The Most Beautiful Reflection

If I get the chance to sit and think on New Year’s Eve, if I’m not expending all my energy cooking for and cleaning up after my sister and her kids (grumble, grumble),  the first thing that enters my head is the memory of New Year’s Eve 1975. (My god, that’s twenty-nine years ago!) I was sick that day, running in and out of the bathroom all afternoon with a mild case of the Tijuana two-step. (More information than you wanted, I know, but it’s relevant to the story…) My new boyfriend and I (we had started dating a week or so after Thanksgiving) were invited to a party at my best friend’s house. Though I didn’t eat, and couldn’t drink (waaaaah!) we went anyway. It wasn’t much of a party. Maybe a dozen people huddled down in the basement of the ancient house my girlfriend and her…domestic partner…had purchased a few months earlier. I can’t even recall who was there, what we did, whether there was music, or games. What makes the evening memorable is that it was the night my husband asked me to marry him. He was drunk…I was not. So, I said, "Sure, dear!" figuring he had no idea what he was saying, and was never going to remember any of it in the morning, anyway. Reality set in the next day when he asked me, "So, you’re still gonna marry me, right?" Whoa! Say what? Commence panic-stricken back-pedaling.

After the initial freak-out period, and setting and re-setting the date a couple of times, we DID finally tie the knot before the year (1976) had run its course. By Valentine’s Day, husband had moved out of his parents’ home and into an apartment with a roommate; and though I didn’t "officially" move in with him until months later when we got our own apartment, I just…didn’t sleep at home anymore after that. I think it was the middle of June when I sat down on the foot of my parents’ bed as they were changing out of their work clothes one evening, and said, "Well, I guess we're going to get married in October…" Dad tried to look serious, as befitted the occasion…but he was beaming (he'd always liked this boy…) My mother must have shit a brick: Sixteen weeks to plan the wedding. I was too starry-eyed to notice.

Most women I know can accurately cite the anniversaries of all the milestones in their early relationships with their partners. I don’t remember any of that stuff. I didn’t run home and make note of the exact dates. I remember this---the date of my first and last marriage proposal—primarily because it happened on a day that was easy to recall. Still, it’s a lovely memory to have, tied as it is to a day that one traditionally ponders one’s blessings. I’ll always have the beginning of the greatest partnership of my life to look back upon and smile on New Year’s Eve.

Batting Around the "R" words

2004 is slowly drawing to a close. It’s perilously close to that time for reflection and resolution. Ha! One of my major problems is that I reflect way too often; at the drop of a hat, actually, throughout the year. I’m so busy analyzing yesterday, that I miss today…and forget to anticipate tomorrow. If I wasn’t so allergic to making resolutions, I would resolve not to indulge in quite so much reflection.

I think I may need to change my tune regarding resolutions. For the past decade or so, I’ve completely thrown over the idea of making resolutions for the new year. All I could see was that I would most likely be setting myself up to fail. I’ve been so prone to failure these last ten years, I had no desire to create new yardsticks by which my daily failures could be measured.

How negative does that sound? But that was the space I was in. Emphasis on the word WAS. I think the past year has seen me finally crawl out of that hole, to a place where I can perch, enjoy today, and survey the possibilities of the future. As well as the mistakes of the past, from enough distance that I can see the larger picture. Pick out the valuable lessons, and leave the rest behind.

When I first set my mind to thinking about what I had "Done" in 2004, I was ready to be disappointed. My current situation—not working, and not doing a very good job of making the most of my free time---has left me with feelings of worthlessness and frustration. As I dug a little deeper into the treasure chest that is 2004, I realized that I have accomplished some things of which I should be very proud. And some things happened that should be celebrated. Rub off the soot of today’s discontent, and you find some rich treasures wrapped in the days, weeks, and months of this year. Here are some of them:

January: Husband and I joined Weight Watchers. By May, I had lost thirty pounds and reached my goal weight of 118#. In October, husband attained his goal weight of 187#, shedding more than 60 pounds. We were not the most gung-ho of members, but we learned some things about nutrition and made some life-style changes that will put us in good stead for the rest of our lives.

February: Had a fun Valentine’s "wine tour" vacation with husband and my sister and brother-in-law. Weather was cold and a bit raw, but with all the wine…who cared? In fact, we had several good times of sharing with my family, throughout the year. This may not seem like a big deal…but my relationship with my family has drifted to such a sorry state that any positive interaction with them is to be celebrated. And so I do.

May: For only the second time in almost twenty years, members of husband’s family trekked out to Oregon to visit the far western outpost of the clan. We did a decent job of intensive entertaining, husband was beaming, and a good time was had by all.

Summer months: We had a decent season with the business, despite getting rammed by the weather at several events. I made some changes to the menu and to some systems that simplified the operation and made us more profitable, made good contacts at some new events that went well; all in all, a year of learning and growth for Café de la Rue, pointing us in the direction of future greatness.

