I Am A Slacker

Actually, I am besmirching myself unfairly.  It's just that I didn't start on any of the things on my To Do List until 4 o'clock this afternoon.... and the things on the list were important things.  Things which needed to be done.  Today.  Things which could not be put off until tomorrow for a variety of important reasons.  Things like writing The Burrow so that you could sip your morning coffee and read it.  

Instead of working on the newsletter or reading El Cid or wrapping holiday presents for the caregivers in the pod-castle (which, in all honesty, can wait to be done tomorrow) or making sure that there were milk and eggs and Diet Coke for Big Cuter's arrival tonight, today I hiked.

The Happy Ladies' Club has spawned a plenitude of groups which cover ground on foot.  Some walk on on city sidewalks, some take flat, short trips on easy terrain, and some of us hike.  Today there were four of us and our intrepid guide, Mme. Hiker's long-suffering husband, Monsieur H.  We met at 8am in the parking lot to carpool to the

and the Coronado National Forest.

What, you say?  A forest?  I thought this was the desert.  And yet there are many forests here in Arizona, and one of them happens to be about 30 minutes from my home.  In the 1930's the CCC built a road 3.8 miles up into the canyon, a road on which the tram wends its way

from the visitor's center to Stop Number 9.  From there, we 5 departed and began our climb up switchbacks and across boulders and between giant slabs of stone and along the edge of a drop-off none of us wished to explore any more closely than from the path.  Miss Marjorie tried to careen down it head first, but luck and her poles and her palms precluded that particular adventure.  I wish I had a photo of her knee; the pants didn't rip but I have to believe that her bruise is all the colors of the rainbow right now.  

The tram ride was breezy and cold, but we folded our fleece the moment we alighted.  We have the weather the rest of you desire - 80's and sunny with a slight breeze to keep you cool enough.  It was 2.5 miles to the place we stopped the first time we did this hike, and another mile to the raging-river-which-is-now-a-gently-flowing-brook which thwarted Miss Marjorie and me last spring, and then another half mile or so to our destination, Hutch's Pool

The deep blue in the foreground is the reflection of the sky.  The water itself is that which is reflecting the branches and the rock faces back up at us.  There are waterfalls at the very end of the cove, but my Nikon was, again, thwarted.  Monsieur H had his super deluxe Sony with him and, perhaps, he'll share some that I can post anon.  For now, imagine 5 hungry and footsore travelers, one with a finger swelling more and more by the second, sitting in the shade of the sycamore tree and its gigantic falling leaves.  The water was cool and shallow and feet and fingers were soaked and frozen and refreshed and then it was time to walk back.

There really are seasons here.  I took some photos to prove it to you.  Scroll down for a snippet of autumn in the desert.

And then, there was the moon

Can't you see why I couldn't look at that list?  This was just so much more fun.

SSSHhhhhhhhhh

I can think of dozens of ways to divide the world's population, but one of the most profound divisors is this:

When you walk into a room do you turn on the television?

I'm home alone tonight and there's not a sound in the house except for the muted thumps of Nellie's keyboard.   There are the usual house noises, the ones you ignore until the power goes out and you realize that the refrigerator's humming is a constant you've come to accept as background noise.  There is nothing else.

It is absolutely heavenly.

TBG's family always had the tv going.  They played cards in front of the tv, they read the paper in front of the tv, they had family arguments in front of the tv.  Nannie spent her last years at home firmly ensconced in her recliner.  That recliner was possibly the most comfortable piece of furniture I have ever had the privilege to be enveloped by.  Placed strategically so that she could see the kitchen and living room and dining room as well at the tv, she read and napped and talked on the phone to the continuous chatter of Cleveland television.

It made me nuts.

G'ma and Daddooooo moved the television to the basement as soon as portables were commonplace.  Before that, the Motorola console occupied pride of place in the living room.  It was big and brown and had a strange grey hooded thing protruding from the back.  I watched Captain Kangaroo and Howdy Doody on that set.  G'ma bought me my first interactive video game for that tv; a plastic sheet which adhered to the screen and on which I could follow along with Miss Nancy and my pals on Romper Room by using the special marker and drawing on the tv itself.  That sheet had a special smell which I can kinda sorta almost but not quite conjure up, but which I know I would recognize in a heartbeat.  

After we painted the basement, using up all the extra paint left in the garage, the console was out and my grandparents' portable made its way down the stairs and onto the wheeled stand we'd purchased just that afternoon.  My grandparents had received a color tv from their rich son; we were delighted to take their cast-off electronics.  The channel changing knob made a satisfying click with each turn.... all 13 of them for the 13 channels we had.  And no, Cuters, there were no remotes.  Whoever was unlucky enough to be sitting closest to the tv was the one who got up to change the channels.

