One last mad splash as the old year grinds to a savage close. Winter weather, fog, cat asleep in her usual perch in the closet.
What will the new year bring? Isn’t that a terrifying notion intermixed with some actual wonder.
That’s it. Have a happy new year and if you have to work, sigh a lot. I intend to.
It’s snowing. The huge storm predicted actually arrived over half of my state.
Yesterday was a hell day at work, starting with me spinning about on some ice. As in my car spun about like a big deadly sled. Just bumped against the curb, no damage but still…and then work turned out to be hellish, crushing and gut-punching but hey, normal in these modern times and olden times and times not named. Huzzah.
I am not sleeping that well. Probably why I’m up writing this little blurby thing.
It’s already been a long December. Winter has arrived here in Eastern Oregon and I suspect plans to stay around. We usually get a bit of snow, it melts, it’s spring.
Going back to bed. I’ll put on an old comfy movie and wake up later on to marvel at the snow level outside. Don’t have to go anywhere, or be anywhere and what a nice sensation that is.
Hope your December is going better than mine. I haven’t even put up any decorations nor really plan to. I might wrap a garland or something about the cat just to be festive and because it would annoy her.
Writing-wise. I have been submitting a bit but am just taxed out that way right now. Might need to take a break, paint rocks or knit, something else that’s not writing. I feel crushed and untalented and unable to produce anything but dreck. Normal writer stuff, right? Yeah.
I might need some Hallmark Christmas fare to perk me up. My depression has been slapping me about lately, compounded by shitty job. Might be why I’m only sleeping in about three to four hour blocks, if that. Might be end of year doldrums where you just wanna stay in bed drifting along, rather numb and used up.
But hey, got paid. I might order those avocado green platform boots because you only get one life something something. And because they’re avocado green. There’s that, too. That’s 70’s shade that so delights the eyes. Mine, at least.
Snowy night. All is quiet and hushed. The dogs and the cat are snoozing away. Should I make myself some coffee or actually just go back to bed? I don’t have to chance the roads of death tomorrow to get to work by seven. I can stay up all night not writing and try to take a nap, feeling guilty I’m not producing magical works of art that will lift me out of poverty and despair…
Geez.
This is our fourth or fifth snow, by the way. Winter might be a bad one this year. Or good, depending on your view of snow and needing it for that decades-long drought hereabouts.
I have books out. I have short stories in many an anthology. I have people doing my plays. I have stuff out there. I’ll end this ramble there. I have stuff out there.
Welp, had to drive to work yesterday in fog so dense I nearly drove off the road, twice. Fun.
It finally rained here in Oregon East. An actual rain. We plunged into near winter temps! It might snow in the valleys! Nah, not yet but winter wants to pounce.
I want to enjoy Halloween and all its orange, black and sparkly glory, but the American midterm elections throw a giant moist pall over everything. Moister than moist. Dripping wet with racism, sexism, fascism and all the other crappy isms imaginable and then some. Who is taking all these polls? It does not seem to reflect anything but what is expected– that the Gross Old Perverts sweep everything and Biden gets made to look like a doddering, shitting himself in public, gibbering fool. Um? And yet so many people registering to vote and yet…mmm.
I just want this all over so I can start breathing again and plan accordingly. Do I still live in a ‘free’ country or do I have to practice my salutes, wave a flag with savage frantic grins plastered across my frozen face? Shout randomly, in public, about eagles and freedom and no more open borders? We don’t have open borders, what the fuck is that noise?
Idaho, by the way, is almost an Ida-don’t go there, stay away, avoid avoid avoid. We do have scary states here in ‘murica and that is becoming one of the scariest.
The Aryan Nations that used to be a joke, who used to live under rocks and only appear if you whispered something overtly racist near an open sewer…have now virtually taken over that state. It’s sad and tragic and awful. Aryan Nations meets QAnon nonsense, has weird disgustingly awful sex, produces a mutant baby and here we are!
And my state, by the way, has a trumpian Gross Old Pervert running for guvvie. I just. No. No!
