Candlelight

I can see in the window of my neighbor’s house. My view is from my kitchen into theirs. Normally the view is vanilla, they make dinner. I make dinner. Sometimes I see him early in the morning moving about in a white undershirt; that is the extent of the raciness. I try not to get caught picking my nose or walking around in my granny panties. I am sure they would be suitably thankful if they knew this.
For Christmas, they have put electric candles in each window. Just like mamaw used to have. I feel teary and sentimental every time I see them. I remember the long, long drive to my grandmother’s house; turning down the street that led to her house, the winter air pitch black around us and hardly any other lights on the road. Then all of a sudden, there they were, the Christmas candles, alight with welcome, and the promise of family and warmth. Hers always had orangey, red bulbs, tiny red pinpoints of holiday cheer.
My neighbor’s bulbs are a clear white, but that’s ok, I don’t mind. They still take me home. Laters.

We've Got S-P-I-R-I-T Yes We Do!

I really want to put on the perfect Christmas, but something always happens. I want to be Martha Stewart and bake a steady, never-ending stream of cookies and strudel, make homemade ornaments, and hand- carve special treats for my kids out of wood that I found in my backyard. I want to hand flock my Christmas tree and have special Christmas dishes, kitchen towels and throw pillows for my couch. Oh, I am such a Christmas failure.

The reality is that some years, the ordeal of getting out the tree and decorations is such a chore for me and I am more like the Grinch than I want to admit. I have had better years than this one. Despite all the Christmas parties, I have had a hard time getting in the Christmas spirit. Last year, K and I went out on black Friday and got almost all of our gifts, and I was smug all season knowing that my basement hidey-hole was full of presents. It was so easy- all I had to do last year was drink eggnog and eat cookies. This year I have done practically nothing. And that stresses me out. I am feeling distinctly stressed. But as K said to me this morning, “Don’t worry, these things always work out.”
And I guess they do. Laters.

My Lunch

Hail to soup in can, or raviolis, or Spam in a pinch- extra points if the can is a pop-top and needs no can opener. Lunch is condensed into a cylindrical explosion of mystery goop advertised as all white meat with no MSG or trans fat. Almost all the food groups condensed into 18.6 ounces, meat, veggies and grains swimming in a broth of artificial colors and flavors. And all this fits neatly in your train bag and needs no assembly. Tantalizingly advertised as low-calorie per serving, you eat the entire can before you realize that the can holds 3 servings and you just ate a lot of calories. But perhaps your bag of peanut M&M’s will counter balance those errant calories, because after all, nuts are good for you, right? Laters.

Poem for 12/10/09

A poem I wish I had written, but Jane Kenyon did........

Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks

I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years. . . .

I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . . .

When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me. . . .

I am food on the prisoner's plate. . . .

I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills. . . .

I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden. . . .

I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge. . . .

I am the heart contracted by joy. . .

the longest hair, white
before the rest. . . .

I am there in the basket of fruit
presented to the widow. . . .

I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit. . . .

I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name. . . .

Jane Kenyon

I Just Thought Of Something

Sometimes when K is already in bed, warm and toasty, I think of things. Things like, “did we lock the front door?” or “is the thermostat down to 65?” Sometimes, I might just want need a glass of tea and just happen to casually drop that into conversation. Not that I would ask him to get up and get it, more like just thinking out loud. He almost always gets up, but he often gives me the stink eye and he complains about it and says things like, “why can’t you think about the thermostat before I lay down/am warm and cozy?” I don’t know why I can’t, but laying my head on the pillow seems to press right on the switch of “what did we forget downstairs.” It might be easier if I weren’t the only one who thought of things. Laters.

What I Did

What I Did This Summer 
       by Jacinta Mullins
This summer I went to the beach. I dug holes in the sand and put my feet in the holes but water rushed up and covered my feet and filled in the holes so you couldn't tell they were ever there. I got a sunburn on my nose and I also ate a whole bag of Lays potato chips all by myself while I read a book in bed.
 I ate fish and seafood and fed live alligators hotdogs at Fudpuckers. The alligators were so full of hotdogs from all the people, that they barely could move and little pieces of hotdog were scattered all over their enclosure.  
I also swam in the ocean and it was so blue and tiny fish swam all around me but I could never catch even one, though I tried all the time. 
I lay on a beach blanket and got sand in my suit, but it was still fun. The condo had a pool and that was nice too, but not as nice as the ocean. I didn't get sand in my shorts at the pool. The sun was so hot but it felt so nice and I lay on my beach blanket til I was so warm that I couldn't breathe and then I ran into the blue ocean. That was the best. My summer was fun. Laters.

Fire For Me

We spent Thanksgiving in New Hampshire and I have only good things to report. We stayed in my boss’s cozy cabin nestled right in the woods and Sher saw a moose. (maybe a deer, but moose to her) We did ham instead of turkey and I made pie and everything was tasty and we all got spectacularly full on too much food. (I will not discuss the kidney stone/kidney infection that appeared the day after except to say that the hospital was nice and I didn’t have to wait too long.)

My favorite part was the family time, just being together and enjoying the company of those I love. My favorite moment was this- the house had two fireplaces and though the weather wasn’t that cold, we kept fires hopping in both fireplaces just because they are cool. We almost drove ourselves out of the house on Thanksgiving Day because the kitchen was so hot with the oven, stovetop, and fireplace raging but we never let the fire die out because we were enjoying it so much. I am both happy and impressed to report that K can make a darn good fire. I didn’t even know that he had fire starting abilities until that day and I was so pleasantly surprised. On Friday night, when I came home from the E.R. he made a fire for me, even though he was out of kindling, it was rainy outside so he couldn’t gather more, and he had to tear up a Coke box and feed the pieces in one at time. As he and Sher crouched over the fireplace, painstakingly feeding the small sparks, I thought to myself, “that Kevin Mullins, what a good guy.” He looked so cute rocking himself some plumbers crack from bending over and I was glad that I knew him. Don’t you love those brilliant moments of clarity? Laters.