Weblog 5
December 18, 2005~ 9:45pm
Babysitting was a breeze on Saturday... though I must say my grandaughter is horrified by me. At 4 months, Kay regards me as something between the Wicked Witch of the West and Leatherface. All it takes is a long, inquisitive look of mistrustful regard, and the wailing begins. I had to trick her by hanging a mobile in front of her face as she whimpered in her swing, so as to hide this most loathsome countenance and sure enough- the clicking, rocking- steady back and forth quickly coaxed her to sleep.
All was peaceful from that point: she slumbered on for another 3 hours and brother Bill would have nothing of Christmas tapes. A resounding Nay! to the Grinch and 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town'. Only "Baby Einstein" tapes would do, so we watched Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart-- Animals In Our World and On The Farm. I've seen enough swirling colors, bouncing colored balls and puppets to last me for a spell, that's for sure, and he bullied me into singing along. Even with no words, Bill and I hummed through every classical piece, melody known or not, and LOUDLY. Whenever I drifted away from our hum duet, Bill (who was being Batman the whole day-- and most other days, as long as he has his boots on-- and he had his boots on) would chastize me with, "SING, ROBIN!" ----which I did.
And now, one of the packages of Christmas gifts (the biggest one I sent to my son and family in Tucson) is 'missing in action'. UPS tracking says it was 'delivered to front door' at 1:36 p.m. on December 16th. The question is whose front door because it certainly wasn't his, where the first part of the shipment arrived neatly the day before. O lord. This is a trying time of year. I knew that online shopping went a little too easily....
It can't be Christmas yet. I haven't suffered enough.
December 19, 2005 ~8:00am
I am impulsive today. Decided to stay home from work. Got up at 5:30 and staggered to the bathroom, plugged in the hot rollers, took a long, sleepy look at myself in the mirror and thought: stay put.
By this time, if you've been paying daily visits to this hedonistic blog, you must be thinking "that slug is never at work!"--but the truth is I actually have two more days to use before the end of the year; I had lots of unused vacation time when December rolled around this year and it's been a relatively healthy year without sinus infections, bronchitis or plague. (Praise be the divine puppetmaster of the universe.)
I will take a nap (naturally)- do a couple loads of laundry, finish the decorating and write out Christmas cards. A lovely treat. Just for me. Just 'because'--(oh...and my son did receive his package afterall, so with all that going right, what horrors await me just around the corner?) LOL!!
December 21, 2005~ 8:45pm
Well, it's all doooooone!! Every light strung, every package wrapped (or found)and distributed under the proper trees. Now it's time to just relax, and wait for the "eve" to come like soft, white winter smoke. Oh, I SO much enjoy the wait when then preparation is over....here on my shepherdess cyber-hillside, watching my "flocks".....(two troublesome cats, who love the hoopla).
Just so you can see I really did do some Christmas stuff....here's a few pictures of the house, lit up in all it's "hairballless" splendor!
here's Beethoven, my 16 year old male tabby, horning in on this picture of an impossibly 'tacky' plastic bush that I 'silk-pursed' with some Endust and white twinkle lights
and this is the fireplace (working, but filled instead with what is left of the white birches the tornado took out in the late 90's, that my father had planted as saplings. He's gone now, but the birch logs were divided among us
Yes, that's a "suffering Christ" bust in the middle of my mantle. "Cristos de limpias"--a priest friend gave that to me. It had been tucked away in a storage area of the rectory and I fell in love with it. Usually, I take it down for Christmas and replace it with nativity figures, but this year.....with the war still going on I wanted to be reminded of the gravity of human suffering---even at this time of the year. Especially at this time of year. Never forget~ not for a minute.
Here is a poem I wrote in January 2004, about cleaning him after the decorations came down.
My Cristo
Pulling down the last
of Christmas lights
and gewgaws
with bulbs upon the floor like so much fruit,
straddling strands of twinkles, piles of knotted
wire spaghetti while shooing the cats, bringing the
boxes up from the cellar, sealing the past
again
the suffering
Christ comes out of hiding. A plaster
bust, the one I asked the priest for
as I toured the empty storage rooms
of his rectory some autumns ago- too lurid
real for modern taste: my 'Cristo de Limpias', Christ of the
Agony. His glass eyes roll to heaven; metal nails as thorns
stick from his hair. I cradle the human-sized head
and gently wash away
the dust like a shampoo girl in a parlor
at my kitchen sink.
