Christmas Eve

Up early. Years ago, this was my busiest day of the year. That's no longer the case, but still, I get up early.






Our chickens are unpredictable. Sometimes they dilly when I open their coop. Today, they're hovering near the door, anxious to be out.





Maybe they sense that this truly is a rare event? It's above freezing for the third or fourth day in a row. They can scratch the farmette soil to their hearts content. And they do.

At the farmhouse, I do a thorough house cleaning. Windows wide open, dust cloth flying, vacuum hitting the darkest corners. The place shines, ready for a round of visitors (arriving tomorrow).

From the predawn hours, Isie boy has had visions of his own sugar plums: he is incessant, meowing loud and clear that he wants that same special can of cat food I'd opened yesterday, that very same one, his very favorite, perhaps his all time favorite! Kind of odd that it should be this, on Christmas Eve. (The can is of venison. I mean, really, Isie? Today?)

Ed and I have a much more prosaic breakfast. The usual, in fact.






We then play Santa. Well, Ed helps me, but I can't say that he'd like to associate himself with anything so spendy as gift giving. Still, he does help. We lug gifts to my daughter's house where they will be opened tomorrow. For now, they sit and wait. While their cats romp and explore as if they, too are touched in their soul by this holiday.






(Ed plays with Virgil, my daughter remains preoccupied with her own wrapping.)











More errands and quick trips to the store. And then Ed gives blood. They hooked him on the phone to come down, but it doesn't take much hooking because he is always giving blood. Me, I stopped when I turned anemic. I do not think I remain anemic but I haven't turned the corner from thinking that I am. So he's on his own.

At the farmhouse, we keep the sun room closed off because without sun, it only throws cold air back into the house. (You do know that we have not had sun light for a while?) Every time I open the door, the bells that I hung there, seasonally, just for the heck of it, ring very very loudly. I think it drives Ed nuts, but he doesn't complain. Even though I think he's looking forward to the quiet that will come on December 26th.





When the girls were little, I used to ring a big bell I had downstairs and do a little routine, pretending that I had heard Santa's sleigh. I don't think they ever believed it. Still, when I jingle any bell right about now, I feel very much as if I am right in the thick of my daughters' Christmas, circa 1990, when one would have been 9 and the other -- just approaching 6. At those ages, kids just bubble with the joyousness of the holiday. Their favorite two phrases on Christmas morning? I don't need any more presents because this one is the best gift ever! And before that: mom, hurry up with the photo, we want to come in! (I insisted on an annual photo of them approaching the tree in their p.j.s on Christmas morning.)

Since the lights on my Norfolk pine are of the low energy kind, I can keep them up round the clock. So different from the days when I insisted on restraint: too many hours of tree lights meant the tree would dry very very quickly. These days, there need be no restraint.






And now, the Eve itself. As in previous years, it is a calm evening for us. And food? Ed, who rarely has preferences in matters of custom and tradition, suggests that we do what his people are said to do on this day (and by "his people," I mean the New York Jewish community from which he emerged): go out for a Chinese dinner. We eat the combo special at Imperial Gardens East (where surely unlike in New York on this day, there are a number of people wearing Christmas sweaters). And the food is just okay.





But the evening is grand nonetheless.

My girls and I always used to say that the day before Christmas is the best ever because of all that still will follow. I'll sign onto that.

When I was very young, maybe around 8 years old, I looked for "Christmas spirit" in whatever place I could find it then. Comic books were a good source. In one, a young Dennis the Menace is looking for a tree to bring home. He comes across some scrawny looking ones sold by a pair of cowboys. I do not know why I will always remember this last image from that comic, but I do and it is as evocative to me as a choir singing the most beautiful carol. Dennis bargains for a tree and the cowboy lets him have it. In this untidy lot, the air is full of the impending holiday and the cowboy turns to his pals and reminds them -- it's Christmas Eve on the range boys, it's Christmas Eve on the range... 

Tuesday

The delightful part of such a gray but not too cold December is that we're not suffering when we step outside. That includes the cheepers who have been happy to wander the farmette in their usual fashion.








Though it's true that they don't like it when it rains! Who can blame them? Imagine putting your down jacket through the washer and then putting it on without drying it first! This morning, in the light drizzle, our hens looked mightily bedraggled!






