Twelve Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas,
my front door gave to me
a newly dislocated knee.

(Don't ask.  OK I was running inside from the garage 'cause Baby It's Cold Outside and in my haste I kneecapped myself with my own front door.  Why yes, that DOES hurt.)  

On the second day of Christmas,

The fraser fir tree gave to me

Two itchy eyes

And a relentless need to sneeze.

On the third day of Christmas,
Having eaten everything in front of me
I gained three extra pounds,

(two of them from cookies!)

And had a relapse of anorexi

(a).

(OK I’m not really anorexic.  So STOP worrying me about my weight, people!  PLEASE.  I eat food.  I love food.)

 
On the fourth day of Christmas,
I drank too much brandy,
Four glasses eggnog,
Three cabernets,
Two Shiner Bocks,
And a hangover that nearly killed me.

On the fifth day of Christmas,
my in-laws gave to me
Five Useless Things:
One laundry sorter,
Two drugstore perfumes, 

A baby-head garden stone,
And one of those electronic aquariums with fake fishies. 

On the sixth day of Christmas,
my mother gave to me

A photo session 
at Portrait Innovations

where I got

Some gorgeous pictures of my babies!

On the seventh day of Christmas, 

I drove out to Crabtree

(that’s one of the malls here, non-Triangular readers)

Had a nervous breakdown

Road-raged on a teenager

Saw the flashing blue lights

Got myself a ticket

Finally found a parking space

Then went on a rehabilitative shopping spree!

(One for her, two for me.  One for him, two for me….)

On the eighth day of Christmas,
the cat climbed up the tree, sending
Eight glass balls tumbling
Seven angels falling
Six Keepsake ornaments breaking
Five garland strands tangling
Four light strands shorting,
Three candy canes crumbling,
Two branches breaking,
And a big mess just for me to clean.

On the ninth day of Christmas,
my kids they said to me,

“Mommy we’re BORED

Despite our stocking stuffers,

New electric scooter,

Pink Barbie Mustang

Playmobil vet clinic

Ten thousand legos

Board games and puzzles

Cinderella mp3 player

And the ever-elusive impossible-to-buy but Santa-brought-them-anyway Zhu-Zhu pets!”

(Child Protective Services is closed on Christmas.  I know this because on that day I tried to report myself as an imminent danger to my children.)

On the tenth day of Christmas, 

Bridger and Waverly

Ate too many cookies

Got a little hyper

Started running wild

That provoked their asthma

Necessitating albuterol

Which, ironically, is a stimulant

That makes them more hyper

Which results in wheezing

Perpetuating the cycle

Of respiratory distress and hyperactivity.

On the eleventh day of Christmas….

ELEVEN DAYS?  ELEVEN?

ARE YOU PEOPLE CRAZY?

*

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love he sent me 

To the place with the soft walls

And the funny jackets

(Not the black leather Frye one that I asked for)

The nurses here are real nice

And the drugs aren’t half-bad

And there are no kids here

Someone else cleans the kitchen

And they do the laundry

And there’s Peace on Earth and

jello cups and

Silent Nights

For me!

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

Did you know that eggnog is REALLY good with brandy? WAY better than rum. Of course you do. I believe your surname is Klaus, which sounds German. So does Jagermeister. I'm not a linguist but I think I see a pattern here.

So what, you imbibe a little in the off-months. I mean, there ARE eleven of them. And it's damn cold where you live, so Imma let you go on this one, because I'm thinking there's not much else to do at the North Freakin' Pole except drink. As indicated by your beer belly (not a bowl full of jelly. WHO EATS THAT?) and your gin blossom cheeks. (Imma let you finish but Rudolph had the reddest nose OF ALL TIME. Of all time.)

Oh you're a saint? Nicholas? REALLY. Catholic? GUILTY.

So speaking of alcohol, and by the way is there a way you can fit some of that stuff in your bag without it breaking and making the kids' toys smell all rummy and brandyish? Cause I really needed some before embarking to the toy store this morning. And by the way you're an ASS for outsourcing the elves' jobs to Toys 'R' Us. Someone should call their union.

They play Christmas music at TRU. Toys 'R' Us. Totally Ridiculously Unaccommodating. (That's right I said Christmas, bitches. The only Holiday music I like is Billie's.) (OK really I'm just kidding. I go wild for that dreidel song and I especially like yule carols.) What they SHOULD play at TRU (Try Rethinking Uprising) is "Welcome to the Jungle" and "No One Here Gets Out Alive."

I revised my will before leaving for TRU (Terribly Retarded Underlings) this morning, I'll have you know. I foresaw epic disaster of the 2012 variety. I informed my friends and family that I loved them and reminded all that I had had a good life.

