This is the year.

I’ve written before in different postings in a different blog about my mother’s affection for all things you can celebrate.  It was one of those things that defined her character.  She loved celebrations.  She had people over.  She cooked.  She baked.  She laughed.  She was joyous.

She decorated.

I love joy.  I love having fun with family and friends.  I love a good party; however, I don’t do as much of the prepping, staging, planning, inviting as my mom did.  It has many times been said that she could do a shindig for 20 with 15 minutes notice.  If I did that at my house we’d all be eating toast and drinking coffee or tea… or just drinking coffee or tea… potentially out of a cup I just washed so we’d have enough clean ones.

As the seasons ran through the years my mom was always one step ahead with her decor.  Table cloths, dish towels, nick knacks, and full sets of dishes danced in and out of her kitchen.  We celebrate with food in this family, and so place settings were a way to celebrate the coming of snow, or spring.

I can barely keep ahead of my laundry or on top of the battle I wage with cobwebs in my vaulted ceiling.  To think of having more than my day to day stuff to maintain is overwhelming.  My mom must have been tireless.

Grief has been tackling me this year in a full force way that makes me feel like I need to brace myself.  I have frequently found myself confused by what people had said about the first year after losing someone being the worst. First Easter, first mother’s day, first birthday, first Thanksgiving, first Christmas… they flew by with sadness and some pretty big voids, but they went by.

This year I’m grieving each time she would have known what I needed to know.  I have crumpled with each question I would have asked her.  I’ve froze rock solid in her favorite stores, been knocked sideways by the stuff I wanted to tell her and left standing lost at all the discussions that we would have had.

The overwhelming ache of missing her intermittently plagues me and I try to manage and contain it as I have LIVING to do.

I’m exhausted with missing her.  I think my immediate family all feels this way.  I don’t claim to have cornered the market on grief.

This is not to say that I am not doing well.  I am probably the most content in my life as I have ever been.  I feel really at home with who I am as a person and the times when I could kick myself are like 1/20th of what they were in my 20s…. or even 100th.  I’m dating a man that seems to love the whole of me, in it’s entire nonsensical nuttiness.  He brings out the best in me and we are having so much fun together.  He embodies the qualities that I most admire in people and I’m glad to have him in my life.  I hope he’ll stay in it.  My job leaves me feeling satisfied, challenged and… well… proud.  I think I’m getting to be pretty good at it (as well should be after 10 years) and it’s finally paying some bills.

We are now heading into the holiday’s again and I cannot kick the nagging feeling that I should be doing something to introduce more holiday spirit into our homes this year.  More festive, more friends, more noise, more smells, more cocktails, more music, more laughter…

more Mom.

So this morning I went to the basement in dad’s house armed with a big hunk of paper towel (for the snot) and a cup of coffee and I found the winter totes (yes plural.. there are like 10 or more).  Through the sobbing that I fully expected I peeked into each tote until I found some stuff that would start the transition to winter in dad’s house.  This will have to happen in stages.  There is only so much holiday cheer I can stand in one day.

Today, after 3 or 4 years of me saying I’d get it done and not doing it, the winter/Christmas village emerged from the tote and landed on the bay window sill.

Now, as to how many more times I’ll venture down to drag stuff up, I can’t say.  This might be it.

However, there is a little town and a little farmstead sitting in our window…

and they light up… and I feel pretty good about it.

Says me.

S.

Good moods…

I am a person with sing songy tendencies.  If I’m in a good mood there is much silliness coming out of my mouth in the form of non-nonsensical little ditties.

Friday morning I went skating and my feet didn’t hurt and I felt like I was finally at home on the ice.  I had a great time goofing off on the ice with some little kids and it was good.

I’ve been singing ever since.

It’s kind of fun to have a few days where you just feel like you are at one with your skin and in your life; where even the normal pressures that annoy you are manageable.  Added stress… no big whoop.  I have had it in check since Friday morning.

My dad’s dog is a belching, farting gross digestion water dripping out of the jowls kind of a thing.  We expect loud noises and smells to come from her, even though she virtually never barks.

