We are having…

 

…too much fun…

 

 

…to write about it.

 

 

Back when we are warmed up.

 

Definitely at the top of my gift list.

If this is a preview of things to come on my trip to New York, I may be in trouble.

I had an unexpected holiday Tuesday when everything north of Little Rock was iced in.  But I need to clarify this, because it wasn’t the ice, per se, that clinched my inability to go to work, it was the fact that my travel luck, or lack thereof, manifested itself in a flat tire during the height of our first ice-storm of the season.  

On the day that I forgot my cell phone at home.

Oh, yeah.  All kinds of fun was had while I tried to change my tire Monday night in the parking lot of a Chuck E. Cheese while keeping myself turned away from the driving ice pellets that were threatening to freeze my glasses to my face (the decision not to wear my contacts that morning just added icing to that cake, pun intended ).  I finally gave up when one frozen lugnut resolutely refused to budge despite my putting my not-inconsiderable weight with both feet on the tire iron.  

Be aware that IF you ever get the urge to put both feet on an ice-covered tire iron in a driving ice storm and jump up and down, that this is a VERY BAD idea, and you will like end up with the said iron embedded in your calf as you are on your downward trajectory.

I really do not need another broken leg.  REALLY.   Do.  Not.

And now that calf really freaking hurts.

Thankfully the poor girl working alone at the Sonic decided that I was NOT a crazy-fast-food-robber-stalker and took pity on me and let me borrow her cell phone as she broke the rules a tiny bit and let me stand in her foyer while I tried one more time to reach my husband.

I am now a dedicated patron of Sonic.  Not-so-much with Chuck E. Cheese.

So my boys “came to rescue Mommy from the bad storm” (sayeth Harry), leaving just enough time for gratuitous warm-clothing shopping at the conveniently place Gander Mountain (can we say “impulse buy,” anyone?).   Of course, this still left us with the necessity of driving twenty miles through glaze ice on a temporary spare home, then twenty miles back through the same ice to have the tire replaced the next day, on the same temporary spare.  My husband drove, thank God, although I couldn’t have had white knuckles, since my hands were already a beautiful uniform shade of pale blue.

Did I mention that I get Raynauds Phenomenon in the cold?

And thus, I remember, why I left New York.

A bedtime conversation at Chateau Awareness:

“Mommy,  my ears hurt.  I think I need some music to make them feel better.”

I think the internet may be the only reason I am still sane.

The thing about Katrina is that it took more than our house and possessions.  It took our village.  It took our entire social structure and yanked it out from under us, and, poor magician that it was, didn’t even leave the dishes intact.

A few years ago, months after Katrina, a friend of mine was poking fun at the entire concept of the network of blogs and IM conversations that make up my life.

“Whatever happened to just talking over the fence?”

I had to bite back the retort that Katrina took away my fence.

I also had to ignore the implication, in part correct, that I needed to grow where I was planted.  I needed to make my new surroundings my home.  As someone who spent her teens and young adult years in constant travel, I understand this better than most.

But as someone who does not make friends easily, I don’t view any relationship as disposable.  The internet became my backyard fence.  IM replaced our revolving front door, that easy familiarity of knowing where the iced tea and the glasses were kept.  The IM status signs let me know that my friends were there, even when we weren’t talking.  They were the comfortable silences of my day, not always feeling the need to talk, but knowing that whenever there was something that needed saying, there was someone there, ready to listen, to share a joke, a bit of gossip, a moment of frustration.

It just isn’t enough right now.  Right now I want the comfort of silent presences.  I am in a phase of my life where I am so damned whiney that I don’t like listening to myself talk or write or even to the dialogue in my head.  I want the long quiet silence of the friends who know that sometimes it is enough to just sit and be.  Not talking, but not alone.  Just there.  Together.  Companions.

I miss you all.

Magpie Musing is running a contest for a Wii fit to go with the thoughts on her New Year Resolutions, and she asked that we share a fitness related story.