Still, the tv was in the basement and the family action was upstairs.  If we were downstairs watching tv we had a good reason to be there.  G'ma would fold laundry while watching, and there were certain shows we never missed.  Daddooooo thought that Emma Peel was drop dead gorgeous and he never missed an episode of All In The Family.  He wanted Archie for a friend.  Bonanza and Ed Sullivan were staples, but we never just turned on the television to see what was on.  There was always something more interesting to do.

My older cousin next door loved the 4 o'clock movies, but even her grown up presence wasn't enough to make me want to sit still for two hours when the sun was out.  In high school I had friends who were addicted to soap operas, who raced home after school to catch their stories.  G'ma and I did develop an obsessive relationship with Peyton Place, it's true, but for the most part I was on the phone instead of in front of the screen.

I'm trying hard to be non-judgmental.  There are some people who need constant chatter and connection to the outside world, who need noisy external stimuli to keep them focused and happy.  I'm just not one of them.

And now, if you will excuse me, I am going to open a book and enjoy the serenity.

At least until TBG gets home and turns on the tube.

Some Gifts for You

This is the season of sharing.  It is also the season of overwhelmed givers of gifts.  I plead guilt to being one of them right now.  It's after dinner and I've been running all day and I have not had a thought in my head.  Not just a thought worth sharing.  Literally, there have been no thoughts.

So, I have decided to introduce you to some of my favorites here in the blogosphere.  I've mentioned some of them before, but today I am giving you links to some of my favorite posts on some of my favorite sites. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.
*****
John Simpson's blog is writerly.  Although there is the occasional lagniappe, most of his posts are nice, long, settle-back-in-the-couch-and-get-comfortable reads.  He has a few recurring themes, but the musical posts are my favorites.  Everyone knows the melody

to Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, but JES knows the story.  Click on over and you will, too.

*****
Joann Mannix is a famous blogger, and yet she finds the time to stop by The Burrow to visit.  Her posts are long and funny and honest and transcend generational boundaries.  Read sentences like these, written to her 16 year old daughter on the occasion of her first date

I know you won't believe any of what I'm telling you because you think I entered the world as a mom driving an SUV littered with smashed up goldfish crackers and half empty bottles of Gatorade.

But the thing is, I too, once cared more about my hair than the state of the world.

 and you'll see why both Little Cuter and I love her.  Plus, she has the best blog name ever: Laundry Hurts My Feelings .
*****
100 Proof Stories are small, intoxicating stories of 100 words or less.  My favorite category is Kind of True, where you find gems like Words as Volatile as Dynamite.  But don't overlook Overheard  and Not So True either.  When I need a break from my own verbosity The Inadvertent Gardener is my go-to-girl. 
*****
And then, of course there are my stalwarts, my touchstones, my first two clicks of the morning.

Time Goes By's Ronni Bennett is who I want to be when I grow up.  She's personal and political and crotchety and I love her.  Every day is different, if you're not turned on today, go back tomorrow and see what's there then. 

Nance Meeker's Mature Landscaping is a slice of life with a hippie and a fighter pilot living in Myrtle Beach and, for a while, in San Diego.  There are families and photographs and philosophy and research ... lots and lots of research... Nance's finger in the dike as the world goes to hell in a handbasket.  And we're not really enjoying the ride, are we?  It seems that we were separated at birth; our lives have twisted and turned in remarkably similar paths.  She's my BFF - Blog Friend Forever.  If you like The Burrow, you'll love the landscape over at Nance's place.
*****
Have a wonderful weekend, denizens.  Thiu-who-owns-my-fingers painted a Christmas Tree With Lights on each of my ring fingers this afternoon.  I tried to take a picture for you, but it's so sparkly that my Nikon was defeated.  You'll just have to use your imaginations. This is so not me...but then, again, it's so me.

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A Ladies' Lunch

Not-Kathy's mom and I went to lunch today. She's back in town after fleeing Maine's wintry weather and I haven't seen her so I emailed an invitation to visit the new Janos restaurant downtown.  Her response arrived in my inbox almost before I hit send.  She was delighted with the invitation and with the experience and to see me and to get out of the house and I was overwhelmed by her joy.  I like to be reminded that the simplest things are often the most important.  I love that this time of year provides so many opportunities for them to happen.