Santa, since you know when I'm sleeping or awake (question: does that make you a stalker? Are you aware you may be on the sex offender registry? I mean, you're all into kids and ho-ho-ho's and you're kind of a dirty old man. Really. You should think about shaving.)

So since you're stalking me I'm guessing you know I got a really good parking space at TRU (Torrential Rage Unleashes) this morning. So I'm thinking I'm in the clear. It IS Sunday morning at 9AM, after all, and the good people of Cary are all getting ready for church so I should have this bitch to myself.

Santa, I never saw the two behemoth passenger buses parked in the back of the lot.

FML. Furtively Mimicking Lunacy.

So I'm stalking the aisles of TRU (Terrifying Really, Understandably) for Zhu-Zhu pets. Santa, while I'm exceedingly happy that you and the elves (are they all Indian now? Or Chinese. Hmmm....) developed virtual hamsters (you must have some Japanese elves. I give you points for at least maintaining a multicultural sweatshop) that don't stink or poop, I have to tell you that you're a little PROUD of them. While $8.99 isn't a bad price for a hamster that neither eats nor requires wood shavings, at $39.99 their habitat is a little pricey. Oh yeah, and HARD TO FIND. I only knew from an insider's insider that they would even BE at this particular TRU today. (Yes I have spies too, Santa. They know what you've been downloading so be good for goodness' sake! PERVERT.)

Well I got my Zhu-Zhu's AND their Totally Ridiculously Ultra-adorable little house and even the exercise wheel (!) despite your monopoly. Santa, WHEN did you become a capitalist? (While we're discussing rampant greed and Trampling Reprehensibly Upon the working poor might I ask that you reconsider your fashion choices? I mean, red fur is SO pimp. SO ARE THE BOOTS. You're jumping into chimneys, dude, NOT Afghanistan.)

So I'm scouting for some Star Wars and Fancy Nancy paraphernalia (you know that word, paraphernalia, right? I mean, you DO hit that pipe pretty often) and I witness an INVASION. I SEE GHETTO PEOPLE. In Cary, Santa! That's not right and you know it. So I'm all like WTF (White and Totally Freaking), what's up with all the ethnicity in my toy store? I mean, I'm Totally Righteously Upperclass, and all. (You, my friend, are not the only rampant capitalist/classist in the Northern Hemisphere. WHY ALL THE ELVES GOTTA BE WHITE, CRACKA?)

I thought they were going to stop bussing kids in Wake County.  Apparently not.  Oh--I see!  They come bearing White Suburban Christians.  (They were wearing Church name tags, THAT'S HOW I KNOW. You skeptic. And to think everyone believes in YOU so willingly!) They were all partnered up, each team looking eerily like an episode from Diff'rent Strokes. 

But Santa, each of the Churchies had a shopping cart. A cart, not a basket. They meant business. And each of the Churchies had with them A Child.

A Child. A poor, smiling, chimney-less child.

These were tent children, exiled and besieged wanderers and there was no room, no inn for them. Homeless children.

No toys for them.

(Santa: WHY?)

Not until some good people--did you know that Real Elves are as tall as the rest of us, Santa?--opened their hearts and their purses for some Holy, Heavenly children born without so much as a manger to lie in so that they, too, would know a Love that manifests itself in generosity.

They GAVE those kids Christmas, Santa. What Wise Men and Women.

I have to tell you that this morning I didn't see Totally Raging Uber-capitalism. Nor did I witness Typically self-Righteous Ultra-Christians.

So Santa, Imma let you finish, but those people at TRU (Truly Rejoicing Uplifters) this morning were the best gift-givers OF ALL TIME. Of all time.

Merry Christmas. And happy Kwanzaa and Hannukah and Diwali and Eid and Solstice and...well, you know the rest, don't you?

Your friend,
Becky

PS I'm still waiting for that Barbie Dreamhouse. And a new bike with a banana seat and handlebar streamers. Please tell the elves, if they can understand you.

