Proof I CAN be BRIEF

My photo
What to say? I could list the very nice things people have said about me or the worst things people have said about me. What I'd prefer is for my essays to speak for themselves. I'm human, I have human frailties. Let's let it go at that, eh? (Goal beginning 9/2011: when able, publish one essay a week. Both light-hearted and serious fare. Join in the conversation!) Blog Archive on right.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Happy New Year (May the Road Rise Up to Meet You)

It's New Year's Eve and when I got up this morning, I decided to start the new year off right by collecting my trash can from the curb. (It had been there for four nights because every time I remembered it, I was too exhausted to make the trek down the driveway.) It's unseasonably warm at the moment--actually it was quite balmy as I made my way down the drive with my hair a fright and in my green fuzzy robe, looking very much like Maxine sans the bunny slippers. From the evidence at hand, it was apparent that it rained in the night. I know this because the asphalt was two-toned, and my municipality-approved garbage can had about an inch of rainwater in it. Thank goodness for the unseasonable warmth otherwise I might have awoke to a foot of snow.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Be Ye Gracious

Tomorrow, Christmas day, marks the 30th anniversary of when my family and I got the opportunity to experience something that most people I've known get to experience nearly every Christmas: Christmas morning with a relative. We lived on the East Coast of the US, and my father's half brother and half sister and their children lived in Kansas, and my mother's family were in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Then, when I was 26, my Aunt Belle, who had no children of her own and whose husband Joe had died more than five years before, travelled from Scotland to spend the Christmas holiday with us.

Except for the predictable bump created by my mother's tussle with Christmas tree lights and her stressing over the holiday meal, the Christmas season at our house was a truly joyous time. My friends liked gathering there for that reason. My parents were more often than not gracious toward my friends, treating them as real people, deserving of the sort of attention many of my friends parents only reserved for other adults. They also seemed to understand the balance between engagement and leaving us to ourselves where so many parents made me and my other friends feel like we were underfoot, or as tweens or teens, not worthy of consideration.

Actually, my parents delighted in other people who entered our home. (You see, my Dad worked nights most of my life, and so for many years, my parents did not have much of a social life together outside of our home. And so having anyone in was treated as an occasion to be celebratory.) And my parents were often paid back in kind for their delight in others. For many years, after I'd left home and my home state, Diane Clarke, a high school chum of mine, delivered a Christmas carrot cake to my father. Making someone feel wanted and appreciated is apparently a secret recipe for causing some (those of us who know what it means to be grateful) to start a tradition that takes on a life of its own.

Having my Aunt Belle with us for the Christmas of '81 made for additional joy.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

M.I.C.K.E.Y. M.O.U.S.E.

Holiday shopping brings back memories, though this particular memory springs from a summer time shopping trip to Marlowe Heights, Hecht's specifically. (Rest assured this story makes its way back around to this holiday season.) As far as I was concerned, as a kid, Hecht's was better than the Sears Roebuck Dream Book. Three stories high, Hecht's had several gift shops, a card section, clothing for various budgets and tastes on multiple levels, kids coats, adult coats, a baby section, a jewelry section, a toy shop, furniture, and even a small lunch counter. Hecht's was our local Macy's.

My mother didn't drive when I was a kid, raised as she was in Belfast, Northern Ireland where transportation was a a step away onto a bus or tram. And when my father, a sailor, was sent off to sea on the U.S.S. Independence to document a long mission, Joyce Donaldson--a neighbor and a good friend of my mother's--gave mom driving lessons. Money was tight and mom needed a job to help make ends meet--that is to say, put food on the table--, and given where we lived (Suitland, Maryland just outside of D.C.), the lack of public transportation, and the unused family car (a beautiful, turquoise-colored 1961 Plymouth of some sort) sitting outside our apartment building, Joyce was a godsend. Heck, Joyce was a godsend in many ways in our lives back then.