foxhole report: no christmas grenades this year!

i am happy to report that this christmas there seems to have been a ceasefire along the battle lines of my life. no grenades, no bombs, no rocket launchers, nothing earthshattering or destructive. having planned for so many weeks to accomodate just about any disaster, i am happy to report that i sit here, alone, on christmas night, and i am very happy.

austin and i went to va. beach on friday morning and had a very pleasant holiday with my family. at occasions holidays and family dynamics can take a turn, and you never know what will tip the balance. this year it seems that my having to completely do a totally new christmas routine with austin and my financial struggles over the last many months have motivated my family to rally around me in a way that i didn't expect. i have spent so much of my life dealing with negatives, that i don't look for positives as often as i should. this would be my christmas lesson this year.

the first act of kindness occured last weekend when i took austin to the beach so that my uncle bert and aunt nancy could take him shopping for dress clothes. he needed nice clothes (pants, dress shirt, tie, shoes, etc.) to wear on basketball game days. i had asked bebo to get him some things, and he did, but not enough. only a pair of pants, a pair of shoes, a tie(ugly) and a shirt. that left me one set of everything short. austin asked for dress clothes for christmas and i relayed this to my parents when they asked what he wanted. this was an unusual request, as austin has never taken much interest in clothes before. my parents and family are all into clothes, and jumped on this opportunity to outfit him, which they did. they are very concerned that he not do without and thus be different from the other kids. both my mother and my uncle truly did do without, and that is why my uncle unexpectedly took this on.

after a shopping spree with my aunt and uncle and another one with my dad, austin came home the proud owner of his first sport jacket, 2 pairs of pants, a belt, socks, 2 dress shirts and matching ties and a very, very expensive pair of nike shox basketball shoes, the kind we never even looked at because there was no way they would happen. he was very proud of all of it. they also bought him athletic shorts and undershirts as well as a sweatshirt. my dad bought him a basketball and another shirt and tie as well as a bag to put his practice stuff in everyday.

austin has worn the dress outfits 3 days in a row. we went to brenda and danny davis' home for a xmas dinner on thursday night, and he decided to dress himself up in the sports jacket, new shirt and his beloved shoes. they were quite taken aback (as was i) that he did it. their daughter, olivia, has been one of austin's truest friends since 3rd grade and always looks out after him! i think she was hugely shocked at him dressed all up at a dinner that didn't require it! they are used to seeing him in his everyday outfit of jeans and a virginia tech sweatshirt!

friday night was our night to have xmas with "the aunties," my father's two elderly sisters. again, austin decided he wanted to dress up. my dad had ordered him bass loafers off of the internet (he is in a size 14 shoe, and we are now into a whole new realm when it comes to purchasing shoes). he put on the whole outfit again, this time with the new shoes and dress pants. he looked very grown up and handsome, and it thrilled my parents and brother and i as well to see him so excited about looking nice! then last night we went out to dinner with my mother's family to zia maria italian restaurant. austin went whole hog, including the tie, so that aunt nancy and uncle bert could see him in an outfit that they had purchased. today for xmas he got casual clothes from me and from my parents (sweats, t shirts) and my dad gave him a shoe shine box/kit. inside was the shoe brush that belonged to my grandfather. it had been passed down to my brother, who in turn gave it to austin for xmas. he showed austin how to shine the shoes, and he also helped him learn how to tie his tie, something i just can't do. austin also got an i-pod shuffle from toddy and lots of other things. i think he left feeling very loved and adored. he knew that they had all pitched in to make a nice xmas for him.

i could not have done any of these things for him. i don't think any of them had any idea about the financial situation, but they wanted to help. it is hard as a parent not to be able to do for you kid as you would like. but i have had to learn to let go these past few weeks about that, because that is what family is for. at 49 years old, it is very humbling, and i never thought i would ever be in this position. it is also hard because this last year has been so fraught with challenges and changes, and i wasn't able to do what i wanted to do for austin. he rarely asks me for much, but i try to get him whatever he asks for when he asks for it. but i just could not buy these clothes, and i let the others do it. they seemed to derive a great deal of pleasure out of it, and i have to be happy at that. what i did try and do was to express my thankfulness to all of them as often as i could.

