The Latest Tag

Friend Kass is fun. I don't have to have met her in the flesh to know this. It fairly jumps off of the monitor and into the room. This woman is exuberant. She hadn't posted in a few days, but she has a brand new granddaughter, so I didn't think much of it, although I missed her. I think this woman would be good at designing or organizing party games or fun things to do at a business mixer.

Her post said:

Open your first photo folder,scroll down to the 10th photo, post this photo and the story behind it. Tag 5 people.

OK, I can do that, and I have such a mixed bag of stuff in photographs, anything could pop up.

Like Kass, I'm not tagging people specifically. I'll just issue the invitation ~ join in, if it pleases you.


There is a place where I love to go when I am looking for solace. It lies within Death Valley and it features a small system of smooth, golden sand dunes. It is peppered with the debris of long abandoned mining operations and it features the most beautiful variegated rocks I've ever enjoyed. One goes to this place expecting to experience, and one does experience, a classic desert outing.

Tucked around the far side of a mountain outcropping, however, lies an unlikely setting ~ a marsh! In Death Valley! It isn't a very large area, but it boasts ponds with reeds and cattails, salt flats and waterfowl. While the sand dunes across the valley are a silent cathedral in warm, neutral tones, the marsh is a bustling village plaza with darting birds and flashes of green plants. The juxtaposition of these divergent microcosms pleases me. I purposely plan to hike in both locations on each trip and I end up feeling like I've been to two separate destinations.

The picture is a gaze into the jumbled reeds, mostly dry and brown because it is the winter solstice. Some of them have a little green at the tips, however, a reminder of the autumn past and the spring to come.

In my ears right now: To keep in theme with my picture, I was going to say Fields of Gold. Most who read me probably know this beautiful Sting piece. I went to YouTube and made a discovery. Their name intrigued me: Celtic Woman. Hey! I'm very much into my Welsh-ness. I listened to them. I think they are lovely. Embedding is disabled, but if the song pulls you or if you're simply music curious as I am, this is worth a listen. Try it! If you don't like it, you'll pull the plug.

Something that charmed me: Celtic Woman charmed me.

Pablo Fanques' Fair

I didn't hit the ground running on New Year's. My readers and followers know I like a lot of song lyrics, and "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" plays (virtually) in my ears right now. No, I did not jump into 2010 " . . . over men and horses, hoops and garters, and lastly through a hogshead of real fire." Unlike" Mr. K(ite)", I entered the new decade presenting the world with no challenge whatsoever.

Unlike "Messrs. K and H", my production was not second to none. Instead I went quiet on New Year's Eve. Not using words. I'd already written my post. Then I stopped talking, mostly. It was noticed. "What's going on, Les? You're nearly silent." "Nothing, homes. Year ending. Year beginning." There's also the fact that my life broke into its two separate pieces (so far) at the holidays. It does still color things, somewhat.


I become contemplative at year's end. What good things have happened? What happened that I'd never want to repeat? What can I do (what's within my own power) to draw nearer where I want to be? What can I do to make someone else's burden lighter? What can I do to make the time I was privileged to spend here meaningful? Although I shut my mouth and listen to the voices inside my head during this one hallowed season, I don't always land on definitive answers to all the questions. I try.

Oh, and have I mentioned that immediately upon the close of the holidays comes the first week in January when both my mother and my daughter have birthdays? The rest of the year is a skate in the park, dear reader, after getting through its beginning.

Twenty years ago at this moment, I was very pregnant. This pregnancy had astounded a large number of people, as we'd hoped to have a child for nearly 20 years. All the fertility treatments failed us and we'd moved on to other fixations. When I became ill at pretty close to 40 years of age, we were concerned because it simply wouldn't go away. My family doctor finally threw his hands in the air and said, "Pleeez, I'll run the $2 pregnancy test . . . , " and it came back very positive. At 6:18 p.m., in La Mesa, CA, on this date, my daughter was born. Giving birth to a human being is undoubtedly the most profound thing I've ever done. And I got the best one because I waited the longest. I've been asked why I don't rave about her excessively (there's that word again) on my blog. Easy answer. She doesn't want me to, despite being very rave-worthy. If she wants to be presented in a blog, I imagine she'll start her own, as she is a fine writer and artist.

So, "20 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play" and 20 years ago today, I had a child who isn't a child any more. I've spent some time both up and down as I've contemplated this number of years and what has become of us all. I admit it to the reader, I spent a day or two with my chin dragging on the concrete. This happens to me sometimes during these weeks. They burden me more than I can express.

And then, Mother Badger sent an e-mail so much like a blog post, I'm going to start applying pressure to her to publish. Like this little rock is going be able to move that hard place, but I shall be heard. And then I had a moment of lightning bright clarity: if I asked someone with whom I share a problem (it's not just my problem) to help me find the way, I'd be carrying less on my narrow shoulders. He came up with something brilliant! The wheels were put into motion today. If I carefully explain how much a camping date circled on the calendar means to me, one is established! I don't care how far ahead it is ~ it's there to be seen. "Going camping again, Les?" "I am, homes!" Las Vegas has become startlingly mild while much of the rest of the country suffers in cold. I don't wish anyone else ill. I just enjoy the warm sunshine. I'm humbly reminded that one doesn't have to go it alone. It's OK to say, "I need help. I don't know everything. I can't do everything alone." And then the clouds part.

