Acts of Kindness

Today's Holidailies prompt is about random acts of kindness. I don't know that I do many of those. My mom did, though. As I mentioned a few days ago in this post my mom was a very kind and thoughtful person, always doing for others and celebrating family and friends. The Christmas that she entertained not only her grand kids but my cousin's little kids and made stockings (and doubtless found little gifts for them) was but one example. This is my cousin's son. I snapped a Polaroid of him carefully unpacking his stocking that Christmas. I found the original Polaroid the other day. On the back my mom had noted that she was ordering two copies. (You could send your instant prints off to the company to be copied.) So she probably ordered a print for herself and one for her nephew who is this little guy's father. Indeed, she had purchased that Polaroid camera for me when I was in high school. I will never know how she found enough money to do it. (See this entry.)

Thanks, Mom, for showing me how to care about others. Maybe I will do some random acts of kindness in the coming days.I have lots more resources than my mom ever did if only I had her heart.

Throw Back Thursday...The Christmas Spirit

My mom loved Christmas and if you had known her, you would have to smile when she came to your house with holiday decorations hanging from her ears and this sweatshirt on and, as I remember, socks with Santas on them as well. This is in our old house in Austin in 2000. It is the last Christmas that my mom really felt good, I think. By Christmas 2001 she would be on her way to death by Multiple Myeloma but we wouldn't know it or have a name to put with her problems. We would even have an extremely frustrating hospital visit right before Christmas in 2001. But she was pretty chipper in 2000.

She put up the tree when we were kids and put surprise wrapped packages under it when I'm pretty sure money was very tight. Santa came and he didn't disappoint.

She made turkeys and homemade dressing and gravy and rolls and might invite scads of people to partake. She made pies.

I remember one Christmas when I was still living in Dallas. My sister was visiting Mom with her kids, I think. My cousin and his wife and their three kids were there. Mom decided everyone needed a stocking. She got out the sewing machine and started whipping up these personalized stockings. Her sewing machine needle broke and I had to go to a mall (I swear it was Christmas Eve) and go to Sears or some place like that and get one. I believe my mom decided kids needed bikes and trikes and wagons, too,. It seemed my mom was whipping up holiday spirit out of thin air, that we all had some good reason not to feel that great that particular holiday and I can't put my finger on why. But we had a great time as I remember. And it was all her.

I've said it many times but I'll say it again: the Christmas spirit left me when this woman left us. And it will never really return. Not in that way. Not even if I get out a jigsaw puzzle or a board game and sit down to that recreation with a cup of black coffee and some leftover pie. That would remind me of Mom but I don't think it would give me the same feeling of holiday cheer.

Time Passes!

Dad's family 1944. Only his brother is missing. I think that may be because he was away in the Navy. This is during WWII, of course. My dad was rejected for conscription a few times for health. Eventually they took him, though. Except for his brother (who was not yet married) this is his family. I wonder if the picture was taken to send to his brother. None of the sisters are married at this time. His youngest sister, on the ground with my mother and infant sister, is no more than 14.

I have quite a collection of pictures (scanned from prints and originally digital) on my computer and various backup drives. I have several computers on my desk (don't ask) and when they are on they frequently go into screen saver mode and I have them flashing up pictures from a few collections.

When I look at old pictures I can't help but think about how much time has passed and how many people have passed with time. If I see the picture above I immediately think: they are all gone except that baby and teenager. The baby is now my almost 71-year-old sister. The teenager is my Aunt Cappy, featured yesterday. Only my granddad didn't survive to be in my life. But my grandmother, Dad, Mom and the other four sisters are gone now, too.

So much happened to these people. Eight more children would be born amongst three of the women in this picture. They would work and struggle and laugh and cry. (The Ball family, in fact, has a tendency to laugh until they cry.) The children would grow, the people in this picture would grow old, the children would have children and those children would have children. A couple of children would die before their parents.

This tendency of mine to look at who has been lost in pictures as they flash by doesn't feel morbid. It feels like celebrating lives lived and the struggle inherent in life. Let's see...there's a picture of my friend Al on the beach at Normandy, my mother with a snowman, two of our dogs (they are gone, too), my mom with us on the Capitol steps when we are children, my Aunts Mary and Dottie at my sister's wedding in 1965. And there's my friend Charles giving me a hug, So recognizable in these pictures on my screens but no longer in the world. Does this make me sad? No just nostalgic and maybe accepting that one is just a pawn in a long sputtering line of humanity trying hard to stop time but failing. Always eventually succumbing.

