through these glasses

earworms

last night i had dreams of owning an ancient blue pickup truck. ...that could fly. and getting a black eye the shape of vermont. and that poor miss kitty got stuck in the kitchen sink drain. because sink drains, as everyone knows, are shaped and function like the ones in the curbs on the streets that go to the sewer system. and a cat CAN get stuck in one of those. (well, either she was stuck, or the logo for the musical "cats" was alive and living on the side of my kitchen sink, blinking at me. (i'm not sure which option is more disturbing) and then i woke up with a tune running through my head. it took me a few hours to be distressed that i was intermittently singing "haha, hehe, hoho." i thought it was just a variation on the laughing yoga therapy i'd read about yesterday, until i realized the refrain to the earworm i was stuck with was: "happy place where life is beautiful all the time" uh oh. i'm not sure i should be grateful or not. for a brief moment in time, it displaced the earworm i've been stuck with since watching the kenedy center honor's musical tribute to mel brooks. while the tune is lilting and catchy in a beautiful sort of way, there is just something disturbing about humming over and over and over a line whose corresponding words are 'springtime for hitler and germany'

starting in the middle

Snarky and Catty. In the years to come, that is the part of our very special bravo reality tv wannabe pilot earlier today I will use for coctail fodder. (I will gloss over the help and moral support they provided, not to mention the Asti, just to needle them)

"yeah that's not really working for me. What else do you have?"

"I don't like that tshirt, you should put it back. Grab a white one instead."

"don't you have a little black dress to bring with?"

"yes! And heels! You have to be wearing heels when he sees you for the first time."

"ok the t is better, but now the skirt is  too matchy matchy. What are our other options?"

"what about pants. Which pants are you bringing? ... really? just jeans... Huh..."

"ok, where's that other tshirt? The one we just told you we didn't like? If youre insisting on jeans, we want that one back now."

"no you may not check a bag!! It'll fit. Let me do it."

"that's it! You are no longer my amazing race partner. We'd need to be running out the room in the morning and you'd need to go back for your makeup? And hair product?!"

*****

Imconcievably, I finished packing without pitching either one of them out the second story window and made it to the airport early. (with no checked bag)

Uncharacteristicly, I did so without the pålæg chokolade I'd written myself a note to remember, and without a memory card in my camera.

I'm on a Sun country flight bound for San Francisco. I have been trying to get to San Fran off and on since 1995, so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that I'm finally going. What is a surprise is that the trip was planned last week. Which skims deftly over the deeper meaning of the trip like a dragonfly skittering across the surface of minnesota lake in august. I'm going to see the man the first boy who ever told me he loved me grew into. It's been 27 years since we first met on the shores of lake morgan at a summer camp tailor made for the kids of danish immigrant parents. It's been 25 years since I last saw him off from a train platform in Milwaukee. And yet... and yet... in the past two months, a fairly innocent facebook reconnection has taken on a life of its own. It's not as if we've been passive participants. 1800 emails and hours and hours of phone and video conferencing time would rat us out if ever we tried peddling that version of events. But with acceleration worthy of a 1968 red mustang (my go to dream car answer and his real life first car), we went from polite 'what have you been up to in the last quarter century' filling in, through a rediscovery of our status as confidants and right into courtship.

I should be nervous.

I should, in fact, be petrified.

Without the acid chemistry test of an in person meeting, we've begun crafting the story of our future. We've plotted the outlines of where we would choose to live next. together. We've been up front about concerns we are extrapolating the past into the present and near future. But though it seems seeds were sown back then, it truly doesn't feel like we are on some power trip back in time to reconnect with our teenage selves. Which is good, because My teenage self isn't famous for her good judgment.

I do not have a history of picking emotionally available, adoring partners who simultaneously make my toes curl from 1500 miles away. I have a history of picking the pretty boy who ends up running for the hills when I show any sign of needing more, or the bad boy who ends up tossing me across a hotel room in the middle of the night.

but the preppy boy who knew how to speak from the heart as a teenager? Not likely my type...

Yet if it's at all in my power, I pick him now.

