Christmas Chaos

I just couldn’t take it! Our house is such a mess that I want to move out. Adam suggested that we go over to their house and, when they arrive, just hand our house key over to our guests. Let them figure it out. This is very tempting, but we’d surely lose our friendship with Josie and Adam. Messes seem to follow us around. We never met a job that we couldn’t complicate.

What kind of fool does one have to be to continue making jams in a kitchen with a table jacked up on cinder blocks to serve as a gift wrapping station? And why would one go to Wal-Mart at this "most wonderful time of the year?” My excuse for accompanying Richard to shop was that “we” needed to choose a tree, “we” in this case meaning me. I really went to escape the mess – get a little perspective on the world outside our whirlwind. There really are still parts of the world where people can find a place to sit without first removing ten boxes and a bag of bows.

Here we are, back to wading through big boxes and precious papers, Jelly Bellies and jam jars with no place to put our Christmas gifts, let alone our Christmas tree -- which we did finally buy. Let’s just say, if we were movie directors, we’d turn every made-for-TV movie into The Ten Commandments. But, we’d also have a few elves helping in the production – if we were movie directors.

To add to all this confusion, I had some new furniture delivered – new being a relative term, meaning new to us. When Camille was in town, we went to the Tellico Emporium, just to browse. I came upon two perfect pieces, and just had to have them. The artist/proprietress, Carol Baldwin, re-imagines old pieces of furniture by painting whimsical designs on them. I had been searching for “just the right piece” for our guest room/writer’s nook. Carol had painted a pastoral scene on the front of a drop leaf desk that is in perfect proportion to our tiny room. We now have a pristine place to put a pen to paper or to connect a computer while one writes the next "great American novel."

Also on display at the Emporium Annex was an oak rocker on consignment that had been owned by Bob Hardin, Coker Creek’s famous knife maker and leather worker -- who used to make buckskins for Fess Parker. The rocker, too, was a “must have.” Camille was supposed to take our old wicker rocker, but thought better of it before she headed home. Do we really need three rocking chairs in a thirteen hundred square foot house, even if we could fit them inside?

Richard keeps bringing up a service that city slickers use to get rid of unwanted stuff, where they advertise free merchandise and put it on the curb. “Presto!” -- people come to take it away. You think he’s trying to give me a hint that something has to go? I just hope it’s not his wife…

Making More Goodies

Got all jammed up
When I ran out of jams.
What do we have
To send to our fans --
For this Christmas?

We have plenty
Of our fine bourbon balls.
This may cause some
Of our friends to fall --
Off the wagon.

The macaroons --
I can make plenty more,
When my Richard
Returns from the store --
With groceries.

Blackberries and
The blueberries I froze,
I will defrost,
Because Heaven knows
We need more jams.

After Richard
Has the packages wrapped,
Into the sleigh
The gifts are all stacked
For the mailing.

We finally
May put up the lights.
Did the gutters
Hard freeze overnight?
We can hope not.

Our holiday
Home is such a wreck
To look at it
You’d never suspect
We’ll get finished

In time for our
Nieces, my brothers,
And our nephews,
Grandkids and others.
But we’re on it…

A Palace of Pine

Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by —
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.

I would not sit in the scorner’s seat,
Or hurl the cynic’s ban —
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
--Poem: The House by the Side of the Road by Sam Walter Foss

This seems to be the way of life for many up here, people with generous spirits and open hearts and homes. Mamie sells eggs to draw people to her house. Jack will stop anything he’s doing to set on the porch with all who call on him. Deborah and Charlie entertain hundreds of guests every month, and still have time to offer a rocker on their porch to any who may stop by. Josie and Adam draw friends like honey draws flies.

Neither Josie nor Adam will ever get old because they both have endless curiosity about everything around them. Adam loves to collect stories of people’s adventures and share stories of his own actions in the military and his new life as a cop. Josie loves to share her artistic adventures with whoever wishes to partake. I recently accompanied Josie to a meeting where at least three of the attendees were wearing items of wearable art created by Josie Mott.

Josie and her jeep can be spotted all over the back roads of our neck of the woods. She has a keen eye for photography, creates fabulous textile art, and still makes time to keep a clean cabin and make delicious winter soups.

Adam is always involved in something in the community, such as playing McGruff for the Coker Creek School’s drug awareness and safety program, or riding with police officers assigned to Christmas duty -- just to act as morale officer to them. How lucky we are to have been chosen as their friends.

We were invited to join them for the Christmas Cantata at their church, with a light supper at their home to precede the trip. Josie outdid herself with the vegetable beef soup. I’d be hard pressed to name a vegetable that she didn’t have in that pot. She also served homemade cornbread and melt-in-your-mouth biscuits, accompanied by chunky apple-pear sauce she had whipped up. All of this was served in the surroundings of their pine palace on the side of the road.

Richard and I passed on the Christmas Cantata because we don’t know how to behave in holy places. He gets me giggling, and then all eyes are on me. I’m already in danger of being burned at the stake, so I don’t want to take any chances.

Bluegrass Bacchanal

The Bluegrass band was really swinging ,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.
Mr. Bluegrass, he was a-singing,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.

Lots of gifts and lots of food,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.
Everything was looking good,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.

Yankee gift swap then ensued,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.
With lustful eyes we were imbued,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.

A lot of fur began to fly,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.
For better presents we did try,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.

Cassie was our precious elf,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.
Without thought for herself,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.

She ran gifts from table to table,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.
She proved that she was very able,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.

For everyone there was a gift,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.
Hope the swaps didn’t cause a rift,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.

It was time for us to chew the fat,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.
There were even little chocolate rats,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.

