Christmas Wrap-up

For me, most holidays start with apprehension- I worry about people being able to make it home, and if they'll make it home safely. In the case of Christmas, this underlying current usually starts about the time Thanksgiving ends and it lasts up until the point where everyone is safely under one roof- usually the day or the days right before Christmas.

If someone has to run out for some reason, a forgotten gift maybe, or to meet a friend, then I take an intermission from the calm and comfort and worry about them making it back safely.

I'm not really sure why this is. It seems it's gotten worse as I've gotten older. But then again, there are more people living further away- which I guess is an indirect consequence of age, though not age itself. It's probably a little of both.

With all of that said, the holiday was wonderful. I like nothing better than to have everyone home. The best times for me have always been the visiting and the listening and sometimes just the sharing of space.

I hate to always be going back to when the kids were small, but...

When the kids were small, a typical Saturday was spent running errands and spending time together. It would usually start with going over to Grandma and Grandpa's house early in the morning, then maybe to the post office. Later, we would go to the outlet store before heading home for lunch.

When they were real young, I might put them down for naps, after which we might go feed the ducks or do a little grocery shopping or go to the video store where they would each pick out a tape to watch. Usually, it was all three.

Back at home, I would get dinner ready while the kids negotiated with each other in the living room over who's tape they were going to watch first. As I made dinner, they would talk and laugh and play.  I would listen from the kitchen and watch as the golden, late afternoon sun would stream through the window, hitting a crystal which would cast a bright rainbow that stretched into the dining room.

After dinner was a time to relax and catch up and wind down before bed. Then we would head upstairs where the kids would take their showers and then pick out a bedtime story and they would negotiate once again over who's story would be read first.

It was great.

Except for the showers and the bedtime stories, that's what this Christmas was- making dinner while hearing laughter coming from the other room, sharing time in the car and at the grocery store, hearing about what was going on in their lives, catching up and sharing time together.

And now that Christmas is over, and everyone has gone in their different directions, all that's left to do is to put away the ornaments and the decorations and then begin my worrying about the new year ahead.

A Birthday Message

Today is Mom's 90th birthday. I'm thinking of giving her the afternoon off. I figure there's no rush on my driveway. She can finish shoveling it tomorrow since I'm probably just going to be hanging around today anyway.

Besides, she was saying something about her back hurting her or something like that- I can't remember exactly, I wasn't really listening.

So, Happy Birthday, Mom! Enjoy your afternoon off! And by the way, last night's dinner could have used a little more salt. No big deal- I took care of it, but you might want to keep it in mind for next time.

Hope your back or your knee or whatever it was that you were going on about, feels better!

P.S. If you could be here extra early tomorrow to finish the shoveling, that would be great. I may want to get out to the comic book store later on. (If the porch light is off when you get here, try to be a little quiet when you shovel. I'm probably still sleeping.)

Happy birthday and thanks again! And don't forget- a little more salt next time.

Happy Holidays

The spirit of Christmas.

Almost Forgot!

It wouldn't be Christmas without this holiday classic...

Merry Christmas

On the Hunt

I'm not a hunter but I've worked with many people who were. Years ago, I worked with a guy named Dan. Dan was a big time hunter. There was a point where Dan was going to be going on some hunting trip out west somewhere and he was looking forward to it the way most kids look forward to Christmas. As the trip got closer, it was all he could talk about. This went on for quite some time.

When the day finally came, off he flew to where ever it was. He was picked up at the airport by the tour guide or whatever they call them, and as he and his group were driven through the thick woods up to the hunting lodge, unsuspecting animals frolicked in abundance all around them.

That first night, Dan called home to tell his wife and kids how awesome the trip was going to be and he apparently did a lot of preliminary bragging over the almost guaranteed feast and footwear that he was going to be bringing home. The way he later told it, he hung up the phone just in time to hear the first clap of thunder announcing what turned out to be a week long deluge from which it seems, only the animals were smart enough to take refuge.