I thought I'd be arriving at her house after my class on the Nibelungenlied was over at noon.  Unfortunately for the expansion of my literary horizons, I stopped to say good morning to G'ma on my way to the U and I fell asleep on her couch.  For 3 hours.  In my clothes.... including cowboy boots.  No blanket, just her flattened out couch pillows to support my head, but I was out.  The worker bees come through every 40 minutes or so in the morning, to be sure that G'ma takes her pills on time and that her breakfast tray doesn't arrive before she gets out of bed, and to remind her to shower and eat and prepare for the day.  Apparently, they walked past me for 3 hours and I didn't know it.  Was I snoring? I asked when G'ma made rise-and-shine-noises and I rolled over and saw where I was and what I was doing.  The aide just laughed.  But, as I tell the Cuters, my body was talking to me and it's probably a good thing that I listened.  I had energy and enthusiasm for the day which had been missing before my nap.

Having slept through the class, I hustled The Schnozz down the highway to Bert and Ernie's Sam Hughes Neighborhood home.  Bordering the University, 2 blocks from the stadium and 3/4 of a mile from the major auditorium, it's a city dweller's dream.  Some houses are rented to students and left to go to seed, but her block is filled with homeowner occupied dwellings, meticulously maintained and cared for.  There are block parties and political events and everyone knows everyone else's name.  It's a good place for two 70-somethings to spend their winters.  They bring Not-Kathy and Dr. K's dog, Buddy, in the car with them because the little bichon just hates those Chicago winters.  Buddy's bark is louder than he is large, and it is incessant.  "C'mon humans!  I'm down here! Notice me!"  I do, he shushes and I admire the most creative Christmas tree I've ever seen - a wooden trellis with striped ribbon running to a point at the top, with hand-crafted bells and hearts attached to the cross bars.  There are mini-lights and a fern or two but mostly it's an homage to the notion of a real live tree without much of the hassle.  I may consider switching,..... it sure looks like a lot less work.

Bert had 3 near-death experiences this summer, following the prior winter's near death experience in South America.  Septic Shock is not something you want to hear as your diagnosis - it can start anywhere and recur anytime and the treatment has to be specific to your sepsis and involves iv-antibiotics as well as pills.  They became quite familiar with the EMT's in their little Maine town in their cabin on the lake at the end of a narrow dirt road which dead ends at their property.  15 minutes is making good time from call to arrival; for Ernie, it was a lifetime.  But Bert's healthy now and back to running 6 miles and there's a glow in his cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes which had been overshadowed when last we saw him by the remaining terror of nearly dying in a foreign land.  He's regained confidence as well as strength, and he's now able to explain finances and bill paying and where things are to Ernie in the event that he should not wake up one morning.  Watching her tell me this story, I was struck by how close to disaster they had been, and how unshaken they appeared in the living room.  Once again, I am impressed by the inner strength of my elders.

We left Bert and Buddy to bond as we headed downtown for lunch.  I've been to Downtown Kitchen and Cocktails twice before and each time I sat at the same table.  Today I dropped Ernie off at the door because parking was in short supply.  When I returned after depositing The Schnozz I found her occupying my usual spot.  Janos was there, and I commented that I seem to have become enough of a regular to have a special table all my own.  His smile said it all - I was in with the in-crowd!  Long time readers will know how happy that kind of thing makes me.  For the rest of you - it felt great!

Yam and pineapple soup with little bitty peanuts floating around was followed by Laotian Chicken Salad with papaya and thinly sliced cucumbers and beans and other delicacies sliced razor thin and stacked in a presentation worthy of the cover of a magazine.  The ice tea - plain, brewed, caffeinated and not trying to compete with the flavors of the food by adding mango or peach or honeysuckle - kept coming and the food just kept getting better and better.  Our conversation covered Bert's sepsis and Dr. K and Not-Kathy's lives and their kids and his mother and work and college and Tucson and Rio Nuevo (our downtown renewal program which has funded the retirements of several consultants but hasn't really brought much to the area) and Gabby Giffords and Barack Obama and the state of social security and raising the retirement age and Americans' reluctance to save on their own and then we passed on dessert, split the check and drove over to Antigone Books.

I've written before (tho I can't find them easily enough to include them here) about how difficult it is to negotiate through the downtown area.  There are underpasses and overpasses and train tracks and vacant plots of land.  There are alleys and one way streets suddenly morphing into two way streets and then there is the construction of the new Tucson Electric Power office building right across from where we were parked.  My limited knowledge of how to get from here to there was useless.  All my roads were blocked.  But Ernie was a trouper, and we got to the bookstore and the parking lot and she laughed as I entered the exit and took the last spot.  Bert would never let her do that... and TBG would be screaming his head off if I tried it with him in the car, but the two of us just laughed, parked and shopped.  I do love women so.

