The Gift of an Icy Day

Weather is something that catches the attention of Texans, especially at this time of year.

Just five days ago, the temperature climbed so high(82 degrees) that I briefly ran the air-conditioner. This was Friday afternoon. I could have opened up the place, but then I would have brought in the wonderful mountain cedar pollen that blows in from the Midwest this time of year. So I used the AC instead.

Saturday, a norther blew in and the high was 36 degrees. Monday night, the temperatures plummeted below freezing and moisture--mostly fog and light sprinkles or drizzle--began to coat surfaces. While we have sand trucks, the occasional nature of icy roads makes driving really iffy. Snow? Easy to drive on. Ice? not so much. Sand trucks cover the freeway ramps, bridges and overpasses. In between is untreated ice. With several million people in the Metroplex, chances for trouble are innumerable.

This morning, it is 17 degrees. Respectably chilly. A sheet of ice over everything. The good news? The sun is out and temperatures are expected to get into the 40s this afternoon. Heh. This is our first serious ice storm in six years, one of the pluses of living in Texas.

I used to get out in the car in weather like this, find a deserted parking lot, and practice skids to remind myself how to react and steer. This recent bout is too short for me to do that, plus, 100 feet of ice-covered sidewalk to the car is not an encouragement. Note to self: stock some kitty litter in case of a recurrence this winter.

If one can stay home, days like yesterday are a gift--an unplanned day to do anything you want as you stay snug and warm, with an occasional hope that the icy rain falling will not accumulate on the power lines and pull them down. Not so cozy then. Yesterday was perfect.

Being a lazy person, I didn't rejoice in the opportunity to clean out my file cabinets or even write on my blog. Nope. I lounged about reading a good mystery novel and sipping strong, hot tea with a lump of sugar and a splash of milk. Ahhh.

Today things are back to normal. Or they will be in a few hours. The Fort Worth Exposition and Stock Show is going on now (an historic custom dating back to the days when winter was the only time cowboys and ranchers had to compete in the rodeo and in the livestock barns.) Since freezing, nasty weather is apt to manifest at this same time of year, episodes like the last couple of days are known in the Metroplex as "stock show weather." Remarkably, an outdoor carnival complete with rides and a Ferris wheel is a part of the show, and hearty Texas teenagers and adults will be on the rides again as soon as the ice has melted.

I have paid my dues. Every now and then, we have an unrelenting winter. I remember one where the ice and snow didn't melt for six weeks, and I would leave for work at 5:30 a.m. to avoid traffic.I could handle the ice. Finally, a morning came with heavy snow. Nine inches in a few hours. Eighteen wheelers were stalled. My boss told me to stay home. School, of course, was canceled. My son and I played and came in for hot chocolate, laughing, laughing. Another Texas gift day. I remember the next day, the weather suddenly changed, everything melted and we were back to normal.

Yes, the weather in Texas in changeable in the winter. In the summer (sigh) it simply is unrelentingly hot,hot,hot. Not even much rain for relief. Days like this will be wonderful to remember in July.

I Learned It At Yahzee

Got this e-mail from a friend.

"Well, I would like to share this with you. Yesterday I went to throw out
an empty Reynolds foil box and for some reason I turned it and looked at
the end of the box. And written on the end it said, 'Press here to lock
end.' Right there on the end of the box is a tab to lock the roll in
place. How long has this little locking tab been there? I then looked at
a generic brand of aluminum foil and it had one, too. I then looked at a
box of Saran wrap and it had one too! I can't count the number of times
the Saran wrap roll has jumped out when I was trying to cover something
up.

I'm sharing this with my friends. I hope I'm not the only person that
didn't know about this."

And I do appreciate it, but I knew it. Actually, tabs are on both ends for even pulling. We talked about this and researched at Yahzee. Stopped the game, went into the hostess' kitchen, and examined her boxes of wrap. And the little tabs actually do work and keep the rolls of wrap from jumping out of the box when you are trying to unroll a piece. None of us had noticed it. We laughed at ourselves and went back to play.

Just one little extra in our days.

A Touch of Gentle Refinement

I just finished a delightful little book, "Wisdom of Donkeys" by Andy Merrifield. It is relaxing and contemplative, just like a donkey. It includes quite a lot about donkeys in literature through not just centuries but thousands of years. It slips in a lot of information about these unassuming but oh-so-useful animals.

He talks quite a bit about the soothing effect of rubbing a donkey's soft poll, and how in England some are used in schools, hospitals, nursing homes and retirement homes as therapeutic animals.