I do have scary movies lined up, as the midterms causes eye twitches, drooling, screaming when a leaf drops from a tree too near me. It’s tense here, y’all. Tense. Golly, vote for sane people or batshit trumpfucks? I mean no offense to actual bats, who just wish to live their bat lives in peace.
I have had a few acceptances roll my way, but mostly, lately, it’s been rejection city. Sigh.
Need to sacrifice something to Satan, I guess. Maybe he’ll accept an IOU? Will hand over the flies stuck to the fly strip. They’re already dead and am just gonna toss that strip otherwise. Why be wasteful? Satan? Hello?
Oh, my fellow babies and compatriots for this thing called life– it’s the happiest month of the year. For me. Cause. Halloween.
Pumpkins. Pumpkin patches.
Ghosts and goblins and ghouls, oh my.
Creaky vampire movies with capes and crosses.
American Werewolf in London time!
The weather cooling the frack down.
The Halloween baking competition with its black garlic cupcakes and four-layer oozing lime basil cake with Italian buttercream something or other. Make entire scary scenes from cake, pumpkins, rice crispy treats and sugar work!
Oh yes, oh please, amen.
I have pumpkins about ready to be plucked. I have gourds. I want to make bread.
I feel energized and ready to watch scary movies with all the lights off.
I have the original Night of the Living Dead tucked away. There’s a compulsion within to find the DVD and WATCH IT the old-fashioned way. On my television through a DVD player. No streaming. No computer involved. Old-fashioned out the disc in, push play when prompted. With a big cup of ho-cho in hand.
Of course, it’s still rather hot here in the day. The nights have cooled off a bit. I now need at least a blanket. Kitters has even taken to napping a bit on me so it must be getting cold outside or she misses me as I’ve been working. I call my cat Kitters, though her official name is Jaws. As she showed up with a broken jaw a couple Halloween’s ago.
So. I hope TCM shows horror movies I’d like to watch. I hope hope hope they show the Abominable Dr. Phibes, with Vincent Price. Where he speaks only through a record. It’s so acid-trippy, weird and satisfying. I’m so glad no one has ever tried to remake this one. Why would you? It’s perfection. From that first scene with the bats to the bitter, bitter end. Dang. And there’s sequels, which I hear, are not as good but still. I will also probably watch the silent Swedish made up documentary on witches, because it’s just so good. Haxan or something like that. 1923 or hereabouts. It’s on Youtube. As are a lot of silent horror movies. Like M or the Cabinet of Dr. Caligaleri. [Spelling?]
Halloween month. It’s the happiest month of the year for me. From baking to horror movies I’ve seen a gazillion times already to new horror films I might discover. I do like discovering some offbeat, nobody’s heard of it, frightfest. Like the Blood on Satan’s Claw [Satanic children, 70’s] Or even something like Only Lovers Left Alive, with Tom Hiddleston as a mopey vampire. It’s a gorgeous film, by Jim Jarmusch, and also boasts a sparkly performance by Tilda Swinton. It’s as slow as frozen molasses and it’s not so much a horror movie as a test of your patience but hey, it might hit a sweet spot or two.
Hey, speaking of Halloween and spooky stuff and scary things…I have two recent novels out that deal with zombies and cannibal bikers. Yay!
Aftermath: Boise, Idaho— where Hannah kills herself to escape death by zombie horde only to wake up in a world run by sentient zombies.
There’s also The Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane, where three elderly sisters hiding out in a small Nevada town after a catastrophic world war nuclear event, become embroiled with the decimated cannibal biker gang that’s limped into Fallon.
There’s also Oregon Gothic. The opening tale, Bailey, is about what a real vampire is like and the costs of thwarting that vampire’s will. There’s also the necrophilia-smeared love story of Prince Charming Finds His Sleeping Beauty, which will be in an anthology coming out this year.
Halloween month. Pure joy filling my soul right now. Just pure happy wonderful joy.
