still adjusting to the climate.

I just watched Frozen, finally, two years after everyone else saw it--whether they wanted to or not, it seemed, since so many of my friends have TV-watching kids about that age. J has not seen it, that I know of, and since he associates it with younger kids, he's been referring to it as "That Movie."

It's good! For Disney in particular it represents a serious (and welcome) departure, where the princesses completely drive events, and the story is really about the sisters, and a woman not being afraid of her own power to be in the world. There are men along for the ride, but the message about romance is mostly just "don't marry someone you just met," a laudable lesson that all children should hear as soon as possible. (In my 20s, I was told in no uncertain terms by someone who lived through the Great Depression that I should not get married before I was 30; I had a near miss with a bad engagement, and to be honest, I don't think hearing that lesson when I was 7 would really have helped, but let's just keep going and hope that our children don't need to take the Really Hard Way like we did.)

Being set in an invented Scandinavian country--whiter than Wonder Bread, so hopefully Disney can branch out in skin colors next time--I started reading about mulled wine, and it had always seemed weird that a drink originating in European winters should have oranges or lemons in it. Everyone knows there's no fruit in the winter. It's winter. That's what winter means: no fruit. I grew up getting a tangerine in the toe of my Christmas stocking, because when my parents were growing up, that was a really expensive and special thing.

(I did not like tangerines, which always left me feeling a little awkward. I don't like driving Saabs, either. I'm a little different from the rest of my family.)

Wikipedia just mentioned "Seville oranges" when talking about mulled wine, and of course it finally dawns on me, after 16 years in California and 2 years of owning an orange tree, that oranges particularly are ripe in winter. Ship them from Spain to England, and boom.

These connections come slow sometimes.