A Christmas Carol

Ghost of Christmas Present:

This was the first Christmas (of, with any luck, many) that Alex and I will be together. This was particularly hard this year, as I know I was being pulled in about 15 different directions at once. I felt like whatever I choose, I lose...'cause I'm going to make someone upset.
This was also the first Christmas since my father passed. Anyone who's had to live through something like that will tell you that it's not going to be a good day.
My Christmas ended up going like this -

12/24, noon - Christmas Eve Lunch with Alex. I made for her Shrimp Cocktail, Shrimp Scampi, seared scallops and snow peas. Mmmmmmmmm... I know I needed to fill up, 'cause someone had the bright idea that we were going to have Lasagna for Christmas Eve dinner at my grandmothers. (I don't like baked pasta of any kind.)
12/24, 1:30PM - finished homemade garlic bread for dinner. Lotsa garlic and cheese....
12/24, 4:30PM - Alex and I arrived at my grandmother's house. My grandma has about 50 people over for Christmas every year (relatives - she had 9 kids!) We eat (I had lots of salad and bread - which went over great!) Alex burned her hand on the heating element of the stove and we rushed to Walgreen's for some burn spray.
12/24, 6:00PM - Santa Claus arrives to give all kids (grade school and under) a small toy. I was worried that Alex would be asked to sit on his lap, since it was her first Christmas with all of us - fortunately, that didn't happen. Although, it might have been cute... :)
12/24, 6:30PM - Begin the Secret Santa Exchange. Alex got a gift certificate to a Brazillian restaurant (wow, that looks so good!) and Bath Works stuff. I got a Bed, Bath & Beyond, and Borders gift cards (2/3 of my shopping Trifecta, if only Best Buy were there!)
12/24, 9:00PM - back to my mom's house to put all presents under the tree. Tradition!
12/24, 9:45PM - at our house, to finish wrapping a few gifts, and to let the dogs out.
12/24, 11:00PM - after picking up Teresa and Ben (Alex's niece and nephew) we go to her mom's house and then walk to College Church for Midnight Mass.
12/24, 11:45PM - The choir! I'm stunned. I now know what a good choir is supposed to sound like! (After years of trying hard to drown out the St. Andrew choir)
12/25, 1:30AM - We return to open presents at her mom's house. I got a puzzle game, some chocolate and a portable power station. Woohoo!
12/25, 2:30AM - Take pictures of Catalina, Alex's sister for a magazine shoot. (Later she sends them in and they're published - my first professional photo credit!)
12/25, 3:00AM - Christmas breakfast with Alex's family...chorizo and eggs and cheese and bacon and bread...mmmmmmmm....
12/25, 4:20AM - I drop Alex off at home, go back to my mom's house.
12/25, 4:50AM - I arrive at mom's house, sneak in the back door, make my way to the couch, kick off my shoes, belt and tie and crawl into makeshift bed.
12/25, 5:00AM - I fall asleep, glad that my mom and sisters said they were going to sleep late.
12/25, 7:20AM - This is late?!?!? I hear all three of them puttering arond the kitchen, banging glasses together and hearing the phrase "well, he needs to get up now..."
12/25, 7:30AM - Opening presents at my mom's house. Not a great time. We got several dad-themed gifts which brought the whole operation to a halt while we all cried a bit. Really nice gifts though.
12/25, Noon - The four of us go to JB Cemetery to visit grandpa and dad. Again, not a great time. Although, crying there in the cemetery with the misting sleet and my mom and sisters with me I think was good. I think it helped me move just a little through the grieving process. Not that I'm through it by a long shot...but every little bit helps.
12/25, 1:15PM - Grandma comes over for lunch, roast beast....mmmmm
12/25, 2:30PM - I fall asleep. Yay!
12/25, 3:30PM - I wake up. Boo.
12/25, 4:30PM - I leave to go home. I meet up with Alex and we have a very relaxing rest of the evening...well, as relaxing as I can have on 3 hours of sleep in the last 48.

Ghost of Christmas Past:

A lot would have been the same with previous Christmases. I would have gone to St. Andrew Midnight mass with my family, came home about 3AM, ate Jack in the Box and complained about the Christmas Eve party. "Did you see what X was wearing?" "God, Y was sooo drunk...again!...this year..." And of course, dad would have been there.

I miss you, dad.

Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come:

We're thinking we may go out of town next year. Simplifies everything.

And to everyone celebrating Christmas, or Hanukah, or Kwanzaa, or Yule or the Solstice or Boxing Day or whatever, especially anyone who's lost a loved one recently, may God bless us, everyone.

He gets me, he gets the need

I was raised in a middle class family. We didn't have fifteen cars or anything but I never wanted for anything. Even more importantly, I also did not want for a home, a family, and so forth. That is, we were operating at a pretty high level on Maslow's hierarchy. So it was shocking to discover the absolute need that exists right here in St. Louis. There is a segment of society that lives an existence reminiscent of that which I observed in Central America, doing missionary work with my parents.

This brings me to Christmas - besides my two front teeth, I don't really want anything. Actually, that's not true. There's always lots of wants. But there are few needs indeed.

Brian and I have been having this discussion about what I want. I happen to need socks, so I asked for those. Not that I can't provide them for myself, but at least they're a need, not a want. Well, I still got movie and theatre tickets from Brian this season (after a need, the next best thing in my opinion is an experience, and he got movie coupons and awesome tickets at the Fox) but we opened my Christmas presents tonite. Yes, we're early, but a) I'm not keen on surprises, b) I sometimes eat my dessert first, and c) Christmas is going to be chaotic enough trying to coordinate our families' schedules, so at least we got a few moments to celebrate on our own tonite (in the same spirit, we're also going to have our own Christmas Eve lunch together).

