Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

I got on the train this morning feeling lucky. Let me count the ways: I was on time. Looking forward to a lighter work day (thank you Christmas!). My shopping is done, well almost. I can't wait to spend time with the hubby and the kids I see little of these days. I get to go home to Chicago to see our family. There's much to be happy about.

But once I settled into my seat with Kindle in hand, I noticed the little Indian man I see at least twice a week. It's fair to say he never looks happy, but this morning, he was resting his tiny dark forehead against the window. And it struck me that maybe the holidays aren't the happiest time on earth for him. He might be far from home or loved ones are far from him. Who knows? But it made me glance around the train at the other riders, looking for signs of unhappiness, if there is such a thing.

At that very moment, we reached the next stop, doors opened and my new friend Herb boarded with his Romanian companion.

Let me tell you about Herb. He's a charming older man who wears hats, has an Alabamian accent he hasn't lost despite his California address and he's a sweetheart. Polite, charming, gallant. Weeks ago, he shared with me that he was retired, but didn't want his girl (Relative? Friend? Neighbor? I don't know which) walking in a sketchy part of the downtown grid by herself. So he escorts her, then visits his favorite cafe - where I'm sure they know his name! - for his morning coffee, satisfied she made it safely to work.

This morning, he wished me a Merry Christmas and handed me a business card, with a polite request for me to read it.  Herb's business card had his personal info on the front, and on the flip side was a  message.

Now you may think the gesture was over the top, but I found it touching. I was very moved by his note. I looked up to acknowledge him, but he had taken his seat at the front of the car and was conversing with another passenger.

The last older gentleman on the train to take a fancy to me was a recent widower, a distinctly lonely man who loved to talk, and bent my ear every chance he got. He didn't reminisce or ask a lot of questions. I think he just wanted to interact with another person, for the human contact, at least that's what I gathered from our conversations.

And there's Herb's Romanian friend, who I'm sure is presently homesick. The day we met she shared that she Skypes with family as often as she can, because she misses them so terribly. I know not to ask, because it doesn't matter whether the decision to be apart from them was hers. What matters is the distance. And the holidays can be a trying time for anyone who doesn't have time with people they care about most in the world these next couple weeks.

I ended up stuffing the Kindle back in my bag. Hard to imagine me not taking advantage of the time to read, but I wasn't feeling it. My head was swimming with melancholy, slightly maudlin thoughts. And Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas was playing in my head.

Home Is Where the Heart Is

I realized last night that it's happened. I'm officially feeling at home in the new house. I know this because last night, completely alone, I didn't give being alone in the new home a second thought. Not when the dogs barked at an outside noise. Not when I had to walk into the pitch dark bedroom without a light to guide me. Not when it poured rain and I wondered if the power would cut off and leave me in darkness. Not once all night. I felt nothing but... comfortable.

This morning, with all the shades buttoned up tight and no nightlight, I navigated the coffee table in the complete blackness of the living room like a pro. Apparently my subconscious has learned the contours and edges of the house and its contents. I can move through without cutting a corner too closely or get jammed on a piece of furniture.

And I stopped waiting for the ghost of the house (doesn't every house have a spirit or two?) to appear to us or make himself known. Our house was occupied for decades by one family, so I wouldn't be surprised to meet a member of the family.

Especially in the garage. I keep waiting for the patriarch to show himself to us, in his man cave where it was likely he spent most of his time. But nothing. I no longer rush to get in and out with the laundry basket, afraid to look over my shoulder at the workbench against the wall. OK, that's a lie. But at least I've stopped talking to myself while I'm in there, hopeful that he won't interrupt me.

Our last house seemed a little perturbed about our arrival. The first few weeks we smelled cigarette smoke in the very center of the house, the kids' toys were constantly going off, and the closet doors, which were not on a track, moved. There was the banging on the washer when my hubby was alone (try hitting it - it's loud!), and constant shadows moving through the house. Most often we would hear footsteps, like the pads of bare feet hitting the carpet.

Besides getting hit with the closet door while putting in my contacts - yes, the happened! -- my favorite episode occurred when I was watching TV late night. Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone, the size of a small child, crouch by and sneak behind the couch. Naturally, thinking it was one of my kids, I yelled, "What are you doing out of bed?" and when I threw myself over the back of the couch to catch the little bugger in the act, I found nothing. No one. Just empty space. Yes, the hair on my arms and neck still stand at attention when I remember that one.

One day the activity died down. We found nothing on Google to indicate foul play at the house, but we did find diapers in the sewer system when it backed up into our driveway months later.

