Ice and Jigsaw puzzles

No icepocalypse this morning, lucky for us. The car door was rather stuck, and I had to deice the windows, but the streets were bare and wet, as they say in road reports. The northern part of the state was not so lucky, however, and many thousands of people are without power. On my drive in to work this morning, I saw convoys of electric company trucks heading north to help.

Here at work in the past month, we have been working on jigsaw puzzles. I think the idea was to give patrons something to work on, but in practice it has been staff, taking a break from real work. Yes, I am one of those staff members. I love jigsaw puzzles, for a variety of reasons. First of all, they remind me of childhood vacations. Between Christmas and New Year's, we would set up a large folding table in the family room, spread out a 1000+ piece puzzle, and get to work. There was a very set order of work to be followed - first, all the pieces must be turned right-side up, any pieces that were already/still stuck together taken apart (mustn't have any cheating!) and the edges separated. Next, all the edges pieces must be put together before any of the picture can be started. Then, the real work could begin, and we each would choose a section or figure within the puzzle to work on. The puzzles we did were usually these strange French cartoons, semi-pornographic, if cartoons of little figures with bulbous noses and funny bodies can be pornographic. Although I had some puzzles that were of more "appropriate" subjects - horses, tigers, and so on, I tended to find them boring, not requiring enough effort to be worth the trouble. I mean, it was just a photograph, with a single subject, and the pieces were too big.

In the puzzles we worked, it was great fun to discover where the figure you were working on fit in the larger picture. And that is the second reason I love jigsaw puzzles - getting involved in solving a problem. I love crossword puzzles for the same reason. You have to work at the puzzle, solve it, and get to the end with something complete. For someone with an often over-active mind, it is a great relief to be able to sit and concentrate on a puzzle - it forces the many thoughts and worries that threaten to overwhelm me to the side, give me a break. It is relaxing. In fact, I started working on crossword puzzles every night before bedtime (from a book of the Friday and Saturday New York Times - anything else is too easy and doesn't engage my mind enough ) and since I have been doing so, I find it much easier to fall asleep.

Ice here, ice there

We are on the verge of perhaps another icepocalypse. Because of the threat, state offices opened 2 hours late, and many schools in Little Rock and around the state were closed. I just started carpooling, today in fact, and my carpooling buddy and I made it in 35 minutes, about 20 minutes less than normal. No ice. But it is cold, and wet and there is a good chance that we will be covered in ice by tomorrow morning. If so, and we get to stay home, I plan to play with my new sewing machine. Over Christmas, I bought a pattern and fabric, but I haven't had a chance to do anything with it yet.

Sunrise in Sedona

I went to visit my grandparents over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. Every time I go to Sedona I think "I would like to live here." The views are just spectacular, with great vistas, sunrises and sunsets, and the air is clean and clear. Even in the summer, when it get up to 100 during the day, I could still stand to live there. Too bad there aren't many jobs for academics up that way - but if something comes open at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, I am sure I will be pushing Benjamin to apply.
This trip Aunt Mary, Uncle Richard and I went on a hike up behind Cathedral and Big Bell Rocks, towards the rock walls. Unfortunately, my camera chose that time to start acting up, so I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked. After 7 years, it is probably about time to get a new digital camera. If I am lucky, I will be getting one for my birthday in a few months. Hopefully it will hold up until then.
Here is the sunrise from the hotel parking lot. When the sun shines on the rocks at that slanted angle, they just glow. Every morning is a new revelation.
My grandparents, who have had dogs in the (distant) past, now have this little girl, Chi Chi. She is their baby, and is heavily doted upon. This is her morning walk sweater - it gets pretty cold in Sedona, up around 4500 feet above sea level, and she is a little dog. As a rule, I don't like little dogs, because they are yappy and tend towards stupid, but Chi Chi was a quiet, well-behaved, intelligent dog, and I will break the rule for her.