Christmas Letter

 

A List Meme for the Plague Times

Book I'm currently reading.

When we passed day 200 of our personal pod isolation,  I made a meme list of questions for the occasion and actually posted on my blog for the first time since January 1 (end of Holidailies last season). Now that we have passed the 250-day point I thought I'd update it.

• Day 1 of serious isolation behavior: March 15
•  First trip you had to cancel. A driving trip to Ft. Worth and Dallas. Missed getting to see my aunt (the last of that generation I have).
•  Other trips canceled. A trip to New York with a pop over to Amsterdam in the middle. A trip to Portland and an Oregon beach and other points Northwest. (It might have been smoky.)  A trip to Paris to see the Christo Wrapped Arc de Triomphe. (Which was, itself, postponed until 2021. Also, Christo died, but the event was planned and will allegedly still happen.)
•   Last trip out of town before isolation. San Antonio. Spent two nights in a hotel and saw Bill Charlap perform at Jazz Texas both nights. Met up with friends for lunch and saw their home. Met up with friends for one performance.
• Have you been out of town overnight since isolation? Nope
• Furthest from home since isolation. Maybe 10 miles.
• Last Plane Ride in the before times. Return from NYC in January.
• Ridden plane since? No, see above.
• Last Meal sitting in a restaurant before Isolation. Fixe, March 14. With another couple.
• Have you eaten a meal in a restaurant since isolation? No.
• Inside a restaurant? No, see above.
• First event you didn’t attend due to virus. March 12---Austin Film Society Film Awards Gala.
• First event you cancelled due to virus. House party on March 15 bought in a charity auction (with agreement from charity and owners of the house but we were very much in favor of cancelation).
•  Date and event of last over 200-person event. March 7, Delbert McClinton at the Paramount.
• Last live music event. March 13, Butch Miles Jazz Express at Parker Jazz Club
• Things you are eating more of since isolation. Pasta, rice, anchovies, lamb, canned tuna, eggs, everything salads, caviar (the cheap grocery store stuff). We are eating a lot of cheese, but we always ate a lot of cheese.
• Things you are eating less of since isolation. Amazingly chips and nachos; organ meats (because I got them in restaurants).
• Non-perishable things you have purchased in isolation. A portable blue tooth speaker (which has already quit working), a laptop, a portable hard drive, a blue tooth mouse, an HDMI splitter and cable, masks. FFP bought an oximeter and a gadget to sterilize his phone and such. Since Day 200 we also bought a new cheese grater, a mincer, a square cooking pan, and books. (Actually, I might have conveniently forgotten that we ordered books before day 200, too.) 
• What restaurants have you gotten take-out meals from? Fixe, Jeffrey’s, Wink, June’s, Cipollina, Fonda San Miguel, 68 Degrees. Since Day 200 we have gone back to FIxe and Fonda San MIguel and Cipolina. All these are more or less 'local' spots. 
• Have you found yourself bored in isolation? No. Anxious, but not bored.
• Have you gained or lost weight? Lost five pounds maybe. And maybe gained it back. Still on that yo-you now.
• Do you feel you are in better shape or worse shape? Better. Maybe. Wish I could play tennis. Gave it up to not be around so many people at my club.
• What exercises are you doing? Walking and stretching. Some arm exercises with a resistance band. I feel like I'm falling down on this.
• Do you drink alcohol? Yes! 
• If so, more or less in isolation? About the same? Maybe more. Some days I don't drink. Most days I do. Had one beer last night because...Mexican Food.
• What kinds of drinks have you had? Branched out a lot using up the bottles sitting around the apartment gathering dust. Manhattans, Vodka Gimlets, Vodka Tonics, Rob Roys, Rusty Nails, wine, wine, wine, Old Pals, one I made up called High Rise Iced Tea, port, brandy, cognac. I haven't had a lot of beer because it seems wasteful of frig space and curbside pickup. Have been opening old (and I mean old) bottles of red wine and, if they are good (or passable) drinking them up.
• What entertainments have you explored? Streaming lots of series shows especially British; old movies; documentaries. Listening to jazz and live stream jazz. 
• Gotten into anything new? Watching NYPD Blue episodes. That’s really old, but watching old TV is new to us. 
• What are your sources of entertainment? We seem to have all the streaming services except the one for the latest show mentioned somewhere. Seriously we have Hulu, Roku, Prime, Acorn, Criterion Channel, HBO, Showtime, PBS, other junk on the satellite and Disney+ (which we have only watched one thing on and that was the original Dumbo movie). Recently we watched "Hamilton" on Disney+. I didn't think I would like it. And I didn't. Back to jazz live streams!
• How many books have you read? Four of five. Finished a couple more. Reading one now called "Flaneuse" by Lauren Elkin.
• More or less book reading than usual? About the same. (I only read books, generally., right before falling asleep. Read newspapers and magazines during thee day.
• Have you done crosswords? A zillion.
• Played board games? Scrabble and Monopoly. We only have those.
• Done jigsaw puzzles? Yes, two and working a third which is so hard we won’t finish by Christmas (which is the only time we usually do one). Recently we finished the hard one. (Which was custom-made from a photo of a painting that used an iPhone photo I took out of a plane window as the reference.) We received two as gifts. We started the easy one and will finish by Christmas. The harder one should carry us through the new year. We don't work too assiduously on them.
• Have you cleaned out some cabinet, drawer, closet, etc. thoroughly? I cleaned out some OTC and prescription medical and first aid caches. I sorted through the pantry and refrigerator for obvious reasons. Since Day 200 I have spent a little time sorting through liquor and mixers but I really, really need to start the drawer and closet and cabinet and storage sorting everyone seems to be doing! Before my year in isolation is up, maybe.
• Did you find anything interesting? Found a metal aspirin tin and a metal Bandaid box that are ancient. Also found the (mercury) thermometer I rescued from my Dad’s things and used it to verify we didn’t have a temperature a couple of times.
• Are you spending about the same amount of money? More? Less? Definitely less unless you count contributions to hopefully worthy causes?
•  Done Zoom, Facetime, etc. meetups? Sigh, yes. I am kind of over these especially galas. We do have a Zoom wine tasting coming up this month.
• Done outside walks? Many. We often drive and walk somewhere. I miss being able to walk from our apartment and stop for snacks or drinks (and a bathroom). I usually record my outside walks on Facebook.
• Kept a paper journal? Since April 1 I think. I'm still doing this even if I just write "December 2, 2020 (Wednesday), Day 263." I do it first thing in the morning after getting a cup of coffee, retrieving the newspapers from the hall, copying the NYT crossword for my husband, and checking the computer backups. This ritual grounds my day. (Which usually starts around 7. Unfortunately, I don't usually do anything more productive until ten or so because  I get absorbed in the NY Times puzzles and reading the Arts section.
• Followed COVID information. Yes, a lot. I'm not liking what I'm seeing today!
• Sources? New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Local Dashboard. USA Facts Dashboard. Oh, and I also get an email from the Washington Post. (We have an online subscription.)
• Had a social occasion with a small group of people you consider safe? Yes, a virtual gala dinner with two other couples in another apartment. This felt thrilling! But...we have not done it since.
• Did you vote? I added this one and the next now that the election is past tense. Except for runoffs. Yes, I did.
• In Person? On Election Day? I voted by mail as those over 65 are allowed to do in Texas.

