Chocolate and Other Reasons to Be Happy

During the dark days when I have nothing much to do, I often find myself musing on odd topics. The smallest notion, image, word, or tune can send me on an epic reverie. And being a word person, I have to write things down, play with the words, organize and reorganize the sentences. And then my compulsion to share what I write makes me fix my winter reveries here. Like one of my literary heroes, E. B. White, I am “sustained by the childish belief that everything [ I ] think about, everything that happens to [ me ], is of general interest.” And so . . . 

I have several food weaknesses. Well, when I think about it, I actually have many. One of my great weaknesses, perhaps my biggest, is ice cream. Almost as great is my weakness for chocolate. I have always loved it, but as I’ve grown older and more experienced, my chocolate tastes have refined somewhat. I will still eat a Crunch Bar or Hershey Kisses, but mostly from childhood nostalgia usually tinged with a little desperation. When I was in high school, I discovered Toblerone and that was my favorite chocolate for many years. When I was in Japan on my mission, I found that Japanese chocolate was a little different, but after trying different brands, I settled on Tirol Chocolates as my favorite (in Japanese it is Chiroru Choco). They were inexpensive, just 100¥ for a bar (that was about 50¢ in USD back then). Ah, but then there was KitKat (Kitto Katto in Japanese). I didn’t eat KitKats much before I went to Japan, but they are very popular there. They were a little more expensive, but if I ever had a few extra yen in my pocket at the end of the week, I would treat myself to a KitKat. I would always eat it slowly, one section at a time, nibbling it away to get the most out of it. Over the years, I’ve eaten a lot of chocolate from all over the world. Living in Southern California for twenty years, I came to appreciate See’s chocolate, which is still some of the best and a personal favorite. I have eaten artisanal chocolates with fancy names from exotic places and I love most of them. I prefer dark over milk chocolate, but I’m not that particular. I even like white chocolate when it’s done right. But then there is still the ubiquitous KitKat bar. I can’t resist them. I think because they became a sort of comfort food for me while I was in Japan, where things were not always easy and where I was homesick a lot, I love KitKats.

The history of the KitKat bar is interesting. They were first made in 1935 by the English company, Rowntree. They were first called Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisps, but in 1937 they renamed them KitKat. In the 1970s Rowntree made agreements to distribute KitKats with Hershey in the United States and Fujiya in Japan. Then in 1988, Nestlé bought Rowntree, and in 2000, Nestlé bought Fujiya’s share of the brand. So if you are anywhere else in the world, KitKats are made by Nestlé, but in the United States they are still made by Hershey. Over the years they have introduced variations on the original milk chocolate KitKat – dark chocolate, white chocolate. I’ve had different flavors, my favorites being orange and mint. The Japanese have taken flavored KitKats to an extreme. They have over 300 flavors, some of them pretty bizarre like sweet potato, soy sauce, matcha, and wasabi. The odd flavor craze came after I left Japan so I’ve never tasted any of them, but I’d like to. Well, some of them anyway.

Recently Julie gave us a box of See’s chocolates, which was a wonderful treat. I always lay claim to the dark chocolate covered marzipan and the rum raisin nougat. And then, I was in a checkout line at the store the other day and there, right where I couldn’t resist it, were KitKat bars. The marketers know how to get you when they put those things right there where you are standing and waiting in line. Oh the weaknesses of the flesh!

Chocolate!

On Monday we got our Christmas tree. Because the people that Stacey and Hannah work for have a Christmas tree farm, we have special connections for getting the tree we want. And Hannah and Miriam are very specific on their requirements – an eight foot Canaan fir, full, with no gaps. Hannah contacted the guy in charge with her specifications and he told her to come out to the field and have a look. They found a great tree, cut it, wrapped it up, loaded it on the car, and brought it home that evening. When we unloaded and unwrapped it, we found that it barely fit in the bay window. It was a little too tall and a little too wide and we had to do a bit of trimming. It took Miriam and Hannah several hours to get the lights put on. Stacey and I don’t help with that part – the level of perfection required is too strenuous for us. By the time the lights were on and the tree in place, it was too late to continue, so the rest of the decorating took place on Tuesday evening.

Our Christmas tree: wrapped, unwrapped, with lights.

I was in school every day but Tuesday last week, which was nice. It makes me feel useful to go off to school when I don’t have much to do at home. On Tuesday, because I was home, I did what I usually do on a do-nothing day. After the morning routine of scripture reading and prayer and seeing Stacey and Hannah off to work, I did a bit of tidying. I gathered all the trash in the house and took the bags out to the woodshed. While doing that, I saw the discarded See’s box in the trash which triggered a reverie on chocolate, hence the above. I watered my houseplants. Some of my orchids are blooming and I stood and admired them for a few minutes. Seeing them makes me happy.

Blooming orchids.

Blooming orchids.

Then I spent the rest of the morning doing laundry and, while waiting to change loads, I did some family history research. By noon the laundry was done and I took a break and read for a while. I’m rereading a book I love, A Naturalist Buys An Old Farm, by Edwin Way Teale. Teale and I are kindred spirits. I love all his books, but especially this one. So many of the things he writes about are things I see and do, or wish I did.

