Woke up this morning, drank some cold coffee, started a fire to heat up the house to 'nice'. Today the plan is to drive 50 minutes into town, run errands, have lunch, spend a little time on the library.
Yesterday was interesting. A friend of ours from town, Merri (about 40), arrived with her cute 3-year-old daughter. But this visit she came with friends. Merri is a trained pastry chef who works in one of the town's larger restaurants, and she brought two women who work with her as kitchen assistants. They were both culinary students in their 20s, one from India, one from Indonesia. They both had good English-language skills, and had studied English back in their homelands before coming to Canada.
After visiting indoors with us for an hour or so, Merri, her little daughter, and the two young ladies put their warm clothes & boots back on, and went out to build a snowman — a totally novel, fun experience for the two Asian ladies.
One interesting thing occurred before that, when or friendly MaineCoon cat, in full winter coat, came into the living room. The Indonesian lady couldn't take her eyes off him, and her face wore a fascinated expression as she watched him simply walk around, and finally jump up on a low table and settle down for a peaceful rest. I asked her, and she said she'd never seen cats as pets before, back home... it was a fresh experience to see this sort of wild 'thing' just be unthreatening, comfortable, and part of the situation.
Just edited to add this pic of Olivia, Merri's daughter, with the snowman...