In my ears right now: I already told you at the start of this, "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite." I believe I'll post it on my sidebar.

Something that charmed me: I returned to work and the phones are jangling non-stop. I'm no longer used to it. My arms windmill as I take the information and book the jobs we need so desperately. What? They were all waiting for after the holidays? It's not like we're having a fire sale! I'll take them anyway I can get them, and I've been damned flirtatious!

2009 Grand Finale ~ The LimesNow 2009 Award for Extreme, Exuberant, Exaggerated, Extravagant Holiday Excess

My father says that I can walk into a room, talk to a dead snake, and the snake will talk back to me. One of my blog followers once asked, "You know that you can sure tell a story, don't you? You know you're good at it?" I'm not sure what or why it is, but people do tend to engage with me when I tell an anecdote. And I have an anecdote or two to tell. Hey ~ every day something new happens to talk about. True story: Ex was a man who used as few words as possible to talk about anything. I'm the opposite. Amber may look 100% like him, but she is her mother in young form. Sometimes at the dinner table, we'd be in full cry and Ex would literally put his hands out defensively, as if to fend off the barrage of words. While I value quality over quantity, there's no question that I am a prolific verbal and written communicator.

David is an excellent communicator, both speaking and listening. When one tells him a story, his body language assures the speaker that he's tuned in. I'd worked for him a short while and we were getting to know one another, telling about our lives and the people in them. I'd apparently spoken compellingly about someone important to me, because David said, "I'd love to eavesdrop on some of your conversations with him." Remembering a few choice, rude confabulations and some bawdy or politically incorrect gabfests between us, I blushed crimson. When my face regained its usual color, I managed to squeak out, "Why's that, David?" To my surprise, he replied, "Oh, not for any bad reason. I just think it would be like watching a good movie. All that brain power between you two. The conversations must be cerebral." Ha!

Fast forward a couple of years: I write a blog now and I'd posted a piece telling about a trip to the desert. I included some words from our conversations and one of my followers commented that she loved to listen to talk between us - it felt "comfortable" to her. She said she felt our relationship must be comfortable. I replied that comfort is one of the things in the relationship and I pondered on the likelihood of two people saying they were drawn to hear us talk to each other. There is no denying that we've had some earth moving conversations, solved the world's problems over and over again across the years, verbally expressed love, anger, pain and joy. During our first face-to-face discussion, we talked about the assassination of Martin Luther King, which had happened days before. In our last face-to-face, we rehashed the delights of the desert at solstice. While one or two of our tete-a-tetes may have been movie-worthy, mostly we talk about how we'll jump the chainlink fence and gate blocking us from our walking path or how best to hike the circumference of the dunes or how many miles we want to put on ourselves in an afternoon.

Just a couple of things to add and then I shall have set the table for my end-of-the-holidays tale. The man is Scrooge-like. He loves solstice. He is not known to tolerate any form of nonsense, and he detects nonsense quickly. Despite that he's up for most any adventure I propose, even if it takes him out of his way. And I've proposed some adventures.

For three holiday seasons, I have had cause to observe a remarkable display of Christmas Nazi-ism. Remember who's writing this. I know it when I see it. I have observed how this act has grown and developed, bigger and better each December that rolls around. In the past two years, I've stopped my car (more like crashed it into the curb from shock) more than once to try to photograph this flaming exposition of Yuletide glitz. I have failed. I lack the camera equipment and the know-how to capture even the visual part of this attack on the senses. I determined that this year, I'd take a photographer.

I began to watch the house in mid-October. It takes three sheds in the side yard to hold all of the stuff now. I watched the man set things up day-by-day. The ferris wheel that first appeared last year now actually turns and there are a lot more stuffed animals riding on it. The electric train set appears to have about twice as many cars and one can see gray wisps coming out of the smokestack. Santa, carried by his eight tiny reindeer, makes a much smoother descent from the roof to the tree now. I can see that system has been improved over the years. Once daylight savings time ended, I could see the light display taking form. Not a shrub was left uncovered, no wrought iron fence post unadorned. Plastic carolers and snowmen appeared, wreaths and bows of every size and description . . . we were approaching showtime!

"Would it be OK if I took you and your camera for a 4 1/2 mile ride so you could take a picture of some Christmas lights for my blog?" "Sure! What's special about it?" I said that it was a little over-the-top and I planned a series of posts about holiday excess that would be well illustrated by a shot or two of this place. It was agreed and we selected the day we'd go.



