Acceptance of Risk

Inspirational song: Lucky One (Alison Krauss & Union Station)

For 36 years, I have had a superstition. I firmly believe that what I'm doing on New Year's Eve, especially what I'm doing at midnight, sets the tone for the entire next year. I've been on airplanes at midnight, and spent the next year in constant motion, traveling around the country. I spent the night in bible study once, and was confirmed into the church I grew up in that year. Some years I've been at parties, and been gregarious and sociable following it, and some years I've been a quiet homebody, and stuck with that pattern. You can probably guess what I was doing the year that my first daughter was born.

As I wait for the clock to strike midnight, and wonder whether I'll still be awake, I'm reflecting on how I've spent my New Year's Eve, what I'm doing right now, and predicting the attitude I will take into 2017. Right this minute, I'm in my jammies, with a little dog on my lap (who will NOT leave me alone, thank you very much, grandma, because neighborhood fireworks are scary). My hair is damp from soaking in the hot tub (yes, it is 20 degrees outside, and I pay handsomely for the privilege of having a small pond of warm water in my back yard at all times). My eyelids are heavy from a long day of playing and a nearly-empty scotch and soda. If my 2017 is a relaxing, happy mood brought on by having fun with my family and snuggling with my pets (even the ones who don't live here year-round), then bring that bad boy on. I would love to feel this good, even through my usual physical pain, for as much of the year as possible.

I spent most of my life fairly risk-averse. Sometimes that was governed by fear, sometimes pain and the knowledge of my physical limitations, and sometimes a grown-up abundance of caution. I appear to be coming out of that phase. I'm taking more risks, and I'm unwinding my unbearable tight-assedness. (I can make up words. Pretend I'm Shakespeare.) It helps that I've finally gotten good diagnoses, good doctors, good medications, and good answers to how to manage the things that kept me spun up to 11 at all times. It might also help that I've gone through such massive emotional upheavals over the last several years that I'm out of Fs to give. I'm a little more cavalier with my life and property these days. I'm not stupid, I'm just not quite as fearful and anxious. As recently as the beginning of this year, I was still a terrible (and I mean terrible) car passenger. Between my fears and my distorted perceptions of time and space (I blame the illnesses), I felt like the road and traffic was always closing in on me. I saw near misses where none existed. Speed upset me. Curves upset me. These days it's much easier to sit quietly in the passenger side of the car. My shoulders resisted some of the g-forces on mountain curves today, but for the most part my attitude is that if we wreck, then we wreck. Me freaking out about it in advance won't change whether it happens or not. It made today's drive much more pleasant for me, and I bet it made my family happier too.

We went to Central City to gamble, and I'm more relaxed about that too. I didn't worry about losses (mine or daughter #1's) and I didn't try to interfere in wins (Mr X and daughter #2). I played for several hours on about 50 bucks, and when that much was gone, I decided I was done. One daughter lost about the same amount, the other went positive about that much. Mr X had a grand time, and made up for all of us. He had the golden touch today, playing the Buffalo Stampede machines in two different casinos (gee, why do we like that particular game?). He played for hours and walked away at least a couple hundred to the good. The best part was that he was more relaxed and happy than I've seen him in a good long while. It really was better to watch these guys win than to sit and watch my own cash dwindle.

If 2017 means throwing caution to the wind and opening myself up to the possibility of happiness, then I will take that risk.

These were last night, but it is THIS little dog who refuses to leave me alone while her mommy is out with friends.

Like my great-grandmother used to say, "Let's go through the cemetery, just for fun."

Heels on a hike through the mountains in snow. If she didn't look just like me, I would wonder whether we are really related.

All three of us were post-holing through the snow at that point.

Five dollars soon turned into twenty...

And then into fifty, followed by a cashout and the end of play.

Guess who bought dinner tonight?

This one. He couldn't lose today. Took those winnings, and within a few minutes at the next casino (which paid out in coins).... This:

Near the End

Inspirational song: Blood Upon the Risers (Classic American Paratrooper Song)

Our topic of conversation keeps looping around to post-apocalyptic fiction and suppositions of how our society would end up in such a place. What roles would we play in the destabilization of civilization that gets us there? Would we last very long? What sort of weaponry would suit us?