"I love you"

"I love you too; see you on the flip side"

Those were the words we exchanged as I boarded the plane that will take me to see him for the first time in almost 25 years. That we fell in love at warp speed through prose and stolen phone calls without once laying eyes on one another in the flesh seems odd to even me. But I can't deny that is exactly what happened.

Stolen phone calls? You caught that, did you?

Yes, well, in any good love story there must be strife to overcome, a proverbial dragon to slay begore the star crossed lovers can have their happily ever after. You'd think the 25 years would be enough, but no. Just to be difficult, we decided to do it as his marriage was falling apart and I was actively job hunting in Copenhagen and hoping to move abroad for a year or two.

That should make me nervous.

He should be campaigning for me to ditch my plans. Or be making excuses for why he loves me more, but will choose to stay with her for the sake of their kid.

Oh, right. that... I forgot that little detail too didn't I?

Matters not. He has said more right things to me in the last month then I've heard in all my life. I have every reason to doubt him and no inclination to do so in the least.

So here I sit, half dozing with an hour and a half to go before we touch down, and instead of fretting, I want to nap. Me. The poster child for insomnia. Wants to nap....

Catch you on the flip side...

[one hour later. I've slept a bit, but not much. Though it's pitch black outside, I look out the window anyways, not expecting to see much because a lifetime if nighttime flights has yielded afforded precious few views. Impossibly bright and larger than life outside my window is the big dipper. Facebook status updates of days gone by (before we were being careful) would tease details of stargazing. In point of fact, there was a time not too long ago that he was off for a long weekend where there would likely be no blackberry service. That it would translate to a possible 4 days with no contact, was more than we could handle, so we hatched a plan to simultaneously across time zones go out once a night and look at the big dipper. Secure in the knowledge that at least for those few minutes we'd be together, he took off for parts unknown (or, you know, Oregon...), where we were pleasantly surprised with full blackberry service.  Still... We went out each night at the appointed time to stargazer together just as we had that night long long ago and far far away.

The Hereafter is crooning at me through my headphones

"let's pretend that we are young again
"a drink for all the memories you keep"
"believe me when I say I love you dear. Believe me when I tell you not to fear.
That autumn morning everyhting was clear. Believe me when I tell you not to fear."
"a dollar for the country that I knew. A dollar for an afternoon with you."

Is that you universe? Telling me not to fret the turbulence I'm quite literally experiencing right now, much less the turbulence we will not doubt face in the coming year as everything is turned topsy turvy and katywampus before it's reorganized into what it's supposed to be.

I hear you.

missing link to my misspent youth

file under: "letters I wish i could address, put in a mailbox and have arrive to be read over a cup of coffee while van morrison plays in the background." ...in an alternate universe, i'd be able to send this and get a reply.

dear nj,

i keep meaning to thank you for floating the simon & garfunkel central park cd to the top of a random pile of cds i grabbed for a longer than normal car ride. a supernatural nudge is the only explanation i have for why it was in my car's cd player after more than a decade's absence when kodak announced the end of kodachrome in june. in a moment of synchronicity that may well turn out to be one of the most serendipitous linchpins i've ever expereinced, kodachrome was actually playing just before i switched from cd to radio to catch some npr. and heard the news. and started daydreaming about long ago days at a summercamp not far from here. thanks to facebook, i actually found some long-losts from those days gone by. and for whatever reason, was moved to ping them this time (typically i'll locate, but chicken out when push comes to clicking send). you'd approve that the musical boy with the heart of gold and I have renewed our acquaintance. you'd wink at me when i paused then, and ask "and then some?" "i sink so" i'd mock, not capturing a fraction of the spot on danglish accent you can employ at will.

in other news, I know you'll shake your head at me, but i was canceled on again today. the old gang is bbqing on saturday. The fickle one had rsvpd, but called to say something else ("better" would be my word, though not his) had come up. I know this comes as no more a surprise than any of the other times he's let me down. I've known your opinion (yet after the whole clauster frak, i will never ever, no, not ever let him know what i know) forever, yet still try to give the benefit of the doubt. i know, i know, when will i ever learn, right? actually, i think i have. otherwsie i have no explanation for why it didn't even surprise or bother me. mostly, i'm thinking that as i'm the communicator, i'm going to have to gear up for a potentially awkward conversation. the alternative would be letting the friendship fade like  photo left in the sun too long. We both know that isn't who i am. So since I know there was more in the halting conversational silences than could be explained by the topics covered, it's pretty much up to me to start talking the talk. hollywood seems to think he's nursing an unspoken crush. I don't agree. I think he just needs to know that someone new for me doesn't mean he's my yesterday's newspaper. I am not a pie whose slices need to be measured to see who is most important to me. ok, fine. maybe i am. if so, i'm deciding i'm clementine-lime pie with a nice pecan graham cracker crust.

