A Cabin Christmas--Day 1

The Hubster, the Hound and I are at the family cabin on Lake Superior for Christmas.  My sister Energizer Bunny and her husband Sherpa Boy (and their two cats) will join us this afternoon.  Random thoughts from the trip thus far:

• It's best not to be smug because you have water at your cabin and your cousins, in another cabin, couldn't get theirs working. After assuring them that they could visit us anytime for showers, a flush toilet, and unlimited "fill-the-bucket" trips last night, we awoke to no water this morning.  Or rather, I awoke.  Hubster is still sleeping, but on a brief foray out of the bedroom to the bathroom earlier this morning, he said that there must be a leak in the system or a tap open somewhere, so all he'll need to do is pump up water again to refill the tank. In the meantime, I'm typing this with rather dirty hands.
• On a related note, there are advantages and disadvantages to outhouses in the winter (our summer-only cabin, 20 yards away, has no indoor plumbing so we're all borrowing its outhouse).  The upside?  The outhouse never smells better than it does in the winter, when everything is frozen. The downside?  Updraft.
• Still, cold breezes nothwithstanding, we have a pretty neat outhouse.  Here's the view from the window (don't ask why our outhouse has a window)

• Keira, who sometimes looks a bit goofy in her usual urban setting, looks very dignified in a wild, primitive sort of way when she's romping in the woods up here.  This is what we call her "Noble Staghound" pose 

• Don't argue with the Hubster when he says that the oven, pre-heating for the baking of the traditional Christmas Eve frozen pizza, smells like "burning mouse." Apparently he's smelled many a burning mouse (you know, on exhaust manifolds and snowmobile exhaust pipes and such).
• Remember that Keira, despite her almost complete lack of hunting abilities, is quite capable of tracking down and attempting to eat a dead, frozen eelpout (or, as my family calls them, "lawyer") on the lakeshore.  She will be most un-amused when I drag the disgusting trophy from her mouth and, to prevent her from "hunting it up" again, chuck it down the outhouse.  This will be the closest I come to Christmas Eve Lutefisk this year.
• Smother a laugh when I relay the story of tossing the lawyer in the outhouse to Energizer Bunny and she says "Eww, gross, you shouldn't have done that...now it's gonna stink!"  She does know what's in the outhouse, right?
• And now...the Hubster is up, the water is fixed, the cabin is warm, there's a beautiful view out the window, nostalgic "cabin music" on the iPod, and it's time to make cookies.

Merry Christmas!