In the U.S., there is a small but growing trend to "employ" some dogs and cats with the elderly and with children with various disabilities. In my own county, a program trains therapeutic horses for disabled children to ride. Some have spoken for the first time after horse therapy, others have learned to walk or do other things.

Animals have a powerful effect on us. A new study has just announced what other studies have said in the past--that pet owners tend to be more calm, even have lower blood pressure, after petting their dogs or cats.

While this can be true for all humans, I think it is more striking in the United States, with its commercially sexual message on one hand and "don't touch hardly ever" message on the other. We humans have a lot of skin, all of it sensitive. We HAVE to have touch somehow.

I think about how hard it is today for renters to find housing for their pets in apartments or houses, and I understand the potential problems, but--more and more of us live alone. More and more of us have retreated to outlets like this computer, or our MP3 players or ipods or whatever. We interact--really interact--less and less with each other. It seems to me often that the more phones someone has, the harder they are to reach. And that is still not touching.

I wonder how many renters would be healthier, have lower blood pressure, with a pet? (And dogs have to be walked, which means more exercise, which is also beneficial.)
In my case, my dog has died, but I get lots of human hugs. Granddaughters are pretty good at that, and my sons hug me every time we part, or I hug them.
But to stroke the fur of an animal is special. Pleasurable. Soothing.

I would say meant to be. I smiled to read about this man walking about with his little donkey, sharing the journey, the donkey not intruding on his thoughts, giving him time to formulate what would become this delightful book.

A wise donkey indeed.

Old Folks Talking

"Life is a gift!" he said passionatly. "It is to be treasured daily, hourly, minute by minute."
"Aww," I said. "You make me feel guilty. I've spent so much of my life in depression or wasting time."
"Oh, Charlotte, we have all done that! It doesn't matter. We all waste our gifts. It only matters that we know them."
"Well, as I am aging, I should know better."
He smiled kindly.
"You are not old. You are just a kid. I am the complete adult."
He is right. He is 98. I am 65.
And I learn from him.

Anticipation-I think there's a song about that

Anticipation.
You can't buy it, but sometimes you pay for it.
Anticipation is an integral component of Christmas spirit, and mine has been in short supply for a number of years. In part to protect myself, I think, from that possible payment if disapointment set in.
Anticipation has ingredients of hope and faith in the future. I haven't always been good at that. Maybe that's why I've always had a short Christmas season--two weeks or so. I couldn't sustain anticipation for much more than that.
This year, I wake up with anticipation for almost every day. It makes a difference.
A friend commented to me once that of course not all Christmases are equal. Not every Christmas can be great, or you wouldn't have any baseline to compare to the great ones. I'm already anticipating this one. I will be with my family. We'll have a good time. And I have my novel stashed to begin reading on Christmas night when everything calms down. Been doing THAT for 40 years or so.
I bought a tree. It's a little one about 31/2 feet, very full "real" fir. It looks like it belongs out in a magic glade with lit candles on it and all the animals slipping in to look in wonder. Call me just a wide-eyed woodland creature. I've put tiny gold lights on it, and my grandmother's clear glass ornaments that this year are 105 years old. I haven't bothered with much else. It just doesn't need it. WRR is playing classical and Christmas music. I am baking, and the smell of warming evergreen and melting chocolate fills the air. (I really think smell is my most enjoyable sense for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.) I've talked to many friends, seen a bunch more, and actually attended parties this year which I couldn't do in my last career because of work pressure. The first year or two I retired, I maintained my basic love/hate don't go out at Christmas stance. I've mentioned a tree and family, but you know, anticipation doesn't rely on that. We manufacture our own ingredients for anticipation.
And I anticipate my Christmas spirit will continue to change. Yep, I anticipate. I can't buy it. It isn't one of the five senses. I can't touch it.
And it makes a huge difference in the quality of life.

It's all in the telling

I attended an open house this weekend, getting there the last half hour. No one was left but the host and hostess and a man introduced to me as their good friend.

We all sat down to chat and nibble a bit, and the host asked the other man about his wife. He had noticed she was wearing a leg brace. The man gave us a great deal of personal detail about his wife, who has suffered a disability since childhood. He said she has taken a doctor's statement many years ago to mean she should not exercise at all. The man said he had talked to her current doctor and asked him to prescribe physical therapy, which the doctor did, and his wife has carried through. (His smile said, ha!the poor dear doesn't realize she has been actually exercising.) So she exercised dutifully as the therapist instructed and had been getting around much better when she fell and cracked her kneecap. The recovery has been difficult and the joint has had to be immobilized. Healing has been slow. And, of course, there's her weight, he smiled conspiratorily at his host.

