Baby, It's (really!) Cold Outside!

For the past week or so, it has rained hard every day and every night; they blame it on El Nino, that little trickster!  It seems that each day there has been a sunny, or at least dry, window in the afternoon.  So we have run out the door to take advantage of it!  And, amazingly, each day when we have had our fill or our time window is closed, about ten minutes after coming back to the fire, it starts raining!  What timing!

But yesterday, that sunny window never showed.  It was wet all day.  Not only rainy and windy ~ yesterday was cold!  We had a regular winter day here in Berkeley.  The only place to be was right beside the fire.  But the cupboards were picked-over and bare, and the Farmers' Market called.  Or, rather ~ emailed.  Eduardo, the baker-owner of Morell's Bread, emailed all of his regular customers:

I just wanted to remind you that the Ecology Center runs the Berkeley Farmers' Markets rain or shine, cold or warm!

I'm gathering up warm clothes and rain gear and getting ready to brave the storm as are my other fellow vendors.  So come on out to North Berkeley and be a part of what makes our little world here so darned special!

Be well and be safe.

Love - Eduardo 

Well, if we considered being sissies and skipping the market, we weren't about to after that letter!  So I trekked to the market (all 5 blocks!  up hill both ways!) and did my best to buy at least something from each of the skeleton crew of vendors who were out there with pink noses and numb fingers.  Oh, darn!  I had to buy a croissant in order to support that one vendor!  ; )  And, indeed, I was one of a sparse crowd of shoppers that afternoon.  The conversation was warm even if the weather was not, since the vendors had nothing but time.

As the weather is rarely that wintry here, it was an adventure.  And exhilarating!  I was all the better for going, and all the warmer when I got back home to the fire and glass of wine waiting for me.  That night the bratwurst and roasted butternut squash, as delicious as they would have been anyway, were extra tasty because I made the journey to procure them (just think how much slimmer ~ and probably a lot more grateful ~ we'd all be if we had to hunt-and-gather our every meal!).

  

Oh, so cold!  (I really have been in Berkeley too long.  ; )

Celebrationing

Well, I thought I had a little series starting there about Celebration, but some photos that I kept asking a friend for (until I felt like I was bullying her!) haven't surfaced, and life keeps happening!  For now I can send you to Anjali's blog for the version that the grandparents get:   Christmas Celebrations , and Dillon Beach with Friends, but there is much more Celebration yet to include!  Like my thank you cards, the sharing will just be a little late..