The calendar thinks the first day of winter was a week ago, but actually it was yesterday. 23 degrees, windy, and lots of the white stuff for which Eskimo languages have 2000 words. As a result my accomplishments for the day were: 1) drank a giant mug of tea, 2) faced the elements to walk Chloe, 3) napped on the sofa all afternoon, and 4) taste-tested a trial run of champagne punch for my sister. A banner day of indolence, as is only proper during Christmas vacation. It was fabulous.

I do realize this state of affairs can’t last forever, but I am pleased to report that it can last one more day. When I turned on my computer this morning (technically it was still morning), I found an email announcing a champagne tasting this afternoon. Evidently this is a week when champagne just will not taste itself. This must have something to do with the snow, but I haven’t figured out the connection. Regardless, it means it’s time to get a move-on. I am already behind schedule on the napping.

My bungalow has a working kitchen! Water runs through its plumbed veins, the refrigerator’s motor thrums, and the stove is plugged in, ready and waiting to cook up cauldrons of soup and sauce. Tonight there will be spaghetti!

I was not prepared for how great this feels, to go from no kitchen to beautiful kitchen. Today after the plumbers left it felt like someone had flipped a switch. Shazam! And the bungalow is absolutely preening. It hasn’t felt this good about itself in decades. I’m afraid it will be impossible to live with once it smells the perfume of garlic frying, right here within its very own walls.

Glancing back through this blog I find it was September 26 when the remodeling began on my kitchen. Guess what, it still isn’t done, ha ha, joke’s on me for thinking it might ever finish. Progress has happened in fits and starts, punctuated by lengthy spells of nuthin.

However, a fit and a start are underway: a span of counter has arrived and is being installed! That’s the good news. The questionable news is that this requires a substance which smells exactly the way beauty parlors used to in the 80s, in those strange days when people would have their hair permed, voluntarily and on purpose. Also a lot like nail salons smell today. Remember how, once upon a time and all, a fairy godmother waved a wand over a chambermaid to doll her up for a hot date, leaving behind a pretty puff of sparkle dust? Now we know the precise stink of that noxious cloud of fumes. You gotta admire the efficiency though. Godmothers don’t fart around. They get the job done pronto.