I wipe the bloody face, I say
OK, now there- Ok. The eyes, so liquid, seeing above
beyond the pain, show me he knows his baby self
is packed off for another year, and it is
He- the One who Bleeds, who sees
us through.
December 25, 2005~ 12:30pm
It's finally arrived! LOL!! I finished up work on Friday- been to Christmas Eve dinner with Wayne's sister Garnet and niece Alisa, went back to Garnet's house for a gift exchange and watched the Holiday Dinner on the food channel on BIG SCREEN tv with all that wonderful food and chatty chefs, and we had a marvelous time. This morning I woke up at 10:00- and stayed up- gave the cats some egg nog, and have been happily cruising the poetry sites on the web.
Somehow I've managed to make this a relatively painless, enjoyable holiday, everything peacefully accomplished without too much fuss or fretting and the day is unwinding at a pleasant pace. I still have nine little packages to put into holiday bags, a gift to wrap for my sister in appreciation for so uncomplainingly hosting the yet another family holiday... the digital camera is charged, the coffee is perking again.....
what a 'merry merry' so far! My best wishes to those who do stop in here to read this. I hope your day is filled with many blessings great and small, and some time to reflect on the inherent beauty of this day. To think about the enornmity of the gift over 2000 years ago makes me feel small and big at the same time.
December 25, 2005~ 11:30pm
Tired, happy it's concluded, and full of memories here. How about you? The rustling of wrapping, tripping over toys and watching children deconstruct into the rundown watches they've been waiting to become since December 1st at least, has left me enervated as well. I'm sleepy and Christmas tilted: all my lights flashing, telling me to go to bed. One thing I've learned: it's hard to type and yawn.
Also I'm disheartened because I made an ass of myself on a public posting board. Though everyone knew it (I was half asleep when I posted a comment early today and mistook Yeats for Eliot, then compounded my idiocy by saying it was my favorite Eliot poem. LOL!) and some scholar had the meanness to point it out. That just sucker punched me when I read that comment tonight, so I think I'll go slouching off to me OWN Bethlehem now and quietly read a book. Merry Christmas 'anonymous'. Whoever you are. Thanks for the kick in the stomach. That could have been handled another way.
Hope it was worth the glee.
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
Babysitting was a breeze on Saturday... though I must say my grandaughter is horrified by me. At 4 months, Kay regards me as something between the Wicked Witch of the West and Leatherface. All it takes is a long, inquisitive look of mistrustful regard, and the wailing begins. I had to trick her by hanging a mobile in front of her face as she whimpered in her swing, so as to hide this most loathsome countenance and sure enough- the clicking, rocking- steady back and forth quickly coaxed her to sleep.
All was peaceful from that point: she slumbered on for another 3 hours and brother Bill would have nothing of Christmas tapes. A resounding Nay! to the Grinch and 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town'. Only "Baby Einstein" tapes would do, so we watched Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart-- Animals In Our World and On The Farm. I've seen enough swirling colors, bouncing colored balls and puppets to last me for a spell, that's for sure, and he bullied me into singing along. Even with no words, Bill and I hummed through every classical piece, melody known or not, and LOUDLY. Whenever I drifted away from our hum duet, Bill (who was being Batman the whole day-- and most other days, as long as he has his boots on-- and he had his boots on) would chastize me with, "SING, ROBIN!" ----which I did.
And now, one of the packages of Christmas gifts (the biggest one I sent to my son and family in Tucson) is 'missing in action'. UPS tracking says it was 'delivered to front door' at 1:36 p.m. on December 16th. The question is whose front door because it certainly wasn't his, where the first part of the shipment arrived neatly the day before. O lord. This is a trying time of year. I knew that online shopping went a little too easily....
It can't be Christmas yet. I haven't suffered enough.
December 19, 2005 ~8:00am
I am impulsive today. Decided to stay home from work. Got up at 5:30 and staggered to the bathroom, plugged in the hot rollers, took a long, sleepy look at myself in the mirror and thought: stay put.
By this time, if you've been paying daily visits to this hedonistic blog, you must be thinking "that slug is never at work!"--but the truth is I actually have two more days to use before the end of the year; I had lots of unused vacation time when December rolled around this year and it's been a relatively healthy year without sinus infections, bronchitis or plague. (Praise be the divine puppetmaster of the universe.)
I will take a nap (naturally)- do a couple loads of laundry, finish the decorating and write out Christmas cards. A lovely treat. Just for me. Just 'because'--(oh...and my son did receive his package afterall, so with all that going right, what horrors await me just around the corner?) LOL!!