Whatever dreams Dan left home with, they had pretty much dissolved by sitting day after day in a cold, blinding rain where the only other living creatures in the woods were the other hunters.

When the day came to finally pack up and leave, Dan and his fellow soggy warriors climbed into the bus to head back to the airport. It was only then that the sun, and the once again frolicking animals, returned. Apparently the animals, at least, were well rested.

Dan was not a happy guy when he got back.

I was reminded of all of this the other day because I tried to get in touch with a guy named Jeff. I sent Jeff an email but I never got a response. Then I remembered that he was also a hunter. He wasn’t the borderline fanatic that Dan was, but I remember in years past, that he had been looking forward to his week off at hunting season, so maybe that’s the reason he couldn't get back to me.

I could have called Jeff to find out what was going on, but that’s not my style. My style is to go online and look up the dates for hunting season and figure it out from there.

When I surfed around, I came across a two page document from the state’s Fish and Wildlife Department. It’s full of various animals and the dates as to when the State allows you to hunt them. Seeing animals on there like bears or deer didn’t surprise me, but there were some animals on there that I didn’t expect.

For instance, I never knew our state had a hunting season for squirrels. This seems kind of weird to me. I’m not sure why anybody would want to waste their time hunting squirrels. I can’t imagine that people would do it for the thrill of the hunt. It must be more like revenge killings. I for one, have a bunch of squirrels hanging around my bird feeders that I wouldn’t mind seeing gone. But other than that, what would be the reason?

Assuming you are big on squirrel hunting, according to this chart, you can hunt squirrels in zones 1-9, wherever those are, on September 8th and keep on shooting all the way through January 2nd. But if you want to hunt them in zones 10-14, you’ll have to wait until October 18th before you can begin. I don’t know if this is because there are already fewer squirrels in zones 10-14 or what the reason is, but if you want to get the most out of your squirrel shooting, you’ll have to figure out where zones 1 through 9 are.

Another animal I’m surprised to see on that chart are bullfrogs. Who hunts bullfrogs? How do you even do it? You can’t shoot them with a gun or there won't be anything left. Do people get up in the early morning hours, put on their camo and then sit out in the reeds and brush all day with a sharp stick?

What is the value in this? Are bullfrogs worth something? Is there some vast, underground bullfrog market? All I can think of is that "hunters" might be selling them to those souvenir places that shellac them and stick little hats on them and make them hold little banjos. But even then, how much of a demand for those are there? I’ve never really been sure who would buy something like that anyway, except maybe the people that hunt them in the first place.

Another thing I don’t get is, how do they enforce the these laws? Does the state seriously send people around to brooks and ponds to see if there are people out there catching any illegal squirrels or bullfrogs? If you’ve got a deer lashed to the hood of your car, it’s pretty obvious what you’ve been up to. But with squirrels or bullfrogs, you could almost get away with stuffing them into your pockets.

Maybe all of this is old news to anyone that hunts, but as I said, I’m not a hunter. It never held any appeal to me and that's when I thought it only involved bears or deer or other large animals. It holds even less appeal to me now that I know it involves animals like bullfrogs. Squirrels are another matter.

One More Video

Well, it's been well over a month. Time for another depressing, but lovely song from Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris...

A Brief Update

I don't know why I'm so exhausted lately. It's not like anybody's around or I'm doing anything... well, other than feeding the ducks with Sam. But that shouldn't be what's causing it...

Today's Bargain

As I have frequently noted here in the past, I like to peruse the so called "Lightning Deals" at Amazon. If it's something I want, it can often be had for a real bargain. Sometimes, it may be something I never knew I wanted, but the price was so cheap, how could I not need it? Such is not the case with the item below:

Who buys something like this? Maybe more importantly, why? I this a joke gift? What am I missing here?

So, you buy a kit to make a plaster cast of a pregnant belly, and then... what? What do you do with it? Do you spray paint it and hang it on the wall, maybe make it into a clock?