Pandemic Entertainments

 

I have been entertaining others (well, so I say) and entertaining myself with Facebook during the 262 days of this madness called semi-isolation. So when I realized Holidailies was happening I decided that I could just trade off the Facebook posts and quickly post something every day in this blog. No problem. For the last few weeks, I've been putting up certain types of images on certain days. Monday has been Museums and sometimes Murals. Tuesday an image from a trip. (Remember trips?) Wednesday? On the Water. Thursday is ye olde Throwback Thursday. Friday is food. Usually a restaurant shot. (Rember eating in restaurants, laughing and talking with friends?) Saturday is Strangers and Shopping. So, today, Tuesday, I pulled up a picture from over five decades ago. Me (waving) and some relatives on the move! Here's what I had to say about it on Facebook:

Tuesday. It's a trip. Long, long ago the only trips I got to take were car trips, often camping expeditions, usually meeting up with gaggles of relatives. (My first plane ride was the summer I graduated from high school.) Any photos made on these trips reminded one of Okies fleeing the dust bowl. (We were often just Texans fleeing summer heat.) These trips involved very few restaurants and almost no motels. (Occasionally we slept at a relative's home, usually on the floor.) There wasn't any fancy camping equipment (no cold weather sleeping bags for the campground at 9K feet, just a bedroll of a sheet and a quilt you made up at home). For all the limits on my wanderlust as a kid, FFP tells me that he had it much worse...never getting out of Texas until he was in his early twenties. (His mom never left the state in her life and he thinks his dad might have gone to Mexico once.)

I don't remember this trip, but there I am waving behind my great aunt and uncle who lived in Slaton. My mom stands over the cooler that had obviously provided sandwiches and drinks for a roadside lunch. The woman next to my mom is my sainted grandmother, Ruby Leverett DeArmond, aka Mama Dee, Deedy. The young fellow is a second or third cousin. I don't know who took the picture and shudder to think about what is in the overloaded trailer. Finding this shot made me want to track down the distant cousin (couldn't do it) and find a picture of the pickup my dad used to haul cattle that he made into a camper.

Now, I've also been taking walks around Austin neighborhoods and posting a dozen or more pictures on Facebook. Here's one from yesterday. I take note of unusual fences. First-ever tire fence!

And that is it...a post for December 1, 2020. My first for Holidailies.
 

Reflections on Day 200

 

By my count, we have been extra careful for over 200 days to avoid catching COVID. And I mean extra careful. Until last Saturday the 26th, I had been inside with others (besides in my apartment with my husband) only when getting in and out of our building and when I got a haircut (masks for everyone, not a lot of people, did my own shampoo to speed things up) and when I got a flu shot (lots of precautions at the pharmacy). The husband had visited the doctor's office (standalone building, many precautions) a couple of times including to get that flu shot. We rode an elevator with others very rarely and always masked. Last Saturday we were invited to someone else's condo (less than a mile away in our downtown area) for a meal and drinks with two other couples to watch a virtual gala. We were a "trusted pod." Like the old times almost because we were convinced that none of us was silently carrying the virus. [I admit that I didn't quiz the others too much!]