Oh – I could share a host of them.  I am quite good at poking fun at myself, and believe me, there is a reason my mother did not name me “Grace”.   I want a Wii Fit bundle – first because I have, no less than seven times, MISSED by seconds purchasing my husband a Wii for Xmas on Amazon and Walmart.com in addition to logging countless hours in local stores before finally giving up and buying him something else (no, honey, I am not revealing it here either).  Second, it will give me one more reason to stop blaiming my current overweight status on post-pregnancy pounds (now that my child coming up on four years old, I imagine that excuse is stale).  Apparently chasing that child around isn’t doing it for me.   Maybe watching his mother and laughing hysterically while she makes a fool of herself trying to downhill ski on a Wii Fit will keep him in shape, too.

In exchange I will offer a good friend’s tale of exercise folly up as a sacrificial lamb.    Better for my self esteem.  Which the Wii Fit is supposed to help with.  I don’t want to defeat my purpose here.

Ahem.

The victim in this case is a long-ago dear friend, one who I have not seen in many years, a former lover.  He knows about this blog and occasionally reads it, but I will preserve his anonymity under the pseudonym, Jack, and hope he preserves his sense of humor.  The irony of the events I am about to describe did not escape him at the time, and I imagine they won’t now.

After our relationship had long-subsided from romantic into the comfortable close friends territory, he met his current wife.  Jack is not particularly a vain main about anything but his IQ, but the flush of new love does strange things to the psyche.  While I am not oblivious to looks, and I thought him a handsome man (still do), I am aware that the objects of my attraction tend to have quirks of appearance.  Singular looks catch my attention and fondness more so than conventional attractiveness.  

After a couple good-hearted comments from his new love about his relative under-abundance of posterior (I kind of liked the way his pants hung on his hips…), he decided to take the matter in hand, or, well, at least in something more southward.  So Jack approached the problem with intellectual fervor, like he does everything else in his life – he bought a book.  “Buns of Steel” comes to mind.  This title sitting on his bookshelf next to the Chess Life (which, I maintained, that if you susbscribe to, you do not have one), the political manifestos and the actuarial tables could not help but catch my attention and my incredulity.  I ribbed him mercilessly, the way only an old lover can do.

He started with deep squats and declared them far easier than he thought possible.  In fact, so easy, he started with THIRTY before his legs started to feel a bit tired.  And working to failure is the point of building, isn’t it?  He was going to have that fundament of metal in no time.

Never underestimate the false confidence of arrogant enthusiasm.

Jack got his first glimpse at how deceptively effective those squats were when he got up to answer the call of nature in the middle of the night, and as he swung his feet over the edge of the bed, they made contact with the floor … and the rest of him kept right on going.   At 2am,  he was face down on the floor with a full bladder and completely nonfunctional legs.  He managed to pull himself up on the plumbing with his arms to relieve the immediate problem and then crawl, arm over arm, back into bed.  

Later that day I got this phone call:

“Hey”

“Hey”

“I’m still in bed.”

“You sick?”

“Well, remember that Buns of Steel book?  I did thirty squats last night.  They didn’t feel so bad.”

“And?”

“And now my legs don’t work.”

<pause here to wipe tears of hysterical laughter born of maniacal shadenfreude>

“So, you aren’t going to work?”

“Nope.  I called in.”

“You called in… what?  Stupid?  Sick doesn’t really fit the situation.”

“Nope.  Just told them I couldn’t get out of bed.   Didn’t elaborate.”

“At least you didn’t lie.  Except in bed.”  <insert more uncontrolled fits of giggling here>

“Glad you’re enjoying this.”

“Oh.  Manifestly.”

 

God, I miss that man.  Without the regular laughter, my abs have never been the same.

So I need that Wii Fit.  

Harry has reached the age where he is starting to comprehend the Santa phenomenon.   The Santa debate is one that I really just don’t want to be a part of.  I have heard all the arguments about how belief in Santa is lying to your children, how traumatized people where when they found out that Santa didn’t exist, and how it diminishes the meaning of the Christmas season.

Folks, I ain’t buying any of it.

I don’t remember being particularly scandalized when my best friend, Bonnie, broke the news to me that Santa was a myth.  I already had deep-seated suspicions based on the uncanny resemblence of Santa’s signature to my mother’s distinctive, elegant penmanship.  Any momentary disappointment I felt was far overbalanced by the previous many years of simple childhood magic.  Wonder, of the innocent, benign variety is something that my adult world sorely lacks and I will not steal one moment of it from my son.

And wonder is the spirit of Christmas, isn’t it?  