I guess you could make it into a giant-sized ashtray. Then, at some point in the future, you could reflect back on the lifetime of other poor decisions that you'll inevitably have made as you sit alone in the dark, stubbing out yet another cigarette butt, wondering where it all started.

Another One on My List

I’ve noticed that the company that makes the so called “Deluxe” frozen french bread pizza has reduced their allotment of pepperoni slices. It is now down from a generous four slices of pepperoni per pizza to a less generous three slices of pepperoni.

Not only that, but the bread itself seems to be narrower. I used to struggle to fit two pieces of pizza on the toaster oven tray. Now they fit in with no problem.

These people are walking all over me.

Newsflash

Apparently Charlene, who's working at the Walmart "Site to Store" counter, has just called her mom to tell her that she is NOT going to the gym today! She has been "running my ass off all day long in this damn store!" To make matters worse, "it doesn't help that Brian is taking his damn sweet time going out back, every time he has to get a package."

Brian counters that it's not his fault because he's "never worked in this department before. I don't even know how I got stuck here, anyway."

This concludes today's update. You may now resume your life...

Thanksgiving Rundown

A storm had been predicted for Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. This is the day that the newscasters incessantly remind us that it is “the most traveled day of the year”. As the predicted storm approached, so did the panic in voices of the increasingly frenetic weather forecasters (i.e. it was going to be Armageddon). Since those in my family that had to travel (Jake and Rachael) were due to come home on Tuesday, I didn't see this as my problem. I decided I would save my compassion for Christmas. Maybe.

On Tuesday, Jake made it home by dinner, taking close to an hour longer than the normal three hour drive. Helaina had gone to pick up Rachael at the bus station and Rachael ended up stumbling in around eight o’clock- taking close to four hours longer than her normal four hour bus ride. Shortly thereafter, Helaina left for her boyfriend’s and everyone but Jake headed off to bed.

On Wednesday, I left for work, arriving a little before seven in the morning and there wasn't any snow in sight. By ten o'clock, the snow had started, or rather, the snow and sleet had started. By eleven o’clock, it was coming down pretty good and I was thinking about heading home. By noon, I was heading home.

After a slippery hour and a half drive, I arrived home and soon everyone else in the family was home too.

The plan for the holiday was that we were going to have Thanksgiving at Grandma’s on Thursday, an informal Thanksgiving for our family at lunchtime on Friday, and then Rachael would have to head back on Friday, late afternoon. Since we wouldn't see Rachael again until Christmas, and since it was in the middle of a blizzard and the driving conditions were treacherous, it seemed like a pretty good time to head out to the tree farm to get our Christmas tree.

I called the tree farm and asked if they were open and after a long pause, they said that yes, they were. So, we bundled up and headed off in the van. Amazingly, when we arrived, we were the only ones there.

Normally, we would walk around to the back field where we would search for the perfect tree. Since it was a blizzard, and since I had a bad knee and the idea of kneeling in rapidly piling up snow and not being able to stand up again didn't appeal to me, we headed to the barn where the owners keep their pre-cut trees. This would normally be heresy.

Going to a tree farm to pick out a pre-cut tree is one step shy of driving through the trees in your car and pointing at the tree you want someone else to cut down. But the snow wasn't letting up and neither was my knee.

In no time at all, a tree was selected, paid for, and slung on the roof of the van. We headed home at a brisk fifteen miles per hour.

Due to the weather, we brought the tree right into the house- wet snow and all, and trimmed it for the tree stand. Normally I have to do some judicious pruning of some of the lower branches in order to get the tree to sit correctly. This can be risky. More than once, I have reduced a full and natural looking tree to one that looked like it was an artificial tree put on clearance due to it’s missing parts. More than once, I've heard, “Don’t worry, we can fill it in with tinsel.”

But this tree was in pretty good shape. After squaring of the once proud trunk and clipping only a few minor branches, it was in the stand and shoved into the corner. Later that evening when the tree had dried enough to reduce the risk of electrocution, we strung the lights.