September. It’s almost over. The weather here is finally cooling a bit. I’ve rescued the same toads from the dog pool many mornings now. The big one that squeaks at me if I handle it too much, the smaller ones that pretended they were frogs, so I’d leave them alone. That was when the water levels were much higher. I dug a giant hole to put the rubber tub into, and it has this valve that keeps turning so all the water leaks out. Why would you put such a valve into a tub designed to hold water? Oh sure, to drain it but still. It’s entirely too easy to brush against it and turn it the wrong way. I blame liberals for this. Is that how that works?
Snark, sarcasm and hissing gently from the shadows. That’s me!
Job? I don’t know. Nobody cares so let’s move on.
Road trip. I am going to go to Mountain Home, Id-eee-ho, for a literary event. I know!! It’s for the Whistle Pig Literary Magazine launch, held this year at the Mountain Home library. I even got myself a hotel room so I wouldn’t have that long drive back, in the dark, with the extra bright lights in my eyes. I probably need to go see the eye doctor about that…yikes.
Or just deal with it because, hey, who has insurance?
Rimshot! I’ll be here all week, try the chicken.
My story for the Whistle Pig is called Lovesmoke. I based it off a short play I wrote ages ago, about a nearly mute man who’s in love with his brother’s girlfriend. She just wants to get married, have a normal life as her boyfriend is about to lose everything due to bad cattle prices and the bottom falling out of that market. The brother in love goes about collecting rocks and such to sell at the various festivals in and around the Western states. If you’ve ever been to small town festivals, with booths– that’s the type of person Salinas is.
In my prose version, I set it in Weiser, Idaho, with the about to lose everything brother having already run off and the other brother crossing the Rubicon, so to speak, by declaring his love for Lily. It’s bittersweet and it seemed to write itself, once I found that balance between manipulative monster versus clumsy overtures of affection toward another. I sort of blended the two extremes of puppet master and hopelessly bad at romance tropes, so to speak. That happy medium? Eh.
I did play with having them end up together but it just didn’t gel, it just didn’t flow, it just didn’t…yeah.
Rewrote a short story in the last couple days, turned it from vague woman-empowered claptrap to murderous psycho monster baby claptrap. Wheee!!!! I also realized my lead character is the least of my three in that story. I need to, ahem, punch her up a bit. Or not. I also need to look at the ending. It might be awful or okay, depends on mood, weather, snack consumption and coffee levels. The title also needs changing. Willa and the Mist to perhaps Baby Lamb or The Graveyard Baby or something equally provocative. Two On A Meat Hook? I’d have to add a meat hook. Dang it!
I’ve been reworking short stories that keep getting rejected. It keeps me busy and out of prison, so that’s good.
That’s it.
Oh, for those panting to know– I have pumpkins. I also have three giant gourds growing away. I’m so excited! I researched and it said to wait for first frost to collect them. We are nowhere near a first frost. I’m also watching the pumpkins closely, looking for that all-over orange color. Still a bit green underneath. Small sugar pumpkins, for pies but still so gorgeous. I do love the color orange.
Halloween is close. I have a happy feeling somewhere close by. And then the drudge and stress of the ‘holidays’. All those damn turkeys to bake. God damn it. I’m already sick and tired of turkey. I just want to buy a bunch of frozen dinners, call it good from here until next January. Want a fancy meal? Here ya go– Hungry Man Salisbury steak!
Oh my, I should adjust accordingly, eh? Holiday season hasn’t even officially started yet. Not until Hallmark starts constant Christmas movie rotation BEFORE HALLOWEEN USUALLY. Notice that?? I noticed that last year. Syrupy cookie cutter movies that bring numbness and a sort of Zen blankness if you watch too many in a row. Lifetime, also, has a host of these things.
And the Halloween Baking contest is back. Happiness is oozing icing the color of infected flesh dripping down over a rotted pumpkin face chocolate cake. Or pies with top crusts that look like tortured human faces. Happiness and bliss.
