Happy Christmas

 I finally read something today that made me feel more at peace with how roller coastery my feelings always are around Christmas (even though it's pretty screamingly obvious, I think, that in spite of what Hallmark tells us, Christmas is seldom uncomplicatedly joyous). 

The kids came home! Matt went to get Eve and brought her home on the 19th, Angus flew in on the 20th. the 21st and 22nd there was more baking, family hang time and movie watching, Eve seeing her friends, Angus and I puzzling, everybody getting dog snuggles. 

The 23rd we did the annual tree-decorating and Christmas photo shoot. Past props have included Nana's old teacups, The Collected Works of Shakespeare, covid masks, tools (the year the house was falling apart), champagne glasses, and wrapping paper tubes. I was feeling a little uninspired this year - we finally went with fake flowers.

We watched an episode of The Simpsons (it's the one show every member of the family likes) called Parahormonal Activity, in which Marge enters perimenopause. At the end, Eve said quietly "there's a really popular meme from Euphoria called 'Is this play about us?' I feel like that's relevant for you here." It was really, really funny and also *sobs hysterically*. Also, in the show the medical establishment has nothing to offer Marge for her issues but treats Homer's erectile dysfunction as a medical emergency, and Eve recalled a time in her lab where the prof asked them to guess the top three medical issues in terms of funding, and Lauren guessed longevity for number one, which is particularly hilarious because, of course, it's ED. The Simpsons is so educational!

Christmas Eve my parents always come over and I do appetizers. There was really great conversation - both my parents grew up in rural Saskatchewan, my mom on a farm and my dad in a 'hamlet' in Northern Saskatchewan, only 50 miles south of the Northwest Territories. The story Matt always brings up is that my dad could only ride his bike in the winter when the river froze and provided a flat service. He also couldn't go to school in winter when the river wasn't frozen enough, and in summer had to cross the river by boat. 

Christmas Day our usual routine is we get up and do presents with the kids, then go to my parents' for breakfast (where my sister's family stays when they're here, which they were not), then come home and putter around or nap and then my parents come over for dinner. This year I proposed that we switch it up, and have my parents come here in the early afternoon, have an early dinner and finish up before we're all falling asleep. 

I do ninety percent of the Christmas prep, up to Christmas Eve. My mom used to cook Christmas dinner, but now we do the turkey and my parents do the sides, and Angus picks up my parents and brings the food over.  And by 'we' do the turkey, I mean Matt does the turkey, which is possibly the greatest Christmas gift of all. This means my Christmas responsibilities are basically over by Christmas morning, which is good because my body and brain have generally started shutting down by then. 

Not gonna lie, I believe the plan was Pure Genius on my part.  My parents came over, Angus got home from his Christmas weight-lifting, I put on The Muppet Christmas Carol just for fun, but my mom had never seen it and ended up loving it, we had a great dinner, drove my parents home and I still had time to finish the puzzle with Angus (we had to have dinner with it because it wasn't finished and we were determined to finish it before Angus left) and watch the three and a half hours of Stranger Things that dropped at eight p.m. with Eve (I did not have this in my mind when I made the plan, but wow, did it ever work out). 

I was not feeling great when I went to bed last night - I've been taking cold meds non-stop to function and keep my Cough of Death at bay, and it was starting to make me feel icky. But I had an amazing sleep with only a couple of coughing spells, and today we are lounging around in our pajamas. Angus leaves tomorrow, which is sad, but Eve is here until the 30th, which is happy. 

I hope everyone had some family time, some good food, some laughing, and some rest. And if not, I offer sympathy and love. 

Small Frustrations, Tiny Satisfactions

I generally make it a habit of grabbing my apron from the hook and putting it on on my way into the kitchen no matter what I'm going in there for. I am not a neat and graceful person and I don't enjoy changing clothes several times a day. This was amply vindicated just now when, without an apron, I turned around from the counter and decided to take the lid off the slow-cooker to check the pulled pork and got splattered with hot meat juice, burning a tiny spot on my chest and leaving brown spots on my pink tank top (sorry if this made you gag a little, Nicole). This was annoying, but the pulled pork smelled delicious, which is a not bad little microcosm of this whole day.