August: Husband embarked upon the "dining room door" project… Said project was satisfactorily completed within less than two months. This was some kind of speed and efficiency record for a home improvement undertaking in our house. And it looks darn good, too.

Late summer to autumn: I surprised myself with a burst of political fervor surrounding the election. I still believe that this was one of the most important elections of my lifetime. And I don’t think the American people dropped the ball, either. I think it was stolen out of their hands (again.) Only this time when the order went out to secure a state for Mr. Bush, it went with the addendum that the votes should stack up overwhelmingly enough in Bush’s favor that calling for a recount would be politically untenable for the opponent. (Hey…I spent the first thirty years of my life living a stone’s throw from Chicago. It’s not like I’m not aware that political manipulation of the voting franchise is practiced in this country…) It is my fervent hope that, one day soon, enough evidence will be gathered by some brave soul willing to stand up to the frightening clout of the Bush the administration, to expose them for who and what they are, and bring them to justice NOW, when the American people, and the people of the world, could most benefit from it. How I would love to show the world that we Americans know how to keep our own house in order! What better demonstration that democracy works?

(Look at that…just get me started on a political bent and I can hardly keep my hands from flying over the keys…even if I do have to stop and correct manicure-related typos every three words…! :-D)

And how could I tick off the highlights of 2004 without including the best thing of all—Coming to Terms With Middle Age. The events and accomplishments of the year have seemed so much more…real…because I’ve been able to recount them here, as if I were writing letters to good friends. Friends who have helped me see some things more clearly, who have applauded when I did something good, or gently admonished me when I did something stupid. Friends who have given me the priceless gift of reading the things I have to write. I can never adequately express how much I treasure this journal experience. Thank you all for being THE highlight of my year.

Tomorrow, I will write about the things I want to accomplish (dare I say the "R" word?) in 2005.

Is It Two Days After Christmas?

I caved in to a pre-New-Year's resolution and took the dog for a long walk up the hill behind the house.  I have been SUCH a couch potato the last six weeks, I feel like I'm losing all the residual muscle tone I possessed.  I've vowed to walk with the dog every day...she needs it, and I need it.  So far, we've managed one in a row.  Gotta start somewhere, I guess.

It was a lovely winter day in the Columbia Valley.  I enjoyed one of the spectacular views I get to see when "the mountains are out..." (a term, I'm told, that only die-hard Pacific Northwesterners understand.)  Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Adams were all out this afternoon.  An occasion, really; we can go weeks in the fall and winter without seeing them at all. 

Okay, so it's December 27th.  Two days after Christmas.  Already, at least 50% of the outdoor Christmas lights I enjoyed three days ago have been stripped down and packed away.  What's up with that?  When I was a kid, we used to leave our decorations, outdoor lights, tree, the whole nine yards, up until January 6th.  Christmas wasn't just the day.  All that time between Christmas and Epiphany was "the Christmas season."  These days, we're in such a rush to dive into the next thing, whatever it is, that we ditch Christmas forty-eight hours after crooning "Silent Night." 

I don't know...maybe the season has simply shifted.  We didn't put our decorations up the day after Thanksgiving in the old days.  So maybe the season is STILL a month long, it's just shifted ahead by two weeks.  Our attention span can only be so long, I guess.

Another phenomenon I witnessed today was Oregonians' fascination with washing their cars.  When the sun comes out in the winter, it doesn't matter if it's 35 degrees outside, fastidious car-owners of Oregon WILL wash their cars.  Today, on my three-mile walk around town, I encountered this ritual being played out no less than half a dozen times.  The sun was out, but it was surely no more than 45 degrees outside.  One young twenty-something couple was bustling around their driveway literally half-dressed:  He, shirtless and with his pants half down his butt, revealing his designer boxers, and she in short shorts, a lingerie tank top, and no shoes...cavorting around for all the world as if it was the middle of summer.  Meanwhile, I was trotting past with my dog, wearing a hoodie, my leather jacket, gloves, and wishing I hadn't let vanity talk me out of wearing my hat.

I'm sorry...I don't feel the need to wash my car in the middle of winter.  Too many years of living in the midwest, where that idea was so completely unthinkable, one would have been laughed out of the neighborhood had one attempted it.  Here in western Oregon, you KNOW if it's clear today, it's sure as hell gonna rain tomorrow.  So what, exactly, is the point?

I have to laugh sometimes at the Oregonian psyche.  Many of us are convinced we live just slightly north of Orange County.  Shorts, Birkenstocks, tank tops, t-shirts, and car-washing are as appropriate in mid-December as mid-July.  I'm convinced that less than 50% of the population owns a winter coat.  Me?  I come from Chicago. My native state imparted some basic knowledge that I look upon as necessary to survival---for instance, that goose bumps so large you could sand concrete with them indicate the need for a coat.   That when your hands freeze into the shape of T-Rex claws, this would be the time to put on gloves. And perhaps when your be-sandaled toes turn blue, with a slightly black tinge, you should think about putting on real shoes.  With socks, if possible. 