Where's the Spirit?

West Sixth Street Shop Window Reflection

The Visible Woman...opines.

This time of year was filled with glee when I was a kid. Even if Christmas didn't always bring all the things I hoped for (and it usually didn't given the money my parents had) it brought this precious time off from school. Mom taught school from the time I was ten or so and she would be off from work, too. We would see relatives. We would wrap packages and anticipate. We'd sing carols. My sister and I may have even devised our own live nativity or other production. My grandmother's homemade rolls and cinnamon rolls and her giblet gravy can make my mouth water from the distance of many years. I especially liked the time when we were eating leftovers and the table was cleared for a board game (or a card or domino game) or a jigsaw puzzle. I'd wake up each morning of the school break feeling the great anticipation of another lazy day playing with new things or reading a book or playing with friends or family.

I didn't pay much attention to the impending new year as a kid. 

After college there wasn't as much time off but there was always a day or two. We kept the excitement, my mom and I, with visits from my young nieces and my cousins' kids. I had a little money since I had a job and I enjoyed buying many, many gifts. At least one year I tried for a gift for every kid we'd see and my cousins were, at that time, in their child-bearing years. 

The after Christmas time became even more fun. I enjoyed the steaming cups of coffee (I became a coffee drinker in college) and the leftover pie around the table playing games or putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle. 

I didn't pay much attention to the new year that loomed. I'd forget the date on the checks for a while. I'd file my ultra simple tax return. EZ form? Probably. Maybe I'd find a New Year's Eve celebration.

My mom has been dead for eleven years and her love of Christmas is fading from my mind. Although I do remember one Christmas Eve. My sister was visiting with the two little nieces. My cousin and his wife were coming over for Christmas with three little ones. She made me arrange Santa Claus gifts. She sent me to Sears at the mall on Christmas Eve to get a new needle for her sewing machine because she was stitching up stockings for each person with their name on them. I believe I drove the little ones around to see Christmas lights while Santa did his thing. If Mom were still around I'm betting she'd make us get in the spirit of the day, kids or no kids. Some wrapped presents, some decor, a puzzle or game.

Now I'm older. There are no young kids in my family nearby. I rely on my nieces in Colorado and my sister to create Christmas excitement for their kids. Cousins' children are grown and some have kids but I don't see them. Their grandparents, my cousins, are hopefully getting involved in those celebrations like our parents did. Hopefully the jigsaw puzzle and non-video games are part of it. And I don't know if I'd be up for that chaos. We will have a Christmas dinner with some friends who have the wife's parents and sister in for the holidays. We'll probably watch sports and eat and drink too much. I've already unwrapped my present from Forrest because he wanted to be sure I liked it. (It's a small collage object by Lance Letscher. A book. I do like it.) He just asked when we could open our presents. But only he still has one to open. One of our old family traditions is giving hints about presents. I told him his present was two things and one he could use today and one he couldn't. The present is a nice umbrella and a muffler. It's cold today (thirties) here but no rain forecast. 

And now Christmas brings the depressing thought of the New Year. My taxes are complicated. I owe tax forms right away to the government for business stuff and to people I've provided with mortgages. The arduous process of collecting things for our own 1040 begins. And, honestly, another year has disappeared? I haven't learned enough, written enough, I haven't organized my life enough. I haven't traveled to all those places I'm interested in seeing. Door shuts on the year and on possibilities for me. Oh sure one can hopefully make New Year's resolutions and see the new year as this wonderful stream of time to accomplish things. I've done that. See here. Or going back really far: here or here are some I made for other people, for society at large. I'm sure there are old paper journals with scrawled promises to myself in the archives, too. But the hope is pretty much extinguished now. Time marches on and you just hope you'll be in the parade and glad to be there.

Decorations of Red

This photo was taken back in November at the annual Settlement Home Garage Sale. They always have a huge selection of Christmas stuff.

In our apartment there are no decorations save the few holiday cards we have received and one lonely bendable posable Santa. (One year I brought all his friends out of storage and he got left behind when they were returned.)

No one will be coming around here looking for decoration. We are not having a party. We haven't even invited anyone here for a drink. (We've got a few dates at restaurants and parties to attend.) I'd have to get busy and dust and vacuum to have serious company.

