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Only an American would appreciate the simple beauty of those numbers! (We post dates beginning with the month. Poor souls elsewhere see this day as 31.12.23. Big deal, right?) 

 

Ed and I have been lucky this year. Nothing tragic, no great calamity, no huge personal failures. True, Ed reminded me that I cycled through one surgery and more recently, in the space of two months -- two big time viruses, both of which had the power to kill the likes of me, but I retorted that in fact, neither killed me, nor hospitalized me, nor even wrecked my stamina, so let's not get hung up on the small stuff. And by the way, the reason both were in the end small is because I am fully vaccinated and both vaccines protected me from more serious outcomes that are so much a worry for people our age. So -- lucky. 

I'm weighing whether luck warrants cracking open a (half) bottle of champagne tonight, or whether in fact that kind of toast is better saved for New Year's Day, to celebrate hope. I mean, why toast a year that's over and done with? And what senior person is going to want to pop a cork at midnight anyway? Two things to consider there: who wants to stay up that late and is it really good for your sleep to sip stuff just before bedtime? 

Fifty years ago I would have attributed such deliberations to the VERY OLD. Oh! Perhaps that would include people my age! Gulp!

On the last day of the year, many of us like to reflect. Many, but not all. Looking back on a day -- I do that all the time! You could argue that Ocean is one ongoing look back. An answer to the pressing question of what just happened?? Looking back on a whole year, on the other hand, seems to invite judgment. Man oh man, that sucked! I should have seized the moment then! I wish I had tried this, done that, let go of the other! I prefer looking forward. It's not that I choose to forget the past: it lives within me every single day. But I do not catalogue events from the year or reflect on them on this day, only to be tossed aside thereafter. So, New Year's Eve is a sigh of relief, a grateful nod to having had so much luck in life, to be alive, to have felt the love of family and friends, and to give one big exhale before facing and bracing for the New Year.

In the meantime, we have a dusting of snow. A frustratingly small amount once again. True, I'm not up for skiing yet (that voice thing!), but I'd like to imagine that in a day or two I'll be in the forest with Ed, gliding along undisturbed snow. Not gonna happen. Not with this light stuff.

Breakfast? Still healthy. If I'm not moving a lot right now, I should at least eat well.

In the afternoon, I notice the quiet once again. No holiday music. No kids (during the day). No movies, shows, video clips.  Ed and I both like quiet, and yet I'm wondering if I should return to my jazzy vocalists that were my go-to music favorites from a few years back. Classical in the car, jazzy at home. Not today though. Nothing really seems right. New Year's Eve demands something uniquely special, even as there is no New Year's playlist that truly belongs to this day. Picking up on an NPR recommendation (we need to move beyond just Auld Lang Syne!), I listen to Abba's New Year's Eve song. Meh... 

I search for other possibilities. 

In the end, my favorite hasn't New Year's in the lyrics but maybe it's there in the spirit? It's a recording of Kermit, performing at Lincoln Center this fall, along with the "choir" that is really the audience. Here it is:

 

 

And so long as we're on the Muppets, here's a more targeted message from Kermit: 

And now it's time to get dinner ready. The young family is here for my traditional New Year's Eve seafood extravaganza. 

 

 

 

(My daughter brings the party hats and noise makers which, luckily, aren't hugely noisy!)

The three little ones are ready to party party all evening long! The parents? Perhaps less so, but the kids are hitting that age range where staying up is going to happen, whether the parents go along or not, so may as well make it special. 

 

 

 

Still, I shoo them out of the farmhouse way before the carriage turns to pumpkin. This is an example where being a grandparent has downsides (you get tired) and prerogatives (you dont have to stay up). I wave them off with hugs and hoots and happy cheers.

And once the house is in order, I sit down with Ed, for an oceanic celebration of the coming of the New Year. Meaning before our midnight, before even the east coast midnight, right when 2024 rolls around by the Atlantic Standard Time (so 10 p.m. our time), I take a sip of something fizzy and I wish him, and my near and farther afield family and friends and you too, Ocean readers -- a very, very happy New Year!

 

 

with so much love...

winding down

The goal for today? Keep it low key. Work on getting voice back, which requires doing nothing much except popping pills and ... hydrating! My herbal teas are being put to good use. Ed tells me to sleep during the day. Terrible idea! I want the sleepiness to creep in at night time. Nothing is more delicious than a feeling of drowsiness right around 10 or 11 p.m. 

