Santas Come in All Forms -- and Genders

Today is the day teachers everywhere pray for -- a snow day (well, actually, more an ice day, but still . . . ). Schools in the entire metro area were called off by 10 p.m. last night -- and then, of course, the weather did not get as bad as expected, but we were already snuggled in for along winter's nap.

I went to bed last night at 9 p.m. and finally woke up completely (at my age we get up a couple of times a night) at 9:30 a.m. I had really been tired. The laundry had been done over the weekend and yes, the presents to travel to Houston still haven't been sorted, but the day just called for a snuggle down with a good book.

Grad school whipped my ass this semester. I simply couldn't manage to get right what the prof wanted -- and she wanted a lot, mostly paper after paper. Sometimes I'd come close, but others I'd lose points for not using the comma correctly. Any interjection of humor brought out her red pen slashes and plenty of point deductions. By the time the final paper was due, I only had 94% of the points available -- and I knew that my final paper was all helter-skelter. Aware that my 4.0 grade average was more than in jeopardy, I stressed out big time. Stress and overwork sometimes shut down my ability to concentrate on my biggest reliever other than music -- mystery novel reading. I have read a lot of news magazines and every People that's delivered, but I haven't been able to chunk out chapters in novels. Three books sit open, read about a third of the way in, before I'd give up.

Yesterday when I got home from school a medium sized box from California awaited me. It was from my good friend Joyce. Joyce was my boss from 1993 until 2002. We both worked for the #3 Telecom Company during that time. But all good things must eventually end - and this had certainly been a very good gig for me. I had the opportunity to work with a brilliant and caring boss who oversaw a staff of really bright, achieving women in an environment that was nurturing and creative. It was the best job I've ever had -- not the job I'm best at -- but certainly the best in terms of professional growth and personal happiness. In 2001 I was eased, with lots of love, out of my contractor gig for the company, and within two years Joyce left to follow her husband into new ventures.

But we stay in touch, e-mails here and there, her visits to town to see friends and relatives. She wrote me a wonderful recommendation when I decided to return to teaching. I know she's always there, just a note or phone call away. And yesterday she was my own personal Santa, for in the box was a bevy of new novels -- for both Hubby and me. He couldn't grab the new Parker quickly enough, wrapped himself in the comforter -- and didn't emerge until lights out. On my part I read the new selection from a silly little series set in the 1930's -- and found myself mellowing and relaxing -- and once again able to take release from my favorite pastime.

I'm not nearly the good friend to Joyce as she is to me. But I thank her with all my heart -- for the eight years we worked together -- and for remaining my dear friend after. She truly brought Christmas into our home. Many, many thanks.

The Lengths to Which Your Friends Will Go

A week or so ago a dear friend had hip replacement surgery. Several weeks prior to that, on an overcast but fairly warm autumnal Sunday afternoon, our friend treated us to a unique experience. His wife owns a horse, smallish but quite sturdy. They had built a four passenger cart for the horse to pull and acquired all the requisite accoutrement, including period clothing. They are often requested at small town parades and old west re-enactments. We had shown interest in their stories and so they invited us out into the hinterland to savor the experience of an authentic horse / wagon ride.

After a lovely post-church lunch, we ambled down the highway a piece, arrived at a picturesque riding stable and Deb went into get the horse, while Lou gathered equipment. Except the horse was sure that winter had arrived and cart rides were a thing of the past until spring and Deb had the devil's own time making that horse agree to be "carted."


Lou, working in pain the entire time with a screaming disintegrating hip, helped Deb with the mare and also heaved and toted and carried and buckled and generally did a yeoman's job. Hubby and I watched in amazement from the sidelines.


The gear for the horse is gorgeous -- all leather and studs.


Then the cart came out of the trailer -- beautifully stained wood and hunter green paint -- and perfect in size and shape.

The horse relented, was harnessed, and we heaved ourselves into the cart -- and then the fun began. Lou drove and we were whisked back into time, riding gloriously happy behind the mare.

Up and around the trails we rode, at first clutching the sides with white knuckles, but eventually realizing this was a lot more fun that we had thought.

Eventually we all tired, and we clamored down. Lou and Deb had another hour's work ahead of them but they sent us onward, saying the drudgery was in the details and they wanted us to remember only the fun.

