Thursday, January 2, 2014

Celebrating heat -- ice storm tales

Ready for action
Acrylic on canvas
8 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 2014
We were without heat for three and a half days
during the ice storm that hit Toronto the Saturday
before Christmas.  Steven had the flu, so we
stayed until we were too cold sleeping even with
our winter hats on, and moved into a hotel.
Christmas took a hit, because we'd planned our
biggest push for the festivity for that weekend and
the lights went out just as our son and his wife
were putting up the tree.

But on Christmas eve the magic of lights on
happened as we drove down our street to fetch the
cats and put them with friends with power, who
had kindly offered to take them.  So we had
Christmas morning and Christmas dinner in
our own house.

The power went off again the next day for five and
a half hours, and friends came to rescue us, taking
us home to their house for dinner.

My painting today is of one of our friends at a
very quiet (but warm) dinner at our house. 
Not much hoopla thanks to shortages of power at the
malls, and closed stores, but great joy in the return of light
and heat.  This is a very small painting for me --
8 x 8 inches.  But it captures something of my
friend's expression.

Happy New Year to all, and may the power be with you!
at

4 comments:

  1. Kim RempelJanuary 3, 2014 at 7:20 AM

    Nice! What a lot of damage that storm did! So good that you had friends to help you out : )

    ReplyDelete
  2. Barbara MuirJanuary 3, 2014 at 2:54 PM

    Hi Kim,

    We are soooo lucky -- blessed really. I feel happy to hear the sound of my furnace pumping out that heat!

    XOXO Barbara

    ReplyDelete
  3. NickiJanuary 3, 2014 at 6:50 PM

    Happy New Year Barbara.

    I thought of you many times as we watched the news stories about the power outage. Sorry it put a bit of a damper on the holidays. I'm so glad you had friends and close family nearby.

    Best wishes for 2014!

    XO Nicki

    ReplyDelete
  4. Barbara MuirJanuary 3, 2014 at 10:15 PM

    Hi Nicki,

    I drove around with this friend today. Her phone was always going off, and she had to keep pulling over and taking calls. Thus the title. Because in the ice storm she would take calls on closed malls, clearing snow and so much more. So the phone is there. But we talked about how except in a work situation we think phones should be turned off and away at dinner.

    Happy New Year. I think maybe the storm made Christmas all the more precious.

    XOXOXO Barbara

    ReplyDelete

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