Weather Update: Scenes from a Half-Winter

Even though the snow's disappearing, except from the shaded places, the cold still bites in a way it rarely did in London. It's a raw cold from a relatively raw country. Our trails, green in summer, are rivers of white but the naked wild roses and feathery-dead heads of goldenrod still stand staunch and tall. 
    

                                                                         
The sun, where it shines, is bitterly bright and the heather spikes through the ice.

 

Tomorrow, they say, it will be warmer. They still do things in Fahrenheit here and the temperature will be going up to 48 degrees.Wow! Out with the croquet set again.

                                                               

Bird Feeder Cabaret: The Cardinal and his Mad Wife

  No I am not talking about the Borgias... Here he is:

                  

   Cardinals were one of my American surprises. They look, for all the world, as though they should be living somewhere tropical but they are as North American as the next bird. They feature a lot on American Christmas Cards .. oops! Holiday Cards, where we would have robins on ours, (American robins being not very sweet and like the old British TV ad about everything in America being  Bigger! Bigger! BIGGER! ) 
  Sadly, I also get the impression that cardinals are extremely stupid. All looks and no brains. Ours sits forever on the edge of the feeder, seemingly contemplating his navel, supposing he had one, as if he's forgotten what he's there for and hogging the space, which annoys the other birds. 

 The cardinals' song, such as it is, is also extremely tedious, especially when they insist on perching right under our bedroom window. They are irritatingly early risers and more than once, I've woken up to hubby leaning out at 3.30 am yelling, "BUZZ OFF!"
       The cardinal's wife is a much duller colour, which is the avian way and given to dashing her head against  window panes over and over again. Last summer, she built a nest in the most inconvenient place possible, just above where I turn the garden hose on and off. Every time I tried to reach it, she would fly off in a frenzy of squawking. But instead of finding somewhere more suitable, she always came back again. 

The Return of the Abominable Snowman

  So we slip effortlessly from the Season of Thanksgiving to the Season of, Er, What are We Supposed to Call it Now?  Even the YMCA plays it safe with "T'is the Season". They don't say the season of what, exactly.
  But a few inflatable Nativity Scenes, Penguins, Snowmen and Santas are already out in people's front gardens in town (not ours) , some still at the planning stage.

                                                       
   At Tops Supermarket, the Salvation Army fundraisers are out ringing their handbells with their collecting boxes. At least some of them wish you a Merry Christmas, even though it's, in my opinion, a little early for that.
   But the biggest sign of the Season has been the dreaded sound of "Frosty the Snowman", echoing around the store.  It has quite a merry little tune - the first time you hear it. The five-thousandth time, it is excruciating. I would like to take a flame thrower to that Snowman, or one of those blow torches hubby uses to incinerate the tent caterpillars that lurk in our trees.

A Wild Western NY Shopping Experience

One Thanksgiving guest who's still here

It being Cyber Monday, the online equivalent of Black Friday, I offer an earlier musing on some WNY- style retail therapy...

  It’s amazing how, in America, you’re never too far from the old Wild West. We have an annual rodeo and an Indian reservation nearby, but I’m not just talking cowboys and Indians. The Dr Quack salesmen who once travelled around in their wagons, peddling miracle cures, are still out in force. Their methods may be modern but they haven’t forgotten the old PT Barnum line, “There’s a sucker born every minute”. So TV adverts offer wonder gadgets to vacuum your carpet, freshen your air, sweep your floors, send you to sleep, better than anything sold by any rival and no, folks, you can’t get them in the shops but only by calling right now and parting with your credit card details. 

      Even in the equivalent of the High Street, there’s no escape. I was in a certain well-known chain store, when a middle-aged, suntanned chap with tinted glasses and a selection of gold necklaces festooned round his neck drew near. “Ma’am “ he said, “Just letting you know about our raffle at the jewellery section in ten minutes’ time - and here’s a free ticket.” He gabbled on incomprehensibly but I had caught the word “free.” So after ten minutes, I regret that I furtively made my way to the jewellery section.
    A small crowd had gathered: several women, a couple of men, a small boy. None of them looked in the best of financial shape. Western New York is a long way from Manhattan.  Mr Suntan hopped up on his stand, “Thank you for coming folks and we sure need you to help us today with this promotion. Yes, folks, you’ll be helping us and yes, folks, I promise you there’ll be a raffle in just a few minutes but first I need to ask you folks to help us in some market research..”  He picked up a necklace. “Folks, this gold necklace over silver (I think we were meant to miss that last bit) is worth a hundred dollars – now how many people like this necklace?” Hands went up eagerly. “Now, how many of you men” – he fixed them with a glinting eye – “have an anniversary coming up?”  The men looked sheepish. He flourished a sparkling bracelet, “Well, ha ha, of course these aren’t REAL diamonds. If they were, they’d be two thousand dollars, but they’re much brighter - see.”
   Then he got to the best bit. “And now, how many people believe in Guardian Angels?” This being America, several hands shot up. “This”, he cried triumphantly, “is the perfect present for kids too young for cell phones……a GUARDIAN ANGEL WHISTLE!!!!! You just blow,”  – he tooted the whistle  “ and call your Guardian Angel for help!  And - you can have all these for SIXTY-FIVE dollars!!” 
   Then his voice dropped a perceptible note. “I have to do all this myself today. Usually my son helps, but he’s sick.”    It worked a treat. Mothers who’d come in with no intention of buying jewellery scrabbled in their purses.  There was a raffle eventually. The small boy, whose name was Caleb, picked a ticket – his dad’s. “Trained him well,” blushed Dad. The prize was, surprise, surprise, the cheapest thing on the stand.
                                                            