Yes, I have the recipe. Yes, I'll make it before I stop over for our next eftermiddagskaffe.

hej så længe, makker...

cringeworthy

If life is a box of chocolates, maybe it follows that the rest of our existence also corresponds to food. Work as a broccoli salad. the loud housecat experience as one of those irritating whistlepops. weekend getaway with the tribe is a nine and a half sushi roll...

...and the box of old correspondence i'm collecting from every corner of the house to one central location (seriously though? what is that about? it's like i've been channeling the spirit of some pack ratty squirrel who didn't want to put all of his nut supply in one location for fear it would be poached by the lazy next tree neighbor squirrel) is a bag of bertie bott's every flavor beans. they all look tasty and sweet on the outside. And after eating a handful (cherry flavored notes describing a dear friend's first 1980s visit to my favorite outdoor sculpture garden, garbanzo bean flavored holiday greeting, a pecan pie one from a southern boy we'd long forgotten, dozens of minty fresh missives from the era's best gal-pal, and tangy citrus ones from the sweet boy with the heart of a poet), it's tempting to forget they're "every flavor" beans. earwax is lurking in there somewhere. 

And then there it is, that one with a foreign postmark you don't even remember getting. You have a nagging thought you should just file it into the summercamp folder and move on. but oh no, that would be too easy. If you did that, you'd miss out on being transported back to a cringe-worthy time when the object of your first summer puppy love broke up with you in the space of two paragraphs. While the icing on the cake may have been that he actually threw in the trite "let's just leave it at friends, ok?" line, that cake is decorated with candied irony flowers: when we reconnected 20 years later, we managed exactly that. 

in an alternate universe...

...you were with us as we packed up the car and drove north to pick up his parents. Of course you stole the scene by bonding over fly fishing, but I didn't mind. On the short walk to the riverfront, you grabbed my hand. After we'd staked out our spot, we took a walk down the crowded riverwalk, stopping to appreciate the throwback trio of street musicians. You especially appreciated the banjo; I said I preferred the stand up bass, but just to be contrary. Either way, their high energy, toe tapping performance and an impromptu do-si-do helped while away the hours we had to wait before the big ooooh aaaaah.

Last year, the brand-master corporate sponsor handed out 3D style paper glasses that turned the show into a bonanza of miniature logos across the night sky. This year, it was light-up red yoyos. You laughed as we raced to master the troublesome toys.

"Mine's broken!" complained Big Ten.

"Gee, mine's working great now that I've broken it in." she mocked, and then added "let me try yours."

She retied the loop on the defective yoyo into a slipknot and proceeded to have little trouble with it, though it didn't light up as spectacularly as hers had.

"Seems fine to me :-P "

Of course Stacy won. She is a fierce competitor, and a force to be reckoned with where yoyos are concerned.

At 10pm sharp, the first burst of light tore across the night sky. As we settled in for the show, my hand made its way across the chasm between our chairs and interlaced its fingers into yours.

There's nothing I love more than the perfect fireworks show...

revisiting the big 4-oooh, part 2

Vacation update, part the second, wherein our heroine does indeed return home more or less in one piece, but manages to keep finding danger. 

After a sleepless night with my frenemy google to give me immediate access to all global, urchin-related horror stories, and no end in sight to the reinvigorated pain, I was seriously freaked out. Saturday morning, I discovered the difference between girlfriends with girlparts and girlfriends with boyparts. My girlfriends who are actually boys all agreed that the best thing to do was ride it out. (not a one of them thought it might be a good idea to see an actual doctor, either there or here). The real-girl among them turned out to be the sole voice of reason. 