So we have spent over half of 2020 in this mode. We have canceled trips, avoided shopping inside stores, avoided restaurants except for curbside takeout. I have followed the news on the disease. At some point, I started closely monitoring the statistics reported in my county and tried to calculate my chances of getting the disease in doing some activity. 

You know those list memes where you answer questions someone else provides? I dislike them because I find myself wanting to edit them. So I made my own for Day 200.

• Day 1 of serious isolation behavior: March 15
•  First trip you had to cancel. A driving trip to Ft. Worth and Dallas. Missed getting to see my aunt (the last of that generation I have).
•  Other trips canceled. A trip to New York with a pop over to Amsterdam in the middle. A trip to Portland and an Oregon beach and other points Northwest. (It might have been smoky.)  A trip to Paris to see the Christo Wrapped Arc de Triomphe. (Which was, itself, postponed until 2021. Also, Christo died, but the event was planned and will allegedly still happen.)
•   Last trip out of town before isolation. San Antonio. Spent two nights in a hotel and saw Bill Charlap perform at Jazz Texas both nights. Met up with friends for lunch and saw their home. Met up with friends for one performance.
• Have you been out of town overnight since isolation? Nope
• Furthest from home since isolation. Maybe 10 miles.
• Last Plane Ride in the before times. Return from NYC in January.
• Ridden plane since? No, see above.
• Last Meal sitting in a restaurant before Isolation. Fixe, March 14. With another couple.
• Have you eaten a meal in a restaurant since isolation? No.
• Inside a restaurant? No, see above.
• First event you didn’t attend due to virus. March 12---Austin Film Society Film Awards Gala.
• First event you cancelled due to virus. House party on March 15 bought in a charity auction (with agreement from charity and owners of the house but we were very much in favor of cancelation).
•  Date and event of last over 200-person event. March 7, Delbert McClinton at the Paramount.
• Last live music event. March 13, Butch Miles Jazz Express at Parker Jazz Club
• Things you are eating more of since isolation. Pasta, rice, anchovies, lamb, canned tuna, eggs, everything salads, caviar (the cheap grocery store stuff). We are eating a lot of cheese, but we always ate a lot of cheese.
• Things you are eating less of since isolation. Amazingly chips and nachos; organ meats (because I got them in restaurants).
• Non-perishable things you have purchased in isolation. A portable blue tooth speaker (which has already quit working), a laptop, a portable hard drive, a blue tooth mouse, an HDMI splitter and cable, masks. FFP bought an oximeter and a gadget to sterilize his phone and such.
• What restaurants have you gotten take-out meals from? Fixe, Jeffrey’s, Wink, June’s, Cipollina, Fonda San Miguel, 68 Degrees.
• Have you found yourself bored in isolation? No. Anxious, but not bored.
• Have you gained or lost weight? Lost five pounds maybe. And maybe gained it back.
• Do you feel you are in better shape or worse shape? Better. 
• What exercises are you doing? Walking and stretching. Some arm exercises with a resistance band.
• Do you drink alcohol? Yes! 
• If so, more or less in isolation? About the same? Maybe more. 
• What kinds of drinks have you had? Branched out a lot using up the bottles sitting around the apartment gathering dust. Manhattans, Vodka Gimlets, Vodka Tonics, Rob Roys, Rusty Nails, wine, wine, wine, Old Pals, one I made up called High Rise Iced Tea, port, brandy, cognac. I haven't had a lot of beer because it seems wasteful of frig space and curbside pickup.
• What entertainments have you explored? Streaming lots of series shows especially British; old movies; documentaries. Listening to jazz and live stream jazz. 
• Gotten into anything new? Watching NYPD Blue episodes. That’s really old, but watching old TV is new to us. 
• What are your sources of entertainment? We seem to have all the streaming services except the one for the latest show mentioned somewhere. Seriously we have Hulu, Roku, Prime, Acorn, Criterion Channel, HBO, Showtime, PBS, other junk on the satellite and Disney+ (which we have only watched one thing on and that was the original Dumbo movie).
• How many books have you read? Four of five. 
• More or less book reading than usual? About the same.
• Have you done crosswords? A zillion.
• Played board games? Scrabble and Monopoly. We only have those.
• Done jigsaw puzzles? Yes, two and working a third which is so hard we won’t finish by Christmas (which is the only time we usually do one).
• Have you cleaned out some cabinet, drawer, closet, etc. thoroughly? I cleaned out some OTC and prescription medical and first aid caches. I sorted through the pantry and refrigerator for obvious reasons.
• Did you find anything interesting? Found a metal aspirin tin and a metal Bandaid box that are ancient. Also found the (mercury) thermometer I rescued from my Dad’s things and used it to verify we didn’t have a temperature a couple of times.
• Are you spending about the same amount of money? More? Less? Definitely less unless you count contributions to hopefully worthy causes?
•  Done Zoom, Facetime, etc. meetups? Sigh, yes.
• Done outside walks? Many. We often drive and walk somewhere. I miss being able to walk from our apartment and stop for snacks or drinks (and a bathroom).
• Kept a paper journal? Since April 1 I think.
• Followed COVID information. Yes, a lot. 
• Sources? New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Local Dashboard. USA Facts Dashboard.
• Had a social occasion with a small group of people you consider safe? Yes, a virtual gala dinner with two other couples in another apartment. This felt thrilling!

