Pink Snowy Mountains and Cookie Monster

[These posts are not necessarily posted on the days they are written...I write offline out at our place where we have no internet or cell phone service, then when we do come in town, I post them. I am also horribly bad at knowing what day it is - not only when I post them - but when I write them. And then, it doesn't really matter.]

I am having my morning coffee in bed, gazing out over the tops of the trees that hug the Azul and Desague gorge. Above them, a sun-pink, snow-covered mountain ridge stretches and a morning half-moon hangs overhead. Had it been raining, as it had for over two weeks prior, we could have kept the heavy curtains drawn and slept till noon if we desired. But when I cracked open an eyelid, I spied a sliver of blue and that flash of pink and through open the curtains.

I grabbed Greg's big, warm robe and slipped down the stairs to stoke the morning fire and set the kettle on. Out the window at the bottom of the stairs, in a morning mist on the eastern side of the house, the sun has not risen over yet, but fired the frozen air around the far sides of the Tres Monja spires, an other-worldly scene.

With only one robe between the two of us, and my chores done (fire-stoking and kettle heating), I climb back under the covers and toss the robe to Greg. He climbs down the stairs, checks the view, adjusts the flue on the wood stove and makes our morning coffee. We put a Tapestry of the Times podcast on my computer and talk about the day. We are excited that two days have passed with sunshine, and the fallen trees might take a chainsaw now. I will coax Greg into cutting some long, straight selected branches for my bathroom towel shelf project though it's entirely possible I might force myself to wash up the stack of dishes on the kitchen sink. It is the kind of day that looks as if we could throw open windows and doors and let a warm breeze blow through the house, but it is not yet 35 degrees outside.

The hydro popped off last night for no apparent reason and Greg is now well enough that he felt his way down with the flashlight and reset it. Twice. Speaking of last night...yes, last night I found I had a cookie monster in the house. Hydro reset, but candles going instead of electric lights, I was reading in bed while Greg watched an episode of Deadwood on his computer downstairs. I felt a craving for one of my raisin, crushed peanut shortbread cookies. I had made over three dozen just a week ago.

"Hey, Baby? When you come up would you bring me a cookie?" Silence from downstairs.
"Greg?"

"There aren't any left," he says without shame. Three dozen shortbread cookies in a week? So much for eating healthy.

I finished my mother's room. It is actually the only room in the house finished. I took a bunch of pictures of the tiny, sweet room, but now can't find my camera cable so she'll have to either wait, or just come visit. Aside from a few books and the sheets and an inferior mattress, there isn't anything in the room which didn't come from very basic handicraft. The bed was made from saplings by Ismael. The pillows are stuffed, hand-pulled wool (by me), the basket that holds balls of Nono's home-spun wool...I made that from Sauce branches sitting down by the Rio Desague when the temperatures reached 80 degrees and I thought I'd faint from the heat. The clothes rack is rough wood with hand-whittled dowels, scrap from the wood pile. A quilt. Dried red and white roses from a walk around Futa. A punched-copper lamp shade, by yours truly. A couple pieces of odd driftwood from Rio Futaleufu and an old broken, weather-gray ladder Ismael left after some work here leaned against a wall to hold throws and an extra blanket, an old camposino doll my mother got at a junk sale and some hand-woven throws top it all off. I tossed a white sheep-skin rug on the floor and pronounced it finished.

I can't hardly bear the thought of going to town today. It's just too peaceful and lovely...and considering town is a place that shuts down for a four-hour lunch and has a population of about 2,500 now, that says alot about the level of serenity out here. I would be more enthusiastic if I could find the camera cord to email photos of Mom's room to here, but without that, I have no desire to go anywhere but into the kitchen to punch down a loaf of bread or make another batch of shortbread cookies...which I will hide.