It is the last pre-holiday morning. Ed and I have a lovely breakfast in the front room...






...and then I return to my Great Writing Project -- stalled for a while, what with the travel, the essay writing, and yes, Christmas. But as I sit with my laptop at the kitchen table, I look outside and see the hens moving nimbly between the bare raspberry canes and I think -- yeah, it's good to have these winter days that aren't that terribly cold. Even if the gray spell does continue, uninterrupted. (Remember: there are always chocolate covered raspberry gingerbread squares to carry you through!)






Tomorrow, the festivities begin. Or not. Are you in the thick of celebrations? Let me know if you have a minute. I always love hearing from you.

Monday

At least it snow-rained. In fact, there was a wet mixture of white stuff to start us off and then it quickly changed its mind and became all rain, leading the weather announcer on the radio to comment -- we're having a Dan Fogelberg moment. Of course, as always, I felt my pop culture ignorance swell: I had no idea what he was talking about.

It's quite unusual for Wisconsin to have such a prolonged period of overcast skies (I have not seen the sun since... Paris), but honestly, today it just didn't matter. After breakfast (ours and theirs)...









(leftover spaghetti)


...I took off the slip covers and protective cases from the couch and gave them a thorough washing. (A similar maneuver with the bedding upstairs did the trick for Ed and he no longer has a reaction to the furniture there. Thank goodness, or it would have been goodbye bed, hello floor for all our sleeping needs.) Alright! Once we wash our two carpets, we should be done with furniture cleaning.

And then came the grocery shopping. If you celebrate Christmas with copious amounts of food, perhaps you have a strategy as to when to shop for it. Mine used to be the day before. Not anymore. As the decades pile on, so my interest in last minute anything diminishes. And so there I was, loading the cart today, which is about as far in advance as I'll ever grocery shop (any farther and the stuff wouldn't be fresh).

There is a pleasant buzz in the air now and it makes this year's drab days of December quite inconsequential. Anticipation overshadows even the wettest, soggiest weather moments.

I stopped off at my daughter's to drop off a few things...



(hi, Virgil the cat!)


... then came home to watch Ed gather the brood and lead them to shelter. The rain was just too much for the cheepers.










The day closes with more of the same: damp and dark outside, bright and warm inside. Winter, especially this winter, is our time of the greatest contrasts.

the shortest day

The brilliant truth about the shortest day is that it can only stretch and become longer henceforth!

The shortest day of the year was characterized by:

...an early, too early, cheaper awakening. That's because I couldn't really tell if the sun had risen or was only about to rise. Cloudy skies mess with your senses in that way.






...breakfast.





...writing. I had an inspired moment at 4 a.m. A story spilled out of me quickly, fluently. I worked all day to edit and improve it.

I thought I saved it.

I hadn't saved it.

I flushed it down with my little trash icon and even Ed's heroic efforts failed to fully restore what I had single handedly thrown away.


Come evening, I had wanted to bring to your attention the moment the sun disappeared below the horizon, but 1. it was so early that I forgot to pay attention (4:26 p.m.) and 2. it was too cloudy to catch anyway.

But, here's the thing -- in the evening, the pregnant couple came over for supper and even though this truly is the shortest post on this shortest day, I can't help but recall that moment of radiance when they walked in.





Short post, short day, full heart.

a year of not doing yoga

Last night I attacked gift wrapping. With the DVD Love, Actually running its course in the background, I managed to do the whole job in that one evening. Yes, I'm talking about these:





But at the end, as I raised myself off the floor, to my horror, I noticed that I had completely stiffened. I felt like I had aged maybe forty years, right there to the tune of God only knows what I'd do without you...

Well now, that wont do.

The problem with people like me is that because we feel ourselves to be active -- walking, hiking often hours each day (for me, this is routine during travel) -- we become complacent about other forms of exercise. And if you don't use a muscle group, or if you give your joints too long a vacation, well, they rebel: how come the leg muscles got a work out while we languish at the side?!

Suddenly, yoga becomes something more than a mere mood cleanser. It's been a year since I attended classes and I'm paying the price for it.


...so that after breakfast...