As the song says: "Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree won't be the same without you here with me." I'm not sure who would need to show up to put me in a decorating mode. But I'm pretty sure my enthusiasm for it all died with my mom ten years ago. Here is a picture I posted four years ago, taken in 1978, that shows her working on a homemade decoration. Mom unabashedly loved Christmas and you couldn't help yourself...you were drug along.

Looking for Dad

This is my mom and dad. They are looking out over Grand Canyon, I think. (Only they are looking back at the camera.) I don't think I was with them. I think my sister and I saw the Grand Canyon, alone, perhaps this same summer. Not really sure, however. I think my dad is around fifty here, maybe.

This morning I got up a little late, around eight. I made my morning call to him. No answer. Tried again a few times. No answer.

My dad has a Lifeline button. I shouldn't worry. Maybe someone took him to early church service. He doesn't have a car because, if you are a close reader, his was totaled a couple of weeks ago.

One can't help worrying even though one knows it's nothing. One knows there is a 99.9% chance someone drove him to church. Still.

FFP says we should go out there and check. We do. We don't rush but we get dressed and drive out there. He isn't home, of course. His Sunday paper is arrayed around his chair. He hadn't written today's date on his drug list in the bathroom, but, yes, obviously he has gotten a ride and gone to church. In fact, maybe he has the date wrong and did write in there.

We went to Waterloo Ice House on Burnet and had breakfast. In order to make use of having gotten the car out, we called FFP's mom and got a grocery list and went to the store and got here some stuff and bought bananas, coffee, yogurt and laundry soap for ourselves.

I knew I could have ignored not getting to talk to him this morning, but we are a little paranoid about that after the 2006 death of one of our friends after she lay alone in her house for days after a massive stroke. We take our charge to check up on people seriously now.

I think the picture is funny with Dad barely captured by whoever took the picture. Dad was always disappearing. He worked weird hours and then, when he retired, piddled with a flea market stand and helping some guy who bought and sold cars. My whole life as a youngster, my mom was wondering where Dad was. He'd go off with friends on some errand after work. Maybe he was off drinking or just helping fix a car. Often he was doing a favor for a friend. But he never felt obligated to let folks know where he was, particularly, and it made my mother crazy. And it bugged us if we were hoping he'd come home for some reason. (He always seemed to take a shift at the hospital where he was an attendant on Christmas Day and we'd have to wait until he came home to open presents.) Now I have to worry about him, but he can't get far away. I have to be more responsible than he sometimes was and remember his appointments and see that he gets what he needs. He still wants to be the independent, capable middle-aged man in this picture. But he is not. Indeed, I'm about fifteen years older than my mother was in this picture if I'm not mistaken. In ways he is more responsible than when he was younger perhaps because he has to be.

Just before posting this I looked to see what the Holidailies writing prompt was. "Never mind your chronological age: how old do you feel?" Ah, yes. Am I sixty? Am I sixteen? Am I drug up (or it that down) to the parental level...do I really feel like ninety? Hard to say. Maybe I should make a New Year's Resolution to feel younger.

Depression and Christmas

How is Christmas in the Depression? Yeah, the economic kind. Although that other depression crops up, too, doesn't it? This time of year. Even catches up with people who didn't get laid off or have mutual funds or whatever.

My mom, pictured above in 1978 working on a homemade Christmas decoration, loved Christmas. She trotted out her brightest red clothes, decorated everything, made a lot of food and invited everyone over. Today's Holidailies writing prompt is to share a recipe. Besides the peals of laughter from those who know me at me giving cooking advice, I just couldn't even get into sharing a cheesy spinach casserole my mom and I used to both enjoy preparing. But I digress, this is about Christmas and that other kind of depression. But, come to think of it, times were never very flush for my mother, back in the day when she made such a fuss over holidays.

Yesterday I had to go to my dad's neighborhood and do a couple of things for him. I decided to check out Costco if the parking lot didn't look too horrible. Dad needed paper towels and I thought I'd get one of those giant packs for all the families we shop for to share and pick up some cheese. But not if the store was overrun with people buying electronics and toys and, you know, Christmas presents. I got a pretty good parking place (it was a weekday, but two weeks before Christmas??) As I went around the store getting cheese, yogurt dip, paper towels, toilet paper, Ibuprofen, chips and crackers (stocking up for the holidays), I looked in the other people's carts. This is something I frequently do, finding what other people buy sort of fascinating.

