake Pleasant Park.  My friend was a typical 1st time mother...she even put heavy bath towels over the curtains in the bedroom so the room would be dark enough for the baby to sleep.  (My mom was not pleased.)  But when their son was born, my friend knew the towels over the curtains weren't necessary. One particularly wet summer I remember them pulling into our driveway in a downpour on a Friday night, her rolling down the window and yelling...'well, if you're dumb enought to stay in this weather, we're stupid enough to come up!'  We always had fun.  That's when I learned how to make Italian Fried Chicken...her mother's recipe.  No one could beat her for that!!
   My friend was diagnosed with breast cancer about the same time I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease.  It was later learned that she (and a younger sister) carried the mutated gene that made them susceptible to it.  After many years she developed MS.  She remained strong and fought back for a long time but finally cancer won when she was diagnosed with it again last year.  She bravely underwent treatment again but....  There will be a prayer service for her on Saturday but I don't know if we'll be able to go...the weatherman is calling for a 'winter mix' and an 1 1/2 ride in that muck doesn't thrill me.  Jeff says it's up to me.  She'll be buried in Herkimer in the spring.