Sentimental Santa Story

Behind the article about Aunt Kat, on page two of the Eagle Democrat of Warren, Arkansas, is "The Oldtimer's Notebook," by Robert L. Newton. In this December 20 edition, it contained this sentimental story:

Believe in Santa Claus?

I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid, and a I tore across town on my bike to visit her on the day Martha Landers dropped the bomb: There is no Santa Claus. "Even dummies know that!"

My Grandma was not the gushy kind. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. She always told the truth and I knew the truth went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her world-famous cinamon buns.

Grandma was home, the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me. "No Santa Claus?" she snorted. "Ridiculous! Don't believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad! Now, go out on your coat, and let's go."
"Go? Go where, Grandma?" I hadn't even finished my second world-famous cinamon bun. Where turned out to be J.T. Ederington Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars.

That was a bundle in those days. "Take this money and buy something for somebody who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car." Then she turned and walked out of the store.

I was eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Chrsitmas shopping. I just stood there, conflused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.

I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out when I suddenly thought of Bobby. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Jolley's grade-two class.

Bobby didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out to recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby didn't have a good coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement.

I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that.

"Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down. "Yes ma'am," I replied shyly. "It's for Bobby."

The nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby really needed a good winter coat. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag, smiled again, and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat (a little tag fell out of the coat and grandma tucked it in her Bible) in Christmas paper and ribbons and wrote "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" on it.

Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa's helpers.

Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his door and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma.

Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front foor to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.

Seventy years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering beside my Grandma in Bobby's bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were--ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

I still have the Bible, with the coat tag tucked inside: $19.95.


It's not quite "Yes, Virginia..." but it makes me smile.

Shane with the In-Laws

Mr. Hands' great-aunt Katherine Fort made the front page of The Eagle Democrat, Warren, Arkansas' daily paper, on December 20. She is honored for being the city treasurer since 1954--that's 13 terms and 52 years! Apparantly, she has kept the books with pencil and paper, all 35 different accounts. My best memory of her is visiting her elegant house in Warren, which Mr. Hands and I were urged to do by his Meema. It seems Aunt Kat's grandchildren had visited Warren a few months before and had not stopped by to see Meema, a fact noted but never mentioned by Meema. Now, we gleefully accepted our roles as faciltators of Meema's gentle and good-humored "revenge." She made sure we dropped by Aunt Kat's for a nice visit on our way out of town. I adore Meema, and though I think Aunt Kat is a lovely woman, I'm Meema's willing pawn in any "revenge" scheme she may hatch.

Meema hand delivered the paper with this story about Aunt Kat. She is visiting her son, my father-in-law, with her three daughters, Mr. Hands' aunts, and their husbands. They came from all over the southern states to visit for a few days and I am listening to their happy drawls carry up the stairs and into the den as I type.

I've been trying to match people with the tales I have been told, but so far everyone is on their best behavior. It takes about two seconds in a room with my father-in-law's family to discern the family dynamics, worked out over a lifetime and now roughly comfortable to each, but beyond that, I can only wonder at these accounts of hilarious hijinks.

Meema is busy cooking up a mess of fried appricot pies; their aroma will soon demand that I leave the computer and find them cooling between papertowels. I hope there are some left!

Shane With A Dancing Queen

Here's my Dancing Queen Amaryllis last week.


And here it is this week!


Thank goodness for these showy flowers during these color-less days!

Granddogs

What happens when the granddogs visit my mom for the holidays:

This is Henna, my brother's dog, a few Christmases ago...


And here's Katie this year...

Winter schminter

 
It may be officially winter, but this guy didn't get the memo! 

Posh outing

Mr. Hands and I went to Santana Row for a bit of posh. It was the perfect day for it--so fresh and blue. It's just past the Solstice, but it feels brighter already. (Could be that yesterday was particularly dreary.) The crowds stayed away and the street was lovely, minus a few pricks in Lamborghinis and a Ferrari who gunned their engines up and down the street. Wow, that is a loud sound.
I ran errands and Mr Hands camped out at a hotspot in a tea and coffee shop. Afterwards we ate here:
 
  The name is featured better here:
Everything we ate was tasty. We tried fried Ipswich clams and liked them but decided we ultimately prefer calamari. Mr Hands had the flank stake with wine butter and the whipped Yukon gold potatoes--like eating a buttery and creamy cloud. However, I win today because my tuna and Monterey jack cheese melt was perfection.
We saw this: this: and these:

Just Settled Down for a Long Winter's Nap...