December 21, 2005~ 8:45pm
Well, it's all doooooone!! Every light strung, every package wrapped (or found)and distributed under the proper trees. Now it's time to just relax, and wait for the "eve" to come like soft, white winter smoke. Oh, I SO much enjoy the wait when then preparation is over....here on my shepherdess cyber-hillside, watching my "flocks".....(two troublesome cats, who love the hoopla).
Just so you can see I really did do some Christmas stuff....here's a few pictures of the house, lit up in all it's "hairballless" splendor!
here's Beethoven, my 16 year old male tabby, horning in on this picture of an impossibly 'tacky' plastic bush that I 'silk-pursed' with some Endust and white twinkle lights
and this is the fireplace (working, but filled instead with what is left of the white birches the tornado took out in the late 90's, that my father had planted as saplings. He's gone now, but the birch logs were divided among us
Yes, that's a "suffering Christ" bust in the middle of my mantle. "Cristos de limpias"--a priest friend gave that to me. It had been tucked away in a storage area of the rectory and I fell in love with it. Usually, I take it down for Christmas and replace it with nativity figures, but this year.....with the war still going on I wanted to be reminded of the gravity of human suffering---even at this time of the year. Especially at this time of year. Never forget~ not for a minute.
Here is a poem I wrote in January 2004, about cleaning him after the decorations came down.
My Cristo
Pulling down the last
of Christmas lights
and gewgaws
with bulbs upon the floor like so much fruit,
straddling strands of twinkles, piles of knotted
wire spaghetti while shooing the cats, bringing the
boxes up from the cellar, sealing the past
again
the suffering
Christ comes out of hiding. A plaster
bust, the one I asked the priest for
as I toured the empty storage rooms
of his rectory some autumns ago- too lurid
real for modern taste: my 'Cristo de Limpias', Christ of the
Agony. His glass eyes roll to heaven; metal nails as thorns
stick from his hair. I cradle the human-sized head
and gently wash away
the dust like a shampoo girl in a parlor
at my kitchen sink.
I wipe the bloody face, I say
OK, now there- Ok. The eyes, so liquid, seeing above
beyond the pain, show me he knows his baby self
is packed off for another year, and it is
He- the One who Bleeds, who sees
us through.
December 25, 2005~ 12:30pm
It's finally arrived! LOL!! I finished up work on Friday- been to Christmas Eve dinner with Wayne's sister Garnet and niece Alisa, went back to Garnet's house for a gift exchange and watched the Holiday Dinner on the food channel on BIG SCREEN tv with all that wonderful food and chatty chefs, and we had a marvelous time. This morning I woke up at 10:00- and stayed up- gave the cats some egg nog, and have been happily cruising the poetry sites on the web.
Somehow I've managed to make this a relatively painless, enjoyable holiday, everything peacefully accomplished without too much fuss or fretting and the day is unwinding at a pleasant pace. I still have nine little packages to put into holiday bags, a gift to wrap for my sister in appreciation for so uncomplainingly hosting the yet another family holiday... the digital camera is charged, the coffee is perking again.....
what a 'merry merry' so far! My best wishes to those who do stop in here to read this. I hope your day is filled with many blessings great and small, and some time to reflect on the inherent beauty of this day. To think about the enornmity of the gift over 2000 years ago makes me feel small and big at the same time.
December 25, 2005~ 11:30pm
Tired, happy it's concluded, and full of memories here. How about you? The rustling of wrapping, tripping over toys and watching children deconstruct into the rundown watches they've been waiting to become since December 1st at least, has left me enervated as well. I'm sleepy and Christmas tilted: all my lights flashing, telling me to go to bed. One thing I've learned: it's hard to type and yawn.
Also I'm disheartened because I made an ass of myself on a public posting board. Though everyone knew it (I was half asleep when I posted a comment early today and mistook Yeats for Eliot, then compounded my idiocy by saying it was my favorite Eliot poem. LOL!) and some scholar had the meanness to point it out. That just sucker punched me when I read that comment tonight, so I think I'll go slouching off to me OWN Bethlehem now and quietly read a book. Merry Christmas 'anonymous'. Whoever you are. Thanks for the kick in the stomach. That could have been handled another way.
Hope it was worth the glee.(Return To Weekly Archives)
...
. or pay a visit to my Audio site to hear things
I've written- 
Some are just 'jotters', thoughts as they fly- going
nowhere but where they are. If you stop and read a few~ or post a
few~ thanks for
the perusal. Last of all, if you've a hankering for rants and raging,
try making a stop at my other blog- 