June. It’s June. My birthday is soon. Can you do me a boon? Go take a gander at my book. I won’t rhyme anymore. It might make some of you darlings a bit sore.
I do believe the Kindle is $3.99.
THE ADVENTURES OF GRUMPY ODIN AND SEXY JESUS:
Odin knows better than to trust Newbie Jesus, in a borrowed flesh suit, but Jesus might actually deliver on getting back everyone Odin lost when God attacked the gods that came before him with holy fire. Maggie, head secretary to God, has a total crush on Odin, which lands her in unexpected very hot water with her rather smitey boss, as well as shove her down a path she never, ever saw coming. Poor Suzi finds out the very hard cost of loving a minion but there might be unexpected benefits that go along with her plight. Click and Clack might be holding onto some power that could come in handy during a batboy attack, and possibly useful to the only son of God. Add in some Karaoke Nites at the shared hangout of minions, secretaries and has-been magical riff-raff, along with secrets, betrayals, the Alvord Desert and a small stuffed rabbit, and you just might find yourself cheering for the Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus.
It’s the holiday season. I posted a mournful scream a few days ago. Now I’ll balance that with something a bit more cheery.
We are expecting snow here along the floors of the Eastern Oregon/Western Idaho valleys. A covering of white over the mud. Yes, please! Even if I have to drive in it for work, it doesn’t seem right if the end of the year doesn’t have that blanket of snow or snow falling or some sort of snowy snow happening or already happened. If that makes sense. I have a bit of Fireball whiskey in my coffee. A droplet, really.
My cat goes in and out, restless as a mini tiger. What a joy she is. I am so very glad I decided to keep her. I am grateful for this loving little beast who seems to utterly adore me. She went from slowly dying homeless refugee to cosseted spoiled lovebug. Stop and help an animal if you see one in trouble or distress.
I have stories placed here and there. That’s a nice feeling. That my work is ‘getting out there’. That slowly, so slowly, but surely, I am making some inroads writing-wise. There’s City Full of Rain, Gladys, Pig Bait, Elbow and Bean, Seffi and Des, Blood and Bread, Witch of the Highway, the Fish Whisperer, Everything You Need, Jimmy’s Jar Collection, Let There Be No Memories…I am forgetting one or two or several, but what a list for 2021. Submit, submit! is my battle cry for 2022.
I also put a novel out– The Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane, which is 99 cents over on Amazon through tomorrow, btw. Ahem, hint. I loved writing this. I love those three sisters I created– Lily, Violet and Laura. I adore the bikers that took shape in my head and oh yes, on the page. From Gut Bucket and Rosecheese to Amy Octopus and poor doomed Bluebird. I think the version that made it to final edits is the version closest to the one originally in my head. Sort of lighthearted doomsday fairy tale fare. Whee, indeed. I did have a very heavy, dense, savage version, but I think this go-around works so much better as a story and as a reading experience.
I do have a novel from last year I’ll blip about as well. Aftermath: Boise, Idaho. Yeah, it’s zombies but they’re sentient ones. Most of them are, anyway. It’s also 99 cents over on Amazon through tomorrow!! Ahem, ahem. This is Hannah’s tale. She kills herself rather than succumb to the zombies about to break down the door of the place she’s trapped in. But she wakes up in an office setting, with zombies for bosses, in some parallel existence, where she’s at a loss and disadvantage. However, being scrappy, pragmatic and mostly realistic, Hannah navigates somewhat successfully until she doesn’t. Her alter ego, the Hannah of the world she now finds herself in, seems to be some sort of spy for the resistance. There’s always a resistance. She messes up by killing her for-show boyfriend/one of the leaders of the resistance and it all snowballs from there, until Hannah finds herself fleeing the scene of many crimes, heading off into the Idaho wilds to take her chances.
Again, another novel I had such fun writing. I enjoyed making up slang and inventing this NWO as run by conservative zombies in pearls and business attire. I also toyed with explaining why Hannah fell through the time cracks, so to speak, but…it got clunky and stopped the story colder than a bowl of congealed brains. I also fiddled with several endings but decided on the one now as it seemed fair to Hannah and true to her character of a tough person just trying to survive the unimaginable.
