Like The Queen
Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content.

1 Comments:

That description of your grandmother with the cop was priceless -- I can just HEAR her saying those things in her best Richmond accent.

Be careful of all those skunks nearby -- they are the #1 carrier of rabies. (Do I sound like Debbie Downer?)

Happy Boxing Day to you, too! Here's hoping you're feeling better soon. :-)

By Blogger Mary, at 4:41 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]



Tuesday, December 26, 2006  

The climb up the glittering peak to Christmas this year was not as steep as some. But arrival at the summit was as blissful and rewarding and loving as anyone could hope for. The YD’s came for Christmas eve dinner and we exchanged gifts then. Afterwards BD & I watched Meet Me In St. Louis - which is not really a Christmas movie but it does have a Christmas song. We slid into bed, taking the Sunday crossword puzzle with us and I feel asleep trying to figure out a 7 letter word that meant outdated dogmas.

I’m always awake first on Christmas morning. I’m always awake first on any morning in this house. When LD was little I was always awake before he was too and it puzzled me that a child could lie abed till 7 or so and then just sort of amble on down to the living room. Some years I even had to suggest he get up and see if Santa came. Eh. I suppose without siblings to egg one on and ramp up the excitement, Christmas morning can just wait till you’re good and read to get up. BD is even worse. He won’t crawl downstairs till 9 or so. But in his case, I think it’s because he’s just doesn’t want it to come to an end - all the possibilities and hopefulness and excitement and maybe - and once all the gifts are open, well, there you have it. It’s over.

It isn’t actually over, of course, since we always visit with other family later. In days past we’d drive the long haul up to D.C. and do the City Thing - movies, bookstores, restaurants, traffic, Smithsonian. One holiday Grandma was driving me back through Rock Creek Park and we were laughing and giggling and telling stories with our hands all along those stony twisty roads when a policeman stopped us. My MIL was the pinnacle, the apex, the essential, plus-perfect Southern Lady and with airy charm she asked him about his holiday and wished him merry Christmas and hoped he would get some time off soon, in the New Year, and this was her daughter, visiting up from the country, and she’d been showing me TheTown and what could she do for him. Abashed and blushing and smiling and melting all over the car he suggested that, on such a narrow twisty road, she might meet any sort of careless driver and she better stay on her side in the future, because it would be terrible to have an accident now, and have a Happy New Year, ma’am.

She was a grand one for taking little boys down to see dinosaurs and moon walkers, but the time LD knocked over one of the stanchions rimming one display, filling the marble hall with it’s clang, she looked sideways at me and said “I don’t know him, do you?” We managed to sneak up behind the guard and whisk the offender away so that all anyone official saw of us was the backs of our coats.

Included in the week between Christmas and New Years is always a visit to my folks, too. I’m feeling a little under the weather today and don’t want to sneeze around the old ones so I postponed my visit till Friday, when I can stay over night. Instead, I’ll use this free day off to knit and watch the last of the Christmas videos, and the first of the knitting DVD’s and try to recover from the onslaught of Sugar and Beef and White Flour and Wine that was yesterday’s traditional Christmas Dinner. I should have left out the wine. More and more I’m sensitive to alcohol and last night I was reminded many times that I should have stuck with something gentler. I will remember in future. But the roast beef was perfect and I made a floating island desert that had the rich taste of chocolate and the unusual texture of poached meringues. A new one for me, but quite good.

My gifts all came down one of two paths: Jewelry and beverages. Three people gave me high end teas or coffees, and the big gift we bought in F’burg 2 weekends ago was from a jewelry store. And BH and the girls gave me the prettiest Franz dish: just the thing for putting on your dresser to hold your new earrings. The weather was nippy in the morning but as the day wore on it became wet and balmy till, by the time guests arrived we had the doors flung wide open. Somehow, my house always gets Really Hot Really Fast when it’s also Really Crowded, with people or with trees. We let the dogs stay indoors all day yesterday, after all, it’s Christmas. But Socks is banished to the farm the rest of this week. Her normal eau de hint-0-skunk is exacerbated when wet and I’m not all that sure she’s not applying more on a semi-regular schedule. All wildlife moves in cycles that, if you live close enough to it, you begin to follow. This year is the worst year for skunks I’ve ever lived through. They waddle across your path, or down the lane or road in front of you, never in a hurry and sure they are invincible. Only an automobile can really hurt them and the consequences of such an encounter is almost as bad for the driver as it is for the animal. I can’t completely blame Socks for her excessive curiosity but she does not spend any more days indoors till this cloud of skunkedness passes.

And so. It is December 26. It’s all right now for me to bend my mind towards things New and Improved and Changes and Organizing the Clutter of My Life. I’ve actually been feeling that way for some time, but it seemed disrespectful of Christmas to post about my lust for Bins and Cabinets and Studios. Now, though, with a day of lounging ahead of me, I can begin to Make Plans. I shall start with a photograph of TheStash - in its present configuration of Heapedness. To be posted tomorrow, of course, since nothing short of an ambulance could drag me to town today.

But it is time. Time and plenty, now, to apply some of the energy work and attraction efforts I’ve been practicing in my spiritual life, to my precious, but horribly cluttered surroundings. I envision a future of warm, sleek, functional space.

Happy Boxing Day to you!

posted by Bess | 7:05 AM
links
archives