The first thing I got from Brian was a certificate for three socks that could be doubled one (1) time for one (1) kiss. I promptly exercised that option. The next thing I got was the first gift Brian's given me that made me cry: A flock of geese. Now, living in the city with two big dogs would make it challenging to raise a bunch of geese. So he arranged to have an international charity organization find a good family to place my geese in. There, they will be adopted, raised, and -- harboring no illusions here -- probably eaten after hopefully having had baby geese to continue the process. The price to them? They give one of the chicks to another family. The organization is called Heifer International. One of the things I liked best was finding out that they have some 70 active projects in the United States, something that is near and dear to my heart, as I know I do not need to cross an ocean to find true and desperate need (I don't need to walk more than five to ten minutes in any given direction from my house to find it).

He got it. He got me, and he got what I was saying about the need (not that he had never heard of need before, just that he heard what I was saying about it, and what the topic as a whole means to me). He listened. He paid attention. He researched something in keeping with what I was saying. He acted on it. I must have done something right in a past lifetime - I had the privilege of studying when I wanted to study and of studying what I wanted to study, I'm working in the work that I want to do, I'm loving the man I want to love, I'm living the life that I want to live. I rarely experience true need of my own, and continue on my journey to unlearning my wants. What more could I possibly want? I don't - I'm good. Sawl good. Merry Christmas, and any other holiday that you celebrate.

The Bestest Birthday Ever

Brian and I celebrated my birthday together. On my birthday, as I'm lucky enough to do other mornings as well, I got off to a good start by waking up in his arms. I asked myself what exactly I felt like doing. That happened to be to read for a bit and then write up my X-mas cards. I didn't finish but got one group of people done. Then I felt like baking, so I gathered me things. Bri procured a few of the missing ingredients, and I made me some cookies. All day. In the meantime, Bri and I had watched this guy Alton Brown that has a cooking show and had already decided on a menu, so Bri got to cooking while I took me a nap. I woke up in time to set the table for us and throw some powdered sugar on the crazy cake. After a fabulous dinner en papillote (see entryTo all you chickadees out there ;-) dated August 19th to find out what that is), we watched a movie that I picked.


So it was my day, exactly the way I wanted it, and Brian was the best part of it. I could write a sob story about past birthdays that were not so hot; although true, they would change the focus from this year's birthday, and why would I want to do that?

Nay, my friends, I shall conclude with a simple word of gratitude to the powers that be that saw fit to grace my life with Brian's presence.

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

So Brian and I have unwittingly worn matching outfits on at least two separate occasions. At least, we've made no conscious decision to match. Yesterday evening, after a long day of going from a conference to the office to my old office's x-mas party to brian's very nice birthday dinner to our friends' M&B's to open presents (including an unexpected and nicely-sized present for ME!!!), we're sitting on M&B's couch. And realized (or, rather, it was pointed out to us) that yet again, we were matching.

Other than talking about wearing my t-shirt that says "I ~heart~ my geek" and his that simply says "Geek" at the same time, and a couple of times double-checking our outfits before we leave to a more formal nite out (e.g., symphony) just to make sure we're not clashing, nada, as far as we know. And the time that we were supposed to wear the matching t-shirts, we forgot.

I'll interject here that a dear, dear friend and I used to match all the time. With him, it may have been telepathy or something, because we didn't coordinate or live together, so each for our own part would get dressed, then meet for lunch or dinner or something and find out that he was wearing, say, a burgundy dress shirt and I was wearing a skirt with burgundy detail or something like that. We've drifted apart these last couple of years, but for a long, long time he was an essential part of my life and was a significant influence on the parts of me that are still at my core. Thus, if Brian and I are developing that kind of energy between us, I think it would speak highly of/bode well for our relationship.

Also, if we were one of those couples (at whom I've always curled my lip up in slight derision) that chose to wear matching outfits all the time, I'd have no problem. It would be our decision, and whatever others thought (including other lip-curlers) would hold little bearing on our decision. Nevertheless, I am intrigued by this subconscious matching. I'd say it was sheer coincidence, and perhaps it is, but it'd be a pretty big coinky-dink, if you ask me. Brian got dressed first yesterday, so it could be something going on in me (I can't remember who got dressed first the last time we matched).

2 friends of ours, M&M [hey, I just realized their initials are the same as a famous chocolate company's] probably don't ever have that problem. M wears black, period, so she can wear the entire color spectrum and never clash. Bri on the other hand wears colors, so if we're going to some place where it matters a little more, I at least try to make sure we don't wear something that hurts the observer's eye.

We had already spent the entire evening with all but one of this group, including Brian and I sitting next to each other at the restaurant, but it wasn't until we were sitting on the couch that anyone noticed. Isn't that weird, too? I mean, we arrived together and sat right down at the table in the restaurant, but M&M didn't notice. By the time M&B got there, I had taken the matching sweater off, so they wouldn't have seen it. The other thing is, both times we were with this same group of friends. Maybe I/we want to match around them? Or maybe we've matched on other occasions and have just never paid attention.

So what does it all MEAN? Brian says nothing and that he wasn't embarrassed at all. He says to test it, we'd have to forget about it and then get dressed and only check it after we've gotten dressed, because if we thought about it before-hand, we'd skew the results. Heisenberg's principle says that if you measure one element, you alter the other simply by having measured it. It doesn't really matter one way or the other, frankly, and I'm probably too conscious of it now to really experiment on it.

Aaah, the absolutely trivial things in life that make you go "hmmmmmm."** The best part is that I wrote 691 words about it (up to but not including the asterisks**). But if you read it, hey, that wasn't my fault... I'm sorry readers (if any) won't get those five minutes of their life back...