I attribute Oregonians' lack of common sense about winter clothing to the chronic ingestion of various intoxicants (past or present. ) Seems a likely explanation to me...      

Old Friends

Cradled from the crate
Shed of their Kleenex robes
Carefully
Lovingly
Hooked on a safe branch

They’re tarnished
Crackled
Ragged

Irreplaceable
Like the memories they carry
In their fragile glass shells

The Gift

A few days ago, I searched my mind, in vain, for the memory of my most cherished Christmas gift. I’ve never been a good or gracious receiver of gifts; more often than not, the packages under the tree, once stripped of their merry glittering paper and spirals of ribbon, have not quite measured up to my definition of magic. I’ve known the reality of holiday let-down since I was about eight years old. Were my expectations too high, or were the offerings under the tree really as mundane and unimaginative as they ultimately felt?

Finally, though, reading a friend’s journal entry about the wonderful gift of snow for Christmas, in a southern town where such an event is truly magical…the memory washed over me in a wave. And I wonder how I could have forgotten. My most wonderful and treasured Christmas gift? My life.

Ten years ago this Christmas, I was walking down one of the most frightening paths a woman can follow. After years of palliative treatments for severe "female problems," I was scheduled to go under the knife on December 14, 1994. My doctor had determined, from an ultra-sound, that I had a huge mass surrounding my right ovary. The dreaded "C" word had come up in the consultation. I asked if he could avoid doing major surgery by getting a biopsy first; Eldad (my doctor), sweet man that he was, looked truly distressed as he replied quietly, "If it IS cancer, and you rupture it, then you spread it…" There was no choice but to submit to major surgery. And no way of knowing, once I was put under, what news I would hear on awaking.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to know you are going to die. I don’t have any idea how I would live, possessing that information. But I DO know what it’s like to be weeks, days, hours away from possibly facing that reality. And I know I was scared to death. The only thing I could do, from the day the surgery was scheduled in my doctor’s office, was try to go on as if I believed there was nothing to worry about. That I didn’t feel sick enough to have a cancer that large eating away at my vitals. To function on a brave, logical, calm level that never appeared to consider the possibility of impending doom. To wear this façade, fragile as an eggshell, feeling like it could shatter at any moment from the pressure of the panic beneath. And to have this thing… this heavy, dark shadow, with no substance, yet packing the weight of an elephant, constantly looming on the edges of my consciousness.

Here in Oregon, west of the Cascades, it snows maybe once a year; many years, it doesn’t snow at all. And if it does, in its capricious Oregon-weather way, it rarely falls before Christmas, when the wonder and beauty of it would balance out the transportational inconvenience. A week before my surgery in 1994, it snowed. We had just finished hanging our outdoor lights. We had acquired a brand-new holiday novelty---Christmas lights designed to hang in icicle-like drapes from the eaves. Ours was the only house in the neighborhood to display this new-fangled marvel that year.

Snow. Magical Christmas snow. I bundled up and toted the video camera outside (one of those huge ones that you needed a bearer to carry around for you). Lacking a sled, husband broke down a cardboard box; we slogged to the top of the street that ran past our house, and skidded back down, mostly off the box—two forty-year-old adults, not a kid in sight, hooting with laughter, sliding down the street again and again. Everything about that snow was a little brighter, a little lovelier…there was a nearly hysterical edge to my determination to make merry that evening.

The elephant that was the shadow of my unknown prognosis, followed me everywhere, nudging me to enjoy while I could. There was that real possibility, unvoiced and barely acknowledged, that this could be the last snow I would ever see.

A week later, as I lay struggling to shake off the anaesthetic fog after surgery, the first thing I was aware of was Eldad, standing by my shoulder and saying, over and over, "Wake up! You don’t have cancer. Do you hear me? You don’t have cancer! Everything is all right!" until I worked my paralyzed mouth into what I thought was a smile, looked him in the eye and nodded my head. As I drifted back into oblivion, I caught a glimpse of the elephant heading out the door.

That Christmas, I could barely stand upright long enough to decorate the tree. Last minute jaunts to the mall were given up in favor of resting in the recliner wrapped in a cozy throw. Husband spoiled me mercilessly with a huge pile of presents under the tree on Christmas eve. I felt weak, tired, and puny, but it was, hands-down, the best Christmas morning I can remember. Raising my head off the pillow, the only thing hanging over it the feather-light knowledge that this would not be my last Christmas after all.
This is my contribution to judith heartsong's December Artsy Essay contest...

