Locked up in the house due to the weather is no fun.  I wouldn’t be going anywhere most days anyway, but it is knowing you can’t that bugs me.

There isn’t anything much to do but watch TV.  And I watched the wrong thing--if I wanted to be cheered up.  Nova.  About the tundra and permafrost thawing--which is releasing methane from millions of years ago that has been trapped under the ice.  It is adding CO2 faster than the earth can manage.  Causing the permafrost to thaw faster.  And here I was worrying about CO2 from cars exhaust.  Which is substantial.

It has been causing explosions in Alaska and upper Russia since the year 2000, that leaves huge holes in the earth and sinkholes that exude more methane. Cheerful news.  But if I turn on the news, it is just as awful.  

I am ready for spring.  My cousin Ann is already talking about planting spinach.  I’m going to buy my spinach at the grocery store! Or beg her for some.  I will plant tomatoes if my son Scott sends me Jet Stars.  Nothing else here is very dependable.  Except the little yellow one.

And okra.  But last year, something ate my plants when they emerged.  Rabbits probably.  I planted again, same thing.  No okra.  I’ll try again.  Ann is a true gardener.  She does it all.  I give the okra away.  It is my attempt to pay my friends and neighbor for sending me meals.  I still have okra cut up, dredged in corn meal and frozen from two years ago.  I don’t think I’m going to fry it unless someone calls, says “Come to dinner, and bring fried okra.” 

With war on the horizon in Europe, my friend Carolyn and I were discussing how it was living through the last world war.  The world lives on oil, and it will become scarce.  This generation hasn’t had to carpool.  Everyone has a car with one person in it. A huge waste of gasoline.

Back then, everyone had chickens, a cow and hogs.  You can exist on dried beans, milk, eggs and bread if--you have hog fat or oil.  When the pandemic set in, I bought dry white and brown beans.   A lot of them.  Flour, cornmeal, dry milk and oil. Canned goods.  Pat has hens, so eggs were available.  All of that was just “in case.”  Everyone else was buying toilet paper--obviously they didn’t know about news paper and the Sears catalog.  Gran saved chicken feathers to make comforters and beds.

You need a saw to cut wood to build a fire.  As I think back, families shared tools.  All tools were run by hand, not gas or battery.   I still have my dad’s whet stone to sharpen knives and tools with.  Every kid who was able to walk had a job to do in the house.  And as soon as they could get a real job, they worked.  And gave the money to their parents to help pay the bills.  No air conditioning.  Heat was from wool clothes and blankets.  You lit wood in a fire-place or wood stove.

We may be getting ready to do some of that again.  I can do it if the city will give me water and electricity.  Otherwise, I’m going down the tubes.  Carolyn is going with me.  Come Lord Jesus.  I’m tired of war.

 My computer has been “down” all day.  I checked the wiring and sure enough, the charging cord was broken.  Actually, chewed.  I’m sure the ladies who vacuum got it again.  It’s happened before. 

I pressed the ends of the wires together and “ta-da” it is working!  Craig said he would buy me another one tomorrow.  But for now,  at five-thirty in the evening, I am running.

Sleet has been coming down most of the day.  It is way below freezing here.  Which I don’t like at all.  The mail man was putting mail in my box on the street and I Yoo-hooed at him from the porch and asked him if he would bring it to me???

He did!!  There are still good people in the world.  I thanked him over and God blessed him.  I still haven’t gotten all my income things from 2021 and want to get my taxes in.  Sometimes mail just disappears forever.

The problem with a day like today is that all there is to do is eat. Which is counter-productive.  Or play solitaire.  Which I can’t do with my computer down.  I can’t do stuff like that on my phone.  The screen is too small for me.  I bet I am paying too much for phone service.  The only thing I do on my phone is text and call.

Tomorrow is another day, and the weatherman says another front is coming in with more of the same.  I probably won’t blog if my computer is still down.  Maybe Craig will get me a charging cord.

The problem with all of that wonderful food people bring me, is that I eat it.  And my weight has started to rise.  I am normally thin and my metabolism is a raging fire...so I seldom gain weight no matter what I eat.

But Jeanette makes her quiche with heavy cream--no wonder it is so delicious.  It’s her fault!  I’m going to have to space it out.  Maybe every third day for breakfast instead of every day.

One thing that makes stabilization of weight easier for me is that I don’t like sweets.  I don’t like the sensation of sugar in my mouth.  