Meditation and Looking Back

It's important to take a few moments every day to be calm and let your mind clear of a lot of the external things. Just forget the 'to do' list and the next appointment. And to let yourself understand that this moment is like no other, but that it, too, will recede into insignificance. I've found a couple of ways to do this. Working crosswords and other puzzles takes me into the mind of another person (the constructor) and lets the mind go over random things like celebrity names, words, and geography. Or for some of the puzzles (like Ken-Ken and Two Not Touch) logic.

Of late, I've 'meditated' a bit between computer tasks by watching the 'screen saver' flash up pictures from the vast collection on my current machine. (80K and counting, many of which should be deleted) I allow myself to pause in my efforts while these go by until the screen goes black or (more often) a picture comes up with a person in it who is no longer alive. (Not a dog. Too easy.) This is a quick take on mortality and the futility of this life! I attempt to quickly identify the time and place of the photos. Sometimes I can't really do it. But many times I can with uncanny accuracy. I also wonder about the random algorithm that always brings up the same first picture put then goes on a random walk. Some pictures seem to come up often, others take me completely by surprise.

I've also recently been going through some old daily journal entries on my old blog that I maintained myself (as opposed to using Blogger to do it). I started rereading from 2002 entries (when I retired). My worries and concerns then seem so trivial and yet they are really comparable to today's troubles. My daily routines seem familiar yet different. I lived in a house, not a high rise. My dad and my husband's parents were alive. I had a dog.

This moment of a global pandemic is instructive. One suddenly begins to think about what one can and cannot control. I can try to keep from getting the virus or creating vectors that risk others. (Like having people deliver things to our building which is now a petri dish of the pandemic as far as I can tell.)

The above was written just when the pandemic was declared. Now I'm 270 days into a sort of isolation in our apartment. I'm still 'meditating' with puzzles. The NY Times puzzles are my pleasure first thing in the morning. That (and coffee) get me out of bed around seven. I am still meditating occasionally by looking at the random pictures of my screen saver. (Only now there are two computers flashing pictures because during lockdown I have bought and configured a new one.)

I say it's a 'sort of isolation' because we do leave the apartment (carefully, with masks on and care in what we touch). We go a couple of times a week to the lobby to get mail and maybe packages. Almost every day we drive somewhere and get a curbside pickup at a grocery store or restaurant or take a walk. Or both. We are never more than about10 miles from home. Except for our building we don't go inside enclosed spaces (except my one trip to Costco during the Elderly House). We don't ride the elevator with others.

Memories seem to become more and more important. Especially trips. And dining out. And family gatherings. Well, everything. We can't make many new memories so there you go.

From Long Ago But Oh So Appropriate

I clipped this from my old, self-maintained blog. I used to have a little corner where I wrote a little free verse (as in no one would pay for it) reflecting on the day. In 2002 this appeared. It perfectly reflects how a feel over 17 years later. It never ends, does it? Although saving actual clippings is not something I do as much. Still, there is a clipping from The New York Times about museums in the south of France on my desk at this very moment.

I have been remiss about Holidailies. But that broken 'resolution' is not what is making me depressed today. It is just the general feeling, on the first day of a new year, that I wish I could roll back time and do lots of things differently. But the past doesn't work that way.

Today I made soup with some leftover stock from one of FFP's soup making forays. I hope it's good because it's part of dinner. We walked to the bookstore. (How lucky we are to be an easy walk from BookPeople, a large independent book store that has a sale every New Year's Day.) FFP started a book and put on some jazz. I bet he's asleep in his chair. (Nope, just checked, still reading.)

We had a nice NYE. We went to our favorite restaurant, sat at the bar and had dinner and a drink. Then we took a rideshare to a party. Left just after midnight and quickly got a rideshare home. Slept well.

Collections, Acquisition, Gifts

We didn't have to deal with many gifts this year. And by 'deal' I mean find a place for them, write 'thank you' notes for them, etc. Does that seem crass and ungrateful? In the past, I collected things or was interested in things and these collections inspired gifts. Same for my husband and I as a couple and him separately. Same for our parents (whose effects we had to dispose of from 2002-2011).

This year we allowed each other to buy things 'for Christmas.' My husband got a sports coat and, I think, a book. I got a page-a-day French word and phrase calendar. I'm going to order a gadget from Amazon eventually. He bought me a beautiful winter scarf and I bought him an expensive tie (which he'd admired). Gift exchange (and disposing or saving wrapping) took minutes. We received gifts from my niece by mail. An interesting book (mentioned in an earlier entry), a rocks glass with an etching of an NYC map and some comestibles (mentioned in an earlier entry as well). We've mostly consumed the edibles. I've read about half the book and enjoyed the pictures of aging people. The glass awaits a Manhattan on the rocks for me or a guest. The truth is we have lots of fancy glassware some on display (as shown here) and some tucked away in a small bar, a console and cabinets.