Mr X got me into watching the Walking Dead a little over a year ago. I like to imagine that in the dismal after-world I'd be the Carol character. People would assume I was just an invisible pushover, and I'd let them do it until it became time to be a stone-cold killer. Then I'd do my job. Mr X would be the sneaky strategic planner. Daughter number one would be the hero at the front of the charge. Daughter number two, well, I just don't know yet. All I know is today she proclaimed, as we sat at a 5 Guys, that after the fall of civilization, the things she will miss the most will be the cheeseburgers. I suspect she would last long enough to feel that loss keenly. She's a lot tougher than she looks.

Sometimes these conversations are pop-culture jokes. Sometimes they're gloomy predictions of how little faith we have in humanity. None of us particularly wants to see the world burn. We just wonder out loud in groups what would happen if it did, and what are the chances that it would actually happen in our lifetimes. It surprises me sometimes how entertaining this sort of gallows humor can be, even when the tone is more "this is inevitable and already in progress," rather than "defies the laws of biology and physics" magic of zombie movies.

Maybe it's just a reflection of how rough 2016 was for us that we keep finding ourselves in this conversation. We are just too battle scarred to feel like viewing the upcoming new year as the cute little cherub of traditional imagery. It's more like riding the broken-down near-corpse of 2016 into the hellscape of the beyond. Whatever the cause, it seems fitting that we are winding down the year watching zombie movies. I do like to stick with a theme.

The Plateau

Inspirational song: Little Black Dress (Shock Treatment)

Five years ago or so, the Dillard's in my hometown shut down. The mall was already failing, and had been for many years. Dillard's had seen the writing on the wall, and they liquidated their location here. I had come to Boulder to visit my daughters, and we drove out to this town to pick the carcass of the store. I had hoped to find my silverware pattern, but the clearance sales had been going on long enough (a few weeks) that all the good stuff like fancy home goods were gone. We spent hours rifling through a large store's worth of clothing, though. There were no "6 items or less" limits on how much you could bring into a changing room with you. Everything had to go, and they wanted you to carry out as much as you could possibly hold in your arms. Between the three of us, we left with about seven or eight giant bags of clothing, and each bag was stuffed full. If we had paid full retail price, this would have run into the thousands. But if you added up our total receipts it cost us at most six or seven hundred dollars. I still wear most of the things I bought that day, weather permitting, and the girls still have favorites from that trip too. But there was one thing I bought that I put away for later use. I left the tags on it, and wrapped it in a plastic bag, and it has moved with me through two or three address changes completely unused. It was a black and gold sequined poncho, that probably cost me about eleven dollars. When I found it, I laughed at the old-lady-ness of the thing. I said I was going to save it for my golden years, when I was going to be the goofy old alumna at the bowl game spirit luncheon. I pictured myself in my late 50s or early 60s, wearing my poncho, sitting at a long table, clapping my hands while band kids young enough to be my grandchildren played the fight songs.

I spent more than an hour today digging through my closets, trying to find the bag that held that poncho. I've stopped putting off the "someday I will" crap, and started doing the things I've thought I needed to wait for. I got my CU Buffs tattoo, I dyed my hair bright purple, and tonight, I wore my black and gold sequined poncho to the Boulder Theater, to watch the Alamo Bowl on a big screen with 250-300 other fans. We had high hopes for tonight, but I have a lot of experience watching these Buffaloes in post-season play. I know better than to expect anything. I've been disappointed before, and I was disappointed tonight. You'll notice I did not talk smack leading up to tonight. CU's opponent was our old Big 8 / Big 12 opponent OSU, who have traditionally had very solid teams. We were ranked very close to each other. And I know our bowl game record is actually pretty dismal. Tonight was no exception. We were late arriving at the theater, and by the time we got inside, we were already down 3-0. The crowd in the theater was still positive, and we cheered when a few good plays happened. But they were few and far between, and our players kept ending up on the ground with trainers surrounding them. As the night wore on, the crowd thinned and my BAC went higher and higher. It's a very bad night when I leave a game early, and we stuck it out until midway through the fourth quarter when CU scored their first points of the night.