Carols Round III

Posting this verse, I’m disproving my own theory that all the great old Christmas hymns were written by bible-thumping Protestants. The words to this carol were penned by a Catholic poet, at the request of his parish priest. The writer was so impressed with his own work, he sought out a friend to create a melody for them; a friend who just happened to be a popular composer of the day. A man who made a living composing scores for ballets and operas. That explains the hauntingly beautiful melody…certainly one of the loveliest of all Christmas songs.

This almost scores one for the musical sensibilities of the Catholic Church…except that, ten years after the song was written, and had become one of the most popular carols in France, the Church banned it because the lyricist had embraced socialism, and the composer was a Jew. In the end, the story serves to demonstrate all the more the pigheadedness and complete musical ineptitude of the Church when it came to songs written in anything that wasn’t Gregorian Latin.

Luckily for the song, it caught the attention of a Unitarian minister in Boston, who translated it into English. As an abolitionist, he was especially moved by the verse I have posted above. It became a Christmas anthem for the abolitionist movement in America during the Civil War.

Ho! Ho! Mew!

Yes, I will be posting another carol verse tomorrow.  Too much to do today.  Got the fifth and last tree into the house, unbound and decorated.  Wonder of wonders, husband helped me out with it.  He sat in the chair and posed "Trivial Pursuit" questions to me while I put the lights and garland on, but he stepped right up and helped hang the ornaments, once I had sorted through them and weeded out the ones that had seen better days (We have a lot of ornaments that I have acquired from every craft show under the sun over the years. They often come out of the box after their fifth or sixth season in the crawl space looking...less than fresh.  I have learned that hot glue does NOT last forever.  Some day I'll sit down and re-glue all the ones that have come from together.  But not today...)

I received the following in an email from my sister today.  Anyone with animals, particularly feline animals, in the house at Christmas will step up and shout amen! after reading this.  I found it absolutely hilarious, and extremely apropos, considering we recently acquired our seventh and eighth cats.  The adult cats are bad enough...but the babies!  Their sole mission in life these days is to eat Christmas. 

Anyway, here is

"The Twelve Cats of Christmas"

On the first day of Christmas;
when I brought home my tree,
My 12 cats were laughing at me.

On the second day of Christmas;
I saw beneath my tree,
Two mangled garlands,
and my twelve cats laughing at me

On the third day of Christmas;
I saw beneath my tree,
Three missing Wise Men,
Two mangled garlands,
and my Twelve cats laughing at me.

On the fourth day of Christmas;
I saw beneath my tree,
Four males a-spraying,
Three missing Wise Men,
Two mangled garlands,
and my twelve cats laughing at me.

On the fifth day of Christmas;
I saw beneath my tree,
Five shredded gifts,
Four males a-spraying,
Three missing Wise Men,
Two mangled garlands,
and my twelve cats laughing at me.

On the sixth day of Christmas;
I saw beneath my tree,
Six fallen angels,
Five shredded gifts,
Four males a-spraying,
Three missing Wise Men,
Two mangled garlands,
and my twelve cats laughing at me.

On the seventh day of Christmas;
I saw beneath my tree,
Seven half-dead rodents,
Six fallen angels,
Five shredded gifts,
Four males a-spraying,
Three missing Wise Men,
Two mangled garlands,
and my twelve cats laughing at me.

On the eighth day of Christmas;
I saw beneath my tree,
Eight shattered ornaments,
Seven half-dead rodents,
Six fallen angels,
Five shredded gifts,
Four males a-spraying,
Three missing Wise Men,
Two mangled garlands,
and my twelve cats laughing at me.

On the ninth day of Christmas;
I saw beneath my tree,
Nine chewed-through light strings,
Eight shattered ornaments,
Seven half-dead rodents,
Six fallen angels,
Five shredded gifts,
Four males a-spraying,
Three missing Wise Men,
Two mangled garlands,
and my twelve cats laughing at me.

On the tenth day of Christmas;
I saw beneath my tree,
Ten tinsel hairballs,
Nine chewed-through light strings,
Eight shattered ornaments,
Seven half-dead rodents,
Six fallen angels,
Five shredded gifts,
Four males a-spraying,
Three missing Wise Men,
Two mangled garlands,
and my twelve cats laughing at me.

On the eleventh day of Christmas;
I saw beneath my tree,
Eleven broken branches,
Ten tinsel hairballs,
Nine chewed-through light strings,
Eight shattered ornaments,
Seven half-dead rodents,
Six fallen angels,
Five shredded gifts,
Four males a-spraying,
Three missing Wise Men,
Two mangled garlands,
and my twelve cats laughing at me.


On the twelfth day of Christmas;
I looked at my poor tree.

Twelve cats a-climbing,
Eleven broken branches,
Ten tinsel hairballs,
Nine chewed-through light strings,
Eight shattered ornaments,
Seven half-dead rodents,
Six fallen angels,
Five shredded gifts,
Four males a-spraying,
Three missing Wise Men,
Two mangled garlands,

And my twelve cats still laughing at me...