So as we make our new house a home, I expect some sign of previous life. The house is older than we are, and I can only imagine the tales it might tell if it would only talk. It's almost depressing to think that the family that lived and grew up in that house for the last forty plus years left no imprint on it.

We spent the last nine years living at the same address, sharing the mundane day-to-day stuff to the holy-shit-can-you-believe-it stuff within those walls. I like to think we left an imprint there.

I rode by the old house - again - yesterday. Doesn't matter to me that we didn't own it. We occupied it for approximatley 3,220 days, and it would make me sad to think there are no signs of us ever being there. Bleach, shampoo and Windex may have washed all evidence that we were ever there completely away, but I like to think there's an energy imprint.

I know, it sounds like psychic mumbo jumbo. But if it's hokey to believe we left impressions on a house, isn't it hokier to believe we occupied that space for all that time without leaving any residual affects?

Losing My Cookies

This time last year, I swore I would never again spend hours in the kitchen — time I will never get back — baking cookies. But I found myself doing it this week  Why?  Because.

Because I feel like if I don’t give I should not receive!

I know!  I‘ve been told I need to get over it. I know this is the season of giving, and if someone wants to give to me, then damn it, I should let them give. But we've all experienced that awkwardness, that moment you sincerely thank the gift giver while simultaneously beating yourself up for not having foreseen and prepared for this moment.

So once I again, I returned to the kitchen to spend the last several nights adorned in flour or batter, keeping the Christmas cookie mill moving like a well-oiled machine.  Could my counter be any more full of clutter?  I've got two flours, three types of sugar, baking powder and baking soda (I still don’t know the difference), chips, dyes, extracts, pans, spoons, scrappers, a rolling pin and a bottle of red.  Wine, that is.  The only thing that helps me get through this.

The night before last, after my first batch of chocolate chip cookies was completed, rather than feeling accomplishment I felt slight disgust with my progress. I only filled one large cookie tin! This project was going to take hours! Days!

Not only was this taking longer than I would have predicted, but my family was not helping me in my mission to produce dozens of cookies for the inevitable exchanges. A short time into the baking, my two kids and hubby became interested in what was happening in the kitchen. Must have been the unusual cookie scents wafting through the house that got their attention.

Suddenly it became a game to them to poach spoonfuls of batter every time I turned my back. My warnings did nothing to slow them down. They ducked wooden spoons hurled at them and laughed off my threats to hurt someone.  The hubby thought he was adorable as he made off with a hijacked handful of fresh baked cookies. You'd think someone might pitch in to help. But no. They felt no shame in adding to my time served here, toiling to get my cookie numbers up.

So I doubled the recipe for the next batch. Focused only on my cookie count, I thought I was being slick. But when I added in all the dry ingredients and turned on the mixer, I realized  there was nothing sly about it. Unable to accommodate this larger volume, the flour mixture powdered the immediate area in a sudden explosion. Now I was a frustrated cookie baker that resembled a snow woman!

Things only got worse when in my impatient state I made no adjustments, but continued beating. Once the flour combined with the wet ingredients, the mixer began to arbitrarily flick batter into the air.  To where?  I’ll find it! Eventually.  When I go to use that coffee mug sitting in the corner, for example, now caked with dried cookie dough.  I wore some too.  But surprisingly, no one in the house was trying to get at me with a spoon.

A fresh glass of wine? Don't mind if I do!

Sometime in the midst of baking my third or fourth dozen, I made the tragic error of leaving the kitchen for a bathroom break and to throw on a load of clothes. Of course, having left the room I was feeling enslaved in, I got distracted (the wine didn’t help).  When it hit me that I hadn’t heard the timer, I dropped the TV remote to sprint through the house to the kitchen. No surprise that I ran into a cookie thief taking advantage of my absence.

With potholders in hand, I made my plea to the oven:  Please, PLEASE let them be spared!  I couldn’t bear to be set back!  I pulled open the oven door to assess the forgotten batch, with a glimpse over my shoulder at the time.  Ten minutes late coming out, and yep, my two trays of cookies were toast.  Forty-eight cookies, all charred, all inedible.  I scraped off the cookie carcasses, took ten minutes to clean the pans and started over.  With a fresh glass of vino.

Mulligan!

Last night, my final night of this gig, I dusted off the cookie cutters  (it's an expression - relax!) to make Christmas-y sugar cookies.  Whatever.  This time, wine first, then batter.  When it came time to press the cookies, I ditched the angel cutter. Not in the mood to bake celestial-being cookies. But I was feeling it with the gingerbread men. Until I realized I had made another error. I was about to add a tray of newly baked Christmas trees and stockings to the cooling rack when I noticed that all of my gingerbread dudes had taken the shape of the rack. As they cooled, their body parts sank into the rack spaces!