Harry knows that Christmas is Jesus’s birthday.  Of course, he is possessive of birthdays, and would like to lay claim to every birthday for himself.  Thankfully, Jesus is happy to share – Suffer the little children to come unto me, and all that.  Because Jesus shares his birthday with all of us, Harry knows that Santa brings all the boys and girls presents.  We have our creche under the tree.  And we have Santa.

That, in a nutshell, is the meaning of Christmas.

Christ came to bring His Kingdom to all the people of the world, Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, and to instruct us to share our earthly kingdom with each other.  

‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Matthew 25:40

To aspire to be Christ is not something I have the arrogance to do.  But I know I can be Santa.

While you are buying your presents this year, take a moment to remember those who are the least of our human family.

Got family that doesn’t appreciate those home-made gifts this year?  I know a few little boys and girls who will:

Afghans for Afghans

Project Linus

Binky Patrol

Mother Bear Project

Or did you buy supplies with the best of intentions to MAKE those homemade gifts and time got the best of you?  These folks could make good use of them:

The Kateri Circle

How about letting our brothers and sisters far from home know that we are still thinking of them?

The Ship Project

Spend a little of your time and labor to reach out and let a complete stranger in your town, your country or halfway around the world know that you care about them on Christmas.  Or simply write out a check to your charity of choice – in these times they need what you can spare.  Buy a little less and give a little more.   

Go Be Santa.  

Help make sure that he doesn’t miss the least of these, those who need him the most.

Peace on Earth.  Merry Christmas.

Overheard at Casa de Awareness:

“Harry, if I give you one cookie, and I have one cookie, what does that make?”

“Everybody Happy!” 

Can’t argue with that.

Last week was a whirlwind.  Let’s see:

Trip to DC and back – Very successful.  Happy client.  Happy boss.  It won’t last, but for now, all is right with the business world.

Playing catch up – Success of aforementioned trip is somewhat dimmed by pile of work on desk upon return.  Happy client.  Happy boss.  Sad me.

Time with the sweetest child ever – Harry has topped out the cute-o-meter this week.  Unfortunately I apparently missed the cutest part of all – you will have to ask Trixie about Harry’s plans to build Jesus a snow chair on his birthday so he won’t be cold (after all – he wears those sandals, you know).  I seriously cannot make stuff up that is any more endearing (or bizarre) than kid logic.

Catching up with Christmas – Remember that Skull Hat?  Well, said nephew has a much younger sister.  So I have just finished this:

Now.  I am beginning to wonder at exactly what point knitting presents for all eleven of my nieces and nephews started to sound like a good idea.

1. At least one weekend a month for the past 28 years, I have, with complete ease, worn a floor-length medieval gown.  I have cooked in them, run in them, ridden horses and climbed trees in them, and I currently own at least ten.  But I do not own a single modern dress.
2. I do not try on clothing in the store.  EVER.  If it doesn’t fit, or I don’t like it, I will either return it later or give it away.   But I won’t try it on.  There’s something about combining a full-length mirror with fluorescent blue lighting that guarantees a 25% drop in my own self-image.
3. For the life of me, I simply cannot figure out the appeal of Brad Pitt.  Many people have tried to explain it to me, but I am still perplexed, so please, do not try.
4. I was a bonafide coffee taster for a living.  Yep.  A real swish-and-spitter.  Which sounds like a dream job, except that coffee roasters run 24 hours a day.  You try to taste 120 cups of coffee on a 7pm to 7am shift, then go home and sleep in broad daylight.  I know that this, along with the waiting line in the DMV, are certified levels of hell.
5. I have a typing speed far in the excess of 100wpm.  It is almost to the point where I would qualify one of those people who does the subtitles for the deaf, or simultaneous translation.   I cannot, however, type 100 wpm in either Spanish or German – the only two other languages I can mangle coherently – so that is another career path closed to me.
6. I hate driving.  A lot.  While I will make exceptions for sexy sports cars (and I love me a sexy sports car), for the most part, I am very content being a passenger or to use public transport.  This does not mean that I cannot drive – my father was a rally sweep-driver, and I believe automatic transmissions are for pussies.
7. I have absolutely no self-control when it comes to doughnuts.  I quit smoking cold-turkey, never formed an addiction (hell, even an attraction) to any of the substances I experimented with in my wild years, and do not gamble.  But place a warm dozen in front of me, and all discipline goes right to hell.