What struck me about the shopping carts yesterday at Costco? I didn't see any toys. Two people had some Christmas wrap or tags and one lady had some gift-packaged candy. Most carts had basic foods, paper goods, snack trays or foods and wine. Lots of wine. I didn't see anyone buying cameras, computers, iPods, luggage, toys or other gift items. Mine was a small sample, of course. I did see several people taking an interest in a gingerbread house kit and one guy buying those fake log things for the fireplace. (It was cold and windy out.)

It was just one moment at Costco, but I had the feeling everyone was getting ready to hunker down, to cocoon with their loved ones and eat.

In the evening a friend and I wandered out of our building to get a bite and a drink and encountered several Christmas parties...two occupying all or part of a restaurant we couldn't therefore get into and a third occupying a big table and part of the public area of the place we finally settled on to enjoy our bites and libations. I'm sure these events had been planned for a while, of course.

I'm thinking that people are eating. And drinking. And thinking of staying home and sharing fewer gifts but maybe more conviviality. The depression may have forced our hand in the matter. And that other kind of depression? Well, it always sneaks around me this time of year, but this year is no worse than any other.

Just Walk Away

All the careful sorting and allocating, all the 'finding the right home for an object' eventually winds up with the classic 'just walk away.' Garbage, curb, shredder, thrift store. Whatever. We discussed some of the objects with our potential buyer for the house yesterday. There was a general agreement on many things that we could simply leave in place for their temporary or permanent use. That felt good. There are still things here that other friends claim they want to buy or that we are just giving them.

The above is a handwoven wall hanging my mother made. It did hang in a room we have repainted. I had an idea to hang it at my dad's house where sailboats have become sort of an accidental theme in the living room. Mom made this by making a double layer of fabrics that intersected to make the drawing. 1976 is a significant year. Yeah, the bicentennial. Also the year FFP and I married. Currently I have forgotten where it is. I think I took it to Dad's, but I didn't hang it. It will show up again. It doesn't fit the decor of our tiny new condo. But I will always keep it somewhere, I imagine. Until, you know, ultimately I walk away for the last time.

I am a little nervous about all the corners we have to hammer down to get in the condo and out of here. But I am generally cheerful. Change is fun if nerve-wracking.

The downsizing went a little negative yesterday. I did queue up some stuff to give away and FFP shredded some stuff, but I bought a new coffee maker for the condo (it will be a temporary one and a spare when we move our Capresso) and also a kitchen trash can. The good news is that I'm going to ditch an old coffee maker and grinder and I believe I'll be walking away from our current kitchen trash can which is fine but a little too big for the condo. And, in information you probably didn't need, the trash chute at the 360 will accept 13 gallon sacks. Larger things can be left in the trash closet for the porter. Recycling will be downstairs somewhere. I'm envisioning my new environment. So far the vision is a good one.

That Was Then

The year is 1962. My sister was graduating from High School. My mom was receiving her Master's Degree in Education from Austin College in Sherman. She is holding two bound copies of her thesis about the effect of ability grouping on elementary children's test scores. We were kids. (I was fourteen or fifteen.) Still we helped type drafts of that tome. Because, after all, this was a couple of decades before personal computers.

Mom was proud to get that degree. It allowed her to keep teaching in her school system. Yes, teachers with five years experience had to have an advanced degree for those low-paying jobs! I have never understood the sacrifices teachers made then. Or now.

Notice that the wall is pretty bare. It was in my sister's room. She had that lamp and a little shelf with some tiny things on it. It looks like she has quite a few books, but I think that shelf had a lot of the books the family owned. My sister did have a little record player and some '45s and albums. Our life was simple. That record player, a black and white TV in another room and the simple camera that took this picture was the extent of our technology. I think my mother was driving a 1958 Oldsmobile then. It was pink and black and something to see.

Before I get lost in nostalgia...I promise to come back to Christmas 2007 tomorrow.

A New Tradition

This is my mom. The picture was taken, according to a date written on the back by, I'm guessing, my sister in December 1978. My mom is obviously finishing off a homemade Christmas decoration. Hmmm. Well, I have put out my collection of (mostly) bendable posable Christmas toys and a few things like that in one room of our house and put all the cards sent in another. But handmade stuff? Not me.

Last night FFP and I decided to make a new tradition for the Friday before Christmas. We decided while others were doing last minute shopping or going to parties that we would first have some house-smoked salmon and a glass of wine at Houston's and then go to the Alamo Village and eat and drink even more while watching a just-released movie.