I’ve also been eating chili with cheese and Fritos.  Justifying all that cheese with the reasoning that I don’t use milk and need the calcium.  I don’t even buy milk.  The Fritos can’t be justified.  But like I said yesterday, we humans want to eat something that tastes good to us.

The problem with gaining weight that you don’t need--is that your body will adjust to a new weight-point that it likes.  And if you continue going up, your metabolism will reset your point upwards--it’s hard to reset once it gets comfortable.  Your new body-point resists being messed with.

All of that just to say, I’m going to have to change my ways.  I don’t like that. I want to eat what I want to eat.  That’s the problem for all of us.

People need many things.  Shelter, water, clothing protecting them from the elements..etc.  But the two things that we humans want are--love and something to eat that tastes good.  Same as your dog.

 My friend Jeanette made me two huge quiches, so I have breakfast covered.  So very tasty and good.  She toasted the button mushrooms before she added them to the mix.  Anything with mushrooms is stellar.  Ann, Becky, Jeannine all bring food.  Thank God they love me.

Real love is difficult to come by.  It’s easier to say, “I love you.”  But love is not a phrase, or a feeling.  It is exhibited by behavior--over time.  It doesn’t evaporate when conditions change.  If someone loves you, they stick with you when you can’t reciprocate.  When things have gone south.

The difficult thing is that sometimes a person’s love behaviors aren’t the thing that we need.  I finally told Ken that I never wanted flowers.  Or candy.  Or something to wear.  He had tried to express that he cared--in the way men are taught to do.  However, I’m not the girl who needs those things.  Please don’t waste money on stuff.  Just help with the things that need to be done.  That’s my love language.  When he “got” it, and realized that it was really true, he was relieved to know what I needed.  

Help me.  That’s it.  That’s all I need.  I’ll take care of the rest. 

 I’m almost finished with “Baa Baa Black Sheep.”  I’ve learned a lot about WWII in the Pacific.  Pappy was given the Congressional Medal of Honor. They thought he was dead, but he was in a Japanese prison camp--for two years after crashing into the ocean.

If you were captured and declared a prisoner of war, they reported you.  If you were listed as a captive instead, they didn’t.  He didn’t know about B-29’s until they flew over the camp he was in.  

He didn’t know about the A-bomb until he read about it on the way home after being released.

I knew he was a drunk.  That’s all.  But in reading the book, I’ve discovered that he was also a human being who knew himself very well.  It’s interesting that we only hear about the bad, and sometimes make an unfair evaluation of a person.  He is an excellent writer.

He was a Marine.  He loved to fly.  He holds the lifetime record for shooting down enemy planes.  And he finally conquered his demons.  I bought the book in ‘68, I wish I had read it then--during the time my life was surrounded by Marine fighter pilots.  I would have had a better idea of what they did back when I was living through it.  Every Marine I knew was a fighter pilot.  I didn’t know they were unusual.

 My friend Jeanette was cleaning out her bookshelves and I was rearranging them for her.  One book caught my eye and she said, “Take it.”  I am reading “Baa Baa Black Sheep.”  

I had bought a copy of that book in 1968 when it was published.  Pappy (Gregory) Boyington was sitting outside a bookstore in Santa Ana California signing books so I  bought one.  He asked me how I wanted it signed and I told him.  He said, “I know Ken...”  

Pappy was the World War II ace in the Pacific, a Marine fighter pilot.  I never read the book.  I didn’t have time back then...and to tell the truth, I didn’t know much about what fighter pilots did....even though  I was married to one.  If I had read it, I would have had a better idea of what flying a Corsair in combat was all about.

They were the airplanes that were left over from World War II that Ken flew in Korea.  Prop planes...replaced after Ken flew 27 missions and was hit 7 times.  They went to jets.  F-9’s.  Ken had been in the first class of jet aviation--I think Corpus Cristi?  So he was immediately qualified for F-9’s in Korea.

Anyway.  I took the book home with me from my friend’s house, and am reading it, and wish I could tell Ken “Thank You” for what he went through.  The Corsair was able to take enormous flac damage and keep flying.  They ran out of gas, lost parts of their planes, and kept getting back alive.  At least, some of them did.

I am halfway through the book and can’t lay it down.  Ken never talked about it---so I didn’t know.  Sadly, I gave the book away that was signed by Pappy. I wonder where it is?