I haven’t had time yet to indulge in the post-holiday blahs. Semester grades were due last night at midnight, and I finished my 48-hour grading marathon at 10 p.m. It’s pure procrastination, of which I am the reigning Queen.
So this morning, in order to work out the “teacher’s neck” from hunching over my pile of portfolios for two days, I went out and wandered the yard. Ray had alerted me early this morning to a downed peacock on the road. It was one of the ABBA quads, a male. He had gone to that Great Roost in the Ether. I didn’t see any obvious signs of trauma, so I’m assuming this is the boy who’s been moping around since Christmas, apparently ill. I scooped him off the road, said good-bye, and left him as a tribute meal for the coyote Ray saw dart across the mile road last Friday. Corn-fed peacock. I noticed this morning that the other ABBA boy is lame, one foot curled under, forcing him to limp along on the back of the foot. Frostbite? Varmint bite? Battle wound? Two decades of inbreeding? Whatever the problem, injury, disease, or tired genes, he managed to make his way into the yard for corn and bird seed this morning, and the rest of the flock seems very patient with him.
The baby possum Ray found hunkered down in the loafing shed yesterday morning is gone, although I saw Shadow, the black barn cat, working intently on something near the shed yesterday afternoon. I haven’t seen Snowball, the white cat, for days, but the cat food in the pyramid shed keeps disappearing.
Jack Blizzard can drive even the most passive among us to hunt, I guess. Which reminds me, I just finished Cormac McCarthy’s (No Country for Old Men, All the Pretty Horses) The Road. It reminded me of my favorite American novelist, my buddy Bill Faulkner—the writer we love to hate—in terms of intensity and poetic rhythm of language. It occurs to me that the current and future generations not only won’t CHOOSE to read Faulkner, they won’t have the vocabulary for it. Sad. The Road is a beautifully written post-apocalyptic survival (or not) story, which I recommend without reservation, but don’t read it before bed if you’re hoping for fluffy, happy dreams.
Christmas was wonderful. After a flurry of last-minute arranging, Ray’s family was able to come for dinner on Christmas Eve. His oldest son was here from the Cities, so it was a warm surprise to have the family together (and his niece gave me the highly-coveted Kopi Luwak coffee beans). On Christmas Day, we had a smallish gathering at Mom’s, just Mom, Ray, the kids, and the dogs. There was no Jell-O salad (although Mom snuck her ubiquitous redhot candies onto the otherwise perfect sugar cookies), Mom made every kind of comfort food imaginable, and we played Catch Phrase, men against women. The women rocked. Mom has a tradition of getting all the men in the family identical gifts, and this year it was flannel John Wayne cowboy pajama pants. I suggested they all model the pants for a holiday picture, but no dice. Ray got me the perfect present--a Nintendo DS--my new procrastination tool.
Today, the sun is shining, it’s 30+ degrees, and Mom and I are going to ward off the blahs (and my urge to weep over the dead pea-boy) with shoe shopping in the City. There’s nothing like a new pair of shoes to shuffle out from under Jack’s heavy hand.
Tiny Tim finally getting the help he needs…ha! Even Scrooge’s melting heart is nada y pues nada compared to the miracles we’ve see
n in this season of…well…miraculous stuff.
1. After a post-op infection and/or botched procedure and/or hitherto unknown secondary condition leading to a perforated bowel, our friend was rushed to the VA hospital and spent the next many, many weeks in a drug-induced coma, teetering on the proverbial edge. That he came out of it is miraculous enough. That he came out of it with his humor & compassion intact, and that he’s now gadding about town delivering his homemade fruitcakes is almost enough to get me to church.
2. There will be no Jell-O desserts at our Christmas dinner this year. My mom calls these “salads,” but c’mon—nothing made with Jell-O should ever be called salad. There isn’t even a meal category appropriate for things made with Jell-O or its predecessor, aspic. It’s a miracle anyone my age survived childhood, with its obligatory “salad” squares of grated carrot and/or crushed pineapple suspended in lemon Jell-O, like bizarre Jurassic fossils-in-amber wedges.
3. I mentioned this in an earlier post, but it bears repeating. Our friend, on a routine checkup at Mayo, learned there were two healthy lungs available, had a transplant the next day, and is now happily getting to know her new Self.
