Family pictures . . . does the thought strike fear into your heart? I spent a whole weekend in search of clothes that matched without being cutesy. We pulled our 9-year old out of school two hours early for the appointment. I gave my 5-year old tons of warning and emotional preparation, hoping that she would cooperate. The last time I took her to the photographer’s studio, she ran off crying. (She was three.)

But my mother-in-law called and told me she wanted pictures of the kids for Christmas and since my boys do school at home, they have no school pictures. And this was the perfect opportunity to schedule a family picture. Plus, I’m not as fat as I used to be (I’ve lost 55 pounds, you know). Do it now before my neck totally turns into a turkey waddle.

The photographer, Crystal, is the best. She’s fast, sweet, gentle, funny and efficient. Today I rushed to the studio to pick out the pictures. I had an hour to drive over, choose the pictures and drive home.

Oh. Hello, disjointed post! Did you know I’m working now? Twenty-two hours a week, until next week when I work 29 hours a week. In January, I’ll be up to forty hours a week. Yes, a full-time employee with (gasp!) benefits. And I work at home. How lucky am I? I know. Very, very.

But I’ve done no Christmas shopping. I think we might have to celebrate Christmas on Valentine’s Day. I’m just too busy. Friday morning at 6:30 a.m., I’ll be driving with my mother and my 101 and a HALF year old grandmother to Oregon to attend my aunt’s funeral. (My poor aunt was very ill for a long time.) Three hours there and back.

Disjointed!

So, the family pictures will be done in three weeks. How long until Christmas? My neighbor said the other day, “Oh look! Christmas is one month from today!” and I said, “TAKE THAT BACK!” Because, really. I’m not ready or even close to ready. I told the kids we’d decorate Friday, but now I’ll be in the back seat of my mother’s sedan for six hours on Friday, reliving what it was like to go on long car trips as a child.

One word, no, two words: Carsick sister. (My parents just gave her a coffee can to throw up in so we didn’t have to stop. And we were too poor for hotels, so my parents took turns driving day and night across the country . . . to Wisconsin from Washington state. Oh, yes. Fun.)

We had pizza for dinner tonight and it was rather ghastly, but only cost $5 a pizza. A bargain, right? Especially when you’re feeding teenagers who have hollow legs (as my dad used to say). Speaking of my dad, how can it be that he died three weeks after he turned 47 and my husband will turn 47 next summer? That is one weird time warp.

Incidentally, you should know that I don’t dance. At all. Ever. Dancing was a sin in the eyes of my childhood church. Some of the kids I went to church with even received permission to miss the square dancing unit in P.E., lest their souls be cursed, I guess. I personally square-danced, even though I was loathe to touch the sweaty hands of the junior high boys. So, I guess I did dance. But I don’t dance anymore because I have no innate rhythm.

But I can type really, really, really fast.

On the horizon, shining like a supernova, is Christmas. My five-year old cannot wait for Santa to land his flying sleigh on our snow-covered rooftop and deliver a gigantic load of toys in our living room. Nevermind the minor fact that we rarely have a rooftop covered with snow, especially on Christmas Eve. And nevermind the glaring major fact that we do not include Santa in our celebrations.

I have no personal grudge against Santa Claus, but I also have no photographs of myself ever sitting on his lap, nor did he ever give me a present of any kind.

Santa is like someone else’s uncle. I admire him from afar, knowing that he is said to be a jolly, kind, bearded man, but he doesn’t come to our family gatherings because he’s not our relative. We just don’t do Santa.

Angels in the Outfield hd

That doesn’t stop my kids, though. Each of them have gone through the fervent-Santa-believer stage of Christmas wonderland. My daughter suspects Santa is not real–she’s five, but she has older siblings who cannot keep the truth of these matters to themselves. Because she teeters on the brink of focusing on Santa Claus and presents–lots and lots of presents–I have begun my annual Let’s Remember Whose Birthday Is Coming reminders.

Yesterday, as we drove along, I said to my daughter, “You know, Jesus’ birthday is coming. That’s why we celebrate Christmas.”

“What does Jesus look like?” she says. “Does he look like God?”