Antigone has a feminist slant to itself, but it's also true to its namesake.  Antigone, Creon's niece, wanted to bury her brother according to religious rites.  Creon forbade it.  Antigone did it.  There's a sense of power and steadfastness and certainty to the play which somehow comes to life in the store.  There are Steig Larsson titles and Andrew McCall Smith and then there are feminist tracts and guides to widowhood (Ernie was in that section -- wanting to be prepared) and divorce and children and there were tchotchkes.  Lots and lots of tchotchkes.  My $99 bill included books for friends and myself, ornaments for the women I love, and free gift wrapping for La's Orchestra Saves the World, which I handed to Ernie to put under her very fabulous tree.

Ernie spent no money.  It's no wonder Not-Kathy is the most frugal person I know.  The acorn didn't fall far from the oak in that family.


We arrived at Ernie's front door and neither of us wanted her to get out of the car.  We were having such a good time.  We're a generation apart, I'm her children's friend, we are dealing with totally different life issues, and yet we are pals.  On our own terms, in our own way, we like each other unconnected to any of the ties which might bind us.

The sun was shining, the windows were down, and we were hugging and smiling and making plans to do it again and again and again.  We have become Ladies Who Lunch.

Across The Desk

I sat in the client's seat today.  I'm usually the one who solves problems.  I'm the one who sits in the seat of authority and dispenses wisdom.  People come to me.  I don't go to people.

But today I had some questions and Amster was the go-to-girl for answers.  I've seen her in gym shorts more often than I've seen her in lawyerly garb.  But today she was coiffed and dressed to the nines when I dropped by for conversation and a question or two.  Her office is a mom's office, with kid pictures and photos tastefully and obviously displayed.  She has fancy furnishings and a couple of big windows and the receptionist happily dispenses quarters for the meters outside.  The secretaries and paralegals greet me as I walk past their desks and Amster and I share a great big hug every time we greet one another so I've got a smile on my face and love in my heart before I sit in the visitor's chair. 

I've occupied that seat before, of course, because I've been in the office before.  But today I had a few questions to ask and suddenly I noticed a yellow legal pad and her trademark purple marker resting between her clasped hands as she leaned forward just enough but not too much and smiled.  I wasn't waiting for her to finish up so that we could go for sushi, nor dropping off Mr. 7 after his summer reading class, nor trying to entice her from her desk for lunch next door at Downtown Kitchen and Cocktails.  Nope, I was a client.

It felt great.  Safe, private, cordial and smart.  Very very smart.  She's a good listener, but I've known that for years.  She's also a good questioner, and that I did not know.  We've conversed, of course, and asked questions and answered them but this was different.  She was eliciting information while making me feel as if I could sit back in the chair and go with the flow.  I was in charge, but she was leading the parade.

There was nothing extraneous to the procession.  She was focused and so was I.  I'm older and usually think I'm wiser but every once in a while she reminds me of why I love her - she's an old soul and when she taps into that wisdom it's really something to behold.

We think we know our friends, having seen them at play and, sometimes, at work, too.  But watching her in court at some else's trial is not the same as sitting in the client's chair.  She was so facile, so confident, so non-threatening.....  if I hadn't been in the moment I'd have realized that I was proud of how accomplished she's become. 

I know she won't mind my sharing this story.  It's my favorite.  Amster makes lists.  There are lists of affirmations on her refrigerator and to-do-lists on her Blackberry and grocery lists and kid lists and packing lists and work lists and every once in a while she emails me that we have to do our rock climbing Groupon adventure because she's going through her lists and this is still on there.  It makes me smile.  But back to the story: I was in her office early in her tenure at the law firm, waiting to grab her for lunch.  She had just had her annual review, and, of course, she had made a list of the areas in which improvement could be made.  Number One on the list:  No more crying in the office.

One has to laugh.  And we did.  And we do.  But now there is no trace of that qualified but naive woman.  Sitting across from me is an accomplished professional, at one with her craft and loving every minute of it.  I marvel at her and she laughs and tells me I'm asking baby questions.  And I smile because she knows so much and has grown so much and no one loves her job more than she does.

I'm so glad she's in my life.... and happy to share her with all of you.

Girlfriends

There's nothing like it.  You're down. You're out.  You can't say it aloud for fear of losing hold of your tenuous grasp on the here and now.  You wander around the house, inside, outside, pacing, not sitting, not typing, not reading, not at the gym or reading a book because you are sad.

Deep down, reaching into the depths sad.  Sad that can't be fixed but might be amenable to palliative care.  Sad that is out of your control because you are only responsible for yourself and you can't bend and twist another to your desires.  The kind of sad that you know has the potential to ruin a perfectly wonderful holiday season. 