Holiday Road Trip

I have been MIA the last four days...  Thursday morning, husband and I made the five-hour drive down to Oregon's "Bay Area--" a population center (if you can call it that) about 3/4 of the way down the state from where we live in the far north.  There is an Oregon State Park in that area--Shore Acres State Park, to be precise-- which started out as the estate of a late-nineteenth-century lumber baron.  His mansion and most of the buildings have fallen victim to fire or storm over the years, but the formal gardens remain, and they were deeded to the State of Oregon sometime in the early part if the twentieth century.  Every holiday season, the formal gardens are decked out with thousands of lights...a most spectacular show.  People from all over the U.S., and several foreign countries, visit each year (according to the little flyer put out by the "Friends of Shore Acres.)  

The real trick when planning a trip to one of these outdoor Christmas extravaganzas is picking the right weather.  Which, in the Pacific Northwest in the middle of December, is an iffy proposition at best.  We got drowned out at "The Grotto" (where they deck out the grounds of a Catholic monastery in Northeast Portland), and frozen nearly to death by the evil gorge wind the year we went to visit the "Zoo Lights" display at the Oregon Zoo.  More often than not, we peer at the lights show at PIR (Portland International Raceway) through pea-soup-like fog. 

We've been to Shore Acres twice before to see the lights, the last time was seven years ago.  And, though we lucked out and didn't get rain, we froze our butts off both times.  So, we packed layers upon layers of clothing to wear to the park last night.  Would you believe, yesterday afternoon, shopping in the nearby town of Bandon-by-the-Sea, we were squinting into a winter-weak yet naked (NO clouds to hide behind) sun, tying our sweaters around our waists, and sipping wine at a sidewalk fish shack! It must have been no less than 68 degrees in mid-afternoon...  I felt like I was in Cali-flippin'-fornia!  The fickle Oregon weather gods had decided to flash a benevolent wink in our direction.

Wish I had got better pictures, but I neglected to bring my tripod, so most of my pictures were...less than okay.  But here are some of the best...hope they're big enough to get a decent idea of how absolutely breathtaking the display was.  It was a total Christmas fairyland.  Wished we had brought a picnic and bottle of champagne... Nah...probably too crowded for that, anyway.  Ah, but it was lovely!   

Merry Christmas...

...from the Hairy Butt!

This and That

Look, folks! We’re getting perilously close to the 10,000 mark on the old hit-o-meter here. And it only took me fifteen months to get there! Not that I ever look at it :: nose growing another inch :: Truly, I don’t think it’s an accurate reflection of my readership, since half the hits are from me…

I only have time for a quick entry today. I was sick nearly unto death yesterday, and I don’t feel all that much better today. Except that the fever has broken and I actually have the capacity to get out of bed… I believe husband and I have been victims of what is officially called "the flu…" The thing they don’t have enough vaccines for this year…though we wouldn’t have been in line for one anyway. Jeez, I haven’t been so sick in years, not since I had pneumonia six years ago. Looks like it’s going away a lot quicker than the pneumonia did thank God. I’m too old to deal with this kind of illness anymore. Being pre-menopausal, pre-menstrual, and arthritic daily lay me low enough. Piling the flu on top of that was nearly deadly! Or it felt like it, anyway…

Even though the thought of food for the last twenty-four hours has been enough to send me running swiftly in the other direction (if I could get out of bed), there is something going on in our little village of Scappoose that is really bothering me. It seems a perfect local demonstration of something that is very wrong with American culture.

Two weeks ago, the local grocery store in town, went bankrupt and locked its doors. It finally lost the battle with the big, bright Fred Meyer that was built down the road about five years ago. Apparently, the little market put up quite a struggle…and rather than reading the handwriting on the wall and selling out before things got desperate, they played it right down to the wire. Which means that they were locked up, presumably by a utility company, their bank, or other creditors. With all the merchandise still on the shelves. The produce, the meat, the dairy, all left sitting on the shelves or in the fridges.

So, what’s wrong with that? Well, last I heard, Oregon has one of the highest, if not THE highest, hunger rates in the country. We have a huge number of people who require food assistance every single day. But in the name of…what? The law? Commerce? Bank practice? …we’re going to let thousands of dollars worth of food sit inside a building and rot because somebody didn’t pay their bills. How much of a waste is this??? All hail, Capitalism!

Watch For Stray Lightning Bolts...