"She hasn't figured out yet that there's any connection between her weight and what she puts in her mouth--nachos, desserts, quesadillas..." he trailed off and the two men laughed companionably. I noticed the hostess didn't laugh, and neither did I.

I could not think of anything tactful to say, so I simply asked, "And so and so is your wife?" and stared at him unsmiling. He answered yes and looked at me in puzzlement, finally letting his eyes wander around the room. My host looked down. There was a silent pause and then conversation resumed on a different topic.

I know there are a lot of men and women who tell their spouses' personal business to all and sundry, often spinning it so the speaker comes out the better by comparison. Magnaminous, even. It is not very loving. I would not blame this man's wife for taking comfort in food to fill an empty place she has in her life. I have never seen her, so I don't know if she is huge, or just heavy enough to interfere with her ability to get around better. I don't know her strengths, but I know a lot of her weaknesses,if he spoke at all truthfully. What this man told a complete stranger is that his wife is a fat twit, and he has to guide and direct her. He does seem fond of her, in his way. Also scornful. And I haven't given a tenth of the personal details he told about her. It wasn't his to tell.

And he doesn't get it.

The Stockings of Christmas

Listen up, children and grandchildren. This includes, I think, anyone under, say 60.

Once upon a time, in the lifetime of some people still roaming the earth, there were Christmas stockings. But they weren't decorations. You put them up on Christmas Eve, just before bedtime. And no one saw them but the persons who put them up or their caretakers.

We children were told if we weren't good, we would get only hard lumps of black coal in our stockings. I, for one, knew what that was because we burned it in our fireplace. The fire was nice. It burned, though, to keep us warm. We didn't have furnaces, most of us. We had fireplaces and maybe a gas heater or two in the most frequented rooms. I knew what coal was, and I didn't want any, and in the childhood grapevine, we all had heard of some child who misbehaved so badly, especially in the weeks before Christmas, that they received only a lump of coal. Or maybe two. And the kids I knew, we all believed in Santa Claus. In my family, I was told that while Santa put presents under the tree for me, even my parents got goodies from Santa in their stockings. Not the good--er, big--stuff, but something from Santa.

So when I went to bed Christmas Eve, I hung up, not my stocking, but my sock, preferably the oldest, most stretched out one I could find in the drawer. And my father hung HIS black sock, fitting a size 12 foot, and also old and stretched. And Mother hung one of her nylon stockings, one with a run in it--do you know what a run is in hosiery, people much younger than I? Most practically, it's one that was also stretched out and tattered and ruined and due to be thrown out, but great for Christmas Eve.After all, the neighbors weren't going to see these. Only the people who hung them.

I remember sighing with envy when I saw Dad's much bigger sock, and sighing even more heavily when I saw Mother's stocking, which hung so low it had to be hung on the side of the mantle away from the fireplace so it wouldn't catch fire.

Christmas morning, no matter how tempting the array under the tree, first we had to take down our socks and open them. Mine always had a candy cane, I remember, and Christmas ribbon candy, some of which I liked and some of which I didn't, and a few things, maybe a tangerine as well. I loved tangerines. Maybe a package of No. 2 pencils with my name printed on them, and/or a yo-yo or some such. Jacks. Pickup Sticks. (yawn) Pleasant. I always checked, and my mom's looong stocking was never more than half full, with stupid stuff like an apple and an orange in it. Ha! Dad's usually had monogrammed handkerchiefs in it, which he always seemed pleased with. Well, Kleenex hadn't been invented yet, either.

Sometime during the 50's, Christmas stockings became ornaments for decorating, with our names on them. Someone made a killing churning these out for the new refurbishment of Christmas decorations, but no cigar or patent, I think, for the first designer/originator. With uniform sizes, it did away with some significant whining ("his foot's bigger. It's not fair!") And so Christmases became, more festive, more merry, more festooned, and for some merchants, more profitable.

In families with multiple children and a paucity of beds, stockings always were hung in twos or threes on the foot of the bed. And with the cheap felt, uniform red stockings with white fluffy tops, again, decorative and uniform for all children in the house, Christmas decorations invaded the bedrooms, not just the room with the tree.

American women across the country still sew or knit and design their own. I was one of those grateful for the storebought ones. I say American women. How chary of me. Some men across America are doing the same thing.

In my own sons' youth, stockings always had some kind of chocolate, and usually windup toys that included robots, and didn't necessarily come first. In fact, they often came in the interim after Beneath the Tree and before Christmas breakfast was served. My own stocking once had an opal ring in the toe, which made me cry emotionally with happy tears.

Christmas stockings have come a long way, baby.