All this stuff has to be maintained. Dusted, sorted, occasionally given away. The little cart above contains a remnant of an old collection of deco barware. It is a drinks pump with little glasses. It's never been used by us. It's just decoration. We have other barware decorating some bookshelves. This particular piece was found by my sister who had my dad buy it for us. Collections are like that. People add to them. Folks used to give me bendable figures with some regularity. Also, above you see several Welcome Kitties. My husband saw one in a bar, ordered one off eBay and then acquired a few others. So it goes. One year a friend sent a Welcome Kitty Christmas ornament after seeing a video of the Welcome Kitties welcoming with their paws. It usually sits with its animated buddies but currently is part of the Christmas decor with the only other glass ornaments we have. (We don't do a tree.)

Right now most surfaces have some of my Christmas (mostly bendable) figures collection. (See also the barware on this shelf.)

And books. Oh. My. Books. We buy them, we get them as gifts. And we have trouble weaning the collection. (We did give away over a thousand before moving from our large house in 2008.)

The stuff. The 'collections.' Fun. But sometimes overwhelming. At one time or the other, I dabbled in collecting things besides bendables and barware. There were the old globes. There was the vintage toy collection. There was dabbling in fake food. I accumulated pastis pitchers for a party decoration. And then there's the glassware (we still have most of that). The collections don't seem to inspire gifts as much anymore.

Fortunately, we receive very few gifts at all. This year my last remaining aunt sent a 100 dollar bill in her Christmas card. We decided that we would go hear a band and instead of our usual twenty-dollar tip share the C note with them. And we did. We got our money's worth. We explained the tip to the bandleader and how we felt spending it this way gave us the most possible psychic income.

The Girls

These days I like to take my picture in blurry reflections. I can tell it's me, but one doesn't have to look closely at wrinkles, blemishes or, should I happen to have one, my black eye. (Just theoretically, you know.)

Today is an annual holiday lunch I have with four friends. We talk about being "the girls", but one is 65 (the youngest), two are 70, I'm 71 and the oldest is 73. We have known each other for a long time. None of us have children. Two have never been married and one was married and divorced before I knew her if I'm not mistaken. Everyone lives here in Austin save one and she visits from California this time of the year because she is close to one of the others. (In honesty, it doesn't feel like her good friend lives here either because she is gone a lot of the time.)

Once we exchanged presents. One year after we'd sort of ceased the gift exchange I took a grab bag of swag junk to pass around. It was not looked on favorably. Some years the oldest, from California, brought candy for everyone. I briefly considered wrapping up some 'white elephant' gifts for today's lunch, but I'm glad I dismissed that idea because we chose a place that is less than two miles from here and the weather is agreeable so I walked over there. Almost the longest way mostly on the hike and bike trail. I needed the exercise. Also, walking is a time for thinking.

We ate and talked for over two hours. I told the story of my black eye which was only noticeable to the one friend who saw it when it was more obvious. (Or so they said.) My story is getting better and better although still true. One gal told about some Christmas giving in her family. She bought two gifts at Goodwill on the cheap but forgot to take off the tags. Her niece was delighted. Her sister insulted. She said that one great-nephew (or do you say grand-nephew if it's the kid of a niece? I never know) got a 3D printer. He's ten. We talked about kids and screens and gadgets and books. One gal took presents for all the kids at her family gathering: those old school holiday 'books' with Lifesavers inside. Kids loved them. Who knew they still made them. We discussed racial segregation when we were growing up. We discussed college degrees and our careers. (Everyone is retired.) We discussed measles and other childhood diseases and how the woman who survived Multiple Myeloma that's to a bone marrow transplant lost her immunity to the drugs but can't be reimmunized for some things because it's a live virus or something. We discussed how a measles case had been identified that 'contaminated' the Austin airport. We discussed glaciers melting and revealing bodies. We discussed tennis. Three of my friends played at one time. One was quite good. No one plays except me any longer. The one who was so good uses a cane due to nerve damage from a botched surgery. She and I discussed Vic Braden and his 1977 book Tennis for the Future.

As I've mentioned in these last days I haven't been daily with Holidailies. It's funny about habits. When I retired I wanted to do a lot of things, maybe master some stuff. Relearn and master French. Learn German, maybe Italian. Learn some new computer skills. What I've become good at is Suduku, Ken-Ken, Jumble and, especially crosswords. Not really a marketable skill. Not that I wanted to market my skills exactly. But still. At lunch, we were discussing mythology. I mentioned that in Junior High English I refused to study the mythology lessons because "they weren't true." After flunking the test on that unit, my teacher and my mother made me cram and retake the test. I still didn't retain it. Whenever I come upon one of those Greek/Roman/Norse god questions in a puzzle I regret it. Even more than I regret not listening to popular music or watching news and talk shows on TV. (These things are frequent questions in puzzles, you see.) Honestly, though, I wish I'd developed some habits of learning languages, exercising, learning things that are somewhat useful.

Ah, well. So it goes. I think I'll go work the crossword in the Wall Street Journal.