Gardening doesn't help... at least not here in the desert.  I need the warm dark brown earth grunging up under my fingernails and the warm sun caressing my back as I bend and weed and dig and stomp and scream and rant and rave.  But the desert doesn't offer that kind of release.  It's a more physical, dangerous, tool-driven experience, and I am feeling too vulnerable to pick up the pry bar and work.  Accidents happen at times like these.

G'ma is a big help.  I can sit on her couch and cry and wail and worry and share and she hugs me and pats me and tells me I am wonderful and that the world is wrong and I am right and I know that when she wakes up from her nap she won't remember a thing.  The conversation was emotionally powerful, though, so she remembered the topic if not the details for the whole time I was there.  I'm glad my hurt heart has some benefits - even if it's only making my mom seem somewhat less demented for an hour.  Perhaps there is a God?

But G'ma is G'ma and she's on the No Unhappy Days program.  I can't burden her with my sorrows.  It just makes me feel worse.

So, I pick up the phone and I dial.  Which one do I want?  The one who will tell me to suck it up and get on with my life?  The one who will listen and sympathize and make me feel good about myself?  The one who will force me to look at myself in the mirror and make a decision?

It's a wealth of riches, a garden of delights, a passel of perfection.  I am surrounded by wise and warm and caring women, who know me and what I can and cannot do.  They succor me with their laughter and their tears and the knowledge that they have no interests except my well-being and return to smiles.  Old friends who have seen me through aches and pains in the past.. and will now and in the future.  Women who get me.... not always an easy task.

I can't be anything but truthful when I'm talking to them.  They call me on prevarications and equivocations and anything that smacks of running away.  They force me to be strong and they will be there to catch me when I fall.  They allow me to be weak and fearful and sad, so very very sad, and they understand that I need to wallow before I can break free and grow.  

I am empowered by their energies, their insights, their comfort and their care.  The world may be tumbling down around me, but I have some cushioning in place.  

Men are at a disadvantage when it comes to times like these, I think.  The smile-at-him-in-the-gym-everyday-but-haven't-a-clue-what-his-name-is relationship that most men I know seem to cultivate just doesn't measure up in times of need.  JES has been writing about men and women over at Running After My Hat, prompted by a post of mine on love and reciprocity.  He's trying to tease out the words that can describe the differences between men and women - can women really read the minds of men?  are women really more attuned to subtleties and undercurrents and interpretations than men are?  do women have different sensibilities?  For a girl who came of age with feminism, I balk at the notion that we are, somehow, biologically different.  On the other hand, I tried and failed to raise gender neutral children - Little Cuter put dresses on the cars and trucks I tried to hand down to her as playthings.  Big Cuter couldn't be bothered with the anatomically correct doll I had Nannie buy him one toddler Christmas.  She wore pink, he raced headlong down slopes on his skates. She made real personal connections with her friends which often ended in tears as the bonds stretched and tightened while he has had the same friends since we moved to California and they just seem to go with the flow.  She knows the ins and outs of her girlfriends' relationships and he hasn't a clue whether this one is still with his girlfriend or not.  It never came up in conversation.

I stop and reflect whenever that statement comes up.  I don't believe that there is a woman on the planet who could keep her relationship status a secret from a friend.  And yet the boys are just fine, bumping into each other over football and school work and politics and, perhaps, sharing a laugh at an old friend's ex's expense.  They don't seem surprised that they are clueless, they don't notice that they are clueless, they have no idea that they ought to have a clue.  

But clues are the basis of the whole megillah, guys!  Little hints, outright pleas, casually dropping facts into the smorgasbord of conversation... these are the things that connect us one to the other.  They are not extra, they are not disposable, they are not dispensable.  They are the reality that bolsters the here and now.  Without them your life is less rich, less potent, less than it could be.

There are men who can share.  I had a friend in high school who could dish the emotional dirt with the best of them.  He's happily married and getting happier every day, according to the email I received around the time of our HS 40th Reunion.  I don't know a lot of people who are on their first marriage who can still say that.  I wonder if there's something there.

More on this as it grows in my brain.  For now, I'm going to the gym.  Changing my chemistry usually works pretty well when I'm down in the dumps.

COMMENTS

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They May Try... But They Will NOT Spoil My Good Mood

The world was trying to rain on my parade today.  It failed.

There were no #4 Priority Mail boxes in the post office this morning when I stopped by to drop off the results of last night's elfing.  A small disappointment, but mitigated by the fact that they've installed another drop box for packages in the lobby.  I shlepped my big plastic bag over to the big silver handle and had a grand time dropping things down into the depths.  I love depositing the mail before the postal workers start their day.  I don't know why it makes me happy to think that they will be greeted by my boxes of love when they arrive at work, but it does.