We left my place too early. We pulled up to the house in earliest dusk. No lights were on yet, but he's not blind. He could see what he'd been commissioned to photograph. His jaw dropped into his lap and he gave me a look. And then started some nice conversation. "WTF?!?!?" I allowed as how it was pretty remarkable and it was going to get better when the lights and sounds began. " He started to go off in every direction - the light pollution for the neighboring houses, the cost of the electricity, the noise pollution for the neighbors, the time and money spent putting it together, the drawing of so much traffic to the neighborhood, as this would pull people as surely as the star led the shepherds to Bethlehem. The man who tolerates no nonsense was building up quite a head of steam. "#%*@&!" What in the . . . . #&*(%^*!" I snickered quietly. We spotted the homeowner in the yard, sweeping the driveway and adjusting individual lightbulbs. He seems to know exactly how each one of them should be positioned. He puffed at a cigarette, hitched his jeans up under his armpits and fiddled with his obsession.


He rolled the car onward and I sputtered, "What are you doing?" He said we'd circle the block awhile waiting for the lights to come on. We did that for awhile, as he muttered and exclaimed. Every time we passed the house, we noted the man was still outside fussing before the curtain rose on the night's presentation. Finally, I said, "Park the car and let me out. I'll ask him to turn it on. People who do this are show-offs. He'll be flattered and he'll turn them on." But he protested repeatedly and continued to circle the block. "I can't get out and set up, Les. He'll want to talk and I'll go off on him. I can't make eye contact with him. I'll get us into a whoop-dee-doo." We circled some more and finally, disappointed, even I had to agree we'd spent too much time at it. "I'll stop one night after work for you. I'll get your pictures."

During the last week before his winter break, he e-mailed to say he planned to stop that very night and get the pictures. We flipped e-mails back and forth as we are accustomed to doing, me advising him to carry a barf bag and to call me for bail if he started a dust-up at the place. Soon enough came the e-mail from his BlackBerry, "I got them! I think they're pretty good." No more words than that. I was surprised he said so little. For I have stood before that house in the dark, lights flashing to music, animated objects moving like synchronized swimmers, canned sound of children (stuffed animals) laughing as they ride the ferris wheel, my hair rustling in the breeze as Santa swoops down from the rooftop. It is an assault on nearly all of one's senses. I e-mailed to ask whether he'd felt the need to retch into the gutter. "Just a little. I wanted to watch out for the camera."

I do wonder what Mr. Christmas Nazi is avoiding. For it takes one to know one, and all the signs are there. I mainly agree with the Badger about the impact upon the neighbors. I wish (and maybe he does this) he'd throw the same amount of money toward feeding hungry people or giving gifts to children. The amount of power he uses would light a casino for a month and I struggle with that. But I must say I understand the man. Home dude must be just a little tightly wound.

In my ears right now: Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives Me Crazy. I enjoy a body of musical work that doesn't quite fit my era. You see, I had a colicky baby in the MTV, VH1 years.

Something that charmed me: I like goony road signs. I usually have something smart to say back to one that affronts me.

"What the heezy, that's what I came here to do?!?"

Photo credits for A Nazi Christmas: J. D. Morehouse

It Sneaked Up On Me!

Well, maybe I allowed it to sneak up on me, but the end of the year is upon us. I had so much to write about. And I had time to write, but I didn't. Maybe I didn't actually want to confess my time spent as a Christmas Nazi. I've been called Cleopatra (Queen of Denial) regarding other issues in life. So now, the quick version of my former Nazi-ism.

By the time of my last Christmas spent in the marital home, our rituals were firmly entrenched. Everyone knew his or her duties. Each of us was recognized for our special talents ~ Les, Ex and Amber. We lived in a small, 4-square-mile city completely surrounded by San Diego and we were related to about half the population. We were community activists, involved in city council, school board, PTA, Friends of the Library, Soroptimist, Kiwanis, Concerts in the Park and the Chamber of Commerce. We had one hella gift shopping list and the card list was longer. Somehow, over the years, it developed that we gave not one, but several gifts to each person on our list, unless they were more like acquaintances than actual friends or family. We shopped year-round. eBay, Amazon, quirky little shops, craft fairs. I kept a bound journal in my purse at all times for lists and other lists and lists that talked to each other. Somehow, it happened that we got so "cute" about wrapping gifts that if we were giving a dress to a little girl, I'd find a way to use a sweater as the "wrapping paper" and a pair of tights as the "ribbon". Wrapping Weekend at our home included hot glue guns, shiny dimensional objects and 48 hours in pajamas, all meals being delivered to the door. Ex wasn't grand at wrapping, but he could cut, glue, take out the trash, stack the gifts. The child showed a marked suitability to Nazi-ism at a very young age.