Okay, I’ll keep this short. Happy holidays, however you celebrate or don’t. Don’t let what’s happening in the world or on your doorstep rob you of any joy or hope. Not just yet. New year comin’. Gird the loins, sharpen the knives, battles are comin’, woot woot.
“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”
― Shel Silverstein
Brigit, cowgirl extremis, wonderdog and all around great canine, went missing the other day. She occasionally takes off for cross-country adventures, sometimes with Molly gamely in tow. However, Brigit returns a couple hours or so after disappearing across the fields if someone turns their back a bit too long. She hates being cooped up in the yard and if she doesn’t get to go out, do stuff, she gets SUPERBORED AND SUPER-RESTLESS. Yes, she’s a Border Collie type of animal. Needs near constant stimulation and attention. I am thinking of getting her an actual sheep to keep her busy. Sort of kidding.
Anyhoo!!
She’s missing all afternoon. Up into the evening. It’s cold outside, baby. I mean down in the twenties. She lives in the house. She has short fur. I’m worried one of the farm trucks rushing to and fro hit her. There’s also the worry that the local coyotes led her somewhere and turned on her. Or that someone grabbed her and took her home. Or that…all the worries you get when your pet goes missing.
However, this is not a sad tale of a pet lost or a pet found smashed on the road. The evening drew nigh. I, having worked a graveyard, settled in on the couch to watch Hallmark fare and see if Brigit showed up at the door. I opened the door to check, yet again, for Miss Bridge. We’d all looked for her. Drove around the neighborhood, walked miles in the mud. Did I mention how muddy it is here this week?
She slinks into the house, wet, alive and exhausted. Very much alive. Not hurt. Thirsty. I squeal. A high-pitched OMG shriek. Brigit is home. I repeat, Brigit is home. Yay!!!!!! The sheer relief alone. Coming back from work just days before, I had noticed a dead dog and a car pulling up alongside it, with people getting out to gather up their pet…and I wish they’d gotten a happy ending instead of that. I know that scenario. Where you find your beloved companion dead or dying. That helpless grief that you can’t make that pet better. And how big a hole their leaving rips in the very fabric of your being.
Okay.
It’s the eve before the eve of Christmas. The troops are gathering to wage their final two assaults on the season, of course. The War on Christmas commences! I have no idea what those battles will be over. As the War on Christmas is a super-imaginary Fox News BS PR stunt that’s, ugh, endured. Was it Bill O’Silly who started the current version? The one touring with pumpkincunt to ever dwindling crowds?
As the Pilgrims hated Christmas and…anyway, American history has to now be super-postive, focused on WASP-y folks who were the ‘only ones’ involved in ‘building’ ‘merica.
No, really. Not kidding.
See Texas history books that have cut out nearly all or every mention of brown folks in the annals of American history. These same books go out to the rest of the country. Slavery was just imported labor or however that was repackaged. Ahem. Civil Rights? Good look finding anything other than carefully groomed MLK quotes said by white politicians.
See Ron DeDeathface, guvvie of Fluckida, and how he used an MLK quote to justify outlawing Critical Race Theory anything being taught in any school, ever. That includes where it’s actually taught– law schools. Not even kidding.
I am skipping this holiday this year, and maybe, always. Just done with it. I feel no joy or hope at the approach of the red and green monstrosity that doth croucheth across the end of the year like a particularly Lovecraftian Elder God horror. I went over, a bit, about my aunt and her charmless circle of nutballs. The other set of relatives are nearly as bad. I want to stay home, watch bad Christmas movies, drink whiskey and Kool-Aid [sort of kidding] and just…be. I’ve put up no decorations. There’s no tree. Not even presents. And nobody has said a thing. I’m tired.