I very nearly had a big party at my house for this game. I am so glad we decided to let a different venue do the hosting. I didn't want to clean, and I didn't want to have a whole bunch of people here to entertain. If I had held the party, I might have done something crazy like bought a second television to have upstairs, and then I'd be on the hook for an additional fee to DirecTV for more equipment in the house. The way I look at it, going to the Boulder Theater saved me hundreds of dollars in the long run, not just the fatigue of cleaning, cooking, and hosting. Not sure where I may re-appropriate that money. Not going to go out and buy more sequined ponchos, though. This one ought to get me through the rest of my bowl game parties, from now until the rest home days.

Scatology

Inspirational song: Chances Are (Johnny Mathis)

It isn't always glamorous around here. I've tried to be reasonably honest about the goings-on at Smith Park, but I try to shield my audience from the truly gross stuff. I don't take pictures of the cat box, or describe the yuck that has to be cleaned regularly from Alfred's ears. I use euphemisms liberally when I talk about the effects my diet has on my body. I try to angle pictures so they don't show dog poo in the back yard. But every so often, the story is more scatological, and I have to be true to it. Today I can't hide the poop. I couldn't escape it, either.

I did what I could to clean house ahead of daughter #1's visit. I haven't had much energy the last several days, and my arms -- particularly my hands -- have hurt too much to do much. But I tidied a bit, shopped for dinner tonight and several days' worth of breakfasts, and took care of grown-up tasks. I even acquired a new bag full of crickets, and arrived home feeling like the ultimate hunter-gatherer, preparing to feed the entire family, just as soon as I could make it through the door. Agnes was first in line, because she hasn't had fresh crickets in weeks. I prioritized from there. I decided to make a dish from my childhood, that I haven't attempted to make or eat since the early 1980s: goulash. For it to be ready by the time my girl arrived, I wanted to start it before I fed dogs or cats. So I chopped an onion, and dumped it into a large Dutch oven over medium high heat. Elsa was at the sliding glass door while I started to cook, telling me that she has never been fed in ever, and it was exactly eleven minutes past her dinner time. So I told myself I could feed dogs quickly, and be back inside before the onions were even soft. I went out through the garage, scooping a big can of dog food and running cup of water to split three ways. Bump and Elsa danced and barked and reprimanded me for being late. There was no sign of Murray. I looked around the yard, and found him flipped over next to the fence, like he had been barking at our neighbor. He was whining and shivering in the cold. I fed Bump, to make him stop barking, and told Elsa to wait. Murray had been lying in a spot that was probably still ice before he got there, shaded by the privacy fence on the south side of our lawn. When I reached to pick him up, the smell of mud and feces was overwhelming. His wheelchair was a wreck, his saddle loops split apart, and he was hanging half out of it. It was a struggle to right him, and I was soon covered in the same muck that he was wearing from his ear to his tail. I poured his food, and he wandered around in circles, dangling from one leg stirrup, unable to bend down and eat. I had to fight the chair to get him out of it, and ended up wearing even more mud and poop. Murray was able to eat, and didn't resist too vehemently when I told him he needed to come inside and warm up. But he seemed to be "walking" funny, twisted a little more to one side than I remembered, and he was stiff. It could have just been from lying on ice and mud for the hour that I was gone, but I really worried for a minute that he was more damaged than usual after this experience. I called Mr X, who promised to bathe him as soon as he got home, and he reassured me that Murray probably wasn't hurt (more than before). I asked, if he had dislocated one of his back legs, for example, how would we know?

And then, as I stood in the garage, talking about Murray, I heard a noise. It was a sizzling sound. I swore foully, and hung up the phone. I had left the onions going this whole time.

So I had burned onion on the stove, and I was covered in mud and dog poop. I froze for a moment, trying to figure out which was the higher priority. I turned the burner off, and pushed the pot back on the stove. Then I set about washing my hands and stripping my clothes off directly into the washer. I dumped water into the pot before I dashed through the living room (past my large picture window facing the street) in the altogether to bathe. By the time I was clean and re-dressed, the onion pot was cool enough to wash and start over.

