In Our House, This Isn't New Year's Eve

I thought about writing a year-end blog retrospection; you know, like all the hip blogging kids.  But actually I never really celebrated New Year's Eve like a normal grown-up.  The year I was finally 21, my (future) husband and I spent some time down in Florida visiting his grandparents during the new year.  I caught a horrendous stomach bug and my dreams of dancing past midnight ended up in the john; by way of celebration, my dear beloved made me jello in a champagne flute.

After that we were married and my husband was in med school and I can't remember if we were too broke or too tired, but we never did go dancing.

And then, 19 years ago, this day became something very different.  It became the birthday of our first child.  Our son.

We've always let our children chose what they wanted for dinner on their birthdays.  They could eat out or I would cook, their choice.  When he was three, just weeks before his sister was born, our boy chose McDonald's.  After that, for a long time, he chose a local Italian restaurant; he was always enchanted by the party hats on the table, especially for him.  For the past two years we've actually been vacationing on his birthday: just the four of us in Arizona, and then, last year, a small contingency on a Nile cruise ship, where our boy danced around the room with the waiters and was serenaded in English, Arabic, the Swedish dialect of German, and Norwegian.

It's nothing fancy this year.  We're home and happy.  We'll take him out tonight to the restaurant on State Street (his choice), and I'm making him cookies instead of a cake. 

It's been a marvelous 19 years.

Randomly,Halfway Through Christmas Break

Here is what I have to tell you about today:

1)      I have 4 articles due tomorrow for an international website on writing for teenagers.  I have finished 1 of them.

2)      I may have started 2 more, or maybe not, depending on how well I like them when I read them, which, for everyone’s sanity, had better be pretty soon.

3)      Tonight my beloved aunt and uncle are coming to stay.  I’m going to cook them dinner, which will absolutely require a trip to the grocery.

4)      Even if I took them out to dinner, I would absolutely be required to go to the grocery today.  I can’t tell you exactly what this morning’s milk tasted like, but it wasn’t milk.  I should very much like to feed my aunt and uncle breakfast in the morning.

5)      When my husband asked what I was going to make for dinner, I said, “I’m going to go to Food City and stare at the meat until something jumps out at me,” which strikes me as funnier and funnier every time I think about it.

6)      Tomorrow is my son’s birthday.  I’m going to make him birthday Snickerdoodles, since he doesn’t like cake.

7)      Sometime today I need to wrap my son’s birthday gifts.

8)      There’s also the little matter of that tree in the family room.  I’d like to take it down before my son’s birthday.  I’d also like to leave it up for my aunt and uncle’s visit.  These two things are only compatible if I take the tree down at midnight.

9)      That’s not happening.

10)   The only thing keeping me at all on track for today is that I spent the weekend, pretty much, asleep.  And it was glorious.

From the...ah, Basement

I feel like I ought to title this something profound.  I write this from the future.  Something like that. 

 Actually, I write this from the treadmill.

I would like to have more physical activity in my life.  Riding, especially eventing, is quite good exercise.  I have been giving my horse some time off, which I think she needs, and I’m glad that’s about to end, because I can really feel the difference in my body, riding less.  Recently my husband and I bought a treadmill, which I thought would be very handy, and indeed I like a lot of things about it.  But, while he can Tivo sports shows and watch them while he exercises, there’s very little on TV I actually care about.  My daughter and I are slowly working our way through Downton Abbey Season 4, via a quasi-legal internet connection, but 1) that requires a laptop, not a television; and 2) it doesn’t seem fair to watch without her.  Even if she has been dragging her feet because she’s still so upset about the death of Matthew Crawley.

 Anyway, I can still read books via the treadmill’s magazine rack, or even magazines.  I’ve noticed though that I tend to read at night, after dinner, when I’m happy and cozy and want to have a glass of wine in my flannel pajamas, not sweat.  Also no matter what, I spend a lot of time at my desk, sitting down, and according to the latest health reports (those same people who told us butter was very very bad for you, no, butter’s okay, it’s margarine that’s bad, very, very, very bad—whatever) sitting down all day is a terrible terrible thing.  I also heard that standup treadmill desks are all the rage.

So I invested $35 in a little Plexiglas-sorry, polycarbonate, supposedly bulletproof though nobody’s firing bullets in my basement—a little shelf thingy that I can hang off the treadmill console and Velcro my laptop to, and voila!  I write this at a 3% incline going 1.3 mph, my hands bouncing a bit and the fingerpad nearly worthless, but still, writing and walking, which, exercise wise, has got to beat talking and chewing gum at the same time.  The only problem I’m having is that I haven’t used the laptop in a little while, and therefore it’s intent on getting updated, immediately, so it keeps popping up little windows, and I have to use the fingerpad to close them.  But hey, first world problems.