I have two outings for the day. The first, predictably, is to feed the animals.

What, you dont think that qualifies as a biggie? Cut me some slack, I'm recovering!

Breakfast. Unfortunately, I've become spoiled. All those delicious croissants and sweet breads in the morning! My traditional oatmeal feels like a real let down! Still, one needs to stay the course and veer towards the healthy, so oatmeal it shall be. For today.

(I compensate by a return to our wonderfully stale but delicious Sacher Tort for lunch.)

I am totally embarrassed to admit to my preoccupation for the rest of the day, especially since it has been my late night preoccupation for a while now: I have been agonizing over my suitcase. Ed, who has always traveled with his same old duffle-backpack (think: 50 years old, zipper repaired many times), would shake his head in puzzlement/disapproval/amazement. If you have something that basically keeps your clothes together for travel, why look for improvements? Why indeed! It is a fact that I do travel a lot. And that I rarely, perhaps even never check my bag, at least on the outbound journey. But my fantasy carry-on suitcase has evolved over the years. I need it to be large, but within the required guidelines of the airlines I tend to use. (22 x 14 inches for Delta, 21.5 x 13.75 for Air France, 21.5 x 13.5 for KLM.) Each of these airlines will wink wink at an extra half an inch, but I do not want to be caught off guard and have someone insist at the gate that I tag it through to my final destination. In other words, I should stick with the smallest of the three.

Okay, easy peasy, right? Wrongo bongo! (My grandkids are very familiar with these grandma phrases, with the addition of yeppers peppers and nopers popers. Just ask them!) Most carry-ons are EITHER 21 inches to meet most international requirements, or 22 inches for those traveling domestically. Should I push the limits or relinquish a half an inch? And there's more: the matter of volume. You do not want to, no, rephrase that -- I do not want to pick a carry-on with low volume for whatever reason (handle is inside construction, etc.). And here comes the next requirement: it must be expandable because I tend to get stuff for the kids when I travel. I dont mind sending it through on the way back. Okay, fine. All that calls for much searching. But well you might ask, well might Ed ask -- dont I already have a decent suitcase that meets (wink wink) certain dimensions and expands and has adequate volume?

I do have a decent suitcase. Here's the caveat: I was younger when I bought it. Enough younger that I did not pay attention to weight. I did not pay attention to the absolute necessity of having a grab handle to get it down from the overhead (because at 5 ft 5 inches, I belong to the category of short people from the point of view of overhead bins). And most importantly -- and this prompted the search -- I had settled for just a two wheeler, because two wheelers give you a tiny bit more volume inside. 

Try navigating a two wheeler down an airplane (narrow!) aisle. Just try it. You can't! You have to wiggle and bump your way down and most often everyone around you is grumpy and in a hurry so you wind up picking up the damn thing and carrying it and believe me, at my age, this is sub-optimal. When I travel with my grandchild it is more than sub-optimal because I'm usually already assisting with her stuff. My hands are full. And so I want spinner wheels, to push the case forward on its side!

Okay, have I given you enough text on the subject of suitcases? I should say that I have pride in the look as well. I dont want just a black suitcase. I dont want a flashy one either. But I want it to look nice! Is this too much to ask? (Ed: yes it is.)

My travel expenses have been significant lately, so I have been postponing throwing money at a suitcase for a while now. But 2024 promises to be a year replete with travel and I cannot do the lift and carry thing anymore without feeling like perhaps this is where I should take greater care. So for weeks now I have been studying suitcases and since I have a trip around the corner, this weekend was my last chance to get one prior to it. I finally decided on one -- it's not perfect and at 21, it is half an inch smaller than I am allowed, which kills me! (Perhaps two more pairs of socks would have fit in had I found one at 21.5 inches that checked all the other boxes perfectly!) It's also not the superstar that I've been ogling but which costs way too much for my retirement budget. This small downgrade doesn't kill me, but still, my second fiddle is costing me enough. I wish it were also the most beautiful suitcase in the world. It isn't that, but (I hope) it's good enough. And it has the spinner wheels!

 

In the late afternoon, I go for my second outing, over to my daughter's house to give her moral support and to wrap tree ornaments as they take down their own Christmas tree. I can't talk of course, but I can smile at the kids and wrap ornaments in toilet paper (Snowdrop is immersed in writing a book, Sparrow is an enthusiastic ornament remover!), as we work through this final stage of Christmas in their home.