(ours and theirs...)






...and after a few odd chores, I put on my favorite youtube yoga video and get to work. Yes, I should return to formal yoga class, but right now I'm too ashamed about how much I've strayed away from the routines. It's like attending alcoholics anonymous right after you've had a year of binge drinking. There surely is guilt to recon with. So, I moan and groan in my very private yoga session and at the end of the hour, feel like thirty out of the forty added years had been tossed out once more.


 (While the hens gossip...)






(and the cat watches...)






In the late afternoon, Ed and I venture out to Target to upgrade some of our ratty bed coverings. I had washed out lumpy pillows (who knew that you could/should wash your pillows!) and I had finally convinced him that ripped cases needed to be tossed.

And since Target and our favorite bowling place are not that far apart, we stop by to put in a game (actually five games) at the alley. It's wonderful to start off with the world's worst score and to watch it improve with each game. It's so rare that you can sit back and reflect how good work pays off!

It's late when we get home. True, the sun yet again stayed behind thick clouds all day long, but in the evening, you hardly notice it. The warm glow of the house beckons. The lights twinkle on and off.

Friday

A very long time ago, I fell in love with the choral Christmas music from Kings College, Clare College and, too St. John's -- all from Cambridge. There is one song from Kings that I do think should guide us through the post today.

(Title: In the Bleak Midwinter)

Honestly, I wanted to gather the cheepers in my arms this morning and reassure them -- this too, this cloud-filled period in your lives, it shall pass, my dear ones! But they're not huggable. Unlike so many chickens that modern folk get for their back yards, these guys are spooked and they're forever chasing us adoringly (or, in search of food, the cynic would say), only to retreat if they get too close.

I kept the lights on in the farmhouse all day long.





From breakfast...





...forward.


It took a mighty large set of hours to complete my visa application (remember? I mentioned it yesterday) -- all ten documents! -- but I pushed myself and by early afternoon I was ready to set out (to mail the blasted set of papers).

(Do you have the music playing?!)






Much later, I drop in on my daughter to help her with one thing or another. It is hard to leave. Watching the cats play with ribbon is absolutely delightful!






And of course, watching her, especially as she moves to show me something on the tree is riveting! (As of today, three weeks short of delivery, her baby becomes "full term.")






At the farmette, I get the coop ready for the night. I fill the cheeper dishes so they'll have food when they wake in the morning. The very last cheeper act is one that I save for Ed. Most nights, our girls prefer to fly up on the fence and fall asleep there. Ed comes with a flashlight, scoops them up and nudges them up into their bed and breakfast.





When they're groggy with sleep, the hens do not protest the human touch. Their dreams (of worms? of digging up my garden come spring?) have carried them elsewhere, to a place without fear.

It is a good way to end the day -- for them, for us.

Thursday

I was so dismayed at seeing a gray sky again today that I decided I needed to sign up for yoga to clear my head of grumpy thoughts about the meteorological conditions out there.

Perhaps you remember that not too long ago, I was a yoga fanatic. And like all phases and crazy devotions, the rigid adherence to a regular yoga schedule ended one day, just like that. It was an intended temporary lull but it turned into a permanent abstinence.

Right now, it's not the exercise I miss, but it's the twisting and turning in weird ways which seems to really help put me in good stead to face whatever skies I wake up to. In other words, the theory is: I will resume yoga and you will stop having to listen to my complaints about the dreary weather. That's the theory.

There are issues to confront: I have been with a frozen shoulder (for the second time in recent years, so I know the drill) for many weeks now and if you have ever had this tiny inconvenience of not being able to bend your arm in even the most useful directions, you'll sympathize. So I don't quite know how yoga works when you only have one functional shoulder. My reasoning is that if I could face travel and hoisting suitcases into overhead compartments with one functional arm, I can probably manage a class of yoga. I love challenges that don't have great consequences in case I fail!

I write all this not because I have now signed up for my yoga classes (maybe tomorrow!), but simply to let you know that I am doing something about my attitude toward the skies above and so if things go according to plan, perhaps this is the last time that I will write the following:

What a dreary day it is out there!


I again was the cheeper morning release girl today, as Ed has been working on his mechanical invention late into the night and I feel sorry for him come daybreak.





