OK, maybe it's just this one year but it seems like a good idea, movies being released on Friday and all.

The movie? "Charlie Wilson's War." I had some jalapeño poppers and a Guinness and some French Fries FFP left on something he ordered. The movie was a delight, I thought. Ignoring the political implications it was just a bunch o' fun. At the expense of Texans? Yeah, maybe, but I thought Julia and Tom (and others in the cast) represented a certain type of Texan in a somewhat accurate way without either elevating their flaws to good qualities or making complete caricatures of them. If that makes sense. It's entertaining folks. Go home later and wonder about Afghanistan and Iraq and the fall of Communism and who to blame for what later. The movie should pique your curiosity anyway.

Get Your Cheer Gear On!

I was blown away that this entry about my mom was given a 'best of' by the Holidailies Reader's Panel. This picture was taken in 2000 around Christmas, obviously. Mom had her hair done and was wearing some seasonal earrings (click on the pic...those are snowmen, people!) and a sweatshirt with a cool Santa and some holiday socks you can't see. In a year she would look wan and drawn and, before the Christmas of 2002, she would be dead from compications of Multiple Myeloma. I have no doubt that the cancer was at work here but she was still holding up. Cheerful. Delighted with Christmas. My parents had moved the spring before to Austin. She's in my kitchen but we didn't cook there that holiday. (I only know this by looking back almost seven years in some ill-kempt archives.) Mom had made some food at her house the night before and we'd opened presents. On Christmas Day, when this was taken, we'd gone to the in-laws. I e-mailed this picture to relatives elsewhere as a Christmas greeting from Austin. Christmases fly by, with me motherless. I was a kid that needed mothering, I think. And I got a heavy dose from a beloved grandmother, my mom, my older sister and some aunts. My own life is racing to the end and if I still had my mother she'd probably be frailer than my dad. This morning he has added to his back pain a complaint about leg cramps. And yet he was cooking himself breakfast when I called.

Remembering Mom

You know the topics I'm avoiding? Yeah, those. Well, it's hard to stay true to that because those things have really been occupying my bandwidth and my thoughts. It will even be hard to write about my mother without touching on those topics. But I'll try by going back to a time when everyone was younger, we had lots less stuff and plenty of excitement about Christmas.

I found this picture on my computer. I scanned it at least four years ago because it was in files I transported from desktop computer minus one. I'm guessing 1960's, early. Definitely in the back yard of the house in Sherman. The house we all left in the summer of 1966. By 1966, my sister was already married and I was off to college and this place we'd called home since '58 or so was sold and my parents moved to Mesquite where they would stay until 2000 when they moved to Austin.

Observations: (1) It doesn't usually snow this much in Texas, not even near the Oklahoma border, but we have assembled a credible snow man; (2) my mother looks young and beautiful to me (she was only early forties if not still thirties); (3) she is warmly dressed and the coat might be a few years old but she has an eye to fashion; (4) I have no idea where we got that scarf and hat for the snow man. I don't remember anything about the making of the snow man or the day but the picture makes me think about Mom.

In her later years, we tagged Mom as a hypochondriac. But you know that sad joke? Just because you are a hypochondriac doesn't mean you can't get sick? I'm not all that sure now that she inflated her troubles. She just had the bad luck to have confounding and frustrating illnesses that dealt her big blows without getting the solid diagnoses that garner sympathy from doctors and family and friends.

Actually, Mom soldiered on when she was young and healthy, largely ignoring how hard physically and emotionally her life really was. She cooked for us, got an education and taught school to help support us, labored around the house, drove us places, nursed us, made clothes for us, cleaned those clothes. And she made sure that we had fun times. She let us give parties. She decorated for holidays and found money for Santa and then surprises from her as we got older. We didn't have a lot of stuff. I have pictures from this era that amaze me because the walls of the house are so bare. We didn't have a lot of paintings or things to hang on the wall. Mom had grown up poor and started her marriage in a house with no electricity and a propane heater. She treasured things she managed to get and she loved that house which we bought new in the late fifties in a little subdivision in a small town. The small town was big to us because we came from a smaller town and we lived on a farm outside town at that.

My mother always made my young life better although she also made me do chores and enforced her rules. She cherished us. She loved having us at home and she would tolerate our friends much more than other parents.