We hosted many of the Christmas Day family get-togethers. By October I knew how many extra tables, chairs and table linen we'd need to rent. The menu was in place by November. Somehow, it came to pass that our home would be decorated with some form of Christmas tree in each and every room, and I'm not talking about small ceramic Christmas trees. Even the dollhouses we built as our family project were decked out for the holidays. Every door in the home had a wreath on each side of it, unless it was the inside of a closet door. My little dog wore Christmas clothes . . . . is the reader getting the picture here? We spent life doing Christmas. I baked and made candy. I owned more Christmas music than the law allows. I was partial to the one that featured guitar music accompanied by a babbling brook. And the most fun I had all year long was shopping the sales after Christmas to get ready for the following Christmas. This was life for years.

This paragraph contains no tongue-in-cheek information. What I've described above is literally true. It was that frantic. There is a certain sickness to it and I know that. It was my sickness. The child was a child. She didn't create it. The only thing Ex ever knew about Christmas was whatever the Indian Center handed out for meals and gifts to indigents. Lest the reader believe I am stupid or vapid, I want to put something else forward. First, I'd like it known that we also delivered meals or served them every Christmastime, all three of us. I always chaired the Christmas Caring program at Amber's school, personally buying food and gifts for 20 families. Secondly, the answer today is: Yes, I do know what I was running from, why I had to have so much frantic diversion in my life, with whom I was avoiding interaction, where I needed to land, and when it was time to let it go. For you see, I have grown. I am living proof that people can make meaningful change. It shows a little on the outside. But the bigger shift occurs in our operating systems. When one is as tightly wound as I was, and the spring is finally sprung . . . . well.

That last Christmas Eve, the heavens opened and the rain came down in torrents. My home had miles of terra cotta tile flooring and as we greeted the 50 or so guests, the floor became treacherous. We employed every rug and beach towel we owned, trying to avert a lawsuit when someone took a dive. Things were progressing nicely and everyone was seated at the tables for dinner. One of the relatives' kids - a smarmy 12-year-old smartass - said, "Hey, there's water coming down the stairs!" I exchanged a glance with Ex that he probably understood pretty well - we'd been together 31 years by then. "Little asshole." However, I'd no more than turned my attention back to my dinner plate when the tidal wave announced itself. Water heater. Upstairs. Emptying its contents downstairs. It was a stressful time, dear readers. I've never groused about the $800 it cost to replace a water heater on a rainy Christmas Eve, nor about the work it took to dry everything out in rainy weather. But I was truly disturbed at the sequence of events that messed with my entertaining. I hadn't yet learned that I don't control anything. Tightly wound. Uh-huh.

Now I do the holidays differently. I don't call them "Christmas" any more. I don't trick out my home in tinselly stuff and I don't buy gifts for 8,000 people. I am still tightly wound about some things, so I get a little out-of-sorts trying to work out a holiday-like meal translated to primitive camping conditions. I do it pretty well. I sleep on the ground instead of my warm bed, and sometimes I sleep with all the same clothes that I've worn all day - one wants to avoid hypothermia. My face chaps and my nose runs and sometimes the conditions are just . . . . miserable. I sit in a sling-style camp chair that makes my back hurt if I sit too long reading. Dishwashing and bathing are best accomplished at the warmest hour of the day. One hikes miles and miles and sees stark great beauty. And animals and old mineshafts and "stuff". And that's where I find my peace. Although I could never have told you I am bothered by noise pollution, I've never failed to arrive in any corner of the desert and immediately exclaim, "Listen to the quiet!" It quiets me in every way. I put down my burdens and live in the now. Just a little less tightly wound.

In my ears right now: Jefferson Starship ~ Miracles. That danged Erin O'Brien got me going and I can't stop. Tightly wound! I wish I was wearing a twirly skirt.

Something that charmed me: I work only peripherally with a man I dislike intensely. When he approaches, I feel my jaw clench. He always manages to offend me in most every way. Sometimes he does it in one sentence. He came into the office and started in on what a wonderful year 2009 has been and yada, yada, yada. Well, 2009 has not been a banner year for me, for many reasons. In fact, I've been inviting any interested parties to help me boot its ass on out of here tomorrow night. I said as much to him and he started in on all the expected things: my health, my job, my home. I maintained my Little Miss Crabby Ass demeanor until he rumbled off. And when he did, I grinned. I don't give this man much, but he hit on the things that matter. I adjusted my attitude. 2010 has to be better!

Savoring

My reentry into my real world is going slowly and easily. Work demands aren't any more than I can handle and I'm behaving like a toad at home. Translation: my duffel bag remains where I placed it when I came home and my jacket still smells beautifully of the campfire smoke. We decided I must be a smoke magnet, for wherever I placed my camp chair, the slight breeze would shift to ensure I got a face full of the gray wispy stuff.

I'm not a photographer, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes this makes me feel a little anxious, as I follow people who are photographers and I'm not anywhere near their standards. I have a little leaning toward competition and I have a strong leaning toward doing things well, so I want to present pictures that are decent. But here's where I've landed: I do some things quite well and some things adequately and some things poorly. And I'm beginning to be OK with that. That is a new attitude for me. The voices in my head (my own is the loudest) scream, "You must do things perfectly!" But I don't have to. The world won't stop if I'm a hack at certain things. My reality won't slam into a block wall if I take on something without needing to grind out every molecule of its essence.