By the time my daughter arrived, things had calmed down. The goulash was way better than I remembered from my youth (when everyone used to make this stuff so often that I burned out on it for a lifetime). The smell of burned onions had dissipated, and Murray was nearly dry from his bath. My daughter and grand-puppy are here now, and life is good. Sheba is even snuggled next to me now, having decided that grandmas aren't scary after all. At the end of the day, it just feels normal again, poop or no poop.

The Past

Inspirational song: Duel Duet (Shock Treatment)

FFS, 2016. We get it. You're the bad boy. The tough guy. The nihilist who is going to burn down the building with all of us, including yourself, in it. We are really tired of playing your game. I know the focus is on big name celebrities, but this has been a shitty year all the way down the line. You took super famous people. You took moderately famous people. You took down historic cities full of civilians. You took them buy the bus and plane load. And I'm pretty sure you took enough relatively unknown people who were our friends, one or two for each and every one of us. I do not know a single person who hasn't felt the loss keenly at a personal or over-arching cultural level. This year is not fun anymore for any of us. We just want to tell you that it is time for you to go away. Forever. Go down in history as one of the worst years ever. And don't leave your stink all over things to linger into 2017. I know you want to. Don't be that guy.

I sat in writers group tonight, knowing that I hadn't written to the prompt, mostly because I forgot what the prompt was. When they told me that it was "describe a memory from high school," first I wished I had done it, because--as this blog can attest--I love doing that. Then I sat there ruminating a little bit and thought about why we react like we do to the deaths of Carrie Fisher or Prince or Alan Rickman. It seemed so simple all of a sudden. They represent our childhoods. My parents' generation admired people like Muhammad Ali or John Glenn, and were told Fidel Castro was the boogeyman. My generation grew up wearing the funny hair of Princess Leia or the purple and lace of Prince. My kids grew up with the complex heroic story arc of Severus Snape. Most of us can point to some moment in our youths where David Bowie entranced us. And if your young life was never touched by Gene Wilder, what sort of childhood did you have? No, most of us never knew any of these artists or sports figures or national heroes personally. But the things that they did, the things that gave them fame, are the milestones that we measure our lives against. More of these losses of my childhood influences are on the horizon. Like millions of nerds in the English-speaking world, I bonded with my teenage friends over Monty Python. Do you think my heart doesn't break a little bit every time I see a tweet about Terry Jones' decline due to dementia? I learned in high school that I too would become a sexual being able to make my own choices, and found my inner extrovert by repeatedly attending midnight showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I recite a tiny prayer for health every time I think about Tim Curry's fight to recover from his stroke. I don't want the reminder that my childhood favorites are really just fragile humans. I don't think any of us are ever ready to put the good memories of the past to bed forever.

Our Rotary program today was all about antiques. One of our members is a bit of an expert, buying and selling and collecting all sorts of things. She gave us tips about auctions, and told us what does and does not currently hold or gain value. (And she echoed what my daughter always says -- if you have silver, use it! If you have good linens, use them! And if you have a piece of furniture that is rough around the edges, repurpose it!) Most of my house is filled with antiques or vintage items that represent the personal history of my family. These are the things that have meaning to me, not because of their dollar value, but because of the hands that touched them before me. It's likely that this is where the germ for tonight's blog originated. This was my first look into the past, and what it means to me. It makes me want to have dinner on my grandma's Spode plates tomorrow, and dessert out of Granny's crystal pudding cups. It makes me happy that I'm walking on the rug my dad bought when he was deployed to Thailand when I was a toddler. I should go play my grandmother's piano a little before bed, and sight-read from great-aunt Annette's music books. My childhood has meaning to me, and if I let it go unused, that is my loss.