Boxing Day

I think Boxing Day has something to do with charity. Not for me, however. We have a Boxing Day party to go to tonight. It is about frivolity, I think. Maybe Boxing Day should be about boxing up the decorations like the ones on this table with the fast-failing plants. Plants don't live here. We cycle through fresh flowers but plants are doomed in our care. Anyway, now the decorations are just a burden, something to be put away until they, maybe, come out next year. I have to go through the cards and annual letters, too, and toss most of them. I keep neat ones to put out next year. Every year fewer and fewer actually arrive in the mail.

I wrote a year-end letter. So far I've sent 54 of them. We received 50 cards and letters (that weren't from businesses or charities).

My husband and I exchanged gifts yesterday. He gave me a lovely wool scarf. I gave him an expensive tie he'd admired when shopping for a sports coat at his favorite store. (Which was really one of his 'presents.') But we each had a surprise for Christmas Day.

Spent all day inside. We watched "Five Came Back" on Netflix. It is about five Hollywood directors who went into the service in WWII to make films: John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra, and George Stevens. The series is based on a book by the same name. (Which we've owned for ages but neither of us has read.) We watched "Giant" which we have on DVD. It's a holiday tradition with us and, although it's not a Christmas movie, it has a great Christmas scene. That is a movie George Stevens made after he came back. Then we found we could stream "The Best Years of Our Lives" on some service that streams free with random commercials inserted. That is a movie William Wyler made after he came back.

We had banana 'pancakes' (actually banana and egg mixture fried up) and bacon (which we rarely eat at home) for brunch and taco chicken nachos for dinner. (Chicken cooked in taco seasoning atop cheese and onions with jalapenos.) I had one Manhattan and some nuts while watching all that tube.

I woke up today determined to 'get stuff done.' I wrote a couple more letters, worked crosswords and Ken-Ken and such in the papers, read some sections of the papers, drank four cups of coffee and it's getting toward eleven. I haven't been keeping a daily for Holidailies, but I don't really regret it. I have at least done more than since the last Holidailies. Now...to pay some bills!

Where Have I Been?

I can't seem to post every day. We do that on Austin Daily Photo at least. What have I been doing? Hmm...let's see. I played tennis Saturday. We went out to dinner, to hear music, to have drinks with friends who've moved to Seattle but were here for family holidays. We tried a new restaurant. Meh. We went to a tried and true restaurant with some friends. Yum.

I read and I worked crosswords.

We wrote our Happy New Year letter to send to people who sent holiday cards (and some who didn't). I still have to print,  write personal notes, address, stamp and mail. But we send lots fewer than we used to send so there's that.

We will go to a Christmas party tomorrow. A Christmas bazaar and out to eat on Christmas Eve. On Christmas day we will sit around in our sweats and enjoy reading and TV.

And so it goes it retirementville.

I have started thinking about writing about a few subjects while not posting daily. Which led me to read a bunch of my own writing (and some other things) on those subjects. Which somehow stopped me from actually writing a new post.

And so it goes. The holiday cards keep coming. And if they are from people (not businesses or non-profits and such) I'll send them a Happy New Year letter. I can't believe it will be 2020 soon.

Gifts Hall of Fame

Gifts. Some are particularly bad and ill-chosen. I shudder when I think about them. Some are so sweet and inspired. A lot are predictable. Not unwanted, but nothing to inspire for the ages. Bottles of wine and booze. Gift cards (if you actually want to patronize the place). Food baskets. But what if you don't like what's inside? Chocolate? Cheese? And who needs so much fruit it rots before you can finish it? The small selection of comestibles shown arrived from my niece. Colorado gourmet products. That will keep until we sample them.

I have two cutting boards in my kitchen. (Shown above.)
One, a wooden one, has the edges trimmed like a book. It was a gift from our long-time bookkeeper. (Who died in 2006. And who loved to order gifts from catalogs. This one, I think, is the only one we still have.) The other is a sort of glass affair with a photo of peppers and green onions made to look like a mouth. It was a gift from a couple that used to live in Austin and may again. They seemed particularly astute about gifts. It's funny: when you keep a gift for a long time you remember the people who gave it to you in a found way.

The book shown at right also arrived yesterday from my niece. It is a wonderful book of essays about these centenarians and super-centenarians accompanied by fantastic portraits. I'd never seen this book, but I'm delighted with it. Just the intro (by the 'young' Norman Lear) is a delight. A gift you like that you didn't know existed is wonderful.

Tomorrow I am going to go through my old blog entries and find some more things to say about gifts from past entries.

The Tyranny and Joy of Stuff

Does it count if I *think* about blogging Holidaily? I started to write about 'stuff' and gifts and all that a few days ago. I decided to go back in the archives and read about, well, stuff from the past. This was fun but led to no new writing. This picture is of one section of a vitrine table in our living room. It has some old bendable toys in it. (Including a pipe cleaner version of me, created by a friend.) I collected bendables very actively for a while and decorated my office with them when I worked. Our Christmas decorations are, to a large extent, bendable Christmas figures. Santas, mostly, but also a few reindeer, snowmen, trees and such.

I've been working on my financial life. And that is boring. I have to prepare certain tax documents in January and have been running those numbers. I am preparing a new budget for the new year so that we can bust that budget by eating out too much, traveling too much, giving away too much and, of course, buying too many books.