Sam asked about decorating the tree and I told him that we would either decorate it after Grandma's tomorrow or we would decorate it Friday morning after I got the turkey into the oven. I couldn't say for sure because I didn't know how tired everyone would be, plus we were on a tight schedule.

Snow continued to fall, heavy and wet, into the evening. The trees in our front yard draped precariously over the power lines. I watched out the front door, thinking of a few years back when we lost power for days. Back then, I worried about the pork butt going bad. Now, I was worrying about the turkey. It’s always something.

We made out pretty well. While many in the surrounding area lost power, some for days as it turned out, we survived with little more than several very brief flickers. This proved to be little more than an annoyance for most of us- me resetting clocks continually and Rachael being interrupted in her pie-a-thon, for example. But such was not the case for Sam.

Sam was watching his usual videos on the computer and every time the power would flicker off, the computer would shut down. This caused no end of frustration for Sam, and therefore for the rest of us- until it boiled over and Sam muttered to himself, “This is stupid.”

Things fell silent. If there were crickets this time of year, this is the point where they would have been cricketing.

Sam rarely gets upset and saying “stupid” is about as vulgar as he gets. Luckily, Sam had the family around to support him and tell him he was wrong and to knock it off. He went upstairs to take a shower, leaving the rest of us in utter shock over his disturbing emotional outburst.

When he came back downstairs, Sam duly, though completely unnecessarily, apologized, and spent the little time left before bedtime, watching the videos he tried to watch earlier.

The snow had stopped by Thursday morning and though it was heavy, I had a lot of help shoveling. When it was cleared, Rachael and I went out to get gas in the van before we headed to Grandma’s.

After filling up at the gas station, we pulled out, only to hear a scraping sound coming from under the van. Clearly, something was dragging along the road. I was worried it was the muffler or the tailpipe, so I pulled off on a nearby side street and climbed under to take a look.

It turned out that it wasn't the muffler, as I had feared. But instead, it was only the bracket that was supposed to hold up the fuel tank. Apparently the weight of the gas was enough to break the mostly rotted bracket off on one end, while the other end was still attached somewhere underneath the van. I figured I better twist it off completely, since metal sparks shooting at a precariously hanging, full tank of gasoline didn't seem like a good idea to me. Especially on Thanksgiving.

We made it back home and Helaina and I drove everyone to Grandma’s while the van sat in the backyard for the rest of the weekend.

We had Thanksgiving dinner, or rather, Thanksgiving lunch at Grandma’s retirement community, in a building affectionately referred to as “The Inn.” The Inn is about the only place big enough to accommodate all of us, even though the size of this gang was probably about half of what it is at most Christmases- what with my brother’s family not being there and one of my sister’s family family not being there and at least one additional niece not being there. Still, it was a big enough group.

We squeezed into a semi-private room, around tables set up, oddly, in a “U” shape. At first it felt a little strange. I imagined that those sitting inside the “U” must have felt a little like they were on a stage. I was glad to be sitting in the audience. But it turned out that this arrangement was not only plenty accommodating, it had the added advantage of me not having to look at everyone else all at the same time.

After lunch, we went back to Grandma’s where we set up her fake mini Christmas tree and we complained about how full we were as we ate the pie that Rachael had made the night before. My sister Laura dragged out some bizarre concoction that she claimed she made from beets and some other weird fruits and as if to prove that it was at least non-toxic, Rachael took a swig with no visible side effects. Still, despite this brave display, there were no additional takers. The bottle was set in the kitchen where it will presumably stay until sometime next summer, when someone decides to strip some furniture.

We ended the family get together the same way we end all our family get togethers- by trying to figure out who drew who’s name for Christmas. This has become a family tradition- whether it’s at the summer gathering or pretty much any other time of the year. And just like every other time the question comes up, there was a lot of discussion but nothing got resolved. It's almost like some kind of a game show, but I think it would enhance the game play if blindfolds were involved.

Back at home, Sam asked again about decorating the tree and he seemed almost relieved when I told him that it would have to wait until the next day. He went to bed at his usual time. Helaina, exhausted, went to bed about then, too. Jake went to bed a little later and then got up again to talk with his girlfriend, and Rachael went out to visit with an old friend. I stayed up until she got home.