And what fun it had been.

Now Lou has a new hip and is in recovery, doing just fine, thankfully. We're glad, not only because we want our friend hale and hearty for our concert gigs but also -- we hear they have a boat, too . . . .

Ungalvanized

For the past 60 years our little bungalow has had galvanized pipes which meant, of course, that the corroding in them decreased the water pressure just a little more each year, until this year, when we suddenly were down to a mere trickle, if that.

Also the pipes were springing leaks at an alarming rate. When Hubby was hospitalized in April of 2006 the second night he was there I came home to a flooding basement. I had to sneak into the hospital at 1 a.m. to ask him just where the heck the shut-off valve was to the water (I was too stressed to remember -- and the hospital phones to patient rooms shut down at midnight).

This month Hubby found a another, newer leak in the basement. He's frustrated by his lack of strength to fix these things himself, but he's more than capable of supervising help. In came a little crew that he'd gathered (I don't ask myself where these men come from, I just accept them as they parade through and then camp out in the basement) and they spent the next four days fighting pipe leaks in the basement.

Each time one pipe was fixed, another one sprang a leak. Initially, they determined that three major leaks existed but as they removed one corroded pipe after another, they sort of lost count. I'd like to say we put in copper piping, but we didn't. We went plastic all the way -- so much cheaper.

For two days this week we had no water in the house. The first night we couldn't even flush the toilet, much less take a bath. The second night they saw to it that at least the toilet would semi-flush. Dishes piled up in the sink, everything under each sink was unloaded and strewn on the floors, and pipe joints appeared everywhere. Also, they drilled new holes in the floor to bring new piping into the bath and kitchen, creating mounds of nasty sawdust.

By putting on blinders and shutting down, I managed to exist through the chaos. Suddenly, Hubby claimed they were done. "You can take a bath tonight, Babe," hubby proudly announced. I trudged through the debris now littering my bathroom floor and cabinets, and dutifully turned on the water -- and -- AND -- a full stream of hot water poured -- NO GUSHED -- from the faucet. I hadn't seen that much water in . . .well . . . maybe fifteen years.

I'm still learning how to adjust the new faucets (hot water actually must now be mixed with cold - what a unique thought!) while I'm slowly cleaning up the messes (there's even plastic piping in the living -- I ask you, how did they get the pipe into the living room?). But it's wonderful to have fully functioning water streams in this house. This has been a great Christmas gift.

In Anticipation of Glad Tidings

Hubby bought a tree for my classroom this year. Last year, my first year back after a 16 year stint in business, I didn't have my own room. But this year I do, so Hubby got the kids a tree. It's one of those fiber optic trees so it doesn't really look good unless the room is pitch black, but the kids like it anyway.

My para went nuts. She decided the kids had to make ornaments. Now these are high school kids so I looked at her a bit askance, but . . . on Monday and Tuesday I took the days away from school to write my final paper for my grad class . . . and my para took the time to have my 4th block study skills kids make ornaments and -- get this -- hang their stockings around the tree. I came back on Wednesday to find the far corner of the room a veritable Christmas fantasy land. Eighteen stockings, all purchased by the para, each with the respective kid's name, have been hung around the tree. Snowflakes have been made and padded with scrap paper to be dimensional. Ribbons have been curled and draped. The African-American dancing Santa, gifted to hubby some years back, stands proudly next to the tree while all my classroom stuffed Schnauzers are peeking out from under the branched. The boom box, dialed to the 24 hour Christmas station, plays soft carols and we have lit the cinnamon candles. It is very festive.

So, even though we are having freezing rain and dire predictions for ice storms, Hubby and I went out to the dollar stores today and loaded up on odds and ends to fill the stockings. Monday I'm going to cart in a huge box of weird stuff, hand over the tissue paper, and tell my para to find herself a couple of elves and get busy stuffing those stockings.

The Christmas spirit abounds.

We Do the Shows

For Thanksgiving the family met in Branson, MO for a trip we had been planning since the end of July. We saw the shows, we dined, we shopped, and we laughed. It was a marvelous vacation.

Hubby and I had been to Branson pre huge remodel, when the town was a one road village with Silver Dollar City up the mountain road from motel row. That had been fun in the 1970's, just a three hour jaunt from home with pretty scenery and fudge shops for snacks. Then Branson became the #2 (or is it #3) destination vacation spot in the nation -- and we avoided the place like the plague.

