Freeze & Thaw

This week has been freezing and thawing, up to 45° one day, down to single digits the next. Today, Sunday, has the widest range yet – it was 26° when I got up, 51° in late afternoon, and supposed to get al the way back down to freezing by the time I get up tomorrow.

We started the week on Valentine’s Day that we’ve continued to celebrate, extended. Cookies over last weekend, and Friday after delivering some cookies and having a glass of wine at the new condo of some friends, we went to a fancy dinner out. Where we saw other friends who introduced us to their dinner companions, who had also just seen the new condo of the friends we had drinks with.

And everyone was getting the snow squalls danger announcements on their phones.

Thursday, trash day, there were discarded valentine’s roses on the sidewalk – currently the banner, and overleaf.

It’s also the time of year when my brother and I wait for the Eustace Tilley New Yorker cover, which all of our lives came around our mom’s birthday, she and the magazine having been born at the same time, in mid-February of 1925. In the 21st century the covers have varied from the traditional top-hatted Eustace staring at a butterfly through his monocle. This year it’s a Black woman with a mad neck gaiter, but the spot art inside the magazine veers back to the more traditional, and shows Eustace doing all sorts of birthday party stuff, like blowing up balloons, and blowing out candles, and opening champagne.

Here’s a collection, and thanks to illustrator Luci Gutierrez who created them.

[portfolio_slideshow pagerpos=disabled size=full]

I think the biting cake with a bite out of his hat is my favorite, though I do like the confetti one, and the last one, with Eustace accompanied by his balloon with its own tiny top hat, makes me a little sad. Could he only get his balloon to come to his party? Surely Eustace has the whole world of New Yorker readers to celebrate with, even the ones without a family connection, like me and my brother.

Cooking did happen this week, so here’re a few simple things to close. I had this lovely bowl of oatmeal on a work from home day – I used this trick I learned from Heidi Swanson, or really her husband, I guess, where you toast the oats in a little butter, add the water, and let them soak, though I only did a few hours, not overnight. They were still deliciously creamy. And I made a batch of blueberry muffins, I think Wednesday night, and I forgot to take out for the streusel – and was wondering why I needed to add liquid to the batter. But the kids ate them anyway, and they were gone by Friday afternoon.