austin wasn't the only person who had a nice christmas this year. my parents bought me a lot of clothing and things that i just don't have. i haven't bought for myself and have more or less been recycling what clothing i had left over from the years. i got 2 pairs of nice shoes, a pocketbook, a pair of pants and several turtle neck sweaters. mom and dad had bought me 3 nice sweaters and a pair of pants, but only one sweater fit. i went back to the mall yesterday and bought a pair of brown pants, an orange shirt and a black sweater. as a surprise on friday, my mother took me to have my hair cut and frosted! that was a real treat, as i have needed (badly, i might add) a haircut, and frosting, due to the expense, wasn't ever a part of the equation. i am blond for the first time in a long, long time! they also bought me an i-pod shuffle as well!

my parents also cooked food that they knew we liked, things from childhood like orange cinnamon rolls and my grandmother's potato salad. my dad made pumpkin soup with chili cream and roasted pumpkin seeds on top for austin, and mom made lots of pies and cookies (which i didn't eat) as well as a ham and the strata casserole that we have had traditionally for all of austin's life. they wanted to make everything nice and happy and special, and they did just that.

i got gifts from bebo's family as well: a bunch of nice things, including gloves and a sweater from doris, lavendar bath oils and things from mae, and a nice sweater from terre. austin gave me coathangers (i keep stealing his!), a covered coffee mug, and a $25 gift certificate to barnes and nobles! i saved all the gifts i had been given prior to xmas and didn't open them until this afternoon. my gift to the cats was leaving the wrapping paper on the floor, which they have proceeded to distribute all over my san francisco room! my next door neighbors brought me cookies and invited me to dinner (i was invited by several people, but opted to just stay home.) an hour or so later both amy and bruce showed up on my doorstep with my christmas dinner, which was my own personal chicken :) - i have never eaten a cornish hen myself! there were other things on the plate, but i was fascinated by the prospect of having my own personal chicken! i have had several phone calls from friends and have spoken to bebo's sister and mother today. all in all, things have turned out fine, and i am perfectly ok being by myself and am enjoying reading my sunday ny times and drinking wawa tea...:) i have a lot to think about and be thankful for!

monk and mini-monk do cookies (never send an man with O.C.D. to make toll house cookies...)

today bebo and austin are making cookies. actually, they have been doing it for 2 days, double batches at a time. i myself made 5 batches today, taking about 4 hours from start to finish to do it. however, as i type this, monk and his son, mini-monk, are STILL making cookies. never send a man with O.C.D. to make toll house cookies.

for years i made the xmas cookies, sometimes as many as a thousand or more. in the last few years that i did them, i only did toll house cookies. however, the stress of doing them with bebo forced me to abandon cookie making with a vengence. he took over the making of cookies and i just carried them off to wherever they were going.

what would cause me to ditch the cookie making? it was bebo's absolute insistance that the cookies had to be exactly the right shape...what shape? hell, they are frigging toll house cookies! easy's way? you get a big scoop of them on the spatula and you grab a hunk of dough and throw it down on the cookie pan. bebo's way? each little cookie must be of uniform size and weight. they must be lined up properly spaced on the cookie pan. he would dip them out with a spoon...fingers are too messy and you can't make them even. then one year i think he went to the melon baller thing. this year he has "perfected" the whole system and, according to austin, it is much more efficient. he now is rolling them out in a long rope, which my son described so nicely as looking something like a long turd. then he cuts them evenly and puts them on the cookie pan and bakes them for exactly 9 minutes. my response was WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS, YOU IDIOT! DON'T YOU KNOW YOU CAN GO AND GET A ROLL OF TOLL HOUSE DOUGH FROM THE WAL-MART AND JUST CUT THEM AND GO?