Every year, though, I'd see the local ads for the Christmas shows -- Andy Williams, the Rockets, Shoji -- and I'd lust. Country music will never be our thing, but Broadway and good crooning is very entertaining. The Baldnabbers is a definite no but Andy Williams -- well, we grew up with his TV shows.

So, in July we contacted the Houston family and we all agreed on a set of shows we thought we might enjoy, we found a hotel that took the dogs and made the humans happy in the bargain -- and we booked the trip.

Wednesday before Thanksgiving we met around 1 p.m. at the hotel -- the Houston contingent flew in and we rented a car for our drive down through the Ozarks. The weather was rainy but not too cold. That evening we saw Andy Williams -- the best of the shows, actually. The man is 80 years old and still sings moderately well, dances, has a 10 piece orchestra to accompany him and lots of interesting side acts.


Thanksgiving day we shopped -- yes, stores were open -- and saw the 12 Irish Tenors, another good show. We took the Silver Dollar City Trail of Lights tour, the worst of the events, before turning in. Next morning at 7 a.m. we hit the outlet mall sales before seeing two more shows: Manheim Steamroller and Shoji (who happened to be Hubby and my second favorite show). Saturday we saw the Shanghai Acrobats and went to the Branson Belle Steamboat for dinner and another good show. Sunday we came home.

Branson is affordable, highly entertaining, and an all round good vacation spot. We'll be going again.

I got tagged!

. . . by snugpug (see picture on right -- Queeni, Rupert, & Snugpug) to do this meme on behalf of Fritzy and Gus.

Fritzy's top 7 annoyances because Fritzy can be quite the picky boy:

1. Anyone who actually manages to pass him by without stopping to make over him and tell him just exactly how "itty bitty pretty" he really is. Ignore him and he may snap at you.

2. Children who dare to run by the car while he is vigilantly guarding it from marauding hordes of wild beasts -- or whatever Fritzy thinks he's actually guarding the vehicle from.

3. Mama's who try to climb into bed after he has cozily settled himself under the covers for a long winter's nap.

4. A housemate who is huddled in front of the warm air vent at 5 a.m. when the humans are stirring and temperature is hovering around 65 degrees in the house.

5. Anyone who would deign to offer up raw veggies to eat instead of prime rib, shrimp, or pork chop bones.

6. A younger housemate who gets to the ball quicker after it has been tossed for him to catch.

7. Full anal glands -- they MUST be emptied every month, or woe to the person upon whose lap he decides to perch.

Gus does not have 7 annoyances -- he has only one very large one:

#1 and only: a very bum left rear leg that hurts pretty much all the time for no reason that highly expensive x-rays can determine and requires him to take medication every morning of his life and not be able to jump at all (especially onto the bed where Fritzy can loll around at will and get all the human attention because he can leap like a frog).

Happy Holidays

I just got another of those annoying e-mails about saying "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays" to prove I'm a good Christian God-fearing woman who wants to celebrate the birth of Christ. This is the fourth one I've received in the last two weeks -- and they make me angry.

It's highly egotistical to believe that the only holiday being celebrated in December / January is the birth of Christ. There is nothing wrong in including all the celebrations in my "Happy Holiday" salutation. There is nothing politically correct about it -- it's just good, kind decency of character and sensitivity of spirit.

So bah and humbug to all those "good decent Christians" who must force Christ down everyone throats in December. I'm proud to say "Happy Holidays" -- that makes me part of the human race, not just part of the Christian community.

And as an evil aside, at least three of the Merry Christmas enforcers were people who DON'T go to church -- or only show up when it's convenient. I, however, go to church nearly every Sunday of the year. Granted, it's partly to support Hubby who is the music director at our little church -- but I'm still there, serving God and the community in which the church resides. And those folks think they have the right and duty to tell me how to wish my family and friends the greetings of the season. Phooey on them!

The second to last fall graduate class was tonight -- and I presented my final paper to the class and turned it in to the professor. Talk about feeling relieved! Maybe I can even find some time to write a little on this blog now -- and wish everyone a "Happy Holiday" while I'm at it.