Huh. I say, “Well, probably. Sure. But no one really knows what God looks like.”

And she says, “Does God look like an old man?”

“Well, God doesn’t have a body,” I say to her, knowing that I sound like a lunatic.

She pauses.

“So,” she says, “God only has a head?”

And here is what I should have said: “Go ask your father.” But I was too busy biting my lip to keep from laughing.

We spent Friday and half of today in Long Beach, Washington, relaxing with our friends. Last night, the full moon lit our way as we hunted for the tell-tale signs of razor clams under the sand.

Although we found only six clams total, two of my kids dug up four of them and every one had a memorable time.

The absence of a baby in my house is never more obvious than on holiday mornings when I fall back to sleep after being rustled awake by the five-year old. She has become self-sufficient and can toast her own waffle and glob enough butter on it to clog her arteries before she starts kindergarten.

The teenagers would sleep through a hurricane and the 9-year old is so responsible that he creeps out of bed without waking anyone. (On school days, he sets his alarm and settles at the kitchen table to do homework–I find him there on the days I am up early to walk at 6:30 a.m. After he finishes his homework, he takes a shower and then welcomes his best friend who arrives by 7:15 a.m. for “before-school care.” All without any adult direction.)

Thus it was that I muddled through a fuzzy dream and woke with bleary shock at 8:52 a.m. I was scheduled to work for an hour beginning at 9 a.m. . . . and my turkey was scheduled to be shoved into the oven at 9:00 a.m. So I stood in the kitchen wearing slippers and a sloppy purple robe smearing butter on my turkey . . . I was signed onto the computer to work by 9:00 a.m., but finished up my shift at 10:15 a.m. since I was still washing butter off my hands at 9:10 a.m.

I cooked the entire Thanksgiving feast and had it on the table by 1:30 p.m. One of my twins prepared the green-bean casserole. My 5-year old ate a couple of fistfuls of black olives, two crescent rolls and some turkey. My teenagers ate all the green bean casserole, turned up their noses at the dressing and sweet potatoes and corn souffle and guzzled their sparkling cider. My 9-year old ate only crescent rolls (“Mom, these rolls are fantastic!”), turkey and mashed potatoes.

By 2:00 p.m., I was consolidating leftovers into containers, washing serving bowls, throwing away paper plates (PAPER PLATES!) and picking meat from the turkey carcass. By 2:30 p.m., I was reading the newspaper, trying to ignore the children. At 4:30 p.m., I took the two younger children over to my mom’s where we said hello to her and great-grandma (who is closing in on her 102nd birthday in March), my brother and his wife.

Angels in the Outfield movie My husband fulfilled his Thanksgiving responsibilities by napping and watching at least two football games. It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.

Two of my boys are playing chess, which ought to delight me, but irritates me. Do not ask me why because I have no rational reason, other than the fact that their arguments about the rules never end. My other son is playing a computer game, frantically typing with his index fingers, listening to music and cracking his knuckles.

And thus another Thanksgiving comes to a somewhat quiet end. We ended up not having company but my husband–oh, he did have a job today–vacuumed anyway.

I am thankful for my electric appliances: oven, fridge, washing machine, dishwasher, dryer.

I am thankful for my children, even on days when they won’t stop bickering and on days when they insist they know more than me.

I am thankful for my husband, aka the Calmest Man Alive.

I am thankful for my family, those who’ve known me the longest.

I am thankful for my friends, both those in real life and those on the Internet.

I am thankful, even on days when I complain as if I am determined to win a Complaining Contest.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I had a brief flicker of an idea today.  But, alas, it’s gone.  *POOF*

I wonder what it was . . . and if it will reappear?

The only homeless person I know personally chose to be homeless. He reveled in his freedom, slept in parks, joined the carnival, showered occasionally when he came to visit. This has colored my perception of homeless people. Perhaps I was less sympathetic than I ought to have been.