he also refuses to put them on cookie cooling racks. instead, he takes towels and spreads them out over a table. each hot cookie is placed one by one in a neat little line, not touching each other. there they will remain for upwards of 3 or 4 hours, waiting to cool. we aren't talking just cool...we are talking stone cold. according to bebo, they cannot be touching each other in any form of warm before you put them up. i am not sure what earthshattering event will occur should cookies collide, but i let him go with it. when i was living with him, the cookie baking would have to cease when the whole table was filled. while i was trying desperately to get them put up and to make space for the new cookies, he was fighting me, saying we would just have to wait until they were cold. i would be swinging from the rafters, wanting the baking to be done, but monk would just say, no, and i would be left to the gnashing of teeth and wailing at high decibels. finally, for my own health, i decided that he should just do the friggin' cookies himself. in the end, he now takes 2 days to do what i would have done in one, but he seems to be happy. so is austin. sigh. i am not exactly sure who he bakes for, other than himself. in any case, i doubt anyone appreciates the huge exercise of perfection that goes into the baking...:)

cat haikus- what a hoot!

http://orgy.aaronland.net/spam/texts/cat_haikus.html. click here - this is where i got them from. wish i could take credit for them!

Cat Haikus

You never feed me.
Perhaps I'll sleep on your face.
That will sure show you.

You must scratch me there!
Yes, above my tail!
Behold, elevator butt.

The rule for today
Touch my tail, I shred your hand.
New rule tomorrow.

In deep sleep hear sound
cat vomit hairball somewhere
will find in morning.

Grace personified.
I leap into the window.
I meant to do that.

Blur of motion, then-
silence, me, a paper bag.
What is so funny?

The mighty hunter
Returns with gifts of plump birds-
your foot just squashed one.

You're always typing.
Well, let's see you ignore my
sitting on your hands.

My small cardboard box.
You cannot see me if I
can just hide my head.

Terrible battle.
I fought for hours. Come and see!
What's a 'term paper'?

Kitty likes plastic
Confuses for litter box
Don't leave tarp around

Small brave carnivores
Kill pine cones and mosquitoes
Fear vacuum cleaner

I want to be close
to you. Can I fit my head
inside your armpit?

Wanna go outside.
Oh, crud! Help! I got outside!
Let me back inside!

Oh no! Big One
has been trapped by newspaper!
Cat to the rescue!

Humans are so strange.
Mine lies still in bed, then screams
My claws are not that sharp.

Cats meow out of angst
"Thumbs! If only we had thumbs!
We could break so much!"

Litter box not here
You must have moved it again
I'll crap in the sink

The Big Ones snore now
Every room is dark and cold
Time for "Cup Hockey"

We're almost equals
I purr to show I love you
Want to smell my butt?

of borscht and breaking bread...

i had my former mother-in-law, her sister and my "ex-sister-in-law" over for borscht and baked bread tonight. it was a very pleasant evening. i pulled out my china and crystal and we had a very simple meal. the borscht recipe came from a restaurant that i went to in victoria, british columbia about 20 years ago. it was a russian restaurant, and the borscht was so good that i wanted the recipe. the owner was there, and her cookbook was on sale. i bought it, and have been making it ever since then, although i haven't made it for the family in years.

we sat around in the living room after dinner was over and chatted and laughed at the cats, who were galavanting all over the room. they brought me my christmas gifts, since i won't be with them on christmas day. i put them under the tree, and i will open them on christmas day when i return.

"MRS. YOUNG! MRS. YOUNG! I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO FIND YOU!"-another teacher christmas story

christmas seems to always turn out to be a season not to be jolly, falalalala. for me, health issues seem to always crop their ugly heads at this time of year...and nine years ago was no exception. out of the blue i suddenly discovered that i would have to have a hysterectomy.

i was headed to the ob/gyn to get the happy news and had an hour to kill before my appointment. since i was on the other side of town and near a Best products store, i went in and was in line to purchase a toaster when i was nearly flattened by a tall, happy young man who was yelling "MRS. YOUNG! MRS. YOUNG!"

the store was packed and i was standing in a long line with the toaster when this manchild wrapped me up in a huge hug, toaster and all! the next thing he asked me was "do you remember me?" I did remember him. Then he spoke the words of the teacher's nightmare- "what's my name!"

"michael!" i replied.

and yes, i did remember him. he had been one of my 9th grade students who had distinguished himself by being a perfect pain in the butt almost every day of class.

Michael Brooks proceeded to hug me again and said "me and Rico have been trying to find you for so many years! i just wanted you to know i had turned out all right!"

after 9th grade, michael and his classmate and friend, rico, had been sent via redistricting to another high school and i had never seen him again. while i hadn't given it all that much thought, michael had, and he reminded me in a rapid fire staccato about why he wanted me to know what had happened to him.