It's 8:46:37 a.m. Do you know where your cat is?

Belle knows how to celebrate the first day of winter!

Shane With a Mess on Her Hands

Katie got into the cat box. Let's just leave out all the details; however in praise of her athletecism, this involved her making an impressive leap over a 3 foot barrier both in and out of the cat box location. Things get far less impressive from this point, or depending on your point of view, very much more impressive. To use a polite inuendo, she made a mess. To be blunt, she vomited, spewed, regurgitated. To be crass, she puked. Twice.

I still shudder in recollection and hope the memory of this fades, as the (two) stains fade but do not seem to vanish.

Oh Katie, I see now we should never have shackled you (or us) with your nickname "Stinky Peanut."

Katie recovers; I may not

Shane With a Tree on Her Wall

One really has two choices in life: you can be the person who has a real Christmas tree in your home for the holidays, or you can be the person who has four-footed companions.


We've got things worked out, though!

Bermuda Triangle

I have found the Bermuda Triangle...and it is in my house!

These animals have made napping in the sunspots an art form. They know exacly where to be depending on the time of day and the season. In winter they put aside their genetic imperative to be wary of one another for impressive lapses of time--the chance to nap while the sun streams in is brief! Still, they use the far corners of the bed in case their Union Reps try to accuse them of fraternization.

A Wreath Named Franklin

Mr. Hands thinks this is the second funniest joke in the world.
This wreath seemed pretty enough for me to put up with hearing it... AGAIN!

Pretty enough for a close up:

P.S. The first funniest joke in the world (according to Mr. Hands) is: What's brown and sticky? A stick.

Well, at least he's not into knock-knocks!

Yosemite apple pie

An apple a day--that's what you get as a snack in Yosemite. I've never been much of an apple eater, especially since you have to eat the core or carry it around in your pocket all day until you find a trash can, which can be a real mess if you're off on a trail somewhere. So all these years I'd come home with left over apples in my pockets or luggage, because usually I'd end up with the apples of a couple of kids, too.

This year, instead of letting them loiter on my kitchen counter, I decided I'd make a post-Yosemite apple pie.

I'm no baker, folks, but for some reason I thought I was cool enough to make a pie sans recipe. A little of this, a little of that (which included cranberries, honey, almonds, brown sugar, nutmeg, lemon juice, lemon zest, flour, and a mish-mash of apple varieties, none of them appropriate baking types) and this is what I got. Mmmmmm. I'm a pretty good not-baker!

Katie's House

She spends as much time ON it as IN it!

Sticks and Stones May Weary Our Bones, but a Garden Path Is Worth It!

Katie's Cart

So we have this new set up for Katie, and I think she's wondering what we're going to come up with next! Today we made our trial run. After Mr. Hands figured out how to connect the cart to the bike, we MacGyvered her harness and leash into a safety restraint. We took her to the corner coffee shop, me riding ahead towing the trailer and Mr. Hands riding behind to make sure nothing went awry.

And boy did we turn heads. One couple approached us to ask how we trained her to do it. "Well, we told her to get in, and then we just started peddling." I don't think they believed us.

As far as I can tell, this arrangement suits Katie just fine! She was sleeping in the cart just as I took the photo here, waking her up.

Mr. Hands whispered to me as we waited at a stop sign, "You know this makes us the crazy dog people in the neighborhood, right?"

Oh, honey, we were already that.

Dear Brother, this is the bowl which was to be your wedding gift. Mr. Hands and I found it on our trip to Sedona last February, in Telaquepaque, that cool looking "artist village" right on the bend in the road to the village from downtown. It was swaddled carefully and nested in the car for days, surviving the trip back home. Then it was laid to roost in the "Harry Potter closet," our cupboard under the stairs, on a shelf until your wedding day.