That morning, her voice tinged with horror, she yelped “why didn’t you tell me about this yesterday when I talked to you from LA?! I would have met you at the airport and brought you to the ER!!! Find your insurance card. We’re going to urgent care.” 

My feeble protests of “how urgent can it be? It happened a week ago?” were met first with silence, then with “We’re going. Right. Now.” She might now be my mom, but she sure used that mom-voice you dare not disobey on me. 

I’m pretty sure I would have been even more entertaining at the ER had my stressed out body not given into a raging sinus infection which in turn triggered a migraine of biblical proportions. Still, I'm guessing I gave that doctor the best cocktail party story ever. 

He walked into the room reading my chart, paused, looked up at me, looked back down at my chart and then deadpanned: “I understand you fell into an, um, bed of sea urchins in the south pacific *dramatic pause* twice...”  

*insert crickets here*  

“Why?” he asked, with that drawn-out yyyyy that can only say ‘you look like a smart human being that would ordinarily stay out of harm’s way. What gives?’ 

I left with scripts for a cocktail of antibiotics and prednisone to speed the healing process (they seemed to only slightly relieve the swelling and redness) and vicodin for the pain. By the end of the day, I regained limited use of my hands again, which was a welcome relief. 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t smart enough to realize I probably shouldn’t be mixing all of that with champagne. 

Later that night at a "surprise! you can't run away for your birthday and not expect us to lay in wait for you to celebrate anyways even if it's a week later" dinner, my friends put a 40 candle-bedecked cake in front of a tipsy, jet-lagged, sleep-deprived girl having her first experience on vicodin. At the end of our dinner out Saturday night, I may have, perhaps, just a little bit, set my hair on fire blowing the candles out. 

Just a little bit!! but still... FIRE!!!!

So much for the perfect vacation in paradise, huh? i guess the universe was telling me turning 40 isn't anything compared to celebrating with pointy, slightly poisonous, sea creatures. given the option, i'm picking 40 over the urchins.... 

and a footnote, just in case you ever find yourself just off the coast of a beautiful island in the south pacific: Leave sea urchins alone! Don’t swim with shoes on! (and for good measure: keep all flammable parts of you away from open flames!)

revisiting the big 4-oooh, part 1

Vacation update, part the first, in which our heroine does indeed flee to Bora Bora to try and out-run the big Four-OH-my-gawd-how-can-I-be-this old, only to realize there are worse things than birthdays. AKA, the one where I save the day, but lose the battle. twice. 

Paradise was indeed beautiful and I couldn't have asked for better weather (80s and mostly sunny each day). The scenery is like nothing I’ve experienced anywhere. (blows what I’ve seen of mexico, the canary islands, greece and the red sea out of the proverbial water) There was, however, a bit of a mishap on day four. Actually, it was hour one of day one on Bora Bora (aka birthday eve), where we were slated to stay for four days on a remote, private island with no electricity, phones, etc. It was supposed to be the ultimate unplugged from reality experience. I have been trying to nutshell it, but it is a story that refuses to fit into such a small case, so here goes... (you may want to go grab a drink, cup of tea, or a snack. It’s a long one... If you don’t have time to read, just scroll to the bottom for a look at what is now officially on my “do not party with” list for all time)

"Best birthday idea ever!" I squealed to my travel-buddy, roommate 2.0, as we waded into Bora Bora's lagoon from our private island getaway. We were happy we'd sprung for reef shoes–the coral reef underfoot was more sharp than sandy. I'd soon become painfully aware of just how sharp it was. I called out I was going in to swap shoes for flippers so I could swim. While I was gone, he tried swimming to the next island over and got caught in a swirling current. Luckily, I’d already gotten back into the water when he started calling for help. Unluckily, I was at least 20' from shore and had flippers on my feet. He was repeatedly yelling quite frantic things like "i'm gonna die! help! get the boat!" which isn't exactly the soundtrack a girl wishes to hear any time, much less at the edge of the earth with only one other living being remotely nearby. (another time, i may wax poetic on the alternate universes that no doubt split off at this moment in time. Because for the life of me, I can’t understand just why he thought it was a good idea to swim alone, through unknown waters with his reefshoes on when i was back in the hut we were renting ... or why he didn’t kick the shoes off so he wasn’t trying to swim and getting fatigued because shoes become little lead weights in the water ... or why it never came up while we were planning a SNORKELING vacation that he’s never had formal swimming lessons!!! Or why he, moments before, remarked to the Proprietor that he’s a strong swimmer) Thank god I came out with my flippers to join him in the water when I did. I’d backed through the shallows until I got to a point where I could turn around and swim towards where I saw him (he didn’t seem in danger at this point, I guess mostly because he was disoriented and facing the wrong island looking for me). When I got halfway out to him, he reoriented, saw me, and started the aforementioned screaming bloody murder for help. 