I had set my alarm for six o’clock in the morning and unfortunately it went off without a glitch. I went downstairs and did my usual turkey prep- which traditionally includes ignoring all advice on how to properly stuff a turkey and instead cramming in as much stuffing as physically possible- just shy of making the turkey burst. Every year, as I’m shoving in the stuffing, I wonder if the turkey could ever have imagined ending up in this situation. And every year, with each fistful of stuffing, I give my own silent thanks that I am not the turkey.

Once the turkey was in the oven and everyone was awake, we set about decorating our tree. Since the tree was a little smaller this year and since we were on a tight schedule, we used about half the ornaments that we usually do, but we all agreed that it looked just fine- which is to say, no one was complaining.

While the tree was getting decorated I popped in and out of the kitchen to check on the turkey. When it comes to cooking a turkey that has to be done by a specific time, my skills are limited. I find that as dinner gets closer, I’m constantly adjusting the oven temperature.

In years past, the turkey would get done too quickly and I would have to slow it down because the kids would be at the high school football game. Or I might have slowed it down too much and it wasn’t going to be ready when everything else was ready so I would be twisting the temperature back up.

The process always feels a little like I’m trying to land a small airplane during a blinding snowstorm. I know the destination is out there somewhere, and with a little luck we may land somewhere nearby- but there’s no guarantee about what our final condition will be when it’s all over.

Everything seemed to go reasonably well and all the food got done somewhere close to the same time. We all squeezed around our large dining room table which sits in our tiny dining room and we each gave thanks and had our “informal” Thanksgiving dinner- which meant having pretty much everything we normally have, minus a couple of dishes, and eating it all faster.

After dinner, Jake took off to the college to watch the football game and to spend time with his girlfriend (not necessarily in that order), and Helaina and I drove Rachael to Northampton to catch her bus back to The Big City. We arrived too early and decided to hit up a couple of stores, even though it was “Black Friday”. In reality, the town didn't seem any different to me than any other day- the same pleasant crowds as always.

After going to one or two stores, it was getting late and we walked back to the car to wait for the bus. The breeze had picked up and the air was dry in that biting winter kind of way, and by the time the bus showed up, it had started to get dark. All of this seemed very appropriate to me. Rachael climbed on the bus and Helaina and I headed back home.

Back home, Helaina took off for her boyfriend’s, Sam watched his videos, and I sat and stared at the tree and listened to the quiet.

On Saturday, Sam and I did our usual late-morning errands, which includes going to two grocery stores- even though the last thing we needed was more food. But it always gives me the chance to spend time with Sam and it gives Sam the chance to get free samples.

Saturday afternoon was spent doing some more baking- for some God unknown reason. I had no idea why I was doing it, because we clearly had too much food already. To make matters worse, on Sunday, I noticed we had some bananas starting to turn brown and I remembered that I had some leftover buttermilk in the refrigerator. In my mind, this was an opportunity to free up a quart-sized space in the refrigerator. In reality, I ended up having to deal with four loaves of banana bread.

On top of this, I decided to make fudge. Many years ago, this began as a semi-tradition around Christmas time- but that was back when there were people around to eat it. Even though I like fudge, I eat maybe two pieces of fudge a year. I do not eat two, nine inch square pans worth of anything, let alone fudge.

So by Sunday afternoon, in addition to all of the food left over from Thanksgiving, I had now had to deal with four loaves of banana bread, about 6 pounds of Chex mix and a couple of pounds of fudge- and that’s not to mention the big pot of turkey parts that had been boiling away on the stove.

By Sunday night, I had pretty much had it. All of the food had been stored or stuffed in various places around the house. I put away all of the now dry dishes that I washed earlier in the day, and I washed all of the dirty dishes and all of the dirty pans that had filled the sink.

All that was left was to drop off the van at the mechanic’s. And to figure out what to make for dinner.