4. My youngest son who, at 21, only has 4 more years until he has a fully-formed brain capable of long-term consequential thinking, offered—actually offered well before I made any shrieking demands—to pay his own cell phone bill from now on. That doesn't mean he'll pay it, but I consider the offer a hopeful sign of progress.
5. Another woman we know, a woman who has lullabyed folks in these parts with her beautiful singing over the years at folk fests and holiday concerts, went into remission from Stage 4 lung cancer.
6. NPR did a story on Kopi Luwak coffee. Apparently, cat-like civets in Indonesia eat coffee cherries. The cherries are digested, but the beans pass through the civet system unharmed, although the coffee’s bitter oils are broken down in the digestive process. The Kopi Luwak “farmers” wander through the forest collecting civet scat, which contains the coffee beans, which are cleaned, roasted, and sold. It’s supposed to be the smoothest, most distinctive coffee in the world, selling for up to $1000 per kilo. And I got some for Christmas. I brewed it immediately, and it does have a very unique smoky flavor. This gift represents a miraculous and essential leap in my java apprenticeship.
7. I finished my Christmas knitting. Three pairs of arm warmers, felted coasters, small alpaca drawstring satchels, and many goofy winter hats. My youngest son (pictured) laid claim to an experim
ental hood/hat I had just finished, because he thought it would be cool to wear at the skateboard park (see #4 re: brain formation).
8. We don’t have to drive out of town for Christmas. Because Mom moved to Vermillion, we only have to go a few miles. You’ll recall I LOVE road trips, but it’s December…in the Midwest. Over the years of annual holiday treks to Omaha, I’ve been stuck in a blizzard in Sioux City for Christmas; I’ve careened on black ice & shot down a ravine, through a fence and into a tree, with two adults, three kids, and a parrot in the car; I’ve sweated bullets worrying over kids driving in on snow & ice from wherever they were living at the time; and I’ve broken down on I-29 in the middle of a long nowhere stretch, in subzero winds, more times than I care to count.
So today, Christmas, I’ll be at Mom’s in record time. I will offer a silent prayer of gratitude to the Universe—for the wonders listed here and for the miracles of family, peace, the amazing possibilities of a new year, and for the brave soul who accidentally spills the Jell-O salad on the floor, right where the dogs happen to be watching & waiting.
Merry Christmas!
I have been moved to new heights of gaudiness by this holiday season and by my stubborn procrastination.
A little background. Near the neighborhood in Omaha where I grew up, there was a restaurant called “Mr. C’s,” known far & wide for excellent, authentic Italian food and stunning décor. And by stunning, I don’t mean gorgeous. Mr. C’s was surrounded by a brick half-wall with wrought iron grating at the top. The entire perimeter wall/fence was covered with a gazillion twinkling lights, and inside the restaurant, diners were surrounded by lights, vining plastic grapes, 
odd statuary, and gilt-framed Old-World prints of gaunt, rail-thin saints, staring at us all droopy-eyed while we fine-tuned our gluttony. Anyway, in our family, Mr. C’s became synonymous with near-criminal decorative overkill.
So last weekend, with a huge stack of research and literary analysis papers taunting me from the dining room table, I decided it was absolutely imperative that I put off grading and decorate for the holidays immediately. Ray got in the spirit, too, and by nightfall, our country home was totally, unabashedly, Mr. C’d.
We swapped our full-size fake tree for a table-top version this year in the interest of puppy-proofing, but you’d be amazed how many decorations, strings of lights (all on twice-a-day timers), candles, ceramic angel choirs, Mary statues, nativities, and pottery bowls of potpourri one can fit in a four-square farmhouse, all above waist level. Now imagine you knew our home was already full of little stone pyramids, alabaster buddhas, Tibetan singing bowls, brass bells, crystals strung on ribbon in every window, urns full of peacock feathers, and you’ll start to get a picture of the sheer museum-storehouse clutter of eclecticism that is our holiday home. Festive, I tell you. Add Ray’s Christmas mix tunes wafting from our many, many, many speakers, and it is freakishly festive.
I’m finally working my way through the paper stack, but at least now I can happily grade with the soft glow of blue twinkling LED lights reflecting off the sentence fragments, shifting verb tenses, comma splices, and misplaced modifiers. So I take it all back, Mr. C. Thank you, and happy holidays.