Evening. I listen to Ed talk about how lucky we are. For him, this is measured by the fact that we have food on the table and heat in the house.  I'll add (and he wont disagree) that we are indeed lucky, for all the love that fills our everyday, from all sides.

leftovers

Sometimes, it's not just the food that remains in your space, to be reheated and savored at another time, another day. Sometimes it's the memories, the dangling unfinished holiday details, the lost voice (that was my yesterday's surprise -- inflamed vocal chords!), the huge need for a catch up sleep, the treasured photos in your file, and yes -- the stale but delicious Sacher Torte. Bits and pieces of my holiday of family, still with me, lovely reminders filling my head on the day after it all ends.

I wake up, test my voice -- still missing! -- and slowly make my way to feed the animals. Leftover snow! That too.  It will melt soon enough, but for now it brings back those images of kid play outside. So wonderful to have lingered long enough for them to get that pleasure out of it. This morning, the chickens are out and about, looking for scraps of food that I often bring out for them after a big eating frenzy at the farmhouse. Sorry girls, not today! I'm keeping the leftovers for Ed and me.

Breakfast, with the last pieces of the nut stollen, and a sliver of honey cake.

Because it's a long holiday weekend and I dont want to get really sick in the thick of it, I go to my clinic to check out this latest nutty inflammation. I get a couple of meds out of the deal and a "stay hydrated!" verdict, which is just a tiny bit funny. This is my one outing for the day. I return to the farmhouse, take out my sheep blanket, spread out on the couch and fall asleep.

Lunch? Leftover Sacher Torte.

And the big project for the day? Take down the tree. For me, Christmas ends when the family disperses. The tree itself lasted a really long time and it probably had another week in it, but looking at it now seems so wrong (even as I understand that Christmas traditionalists would be appalled at my timeline). Down it comes.There's always a small amount of sadness that comes with the emptying of our living space in this way. We were all here yesterday, very much immersed in holiday play. And here I am now, vacuuming up the last fallen needles as Ed carries the tree out. That finality can hit you right in your emotional gut. And yet we all have a lingering closeness that firmed up even more out of those days together, with the kids, over foods -- and that stays. 

Dinner? Chili and chocolates. 

 

With so much love....

December 28th

Well, it's snowing. We expected it -- an insignificant blanket of very wet snow. You wouldn't take out your skis for it, but I'll hand it this much: it's very pretty.

At least for now, in the morning, when I head out to feed the animals.

Not one of our 12 animals (cats and chickens) likes to touch the stuff. Wet and cold on their clawed legs or pink paws. They just want to stay sheltered. This would be less problematic if 1. they all got along and 2. if the farmhouse stayed empty, or with just Ed and me. Every animal here is terrified of visitors and so after spending a luxurious morning on the warm farmhouse vents, they ran like crazy once the young families began to arrive.

I'm doing a farmhouse brunch today. By coincidence, all the menfolk are sequestered in their own bubbles for reasons of work, but everyone else is here. Three women and a brood of kids. And it is lively and lovely.

And there is a sacher torte (you know this cake, right? -- almonds, apricot jam, chocolate). This was my one surprise for the-day-after-Christmas dinner: the original sacher torte from Demel's in Vienna. I used to bake these fairly regularly, but this time I really wanted to try one that claims to be the real deal. Except it did not come on time. In fact, it was five days late. That's late enough for it to start drying out. Still, I figured it would be fine for brunch, with a cup of milky coffee. 

Other brunch foods? Croissants, held over in the freezer. Breads, also rebaked, honey cake from my last trip to Madame's honey shop. That's the doughy stuff. Bacon and Norwegian salmon for protein. And cheeses -- a Swiss one, a Wisconsin one, and the beloved Baby Bells for the littlest kids. Eggs, not farmette ones because the hens are not laying this winter. Or if they are, we have no idea where. A fruit dish that is huge, but which is emptied out twice as I restock it. And cheese sticks and the sacher torte. All easy stuff, but it does take a couple of hours to throw it all together. 

They're here!  No one is dressed for snow play and in any case, the wetness of the snow is very unappealing, but still, the temptation is there: just to try, for example, the sled. One quick second.

