Letter #1

Dear Winter,

I appreciate that you have allowed the ice to melt from my driveway, so that I have stopped worrying about the UPS guy fracturing his neck on it. And it's awesome to stop wearing the marshmallow coat and start wearing the Paddington bear coat with the toggle closures.

But please, ignore what all those other people are saying. They do not know you like I do. Stick around here for a month or two more. You are a misunderstood season. But I appreciate you. Especially now that January is a dim memory.

I have about 25 new soup recipes to make and I need all the time I can get. I need the gray skies and early sunsets and sighs of the furnace as encouragement. I need to extend my Sunday ritual of sipping apricot tea while listening to the stock pot simmer on the stove and snuggling a shivery Trixie in the armchair. And....I just bought nine pounds of dried heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo. That's a lot of chili and beans 'n greens soups. I hadn't planned on buying so much. But it wasn't my fault. I couldn't decide between the Christmas Limas or the Good Mother Stallards. I was torn between the Mayacobas and the Rio Zapes. Rancho Gordo has a flat-rate for all shipments! Not my rule! I just want chili! I am the victim here.

So, an extension of the refreshing temperatures are all I ask, and if it isn't too much of an addendum, maybe a wafer-thin whitening of the snow layer on the brown grass around my house.

Yours Truly,
SlyGly