Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas Wishes



Who knew that a tent and sleeping bags could be so much fun in December? The kids set their tent up in the attic after they opened it Christmas morning, laid out their sleeping bags, books, snacks and lamps, and they were set.

Frank patrols the halls with his Nerf dart gun and sets up shooting targets all over the house. This morning the bathroom door was a target. I was trying to take a relaxing tub. Thunk thunk thunk. He whistles as he aims like a sharpshooter. "Or a serial killer," Bill says. Thanks for making me feel better about buying a toy gun for my son, Bill! :-)

Yesterday as I was carving the turkey and preparing to serve a full meal on the dining room table covered in a tablecloth with napkins and Christmas Fiestaware, I realized that I was still in my pajamas. I thought about changing, but then I noticed that the kids were also still in pajamas, Christmas socks and stocking hats (though Sophia favored a fabric book cover). This is us this year, I thought, and we sat down to a formal meal in pajamas and hats and with one Nerf gun sitting alongside a place setting.

It is sad that Grandparents have not been visited, nor have they been able to visit. I am guilty in my happiness and pleasure at being snowbound. This really has been a wonderful Christmas and I could not have wished for a better couple of days with the kiddos. I am almost sad at the thought of snowplows and cleared streets and my real life coming back sooner than I want - namely, end of year files to close and a report I need to write at work. I have been blissfully unaware of road conditions because once the decision was made to stay home, I didn't care.

It has reminded me a bit of the blizzards in the Sandhills with drifts as tall as my head right next to bare ground. If I didn't already feel Pioneer-Enough, the loss of water and electricity sure made the experience authentic. We would huddle around the wood stove and hope that Marion Lee would come careening out of the storm in his truck to take us to his ranch for Margaret Lee's potato soup.That's what I remember - huddling in a sleeping bag around the woodstove reading a book, the flash of Marion's truck lights as he pulled in, and that amazing soup of Margaret's - I had never had anything so good.

I made corn chowder tonight without potato. Bill and I joked about who would walk to the store for potatoes and stayed put in our warm kitchen. Then we used liquid hand soap in place of dish soap since we're out of that too.

We're at our limit for being snowed in, I think. I mean, we may look hearty with our winter tent camping, but although the attic is cold, it's not as cold as outside.

(Video taken December 25th during the Christmas Blizzard of 2009.)

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Deck the Halls With Christmas Javelinas




I am not a fan of Christmas. I have been consciously avoiding the holiday as much as possible for the last nine years.

Something happened this year as Christmas grew near. I agreed to a Christmas tree - the first in nine years - and we ended up with a gloriously huge frasier fir that takes up half the dining room and touches the ceiling. I decided to make cookies and today I made dozens of peanut butter blossoms, dozens of sugar cookies, almond bark snowman things, and two batches of gingerbread. The kids helped decorate and were delighted that I gave them free reign - zombie snowmen and erratically decorated gingerbread - I let them have at it. The pile of candy left over after decorating gingerbread is insane. The kids played hide and seek and helped me with cookies and are now watching "Elf." They are happy.

As I prepared for the Christmas of the Century, I read through old cookie recipes and looked for craft ideas (we're making the ornaments on the tree - fruit and popcorn and paper chains). I found a four page recipe and description for a gingerbread house that I cut out of a magazine in 1996. I decided that this year I am making it. I actually made two batches of dough today - the kids made one dimensional houses covered in icing and candy. I carefully made the templates for my 3-D house and baked the pieces. I put the walls together. Tomorrow the roof goes on. It's a three day process, I learned when I read the recipe. Maybe that is why I have never made it before?

It's a combination of domestic/Christmas bug that has gotten to me this year. Part of it is that Bill's kids are here for over a week, my kids are out of school all week, and I took the time off from work to be at home with them. I have the time to do stuff like string popcorn and make gingerbread houses. And make Gingerbread Javelinas to hang on my tree.

"What are these?!" Sophia says in that Lea-You're-Crazy Voice.

"Traditional Christmas Javelinas, made with my javelina cookie cutter," I say.

"What?!"

"Javelinas," I say as I string ribbon through the hole in the top of the cookie.

"My mom has a thing for javelinas," Mary says knowingly.

"What is a javelina?!" Sophie asks again.

"It's these cookies that I am hanging on the tree," I say.

"Aaaagh!" Sophia says, and laughs.

In reality I am clinging to the Christmas Javelina. He is keeping me from completely crossing the line to Christmas Insanity. The Javelina keeps me true to myself. At least that is what I tell myself.

Friday, December 11, 2009

A Re-run From August 31, 2005

"It's surreal," said the woman on the radio talking about the devestation of her home due to the hurricane.