"do you remember that time you took me out into the hall and jacked me up against the lockers? You told me..." and on he went with a perfect recitation of everything i had said to him in the hall that day. i did remember taking him into the hall and yelling at him, but i certainly didn't remember it verbatim. michael did.

"i want you to know," he said, "that next year when i went to meadowbrook i thought about what you said, and i straightened up my act. i got A's and B's on my report card and i graduated and join the army! and when i was a senior, my little brother was a 9th grader and he kept messing up like me, and i was all over him. he screwed up like i did, but he is doing better now!"

basically, what i had said to him, as i said to countless other "screwups," was that he was worth saving and he needed to get his act together. but i wasn't going to put up with any more of his mess in the classroom. i cared about him, but not enough that i was going to continue to allow him to wreck the class like he was at the time. he needed to grow up and stop acting like a fool.

and here he was in the Best products store, NOT doing his job while he talked to me. he had indeed gone into the army and served two years, but had injured his knee and was then working there over christmas while looking for a job. he and rico were still friends. he was happy. i finally had to remind him that he had a job to do right then or he would get fired! grinning, he went back to the cashier's line and i headed off, toaster in hand, to get the news that my childbearing days were over and i was in for some major surgery.

but what i was thinking about when i went to my car was how god had provided me with another angel at just the time that i needed one. what i was about to face was going to be life changing and i could have gotten really depressed about it. but michael's bear hug in a store and his message that i had helped change his life reminded me that, once again, we are the proverbial stone in the big life pond, and we never know where the ripples will go or who they will affect. in that way, christmas, and life got better. god bless michael brooks wherever he is...

"packman's shoes" - a christmas story

it was my first married christmas, the first one away from my family. it was also my second year of teaching high school english to 9th graders. eighteen inches of snow was on the ground, and there was a tremendous rush to finish the unit i was teaching before the break as we had lost so much time due to snow. i was already stressed out beyond belief when things actually got worse.

the house caught on fire.

our puppy, sierra, began to bark and i awoke thinking it was 6 a.m. and she wanted to go out. in fact, it was 11:30 at night and i smelled smoke. i jumped out of bed screaming "FIRE! FIRE!" while my husband went searching for the fire, i went first and threw the cat, Santini, into the snow on the deck, and then the puppy out the front door. i found my husband in the bathroom putting out the burning wall over the toilet. i had forgotten to put out a christmas candle and it had caught the towels on fire.

we got the fire out, and slept in a smoky, cold house (we opened up the windows to get the smell out and awoke as human popsicles.) but the house fire was the last straw, and i proceeded to have a pre-christmas meltdown that ended up lasting for weeks. every day it was all i could do to get up and go to work. i was barely functioning and just walking through each day like a schizophrenic half zombie, half happy whirlwind. staying active and positive for 8 hours everyday was one of the hardest things i have ever done. i was living for the christmas break.

finally the last day arrived, and after the last student had left my room, i was standing behind my desk thankful that i could now go home and have a complete nervous breakdown! however, before i could pack up my things and leave, there was a knock on the door and there stood The Packman.

since september donald packard had been "occupying" a desk on the front row of one of my 9th grade english classes. his biggest contribution most days was drool on the desk or an occasional "huh?" when i went by and knocked on the top of his head! a man of little or no words, "packman" as i had named him, was standing at my door, the last student i expected to see that day. he also was talking, saying "merry christmas" and he handed me a box that clearly he had wrapped himself...a shoe box.

i opened the package and in it were a pair of bright red printed Vans tennis shoes in my size. this was a gift i did not expect, but one i have truly never forgotten. it may have been one of the best gifts i ever got, and it came at a time when i desperately needed something positive.

you see, one day the packman had showed up in a pair of the same shoes. because they were so completely out of character, i had stopped class that day and said "packman, where did you get those shoes?" he stuck his head up and mumbled "my mother bought them for me." it seemed that she had gone to a shoe outlet nearby and i assume was looking for something bright to wake up her boy! i thought the shoes were cool, and said offhandedly "hey packman, i gotta have a pair of those shoes! if you mother goes back there again, tell her to get me a pair of those in size 9 1/2 !" off i went down the aisles handing out papers, and packman put his head back down and went to sleep.

