Chistmas dinner on the grill

Hey, I'm not complaining, I love the warm weather, but I'll be grilling the steaks for Christmas dinner out on the deck!!! Never done that before. Ever.

I always write something for Bern for Christmas and have a two year ban on sharing it. So, you'll get to see it in 2017. And I already posted a blog about how she got it early because I'm a dope.

Turns out, she was glad to get it early because she always feels pressure to read it and Christmas day is not a good time to slip away and read. So, my being a dope worked.

I opened my gift tonight--she always makes me something.

So, she made me a hat--but not just any hat: a Puli hat.

The hat looks just like our Puli dog Bela and I love it!!!

She wrapped it in a box that had my name and address on it and I thought--she didn't 'make' me something this year. And when I saw it, I was sure she'd found a Puli Hat on line and ordered it--that's how well made it is!

It is remarkable. I'll be wearing it when it gets a tad colder and try to find a way to put a picture of it on my blog (which is doubtful since I'm such an anti-nerd). She had to convince me she sewed it and the label she put it in finally let me believe her.

A Puli Hat, for goodness sake! Amazing!

Be well and stay well, my friends. And Merry, Blessed, Peaceful Christmas to you all.

The eve of The Eve

Bern and Mimi and I went to see the new Star Wars movie this afternoon.

I haven't seen a couple of the sequels, but I know this: on the ones I've seen this one most closely recreates the original.

Hans Solo and Chewy are there, as is Princess (now 'General') Leia. And Luke Skywalker is in the last, super-dramatic scene. Another movie is surely in the offering.

But the two main characters are Rey and Finn--she a girl who was a scavenger on a desert planet and he a storm trooper who defects. They are terrific.

Hans Solo's and Leia's son is the new incarnation of Darth Vader and truly evil, though he seems conflicted when he meets up with Hans.

What makes Rey special (as Bern pointed out) is that she is a female character who is a hero in a big way but without reserve or explanation. She is the star of the movie and wonderfully and understatedly acted.

It's a winner--lots of special effects and battles and noise.

See it.

What a dope! Really!

As I get older, one thing I notice is that I'm not good at doing things in a reasonable order.

Big Example: I always write something for Bern for Christmas and she makes me something--usually paintings but once a table shaped like West Virginia! I'd finished what I wrote for her this year and went down stairs to wrap it in the dining room, Saturday night. On Sunday morning, I came downstairs to be greeted by a kiss and a "Thank  you for my Christmas present!"

I had no idea what she meant and said so.

"Well, you left it for me here," touching a tall table beside the dishwasher, "it said, 'for Bern' right on it."

I was half-way to church when I remembered I'd come down to wrap it and saw the dishwasher was finished and emptied it....Then went on to do something, having forgotten why I came downstairs in the first place and not noticing the box with the writings that said 'for Bern' on it.

What a dope. Really.

I need to have a list with me at all times.

I used to blame being an off-the-scale "Intuitive" on the Meyers/Briggs test. Intuitives are notoriously bad at doing things in the right order.

Bern is an intuitive too, though not nearly to my degree, and we once arrived at the beach for three weeks with two kids but no swim suits or towels! Intuitives need lists.

But I'm getting worse than I used to be--staring into the refrigerator not knowing why I opened the door, finding myself upstairs without knowing what I was on the way to do. Looking for my glasses long enough to sort of forget what I'm looking for...stuff like that...stuff like going to wrap a present and emptying the dishwasher instead and forgetting about wrapping the gift. Stuff like that. Going to the grocery store to buy olives and dog food and spending $40 and coming home without olives. Go figure!  What a dope doesn't go far enough.

So if you see me with a little notebook in my hand and a pen behind my ear, it's because I'm having to keep a list with me to avoid giving a Christmas present 5 days early....

Alas, poor Bern, having to live with me....

Mimi's home

Which is always good. She is my love. I love Josh too, terribly much, but Mimi just slips into our lives and barely makes a wave and is so welcomed.

I probably did before, but I'll share again, a poem I wrote about her on her birthday when she was in Japan with the American Ballet Theater.

                          PHOTOS OF MIMI

The house is full of pictures of her.

In some of them, she is a tiny, chubby baby.

In others, she is a little girl possessed.

In one she gains speed, running

down a hill in front of my father's house,

her tongue out, her blonde hair flying,

her small arms churning

like the wind.

In another, taken the same day,

she is solemn, not looking at the camera,

considering something out of the frame,

unsmiling, gazing at the future, perhaps.

She grows through the pictures—though they are random

on the walls and shelves, so she doesn't grow evenly.

A beautiful, awkward teen, smiling in spite of braces,

her jeans decorated in ink, a hole at the knees,

her shoes half-tied, embarrassed, I think, by the camera.

