Why Do I Do This?

Christmas is swiftly approaching…like a runaway sleigh driven by a drunken fat man in red velvet pajamas and a surely reindeer with deep emotional scars riding shotgun. Oh sure, it’s wonderful this time of year. There’s all that forced holiday glee out there clogging up the daily works with low carb saccharine good cheer. Every shopping mall and discount store around has turned into a financial black hole with the gravitational mass of a government bailout, complete with ill tempered bell ringers just short of their next medication dose. The other day at Safeway I had to sneak around to the little side entrance in order to avoid Darla from the Hell’s Angels Bell Ringers Brigade. I was afraid she might hunt me down in the cereal isle and kill me with a rice crispy treat if I didn’t donate. I had already given my last dollar to her cell mate across the street at the Les Swab tire store. I wasn’t taking a chance on that one. An ill timed blowout during I-5 rush hour traffic could really put a crimp in my shopping schedule. Ol’ Scooter there indicated he might puncture a tire with one of his tongue piercings if so inclined. Frankly I have no idea how he managed to smoke that cigar when he couldn’t even close his lips. He might have given that some thought before having all the hardware installed. I considered offering this bit of observation though only briefly. In the end I opted to spend the holidays outside of the hospital and stuffed a dollar bill into his Bud Light can. It was decorated with tinsel, very festive.

Inside the grocery store my senses were violently assaulted. Apparently some alien life form is Tara forming the planet into one giant cinnamon stick by taking over all the grocery and craft stores on the planet. I believe their plans for world domination are nearly complete. My throat closed up as my eyes began to water and I nearly bumped into Sledge, the inside the door bell ringer. He deflected me onto the poinsettias and Christmas Cds next to the singing Santa’s on Harleys. This worked out great because I needed to pick up a copy of White Snake Christmas and Hip Hop Holidays In The Hood. I tossed them into my cart and proceeded onto the crack in a candy coating isle. I needed to pick up some sugar coated sugar pops in syrup and then some broccoli with a marshmallow topping for dinner. I already had the candy cane shavings for the turkey.
…I don’t know why my teeth hurt right now.

Anyway, I had to hurry up with my shopping if I was going to make it to the tree farm before all the good ones were gone. After some searching I found the end of the checkout line back by the restrooms and employee entrance. It was moving right along though. They had two whole cashiers on duty and only one of them was in training. I heard through the grapevine that the bag boy had gone out to help a customer and hour ago and hadn’t been seen since. That was fine by me. We had a pretty good game of five card stud going on with the deli guys and he cheated anyway. Some one had to wake Mrs. Rosen every time the line moved but other than that it went pretty smoothly. Well, there was that scuffle up by the Stouffers Stuffing but, they patched it up after a few counseling sessions and were on good terms by the time they got to the canned goods isle. Eventually we made it up to the cashier where we exchanged email addresses and said our goodbyes. Bob owes me twenty bucks for that last hand.

I steeled myself to face Darla the belligerent bell ringer on my way out but luckily her parole officer was giving her a break for some personal business. Something about peeing into a cup she said. I slipped out into the untainted cool night air and gave thanks that the cinnamon Tara forming aliens had not made it outside yet. I was anxious to get on to the joyful task of selecting our holiday tree. Apparently it is no longer called a Christmas tree but rather the more ambiguous Holiday Tree. While I am sure this random renaming has its roots in good intentions it is woefully lacking in its grasp on reality. Like it or not it’s Christmas and we aren’t all running around buying Holiday Trees on Memorial day or Halloween. Nor are we opening Labor day presents and sending out Fourth of July cards. Nope. It’s Christmas and no amount of frosty aluminum winter-scaping at the airport is going to erase that. Besides what would we do with all the AC/DC Christmas Cds if that happened?