Abbey

We tiptoe through the green, woody portal that leads to the little pond, the other world. Low-growing brush kiss my bare legs and I bow beneath a canopy of green. Even the air is different here; the light, dense, refracts off of still water, fern, and pine. It is surreal, this jewel of a clearing with its knowing trees and black water. I dismiss the road sounds of the street just behind us; we do not look back through the trees to see the neat rows of matching houses.
This is Narnia. If I were a fish I would surely live here.
We tiptoe so as not to perturb the fish and the urge to genuflect surprises me. It has been a long time. I resist the impulse to kneel, sitting, instead, deep into the folding canvas chair that accompanies me on these little journeys.
“Sam— ” I am not ready for him to leave me.
“What, honey?” He whispers, looking at the water like a lover, even as he speaks to me.
He walks gingerly to that shifting line where the earth and the water meet and studies the dark, pregnant pool. It is a mystery to which only he knows the answer—a secret he shares with the water. I marvel at the silent calculations that must race through the undercurrent of his mind, just past consciousness, as he determines where and how he will aim his first cast. The world is suddenly good and right and just for him, full of promise and potential. There are fish in this pond.
He sets down two rods—one for himself and an extra I think he brings in hopes that I will join him. But I am not one of the converted; I am too content in watching, breathing. He bows, scoops water from the pond, and tastes, less in thirst than in ritual. Remembrance. He opens the tin box, warpy and scarred black on one side from a fire no one talks about, and chooses a lure.
He stands, rod in hand, faces the water, tenses, and quiets. He pulls back and whips the lure into a shadowy spot made cool and dark by fallen oaks. The lure arches though the air then hits its mark with a noiseless splash, and wavelet rings swell and sail in the water. He casts, again and again, and we fall into the rhythm of water and line. I am mesmerized. The world, for a moment, is just man and women, water and mind.
There is God in these woods, in this water, I think. Not since the sounds of whispered Aves made me weep child’s tears at the horror of a dead God have I been moved by anything but ocean currents and the Carolina gale force. But here in this pocket of earth and shadow I feel something watery, shimmery, pregnant, and green that can be nothing less than His forgotten daughter.
I know this water, love her like a more beautiful sister. He pursues her, his mistress, and she indulges his little penetrations, heals him, nourishes him, gifts him with her children.
He gives her back every fish he catches.
I wonder, were I not sitting here, how many times he would baptize that hook.
“Sam....
Sam.”
I wonder if we are on the same globe. This happens every time. He has been left too much alone in this world.
“Abby, c’mere.” His eyes fix on the water still as he whispers my name. Again I will play child to his father. “Watch.”
He switches to the fly rod I once bought him in a moment of poetic fervor. “I’ll take the Shakespeare,” I’d said, as if I knew the difference, to the man at the sporting goods counter.
He attaches some little black tangle to his line, a knot he was born to tie, with all the fierce concentration of prayer. He pulls at it, testing its resiliency, three times, then whips it once, twice and again, piercing the water so gently you know he doesn’t want to hurt her.
He has never caught one fish on that fly rod. Not in all the times he’s been out here furling and unfurling its line like a banner, endeavoring to rally the fishes to some common cause. He caught plenty, he reminds me, on the rod owned by Walt Harnett, father almighty. But Chief Harnett died in a three-alarm purgatory in his house off of Ten-Ten many years ago, and went down with his best weapon.
I didn’t know Sam when his father died, yet my heart revolts against me when I think about it, even now. What God in heaven lets a fireman burn to death in his own home? What God makes a child an orphan? What kind of god hurt the man who would be my husband?
Something whizzes sparklingly past my ear. He has nearly caught me. I am resurrected, made alive again in this world by mischief in blue eyes. “Sorry!” He grins.
“You wanna know what the trick is, Abby? You’ve got to hold your mouth just right. It’s all in how you hold your mouth.”
I indulge him; I rise from my seat, purse my lips solemnly, and wait for the fish to fly from the water. We are both standing there at the horizon of water and earth, puckering up for fish that will not bite. I can only stand it for so long before I begin to laugh. I make my best fishy face and kiss him right on the mouth.
He tolerates my irreverence for only a moment. “You’ve got to be quiet, Abby. You’ll scare the fish.”
I wish that I were slick-skinned, shiny, and gilled. Maybe then I could hold the man’s attention for longer than a second.
Sam offers flies to the fish again and again, but this will not be their last supper. Our little found world, our America, will soon fade into shades of gray and darkness.
“One last cast, honey, I promise.”
I’ve heard this before, and again, as before, I believe him. I’m not sure where my faith comes from; I stopped believing in God after only one betrayal. I envy Sam’s faith, really. He believes. In possibility, in second chances. He hopes.
He drags his line, eyes focused and fixed on the breach he has made in the water. At last, he withdraws. He is mine again. “You ready?”
He kneels and places the lures and flies inside the old tin tackle box , molded and scuffed from years of wear by a man and his boy, lustering in the encroaching moonlight. The light remaining gives me a glimpse, a reflection of his face in that altar, that box of lure and lore and memory.
His eyes divulge a stunted childhood, forsaken, pulled out of the water before its time and left to learn, alone, how to breathe.
And my heart cannot hold all our sadness. So I offer it, my unbidden gift, to the water.
I dive.
The water is cool, amniotic, forgiving.