For the record, I have had LOTS of swimming & lifesaving classes. He's got a good 7 inches and 50 pounds on me. I can’t get out of him if he’s been bitten or stung, trapped in some way, or cramped up. No way I'm going anywhere near him without the help of the kayak that’s lazing in the shade under our hut-on-stilts back on shore. so.... I swam back in as far as I could, but still had a good 20 feet of shallow water to get through to reach dry land. have you ever tried running in flippers? not so much... so I took them off to go faster, unfortunately, I was then running bare foot over a knife-sharp coral reef. 

You think you know where this is going now, don’t you? HA! 

I DID cut my right foot on the reef! (but wait, there’s more!) In the process of falling, I ended up careening right into a colony of black, long-spined sea urchins. While I’d given them a wide berth, apparently 3 feet isn’t enough space to leave when you’re 5’9”. As I was falling face first into them, I opted to put my hands down to save my face (and eyes!!!) but that left me only one good leg/foot with which to regain balance and get the heck out of there. Sadly, my water yoga isn’t what it could be, because I then fell backwards into them. So now both hands/arms and a good portion of my back are covered in sea urchin spines and my left foot is bleeding. (and i’m not even the one in trouble!) 

Finally, I do make it to the path by our hut, but I can’t pull the kayak out to go save roommate 2.0 alone, because my human pin cushion hands are on FIRE!! and swelling by the moment. (and the yelling? it’s continuing, getting more and more urgent sounding)

So now I’m forced to run my bleeding foot over a carpet of pine needles, crushed shells & small rocks to the other side of the island calling for the proprietor’s help. (to add color to the story, imagine a late 60s, rotund Polish Frenchman who speaks only halting English, and who, we later discover, gets through each day with a serious one-two punch of a waterglass full of vodka at lunch followed by bottles of wine throughout the afternoon and evening. Thank god we were at the beginning of his drinking day. Though he ran out to hear what all the yelling was about covered only in a traditional tahitian scarf wrapped into shorts (wasn't he just wearing a pair of khaki cargo shorts & buttoned down shirt?), he was quick to act.

After we ran back to the kayak, Proprietor-man handed me his satellite phone (which I promptly drop into the ocean. See hand injury, above), and fell the first time he tried getting into the kayak. Thankfully, he did manage to right himself quickly, paddle out to my drowning friend (whose cries have now escalated to a raspy “HURRY!” over and over again. “Dude!” I'm thinking, “save your breath!”) The roommate was able to grab onto the kayak and get towed back to shallower water where he could walk himself to shore. 

He is fine. 100% unscathed, though still reeling a bit from the whole experience. (he commented after we got back that he’d had a fleeting moment where he almost stopped the whole struggle for life thing and just gave in to the drowning. It was a compelling option right up until he had a mental visual of me saving him from the sea, only to kill him with a kayak paddle... 

I wouldn’t have used a kayak paddle. I think I may have used some well positioned sea urchins... Or the flippers he eschewed.. 

Unfortunately, sea urchin spines can't be pulled back out of you once they're in (pretty much all of them – I lost count at 120-something – broke off a millimeter or two below the surface), and they're slightly toxic to humans... (have you ever tasted sea urchin? I hadn’t, but can now confirm that all those nasty spines are protecting a tasty tasty treat). “Dr” proprietor-man gave me some fresh lemon juice to dab on them, and also some mystery pain pills left over from the last time his back went out, and suggested I just wait it out. “First hour, most bad. Very very painful. Very. After that, one weeks, maybe two, and all gone. Ok, three probably. But body will fix, the blood she carry them away.” 