Charlie and Deborah outdid themselves,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.
They could use a few more elves,
In the Coker Creek Saloon.

Holiday Helpers

I am so ready to for our Christmas decorations to be up. Not only do we not have a tree yet, we haven’t even decided whether we’ll have a real or artificial version of fir – or spruce, or pine. We’ve always had a real tree, with Frazier Fir being my favorite. I actually love the staying power of the tree, but I'd probably buy it anyway just for its alliterative name.

When we lived in New Orleans, we had a two-story cathedral ceiling in our great room, so we bought a fourteen-foot fir for our first Christmas as a couple. Richard engineered a special stand out of half-inch marine plywood complete with coated cables and turnbuckles for tightening as we positioned the green giant. When we chose the tree, I hadn’t calculated that the width of the bottom boughs would expand with the height.

This tree was massive. The angel overlooked the second-story balcony, and the branches filled a seven-foot diameter in a room that was twenty feet wide. We had to move most furniture out of our great room, and still we had barely any room for visiting with our revolving door of holiday guests. After taking a week to decorate this behemoth, I decided to have help with our next tree.

The second year, we had a tree decorating open house that spanned a two-day week-end. Everyone who came through our beautiful double doors, with Christmas wreaths and brass horns on both, was required to place at least one ornament on the tree and have at least one beverage before leaving our holiday home. There were Christmas ornaments laid out on all tables and countertops, along with a full buffet feast. Richard had even made a special countertop insert for our kitchen bay window to increase our buffet space.

Children of all ages were lined up on the stairs and every available bit of space. There were hundreds of Christmas carols stacked in our new five-disk CD changer which we’d bought especially for this occasion. Parents were helping their children choose and secure the ornaments to the tree, and everyone was glowing with good cheer --and possibly a bit of booze -- when…

Richard’s partner, Thor, leaned into the tree holding his small son aloft. Somehow, the child zigged when Thor zagged and Michael fell into the center of the tree. In most households this would have been a disaster, but Richard’s fifty-pound tree stand saved the day. Thor retrieved Michael, and the people partied on. This tree stand could hold any tree we threw at it. It could survive anything, including hurricane force winds, if need be. But it didn’t survive Hurricane Katrina's storm surge, and neither did our waterfront home which also had a cathdral ceiling, but only one-story tall.

We, once again, have a cathedral ceiling, but this living room is not much wider than our first tree, so our tree won't have much majesty no matter the type. Our outdoor lights are laying on the floor waiting for our gutters to thaw so that we can clean them while securing the lights. Our village scene is still in storage.

When I was a child, my mother wouldn’t allow us to decorate, or even purchase a tree, until Christmas Eve. She said that this was when the trees burst into bloom with joy over the birth of Jesus, so we followed suit. Of course, the pickin’s were slim on tree choices by this time – but the trees were probably also very cheap. My mother was great at reframing our poverty in religious terms.

Maybe we should get a two-dollar tree on Christmas Eve and have everyone in the holler help decorate our house.

Maintenance and Merriment

Richard is fond of reminding people who complain about getting old that getting old beats the alternative. This is only true if we make it so. It’s easy for me because I was never proper in the first place, but for the good girls it’s gotta be tough.

So-very-serious Richard has a policy of adding something fun to all of aversive activities. When he used to be on call for days at a time with little sleep, and no time for fun, he’d do simple, quick things to treat himself – like buy a lottery ticket convincing himself that this would be his last week-end to work. Or, he’d buy himself some Honey Buns for a treat. Both these activities were done while accomplishing something necessary, like stopping for fuel. Now, Richard’s doctor has told him he has to kick the Honey Bun habit to get his triglycerides in check. Since sweets are his cure for stress, he may have to divorce me to succeed in this endeavor – but I hope not.

I prodded Richard into setting up his post-transplant care in Atlanta because I wanted to be able to visit with Rachel’s family whenever we went through Marietta on our way to and from Emory and the VA. Knoxville is a bit closer, but we don’t have people there; and my sense of fun is all about our people. Rachel’s family is now much too busy for much family time, other than the four in their nuclear family, but we still have Holly and Don – and sometimes Roger. So, we overnight at Holly’s and, with the money we don’t spend on lodging, have dinner on the town.

It’s exciting to me to see that Atlanta has become a food town. When I lived there for ten years in the eighties, it was all white bread WASP food. Steak was about the most exotic thing you could get at a restaurant. Now there are ethnic restaurants on every street.

Because Holly’s a chef, we usually ask her to pick our pleasure. On this trip, we were celebrating her birthday, so we really wanted it to be special. Holly loves short ribs, and had heard that there were good ones in a trendy restaurant in a relatively new dining area. I called and booked a table, being very careful to explain that Holly is the governor’s chef and that this was her birthday celebration. Holly even asked for the restaurant chef upon our arrival.

The short ribs were outstanding, and Holly’s mussels were very good; but we won’t be back. Absolutely no mention was made of her birthday or her status. The chef didn’t acknowledge Holly in any way, and the service was rushed so much that Holly didn’t finish her appetizer before her entrée arrived. Even though I had been assured that this would be a quiet night at the restaurant, the noise level was quite high. Since Richard’s voice doesn’t carry past his nose, this precluded conversation.

Richard, Holly, Don, and I are all excellent cooks. We can create magic in the kitchen for very little money. We pay a premium for ambiance and service. I think, for our next visit, we’ll hire Holly’s housekeeper to clean up after us, and cook in Holly’s home kitchen. At least we’ll get to really relax; and we’ll be able to converse in the quiet of her home.

Richard's Heart and Holly

Yesterday we packed and drove --
Atlanta and the clinic at Emory
This time,
For Richard's heart to be checked
And to create Holly birthday memories.