Say goodbye to my poor hibiscus.

Of course I'm getting ready to put my house on the market in this shitty market, so of course we have to have the first hard freeze in 5 years, which is going to kill off about half the yard. Please send warm thoughts to my poor shrubbery - it's too windy to cover them and if we go below freezing and stay there for over 6 hours, covering them will not make a difference.

Today was wicked, not the cold, because when the wind died the temp didn't feel that awful (in the 40s) but the wind, oy! Our cold is very special, because it generally comes with a hard wind and very low humidity. Expect to pay a lot for strawberries this spring because we are looking at 10 hours of freezing temps. That will kill crops.

It'll be in the 70s this weekend, so I'll be nice and comfy when I am out there removing dead plants. It's so depressing to do that.

Boy called, they had an inch or two of snow in Asheville, it's pretty.

Murphy didn't mind the cold at all, he's ready to move.

L called to invite me to something on the 11th. She has a job interview, she has low expectations because they are balking at her salary. Which is in my salary range. Which does not bode well for me. Which is what I expected.

Weirdest thing - the other night I was walking Murphy and my neighbors up the street "yoo-hooed" to me - I thought they were just hollering to say Happy New Year, but there was another reason. One of my neighbors, a guy a few months older than me, suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm the other night and is currently in the same hospital that did my surgery, recovering from his own brain plumbing surgery. He has young kids and his wife just got laid off from her job. Merry Christmas, and 2007 says Goodbye and Fuck You Very Much.

So I was able to make a few suggestions about what to expect, what to bitch about, gave her the Chief of Neurosurgery's name to drop, etc. It sounds like he's doing okay - his aneurysm was a slower leak, not a "lights out, hit the floor, ride the helicopter," thing like mine. And if he didn't even get a helicopter ride, he got cheated - but it's still a four-star bitch to deal with. I think maybe I did some good for his wife, standing there as someone who survived it and went on (to get laid off from her job, have to sell her house, etc.) On second thought, maybe I'm not the poster girl for this.

Honestly, from where I'm standing I feel badly for her, not for me. Yeah, my life is hardly like taking a winter cruise to get over my stress of being a kept woman, but I don't have as much to deal with as some people. It's like the time my husband was in the hospital on the oncology floor (one of the many times) and I got into the elevator with a pretty woman and two gorgeous little girls carrying coloring books and crayons and dolls, and she was going to the oncology floor too, and one of the little girls said, "Are we going to see Daddy?" And I forgot all about my own troubles and felt heartsick for them. As bad as it was for my family, I was so grateful that my kids were grownups, albeit very young adults, and weren't visiting their daddy carrying coloring books.

As bad as 2007 was for me my heart goes out to my neighbor, who is dealing with losing her (good, professional) job (in an industry unrelated to construction), plus a husband who damn near died on her last week and will have a long recovery, while trying to keep life sort of normal for two little girls. These are two of the little girls who caroled for me a week or so ago - really nice, nice people. Please send prayers and good wishes to Murphy's neighbors.

More knitting, more pictures. It's coming. I swear.