Though he was right that the first hour(s) were the worst (adrenaline is a powerful thing, it took me almost a half hour to pass out from the pain), I think islandman's guesstimate on just how long that pain would last was based on having one or two sea urchin spine hitchhikers. The first three days were the worst. I couldn't hold my camera or any of the books/magazines I’d brought with, couldn’t swim, couldn’t pick anything up at all actually (All hail ipod touch! I can turn you on and navigate around with my unscathed pinky fingers, and watch the three movies I’d brought with, over, and over, and over again). I lived day and night in a two piece suit that would never have seen the light of day in the northern hemisphere, and rinsed off in the ocean because my frankenstein-hands were of no real use to me. (imaging your wrists/hands ringing with that sensation you get when you knock your funny bone. Now multiply it by 100 or so and have it last for over a week. And just for good measure, toss in white-hot, searing, shooting pain any time any sort of pressure befalls an area where spines are (or now, are dissolving). Reflexes, I’ve discovered, make you drop anything you are trying to hold when the hand encounters that sort of sensation. I’m sure it’s meant to protect us from touching dangerous things. Ha! Not me! 

The actual birthday was a day after the urchin misadventure. We had an 8 hour boat cruise / snorkeling adventure / open air picnic scheduled that would take us all the way around the main island of Bora Bora. I am nothing if not stubborn, I discovered. I soldiered on through the cruise (thank you mystery painpills!). I even made it into the water with the rays a couple of times, I think out of pigheadedness alone. (it’s surprisingly hard to climb a ladder up out of the water using only the crook of your elbows...) Luckily, the rest of the vacation was supposed to be all about relaxing, which is good, because the most strenuous thing I could handle was sitting quietly in the sun. We pulled a plastic lounge chair (and by we, I mean the roommate, because I couldn’t even pick up or hold a magazine, much less pull a lounge chair anywhere) into the shallows for me so I could chill out with the waves lapping on me. Beautiful place to convalesce to be sure. 

(dad has interjected here that it was a good thing I had the roommie along since he had to do/carry everything for me for the rest of the trip. I am quick to point out that without him, I. Would. Not. Have. Needed. A. Sherpa!!! Still, we did manage to enjoy the rest of our time on Bora Bora, that one day lost to a scene out of the english patient notwithstanding: light diffused from the mosquito netting canopy I so wisely procured from REI the day before we departed, I drifted in and out trying to keep a stiff upper lip. There isn’t any sense whimpering for mom when she’s on the other side of the globe (fretting, as it turns out), and our only means of communication has been rendered inoperable because of the seawater it ingested, thanks to my dropping it in the lagoon)

After Bora bora, it was off to Moorea, the island next to Tahiti. We’d sprung for one of the overwater bungalows you see in French Polynesia  travel pictures for our last two nights. I have never been so happy to see a proper hotel in my life. Air conditioning! Minibar! Pool! Concierge! Bar!!!! It was the most luxurious place I’ve ever been. If I could have, I would have stayed in that pool 24/7. As it was, I only got out and toweled off 15 minutes before the cab came to fetch us for the first of our return flights home. A small 18-seater flew us back to Tahiti that evening. It was the first of three flights over the next 24 hours or so, and the best of the bunch, lasting a cool 10 minutes.  

The altitude/pressure changes on the 8 hour flight from Tahiti to LAX and then the 3+ hour flight from LAX to MSP trigged all sorts of re-swelling of the hands and ratcheted up the PAIN (!!) factor again. (most of the spines in my back had by then dissolved, leaving one particularly nasty one right below the shoulder blades. You know that spot you recline against when you’re sitting down? Yeah. That one...) 