I grew up in a photographer's home. My father is quite accomplished and owned a photography studio for years. I've had a camera pointed at me for all of my life. I know about lenses and filters, f stops and cable releases. I recognize a Rolleiflex when I see one from a distance and I like the smell of chemicals used for developing film (a thing of the past, for the young reader). During my marriage, Ex always handled the camera. He bought me a beautiful Nikon set up that I used a time or two and then it fell to him. There are entire trips to Europe that yielded up not one picture of Ex. He was always behind the camera. And in my most recent years, I have shared life with a fine, truly talented photographer. I've been allowed to be lazy. "Hey, can you capture that over there for me?" I have a good curious mind and I never hesitate to take on new things, so one can only conclude that photography just doesn't grab me in the sense that I yearn to do it. Then there's my attachment to language ~ I prefer to make pictures with my words.

In that spirit, as I work on the side at a longer writing, I will present some "pitchers" I love from my holiday outing. If you want the photographs, and I believe you will, visit Digital Existence.

From our camp, looking toward the dunes, two miles off. There is something I love about that mountain range. My camera equipment and the distance prevent me from capturing it, but those mountains are made from layers of different colors. A small rock was found and presented to me that shows everything going on in those mountains ~ blue, green, magenta and purple.

I do not use the words "I can't." Virtually never. If those words pop out of my face, I immediately say, "That's not what I meant. I meant that I haven't been able to yet." We'd hiked the two easy miles out to the edge of the dunes. We'd traversed several of the individual dunes and circled the base for a mile or two. They undulate and as one hikes on them, one can end up in tricky spots, or challenged by a nearly vertical wall going up or down. He wanted to shoot pictures from the top. We chugged upward and upward. I began to lag. It is one of only a handful of occasions where I have failed to simply follow in his footsteps and arrive at the destination. He hollered over his shoulder, "It's OK, just wait for me there." I did. When he arrived at the peak, I heard "Whoa! Razor's edge here, Les. No place to balance. Sheer drop off." He got his pictures, though his perch was precarious. Yonder comes the Badger, slip sliding away down that last 100 yards I didn't make. Yet.

I am good at puzzles. I had not been a camper long before I was able to identify animal tracks. I am proud to say it was I who figured out that the round paw prints in the sand were cat prints. I was pleased when he exclaimed, "Hey, you're right!" It wasn't so hard, readers. I've been kept by about 50 cats in my life. The big ones have paws similar to the domestic ones. In the photo, you see the cat prints and the bird tracks. They appeared to have been made at the same time. I imagine quite a little drama was played out here in the dunes.

In my ears right now: It's still The Mountain. I recommend it.

Something that charmed me: Cats are scarce in the desert. In all our years in the outdoors, we've only seen their tracks in a handful of locations. We spotted one on the hoof once - only the flanks and back end of it as it loped away from the Jeep trail we rode on. We both tried to make out what we were seeing, because something wasn't right. It wasn't a coyote. Minutes later, the Badger said, "Hey, that has to have been a cat." He was right. It moved that way. This time on the dunes, there were cat tracks in abundance. We followed some of their trails for miles up and down the mounds of sand. There was some evidence that there was at least a pair of them, and possibly a family of three. It made me feel good to think of them and their life in the sun on the dunes. I'm a cat person and a desert person. That's beauty to me.

Home After Solstice

I did something most unlike myself during my Solstice Fairy gig. I took out the camera that has gone everywhere with me for years and . . . I took some pictures with it. No longer the digital accessory, that Sony was employed for the purpose it was intended.

Solstice at Grandmother's house, after the remodeling and landscaping were completed.

The solstice outing to the dunes was a most wonderful holiday get-away. Things were a bit different this trip. Shorts taken, but not worn. The skies not quite the same as every other time. New things to see, old landmarks gone missing. Conversations made while being pulled into the most marvelous of campfires. Observations made while climbing in the dunes. "Hey, cat prints -big cat! What do you think, cougar?" Soon we observed there are at least two, and possibly three, cats. Some of the footprints are smaller than others. They appear to hunt together, one following the other, until their tracks diverge. Perhaps some bird flew off at a tangent, or a small mammal changed course and appeared worth following.

I found time to think and consider things. I weighed a few matters in my head, trying to land on how much more time and energy I will throw at them. And I realized on the ride home that I've got through "the holidays" without any negative energy or events. It is a challenge for me and not only did I get through, I walked upright. I even managed a very difficult personal situation during the holidays to the extent that I feel very good about it, very strong.

And so, I will spend a day reading all the blogs, making my comments, and then I will proceed to write and tell what I am compelled to set out.

In my ears right now: Steve Earle & The Del McCoury Band ~ The Mountain. It was requested of me as a holiday gift. The beauty of that is one gets a free burn of the CD! It is very good and features a little input from Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch and Iris Dement. Enough said? I recommend it.