I may have ferreted out the reason behind my less-than-enthusiastic attitude toward Christmas this year. Events political and personal over the past year have served to confirm and expand my religious agnosticism. I think about the season…about what it is supposed to celebrate; and I am split completely asunder. One half of me wants to plug in the tape of Christmases past—the one that has always brought the charm and warmth of nostalgia to the season. The one that is expanded upon every year, with fresh memories and new traditions. The one that contains the continuous thread of the background of the holy story I was practically born knowing. The birth of a saviour. Peace on earth. Good will toward men. The joy of giving—people demonstrating in their gifts to each other, their understanding and appreciation of the gift given to all mankind by their Creator.

But this year….this year is different. It’s painfully obvious that peace on earth is a commodity that the human race doesn’t even value, much less aspire to. Good will toward men? There was precious little good will to be had between fellow Americans of differing political views during the past twelve months. So we couldn’t possibly be accused of trying in any way, shape, or form to spread good will beyond our own borders. If the hideous mess in Iraq represents the best we Americans can do at spreading something over the earth, we surely are hopeless as a society. And we have turned God and religion into weapons of mass destruction. We use Him to destroy other countries. We use Him to destroy each other.

So the other half of me looks at the state of the world this Christmas, and completely loses the last vestiges of faith and hope I might have cherished despite my personal estrangement from the Almighty. Everybody, at one time or another, questions the existence of God. But how serious are those questions, really? Don’t you always keep in the back of your mind the knowledge, the certainty, that there is a God who knows you are questioning, but understands and forgives? (Or the fear that He is towering above, winding up the lightning bolt to heave down and reduce your heretical ass to a pile of ashes…)

For me, this year, that last recognition of God as Iwas taught, is fading. I can see the "god" that most human beings follow credibly being a creation of the human mind. A super embodiment of instinctive human tendencies toward violence and dominance. We invented "god" as a means to create order in our societies, since we couldn’t be trusted to understand and control our own behavior. We understand the concept of the most powerful individual being in control. So we created an all-powerful being that sees all, knows all, and will exact the ultimate punishment if certain rules of an orderly society are not followed. And the thing that all sentient beings fear above all is death…so the reward for following the rules became eternal life.

Frightening, isn’t it? I haven’t altogether discounted the existence of a Supreme Being, or of a realm that exists beyond the borders of our physical existence. There are too many clues, too many hints to the reality of a spiritual world…which suggests a plane so vast and powerful that it regularly "leaks through" to our own plane. But I’m convinced that our concept of "God" is very much our own poor attempt to explain and relate to a power as far beyond our ability to understand as we are above an amoeba’s. Within the tight borders of our own understanding, we envision a god that is a lot like us, only bigger. We even preach that we were created in God’s image… Doesn’t it seem just as likely that, in fact, we have "created" God in ours?

So, you can see how Christmas might be a difficult concept to deal with, for someone who indulges in such heathen contemplation. I wish I could find comfort just indulging in the rituals. But it all feels as fragile as a blown egg. Just a shell, useless without the yolk of the faith which those rituals protect. My husband, who has moved to another room so as not to be present when the lightning bolt hits, says I "overthink" things. I sometimes wonder, though, if the human race isn’t guilty of underthinking God.

Christmas Hymns II

This was one of the second wave of Christmas songs that I learned. Less like a lullaby than the carols I'd known practically from the cradle-- "Silent Night", "Away in the Manger." More intricate musically, and a more mature message in the lyrics. Which was mostly lost on me until I became familiar with the words beyond the first verse. I never cared much one way or another for it until I learned what we now know as the second verse...but is actually the third verse of this Christmas poem written by a Unitarian minister in Massachusetts in 1849 as part of his Christmas Eve message for his flock. I love the imagery here of the "cloven sky" and the "peaceful wings unfurled."

It crossed my mind to post the now-unused second verse here, but I thought that might be cheating. It does, however, contain the meat of the message of the song, so here it is:

Yet with the woes of sin and strife,
The world hath suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled,
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not,
The love song which they bring:
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

 

     

Gotta Go...

I have a "to do" list as long as my arm today.  I have to go out and preview a restaurant equipment auction.  I have to stop by the plant where my husband works and see if they have any stuff in their employees' factory sale that would be of use in my ongoing decorating efforts. (Since husband is an "executive," it behooves us to display the company's products in our home.  But getting him to bring me anything is like pulling teeth.)  I have to go by PetSmart and pick up Lucy's collar, which they forgot to put back on her after I had her bathed just before Thanksgiving.  I have to swing by Jacques Pennois (JC Penney) and pick up the percent percent percent percent off diamond ring we "pre-bought" last week (since it was before the actual sale date, they wouldn't let me take it home that day. No problem. It's only thirty miles one way back to the store! Tsk!)

Actually, I WOULD be excited about the opportunity to spend the day out of the house...if the weather didn't look completely sucky, and if I wasn't coming down with my annual case of the Christmas Crud.  I always come down with at least a cold just before Christmas.  Used to be, in my mall-slave days, I could blame it on working 75 hours a week.  Now, I think my body just does it out of habit...