 

wrote a lot about Advent for love blooms bright, a Wordspress blog, and then on Christmas Eve I posted one fairly snarky post about Duck Dynasty and Christ, and then I had a lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas morning.  And then things got a little harder, though not because of anything anyone could have prevented.  Just—harder.  So pray for us, if you do that kind of thing.  Hope your Christmases were lovely, too.

One Day More (coposted on Love Blooms Bright)

What if it were true?

What if Christ really were coming tomorrow, God on Earth, only this time we were all forewarned?

I write this in the United States (I know many readers are British) and here the whole past week the chatter has been about Phil Robertson, a man who plays himself on the popular American television Duck Dynasty, or did play himself, until he made some anti-gay and racist remarks in an interview published in a magazine, and his television producer fired him.

In the States we have people who are pro gay-marriage--17 of our 50 states have legalized it--and people who are anti gay-marriage.  Many of the antis cloak their opinions in a mantle of religiosity, claiming that they have to speak out against gay people, because the Bible clearly says that homosexuality is a sin.  (This side of the argument also tends to believe that homosexuality is a choice, not something you're born with.)

Many people on the other side don't think that Bible is all that clear about homosexuality.  The Leviticus verse is somewhat vague in its original language.  It is perfectly clear that Leviticus bans eating bacon, and also shrimp, but somehow we've all become okay with ignoring those restrictions.

Here's the thing: it doesn't matter.  And also, it does.  It matters because, at least in the States, a whole lot of people are telling other people that God doesn't love them.   It matters because, at least in the States, gay teenagers are three times more likely to commit suicide than straight teenagers.  It matters because someday someone who spoke out harshly and emphatically against homosexuals is going to have a beloved child confess that he or she is gay.   It matters because there's no reason to believe that any one sin is bigger than any other sin, that someone else's gayness trumps my vitriol, that it's bigger and more important than my lack of charity or love.

And yet.  All the newsprint devoted to this one issue, to one man who said that homosexuality was a lot like bestiality and that black people were happier in the days before they had equal rights.   When yesterday, 19,000 children died of preventable causes.  Abigail/Aisling/Amanda/Amata/Anne.  That's five.  Jacob/Jafta/Johanne/Jordan/Justin.  Ten.  18,990 to go.

What if Christ came back tomorrow?  What would He find us fighting?  What do we ignore?

Other People's Words

Yesterday, a friend put something up on the internet that I disagreed with.  I left her a comment saying that I disagreed, and why.  She put up a comment further explaining her position.  I put up a comment further explaining mine.  Then she wrote, "Kim, I don't want to argue.  I respect you.  Why don't we agree to disagree?"

Sometimes I think that when Jesus comes back, he's gonna smack me upside the head.  Because my first reaction to her quite generous post was, "No! I'm right!"  Fortunately this was followed quite quickly by my second reaction, which was Duh.  Of course we can.  I don't expect or need all my friends to agree with me all the time, except of course when I do.

Today's the first official day of Christmas break, sort of.  My daughter's high school has one of these weird half-days where only the principal and none of the teachers actually expect the students to come.  If they did, there would be nothing for them to do, as finals finished yesterday, the semester is over, and everyone starts brand-new classes when school resumes.  I'm here to tell you that I'm happy to have my daughter doing nothing sound asleep in her room rather than getting her up at 6 am to go do nothing for a morning at school.  Also, I've always thought perfect attendance awards were overrated.  And my son's vacation starts at 3:46 pm, when his last final concludes and he hops a taxi for the airport, to come home. 

Meanwhile I've been reading some blogs, and I'll tell you, today everyone else's words are better than mine.  I'm okay with that.  So rather than attempt something profound, which won't be (I can tell, it's that kind of a day) I'm going to refer you to others.

For the last best final word on the whole Duck Dynasty mess, read my friend Kristi's blog here
Trust me, you won't be disappointed.

And for the best word on anything anywhere, go to Momastery.  You won't regret that one, either.

Have a wonderful weekend.  I'll do my last blog for Love Blooms Bright on Tuesday, and might possibly sneak in a blog post on Monday.  By then I'll try to have something to say.

It's Brisket, Baby!

Many years ago, I volunteered to cook a brisket for the end-of-the-year pony club party.  I'd never cooked a brisket before, but studying the thick, squat, fatty piece of tough beef convinced me that the only thing to do was marinate the holy heck out of it, then roast it a long time in a slow oven.

It turned out fabulous: brisket of the Gods.  The pony clubbers slurped up every scrap, Moms asked me for the recipe, and I have it on good authority that my brisket is now renowned among Bristol's Jewish community.  Needless to say, my brisket has become a pony club tradition.