There's a Switch

Inspirational song: I'm Not Gonna Let It Bother Me Tonight (Atlanta Rhythm Section)

I was supposed to apply myself to important tasks today. I wanted to spend hours writing that story I've had in the wings, and I need to clean my guest room before my daughter arrives. Does anyone ever really want to go back to reality after a holiday? I didn't. I don't think I ever have. But that's beside the point. I looked at my life, and decided I wasn't ready to get back to it. All I cared about was feeling warm again, and for the first time this year, I couldn't accomplish it. Most of my body was chilled more than usual, and even my hot flashes were few and far between today. Even now, my face is cool to the touch. But what is really hurting me is how cold my hands are. I feel like I'm outside in sub-zero temps with wet gloves on. I've tried rubbing my hands and forearms to improve circulation. I sat in the hot tub for half an hour. I've worn warm clothes and blankets most of the day. But the feeling of being outside in Siberia in January just won't go away. In July, being this cold sounded like heaven. As we so often quote from Strange Brew (the Bob and Doug McKenzie movie), "...this isn't heaven, this sucks!"

Surely I won't have much more than a week of this. If it's still happening a week from now, I have my regular visit with the rheumatologist. Two days after that, I have my regular visit with Slow Hand. I At most I have to deal with a week of zero circulation. It might make getting comfortable interesting for a while, but I'm not going to let that bother me. I can sleep through up to a third of it. I'll find ways to distract me for the rest.

Joy to You and Yours

Inspirational song: Christmas Wrapping (The Waitresses)

On a night like this, after a day like this, I have nothing but love to send out to all of you. I spent the bulk of the day in direct communication with my family in one form or another, and the warm fuzzies are overflowing in me now. They're only good if they're shared, and there is plenty for everyone, so come and take some.

I slept late this morning, as I promised myself I would. I know as kids we all woke as early as humanly possible on this morning, but as an adult, I no longer feel the need to be in the living room by 0430 to see what Santa brought me. I had help sleeping last night, and when that assistance was still working after sunup, I let it have free rein. I stumbled around for a bit before remembering that I needed a from-scratch marshmallow recipe from Pinterest. When I discovered that they needed to "cure" for four hours, I set to work immediately so that they would be ready in time for the family dinner. Turns out making marshmallows isn't as difficult as I imagined, but it is ten times stickier than I could have predicted. Maybe I didn't get the sugar to a full 240 degrees, or maybe the humidity in my kitchen was too high (this is Colorado in winter, so that seems unlikely). Or perhaps they really are a gooey mess. It was fun, and not kidding, watching the sugar whisk around in the stand mixer was as mesmerizing as watching Hypnotoad on Futurama. I stood there nearly all of the 12 minutes it took to be fully fluffed and cooled. And after the requisite four hours, I cut them with snowflake cookie cutters, and added a Southern girl ambrosia touch to the traditional Smith family grape and cranberry jello salad.

Our gift exchange was fairly rapid and low key, since there were only the two of us here this morning, and we promised each other and the kids that we didn't need a whole lot more stuff. I got what I was hoping for from my daughter (memory foam pillows and pill holders so that I always have stuff with me when I'm out and forget to pill up in the morning before I leave the house). Mr X was actually happy to get the socks I gave him. And I repeated my favorite gift to both of us from last year, and we each have the seasonal tumbler from Starbucks, the one that includes a pre-paid month of daily coffee or tea refills for all of January. Beyond that, it was an easy day. The television stayed off; no one complained about being bored. We called parents and children on the phone. It was a good day.

As long as I am still invited to come along, I am going to keep going to the in-laws for holidays. Today was definitely worth the drive. I've been a part of this family for my entire adult life (I was a child of 20 when I met them), and I'm not giving them up easily. They have always understood food issues -- these were the people who first made me aware that grain sensitivities were a thing, way back when my kids' older cousins were in preschool. Eating there is safe and enjoyable. Somewhere in the last few years, once the kids became adults, the wine started flowing, and the conversation became a little wilder. At first I felt a little like an outsider with them, but as the years passed, my inhibitions went with them, and now there's nowhere else I'd rather be. As the legal status of my marriage evolves, it might become awkward, but I'm hanging in as long as they let me.