When I was a teenager, a couple of my friends and I used to go to the local Rescue Mission to sing. I don’t think the Tacoma Rescue Mission does this, but back in the day, that Rescue Mission insisted that the guests sit through a church service before they were fed. My girlfriends and I provided the music while the unkempt men stared. I was grateful to be sitting on the piano bench, hands on the keyboard, face to the wall. Those homeless men scared me.

Today, I went with my husband to a luncheon presented by the Tacoma Rescue Mission. Various politicians stood as we applauded. A local radio host gave a keynote address. (Mercifully short, not that it wasn’t interesting, but I find listening to speakers rather agonizing. I am a squirmer.)

Then, the director of the mission introduced a woman who read her story from a prepared piece of paper. I noticed her long blue fingernails. She described a life lived on the fringes, of twenty years of drug addiction, of a murder conviction and a 56-month sentence in the women’s prison at Purdy. She told of her phone call to the Rescue Mission, of how her life and the lives of her children were turned around. She spoke of her job at the Mission, of her promotion.

Tears sprung to my eyes.

Last year, the Mission provided shelter and services to families. But they could only help one of out every four that asked. Tonight, eighty children are sleeping at the Rescue Mission. Tragically, the majority of homeless people in this county are children.

The great news is that the Mission will soon begin building a Family Shelter which will allow them to meet the needs of so many more families. The sad news is that so many families need their assistance.

The good news is that we can do even small things to help. Here is what we can do locally. What can you do?

I found this sentence I wrote a few years back:

“Taking a toddler anywhere is like plopping a live grenade in your purse and hoping no one jostles you.”

Oh, so funny!  I am hilarious, if I do say so myself!

Fahrenheit 9/11

Last week, 5-year old Grace came rushing into the house from the back yard, clutching a stick. She thrust it into my face and asked, “Mommy! What is this?”

Clinging to the end of the stick was a small slug.

“That’s a slug,” I said.

“Oh! I love it! I’m going to keep it for a pet! Can I have a container?”

She kept the slug for approximately seven minutes, then shook it out of the Tupperware and said, “Mom. When can I get a hamster?”

Now, don’t tell her, but I have always had a soft spot for hamsters in my heart. When I was a schoolgirl, my friends all seemed to have hamsters in clear plastic Habitrail cages. I, too, wanted a fluffy hamster to play with and watch as it crawled through the tunnels of its hamster-playground.

I asked my mother and to my great shock, she acquired not one hamster, but two. The problem was that instead of a trendy plastic Habitrail, my hamsters came in a giant sturdy, homemade wooden box with a wire front. The box was divided into two sections because my hamsters–mother and son–hated one another.

The bigger problem was that the seafoam-green box was stinky and difficult to clean. Hamster urine soaked into the unfinished wood. (What were those grown-ups thinking?) Cleaning it was my job, of course, but I was just a child, probably eight or nine years old, and I couldn’t manage it.

I never did bond with my two hamsters. They were a source of anxiety to me and a distressing disappointment. My mother never quite understood my desires. Once, I asked for roller skates–my friends and I liked to go to the roller rink on weekends and skate. And my friend had her own skates. My mother gave me skates for Christmas, but my new skates did not have rubber wheels, but steel ones. They were just wrong, all wrong.

One fall, I needed a new winter coat. At a garage sale, my mother handed me a dark brown corduroy coat. The sleeves were too short and it was hideous. I refused it and felt my mother’s anger. She was probably not angry with me, but angry at a life that forced her to buy winter coats for her children at garage sales. (I am a bargain-shopper, myself, but I like the thrill of finding a good deal.) Still, I felt the sting of her fury.

These things I remember have no file in my mother’s memory. She can’t even remember the puppy, Midnight, that was given to me as a Christmas gift one year. Although we lived in the same home, we lived lives that only barely intersected from time to time. She’s can’t remember most of my childhood.

I hope that jotting things down here will help me remember not only my own life, but the slugs that make an occasional appearance in our home. My life as a middle-aged woman is about grasping the small moments, examining them and imprinting them on my memory. Later, I will say, “Yes! I remember that day with the slug!” and we will exult in our shared memories.

(What I will not save for later is the memory of my teenage son who is intent on driving me crazy with his lazy insolence. And he was so cute when he was little.)