Having escaped the parking lot with my limbs intact and a cart full of potential New Year’s resolutions I headed back home. The outdoor Christmas decorations had been put up earlier and they glowed cheerily from their position on the front porch-- where they lay in a tangled lump of holiday frustration and despair. Soon the Saint and I were headed off to the non denominational holiday tree sanctuary or as I like to call it, the Christmas Tree Farm!
It is a family owned farm and has been in the family since 1886. The current patriarch is a local horse vet. He enjoys growing specialty hay for the horses. His daughter and her husband handle the tree sales. One summer they planted a cutting flower garden in one of the fields and just put out a cash box on the honor system. This year they tried out pumpkins and they are working on developing their own raspberry/blackberry jam recipe. I have two test jars in my refrigerator.

The Saint and I arrived during daylight hours. It took us about five minutes to pick the tree out but our guy is a talker so by the time we got the tree tied onto the car the sun had been down for over an hour. I am pretty sure that I know more about this guy and his family than I know about my own. I even know where he’s having lunch most days downtown and what he likes for desert at night. I liked him immensely.

Since it was too dark and well past the Saint’s bedtime when we got home we set the mammoth tree outside for the night. The next day the tree would meet its fate.

This is the Saint’s beloved chainsaw with which he will give the tree a fresh cut. He uses this thing at every opportunity and one day I am just certain that I will find him using it to carve a mermaid or maybe a black bear holding a roll of toilet paper. Apparently it is an affliction that strikes people who live in the Northwest near a lot of trees. All you have to do is drive down some country highway to see that it is quite an epidemic. Its worse than heroin apparently and I’m keeping a close eye on him. First sign of fin or fur texture on the firewood and he’s getting an intervention.

Once we got the fresh cut it was time to bring that sweet smelling pretty into the house. This is the part of the process that usually shreds 80% of the needles off leaving the remaining 20% to dump on the floor. Right about this time as we are trying to shove the 6 foot wide base through the single sized door I am wondering just what in the world possess perfectly sane people to drag a needle dropping mass of foliage into the house. I have to rearrange my furniture and empty the vacuum cleaner bag repeatedly while picking needles out of the Berber carpet. Then I have to water it every day because not only is it slowly dying I plan to put fire starting twinkly lights all over the thing and then rig them together with a questionable power strip. I won’t stop there though. No. I’ll drag out boxes of old goofy things that have no other purpose in life than to sit forgotten in the garage all year gathering spiders and moisture. And then I’ll put those little fire starter materials that a boy scout lost in the woods would give his eye teeth for on that tree. A 7+ foot tree sitting in my modest sized living room taking up the space of an entire sofa. A tree covered in knickknacks that I haven’t seen in a year and I will wonder what in world are we thinking? What a ridiculous thing to do…

...and then I will flip that switch and I will know exactly what we were thinking. And I will wonder how we ever managed to live without this beautiful symbol of hope and joy.

But come January 3rd, hope and joy is going right back out the door and reason and sanity is back in!

In the meantime, pass the eggnog, and put another log on the fire. I got me some happy time to enjoy!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL

A Time and Place to Believe

It was a dark and stormy night.
Well, it was actually a cold and clear night. Stormy might have been a bit warmer. It’s been pretty darn cold and clear for some time now. There are four inches of ice on my ponds. Not little ice. Not the pretty take some cute pictures kind of ice. No. This is the kind of ice that has me bringing kettles of boiling water out first thing in the morning to let sit on the afore mentioned four inches of serious ice only to be laughed at by said serious ice. Then after about four rounds of these steaming cauldrons of liquid jackhammer are set on and then poured upon the ice the pick ax is brought in. Yes, that pick ax. I’m back to the pick ax again and it’s flipping December!
Now you may be asking yourself why I would do this. I might be asking myself the same thing. I might that is if I were a sane person and had not dug a huge pond out of a belligerent rock on the side of a mountain and then foolishly inserted fish into whole doggone thing.

Town center of Leavenworth

Oh, and yes, to those of you with ponds I do know about not whacking my little fishies senseless with Mr. Limpet sound waves. I use the pointy end of the ax just to get a hole started. And no, it does not work for me to keep the pumps running because I have FOUR INCHES OF ICE. The tubing up the falls is to close to the surface and will freeze solid if there is water in the line. So I cover what I can and then go out there every morning before I have my coffee and begin the process of icy humiliation. The other day I lost my balance while swinging said pick ax and found myself about two and a half feet out into the middle of the pond. But no worries, I have FOUR INCHES OF ICE. I just skated back to the bridge. Thankfully this deep freeze only happens once or twice a year and only lasts a week or so at a time. I would make other plans if that were not the case. Like moving back to Arizona.