Angus talked quite a bit with his guidance counsellor last year when he was offered a spot on the Team Canada's roster for the Oklahoma Junior Sunbelt Tournament, which meant he would be missing a week of school right before exams. The guidance counsellor liaised with his teachers and everybody was quite nice and helpful in making accommodations so he could go and not have his marks suffer too much (we also realized how much he sucks at blowing his own horn since a couple of his teachers were like, "he plays baseball?"). We realized that we'd kind of been underusing the guidance person as a resource too, since she mentioned she could have worked with us to have his first semester loaded with heavier courses since baseball always ramps up from January to June. She said she could help him with that this year, but today when he went down to guidance following the regular guidelines, the person he ended up with could not have been less helpful, and none of the changes he needed got made, and we have to go in again next week. Which is frustrating.

As for me, even just getting ready to look for a job is setting my anxiety on fire, which is stupid, because it's not like we're looking at getting evicted or becoming food insecure, I just want to be a productive member of society and contribute a little to the education fund. But while the decision to wait until after the summer to look was right, I should probably have gotten my ducks in a row in some fashion before now, and I feel kind of dumb and obscurely ashamed for no good reason. I'm also thinking of just applying to work part-time at Indigo until I find something related to my diploma, which would probably be fine, but I'm already stressing about what happens if Matt's away and Eve has basketball and I'm working and I don't even know if they'd hire me yet. Deep breaths need to be taken.

Angus and I both have trouble with uncertainty. The teachers that understood him best in early elementary school would write the day's schedule on the board so he wouldn't have to constantly be asking "what are we doing after this?" Every time I go to the doctor for reassurance that something isn't dire or life-threatening, I know that what I really want is to be told that I'm never going to get cancer or ALS or whatever, and life just doesn't work like that. A year or two ago I came across a phrase that went something like "if it can be helped, there's no sense in worrying. If it can't be helped, there's still no sense in worrying". I'd like to say it changed my life, but it didn't, not hugely, because my neuroses are entrenched and intractable. But I try to remember it.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that something (Lucy, probably) had left a mark on the cream-coloured carpet in the doorway of our bedroom. I took our Bissell Little Green Machine out of the closet. Then I realized that it was cleaning day the next day, and there were a couple of other stains on the upstairs hallway rug (Lucy definitely) and that Matt was about to go away for a week and when he's away Lucy has the distressing habit of crapping on the rug on the landing even when I let her out late and get up early to let her out again, so I probably didn't want to deep clean until after that. And I left the Green Machine on the floor of our bedroom instead of putting it away, and it stayed there for weeks as I kept missing my window and thinking I'd do it soon. Well, today I finally cleared the piles of outgrown clothes and empty shoe boxes off the landing and deep cleaned all the spots I've been meaning to clean, and put the Bissell back in the closet. I think when I closed the closet door I actually said "There!" out loud.

So. Many things are unsettled, but one or two things have been set right. For now, that will have to do.

(On the off chance that the dreary minutiae of my day didn't turn your crank, there are tortoises making love on the Queen of Mediocretia's blog. You're welcome. Or I'm sorry.)

I Don't FEEL Like Writing

Or doing much of anything, if I'm being honest. I'm done all but three and a half hours of my work placement and I was looking forward to a quiet week with Matt gone AGAIN, but I kind of miss working, and I can't settle to any wholehearted loafing and it's been mostly too cold to walk much (yes, I do have a treadmill now that you mention it, how kind and helpful, shut up). I went to a Lumineers (and Kaleo, swoon) concert with friends that was wonderful even way up in the cheap seats, then I had book club, which was great, and not only because I actually managed to go to the right house this month (don't ask), and yesterday I finally started cooking again after a few weeks of an absolutely pathetic showing in the kitchen. I also made a couple of significant phone calls, to book driving hours for Angus and pay off a forgotten FedEx taxes and duties bill, so, you know, that used up a fair number of spoons. I still have to make a doctor's appointment for me, make dentist appointments for everyone, make an appointment for Eve to get orthotics and *goes fetal with hands over ears* THAT'S TOO MUCH TELEPHONE.