Mom loved the holidays and there was never a question of decorating. We had ornaments collected over her life time. We put up an artificial or real tree, carefully got everything out of boxes and scattered those aluminum icicles around. We fought with lights that ran in series and whose cords were tangled from our inexpert packing the year before. When the tree was up, it collected brightly-wrapped surprises and we could hardly wait to see what was inside. As we got older we tried to have surprises for others, too. One year I bought my mom a punch bowl and cups. I'm sure I had the idea that it would serve my purposes, too, for the little parties she let me give. We loved to give each other obtuse clues about gifts. I told her that her gift was a fire extinguisher. I thought I was hilarious. The thing is, she always went along and laughed at my jokes.

Mom and her mother made homemade rolls and cinnamon rolls at holidays. They made this giblet gravy for the turkey that I crave to this day. As Mom grew older she sometimes simplified the recipes but she still tried to make great family meals. The house in Mesquite sometimes had several dozen people at Thanksgiving or Christmas. She juggled huge turkeys and vats of food and multiple pies, no problem.

Mom loved dressing for the holidays, as she got older, in silly Santa socks, Christmas-themed clothing and Santa jewelry. She loved bright clothes, all the more as she got older.

As Mom's health faded I became the one trying to take her places, buy her things, nurse her. It's easy to forget how vibrant and unflappable she was when this picture was taken and, also, before that on the farm. I remember sitting on the stairs to the basement watching my mother lift two gallon buckets of milk from the high window to her work table where she strained some for bottles and churned some for butter. She would give me a little half pint bottle, the milk still warm from the cow my dad had just milked. I'd sip it and watch her strong arms squeezing the water out of butter and making it into a neat block. My parents were all-powerful then. And they played their roles well. It's easy to forget that when they grow old and infirm. I need to remember my strong Dad, too, outside that basement window handling the farm chores before he went to his job as a hospital attendant. Life was such a struggle, but we were so protected. And Mom especially so embraced the things that excited us like holidays and birthdays and trips somewhere off that dirt road into the world.

Thanks, Mom. And great snow man!

What Makes a Holiday?

The soldier Nutcrackers wear iPods. The association of Nutcrackers with epaulets and Christmas is strong but how many people see the ballet ("The Nutcracker") or just see decorations like these (at the Austin Apple Store hence the iPods) and think 'Christmas.'

For a lot of years now, over a decade probably, we have mostly spent the Christmas holiday in Austin. Usually in the company of our parents who have been aging apace. My mom didn't make Christmas 2002 and so this six Christmases with just Dad and the in-laws. And I've got to say my mom loved Christmas. She'd wear Christmas socks, sweatshirt and earrings. All at once. She loved big family meals. The last Christmas she was alive she was pretty festive about it even though she was in the hospital, I think, right before Christmas Day. There are no little kids around here. The little kids in our immediate family are up in Colorado.

I usually decorate a little inside the house even if we aren't having a party. (It's a good thing we didn't plan a party. Our front yard and driveway is a war zone from the water works.)

This year I can't bring myself to decorate. The outside decorations are sold and the yard wouldn't accommodate at the moment. We never had a tree really but I would put out decor, light up a glass table, put presents on it. I have spread the cards that have arrived around in the front room but they don't really look much like Christmas. Most of them are pictures of families.

When I was a kid Christmas was about Baby Jesus, sure, but also about getting something you wanted and some surprises. We buy what we want these days and our wants are mostly unfulfilled by shopping anyway. When I was a kid, we loved decorating the tree with all these ornaments we used every year and then wrapping stuff for others to surprise them and examining and shaking the packages addressed to us. We can't surprise anyone any more. My dad gives money and FFP's parents, too. We do all their shopping of that sort anyway.

No amount of money or electronic gear can make my dad's back feel better or make me feel better about him staying in today and asking me to bring him stamps, money and his shirts from the laundry. We have parties to attend but they feel a little like burdens. Maybe that's my toothache talking (I mean all this festive ditch digging in my front yard and a possible root canal, too?), but I'm just saying.

We will pass the holiday without noticing much festivity, I guess. No one will get an iPod in this family. There will be a few bright greetings in the mail and we are going to a party at a neighbor's house that will be decorated to beat the band. They have a little miniature village that takes up most of a room, a Nutcracker collection although none wear iPods. Maybe along the way I'll don my gay apparel (my one red sweater or red blazer) and I'll feel all cheery and bright and it won't all seem as stupid as a nutcracker with an iPod. Maybe my annual pilgrimage to see "The Nutcracker" will actually spark a holiday feeling. Even if the weather outside is still unconvincingly winter I can watch the Snow Queen and think, yeah, Christmas!