After that, I was tired of sitting around the house, so I wandered down to the barn to see how things were with the chickens. They were happy to see me, as they always are. At least I interpret it as happiness. Maybe their excitement has more to do with the scratch I throw to them than any sort of real affection for me. Anyway, they welcomed me to their society for a while.

I currently have three roosters. My oldest rooster is a very pretty mixed breed. He is the dominant rooster. He and I get along. Then I have a Silver-laced Wyandott rooster that was supposed to be a hen from 2022’s chick order. He is very pretty, but he acts aggressively toward me. Maybe because he’s not the alpha male in the coop, he takes out his frustrations by menacing me. But I don’t let him get away with it. When he starts his macho posturing, I stop and stare him down. He backs off right away. My third rooster was also a mistake. He is a Black Cochin and was also supposed to be a hen in this year’s batch of chicks. He is beautiful and very gentle. He stays indoors in the coop with the other young hens. If I stand still while I’m inside the coop, he will often come up to me and I can pet him. It was cold in the barn, so I only stayed a quarter hour. I went down again later in the afternoon at the regular time to do the chores. They were happy to see me again.

My alpha rooster with his hens (peacock in the background).

My Silver-laced Wyandotte rooster.

My Black Cochin rooster.

That evening decorating the tree continued. It was, as it always is, a long process. All the boxes and tins full of ornaments were opened and the stories behind the ornaments recited as they went on the tree. I’m mostly an observer now. I prefer to watch them work and listen to them talk. We have more ornaments than tree space, so some do not get put up. As they were deciding which ornaments were not going on the tree, I imagined a conversation taking place at midnight while the ornaments were still waiting in their boxes, knowing that tomorrow was decorating day. As they talked among themselves, some were secure in the knowledge that they always got put on the tree. Others were hopeful, but not sure if this would be their year. And some were sad knowing that they hadn’t been chosen for years and would probably stay in the box this year too. Poor little ornaments. After all the lucky ornaments were on the tree, last of all, I hung the strings of beads, as I always do. With the tree decorated, our holiday decorations are now complete. Everything looks festive and the smell of pine that fills the house makes me happy.

The finished tree.

We had snow during the week. By Thursday morning there was about three inches on the ground, enough to make things look wintry and pretty. But it didn’t last. On Friday the temperature reached almost 50° and most of the snow melted. Then rain came and washed away what was left.

Snow during the week.

Miriam was busy baking during the week. She baked sourdough bread and batches of cookies for Christmas. Friday was the first day of Hanukkah and, as a treat, she made us mandelbrot, a Jewish cookie similar to Italian biscotti. They were delicious.

Miriam's cookies.

Miriam's mandelbrot.

Saturday morning the sunrise was beautiful. I took a walk down to the beaver pond. I like to see the colors of the sky reflected in the water. While I was there, I saw the beavers working, adding branches to their winter supply pile. Some years their pile isn’t very big, but this year it’s the biggest I’ve seen yet. It’s almost as big as their lodge. Maybe they know something about the approaching winter. As I stood there watching, a kingfisher flew in and sat on a branch over the water chattering and scolding me. Other than that noise, there wasn’t a sound to be heard. Well, except for my roosters who were announcing to the world that were awake. It was a lovely morning.

Sunrise Saturday, the front yard.

Sunrise Saturday, the beaver pond.

Sunrise Saturday, the kingfisher.

The rest of the day was busy. We decided to rip out the kitchen floor. The linoleum in the kitchen was installed sometime in the early 1960s and it was in terrible condition. Parts of it had come up. Parts of it were stapled to the subflooring to keep it from peeling up any further. It was faded and dingy and never looked clean no matter how hard you scrubbed it. So we pulled it all up. We bought some new flooring a while ago that we used to refloor the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms. We thought we had enough to also do the kitchen floor, but we don’t. So now we are looking for new floor covering and until we find it, we’ll be walking on the subflooring. We’re hoping it will be done before everyone arrives for Christmas. We’ll see. As long as we were tearing the kitchen apart, Miriam decided to go crazy and scrub every surface. She spent almost the whole day scrubbing and scouring. In addition to those big projects, we did general pre-Sabbath cleaning. We swept and vacuumed, dusted and mopped. I always like to have a clean house for the Sabbath.

Stacey ripping up the floor.

The kitchen sans linoleum.

We had a thunder storm last night. I was already in bed and fast asleep and didn’t hear a thing. Stacey, Miriam, and Hannah were still up watching a Hallmark Christmas movie (I do not participate in such activities) and they said there was thunder, lightning, and pounding rain. I’m sorry I missed it. I like a good storm.

My paperwhites have started to bloom.

It is a gloomy day with dark skies and scattered rain showers. After several days of unusally warm weather, it has turned cold again. I see that we are expecting snow again tonight. We are home from church and getting ready to eat lunch. Our meetings were very good today. On our way home we saw two bald eagles perched in trees along the Genesee. Last Sunday evening we went to a concert of the North Country Voices, a community choir that Miriam and Hannah joined. The choir has twenty-five members. Miriam is a second soprano and Hannah is an alto. It was a very nice Christmas program held at the CMA church in Coudersport. They have another performance this afternoon at the Methodist church in Galeton that Stacey and I are leaving to attend in a few minutes. Later this evening we are going over to Shillig’s for a little Sabbath Soiree. And then we forge ahead into a new week a move a little closer to Christmas and family and festivities and fun.