High-Powered Resolve

My January-resolve is strong and my goals are realistic. This year will be different than the other years. I will make up resolutions as I go, all falling under the theme of “Personal Accountability.” Here are three to start with:

• I will keep better track of holidays, birthdays, and other important events in the lives of those around me.
• I will think about what I eat before I put it in my mouth.
• I will try to exercise more discipline and take better care of my physical and mental health.

Revisiting the Christmas Catywompus

TBM (the blessid mother) doesn't read my blog too regularly; she is a busy woman. She works full time, manages the bulk of the household duties and family's finances, and is a caregiver to her beloved friend, a geriatric dog named Sampson. The other day she had an opportunity to read my blog, and it evoked some negative emotions within her.

Although she is savvy in many ways, for whatever reason, she had trouble posting her comment to my "Christmas Catywompus" blog, so I asked her about it.

After her short, but meaningful explanation, I felt very foolish about my very one-dimensional and somewhat cynical, minimization of our Christmas family gatherings. Let me explain:

One of the things I love best about coming home at Christmastime is the "Christmas-y-ness" of my parents' home. From the inside out, the house is adorned with decorations and lights. Lovingly wrapped packages in bright paper and beautiful tied ribbons wait beneath the boughs of our Christmas tree. TBM and TWO (the wise one) dedicate a lot of time to decorating the tree with lights (which must be woven around the tree branches and hundreds of ornaments placed "just so.") Wreaths TBM makes herself are on the walls, each decoration chosen with care - from the nativity candelabra to the bathroom towels. Literally every room in the lower level of the house is Christma-fied. And not in an "over the top" way, in a very classy, meticulous way. My mother isn't the type of woman who would fill her yard with as many lawn ornaments as possible; they are carefully chosen. She is kind of an artist when it comes to decorating the house.

Beyond the decorations and all of the shopping, and the wrapping, which must in an of themselves take hours, she bakes. TBM bakes and bakes and bakes. This year there were seven different kinds of cookies and candies she made. Is it any wonder the stove has kicked the bucket? It's exhausted. Yet TBM keeps on going. Why?

By Christmas Eve, when family shows up, the house is warm and welcoming, like something out of a Hallmark movie. The food is delicious and well-prepared. TBM has only a couple of wishes, that everyone enjoy the food that has been prepared, and the company - in the atmosphere she has painstakingly provided.

TBM, who has been married 27 years and has two children in their 20s, is wise in the ways of youthful ignorance so she understood how from my (single, never-married, childless) point of view I could misunderstand what the whole experience means. How TBM's gift to her family, in a way, is the Christmas experience.

Minimizing Christmas gatherings to mere buffet-style social events is deeply flawed and unfair, and even, arguably, very cynical. I may be cynical about a lot of things, but I love Christmas with my family, in my mother's beautiful house, enjoying her homemade cookies. I think I may have projected my own issues onto Christmas. I feel like during the Christmas holiday I behave like a lazy cow. But I am the only one to blame for that. Christmas, nor how the family spends the time we share together, has nothing to do with my inability to keep the cookie-fever at bay.

Actually, spending Christmas together, just chatting, enjoying the good food and drink (in moderation) and good company, is probably the way God would want it. After all, when he was making the the world and the universe, on the seventh day he didn't go bowling or skiing - he just "saw that it was good" and rested. Why wouldn't TBM want to have that same opportunity?

Alternatives to "Sit. Eat. Repeat."

1. Just eat a meal and call it a night - it doesn't have to take three or four hours.
2. Ski.
3. Bowl.
4. See a movie.
5. Go to church.
6. Take a drive and look at lights.
7. Work at a food shelf.
8. Play games.
9. Go to the casino - there is something for everyone there!
10. Karoke.

Christmas Catywompus

Making it home for Christmas all safe and sound = good. I could have used Rudolph to navigate some of the heavy, nuissance fog just west and east of the Madison area. Thank goodness for the steady stream of tail light illumination provided by the more confident, or maybe foolhardy, motorists who passed me by. Yes, I made it home.