While I'm out, I need to stop by some church and beg, borrow, or steal a hymnal.  Wouldn't you know, I don't have a single music book in the house that has all the words to all the Christmas carols I wanted to write about.  For years, I kept an old hymnal from our old church in a box in the closet.  Last spring, I did my white tornado act through the office, and out it went.  Why is it that, six months after you throw away something you haven't even looked at in ten years, it's the one thing you absolutely have to have?  And, oh, have you ever tried to buy one hymnal?  If anybody out there knows the secret to that transction, I'm all ears (eyes?)  

Presents

This past weekend, we were in Eugene. Two weekends in a row surrounded by my family. I feel like I deserve a medal. Or a lobotomy.

The Christmas after my Dad passed away, I decided to try to put together a new holiday diversion…as much an effort to take our minds off missing him as anything else. I bought tickets for everyone to a holiday concert, and put together a pre-concert feast. The guests were charged with bringing an ornament for each other member of the family, for an ornament exchange. Wonder of wonders, the new tradition caught on. On Sunday, we had our sixth annual.

The sight of my sister’s dining room table awash with little wrapped packages gave me a little slap upside of the head with Christmas spirit. (My attitude so far this season has been decidedly Grinch-like…) As I down-loaded this picture, I tried to think…what was my favorite Christmas present I had ever received? You want to hear something really pitiful? I couldn’t think of one!

Not as pitiful as you might think, maybe. Since I was old enough to tuck the five-dollar bill my mother handed me safely into my pocket, and strike out on my own up and down the aisles of Woolworth’s, the greater thrill of the holidays for me has been the gifts I was giving, rather than what I was going to get. I always wanted my present to be the best that person received that year…or at least something they needed, loved, or would use. I took much more pleasure in watching people open the gifts tagged "To: XXXX, From: Lisa," than in tearing into my own booty under the tree.

Still, there must be a present I have received on one of the last forty-nine Christmases that brightened my life above all others. I just can’t think of it. Help me out, here. Maybe an example from somewhere out in journal-land will jog my memory. What was YOUR favorite Christmas present of all time?

P.S. I will post another song verse later in the week. Currently doing some research...

Christmas Hymns

When I was in grade school, the Catholic Church started going through "big" changes. They kicked out some saints, axed "limbo," and decided that Protestants weren’t necessarily going to hell. They overhauled the liturgy, in an effort to make Catholic worship more "user friendly." They turned the altar around so that the priest faced the congregation when he was saying Mass…we all appreciated feeling more a part of the action rather than spectators… And, of course the biggest change—Mass was to be said in English rather than Latin. Songs! We needed hymns! In English. In a hurry. Which is always what they sounded like to me. Like they were scratched together in a hurry. The only one I ever liked was "Holy God We Praise Thy Name."

Later, when husband and I started attending a Pentecostal church, we got a crack at the "old" Protestant hymnal. And I realized that those guys really knew how to write hymns. The melodies were lovely, but the lyrics…they knew how to pack a whole lot of fire and brimstone, transcendent worship, or gung-ho evangelism into every song.

It was during that time that I became familiar with the second or third verses of some of the Christmas carols I had been singing all my life. The writers of those songs packed SO much theological meat into them. They went beyond the sweet little baby in the manger…told the story of redemption, told what Christ’s birth really meant to mankind. And it didn't end with "peace on earth, good will to men," though that is all we seem to grasp of the real meaning of Christmas anymore. While we march all over the world spreading democracy. In this country, I think we really mean "peace in America, good will toward…anybody who looks, acts and worships like me." But I digress.

I just love the poetry and imagery in some of the old Christmas carols. So I thought up a little game for this holiday season. I’ll post the words to a middle verse to a Christmas song. You guess the song. This shouldn’t be too hard. And meanwhile, we’ll all get a chance to become familiar with these beautiful hymns, and contemplate what they really mean.

Today’s verse:

This is an easy one. I think my favorite recorded version is on Amy Grant’s first Christmas album. I’m showing my age, I know…

 

Holy Cow

McDonald’s and KFC are really taking the heat for America’s expanding waistline. Yes, their menus are fat and carb-laden. And the prices are such that we lazy Americans let them do the cooking for us, rather than put out the effort to create healthy meals in our own kitchens. And this is the fast food industry’s fault, why? But last night, I got to see why America’s rich people are fat.

We had planned on grabbing a salad or something light after our concert last night, but the show didn’t let out until almost 9:30. A steakhouse isn’t the kind of place we normally seek out, since being introduced to the joys of Weight Watchers; but it was late, we were HUNGRY, and Morton’s was right across the street. In my mind, I was still entertaining the idea of ordering the lightest thing on the menu, whatever that might be. Obviously, I had never been to Morton’s before.

