‘Tis* almost the season

Tuesday, November 20, 2007 at 10:35 am (Youngest of Seven)
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With Black Friday fast approaching (what an awful name), I can hear everyone’s thoughts turning to Christmas shopping once the leftovers are put away. Or maybe it’s their stomachs turning — it’s a shame that buying presents has become such a dreaded chore for so many people. How about if I concentrate on what I hope is still fun: toy buying.

Who doesn’t have a favorite toy? Who doesn’t remember their BEST CHRISTMAS EVER and why it was? Maybe I’m way off base here, but I have to believe Christmas meant even more to us than it does to today’s kids. After all, “back in the day” (this is the modern version of “when I was a kid”), we got presents twice a year: our birthday and Christmas. There was no getting something on every trip to the store or being presented with your own “treat bag” on some other kid’s or sibling’s birthday. You had your 2 days in the sun and that was it. (Oh yeah, and candy at Easter and Halloween. But not presents — and certainly not anything lame like toothbrushes — just candy.)

Of course, my brothers were good at supplementing. “Junk Day” was like the third best holiday. My brothers were paperboys, so were out there at the crack of dawn to get first dibs on whatever treasures other people were throwing away. I personally got my first baton that way (and what little girl doesn’t want a baton?), an Easy-Bake Oven (kinda lame, no mixes), and a cool little light-table that you could trace on (perfect for paperdoll clothes). Oh they hauled home tons more, like one of those tabletop foosball-like hockey games and a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember (but they will).  

My parents were pretty good at coming through with the toys when it counted, though. A lot of them were hand-me-downs by the time I came along, but we really had some memorable ones.

scm sized  My brother got one of these super-cool Strange Change Machines that transformed colorful little plastic squares into dinosaurs when you heated them up. And you could smash them back into little squares again — over and over. Loved it!

getaway chase  Another favorite: the Getaway Chase Game — Bonnie & Clyde-type car racing. (See those kids on the box — my brother and me.)

green ghost Or Green Ghost …the ultimate cool glow-in-the dark game (come to think of it, this may have been a Junk Day find).

baby drowsy  Or the love of my life: Baby Drowsy. I can still remember all 11 of her sayings when you pulled the string (well 9 sayings, a giggle, and a cry). Some 15 years later, my youngest niece got a Baby Drowsy of her own (which she promptly used to torment her older sister, earning Drowsy a new name: “the haunted baby”).

What about KerPlunk! or Battleship or Little Kiddle dolls (the tiny ones that came in jewelry), or Spirograph? I always wanted a Lite-Brite, never got one, but was brought to tears by how excited my oldest niece was when she got hers: “(rip rip) A LITE-BRITE, A LITE-BRITE!”

I know you have your own fondest Christmas toy memories. Why not relive the joy and buy a little kid a toy this year? (And no, not some $100 computer game or massive Barbie McMansion — a TOY!) Although . . . (POP — sound of bubble bursting) it occurs to me, with all the lead scares, even that simple pleasure is tainted now.

OK, new plan. We go Little House on the Prairie this year and everyone gets some nuts, a peppermint stick, and one perfect orange — organic of course. Yeah right. Better yet, go vintage on eBay. I can hear Baby Drowsy now…”I go sleep now, night-night. Close your eyes mommy. I want another drink of water. I wanna stay up…”

There is nothing sadder in this world than to awake
Christmas morning and not be a child.
                                                ~ Erma Bombeck

*P.S. See how that apostrophe in ‘Tis is pointing the wrong way? (It should look like a 9 not a 6.) It drives me crazy, as it will any typographically picky reader, but I lack the HTML skills to fix it. If anyone knows how, I’d be grateful…

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One step or two?

Monday, November 19, 2007 at 10:45 am (Cottage Industry)
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You all know the saying (or the many variations): Some days you’re the dog and some days you’re the hydrant (pigeon/car, bug/windshield). I think of it as some days it’s two steps forward and one step back, and others it’s one step forward and two steps back.

This was a long weekend and not in a good way. Definitely two steps back. Though Mike managed to install both garage door openers (another exhausting marathon) and I did some much-needed yard clean-up, that progress was marred by one person’s thoughtlessness. We came home from dinner on Saturday night only to find someone had done a hit-and-run number on Mike’s car, parked on the street in front of our house. Driver’s side door and fender, dent and scrape — not huge, but probably $1000 in damage, as these things go.

Splat. So much for killing ourselves to do so many house projects on our own to save money. So much for paying off and keeping our cars to save money. Yes, we have insurance (high deductible of course to save money), but as “luck” would have it, we’re in the process of switching insurance companies, again a money-saving measure offered by our agent. So, do you even want to make a claim against a new policy? Doesn’t that tend to make your rates go up (likely negating our newfound savings)?

It was no “I didn’t know I hit anything” accident. Someone out there knows what he/she did. When this “person” (in lieu of the noun I’d rather use) gives thanks on Thursday, I hope a flicker of guilt casts its shadow. But I doubt it will. The whole thing was probably forgotten by the time he was a half-mile down the road. No worries, no responsibility. Someone else will pick up the pieces and make it right.

I better go. I seem to be slipping farther away from the keyboard.

A door opens to me. 
I go in and am faced with a hundred closed doors. 
                                       ~ Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943
                                                       translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

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Morning, Muse

Friday, November 16, 2007 at 3:20 pm (Writing by Ear)
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Aahhh sleep. Escape hatch from the world. Bestower of fresh perspectives. Solver of riddles too elusive, too complex for open eyes and active brains.

My sleep reveals nothing so dramatic as Einstein’s (theory of relativity) or Watson’s (double-helix DNA structure) or my brother’s (legendary in the family for his vivid nocturnal adventures). I only get the odd encounter with David Duchovny to solve an X-File or countless puzzling wranglings with malfunctioning elevators and unclimbable stairs.

But that first, early morning awakening is a revelation. That drowsy slumber, though often rudely evoked by pestilence in feline form that is only briefly daunted by curses and swats, is where my muse likes to visit, whispering ideas, reminding me of what the day ahead might bring, helping me put life in perspective. Most of my post inspirations come from the morning muse, so I try to entice her to stay as long as possible. That requires walking a fine line between not getting too engaged by the mundane — that article I need to write or that call I need to prep for or those walls that still need painting — and staying cognizant enough to hear what she’s telling me. Often I forget what she whispers. Trying to scribble it down only means losing her for that day, which I am loathe to do.

Fortunately, she’s patient, sometimes murmuring the same message over and over each day until I finally absorb it. But she’s also fussy. She hides from alarm clocks, yet disdains late, sleep-sated risers. It must be early morning. It must be naturally (or cat-devil-) induced half-slumber. It must be dark or with only the faintest hint of dawn. Cold air is better than warm. Silence is golden.

I love her so much, I’m willing to accept her terms, grateful for whatever advice she has to give, whatever creative energy she’s willing to spark, whatever realization she bestows of how truly blessed I am.

What are your muse’s terms? Does she come when you’re running, driving, lost in knitting or raking or chores? Is she so demanding? Do you have ways to encourage her to come more often? I’m always calling my muse, but she doesn’t tend to answer when I ask, only when I’m least able to resist and most open to accept what she has to say.

Hmmmm, that last bit sounds familiar. Kind of like another spirit force I can think of whose name I often call but who prefers to answer in His own sweet time. Are they one and the same?

This post sure took an unexpected turn…I better sleep on this one.

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.
                                                          ~ D. H. Lawrence

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