Thanktified

I am thankful for many things.  Ninjas, especially, spring to mind.  AND Balloon Boy, because I'm still laughing about him.  And firefighters because, well, HAVE YOU BEEN READING THIS BLOG???  But not fruit flies.  Never fruit flies.  In fact, had there been fruit flies on Mayflower I'm pretty sure there would be no Thanksgiving at all.  The pilgrims would have sailed back to England.

I'd like to think the Natives would have lived on, thankful to be uncolonized and smallpox-free, for several more centuries, this northern climate too severe for Cortes and too unfashionable for Louis or Lafayette. 

Because then I wouldn't be cooking this freakin' turkey.

SURPRISE! 

Thanksgiving.  At MY house.  TODAY.  (You've got to be shitting me, right?)  The mother-in-law who was SUPPOSED to host this year is sick.  My house stands undefended and unprotected, ripe for plague and plunder, inviting invasion like a gold-rich island nation, population four.

My heathen subjects (ages 4 and 6) prove futile at resistance.  The counter-insurgency fails.  So with less than 24 hours' notice I feed 14 people a full Thanksgiving feast, a Dionysian orgy of food and drink.  (However, I AM excited about the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. I wonder if we'll see Balloon Boy up there with Snoopy and Kermit.)

The invaders pour in by the shipload.  Like an Aztec Reina I welcome and feed them.  

Not suspecting the general treachery of her foreign guests, the hostess, ever the last to sit down and eat, subjects herself to a fate worse than pillage, worse than smallpox.

His name is Uncle Jack.  He has come to enlighten us savages; he is the Source of All Knowledge.  The subject of his diatribing (yes I did invent that word.  The Maya invented THE CALENDAR) loses her religion, her customs, indeed, her cultural identity.  

He tells me the story of the exotic animal of his homeland, the Beefallo.  Worse even than the Turducken,  the Beefallo is a living hybrid of the cow and the buffalo.  (Why not Cowallo, of Buffow?  The world will never know.)  Uncle Jack proceeds to indoctrinate me to the sexual reproduction of the Beefallo.  AT THE DINNER TABLE.  Turns out that, being crossbreeds, most male beefallo are sterile.  So when a male beefallo is discovered to be potent, his sperm sells for far more per ounce than his meat and the breeder can expect to become as wealthy as a Spanish Contessa if she has no qualms harvesting his sperm.  Harvesting his sperm.

I give you that visual as my personal holiday gift to you. YOU'RE WELCOME.
 

Why DO we do this to ourselves each year?  This forced march called Thanksgiving?  Who was it that first said, "I know, I'll invite over ALL my family and even my IN-LAWS and I will cook a gluttonous feast of no less than one large salmonella-contaminated avian and perhaps even the better part of a pig, sixteen vegetable casseroles, and oh yes--PIE.  There will be pie!  Pumpkin and sweet potato and, if I call myself any sort of Southerner: rutabaga.  And neither Boston Market nor Honeybaked Ham will be involved because that would be CHEATING.  And the family will stay ALL DAY and perhaps even take NAPS at my house because I will drug them with tryptophan and sugar."  WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS?  Some Iron-Chef watching Puritan with no kids and in-laws back in the Mother Country? 

I bet it was Eve.  That bitch.

I consider this proof that there were no fruit flies in Eden.

OH AND I KNOW!   The NEXT MORNING I'll wake up at 3AM and risk certain trampling, hair pulling, and vehicular assault in the parking lots, entryways, and checkout lanes of the mall, Target, and Toys 'R' Us.  I will go to war in the name of Christmas.  I'll be a Holy Crusader conquering the Infidels at Gap and Best Buy with credit cards and ill will and instead of souls I'll save money.  Because you can't spell  Son of God without Black Friday.  (Not in Aramaic, you can't.)

And THEN I'll redecorate my entire house.

I will move furniture.  I will hang long, twisted strings of electric bulbs from the perilous rooftop.  I will introduce such deadly plants as poinsettia and mistletoe to my dogs and children.  I will even erect a ceiling-height evergreen TREE inside my house.  This tree, certain to provoke an allergic maelstrom in my OWN only-begotten son, I will decorate with bits of metal and small idols, not as a pagan symbol of resurrection and fertility, because THAT would be irreligious (Fa-La-La-llacious), but as the perfectly obvious representation of the Birth of Jesus.  Because virgins, holy Infants, and conifers comprise a perfectly self-contained set, right?  Right.  And I will ignore, to the detriment of my family, the fire hazard presented by said tree's close proximity to my ever-burning fireplace and the electrical hazard posed by the incalculable load of miniature lights that I have plugged into nearly every outlet in the house.   And from its branches I will hang balls, big glass BALLS, because nothing spells Christmas like a nine foot pagan phallus.  Pha-La-La-La-Phallus.   And I will order my little heathens not to TOUCH the tree on pain of death or dismemberment.  (An eye for an eye, a hand for an ornament.  That's not in the Bible but it SHOULD be.)