Tuesday I went to Food City, our local grocery, where I had always purchased my brisket before.  Nary a brisket in sight.  (They did have smallish corned beef briskets, which are totally not the same.) I asked at the butcher counter if I could order a brisket.  Imagine my consternation when they told me no.  "We can't get brisket anymore," the man said.  "We've tried, and we can't get it."

Huh.  I drove across town to Kroger's.  No briskets.  Furthermore, the woman at Kroger's meat counter said, not only could I not order them, but, "They don't make brisket anymore."  Apparently farmers now grow special cows consisting only of steaks, hamburger, and stir-fry.

I was annoyed and disappointed.  I was proud of my brisket.  I knew I could buy a ham, but it seemed a shame to lay a great tradition to rest.  So I did what I always do in times of trouble:  I complained to everyone I knew.

And this is why people complain: because it pays off.  "Wal-Mart had briskets yesterday," a friend said.  "I think Sam's Club has them, too."

I stopped at WalMart yesterday evening and there indeed found brisket.  It was a little like Remembrances of Things Past.  As I was wheeling my cart, containing only brisket, black beans, and a bag of rice (don't ask), a man stopped me and said, "Excuse me, but where did you find that brisket?"

Veteran Survivors and the War on Christmas

Yesterday as I stood in line at the pharmacy, I noticed that the elderly man in front of me was wearing a hat that read, "WWII Veteran."  I leaned forward and said, "Excuse me, sir.  Where did you serve?"

He smiled gently.  "In the Pacific on the aircraft carrier Yorktown," he replied. 

The pharmacy tech, overhearing, said, "The Yorktown!  I've been on the Yorktown."  (She stands decommissioned in Charleston harbor.  I've been on her, too.)

The man said, "I was seventeen.  I spent three years on that ship.  I grew up on her."

I tried to imagine my son, who is nearly nineteen, sailing into a world of torpedoes and kamikaze attacks.  The pharmacy tech must have had similar thoughts, because she said, "Did you have to lie about your age, to join up at seventeen?"

"Oh, no," the man said.  "You could enlist at seventeen. At sixteen you had to lie."  Then he shook his head at us and said firmly, "I wasn't a hero.  I was a survivor, that's all.  A bomb hit my battery, all the men died but me.  I survived.  I'm eighty-nine years old now, there aren't many of us left."

Which brings me to the War on Christmas.  Which, I'd like to say, Is. Not. A. War.

Honestly?  People are using the same word that sent boys off in metal boats, or wading into fire on the shores of Omaha Beach, or that sent unnamed millions into the death camps, to describe being wished a polite seasonal greeting in words not precisely of their choice?  Spare me. 

Let's review.

 The word "holiday" is derived from "holy day." 

The 'X' that changes "Christmas" into "XMas" is not removing Christ.  The letter 'X', depicting the cross, was used in ancient times to mean Christ.  It's the same word. 

No elementary schools are banning red and green decorations.  That's an internet myth.

And then there's all the mess on Fox News about Santa being a white guy.  I really thought (hoped) it was an Internet myth, too, but I just looked up the video clips.  Alas.  The idiot anchorwoman, who later tried to say she didn't really mean it, emphatically declared that both Santa and Jesus were white.

Santa is fictional.  He could be green and red.  He could be polka-dotted.  He could be make of smoke.  Or, he could be black.  Still fictional.  If all-white all-th- time Santa makes a small black child feel marginalized, let's get rid of him and have a sometimes-black Santa.  Try this at home, white people:  imagine a world in which every public depiction of Santa showed him as a black man.  Would your kids feel a little marginalized?  And yet, doing this wouldn't tell you how black children feel, because in this country whites are the majority.  We're always mainstream; everyone else is always not.  (See my previous rant on "white privilege.")  Most of all, let's stop trying to tell other people how to feel.  If a black person says that white Santas make her feel oppressed, accept that.  It is how she feels.  However you feel Santa should look does not change how another person feels.  

Historically, of course, the myth of Santa is based, very loosely and without reindeer, on St. Nicholas, an ancient Catholic bishop.  He lived in Turkey, which means that, while not precisely black, he was also not precisely white. 

Ditto Jesus.  I hope that I'm preaching to the choir here, but it seems pretty self-evident that Jesus Christ, God on earth, who lived and died near the sea of Galilee, and grew up speaking Aramaic, did not look like a Northern European.  He was dark-skinned.  Black haired.  But He was also God, so really, if He so chose, He could have been polka-dotted. 

This should not be an issue.  Someone tell Fox News: There is no War.