Fashion

Seems I forgot to mention that yesterday I went to a fashion show.

I offer this picture with its faded emulsions to illustrate my interest in fashion. That's me, the smallest one, in the plaid shirt and jeans. Notice that my mother and sister are in fashionable blouses from the early fifties.

I enjoyed the fashion show yesterday. I took a little more care than usual dressing. I wore a custom-made pants suit with a faint stripe made from super-100s tropical worsted wool and a cream on cream custom blouse. I wore chocolate and black Bally spectator shoes and a vintage alligator belt. The custom clothes were at least eight years old and the shoes had been refurbed many times. I'm not sure where the belt came from. It's possible FFP outgrew it and we let my mom wear it and I recovered it when I disposed of her clothing. Anyway, that is about as much fashion sense as I could muster. FFP wore a new sport coat, an expensive tie that he bought at a thrift store, pants that he bought at the outlet mall and some carefully-selected Italian shoes. He put a lot of thought into dressing. I just wore the cleanest, least ragged and most fashionable at some point daytime clothes I could muster.

The fashion show was put on by Neiman Marcus. They open their first Austin store in March. The show was on the 30th floor of the Frost Bank building in some unfinished space that had been transformed with fake walls, a rear projection screen, a carpet runway and a bunch of chairs painted silver with leopard seat pads. A lot of Austin's most fashionable were there and looking fashionable indeed. There weren't too many men but, of course, FFP didn't care. There were delightful bits of food being served by caterers. The show was fun with emphasis on trends that the NM fashion director sees for Spring. Flat shoes for women, cropped jackets, sequins in day wear. Flat shoes? I can do that! For men, he predicted an emphasis on driving shoes among other things which pleased FFP who recently scored a new and lovely pair. The show had a lot of interesting clothes. Not that you will see me in any of them. But I really enjoy fashion shows. There was even a wardrobe malfunction. I didn't see anything untoward but the model's startled look and her hand pulling up the strapless gown. Still, good drama.

I don't understand why the least fashionable among us enjoys a fashion show, but I do. Similarly when we are at fancy events I enjoy other peoples' clothes even as I have dressed just well enough not to embarrass myself.

Eye on Myself

Last few posts have been a little self-indulgent, don't you think? With our heroine appearing without the scrim of shop window contents and reflections.

Well, here's more.

Have you ever seen the London Eye?

Well, in 2002 I had a business trip to England. I had to meet with customers in London and environs, give a speech at some conference there and take a day trip to Glascow to give a pitch. A fly in and fly out speech was my nightmare. No matter how I balanced the decongestants I arrived deaf. Add in the accents and I would have trouble understanding my customers' questions. Of course, they had to overcome my Texas accent to understand my answers! Anyway the fun started at something like 7AM, London time, on a Monday.

My mother was in the hospital, very ill. This trip to London was the only time during her almost hundred days in the hospital that I left. I'd agreed to the conference speech and I was only going to be gone a few days. I finally decided not to cancel. I told my assistant, though, to get me in on Saturday. I couldn't imagine arriving jet-lagged on Sunday, risking delay and then having to be conherent at 7 on Monday. I arrived in London about 11 in the morning on Saturday. I checked into the hotel and went to sleep. I kept intending to get up and find food and drink that wasn't in the mini bar. I kept sleeping and sleeping. I think I could have slept all day Sunday. But I didn't. I had to get in the time zone. About nine the following morning, twenty-two hours after I'd crashed in the room, I decided I had to stop sleeping. I guess I didn't know how weary I'd gotten working, going to the hospital. Anyway I got up, showered, put on my black jeans, hiking boots, black blazer (at least the shirt wasn't black!) and had some breakfast. I bought an Underground pass and went to London proper. (I was staying at the airport.)

One thing I did was ride the London Eye. Somehow I figured out that at a certain point they took a photo. (A camera was mounted on arms of the giant ferris wheel.) So I moved over to the right part of the car at the right moment. No one else seemed to be aware of this or maybe they thought it was silly. When I got off, I went to the kiosk and bought this photo.

Hand on backpack slung over one arm, that's my travel self. And no, I don't keep really valuable stuff in the backpack. Just stuff like bandaids and mints and reading material. Maybe a camera.