you never know when an angel will show up at just the right moment, and the last person i thought would be an angel would be the packman. yet there he was. he handed me the "happy shoes" as i called them, and off he went.

i don't know where donald is now. i know he graduated and went to college. he woke up after 9th grade and actually took my journalism class even though he wasn't much good at it. i have often thought of him over the years and the act of kindness that he never know would have so many ripples. over the last 18 years i have kept the shoes. i used to wear them every friday and they got quite a reputation. over the years they have gotten a little worn, but i always wear them the last day of school before the christmas holiday and tell my story of the packman and how he was a stone in a pond, and what a ripple he created.

the tradition continues. i wore the shoes to school yesterday and a whole new generation of kids who were babies when the packman gave me the shoes are now asking about where i got them! what i tell them that sometimes you never know what an impact you might have on another person's life. in this way, i try and "pay it forward" each year by reminding my students that a single act of kindness may turn out to change another person's life.

a little sunshine, a little ice...

we continue to suffer under the wacky weather syndrome here in virginia. i feel like i have been in the meteorological black hole for the last 10 days. last weekend i took austin to myrtle beach, SC, where the weather alternated between cold (40 degrees and lower on both nights, and we were outside playing baseball) to 70 and thunderstorms during the day on sunday. then driving home to richmond that night we encountered thunderstorms complete with lightning, only to arrive in richmond and go into a huge cold plunge which resulted in not one, but two, days of wintry weather that left us at home instead of in school. i have enjoyed the days off, and have spent them alternating between sleeping and being productive.

the ice and snow were pretty and i do enjoy the colder weather. last night i spent an hour or so outside by myself replacing bulbs on the strings of xmas lights that are part of our annual tacky xmas light extravaganza. i was alone and restringing, and had some time to myself to just think and listen. it was pretty cold and relatively quiet, which seemed to contrast with the bright lights of the front yard. it seems like that, and the rapidly varying weather, have been a pretty good metaphor for my life over the last couple of weeks. i feel like i go from sunshine to ice at a rapid clip, just like the weather yesterday, which was sleet and frozen rain at 7 am, only to disappear into cold sunshine by 10 am.

while in myrtle beach i had some weird health stuff happen, just dizziness and feeling anxious which i think was just an anxiety attack. it weirded me out, though, and i was very tentative physically and mentally for a couple of days. i just didn't feel solid, secure. the early dismissal for snow on monday, the day off on tuesday, and the late opening on wednesday gave me enough time to sort of come to grips a bit. there have been a lot of changes and stressful things over the course of the fall. nothing overly earthshattering, but enough to catch up with me. it did. not like i didn't expect it would, but anxiety attacks are never something you look forward to. most people flee from them with an intensity that you can't summon up in any other part of your life. my attacks take the form of almost a seizure, which is embarrassing and humorous all at the same time. i can feel them coming on usually, and just lay down and let them go. this time i made a point of giving it over to a higher power. for many, many years i used to believe that when i had these episodes, it was my body's way of releasing tension and sort of exploding. however, since becoming a reiki master, i have changed my view of this, and i now believe that the opposite, in fact, is occurring. i think i am exhausted mentally and it is draining me physically to the point where i begin to spiral out of control. i think that when these attacks occur, they are an infusion of high energy from those looking out for me. last year when i was so sick for 6 weeks, i thought that the reiki i was doing on myself wasn't working. in fact, i know now that it was what kept me alive. i expected the reiki to heal me, but instead it kept the infection at bay long enough for me to finally get the doctor's to believe me when i asked for their help. the antibiotic doctor said he had no explanation as to why i did not become septic or get peritonitis. it didn't seem possible that i could have leaked from my stomach into my abdominal cavity in two places over 6 weeks and NOT get deathly ill. but i know the answer, and it was simple. there is more work for me to do.

so i endure the stuff of life, not always all that well, but i am at least aware of it. i will continue to cover up and disrobe according to the sunshine and ice around here, weatherwise and lifewise.