Weather Update: The First Blast of Winter

 It started during the night and by the morning we heard the slow rumble of the snowplough going up the lane, spewing salt and grit like some monster risen from the deep.  In a few hours, our world was white.

                    On thursday, our Thanksgiving houseparty had been out playing croquet  in the sun. Today, we had to think of something different.

                 
    Suggestions for a walk up the lane (not in the woods; it's still hunting season) meant a frantic search for snowboots and woolly hats.  The wind was blowing and froze the back of my head, the electric orange hat not being quite as woolly as I'd thought.  Here and there, we heard a distant shot.
          One of our guests, stepping out for a late night cigar, said he'd heard coyotes crying up in the hills.    

                 
 Is that a sign of a hard winter to come? If it isn't it, should be.  In town, the cars were skidding - typical for early snow that quickly turns to slush.  I 'm starting to wish I was back in Florida.                                                                                                                            

Stop Press: Black Friday Headlines

(With thanks to the The Drudge Report)

Gang Fight at Black Friday Sale
Man Punched in Face Pulls Gun on Line-Cutting Shopper
Shots Fired Outside WalMart
Shoppers Smash Through Door at Urban Outfitters
Customers Run Over in Parking Lot
Woman Busted After Throwing Merchandise
Men Steal Boy's Shopping Bag Outside Bed Bath and Beyond

All I can say is, I'm glad I stayed at home.

Happy Black Friday

    Our Thanksgiving celebrations were a success, though the turkey went in rather tardily, due to us not wanting to wake the Stuffing Chef, who had arrived late the night before on a flight from Fort Lauderdale.

                                                    
   It was, however, well worth waiting for, as was the stuffing, being an exquisite combination of sourdough croutons, Italian sausage, mushroom, celery, thyme, parsley, sage and I don't know what else. Our piece de resistance was flaming pecan pumpkin pie (I take back what I said previously about pumpkin pie) liberally doused in Jack Daniels....
                                                  ..........................................................

     But after the homely, non-commercial Thanksgiving, today is a rude awakening. Black Friday. America's busiest shopping day. When the shops offer huge discounts and people kill to get their Christmas shopping done early and done cheap. Which in a way beats buying next year's presents on Boxing Day, as the cheapskates do in Britain.
   I remember a friend describing, a few years ago, how she scurried to Wal Mart at the crack of dawn to beat the crowds, only to find her way barred by a seething gridlock of trolleys - carts, they call them here, quite appropriate as that's the size they are. . Once she'd fought through the melee, she gaped in amazement as two deer hunters in full camouflage gear and orange vests - possibly sent on a mission by womenfolk exhausted from cooking - charged up and down the aisles, clutching shopping lists (and probably their guns as well) high-fiving each other every time they found an item.
    Local radio phone-ins have been full of Black Friday horror stories. One woman told how she'd got to Wal Mart early and joined the already long queue for a discounted flat screen TV. "I was number 50 in the line and they only had, like, 17 of them", she complained. However her brother-in-law had got the two laptops he was after.
   Some shops now open for the Black Friday Sale as early as 8 pm on Thanksgiving Day itself, which is sacrilege to the purists.
  That's probably why the date of Thanksgiving was fixed for the fourth Thursday in November - to give people just enough time to get into the Christmas Spirit. Except you have to call it Holiday Spirit here.
  As for me, I had a narrow escape. One of our Thanksgiving guests was mulling over whether to take the plunge and go into the Mall - a sad, dreary place most times, full of closed-down shops but on Black Friday probably resembling the Dance of Death. She had a voucher for a shop called The Bon Ton, which doesn't exist around her way. But in the end, common sense prevailed and we both stayed at home with a cup of coffee.

This year's was bigger than.....