Our breakfast is very nice indeed, but again, you'll have predicted as much.





After, I ask him for help with forms. Ed is very patient with deciphering what bureaucracies expect of us and I am facing one of the most complicated bureaucracies out there in trying to apply for a visa to a foreign travel destination in August. I am a child born to bureaucracy (I would describe post war Poland as scoring high in this area) and yet this particular one (it shall remain nameless for now) really stumped me.

So we shuffled forms and papers and finally, at long last made progress. That was my morning.


Beyond that, I had two lovely outings today. You probably have those days as well when you hate to hoist yourself out of a chair to get going but when you do, you have no regrets. Indeed! A cup of tea with a friend (who used to be and will soon become again my yoga buddy) was more satisfying than I could possibly describe. And later, Ed and I went to the final local farmers' market of the year - indeed, the final one until spring. In many ways, it made me think that spring is not too far away. But in case it's longer than it seems, we stocked up on spinach, onions, beets and cheese -- the kind of stuff you can still find in a winter's market here.











And finally, now is the time to put on some chipper music and celebrate the wonderfulness of having a warm evening at home!

Wednesday

Never promise something that is on the high end of the range of possibilities, because if what's delivered is at the low end, the recipient is going to be grossly disappointed.

That's the way I feel about the sky today. You know, that great Midwestern sky that I like to brag about. That same one that has cast a shadow over our landscape for such a long time. The weather people promised it would give us sunshine today.

Bullshit. No sunshine. Just more of the same colorless sky, leading me to proclaim at breakfast...





...you know, it really is quite ugly out there right now.
Ed is shocked. These are not words that I usually apply to our landscape. I backpedal right away: I mean, it's monochromatic. 






That it is. That's the farmette for you,  at dawn, as I step out to set the cheepers free.



(why is it so cold out there?)


It is cooler now, so that our brood hesitates for many hours before making the trek up to the farmhouse.






Never mind. Enough about them. Time to get mobile. It always surprises me how sedentary we become when the landscape isn't to our liking. Put a layer of snow on our terrain and I'm out, camera dangling. Strip it of any color or snow and I turn my back on it.

Today I force myself to head out.

To my daughter's.



(a more accurate rendition of my girl with her girl)


And then downtown to meet a friend for a drink. As I take a brief stroll along a city street (Madison is a city, right?), I think that these early winter weeks are the only time when the city does look better than the countryside.


 



Our seasonal blandness is hardly noticeable in the concrete and asphalt world of urban neighborhoods.





And still, I return home to the farmette with not a small amount of pleasure. In the country, you develop this fortitude -- an attitude of endurance. This drab stuff -- this too shall pass. In the meantime, let's fix a nice pot of winter chili and settle in for a warm evening at home.

Tuesday

We are such adaptive animals! The first time you find yourself on a new playing field, you panic, worry, feel ill at ease. You notice the bumps, the unfair play, the pain of being unprepared. The next day you maybe notice a bump or two, but the rest? You've grown used to it. If your shoes don't fit, you make them fit. It's like the crappy wall paper that you swore you'd change when you moved into the new home: change it right away because if you wait a few months,  you'll forget it's even there.

I have now grown used speculating which irritant might bother Ed (who, I should note, has had lifelong sensitivities to all sorts of stuff -- all of which he, in true Ed fashion, basically ignores). I'm used to my little Apple computer still not working (we're running a new series of diagnostics today). And I'm used to the gray skies that have descended over us like stubborn relatives who come and then refuse to leave.

It's only when the time comes for me to start thinking about the photos that I have for you from this day (almost none) and the sentences that will describe my hours of writing (and watching the pings on the Network Utility on the computer) that I recoil at the repetitiveness of our issues here this week and at how for the outside observer, it may look like we're sort of standing still.

Thank goodness for breakfast! It would put anyone in a happy frame!






And thank goodness for our chickens who have profited from the warmer temperatures and the absence of snow!






And, too, thank goodness for the very large amount of progress in my daughter's belly -- she is less than a month from her due date and when she and her husband came over for dinner tonight, I could not help but stare!






The warmest possible cap to a good, if repetitive, day.