I showed you this tree before covered in brilliant fall colors. Not a bad transition. This snow scape is a small slope in the middle of town that the kids sled down.

So the other day after my pre coffee, morning bathrobe ice skate I decided to take a look at the over taxed thermometer. You know just for that extra jolt to the senses that finding yourself splayed across a frozen pond in your bathrobe—all alone, doesn’t quite give you. Oh, and by the way, Leonardo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet are absolute liars. There is no way those two were making doe eyes at one another on that ship with all the time they spent in that water. I lost the physical ability to swallow my own spit and I was just pulling ice chunks out with one hand.

Back to my own personal thrill seeking… I checked the temp for that day and it read a quite balmy 13*. That’s right. A one followed by a three.

"Just one more time." I like to think of this as Mrs. Claus's shop window.

I like to look for comparisons in life. It’s my way of reminding myself that it can always be worse, so therefore, it must not be too bad right now. It's logic that works for me. Try not to judge. Well 13 blistering degrees does pose a bit of a challenge. The Saint was completely convinced that this really was as bad as it could get. Smelling a challenge like blood in the water I dove right in. It was cold. Eventually I did manage to find somewhere with a colder more hideous temperature than 13* and it was within driving distance! I said “Sweetie, put your coat on we’re going for a drive. Oh, and wear your big wool socks…and maybe some long johns.” The Saint just sank deeper into the chair and pulled the afghan tighter. “Come on honey, it’ll be fun.” “I’ll pack the arctic survival gear. You tell Rescue Services where we’ll be.”

The location with a colder more hideous temperature than us was Leavenworth, Washington. It was 2*. No, not followed or preceded by any number, just 2. I figured once we had spent a little time crossing the huge rugged mountain range and ice choked waterways to spend some quality time in a place with the friendly bone chilling temperature of 2 our little 13* really would seem balmy. Provided we made it back alive.

Holiday avenues and the candy shops I told you about. If you enlarge this shot you will see there is a holiday pretzel tree.

Surely this has to be Santa Claus's very own shop window and the nativity scene is heavenly. Pun intended.

Leavenworth is a very beautiful 2 hour drive from here. I told you about this little town and it’s pioneer spirit not too long ago but I held out the very best until now. I wanted you all to see just how amazing this town looks every Christmas season come December 2nd when they have the holiday lighting ceremony. It is an enchanting and magical place. It is the kind of place that I dreamed of as a child whenever I saw those tiny Christmas villages or nativity scenes. A place where it is safe to be a child full of wonder and joy for all the things that may lie ahead. And once a year like Frosty the Snowman this town comes alive with magical wonder.

The red trolly is delightful. This little house is a wedding chapel. I once arranged a small winter wedding for a friend here at this chapel. They drove through the streets in a horse drawn carriage just as it began to snow. I still cry thinking of how beautiful that was.

I took my Sainted husband there not to torture him with frost bitten fingers, although that is what he claims, but because it is what we do every year. We go there because, well it is just like walking into one of those perfect wonderful worlds where everything is loving and feels like home inside those warm lit windows. Hot cocoa with marshmallows await every child coming in from sledding down the snowy hills, their boots full of fluffy snow. Christmas trees glow with hope and promise and for this one sublime little sliver of time everything in the world is wonderful and seems perfectly possible. Yeah, I did go there to remind myself that things can always be worse. I also went there to remind myself that things can always be a whole lot better too. You just have to believe sometimes.

Holiday Rehab

Thanksgiving here is mingled with Birthdays so it is a busy time. It is a wonderful time. Since we have moved away from extended family it is just the three of us now. The sound and the fury of a large family gathering is often missed. Through the years we have developed our own traditions, celebrated with friends, and celebrated alone but mostly we just celebrate each other. Lives are always shifting in some way or other making time the enemy of familiarity. We are immersed in social networking, hectic schedules, cell phones and computers. We Blog, we Twitter and Facebook. We email, Instant Message and text. We are connected by satellite and cable, tracking devices, wireless remote and streaming live feed with up to the minute coverage. In this day and age of unbelievable technology, communication is at an absolute zenith. And yet we rarely just talk.