We really don't want too much stuff. It mostly gets in the way. Of course, I do enjoy looking at all the little Santas and such this time of year and enjoying the pretty glassware and such all the time. But, of course, there is the dusting. You have to dust stuff.

That's all I've got. Tomorrow I'm going to talk about gifts. Gifts given. Gifts gotten. Successes. Maybe some failures.

Christmas and Other Musings

I feel sure I've posted this on some blog in the past. I'm determined to put up an entry today. I have been remiss. I just didn't have it in me. I had time, but I spent it otherwise.

I've been thinking about blogging, though, and thinking of tons of things to say when I do. I can't think of any of them now.

Man, I loved Christmas as a kid. I liked the presents, sure, although there were always some disappointments. I liked the fact that the family got together. I'd see cousins. Maybe my grandmother would make homemade rolls and cinnamon rolls. (Nobody did it better. Her giblet gravy was transcendental, too.) I like picking out gifts and surprising people, too. I liked the music. I liked decorating the tree.

This scene is from the house we lived in from 1958-1966. Not a long time, but important because it was most of my school years.

We have exactly two presents here now and our tree is tiny. (We each got the other person a surprise.)

Stuff is mostly in my way these days. I dug out my collection of (mostly) bendable posable Chrismas figures and put them around the apartment.  We put up the cards we receive on a screen in the kitchen. But there is none of that excitement like that tree above generated. We have gotten a few things and deemed them Christmas presents for each other that aren't surprises. He got a sport coat. I got a calendar. I'm going to get a portable charge bar (that allegedly won't overcharge one's gadgets)  to go beside my chair in the living room.

Oh, yeah, 'my chair.' I have this idea for a documentary where we interview people in their chairs. All us old folks have one, surrounded by our necessities: tissues, remotes, pens, etc. You've seen these in set dressing in movies. Anyway, it seemed like a good idea when I thought of it.

One thing I've been doing instead of blogging is looking at this site which I discovered from reading this post on Holidailies. So Holidailies is not a total loss for me in spite of my refusal to write anything coherent or enlightening.

The Meat Sack and the Objects in Space

I'm not a very spiritual person. Although I think I am an empathetic and compassionate one. Mostly. I primarily consider humans to be meat sacks that do their worst to others (sometimes intentionally, mostly not) and then move on to another plane or maybe just dust. Meanwhile, we surround ourselves with and collide with objects. We somehow feel emotions, too. Grief at losses. Anxiety. (I feel anxious when forging new relations. Then I step back and say, "Wow, that's weird, why?") Joy, of course. But where does that come from?

I took the photo above a couple of months ago on a rare solitary walk. Usually, my husband, aka Forrest or FFP, goes with me. Over east of the Interstate in an area that is rapidly gentrifying, I discovered a recycling yard that had been there for ages. The new Fairmount hotel just on the other side of the highway seemed to rise up from this pile of metal junk.

I haven't written in the last couple of days. My eye had a collision with a tennis ball. Well, my glasses. The eye seems fine but I have bruising around it. It kind of set me back on my heels and I have been doing very little and what I've been doing has been slow. Not that I was really hurt. It was Saturday morning and right after the accident with the tennis ball I rushed home and iced it for a few hours to prevent much swelling. We went out that night to dinner with a school friend of FFP's. They hadn't seen each other in ages. He and his wife were nice. My eye was just starting to look bruised.

It's funny how accidents happen. Friday night we went to a very nice party with good food and drink. I had three cocktails. Maybe kinda strong. Was a little hungover Saturday and just going through the motions thinking I'd get home and drink a lot of water and get over it. We'd played a set and embarked on a second. One of the ladies had forgotten her racquet. The pro shop will gladly loan you racquets, but only kind of crappy ones unless you want to pay to rent a demo. She brought two of these old racquets out to the court. She's a good player and was blaming a few mishits on the racquet. I have two racquets. One is a few decades old. Its sobriquet is 'The Hammer' and it is supposed to help you generate power. I usually play with a newer one that plays almost exactly like the old one. Anyway, I offered to let her try the old one. On the next game my partner (who struggles to serve in the court and whose serves usually bounce hight), was serving. I was playing up toward the net, not really close. The lady holding my racquet who, I swear, almost always hits an angle away from the net person, returned the ball. In that instant, I thought I'd get my racquet in front of my face but I saw a gigantic ball coming right to my left eye and boom! I was sitting on the ground, clutching my glasses. I didn't feel hungover now. Just feeling that eye to see the damage. One wonders: if I hadn't been hungover or if I hadn't loaned the racquet or if we hadn't switched to new balls....

Anyway, I've been lazy. Did a tiny bit of decorating for Christmas. Finished a jigsaw puzzle. Worked a bunch of crosswords, read papers. Barely left the apartment. I did start considering taxes. Paid my property taxes. Paid some bills. I started thinking about the budget for 2020.

Anyway, objects in space. There are so many things that sorting them, cleaning them, considering them becomes a full-time job. It makes me tired. And I'm going to talk about it more tomorrow. Maybe.