Little Cuter was beset by fools at work today.  Her holiday cheer has been sucked out ..... worse than if I were a Twilight character.  Normally, I'd be worried that her perfect life had a little dent and I'd be obsessing over the best way to cheer her up.  But not today (to quote Kurt Russel/Herb Brooks in Miracle).  Today I demanded that she banish such thoughts from her realm.  I directed her to the people who love her and make her smile and soon she was thinking about her evening filled with joy and light and snow and love and a much needed cocktail!!  My rallying cry? Holiday Cheer Rules!

The USPS print-your-postage-at-hme-and-save-20% website does not recognize the address of The captain and Tenille, even though I've been sending them mail there for decades.  I slept in that house on my honeymoon.  I know it exists.  There's a chat feature and a phone number each of which was supposed to solve the problem for me and neither of which came close to doing so but i didn't really care, because I could go and visit my friendly neighborhood postal outlet, the one in the RV in the parking lot of the mall around the corner.  

The lady usually smiles at me, but, in keeping with the tenor of the day, she was quite abrupt as she rejected my taping over the Flat Rate words on the flat rate box and using it to send my brownies Priority Mail.  She insisted that that box had been created for Flat Rate postage and flat rate postage was what it was going to carry, despite my best efforts with fancy masking tape.  Nor did she have any #4 Priority Mail boxes which I could use to accomplish my task.   This is the kind of scenario which would typically send me over the edge and tumbling down the precipice of snotty-verging-on-hostile.  But not today.  Today I shrugged and said "Goodbye, then," and, okay, so I may have had just a touch of attitude in my voice but I was trying, denizens, I really was.  I got back in The Schnozz and rolled down the windows and relished the fact that it was warm enough to do just that.  There's rain and snow over many of the people I love; Arizona set me right back to smiling.

I drove to the newest sandwich/bakery in the area for their first day of business only to find, after waiting in line, that they were just doing bread and scones.  At 2pm, I was ready for protein so, once again, I left a destination unfulfilled.  The bank shares a parking lot with a new Beyond Bread, though, so I was able to take care of two problems with one trip.  Not exactly what I wanted for lunch, but I told myself that serendipity is a good thing.  I have to find my holiday music cd's; my cheery spirit sometimes needs just a little bit of help.


The other postal outlet I frequent told me the same thing about the taped over boxes.  With the same amount of attitude.  Is there something about the masking tape that feels like defilement?  Have I offended the honor of postal employees everywhere by repurposing their material for my own use?  I have no idea.  But I will learn from my experience and I promise that I will never ever do that again.  Right now I am going to cover them over with brown paper wrapping - not that easy to do since I take reusable bags to the grocery store - and head out to a third postal location.  Perhaps they will have those #4 boxes just waiting for me to take them home and fill them with love.


Holiday Cheer Rules!

A Musical Accompaniment to the Season

(Thanks, Roomie, for the link)

Sweet Sounds Heard This Season

The doorbell rings and the FedEx guy is disappointed because I'm not home to accept the gifts.  If a doorbell rings and no one is there to answer it has it really rung at all?  I wonder about these things at this time of year.  I have no time to worry about politics or the economy or the sorry state of health care or any of the things that occupy  my brain when it's 117 in the shade.  No, December is a marathon and I must stay focused.

As FAMB remarked in her delightful card, yes Hanukkah is the earliest day ever this year.  I like it when my December celebrations don't bleed into one another, but this has certainly robbed me of any wiggle room when it comes to baking and mailing my brownies. The ingredients stay out in one corner of my limited counter space and suddenly the 10 pound bag of sugar at Albertsons doesn't look that big at all.  Having been the recipient of and falling in love with a big version of Perfect Brownie Pan Set last year (thank you, Big Cuter),  I bought the one in the picture for myself last summer in anticipation of this month's activities.   I'm really enjoying washing fewer pans between batches.  There's no waste, there's no cutting, there's no shortage of crumbs on the floor and the brownies, they tell me, are delicious.  And there's another sweet sound of the season - the timer ringing loudly and insistently and annoyingly so that I cannot possibly ignore it.  Given my inability to remember anything, this is a good noise.

I have a good tape dispenser which has made the same satisfying noise for as long as I can remember.  There's a clunk when it hits the outside of the box, then there's the scrinchy-screechy-adhering and unrolling-noise as it closes the bottoms of the boxes. It ends with a twist... and that's both the motion my wrist makes and the sound the tape and dispenser make as they part company forever. One box down, 4 bazillion to go.