I picked up Eve and two friends from after-school play rehearsal today and took them to Wendy's. They regaled me with tales of their sex education class where they were asked to list reasons why someone might practice abstinence and why they might decide to have sex. Someone had left a paper behind with answers on it: answers on why to abstain included "penis petit (small penis)" and "si tu es un enfant de Dieu (if you are a child of God)". Answers on why to have sex were "penis gros (large penis)" and "I like getting girls pregnant and runnig (sic) away". Ladies and gentlemen, our tax dollars at work. I told them about book club last night - let's just say that if you bring accidental-dong biscotti to book club, I AM going to be immature and giggly about it and make inappropriate comments until you fervently wish you'd just gone with cannoli (apparently the apple doesn't fall far from the tree).

Angus passed his driver's ed and starts his ten driving hours next week. His BFF since nursery school got his G2 on the week-end and showed up to pick up his younger brother from school after band, resulting in Eve pointing and screaming "OMG, NOAH'S DRIVING - oh, he saw me, he doesn't look impressed".

And now it's 8:41 and I'm not sure where the day has gone yet again. I did just throw out an empty carton of buttermilk, having used it all on four magnificent batches of biscuits. Often I forget about it and end up pouring some out. So there's that.

Angus doing Movember

Week One.

Week Two: ("I won't smile", he said, "so you can see it. Can you see it?")

So this is just my life now?

Went into the kids' bathroom to tidy up for cleaning today. Put away some mouthwash and moisturizer and moved a shaving kit. Found this. Because why not?

Last night

It was late, and Matt and I were in bed after a whirlwind of preparations for his trip to Asia early this morning - mining the piles of camping laundry for clothes for him to pack, getting the garbage day details straight since he wouldn't be here to do it (THEN WHY DID I MARRY YOU, I usually say), figuring out what baseball events I would have to drive Angus to, and a few other things (but this is not that kind of blog - usually). Matt was asleep and I was reading on my ipad in the dark. Eve was asleep down the hall and everything was dark. Then there were quiet footsteps on the stairs and through the crack in our slightly-open door I saw the bathroom light go on. I realized that I had assumed Angus was already in bed, but now here I was, lying in bed listening to the hum-and-rattle of water, the soft click of toothbrush and soap dish. It was a complete reversal of being small, tucked up and listening to the sounds of my parents getting ready for bed, which was always such a lovely, comforting feeling, and that last light going off was the signal that everyone was in safely for the night. As it was now, and everyone was still in safely, but the signal was sort of reversed.

It didn't make me sad. It was nice. It was just... different.

Fifteen Times Around the Sun

Angus is fifteen years old today.

Fifteen. Three whole hands.

So much has changed.

Wait. What?

Things To Do While Camping When It's Too Cold To Swim

Go on the Dunes Walk

Pose with your friends on top of a sand dune

Embrace your friend warmly on top of a sand dune

No wait, that's not what they're doing...

Okay, try to throw your friend OFF the sand dune

...then drop him

...and run away

Climb a tree. On a dune

Do bunny ears. On yourself. Because YOLO

Sit your ass down because Collette says to sit your ass down until someone takes your picture. Possibly related: climbing sand dunes is really freaking hard

Realize you have no idea where the path is and begin to feel like a pack of exiled Egyptians with no manna in sight

Find your way back to the parking lot with no small measure of relief and empty a good part of the dunes out of your shoes

Go to the movies

Photo bomb your daughter...

...repeatedly

Build sand castles

Spend quality time with a book and some popcorn

by a campfire

Play games

 

(Not me, to be clear. Trying to learn cribbage always makes me wonder why people don't read more)

Snuggle a dog. For companionship AND warmth

Have a tomahawk-throwing contest, because what could go wrong? (Angus started kicking dirt around saying "I need a mound")

Have a nap

Play volleyball without a net

Collapse in hilarity watching the "how many teenagers does it take to set up a volleyball net" game

Collapse in further hilarity upon realizing that, instead of volleyball, the teenagers are going to try to play badminton

...in very high winds

...which is really, really hard

Swim anyway