We were back in MN by 10 pm Friday night, which should be the end of the tale.... Almost. Not quite...

the ghost of new years past

No one is expected to remember what they did on any given January 31. There's no big pressure to ring in February, or June, for that matter, so spectacularly that you remember it through the ages. It seems random to me that we restart the year in the beginning of a season -- and a cold, hibernating one at that. I think the old Roman tradition of starting the year in March makes much more sense (and no, not just because it's my birthday month!). So this year, I vowed to ignore new year's eve and be a hermit for the evening. I downloaded the first season of "Mad Men" from itunes, and planned on having popcorn and ice cream for dinner. alone, thank you very much. 

Still, when I tried explaining my avoidance to some friends I was challenged on past new year's eves. Haven't some of them made for great segments in my own personal highlights reel? yeah.... i rang in 1980 in denmark falling for a boy as he lit off fireworks to impress me, and i still can't get him out of my system. i said hello to 1986 with my best friend of all time in a denny's with hot fudge sundaes and french fries - possibly the world's two most perfect foods. i saw the ball in times square at some point in the 1990s. 2007 was ushered in at a posh club with VIP treatment and a group of groovy hipsters. on the flipside, there was 2001, which started with a personal fireworks display that only ended 4 days later when the wasband walked out in the middle of dinner, never to return. 2003, when i realized the significant other of the moment would rather spend the evening with the guys than me. or 2008, which began with a misguided attempt to create levity that nearly cost me one of my dearest friends. 

I guess new year's is really just more of the same mixed bag of tricks the rest of the year has up its sleeve...

there's all dead, and then there's mostly dead

On Tuesday, the display portion of my laptop ceased functioning. spectacularly. it wasn't enough that it stopped displaying what it ought to, it took it a step further and showed me a collection of technicolor stripes stacked on a field of white instead. Even crashing, a mac is prettier than a pc....

Later that night, I got a call from the genius at my local apple store. He'd fixed it! already! huzzah! so even though it wasn't supposed to be back to me until today, I got to go pick it up yesterday morning first thing. I was so relieved it wasn't anything calamitous, I bought an external harddrive and the new OS & vowed to go right home after work and start backing up my data (which hasn't been backed up in, you know, a few months...). Then I could install jaguar so I too could take advantage of timemachine and never fret about lost data again.

It worked for approximately 7 hours. Just long enough to back up my client files (thank you universe for waiting to kick me until at least that much was saved), and then died. today's genius confirmed my feared diagnosis: fried hard drive.

sigh....

The replacement part isn't in stock, so I will be lucky if I get her back by christmas.

seriously?

ok universe, you got anything else you want to do to me? I'm down. i've been kicked. and now you've thrown sand in my eyes.

when traditional doesn't work, go for ecclectic

This year I was going to grinch out on Christmas. I have a home office where my tree usually goes. I can't really take the time to unpack and repack the hoards of christmas decorations that usually go up when I'm in the midst of sorting, purging and simplifying the contents of the house for a spring sale. Nonexistent freelance work means a radically different approach to presents (making, not buying) this year. etcetera. etcetera. etcetera....

and then...

The time came for an annual Danish holiday luncheon I started with a dear college friend and her "Year Abroad in Denmark" cohort. It's one thing to volunteer to bring the shrimp salad, and makings for various other traditional sandwiches. It's quite anoher to blithely respond to an email inquiry "what about cookies? should we have cookies? with an "I think I have time to make some."

Growing up, the house had the warmth of Mrs. Claus's kitchen for all of December (and most of November). Turning up the heat and lighting a few gingerbread candles works wonders for some instant ambience. But nothing warms a house to the bones like tray after tray of vanilla, ginger and chocolate cookies coming out of the oven. Apparently, you can't make cookies in December without music, and if there's one thing I have, it's holiday music. iTunes tells me I could go 40 hours and 34 minutes without a repeat (though i'd have to listen to all 18 versions of O Holy Night, The Christmas Song, White Christmas & Silent Night along the way). So with the baking, I tried all the usual go-to tracks: Barbra, Burl & Bing didn't inspire any singalongs in the kitchen. Dean, Sammy & Frank? Pass the martini, and pass on the feliz in my navidad.

Wouldn't you know; somewhere between Straight No Chaser's version of The 12 Days of Christmas and a polka about Santa, I started finding my spirit. I guess this year's holiday message is "when tradition fails, go for witty comedy and an accordian"