My job has me waking up in pain, having to gulp down aspirin, noticing that twinge along my spine from trying to lift, several times over, a client at work who’s pretty much dead weight, not helping or trying to support themselves as they should. A situation that will need assessment quite soon, as it effects all at work, not just me.
Christmas has become the most stressful time of year and I just can’t anymore.
I just can’t.
I remember the Christmas of the past, with the entire family, both sides, there to celebrate. And I remember it probably not at all as it really was and isn’t that the point of holiday memories? That you don’t remember the icky, the awful, the mundane and the boring? You just remember the lights, the smells, the tastes, the sound of paper rustling and ripping. Maybe that it snowed or there was snow on the ground, if you lived in a state with four seasons.
At least, this year, there might be a white blanket on the ground by the time the Elder God settles over the world with a blood-smeared grin. And the guns will be loaded and set by the fire, in hopes that the Antifa will soon be near…bang bang, slaughtering protesters is the newest cool kid thing to do in America! Bring your boomsticks, Civil War Two will soon be on!
O it’s the month of snow, figgy pudding, evergreens and tense family gatherings. If one watches too much Hallmark schmaltz, one gets the notion one is really flucked in the noggin. Or cursed by Krampus to endure a black pit of despair and stress for what remains of the year.
Why are not my holidays filled with the actual Santa Claus, snow, skating rinks, hot chocolate, baking sugar cookies and sparkly holiday evening wear??? Why???
Oh yeah, cause real life, can’t skate, global warming and the local thrift store doesn’t seem to have much sparkly holiday wear.
So. Abortion is going away in America. Legal, safe, medically supervised abortion is going away in a lot of states when Roe V. Wade gets gutted or just tossed out by a handful of gleeful religious extremists, most of them men. One woman who’s replacing that glass ceiling as hard and fast and much as she can. Amy Coat Hanger Barrett, is, I believe, her actual legal name. This overturning of Roe has been in the works since it got put into law in the 70’s. The Moral Majority wed itself to Ronnie Raygun [or Ronald Reagan if you have to have the actual name of that fuckstick], and here we are. They worked, schemed, planned, got their people into high places to make this happen. And the left sat back and scrunched their faces a bit, but otherwise ignored all that as much and as hard as possible. And then acted all surprised when Roe V Wade is on the chopping block, is already chopped.
Hey, going backwards when women died at home from botched abortions seems to be the holy grail of the American GOP. With the issue of banning abortions decided by men, for men, with seemingly no input from the females it will impact the most. They’re not even a consideration here, seemingly. Religious fanatics seem to rule the roost in ‘merica and it’s fucking scary.
That the left can’t form a single cogent means to attack any of this is also scary and feels like it must be inevitable that America will try on that coat of fascism to see how it fits.
So yeah, am not feeling too hopeful right now. I admit it. As others have said, the Gross Old Perverts ain’t gonna stop at ending abortion rights. They want to roll back that clock to a time when only rich white Christian straight men had the only voices, the only power, the only presence on the work or political stage.
Which brings me to that scene in the first season of Handmaid’s Tale where Serena Joy, who campaigned so tirelessly for shoving women into roles of livestock and silent powerless nothings, gets bit with her own rhetoric. The same laws she saw applying to other women, also apply to her. Her face as she’s relegated to wife only, stripped of her public persona and her public work. That face of someone realizing too late she aimed the gun at herself, too.
Do the GOP ladies not realize they’re in for a rough road, as well? Do they really think none of this shit will affect them?
I’ll say it plainly. Women have power and control over their own bodies. Their bodies belong to them, not the church or the state or anyone or anything else. We do not legislate men’s bodies. We do not treat sperm as a state property that must be used no matter what is going on with the man who spewed it.
But hey, no health care, no paid leave, no maternity anything, and all those kids being born into a system stripped to the bone or just gone when it comes to helping out those in need. Social safety nets??!! That’s commie shit, after all. Just ask the GOP, they’ll gladly shout about that for days on end. Bootstrap it, babies, bootstrap it!