My dog, on the other hand, can pass some noxious gas, snores like an old man after a bender, will bark at nothing at random times of day everyday; however, he rarely will belch. Yesterday on the drive to the hometown my dog had the most airy dry echoing reverberating belch ever to come from a dog.  He then licked his chops like he might have got a little on him.  He looked like he was laughing at me.

You’d think I just spent 4 hours with George Carlin.  I got a MASSIVE case of the sillies going on and sang some random song about the tune my dad’s mini-van plays when the auto door goes and then proceeded to rock out in the car for 30 minutes.  Apparently dog belches trigger euphoria in me.

I want to know what causes the ebb and flow to mood.  If I could bottle it up I’d store it up so I could give myself a mini-dose daily just to remind myself of what it feels like.  I’d pass it around to people in a rut of the crabbies.

Sounds like there might be skiing to be had next weekend, so there could be means to continue my giggle streak.

I say, cross fingers for me.

S.

Snowy Mornings…

I would just like to pat myself on the back.

Yesterday I noted that it was raining but that at this time of year it foretold snow.

This morning I woke up to snow.

Last night skiing and snowboarding were high on the list of topics and today it’s even harder to keep my mind off of it.

Viva la snow sport!!!!

Says Me.

S.

Rainy days…

mean wet dogs… and wet dogs mean dirty paws.

However, rainy days in the fall means that there is potentially snow on the horizon.

So dogs can be muddy in the garage for a few days.

Says me.

S.

Well, now we’ve done that.

My mom had some “ism”s.  A few that were funny, a few that I was tired of and some that I’ve taken on.  So you know during conversations that I’ve most likely just uttered an Enid-ism, I like to point out that I’ve just channeled my mother.

The president elect is a black man.  ‘So now we’ve done that.’

Check it off the list of things that should happen and just took too long.  I would have been just as happy if the president elect were a woman, but maybe next time.

I’m embarrassed to admit that the most exciting part of the having the Obama campaign be successful (outside of the fact that the republican Bush plan didn’t work… and didn’t work for 8 years) is that I don’t have to listen to McCain speak all the time.  Bush drove me nuts with his little twang and odd inflection…. McCain would have put me over the edge.  His voice just totally puts me off.  Great speaker… charismatic… annoying as the day is long.

So here is to my mom, who would have had stuff to say about this election and here is to me who doesn’t have to listen to that man talk all the time.

Hooray, the system works.

Says me.

S.

When life is not so good…

you find out what you’re REALLY all about.

Says me.

S

When life is good…

-  you take better pictures.

-  people take better pictures of you.

-  you laugh easier… even when Fred sprays you with the hose by accident while cleaning your gutters.

-  friends call more often… because you’re more fun.

-  leaves falling don’t make you want to lay on the couch for days.

-  bad haircuts are only a minor annoyance.

-  the rotted out window in your lower level can wait until spring.

-  movies like “Hot Rod” make you giggle for hours.

-  you spend 30 minutes chatting with your grandma about nothing on a Saturday morning.

-  you love your dog even though he shit in your dead mom’s car that you now own.

-  the level of guilt you feel about being annoyed by little things multiplies exponentially.

Says me.

S.

Costume of the Ages.

My nephew is 10 and a 5th grader.  He is funny and quirky and brilliant and last night he took Halloween to a whole new level of weird.

Remember, he is 10… TEN.

He went as Stephen Colbert.  Complete with suit, tie, glasses and hair.  Add the impersonation he does scarily well and my 10 year old nephew takes on a whole new identity.

I’m sure that the poor guy was disappointed with the lack luster response to his get up, but it took us all a second to catch up with the kid.  Political satirist is not exactly the first costume choice you come up with in elementary school.  Pirate, video game character, awesome ninja… you know.. kids ideas.  Not my nephew with his progressive parents and free access to cable…

Stephen Colbert.   (http://www.colbertnation.com/about)

I wish I had some brilliant commentary about the event.  Some truly profound statement about my nephew and the condition of our nation or his generation.

I wish I could close my mouth or stop laughing.

Rather than ending with the usual “So Says Me” I will end with…

insert brilliant commentary here.  —>      <——–

S.

PS  Fred thought he was a striking rendition of a Jehovah’s Witness.  Shudder… that is the scariest thought we could come up with on this spooky hallowed night.