I look pretty relaxed here with my twenty hours of sleep, doing some touristy things to get moving and get in the right time zone frame of mind. I was feeling really strange and out-of-it though. I got this picture to show my mother. I hated leaving her and she had told me to bring some souvenirs for her. I did that, too. She enjoyed seeing the photo and the stuff I brought her. We then took her souvenirs home and she never saw them again. The other day at my dad's house I saw a dish towel that had garish graphics celebrating the Queen's Golden Jubilee. Must have been one of the things I brought her.

Running Low on Spirit

This morning I was out playing tennis with my 'friends of a certain age.' I noticed one of them was wearing tennis socks with a little Santa embroidered on them.

"I miss my mom at Christmas," I said. "She would have had something like that. And a Santa shirt and earrings."

"My mother always used to cook all this stuff," she said. "She baked and cooked just everything. Of course, she didn't play tennis and Bridge."

My dad isn't feeling too good. Rather than call me yesterday, he contacted the doctor himself and even drove to the pharmacy drive-through to get prescriptions for an antibiotic and a pain killer. I asked why he didn't call me but he didn't have much of an explanation. He asked if I'd come over after tennis and get in his paper and mail. Which I did. He wouldn't let me do anything else for him, though. "I need to get up and do things for myself."

My spirits are waning.

Although I did have a nice meal out with some girlfriends last night. It's kind of a holiday tradition. We always pretend we won't exchange gifts either but we had some to exchange. I felt festive for a few minutes but maybe it was only the Zinfandel. And, at the time, I didn't know my dad wasn't feeling so hot.

My Colorado relatives are in the middle of a blizzard. Not as bad as 2003, they said. But my niece with the three boys said no one could get around unless they had a high clearance vehicle. Her six-year-old and four-year-old kids were building a snow 'mountain' in the front yard. They had twenty-four inches before drifting.

I am officially not hoping for snow to raise my spirits. A couple of days ago they were holding out the possibility of freezing precipitation for Austin around Christmas. That made my mother-in-law say they might not want to come over. I told FFP I was making a Christmas Eve dinner even if I had to deliver it to everyone. Now, with my dad feeling poorly I may have to do just that. And to think I put Christmas joy all over the house (see photo) mostly in the form of bendables.

There was a time not too long ago when I would have been happy and festive just to have some time off. Time to savor a cup of coffee and something to read. Time to play a game or put together a puzzle. I miss my mom. She'd make me do that. "Let's get out a puzzle," she'd say. "Get me a cup of coffee," she'd say. "And get out the Scrabble."

Rain, Dreams and Computer Futility

The picture has nothing to do with this entry. The cool coffee shop graphics reflect, I think, Dean Keaton (aka 26th?) Street in Austin. The coffee shop may be gone but the grahpics may still be there. These things deserve preservation I think. I promise to show photos that have something to do with the entry in the future. Maybe.

It's supposed to rain in May. In Austin anyway. Last year I think the rain moved to the summer which was odd if a bit welcome. But this May is playing out its role as our rainiest month.

Yesterday we cut up wet live limbs that had crashed out of trees in the storm three days ago. We went to a dinner party last night that was punctuated with mopping up water and moving furniture when a leak developed. And there is the matter of a new roof at Dad's house which was in the path of the hail over a week ago. But that, I guess, was April.

I had a very weird dream last night. At first I was trying to find some elderly relatives to have dinner with them but there were all these restaurants and I didn't know where to go. Later, it appeared that the oldsters were trying to avoid me as if I were a small child who needed to be left at home. I tried to get some companionship with two guys who might have been related but in wandering around I found a convention of people who attached small tools to their faces. Yeah, that last part was really weird. But also there was this image of someone who could have been my mother (you know, in the dream) fooling with some costume jewelry with one hand while nervously trying to tell me why I wouldn't be coming along.

This morning this backup program I use isn't working. On the brighter side of computerdom, FFP thinks that AOL has decided to accept e-mail from him again. He was caught between our provider (RoadRunner Business) and AOL. Oh, wait. They are the same sad company.

I'm feeling a little weird this morning after all the storms, waking up from that dream, pondering computer foibles. I don't have any obligations today which means that I hope I'll get some exercise, get some things done to prepare for a trip I'm taking not so far in the future and, you know, totally get my life in order. I always have such high hope for blank spots on the calendar.