I smell a Dickens revival! I suspect the rage-filled poetry written during this time will rival some famous poet nobody reads. I suspect the left will send out emails demanding signatures to save blah dee blah and to chip in a few dollars so business can continue as…usual. Yeah.
Hey, December 2021. Can you send us some chuckles before the new year crushes us completely here in ‘merica? Thanks!
Or at least a pretty snowstorm and a big plate of nachos? And some of that fabled fighting spirit to combat this extremism crappola? Extra thanks!!
The bird and tree seasons doth approacheth. Football games and over-cooked deformed poultry corpses coming right up! I am skipping all that this year. The holidays to me mean constant work, piles of dishes to wash and endurance of relatives far beyond my capacities right now. I remember my mother and grandmothers and aunts all engaged in grim baking feats. In stirring pots of this or that with exhausted gray faces out of a Dickens novel on the Victorian poor. How I was expected to do the dishes but my brother was not. Hello, reality.
Oh sure, where’s my turkey/Christmas spirit? Hanging from a hook in some abbatoir, waiting to be skinned and cut into usable chunks for Facebook memes about the ‘woke’ left. That gleeful desperate maniacal fury-joy pouring into my carcass like a flood of rancid lumpy creamed corn.
I’ve noticed, maybe a few on here and elsewhere as well, that my liking of the end of the year holidays is, oh, a bit low. I used to love Christmas! It’s fun, bright, pretty and fun! You get presents! The lovely tree! And then family members left the earthly plane, the talk around me turned to conspiracy theories and hey, you’re not Stephen King yet, and conspiracy theories based off other conspiracy theories. I started to wonder who these strangers around me were pretending to be relatives. Had I just not noticed how…mmm. Had I just been ignoring some stuff and things? Well, yeah. It’s what ya do with kin. Until you can’t.
I already brushed against my aunt and her coterie of crazies. She’s the one that hosts the annual Christmas Eve bash that my grandmother used to host. It was and is a family gathering with food. You open presents. You get through awkward conversations with people you see once or twice a year. You drink, you hear the gossip, you drink and eat. There’s usually a family fistfight, either verbally or actually. A lot of beer and whiskey, smoldering something or other. It’s just chemistry. Friction plus gasoline, a word or two that unholy match…boom.
Now, Christmas Day, my family went over to my other grandparent’s house in Idaho, had a more formal sit down fancy-ier dinner and played games, with the football game on in the background. This was usually a gathering of both sets of grandparents, who liked each other very much. They enjoyed each other immensely. We usually had turkey. One year we had roast beef. It was pretty much the same menu, with the no-bake cheesecake, the marshmallow-covered sweet potatoes, the gravy. My mother made the best turkey gravy out of powdered Cream of Chicken soup. It was magic gravy, so good. And one set of grandparents, on my dad’s side, were Republicans, the other set were Democrats. [Southern ones…ahem]. Yet the talk remained light. And the women had to do all the work. I remember that, too. Cooking and then cleanup. My dad’s dad loved Christmas. He decorated when my grandmother’s arthritis got too much for her and he took care of her until he could not. And I truly miss him and the rest of my grandparents this time of year.
And my mother.
It seems they left a vacuum behind when they left this earth. And it got filled with garbage, debris, pools of urine and maliciousness. I need to stay away from the present-day pale imitations of by-gone ways and enjoy the last dregs of the year as best I can. I don’t wish to hate anyone. It’s as simple as that but I think it’s a bit late already. A lot late.
But anyway…! I meant to write something lighthearted and sweet, some little blurb and then push a book or story or even poem of mine. Instead I delved down into the family goop and splattered a bit on the public wall.
I hope whatever holidays you celebrate this time of year are lovely. That’s the best I can do right now without breaking down into sobs and bingeing Gilmore Girls, again, for the umpteenth gazillionth time.
I guess three ghosts are about to visit me so should make sure I have a nice haircut and an urchin at the ready to buy an organic, gently killed goose for a local saint. Yay!
ANN WUEHLER 