I like the sound of the boxes falling to the bottom of the collection box in the lobby of the post office and I like the sound the swinging door makes when it slams shut.  I like to imagine the sounds of the recipients as they open their mailboxes and spy their annual chocolate fix.  Not-Kathy is in my head as she tells herself that the holidays can start because her box of brownies has arrived.  Eliott's kid being glad that there are no nuts in his stash, and Big Cuter's mmmmmmmmmmmm bump into FAMB saying my entire name out loud and I could go on but you get the picture.  TBG is surprised to find that I don't have the radio going while I'm baking, but the conversations in my head are just too loud and too much fun to brook any aural competition. 

And then there are the unexpected sweet sounds, like this evening at the pod-castle, sitting at the table with G'ma and 3 lovely ladies who listened and smiled and laughed as I retold the story of my day of baking and boxing and mailing and feeling the love.  G'ma remembered most of the players in my tale, and the other ladies were appropriately appalled and delighted as I filled them in on the gory details of our family saga.  No secrets were revealed, but confidences were shared, and there was laughter, genuine from the heart laughter, because holiday stories are universal, whether it is Hanukkah or Christmas or Aunt Lillian's birthday.  And those guffaws.... they were the nicest sounds of all.

I do so love this time of year.

My Favorite Hard-To-Spell Holiday

It's probably a good thing that there aren't more Hanukkah items in the stores.  I know I'd own them all.  IntrepidCat referred me to Modern Tribe and the Cuters were the beneficiaries of their catalog last night, on the first of the eight nights of lighting candles and reciting prayers and eating latkes (and donuts, as Roomie reminded me) and opening gifts.  Denizens, let me be the first person outside your family to wish you a Happy Hanukkah!

Please do not conflate the importance of Christmas to Christians with the importance of Hanukkah to Jews.  Hanukkah is not a biblical holiday.  That is to say, the story and rituals do not appear in the Pentateuch (the 5 Books of Moses) nor in what is called The Hebrew Bible by Wikipedia - a long list of texts which are common to both the Christian and "Old" Testament.  None of these texts deal with the zealots in the hills who thought that they could defeat the invading and defiling Greeks (the ones living in Syria at the time) and their elephants. High Priest Mattathias and his 5 sons took to the hills and drove Antiochus out of Jerusalem.  Returning to The Temple - the one built by Solomon, the one with The Wailing Wall - they found evidence of swine and idols.... neither of which they were cool with.  The purification and re-dedication process would take 8 days (don't ask why.... it's religion... they get to make it up as they go along) but there was only enough holy oil to last for the first day of the ceremonies.  My, oh, my... what to do... what to do?

Luckily, Miracle Max or someone of his ilk came to the rescue.  That itty-bitty-teeny-weeny-very-special-oil-ini (I got a little carried away and I'm sorry) lasted for the entire 8 days.  By that time, I suppose, more purified oil had been procured and the Eternal Flame over the Ark which holds the Torah was once more eternally illuminated.

It's an historical story, not one particularly fraught with religious significance, I think.  At the Burning Bush, Moses had the voice of Yahweh, after all.  This miracle seems more like the Almighty pitching in and doing his fair share of the Temple cleansing.  Kind of a reward for winning the battle and then cleaning up after the polluters.  But it's not that big a deal, religion wise.  There isn't a special service in the synagogue nor a proscription on working or driving or going to school. Families gather for potatoes fried in oil, the aforementioned latkes which are a lovely mixture of potatoes and onions heated to perfection in the commemorative oil on the unknown-to-the-Hasmonean's Teflon pan.  Eaten hot off the paper towels lined up next to the skillet, dipped in apple sauce or sour cream, they are, truly, a miracle, and I suppose that in itself might count as a ritual.  But only if you close your eyes and squint real hard. 

So what's all the fuss about?  It happens that the holiday begins on the 25th day in the Hebrew month of Kislev, which comes around sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas on the Julian calendar.  Some marketing maniac decided that Jewish kids needed a fancy holiday in the winter time just like their Christian buddies had and suddenly there were eight days of presents and fancy menorahs and the simple Jewish-home-fries-and-dreidle nights were commercialized and transformed into a pallid copy of an incomparable event. 

And that's really a shame. The holiday would do quite well standing on its own, thank you very much.   In the depths of winter, Hanukkah brings eight nights celebrating light.  As the holiday goes on, the Hanukkia, a special menorah to which an additional candle is added each night, burns brighter and bigger and better and my smile grows with it, fitting comfortably on my face, the corners of my mouth secured on my ears.  I don't like the fact that it is dark by 5:15 at this time of year.  Lighting the menorah is a nice way to fight back the blackness.  It brings me memories of my grandparents' house, spinning the dreidle for walnuts or pennies, sitting on the wooden plank floors with the scratchy rug poking through my tights as I sat there, listening to Daddooooo's father, Ben, tell me the story of the Jews in the mountain caves who fought the Syrian elephants and won.