There is a sagging Jack-O-Lantern at her side,

smiling a smile as crooked as her own.

A whole group pictures when she was finishing

high school—a lovely, wistful, long-haired girl

exploding gracefully into life and what comes next.

I love the photo from her college graduation,

the four of us, this little family, her brother posing,

Mimi—short-hair and sun-glasses—smiling.

Just the four of us, a tiny clan, so different and distinct,

frozen in time on a mountain in Vermont, timeless, eternal.

I walked around the house today, looking for her visage--

bride's maid at Josh's wedding, clowning in a hotel doorway,

holding one niece or another with her boyfriend

(she natural, laughing, Morgan content on her lap,

Tim is a bit anxious and Emma is pulling away from him),

sitting on our back deck at an age I can't remember

when her hair was a color not found in nature,

and she is, as always glancing away from the camera,

playing on the beach as a toddler, sandy, nude,

hands in the sand, staring backward through her legs

(a photo a camera shy person would hate later on!)

I made my circuit, stopping before each photograph,

amazed at the memories that leaped out of the frames

and enthralled me.

Amazed more that such a beautiful child and woman

could have lived with me so long

and left imprints on my heart so deep.

She is half-a-world away.

In a land I can only faintly imagine.

I will not talk with her today—her nativity day.

I cannot even remember, as I gaze at photos,

if it is today or tomorrow in Japan.

Or yesterday.

Then there is the photo I love most.

It is pinned to the cork board beside my desk,

where I sit and write.

She is framed in a glass doorway. Her hair is long.

I can't remember how old she way—in college, perhaps--

and beyond the door you see, fully lit, dunes of Nantucket.

Mimi is in shadow, almost a silhouette cut from dark paper,

in full profile. Only the back of her hair is in sunlight,

shining, translucent, moving in the wind.

I love that picture because it is Mimi stepping through the

Door of Life, moving away from the infant shots,

the little girl, the teenaged child,

moving into life beyond me...half a world away.

All grown and still, all new....

jgb/July 21, 2008

Walking Man

There's a man I see walking most every day, no matter what the weather.

He could be 75 or 80. He walks from wherever he comes from all the way up Cornwall Avenue's hill, which is very steep and down to Route 10 and back. He also walks on the Canal--I've seen him coming from down toward Hamden and going the other way.

I usually see him when I take the dog on his first walk--9 or 9:30. We have a wave and nod acquaintance. He always wears ear phones, so we don't speak.

I'd love to know more about him, but he walks fast and doesn't stop for anything, so, I'm not sure how to engage him.

He sure walks a lot. And it seems like a task--he doesn't smile...just walks and walks....

Afraid of the Dark

We all are, in some way, aren't we--afraid of the dark, I mean?

And the next too days are the darkest day's of the year.

We have two clocks in our bedroom that give off a little light. That works for me.

But walking my dog--even at 5 pm these days--brings a tad of anxiety. It is so dark by then that I'm looking at shadows as if they are threatening me in some way.

The Winter Solstice may be my favorite day of the year--because I know from then  for many months, there will be a little more light each day--a few seconds early for sunrise and a few seconds later for sunset. The Light will come more and more.

Conversely, the Summer Solstice may be the day of the year I hate most. Thought light will stay for months after that, every sunset is a few seconds sooner and ever sunrise a few seconds later. The Darkness gathers and gathers, until right now, nearing Christmas, until Darkness reigns supreme.

Leave a light on tonight. It's serious Dark these days.

But know this, the Light is about to come--little by little, to reclaim the days and we go forward.

You need not fear always.....

The light begins, very soon, to come back.

Under a week

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday since both our kids and families come to us.

Easter is probably my second favorite since...like I just said, we get Tim and Mimi and Josh and Cathy and the girls.

Christmas--not so much family. Josh and Cathy always travel with the Chen family to Asia for Christmas. They're all in Japan right now. And Tim usually goes a few days earlier than Mimi to Florida to see his parents. Mimi comes to us but flies out on Christmas evening. She'll be here Monday so we get her for a few days.

All that said, Christmas is under a week away. The Winter Solstice is in a couple of days.

It seems like all this happened a lot faster than usual.

I'm doing Advent and Christmas at St. Andrew's, which has the latest Xmas Eve Service (by the way, the X in Xmas is for Xpistos...Greek for Christ. So ignore those who want to but "Christ back in Christmas"...X IS Christ....)

Then I'll go late to John Anderson's Christmas Eve party and meet up with Mimi and Bern.

Then John will come to Xmas dinner...or Xmas lunch, depending on Mimi's flight.

Very low key and lovely. Christmas is like that for us now...low key and lovely.

There's a lot to be said for that. A lot.