On our family holidays, our Nacho Night or Middle of the week day off holiday, we talk. We unplug, wire down and disconnect. We sit at the kitchen table or on the living room floor and we talk until the morning sun shames us into sleeping. We talk of the world, philosophy, religion, politics and history. We talk of physics and God. We talk about acting, writing and art. Rarely does the conversation have anything to do with what any of us are doing in our lives. We already know all that, we stay connected. Instead we talk about what we think about and what we question. Sometimes it gets heated along the fault lines of opinion, sometimes we just glide into deeper BS about why we think our opinion trumps all. Mostly we just share what makes us who we are, our thoughts.

Then just as any respectable family would do, we badger one another until someone fesses up about just what they plan to do with all those lofty thoughts and high-faluting opinions. No sense doing all that thinking and jawboning if there isn’t an action plan forthcoming. This is the part we all love—like eating a slice of Aunt Ethel’s five year old fruitcake. Basically we use these planned excuses to get together as a time to touch base with who we are and who we want to be; to find out what our loved ones want most how we can help them achieve it.

Sure we do all the traditional American Thanksgiving fare. Clean the house like the Queen is dropping by, slave in the kitchen pretending to be Julia Child and then eat like total swine all day long. When dinner is served we ooh and ah over the same dishes we have prepared for every Thanksgiving dinner and then by candlelight we toast our good fortune and give thanks for it all. Not so different from most other families around the world who come together for a special event to share in each other’s lives. It’s how we continue the bonding tradition of being truly connected.

Part of our tradition at this time is also birthdays so Thanksgiving around here ends up looking a little more like a pre-Christmas warm up. Over the years I have even taken to setting up the Christmas village in time for the big turkey roast. The village like most good intentioned impulses has grown completely out of control. It threatens all who come near. A new piece or two is bought ever year culminating in something that looks a little more like an alien invasion by a race of miniature Victorians. The whole production is a tad time consuming and soon we will need to knock out a wall or move to a coliseum to accommodate the whole affair. I’ll post a picture the little aliens a bit closer to Christmas...or at least decently in the month of December.

Since today was the first day that it wasn’t raining nor was I stuck inside prepping food, building alien villages, shampooing carpets or fluffing fake snow I decided I was finally going to clean out the annual pond plants. Those babies have been clinging to denial like a teenage girl watching the phone on prom night. I just had to break it to them. It’s November-- Everybody out of the pool!
In June we bought three water hyacinth and two water lettuce. When I pulled them out today I had four wheel barrels full of them. Holy cow. Washington state has mild summers and these plants are warm weather lovers. They are well behaved up here but in more Southern areas they are banned as aggressive…much like those little Christmas villages should be. I going to need rehab.

The water plants seasonal delusion infiltrating my brain convinced me that I would have time to do some cutting back in the garden. Maybe get some of that compost and mulch out of the hay bale pile and onto some flower beds where it belongs. Four wheel barrel loads and a blister later the light was beginning to fade as quickly as my will. I decided instead to take a quick cruise of the garden before heading in. I found that there was still a nice bit of color left out there. It was soggy as all daylights but it was color doggone it and at the end of November! This garden and I are still newlyweds so I don’t really know what to expect yet and like most innocent newlyweds I am surprised and delighted at everything it does. I suppose next year I may find some of those endearing habits like reseeding and spreading far too annoying to bear but for now I am just happy to see something—anything growing. I took photos of what I suspect will be the last of my garden’s colors for a few months, at least until spring. Last year in December we had a lot of snow, of course this is exactly when I plan to plant the seven hundred plus bulbs I bought. I'm sure it should work out just perfectly.

Will you take a look at this last picture? No, a good close look. Those are bulbs starting to come up! This garden is in serious denial.
Great. My garden is in denial and I need Christmas village rehab. Talk about dysfunctional.