The Puzzle of Death

Yesterday was supposed to be my first day back at the office, the day that my new business year began. Instead, we got seven inches of snow, a bunch of people lost power, and we set some kind of COVID record. How about we all just stay home in January, come back February 1st and try again?

Regardless of conditions, I will go in this morning. One day at home for snow is quite enough for me. But Pam is happy as a clam. She is using her snow days to take down Christmas decorations, organize her new planner—don’t ask!— and continue her pitched battle against the puzzle of death:

Last summer while we were in Maine Pam thought it would be fun if we worked on a puzzle at the cabin. So she bought a Maine-themed 1000 piece monster and we all spend time working on it over a period of days. To my great surprise it was actually kinda fun. When my family does this sort of thing during the beach trips, I always take a hard pass. It looks so…slow and tedious…requiring way too much sitting for my taste. So, I was skeptical. 

But it turned out to be a cool project and a surprising good time. 

But the Christmas vacation version of puzzle fun has been a slow slog of frustration, and it lays there—daunting and unfinished. To make matters worse, the kids are all long gone and we kinda need our kitchen table back. So, it’s just Pam and me…mostly Pam fighting this battle. She is determined that she will finish this thing, no matter how long it takes. Long ago, this thing stopped being fun. Now its war. Its labyrinth of tree limbs, weeds and expanses of white nothingness are the gauntlet between us and our kitchen table being reclaimed, and Pam is on a mission.

Meanwhile, the only positive about snow is the opportunities for photography. May I present our deck at 6:45 this morning…