Cold hands, Warm Heart!

Mes amies, I got more snow than I bargained for! More snow than our power lines can handle! Our electricty has been off since we got back from our chiropractor's appointments yesterday evening. This a.m., in the dark, The Hubby stoked up the barbecue grill to try to make some coffee. It was warm. That's about all I can say:) We spent a couple of hours watching the sun rise and watching our birds. Right now there are a half dozen doves visiting, too.

When it became obvious that the power was not coming on as promised, we headed into The Hubby's workplace where he borrowed a generator. While in town, we made a run through McDonald's and headed to my nephew's. We ran into him (figuratively speaking) walking down a street and he was surely surprised to see us. All the more so when I held up the McDonald's sack:)

En route home we did something we've never done before. We picked up a hitchhiker. We initially passed him, holding up a sign that read "Mosier." That's our little spot in the woods. Population 420. The Hubby made a loop on the Interstate and backtracked to pick him up. Thirty two degrees outside and a foot of snow... we decided to put our programmed fear aside.
When he got in the car, the smell of alcohol was strong but he spoke clearly, friendly. In a matter of miles we got the Cliff Notes version of his story: a veteran with cancer,still goes to Portland once a month for treatments at the VA hospital. He had hitched into town to help a friend with a car repair. However, the car had no snow tires, so the friend wasn't in the position to reciprocate his kindness with a ride back home. When he had initially gotten out of the hospital, he was broke and had no where to go. A friend said, "I still got that shack up on the hill. Make yourself at home." And he told about the salvage sale of cast iron heaters and how his friend bought six of them for $6 each -- Six Bucks! And one of those bargain heaters keeps his "shack" perfect for hibernating on days like today with a couple of good pieces of ash. "And from the looks of a couple of oaks in my back yard, after all this snow, I'm going to have some more volunteer firewood," he said. He talked about helping out at the food bank. About helping out his kids "in today's economy." He talked about the 40 deer that like to graze in his yard. And again, he mentioned that today's weather was a time for hibernating. And by that time, we came to his place across from a rest stop, actually a few miles this side of Mosier, and off he went with his sack of groceries into the white yonder.

We came home to a sidewalk plowed free of snow all the way up to our door, courtesy of our neighbors. The Hubby looked at me. "Looks like I need to share an extension cord with them." And so the generator, obnxiously noisy as it is, is now credited with saving two families from Internet withdrawal. None too soon because I was starting to see white elephants....

So here I'm sitting at my computer wearing FIVE layers. IF I could type with my gloves on, I would:) The main reason I wanted to blog today is to make my own statement about SOPA. IF you look at the upper right hand corner of my blog, you'll see a STOP SOPA ribbon. If you've not heard of SOPA, please educate yourself about it and speak out against it. Here is a link where you can sign a petition: https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
The way I understand it, SOPA is the government's way of trying to control the Internet against piratcy. I'm all for not stealing other people's work, movies, creations,etc. (Hence, I'm putting my copyright on images now:) But the government's hand in the matter will only make matters worse. Call me a conspiracy nut. Say I'm paranoid. But yesterday, look what I got in the mail:

Next year will mark 10 years that I have been buying, selling and collecting antique postcards. This is the first piece of mail I have ever had opened by "Homeland Security." My big bird was one of three postcards inside. He fittingly conveys my disdain with his "What's up with this" look! (I really wanna use another expletive but I said "hell" yesterday and I don't wanna push my luck:) See, I can censor myself. I don't need the government doing it for me. STAY out of my mail, Sam. And until you close Guatanamo, you're not MY uncle....
Anyway,the manager at the Best Western in Hood River, where The Kid works, has offered us a $39 Mosierite rate for a king bed. No river view. But there's heat! There's hot water! There's electricity! And Happy Hour's been extended till 7! So if you don't hear from me in the next couple of days, don't worry. I'm happy:)