Monday December’s 18th, twenty seventeen
Yesterday we made our annual pilgrimage to Sudbury for Christmas and Christmas stuff shopping. We don’t have a car in Canada. M left us his experienced VW Jetta TDI. This has been and is a great car. It has been a great car for almost half a million kilometers ( 310,000 miles ). It gets great fuel mileage. The seat heating is welcome and yes still working. You are all sitting there waiting for the but.
But, on cold days it doesn’t produce sufficient heat to get to warm and toasty. By the time we got to Birch Island the windshield was clear. By Espanola, the steering wheel was warm enough to grip. My feet were cold and they stayed cold. The snow and ice on the floor mats got bigger and colder as we traveled. ML had winter footwear but I did not. Great fuel mileage can be outstripped by the Cold. I was happy to get to Sudbury where I could get outside and warm up.
I was surprised that the stores were not as busy as I expected and yesterday was 8 days before Christmas. I’m not sure what that translates to in the 12 days of Christmas calculation. Let’s googlize it. There is a lot of confusion ( in my head ) about all the calendars related to Christmas. I’m pretty good with Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Eve and New Years Day. Then there’s Advent and the Twelve Days of Christmas and all the pets and milking related to that. So, yesterday was in fact day of Christmas -8.
It seems the twelve days of Christmas don’t start until Christmas day. Therefore you must wait until January 5th to get to the Drummers Drumming. New Years Eve will find you overrun by swans a swimming. I understand the need to meet the alliteration requirement of this tune. But what about; snakes a slithering, sardines a stinking, scorpions a stinging . In our youth we had a local version of the twelve days song that was a favourite of Canon Dixon who may have overheard us ‘caroling’.
I spent most of my shopping time in search of a decent set of wind up chattering teeth. I envisioned these clattering Christmas cuspids stuffed in someone’s happy holiday hosiery. I was unable to find a set. The stores we used to have filled with devices that farted, off colour t-shirts, rubber dog shit (poop)… You are thinking of the store now. I found one set that was battery operated, but they failed the quality test… I wanted a good set for Christmas.
We managed to get home just before dark, unloaded and put our feet to the fire.
more later
I don’t care who you are… that’s just funny