I ran out of steam to push my idea of the service-to-go project I talked about weeks ago. The cyclical nature of my health is like that, and I finally have learned to accept it. But we did manage to dig out good contributions to the annual white elephant gift exchange. The same person who got our gift last year (which was the Blu-ray player we didn't need after we upgraded to a surround-sound system) got this year's electronic item (a cordless land line phone), and she wasn't quite as impressed this time around. For a brief shining moment in time, I had a magnetic knife holder, but that was stolen away, and I ended up with a wooden ball and string game and an instruction book for balloon animals. As we spoke by FaceTime with the cousin who couldn't be there this late in her pregnancy, telling her what our gifts were, my nephew said, "I won a free trip to ARC." (That's the thrift shop closest to his house.) I'm pretty sure that's the gift several of us left with tonight. That, and good memories.

The Night Before the Day

Inspirational song: White Wine in the Sun (Tim Minchin)

Christmas Eve is coming to a close. It was a lot sunnier and warmer than I thought it was going to be from the forecasts a week or two ago. It felt a bit like November, to be honest. But I spent the day cleaning and cooking and wrapping presents and drinking wine, so yeah. I guess it feels like Christmas. I'd like to share profound thoughts, but at the end of a long day, all I am is relaxed. This has been too rough a year for me to let myself get worked up over one more holiday, although I like this one a lot. I like presents, even though giving and receiving them gives me a little anxiety. I adore the music, as corny as it all is. I like the heavy, rich main course foods and sticky, sweet desserts. I love that I'm getting better about altering recipes so that those foods don't hurt me. I think that fairy lights and evergreen boughs and ribbons and gaudy paper are the most beautiful sights I can imagine. It makes me happy that ugly sweater parties and contests are a thing. I appreciate that centuries of traditions from different cultures spanning multiple continents have blended to become a unified experience that we all call Christmas.

I had several massive successes translating traditional wheat-containing recipes into safer versions for myself and others. I winged banana bread this morning by mixing multiple non-grain flours until it just looked right, and threw in some whole cranberries and pecans for good measure. The result was so good that I only got two slices of it before it vanished out of sight. My dad's side of the family always had gallons of homemade Chex party mix at Christmas, and now I can't have any part of it except the nuts, so that's what I made. I roasted pecans in the classic sauce, some to give away, some to keep for myself. For the last several years I've made a big beef dinner for this night, but tonight I eschewed the full standing rib roast for a single bone-in steak that we split. To go with it I baked macaroni and cheese with corn and quinoa pasta (I know, corn, but it was a special night), and after years of not having it in any form, I nearly cried it was so good. And at the end of the night, we are trying to make our own jello for the first time with fruit juice and gelatin packets, and if I have energy tomorrow, I'm going to try to make marshmallows with no corn syrup or cornstarch in the powdered sugar (so that my niece can partake, if she so chooses) to throw on top of it. None of this feels like sacrifice. I have found ways to make almost every rich holiday food I wanted without problematic ingredients. I'm even doing it in such a way that family members with regular digestive systems aren't complaining about missing the gluten.

We drove our small cache of presents out to Boulder, and picked up a trove to take back. While we were out, I begged to drive around a little and look at the lights. You can really tell the difference in the houses where they paid people to decorate, versus the ones where it was one guy out on a ladder by himself. I don't think I preferred one style over the other. The professional ones were well-balanced with colors and fully covered the houses and landscaping. But they were almost too precise and perfect. The homespun ones were sometimes sloppy, sometimes overwhelming (like being held captive in the War on Christmas POW camp, as Mr X quoted), sometimes underwhelming (like the strand of white lights tossed carelessly across the front of an old van in a driveway that I saw in Boulder). I really did like everything. The whole ride, my head was whipping back and forth, as my eyes danced from one lit house to another. I even loved that the chicken house down the street (a property nearly an acre big, with the legal limit of chickens allowed in town in a big pen) was neatly outlined with warm, incandescent lights on every building, even the smallest of the chicken coops. From the mansions on Mapleton Hill to the little house down the block with a strand of lights along his chainlink fence, I love all of these decorations. This is my favorite part of the season. Hands down. It's the lights.