It was pretty powerful stuff when I was little, and I like it still, now that I'm big.  There's something marvelous about a family that takes on an empire.  There weren't any girls in the story, but it didn't matter to me. I was Judah Maccabee, the eldest child and the one stabbing the spear into the belly of the pachyderm, with my wild-eyed, white bearded father, Mattithias, raising his staff in triumph as he watched from the rocky entrance to the cave.  I never doubted that I would be up to the task, and neither did my grandfather.  He knew I could do anything I wanted to do, and he made sure that I knew it, too.
I wonder..... might that have something to do with the fact that I like this holiday?

Whatever it is, the decorations are out and the candles have been lit and now I'm just waiting for the right night to fry up some latkes.  Brownies are in the mail and love is in the air.  Happy Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Hanukkah, G'ma Style

All of a sudden, I'm nearly done with my holiday shopping.  Not only that, I am nearly done with G'ma's holiday shopping as well.  One of the perks of having her close is that I get to shop with her for cards and gifts and then we get to sign them and stamp them and put the address labels on them and then we get to decorate the envelopes with stickers.  My goal is to have an empty stationary drawer in her desk before she sheds this mortal coil.

"Do you think I should?" she asked when I directed her towards the sticker pile and suggested that she adorn the envelopes with shiny expressions of love and affection.  I brushed away the wisp of Can't she even make this decision for herself? which was quickly followed by Oh, dear God, don't let her become an anxious old lady and refocused the question back to her ability to decide for herself.   

"If you want to.  If you feel like it.  I know the kids like to look at them when they're riding up in the elevator from their mailboxes to their apartments." And that was, obviously, the deciding factor because if the kids like it then she was going to do it. Even if her arthritic twisted fingers struggled with separating the picture from the backing.  Even if she found pressing them down on the vellum to be worthy of a grunt or two.  Even if she wondered mid-stick why she was doing what she was doing.  

She interspersed the activity with complaints about the pens she was using.  Barnes and Noble Gift Cards come with slippery To/From paper backing and neither Bic nor Roller Ball nor Sharpie was quite right.  Over the years, she's been measuring her decline by her ability to recreate the fluid signature that was all her own, a dramatic first initial, almost calligraphy in its elegance and style, followed by the swooping looping n's that looked like u's and finished with the flourish underneath.  Between the unsuitable pens and the game table which refused to stop rocking as she wrote, her grumbling just kept getting louder.  It kept her from moving her dentures around in her mouth, though, so it was almost a good thing.

I'm going to have to remember to tell the recipients that it was the pen and the table and not her physical prowess which made the signatures look like they were written on the back of a Harley going 80 down I-95.

We used to write checks to the grandchildren when celebrations came around.  After months of nagging and pleading and threatening to withhold further gifts until the previous ones were deposited or cashed, it occurred to me that we were sending 20th century presents to 21st century kids.  They have never lived in a world without an ATM on every corner, a world where a credit card was something you were honored to receive, where cash was useful for something other than vending machines, where no one had heard of direct deposit.  G'ma was demanding that they make a trip to the bank to deal with her gift; this was asking a lot for people who take care of their financial transactions electronically.  When Princess Myrtle was in Cairo, a birthday check drawn on an American bank would have been little more than a hostile gesture.  G'ma and I discussed a variety of plastic options and she settled on B&N.  She didn't like the notion of forcing them into an on-line experience, so Amazon was out of contention.   "What if they want to look at the books?" was enough to convince me that we'd made the right choice.  If only she could write on the packaging.

She's enjoying the Thanksgiving decorations I've put around her apartment.  They are new to her every time she sees them and I revel in her Isn't he adorable?  and Look at her sitting there! and silently compliment myself on the progress I've made.  I'm no longer sad that she can't remember that these decorations have been up since November 1st.  I'm smiling at the joy they bring her.  And we're both laughing at her when she wonders how many times she has admired them.  What else can we do?

She can keep the grandkids straight, assigning each to the proper parental units.  She recognizes me and asks about TBG every time I walk through the door.  She's dressing herself and feeding herself and working on her word puzzles and reading and rereading Brother's real estate newsletter and she can laugh at the 62 pound pumpkin he grew and wonder about the fertilizer and the provenance of the seeds.  And I tell her.  Over and over again.  And again.  And then ten minutes later.  

And I smile, because she's here to ask me things, over and over, every ten minutes.  She's mine and I'm keeping her and that's all there is to it.