Inside, the five cousins have a really good dynamic by now. Sometimes the older kids band together, other times, the three girls group over a shared interest, and every once in a while all five join forces. 

 

 

 

These guys really love each other -- a mutual affection and acceptance that is handed down from these wonderful daughters of mine...

We eat.

They play some more. We take a "with grandma" picture.

And then it's time to take the young ones home for naps. One quick walk! -- plead the older three. Fine. All of you. Go take a walk!

(Wait up for the little one!)

(The magnificent five!)

In the later afternoon, we gather again, this time at my older daughter's home. There, the older kids find the requisite snowpants and finally, they are given unfettered time to romp outdoors. 

Only after they get thoroughly wet and romped out do they come inside.

(look who's up!)

(archery)

And dinner? Well, my son-in-law has some Estonian lineage and he has taken to cooking up an annual dinner for all of us which we call (with a large degree of enthusiasm) our Estonian Christmas. The dishes he prepares are all straight out of the Estonian kitchen. A pork roast, barley with mushrooms, scalloped potatoes, followed by a fantastic currant meringue cake. 

Our Christmas season began on Thanksgiving weekend with an outing to the Christmas tree farm, followed by the evening tree trimming. All of us, at my daughter's house. It ends tonight, also at my older girl's home, also with all of us there. In between -- all those weeks of planning, shopping, cooking, with a birthday stuck in the thick of it (Juniper's!), and a Nutcracker outing, and lots of music thrown in, because my playlist is so long and I do not ever tire of it. But of course, the joy is in these gatherings. The conversations. With the kids, most of the time off playing, in the background, though sometimes demanding our attention, because, well, some of them are still so young even though some of us are getting to be so .... less young! 

 

 

 

Together, on these beautiful days of December. 

(Back at the farmhouse, one last look at the tree...)

A thrilling set of days. Absolutely the best!

with so much love...

December 27th

Oh, these days, these days! They make up for the crummy ones that occasionally litter the timeline. Too perfect, too beautiful and really, so simple! Family walks, meals, outings, shopping for notebooks, more meals shared, all of us, happy, playful, together.

Not much writing for today. Just photos with a few explanatory notes. You'll appreciate that the best of days require the least of words. 

*     *     *

Up many hours before dawn. So is Ed. He offers to feed the animals and then he is off for some momentous stage of his machining project.

Breakfast, light. With the world's best red berries.

*     *     *

An all-family meet up at the Arboretum. It's just above freezing. Despite the early hour, or maybe because of it, the kids are energetic! What better place for that!

(Juniper, the youngest, has her work cut out for her...)

(timed release selfie!)

A stranger with a camera (and a huge lens) comes up to me and asks if the kids would like to see an owl. He's spotted one just a few branches up in a tree. If they can stay quiet and don't scare the big bird... 

They stay quiet and it is positively awesome. (It's a Barred Owl and thankfully it was not feeling territorial so our ears and caps are intact. Those owl eyes! So beautiful!)

*     *     *

Brunch at Hollander. (It describes itself thus: comfort-food fare served in a European-style cafe with a vintage-chic vibe..) I'd never been there. I thought it was perfect for us!

The eatery is at Hilldale (an outdoor shopping area) and since we are there, I gave the kids one last gift: $25 (max!) each to spend at Paper Source. Do you know this store? It's an expensive card and stationary shop, but they've added little gifty items and all kids love it and parents rightly see it as way overpriced. The older Madison two have ballet class right next to it and each week there's a lot of begging to go in and "just look." We never do, because we are older and wiser. If you care about your credit card limits, you'll stay away. But today, I wanted to see what they could accomplish with $25. 

After much angst, many calculations, changes of mind, comparisons, deliberations, they finally chose their loot and honestly, they did just fine!

(Sandpiper is hiding!)

*     *     *

The older kids went with their moms to the movies (dads stayed with the younger two). I considered going along, but honestly, I cant sit through a movie when I'm under-slept, so I went home to tidy up and take care of the cats. 

We meet up later for supper downtown, at Lucille's. This has been our favorite supper place with all the kids and parents for a while now. It's mainly a pizza restaurant and it is so... cheerful! Especially around the holidays.

 

*     *     *

Are we still in a period of "the holidays?" For me, as long as these guys are still here, we are on a holiday roll! 

With so much love....