You sit down and get your drinks. You settle in to wait for them to bring your menu, and start to wonder what’s up when it isn’t promptly plopped down in front of you. Then, your waitperson rolls what looks like a dessert cart up to your table. Which actually contains an entire cow hacked into huge chunks. Waitperson proceeds to launch into her oft-repeated spiel about Morton’s menu, pointing to each mountain of meat and describing the cut, the weight, and how it is best prepared. Struck deaf and dumb by the sheer enormity of what they considered a portion, I missed most of what she said, except the "48-ounce" part. Great merciful heavens, that’s three pounds of meat! Those "steaks" were every bit as big as the pot roasts my dad used to cook for Sunday dinner, for a family of seven. A Weight Watchers’ portion of beef is four ounces. Each of those steaks was enough meat to feed me and the husband for almost a week.

As waitperson was winding up her lecture, husband pointed to a steak and said, "Now this is meant to be for two people, right?" To which she replied, "Nooo….all of these are single portions!" Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a look at the three large men sitting at the table next to us, digging into the gigantic salads they had ordered as a warm-up to their actual meal. I felt like I had bought a ticket to a food orgy.

Husband ended up ordering their "petite cut" rib eye, which was at least a pound of meat, if not more. I decided to order the one chicken dish on the menu, the portion of which was three breasts. Breaded, pan-seared, and served floating on a puddle of beurre blanc. It was delicious. But lowfat, it was not.

We now have 1.75 chicken breasts, half a rib-eye steak, half a portion of "potatoes Lyonnaise" (potato chunks pan-fried with bacon and onion), and even a dab of creamed spinach residing in a plastic container in our fridge. There’s more fat in that one little clam shell than in the rest of the contents of the fridge combined, I’m sure. I seriously have to wonder why any eating establishment would make unadulterated gluttony part and parcel of their mission statement. And why this is such a successful concept, that there is a "Morton’s" in nearly every major city across America. Sometimes two. Perhaps the patrons would be doing themselves a favor to check out McDonald’s…

Where's Martha When You Need Her?

I hate to sew. And I suck at it. I imagine one has everything to do with the other (I hate, therefore I suck.) It is also my misfortune that I am saddled with legs that are fully four inches shorter than the perfect 5’ 8" model that every pair of pants in the world was created to fit.

Sometime in late September, I purchased a beautiful pair of formal pants at Nordie’s (on sale, of course, for less than half the MSRP.) Black crepe with wide legs, and panels of fabric in front and back that make the whole affair look like a skirt. The panels float gracefully around your legs when you walk…or they’re supposed to. The thing is meant to be tea-length on a normal person. On me, even in heels, they drag on the floor. So I’m doing this float-float-trip-rip dance around the fitting room. No matter! I’ll just wear different shoes! Into the cart they go.

I get them home, and find I don’t own a pair of heels that will hold this garment off the floor (and if I did, I couldn’t possibly navigate them.) So, it becomes obvious to me that if I ever want to wear these pants, I will have to hem them. Not one to get a jump on anything, especially when it comes to sewing, I hang them in the closet until such time as I will absolutely have to deal with them.

Well, the time has come. We’re going to a concert tonight. Not that we haven’t had tickets to said concert for weeks. But I physically can NOT pick up a needle and thread unless I am faced with a hair-on-fire deadline. And we won’t even talk about my sewing machine. I use it so often that every time I touch it, it’s like its first time out of the case. I can never remember from one session to the next how to wind the bobbin or which way it goes in the machine. I invariably end up twirling, winding, pumping, ripping and dialing randomly until I can get the thing to sew a seam. And even then, I often get to the end of a particularly long and arduous stretch, to find I have sewn a perfect top of a seam, with no bottom thread to hold it together. Or the thread from the bobbin gets so tangled that the machine will stop dead in the middle of a run, as if I was urging it to sew through plywood. Not wanting to subject my delicate crepe pants to that peril, I though it safer to reach for the needle and thread. "Safe" being a relative term.

How hard can it be? Pin the bottoms, check them for length (without stabbing self with pins…so far, so good.) Thread the needle (this is where it starts to get difficult…I can’t see squat, and I’ve got to steer these stupid acrylic nails.) Less than twenty stitches in the bottom of each…um, flap?…and, voila! Piece of cake! NOT! The thread continuously twists, knots, and puckers. When I try to produce a knot, I trip over my nails. My "help" keeps going after the spool of thread, the pins, the seam ripper…anything that rolls or is shiny. What would have been a twenty-minute job for a normal person stretches to an hour-long battle of nerves. But in the end, I am victorious. They look…well, not great. But at least I won’t be tripping over them and dragging them in puddles. Did I mention that, when I bought these pants, there was another pair that was similar, but slightly different? And that I couldn’t decide which one I liked better, so I bought both? After today’s hijinks, the other pair will most likely spend the holidays in the back of the closet…