Over-Done, Garish, Italianate Splendor and Joy

 A perk of this move to IL is that I can be in Lancaster, NY after just an eight hour(ish) drive.  That might seem long a long day of driving, but it used to take twenty-four hours of driving to get there from Austin, so this eight hours seems like a dream! Five states, eight hours, and approximately $500000000 in tolls.  On my list of things to do?  Get an EZ Pass.

My person and I made a late-minute decision to go to Buffalo for the holidays as our children would be celebrating with their other parents and it is just us here and that seemed sad and there were old people at home who needed to be seen.  Many reasons, all of them good, and off we went.  

Old people who needed to be seen.

My person has never been to Buffalo before so I did the very responsible thing and ordered pizza before we even exited the highway.  Everyone has their favorite local pizza and mine is Grasso's cheese and pepperoni with blue cheese to dip it into.  There is something about the crust, that thick cheese, the way the pepperoni curls up into cups and gives you a grease shooter - YUM!  You just cannot find pizza like this anywhere else.

Pizza in hand, we went to check into our hotel.  Of course family offered us a room, but it can be a lot to meet someone's family on a short trip during the holidays, and I did another responsible thing and got us a hotel.  Not any hotel, but a hotel full of Italianate splendor!  Giant chandeliers greeted us in the lobby and there was an entire hallway of fake facades made to look like a street in Italy.  I sent a video of it to my friend and she correctly remarked that it looked like the Titanic.  You could buy a single red rose for $5 and many of the rooms offered a giant tub right next to the bed.  My person and I loved how crappy and over-the-top this place was.  I would not rate it five stars because during our three nights there, housekeeping never came in.  We had no shampoo and when I asked at the desk, I was given three bottles of body wash.  This left my hair looking like a river otter who escaped an oil spill but by God, we had splendor!

my heart will go on......

We went out for a few drinks that night and my person met my sister, her husband, her sons, and two cousins in rapid succession. The next day he met my parents and an aunt and uncle and then even more people at my sister's house for Christmas Eve.  The next day he met my sister-in-law and my niece. BAM BAM BAM!  New people, my people, and he was what he always is: wonderful,  charming, engaging, and funny.  Swoon. 

This trip was fast and furious and we did the holidays and are already home and had a nap.  I am so happy that we took this trip.  That we had time to sit with my parents and talk.  That an aunt made a special trip to see me.  That my person saw where I grew up and who I grew up with and that he liked all of it.  I find that despite missing my kids this Christmas, I had joy.  What a joy to sit across the table from my nephews who have grown into men and listen to them talk about jobs and women and life in their twenties!  What a joy to spend Christmas Eve at my sister Melissa's and it be so lovely, so inclusive, so filled with people, that I felt I had stepped back in time to the Christmases of my youth! (she makes a killer sauce too. I believe my father commented it was so good it would make an old Italian woman weep.) What a joy to see the joy on my parent's face as I stepped into their house!  What a joy to still be able to step into their house.  And what a joy to do all this with my person!

I hope that you also had joy this holiday season. Joy on Christmas is not always a given, so if you didn't have joy, I hope that you find a picture you took with a stranger in the background that cracks you up and you nod and say "I love Buffalo." Or Austin. Or Raleigh. Or wherever you are currently sitting.  If you don't have a picture that makes you laugh, I hope you had some over-done, garish, Italianate splendor.  And if you didn't have over-done, garish, Italianate splendor, I know place; just bring your own shampoo.

this guy!!

The First O-E-L

 The first Christmas that I lived away from home, my mom sent me a bunch of things to help me celebrate away from them and in my new place.  There was an advent calendar full of tiny things to open each day, a VHS tape of her and my sisters baking cookies and showing me the tree, and some holiday decor of four trees that spelled out NOEL and ended in hearts.  I will admit now that I opened all of the advent calendar things the day I got it and watching them bake without me made me cry.  But, that decorative NOEL, I have put out every year at Christmastime for thirty years.  This year when I took it out, it no longer spelled NOEL.  Somewhere between this Christmas and last Christmas, between Texas and Illinois, I lost the N. I put it up anyway and my person and I laughed about celebrating our first O-E-L here in Illinois.  Then we laughed because if you say "O-E-L" fast, it sounds like "oh, well."  Forget Christmas!  We are celebrating OEL! Lost the N? Oh well.  Freezing cold but no snow?  Oh well.

The First O-E-L in Illinois

It has me thinking that this missing N is a common thing at holidays though.  Not necessarily the N but the feeling that we are missing something.  The feeling of holidays past we can't quite seem to replicate or the physical presence of someone who is no longer there to celebrate.  It can be a smell that we miss or a feeling or a place.  Sometimes, it can be missed enough that the rest of the holiday seems pale or passes by as just a day.  Sometimes, we try to plan in advance for what we will miss by doing something completely different than usual.  Sometimes, that works.

For the longest time, I missed holidays absolutely packed with people in a too warm house and not enough bathrooms.  I missed impatiently waiting with my cousins for Snoopy and the Red Baron to play and signify that we could finally open gifts. When I had my own kids, we made new holidays and I didn't miss the holidays of my childhood as much.  There is nothing, nothing, like the magic of a Christmas spent with small people who believe in Santa.  The sparkle! The joy!  The enchantment!  And yes, it's true that when my son found out there was no Santa, he smiled, patted my arm, and thanked me for "faking his childhood."  Still worth it when I remember him in footy pajamas shaking with excitement and my daughter waking us up at 3am to say "SANTA WAS HERE!"