Something that charmed me: I love finding a marsh - wetlands! - in Death Valley. It just doesn't easily compute for me. Yet, there it is. We heard frogs croaking and waterfowl chirping. There it is, just like last time. Just like next time.

Peace on Earth at Winter Solstice

I plan to keep writing pieces about holiday excesses because I have a visual wonder to post on the last such article. But the days are moving quickly through the holidays now and I have a couple of other things I want to post in between. I hope the reader will indulge my hopscotch approach. I figure it's still "the holidays" for another 10 days or so.

I love solstice. It has come to mean "the holidays" to me. And today is solstice. It is the morning I have leapt out of bed, beginning my four-day run for the finish line into solstice celebration. I have begun the lists, the shopping, the planning, the assignment making, the setting out of the appropriate clothes. I've sent e-mails and reminders and talked about it to home dudes when I arrived at the office this morning. For solstice is the season for me. I am the Solstice Fairy of Past, Present and Future.

The first couple of holiday seasons "after", I hardly knew what to do with myself. I was partnered with people who didn't care a lot for Christmas, as such, and "Christmas" is all I ever knew. I'd limp out of those holidays feeling unsettled and unfulfilled. I didn't know what I wanted, but I wasn't getting what I needed. I couldn't move forward because I couldn't quite leave the past.

And then came that year. Mother Badger had come for the holidays and to help get the Badger through a day surgery on his hand. She took him off in the predawn and they called me midmorning to say he was fine and they were going home. I was relieved and now could turn my thoughts to wrapping the last gifts, picking up the freshest items for our holiday meal.

About 2:00 p.m., the lab called me. I'd had a routine blood draw on the previous Friday so my doctor could monitor certain of my prescriptions. I was told I needed to go immediately to the nearest emergency room for blood transfusions and to be prepared to stay a couple of days. I was acutely anemic and I was flabbergasted. I called home, tearful, and the Badger said the lab had called there. He gave them my work number. "Come home, Limes. We'll get you there."

Then commenced an afternoon, evening and night from hell. I was a basket case, the Badger was a bit of a zombie having had general anesthia that day, Mother Badger was a fierce advocate on my behalf. The hospital emergency room, at a good address in Las Vegas, was hideously overcrowded and I wasn't injured or actively bleeding, so we waited and waited until Mother Badger started to raise hell. I was finally seen by an army of phlebotomists, internal medicine specialists and I don't know what else. We'd been there 7 hours when I was shown to the gurney where I would spend the night in the hallway - it was the only place they had to put me. When the first unit of blood was started, the Badgers bid me good night and told me to call when anything was known. I wanted sleep that night, but it was difficult. I clenched my purse between my knees beneath the blanket and closed my eyes, turned toward the wall so complete strangers wouldn't see me in my sleep as they walked by.

At dawn, I'd been given enough other peoples' blood to put me back on the "living" list, had been monitored, given a light breakfast. All the health care providers agreed I needed to be admitted to determine what had caused such anemia, but there was no room at the inn for me. I called home and the middle aged man and the elderly lady set out to pick me up. I was damned glad to see them, and choked up while sipping at my orange juice. They carried me home and we all settled into exhausted sleep.

When we met at the kitchen table around noon, Mother Badger said she'd had a call from the young woman who tended to her cat and home when she travels. It looked like someone had been in the house and burglarized her! She was distressed - we all were - and it was decided we'd open gifts and share our holiday meal that night so Mother Badger could drive home the next day. Not the way any of us intended the holidays to look, but we had to deal with all of it. Arriving at home, Mother Badger called to say she had been burglarized, and likely by a young man acquainted with the woman who was hired to watch her home.

I napped and rested - I needed to. At one waking, the Badger asked me to look at the computer monitor. "Look at the temperatures! Let's go camping, Limes." I didn't want to, readers. I didn't feel up to loading food and camping gear and clothes and . . . . "I'll do most of it, Limes. I'll just need help with things I can't do with my hand." He did, too! Although I am big on splitting the tasks 50/50, that time he did the lion's share of the work.

He drove and I napped in the car. We arrived at the place we'd never visited before, and stepped out into balmy air, clear, sunny, blue skies. The weather readings had been correct - it was warm. We spent a few days there in quietude and warmth. He hiked and I hiked when I could. We discovered an unlikely, misplaced swamp in the transition between the Mojave Desert and Death Valley. No, it wasn't a mirage. I know reeds and waterfowl when I see them. We found old mining structures and became familiar with the most glorious series of sand dunes to climb and hike.


But it is the solstice moon that draws me the most strongly. For in this place at this time of year, that moon squirts up over the mountaintop just about the time I am cooking dinner on the Coleman stove. It presents all fire and opalescence, lighting up the terrain as it rises, the time being not-quite-light and not-quite-dark. We always "ooooh" and "aaaaah" ~ "Badger, can you capture it on digital?" He can. He does.