In the back seat a little black kitten sat in a cat carrier next to the birthday girl who was smiling and giggling in a charming way. She's been begging for a pet for months.

We were listening to the news as we drove home from Beatrice where we went to an animal shelter that was overrun with cats and was running a "special." Instead of the usual $100, the adoption fee was $35. They just wanted the cats to go to a good home. I emailed the application yesterday and got interviewed last night. We got ok'd.

So despite the cost of gas, we made a road trip.

We visited the shelter and met about thirty kittens. Then we headed down the street to a "foster" home which is really the plumbing shop.

Only in a small town would a place like this exist.

We met another twenty kittens and the foster mom / plumber.

"I can't decide!" squealed my daughter as a tiger kitten lept onto her shoulder, a black kitten with white socks snuggled in her arms and three orange tabbies circles her legs.

"Ooh! She's so pretty!" she exclaimed as a tortise shell kitten curled up on a cushion.

We narrowed down our choices and she asked, "Where did he come from?" She was holding a black kitten who snuggled into her patiently and was quiet.

The parent in me felt impatient. Sheesh. It's a shelter. It's an abandoned cat. Some idiot didn't spay or neuter their cat.

"He and his sisters were abandoned on the road in a box," the foster cat mom explained. "It was one of those hundred degree days and when we got them they weren't in the best of shape. One of his sisters didn't make it. The other sister got adopted. She was sweet just like him," she explained.

This cat is a cuddler. And I knew that my daughter was looking for a pet to haul around - to carry and pet and talk to. She's just that kind of kid.

"His name is Jake? Can I change his name?"

"You can change it to whatever you like. I named him Jake after one of my favorite cats. I lost him - he died. His personality reminded me of my Jake," she explained.

"I think I will keep his name as Jake," said my daughter.

So we took Jake home. And on the highway North we listened to NPR and the interviews of those who survived the hurricane. We listened to the observation that it was surreal. I felt a bit guilty about our happiness. I felt funny about being smug rescuing a kitten that had almost died in the hot Nebraska summer because someone abandoned him in such a cruel way. Why does it matter? What is a stupid kitten compared to the human life that was taken today in cruel and senseless ways? You can mire in hopelessness. You really can. It would be oh so easy for me. I seem to be prone to it.

I felt happy and sad at the same time in that car as I listened to tragedy on the radio and giggles in the backseat.

It is all life. The tragedy - big and small scale - and the giggles.

It was surreal.

Monday, December 07, 2009

Sunday

I sat behind Perfect Girl with her Perfect Family at the band concert. I've actually known her since high school. She is thin and blond. She was a cheerleader. She grew up and is still thin and blond. She married a good looking blond man, and, guess what? They have three blond, great looking kids. Their clothes are always perfect looking and clean. They look like a J Crew catalog. Healthy and perfect, but not too formal.

They're all very nice. She's always been nice to me. And I always feel weird and awkward and self conscious. Tonight for example, when she greeted me, I felt very aware suddenly of my spider web hose and my feathered hair clip as I sat there reading the NYT Book Review in the middle of the grade school gym. How pretentious I am! I suddenly wished that I had changed into jeans and taken my hair clip out and sat there patiently while I waited for the concert. She smiles like she doesn't notice.

I thought of her after the band concert after I pulled over to investigate the thumping sound and discovered that I had a (frozen) flat tire. Shortly after that I discovered that I did not have my cell phone. (Oh yeah, I left it in my briefcase at work.) My 10 year old crouched next to me in the dark as the snow came down.

"What are we going to do?" he asked.

"We're going to change the tire," I said.

I opened the trunk and moved the box of dance costume pieces and the pair of shoes someone left and the pile of books and pulled out the spare tire. I was relieved to find both the jack and the tire iron.

My son watched me raptly and crouched down to help.

I had difficulty loosening the bolts in the cold and it was at that minute that I thought again of my high school classmate. I bet B has never gotten a flat tire on her shitty old car in a snow storm on a night when she forgot her cellphone. That shit just happens to me because I am a screw up.

"So a cowboy rides into town on Sunday and three days later he rides out, also on Sunday. How is that possible?" Frank asked.

I looked over at my son with the street light behind him - the snow flakes standing out in the light.

"His horse's name was Sunday," I said after a minute.

"Yes!" he said. And then, "Made ya smile! I knew that you like corny jokes."

I tried the bolts again, this time smiling, and to my great pleasure, I felt the bolt slip. I knew suddenly that we were going to be ok. That the bolts would come off, the spare would go on, and we would get home. Frank and I could do this.

I drove home in my perfect old car to my perfect old house in the perfect snow storm with my extremely perfect kid.

Why was the snowman's dog called 'Frost?'

Cause Frost bites!