Twas The Week Before Christmas

After a month of simply trying to stay warm.........(we've been under the influence of what seems to be a never ending wave of polar air, with nighttime lows dropping to as low as 11°F/-11° C)......I had neglected my personal grooming, and I had begun to slowly ressemble that furry beast of yore. That's a bit of hyperbole actually, as the constant epilation has significantly reduced the total number of body hairs, and left the ones that remained much finer. Nevertheless, I was sprouting once again, and feared going to seed!

We seem to have entered a bit of a thaw. The mercury made it all the way up to 38°F/3°C today, so after clearing yesterday's three inches of snow from my deck, steps, and truck, I made my way up to the mail box out on the highway, and then back down to the house for a shower, followed by a long overdue full body epilation. It only took an hour to do my entire body from my neck to my ankles. That's how much my body hair has been reduced by regular epilation. No wonder that electrologists tell you to stop waxing or using an epilator. More hairs for them to take care of......and charge you for! I first noticed this phenomenon decades ago, after I began to tweeze my eyebrows. After a while, I noticed that some of the hairs were not growing back. This was especially true of the hairs between my eyes, above the bridge of my nose, and the hairs that used to wrap around the outside corners of my eyes. Today they are all gone for good. In effect, the constant plucking had enabled me to permanently achieve a much more naturally feminine brow line. Later I would discover this same phenomenon on my legs, and eventually on my entire body.

So............the lesson to be learned boys and girls, is that constant hair plucking weakens, and in some cases even eliminates hairs! If I had know that, I would have started waxing my face as soon as the peach fuzz began to appear!

Anyway...........I am now completely hairless once again, and it feels absolutely wonderful!

As I type, I am listening to the Nutcracker on my local NPR station. I love the music, but regret to say that I have never even once seen the ballet! Oh, I've see snippets of various productions on TV. Those are unavoidable this time of year, but I have never sat in a theater, and actually watched the entire performance unfold before my eyes on stage. Am I a sad case, or what?

Christmas is right around the corner, and I bought my mother a brand new set of kitchen knives, on-line, and had them sent by UPS, to her condo on the tenth floor of her twelve story apartment building. Last Monday I told her to expect a package, but to be extremely careful with it, if she decided to open it before Christmas, as she could easily injure herself on it. She asked me what it was, and all I would tell her was that it was something that she had been needing for a long time. Any woman who carves a turkey, a roast, or a ham with a bread knife, because all of her older knives are too dull, too rusty, and of no use to her anymore other than as butter spreaders, needs a new set of sharps for her kitchen!

Other than in some pictures I have shared with her, my sister has never once seen me en femme, yet for the second year in a row now, I have received a Christmas card from her addressed to Melissa! Isn't she just the sweetest?

As I said earlier, we have been under the chilling influence of a seemingly permanent wave of Canadian arctic air, (thank you very much Halle, and others in the frozen wastelands north of our border). For the past month, temperatures have been 10-15 degrees below average for this time of year. I live in an all electric home, so I am not looking forward to my next electricity bill! Last month's bill was shocking enough, and it hadn't even gotten cold then. The pond at the bottom of the hill out back has completely frozen over, and the barren wooded hillsides of my subdivision, are now covered in snow. Cruel winter has set in with an utter lack of regard to personal comfort, yet still, there is a stark sort of beauty to winter's bleakness. Tonight I gazed out the window, and the moon light had the snow covered woods set all aglow! If you had a mind to, and you were sufficiently bundled up to ward off the cold night air, you could easily navigate your way through the woods by moonlight alone. What hearty creatures the squirrels, raccoons, o'possums, foxes, deer, turkey, and all of the other creatures of the wild must be, to survive such harsh conditions. It makes me respect them all that much more, and wonder how anyone could kill them, unless their life depended on their meat for their survival. Obviously I am not into hunting for sport. It just seems like such a sacrilege!

A week from today it will be Christmas. I don't claim to be religious, let alone a Christian. I am agnostic, yet there is something about the Christian tradition at this time of year that will always appeal to my heart. It is one of two times on the ecclesiastical calendar, where judgement of the human condition is put aside through divine grace, and the unlikely prospect of human perfection is celebrated. What's not to like about that? So in that vein, let me wish you all a very Merry & Peaceful Christmas, and in the words of the one who's birthday we are about to celebrate, "judge not, lest ye be judged......."

Peace on Earth,

Melissa XX