Ladies, why do we do this to ourselves?

(Men.  SHUT UP.  I know some of you fry a turkey and swing some lights around between football games.  But you have NO IDEA what this holiday entails and left to your own  devices you would do the drive-through at Boston Market, let the kids eat Thanksgiving dinner in the car, throw some popcorn and tin foil at a sapling in the woods behind the house and call it a holiday.)

It occurs to me, amongst all my Christmas trappings, pine sap on my fingers and ornament hooks in my hair,  that I am an elf.  A very tall elf.

No, my friend Bobby C tells me.  I am not tall. Just an elf in heels.

I maintain that I am tall for an elf.  And my heels are righteous.

At some point this holiday weekend I receive my much-anticipated, long-awaited Google Wave invitation.  I add this to my ever-growing list of things to be thankful for:

The new Barbara Kingsolver book The Lacuna.  The angel wings Waverly made for her stuffed puppy, Goldie.  Bridger telling me a joke from last night's Family Guy (which I shouldn't let him watch but damn that baby Stewie is funny).  My husband's patience and my mother's grace.   Brandi Carlile on my iPod, Frida Kahlo on my desktop, the Peanut Gallery at Heartwood.   My friends far and near, new and old, virtual and real, imaginary, fictional, the One Who Should Keep a Toothbrush at My House and the One in the Library.  A life that has more questions marks than periods (thank you John Mayer).   A Democrat in the White House and a log on the fireplace.  Thank you, Gods.  Happy Birthday, Jesus.

Surprise!

My husband drives THIS van:

(Okay not THIS one but one that looks just like it.)  One that looks just like EVERY OTHER unmarked white van in America.  There are thousands.

Why unmarked?  Suspicious, right?  People are always asking me: Is he transporting bodies in there?  Working as a secret DEA operative?  Preparing to flee a crime scene?   

No, I assure you, frightened denizens of Suburbia.  He owns a heating and air conditioning business.  He comes to heat and cool your home.  He hasn't had his van painted and lettered yet because he's pretty sure he's going to change the company name.

So while my friends complain of never seeing their husbands, I can readily say that I see mine ALL THE TIME.  (At least I think I do.)  He's EVERYWHERE!   SOMETIMES I CAN SEE MORE THAN ONE OF HIM AT A TIME!

Yes, I wave at LOTS of unmarked white vans as I drive about town.  Many a tradesman has mistaken my attention for flirtation or outright stalking.  I know this because I often get the nod, sometimes get the leery eye, and worst of all, the pervtastic-construction-worker shout-out with the window rolled down. 

If there is a secret league of unmarked white van drivers, I'm sure my picture's on the wall.  I'm THAT girl.

So yesterday I get a call from hubby to meet him at a jobsite and pick up a check that he will be leaving on the front seat of his van.  He gives me directions.

In my currents state of GPS-less-ness, I only manage to find the street.  I don't remember the house number.  But oh look!  There's an unmarked white van!

I pull up behind it, run to the driver side door (I am about to be late for carpool) and SWING open the door. 

Imagine my surprise to find a van full of Mexican painters.

Imagine THEIR surprise when a small white chick swings their door open and very nearly launches herself into the driver's lap.

FUCK!  I think.  I'M GOING TO GET SHOT!

¡Qué demonios!  They think.  Inmigración!

"Ohmygosh!" I say. In my state of shock I can't remember how to say sorry in Spanish.  "I'm so sorry!  Excuzez-moi! (WRONG.)  I mean perdon! I'm--ohmygosh--I have the wrong van!"

All six of them are shouting at me in Spanish at the same time.  I slam the door on them, run back to my car, and peel out of there. 

One block up, parked in front of another house, is another unmarked white van.  Probably the right unmarked white van.  The one with the check in it.  But I'm totally freaked at this point and I'm not taking any more chances so I drive past it and start to make my way out of the neighborhood.  F the check.  I'm  outta here.

My husband calls.  "Did I just see you drive right past here?  HELLO! Turn around!"

No, I tell him.  I have PTSD now.

Besides, if I just keep driving I'm sure I'll see him again.

He's everywhere.