After I got divorced, I spent quite a few holidays missing my kids because they were at their dad's or missing the way holidays used to be as a whole family unit.  It took awhile to get over the missing "N" and focus on what was left with my "OEL".  I will miss my kids this Christmas. I will miss them so much that I had Amazon deliver their presents to me so that I could wrap them and write "Love, Santa" with my left hand and mail them on.  A silly way to spend an extra $25 but oh, well.  My daughter texted and asked for the recipes for cookies and knowing she will be making them there, that she wants to carry on with the smells and tastes of her childhood memories, that really makes me happy.  

I think that with holidays and memories stored mainly in the heart and not the brain, it is so easy to get caught up on what seems to be missing.  You might be searching for a loud house, the smell of Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches, snow, kids waiting for Santa, a certain movie to watch, a person to hold.  You might want those things so very much that you can't picture this holiday with out it.  Like my NOEL, minus the N, it looks sort of the same but not as good as it once did.  I hope that even though your N is missing, that you get the chance to step back and see that the OEL is still there.  It might be way too soon for you to really appreciate your OEL with no N and that is okay too. 

I am happy that I have something from my first Christmas away that has survived at least one million moves.  It reminds me of how much I was and am loved by the family I moved away from.  Putting it up reminds me of how many Christmases it stood by as my kids were born and grew up.  Putting it up and laughing about no N with my person makes this new place feel more like home.  

I know we have more moves ahead of us and despite moving 170,000 times in the last five years, I also do not always pack the best.  So many of the ornaments that have ears lost their ears in this recent move.  There is a very good chance that more letters could fall off of the OEL.  I also know, it could lose all it's letters and be down to the string and I would still put it out.  I would just think "oh,well" as I stood in front of a beautiful tree of ear-less ornaments and smile about all the Christmases past.

Baby, It's Cold Inside

 The other day, it was 14 degrees when I left my house.  This is very cold, but it was okay because I was bundled up. I had on a hat and the coat I bought at REI this summer.  (this coat is amazing and I feel warm every time I think about the fact that it retails for $250 and I got it for $20!)  My person and I went to a new park to walk around and we were pretty much the only ones there.  We saw a ton of migrating birds, pelicans included(!), and with our layers and wool socks, only our cheeks were cold.  Sure, 14 degrees is cold, but look at us!  We were in it!  Embracing it!  Loving it!

pink cheeks, big smiles, can't lose

I was feeling pretty confident that winter was going to be just lovely until later that day.  Later, when I couldn't get warm in the house.  Later, when the cold seeped up through those wool sock and my toes said "Brrr!"  Later, when even my nose and fingers were cold. In the house.  It was then that I remembered that winter means always being kind of cold, even in the house.

Wait, you are saying.  Aren't you from Buffalo?  The place that had two feet of snow this weekend alone?  I am, however, let us remember though it has been one million years since I actually lived there.  Dinosaurs had recently stopped roaming the earth, my high school had a terribly racist mascot, and the Bills just had fans, not a mafia behind them.  I've spent the last three decades sweating and this body doesn't seem to know what to do with all this cold except continually say helpful things like "Brrrr!" and "It's cold!"

Also, how did I forget how dry skin gets in the cold?  Oh my God, I am like an iguana, but a saggy iguana whose skin just sort of feels terrible, flakes off, and falls like ashes to the ground.  I brave full-on cold to lotion up after a shower to no avail.  This skin is parched, cracked, and parchment-like.  My nails are brittle.  My hair is limp and doesn't really curl anymore.  I could apply lip balm every three minutes and my lips still feel like they are cracking off.  I am a limp-haired, saggy-iguana-skinned, no-lipped human, and it is only the first of December!

actual photo of me taken this morning.

I texted my brother my cold cries and he told me to bake something, make some, soup, and turn the heat up.  I did one of the three things: I made soup.  When I drink coffee or tea or eat soup, I am not cold!  Those mugs and bowls of beautiful warmth make my fingers and insides warm again.  I didn't bake this time because I was afraid I would try to eat the cold away in cookies.  I also didn't turn up the heat because heat is probably expensive and our apartment is really lacking in heaters.  We have baseboard heaters, one in the living room and one in each bedroom.  This means that out of 24 total walls, only 3 have a heater on it.  I am not great with math but this seems woefully inadequate.

My layers are many, my socks are wool, my cups are filled with warm liquid, and I am still cold.  I mentioned in the lunch room it was sure cold and someone said not to worry, it would warm up come April.  So I stabbed him.  Well, only with my eyes, but still.  My brother also mentioned something about toughening up.  I ignored him because I thought he was rude, but now I get it!! My skin is sloughing off because underneath this Texas-baked exterior is someone who will love the cold!  Someone like my neighbor who went out to the trash the other day Cousin Eddie style: robe, no shirt, or pants, and wearing slippers.  I saw this from where I was curled on the couch, under a blanket, with a hot coffee in both hands, saying helpfully to my person that "BRRR. It's cold." Yes!  This is it!  When the last iguana layer peels off, I will be reborn into a shiny, smooth, hydrated, winter goddess!  

This is great!  This will help me see past the fact that the sun begins to set at 4:30pm. I am going to be a winter goddess!  I am going to love the cold and the wind and wind chills and snow boots!  I will delight in the gray skies and bare trees and dead grass.  I will radiate happiness to my fingers and toes and that happiness will feel like warmth.  This is perfect!!

I feel so much better.  I was worried that I was wimping out very early into winter but now I see the process.  Slough, shiver, repeat.  And, if I know anything from watching every season of Alone, it is that shivering burns calories, so I am going to go ahead and bake those cookies after all!