Until today. It's my fault, really. I heard rustling and Simon was busy with something. I ignored it and just thought that pile of junk mail on the landing, or the basket of newspaper to be recycled. But there was a crash, and a wild-with-panic rust colored blur burst forth from the cupboard (how had he gotten in there?). He had thrust his head through the handle on the brown craft paper bag and was wearing it cape-style. He bucked like a bull out the gate before setting off up the stairs, momentarily loosing his footing on the linoleum landing, then up the rest of the stairs, straight down the hall into the spare room, behind the bed, on the bed, then a 180 degree mid-air spin, a leap off the bed, taking the 90 degree hallway corner at a full sprint, settling for a heartbeat under Mr. Hands' chair, his usual refuge from all things terrifying. I, from downstairs, listened to his flight pattern, his seemingly nimble 10 pound gait sounding like a runaway herd. All sense had left poor Simon, and he ran again to escape the bag but it was along for the ride. I heard him crash around, then retrace his route down stairs, claws desperately scrambling to find footing on the linoleum on the landing, then again on the hardwood floor. He slalomed around the legs of the dining room chairs, bag whapping everything close behind his ears, before making a final frenetic leap to the couch where he crouched, twitching and not blinking, tense and exhausted. I think he heard me call his name the third time; that's when his eyes focused on me. I walked forward cooing, hand out like a sacrificial offering. Grasping his chest just behind the front legs in case he decided to bolt again, I relieved him of his albatross then hugged him close and buried my face in his fur until he struggled against me, not ready to be calm.

The bowl hadn't come out of its newsprint wrapping, so I didn't see at first the jagged chip in the scalloped edge. I thought the bowl I meant to give you and your bride on your wedding day would have a story of a trip to Sedona, the place of childhood memories and family reunions both happy and sad. Instead its story is of a rust colored cat, mischievous, primal and innocent.

Dear Brother, I hope you like the fondu set.

Sometimes fur flies

Sometimes you feel like a cuddle...
Sometimes you don't...

Hi Ho, Hi Ho

Belle's expression captures my mood this morning. One could say she's my emotional doppleganger.

And thus ends the pity party. I'm moving forward and it's going to be great!

Sorry about the whining, folks, but it's all over now.

Wanted: This state of mind always

Cocktails and appetizers take on a decadent quality in a garden at sunset with a cheery fire during the last hours of one's charmed vacation. This is my parents' garden overlooking the bay from the Oakland hills. This is the garden which is being turned into Mom's Slice of Provence. This is the home of lizards, spiders, skunks, deer, birds, butterflies and possibly a puma, which keep Katie dancing on her toes, ears perked up and tail swishing. This is why Mr Hands and I smell like a campfire this morning. This is where we dined on poached salmon, roasted corn, fresh fresh fresh green beans and a wild rice pilaf. This is where we drug ourselves away, reluctantly and sleepily, to go home across the bay at midnight. This is the picture that captures the mood of my summer, the mood I wish dearly to hold on to when I return to the hustle and bustle of that other state of being called work.

Here's to that happening.
Cheers,
Shane Marie

Things I discovered today

In the Garden

This one is cheating a bit, because I found this guy in my potted geranium a few weeks ago and a friend helped me figure out the macro feature on my camera so I could take his/her picture. But, it's sort of relevant, because he/she may now be one of the following two visitors:
A flitterby on my lantana. Actually, this is perhaps a moth?
Butterfly on my lantana. She's come around before, but I've never been swift or acrobatic enough to catch her with my camera.
A lizard moved into my rock garden! Above is his sunroom... below is his den:*

In My Kitchen
Tucked away in the towel-and-bread-tie drawer is the wishbone from Thanksgiving's turkey. Well, so that's where you've been all these eight and a half months! I knew I kept you safely tucked away for... for what, actually? I guess so I could find you today.

In My Life
I'm barely looking forward to starting work on Monday. I'll be happy to see the students and my colleagues, but the parents and paperwork can fester in a damp smelly leech field. I feel pretty hostile about it, actually. I should probably examine that at some point, but I only have 65.5 hours left of vacation and I'd rather not.

*Why is the butterfly "she," the lizard "he," and, really strangely, the caterpillar is he/she?? Why can't the English language have a neuter third person singular pronoun? And in other grammatical beefs, can you see the punctuation snafu on this plant identification tag?