This will be the third solstice camping in four years. Although on one trip, we found the beautiful gift of an out-of-place little violet flower on top of the dunes, it appears we will be more challenged later this week. First we had the possibility of rainshowers. That has diminished. It will be colder than we are used to in this spot. But it will still be quiet and it will still be beautiful and one can enjoy all of that with just a few more warm layers. I'll roll out of the car and be cradled in the embrace of the dunes. There we talk. There we enjoy our fire. There we read and refuel our empty tanks.

Happy Holidays, everyone ~ I hope you spend them in the ways that mean the most to you. Peace on Earth. Good Will to Everyone.

Photo credits for the real LimesNow and the last three photos above: J. D. Morehouse

In my ears right now: Still Cyndi Lauper and Peter Kingsbury singing Walk Away Renee. In the new year, I'll seek out a 12-step program.

Something that charmed me: Tag just e-mailed me the damnedest thing I've ever seen. He suggests it might be "Limes Now". I submit I haven't worn that mustache for years!



Photo credits for THAT LimesNow: NOT J. D. Morehouse. And I'm NOT that LimesNow.

Storm Trooper

I'm not unique for having had some bad holiday time life events that slightly color everything about the season for me. It happens. Children grow up, divorces happen, people move away . . . . the way we celebrate can become different for many reasons. The things we feel are worth celebrating can turn 180 degrees. I've written before about having a sharp, jagged boundary defining "before" and "after" in my life. This isn't meant to be a dark post, but I wish to show that my holiday twitchiness stems from serious issues, not just from failing to receive the holiday gift I'd asked for. The dark gorge contains my trip to a hospital with paramedics, large blood transfusions, a surgery and the flaming crash of "before" at precisely 8:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve that year. It took five days for all of that to happen, after a 32-year build-up. Life before did not quietly fade away. It crashed through the astral plane and was destroyed. Nothing was ever the same again. I am not the same.

There! That's it. There's to be no more nattering about the terrible things humans can do to one another, nor am I carrying a crying hankie throughout December any longer. I am so holiday happy, I have been dubbed the Solstice Fairy of Past, Present and Future. But my overarching theme for a post or two is to be Extremely Exaggerated, Extravagant Excessive Excesses at the Holidays - My Own and Others'. I'll ask the reader's indulgence as I will bob and weave through the 1950s to the 2000s. I'll try to be clear about the "when" of things.

The other day in my office, I was reminded how large my extended family is when I said something about my 40 cousins and one of my co-workers nearly passed out. I guess that is a large number of people. And as I'm gathering steam for writing this post, the words that are colliding in every frame of the holiday film that plays in my head are the "e" words - extreme, excessive, exaggerated. Extreme personalities. Exaggerated merriment. Excessive amounts of food, drink and gifts. Exorbitant amounts of time spent by many people year-around preparing for this one Saturnalian snowglobe festival. Three aunts baking for two solid months. Granny-O and four aunts sewing doll clothes every Sunday afternoon of the year. Five turkeys in the ovens at the actual event. I'm thinking 30 pounds of potatoes would be about right.

Sidebar: I've just had a wave of peace wash over me. This holiday excesses theme is one that makes me hinky. I'm going to tell some things that embarrass me and some that hurt and some that are hugely funny. But I'm never neutral about the excesses - at least my own. And I've landed somewhere really nice for the first time ever. Some readers would have seen me reduce my mother to human size recently on the blog. My mother has always defied description, at least by me, and has been HUGE. I wrote with a little angst, and Kass said something in her comments that made me laugh out loud. "Anxious mother." Oh. OK. She was an anxious mother. No more. No less. That's pretty manageable, even by me. And now, after typing only three paragraphs, something has shown itself to me that makes this "excesses" thing manageable. I was set up for it. It's not some aberrant failing of character I invented. It's what was modeled for me, with modern inventions, money, time and my own fertile imagination thrown in across the years. I was a Christmas Nazi because I was born and bred to be one. And I'm reminded again to quiet down, go inside and pay attention when something overwhelms me. Funny how the answers always lie within. I need to practice that. Allow me to share some of the stories.

By the time my cousins and I were old enough to be the hostesses of the family holiday gatherings, there were some big high heels to fill. Granny-O and the aunts cast a long shadow. My aunt Irene really did make 43 different kinds of Christmas cookies, brought them to the family celebration to be enjoyed, and sent each family home with a clean shoebox full of them. Granny-O and the sewing aunts made Barbie and other doll clothes in sufficient numbers that our dolls got complete wardrobes from "Santa". I recognize that Barbie is rather magnificent in bodily proportion, but I submit that sewing bras, underwear and slips for her from nylon and lace would challenge even a person comfortable with a sewing machine - those were some tiny pieces of lingerie, and never a stitch out of place. By the way, there were 28 of us who owned Barbies to be outfitted at any given Christmas. I'm sure there were some wonderful gifts for the boys, too. I just wasn't very interested in what they got. Gary always got pajamas and clothes, and I imagine the other boys getting Lincoln Logs or Tinker Toys. Something like that.