I could have chucked the whole project all at this point. But I didn’t. Instead I picked up a warped man and ate him. One less ugly cookie. I dumped the others in the tin reserved for my family. Don't judge. I'm not enduring this domestic form of torture for them. I will gladly cook for them, but bake? Not happening.  Misfit cookies for them. Back to the drawing board for me.

Last year, I was an equally large baking fool. For two weeks, I was dedicated to my mission. I beat dough, rolled it, cut it, baked it, cleaned up and then tried, unsuccessfully, to hide cookies from my family.  And for what?  To receive what I gave?  (And here, I have to say it’s amazing how so many people can make ONE chocolate chip recipe so differently!) When will I learn?

Next year will be different, I swear! I will approach this differently.

My good friend has the right idea.  She is capable of accepting, without guilt, a cookie tin or gift bag from a neighbor without giving something back in return.

And when she bakes, it involves a cookie roll and a knife. Wine is always optional.

Busy Busy

I’m not sure at what point I started competing, but my shameless add-ons of “I’m busier” are embarrassing.  

The other day, near the end of a parent meeting for one of our teams, a mom whispered over to me that if the meeting ran long she was never going to get dinner cooked at a decent hour.  I almost reflexively out-did her with, “Nice to have just that to get back to!  I have dinner AND laundry AND school paperwork waiting." Luckily I stopped myself, but I was appalled that such a statement was about to leave my mouth.  

For what?  To out-busy her? Oh look at me, I have so much on my plate.  

It's like when someone says they napped all Sunday long, I feel the need to snort and mumble “I could NEVER find the time to nap with ALL I have to get done."  

Come on! 

This needs to stop. And this unhealthy keep-up-the-pace daily rhythm that we call normal is far from it.

A friend recently shared, after running through her recitation of the activities that filled her week, “What do you know?  I’ve become as busy as you!”  But I didn’t’ know my jam-packed calendar was the barometer for a satisfying lifestyle!  And she said it like that’s a good thing! With pride.  

No. There is no fill up your day, and you will get a big surprise!

I was reciting a litany of what I accomplished over the weekend, the back and forth driving I did to get my kids to their tournaments and then how I would spend time at each to see them play, then pick them up, drop off their friends, etc.  Across the lunch table, the childless woman directly across from me asked me why I felt compelled to do it all.  Very patronizingly, she suggested, "Couldn’t you recruit help and go shopping or get a facial, do something for you?  Don’t you deserve some you time?”  Then she continued to go on how so many mothers should consider embracing the WhenI’veTakenCareOfMeI’mABetterMother dogma. 

My friend couldn’t believe I didn’t blast the All Knowing One with both barrels, but I didn’t see the value in it.  How do you explain to someone with no children and no responsibilities other to themselves, that to pawn off tasks to go fuck off somewhere for an afternoon is pointless if it means missing a whole afternoon with your kids?  Actually, the conversation checked me. I realized how I must sound, listing each day's events, broken down into tasks? What a bore!

Why wasn't I talking about how I chose to be there, that I won't miss a moment if I can help it. Instead of counting off mileage and consumed Monsters, I should have told her that each afternoon I don’t make it out to support my kids from the sidelines, witness their incredible triple or their pitch that shut down the game, I’ve missed out.  I’ve squandered a chance to share a memorable moment, to be a part of that day, to participate in their elation.  And if the intended home run is a strike out, or the perfect pitch is called a ball for a walk, I want to be there.  Because when they look into the stands and see me there, they know I feel their pain, and they're not alone.

Of course I'd be lying if I said I'm always completely present at their events, in the moment entirely. Sometimes it's enough just to be there, or at least I thought it was enough. I broke my own rule of being present in the moment at a baseball game this summer, and pulled out my Kindle.  Watching paint dry would have been more stimulating than the snoozer of that particular game.  On the way home in the car, I made a comment or two about the game, and my son’s friend blurted out, “Don’t know why you bothered to stay. You read your book the whole time.”  Flabbergasted, I realized if a kid other than my own noticed my engagement, or lack of it, then imagine how acutely my kids sense it.

I digress a bit. The point is we are a busy family and days are often chaotic. But my involvement in my kids' lives will only be this extreme for another year or two. After that, they'll be doing their thing on their own. And instead of seeing firsthand what their day was like, I'll be trying to coax the details of their day out of them. 

So forgive me when I spew forth details of the weekend instead of how I wouldn't trade a moment on the bleachers for a day at a spa. I'll try harder to say what I mean.

Unfortunately, I still may bore you.