Sloth and Tradition

By some accounts, I stayed in the apartment all day and didn't exercise or take a shower because I'm feeling sorry for myself for my injury. But my eye doesn't really hurt. Not much anyway. And really I was in here tackling the holiday tradition of doing one and only one jigsaw puzzle. It has scores of pictures of signs that say, mostly, 'Texas.' It's not too hard.

Decorating

Progress

I feel like I should always have a picture with these entries. Since I'm not posting an entry of my black eye, I just added this picture with my husband in the lobby of the Fairmont where there are giant nutcrackers, apparently made from cake and macarons. Pushing the boundaries of gingerbread creations, I guess.

I was a little bit productive today. I tidied up and cleaned some surfaces that I was going to put decorations on. I got decorations out of storage but didn't do anything with them. Other than that, I've just eaten (lunch: tortilla with chicken, cheese, guac, and hot sauce and half a banana; dinner: soup and a grilled cheese sandwich). And read papers and watched TV. Oh, and I've checked out the progress of my black eye (it gets worse before better, right, although the swelling is gone).

And that's about it. And I'm going to go back to the TV and newspapers.

Oh...and I pulled out the leaf in the dining table and got out a jigsaw puzzle. Because it's a holiday tradition, damn it!

I Have a Black Eye

That's not a metaphor. It's not a stain on my reputation or anything. It's a literal black eye. Because today I caught a tennis ball in my eye. I had on glasses so it injured around the eye and socket. It's not swollen shut but it's ugly. I won't put a picture here. But I spent part of the day icing my face and then we went out to dinner with people I'd never met (the guy was a friend of Forrest's in school). Then we saw lots of people we knew so I was explaining my eye. I didn't do anything productive today. Tomorrow, maybe I will do some cleaning and decorating and clean off all these things on my desk. Or maybe I'll just sit around and feel sorry for myself. We will see. So, that is all.

Decorations so Bright

I have yet to decorate our apartment. I am telling myself that tomorrow or maybe Sunday I will go to the storage cage and get out our tiny, tiny tree and all the little Christmas figures and spread cheer around the apartment. In anticipation of this, though, I started dusting and cleaning and polishing areas where I might put these decorations.

 First up were the bar console and mirrored shelves above it. I washed all the glassware, polished things up and left it ready to rearrange with the tiny tree and some other Christmasy stuff. Then I wiped down the counter between the dining and kitchen and polished and dusted everything there. I still have more dusting to do.

Forrest and I started our annual Christmas decoration stroll with three hotels. The Line hotel had no decorations. What the heck!

The Four Seasons had little 'gingerbread' cities. Austin, the biggest, had lots of buildings and shops. (I'll post pictures along the way.) The Fairmont had giant nutcrackers made from macaroons and such. Also lots of other decorations. I took the first picture there.

 We were going to do some more hotels and office lobbies and the Capitol but that will wait until another day. We aren't going out of town for the holidays so we will have lots of time. Tonight there is a party at some friends' house. It's too far to walk (in the dark), but close so we can take a rideshare and imbibe.

And so it goes. I still want to write more about the economy and fast fashion and climate change and all my fears. But Christmas and housekeeping. Whatever.

Worries.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm worried about the mighty consumer. I read that the consumer is powering growth, up to 70% of it of the economy in the U.S. Businesses, I guess, are turning out some consumer goods and creating jobs but are they hoarding their tax savings (as opposed to giving the employee/consumers some of it) or buying back stock (making their stock more valuable, natch, and good for investors in that stock). This seems like one of those things that work for a while and then don't.

When I get a Lyft ride for a short distance to a Christmas party  (like we did last night and will tomorrow night), I worry about the driver. They show up in their late model car. Lyft charges me six or seven dollars. They have to drive around, burning gas, putting wear and tear on their (insured, registered, paid for?) vehicle. I give them a $5 tip, thinking this can never work as a business model. Do they have health insurance? They are probably counted as employed. But are they really?

A lot of what these consumers are consuming apparently is cheap clothing. Made by (let's admit it, if not slave at least not union) labor overseas. Shipped to us in big polluting cargo ships. Worn and discarded quickly, apparently, filling landfills. I understand that the manufacture of clothing causes lots of pollution. Some of this clothing is bleached, scrubbed, ripped, sliced, etc. as a designer 'touch.'

We order some of these cheap clothes (and a zillion other things) from Amazon. (In our house, we order coffee beans, oat bran, an occasional book, and a few other things. Rarely clothes.) Workers toil (and I don't use the word lightly) long days at not so great wages to get that stuff to us.

Are the rideshare drivers and Amazon pickers the consumers powering the economy? Or is it the folks who feel flush because their retirement accounts are full of the stocks of companies who bought back stock with their tax-saving windfall? Do the rideshare drivers and Amazon pickers have retirement accounts?

And saving? Is anyone saving? I read that some people are rolling underwater car loans into new loans resulting in things like a $47,000 loan on a car worth $27,000. Apparently, German people are still saving resulting in negative interest rates and, of course, not boosting their economy with those Euros? Saving is good for the individual but bad for the growth of the economy.

The cheap clothing thing is especially interesting (and worrying) to me. More on that tomorrow. Maybe.