I think I'll close out this first holiday excesses post talking about my Aunt Ruth - the Queen Bee of the womenfolk. Ruth was Granny-O's first child and she was revered by every sibling and every niece and nephew. That's a pretty remarkable accomplishment. Amber's generation of children all revered her, too. Ruthie was a "classy" girl. She shopped at Woolworth's for the things Granny-O didn't make for her and she looked like a million bucks. She ran off at 18 to New York City where she worked first as an au pair girl and later formed an attachment to the actor, Robert Taylor. She returned at about age 30 and proceeded to have two marriages and a good life. I don't remember much about her first husband - I believe they divorced in the 1950s. Andy was her husband we all regarded as our uncle and they were popular at family gatherings. Although they never had children, each of them knew how to interact with children, from babies through teenagers. Aunt Ruth talked to 16-year-old girls about sex and Andy wanted to know what it was like to smoke pot. They talked to us as if we were real people. No wonder we loved them!

Dear Ruthie's excess is one that will make the reader grin, I believe. For Ruthie's obsession was to roll $1 bills all year long. Why? Ruth and Andy didn't give tangible gifts. They gave money. When I was a child, the amount was the princely sum of $10 per person. Every person in every family. When Amber was a child it was $50 per person. Ruthie gave cost-of-living increases! However, the gift of money was always given in some unusual way. Whether one received $10 or $50 or whatever the amounts in between the years, the money was presented in $1 bills, rolled tightly and individually and disguised in the presentation. Ruthie selected her "theme" every New Years Day and spent the year putting the gifts together. The secret of the theme was sacrosanct. I don't believe it was ever once discovered in advance. Various cousins would ply Ruthie with wine and try to niggle it out of her. Uh-uh. We never found out.

Just some of Ruthie's Greatest Hits:

4. Tootsie Roll dollars - she wrapped Tootsie Roll wrappers around each dollar and tucked the dollars in among the actual miniature Tootsie Rolls - not the shortest, stubby ones. The ones that would be just about the same size as a rolled up dollar. Andy liked eating the Tootsie Rolls to free up wrappers for the dollars. On Christmas, each kid and adult got a big basket filled with Tootsie Rolls and dollars. It made a kid damned careful not to swing her basket too hard, thereby ejecting some of the contents.

3. Golf pencil dollars - yep, wrapped those $1 bills in yellow paper and tossed them in with the pencils.

2. Pasta dollars - Ruthie rolled the dollars in their original state and presented them in a glass canister filled with green dried pasta.

1. Potpourri dollars - my personal favorite. I love to decorate with decorative hat boxes and I know where to find them. Ruthie began to hit me up about my hat box resources in February. She was 80. She needed more than 100 hat boxes, so the light came on pretty quickly for me. I was 49. I could keep a straight face. I don't need to know everything there is to know. That year, she wrapped the dollars in pastel, filled those hat boxes with loose potpourri, and tossed in the dollars. One was careful transferring the potpourri from the hat box to glass containers!

The tinsel orgy was roaring and the really good Santa my mother had hired was soon to arrive. Ruth asked if I'd go out on the porch with her while she had a cigarette. I don't care for smoking, but I can stand downwind to spend time with Ruthie. We bundled up and I carried her glass of wine. On the porch, she broke it down, "Limes, did you figure it out about the hat boxes?" I struggled, folks. Finally I told her I had and she asked why I didn't say anything. "Didn't want to take it from you, Ruthie. Some things are better not to know in advance." She told me I was the best one of "the bunch". She told me my kid was the best one of "the new bunch".

That was the holiday season before my "before" went away. One year. Ruthie died of lung cancer 18 months ago, after a long, good life. Smoking will do that to a person. This is not a sad ending. This is an ending with a huge measure of gratitude for fine things I have enjoyed in this life and fine, excessive people I've known and loved. They taught me well. "I'm Limes and I'm a recovering Christmas Nazi. It's been 8 holiday seasons since I did anything that would rate a headline."

In my ears right now: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun ~ Cyndi Lauper. I still love it. I watched the original video on Vevo and I danced, too. I wish I'd had on a skirt so I could snap it around like Cyndi does. I sported the pink bumper sticker for years until it rotted off of the car. If I found a new one today, I'd buy it and fly it.

Something that charmed me: When I was 18, my Aunt Ruth loaned me the first volume of Ralph G. Martin's biography of Lady Randolph Churchill. It ignited me. I read it over and over again. I learned about Jennie Churchill and her famous son. I absorbed everything I could about life in Victorian England. I took notes and read biographies of other people in the Churchills' circle. The one book set so many things in motion for me, including a deep hunger to explore England. That would come, and Winston Churchill's country home, Chartwell, is where I would see some of Jennie Churchill's belongings on display. I am sorry to report I touched a leather book cover and a wool jacket. After I'd read the book a number of times I tried to return it to Ruthie. "You keep it honey. I enjoyed it, but I can see it means much more to you."