I like to visit home, but returning for a holiday occassion is a lot of "hurry up and wait." For whatever reason, maybe because I no longer live at home, maybe because I am deemed incompetent in domestic areas, little is required of me in the way of holiday preparation. This may sound good, but in actuality, it leaves little for me to do but sit in anticipation of whatever party we are about to host or attend. And then all we do is eat and talk, talk and eat. I think Christmas would be a lot more fun if instead of sitting and eating we took a family trip somewhere for the day, or just part of the day. Maybe we could all go bowling. This might not work for those older family members, but at least they can get out and see something other than the house. That in and of itself might be fun.

Or skiing. Older family members can sit in the lodge and play cards while the little kids tire themselve out.

But holidays seem to involve three to five hours of a group of people stuffing their faces, staring at each other, and conveying information that can be shared in 30 minutes or less. I can tell people what is going on in my life in 15 minutes or less. There are no babies to play with, or kids to watch. Just a bunch of us dull grownups sitting around slowing getting fat.

This is not to say I don't love my family, because I do. I would be OK if we all just had a dinner together and went to church. That would be cool with me.

Instead, I can't relax for the next two hours because people will be coming over. And if I look too relaxed, mom will look at me and probably get mad. Just because I appear to be relaxing and she of course, cannot relax and probably needs help with things. But then, I am not qualified enough for the important jobs in the kitchen, and dad has already done everything else. So here I hide, out of everyone's way. Waiting for it to be safe to emerge.

tegenate

te • gen • ate (transitive verb)
Pronounciation: \tag-en-āt\
Inflected form(s): te·gen·at·ed; te·gen·at·ing
Date: 2007
: to provide with an unequaled, super-human determination.
— te·gen·a·tive \-ˌvā-tiv\ adjective
— te·gen·a·tor \-ˌvā-tər\ noun

I Did It

I bought and mailed ALL of my Christmas cards...before CHRISTMAS!!!! I can't BELIEVE it. What a TRIUMPH. What an achievement. This could be one of the proudest days in my life. I even sent one to the lady at Hardees who knows my order without even asking. Cheers!

Deep Dark Secrets and Shames

I have a hobby I enjoy. It is called singing...s-i-n-g-i-n-g.

Talking about it is hard, actually doing it (in a public setting) is some how sacrilegious. Blogging about it, as I am now, is somehow easier.

I really love singing. It makes me happy. My favorite songs to sing are standards, the sorts of which were made popular by Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald, and so on. I also love to sing scores from musicals. "Annie Get Your Gun," "Phantom of the Opera," "West Side Story" (which celebrated its 25 anniversary this year), and "My Fair Lady" are some of my very favorites.

Sometimes, I like to try singing opera. Not REAL opera, per se, by the kind of watered down version brought to the mainstream public by Sarah Brightman and Charlotte Church. They are dear friends of mine (I have multiple CDS) and I mean them no disrespect, of course.

Once and a while I think I am a good singer, and maybe, if I had enough guts (and talent), I could learn how to play piano or some other instrument and sing a bunch of cover songs to an audience at Jackpot Junction or some place like that. You don't have to be gorgeous, or even all THAT good, to do that. I know. I've seen the bands that play there. I am not talking about when Tony Bennet comes to town. I am talking about the little itty bitty venue by the bar. I could do that. Couldn't I?

I don't want to be on American Idol, I don't even really want anyone to know who I am. I just want to be able to sing without feeling like I should be ashamed about it.

Now that I have my own house, I have a place I can sing -- and practice. I couldn't in the apartment. I was too self conscious that someone would hear.


I am probably not that good at it. But I feel like I have the right genetic make up for it and I could be, at the very least, a decent singer. Worthy of being in a choir at a church, or maybe even something more. I took voice lessons for a semester in college, and I was told I had the potential to be just as good as the best singer in my class - or better, I just needed to be more polished and have more control. That felt pretty good considering she had been classically trained for most of her life.

I am 26 years old now, which makes me too old to be a child prodigy, but not too old to try something I really want to do. Hopefully I can kick this shame thing and accept that singing is OK for me to do.

Top 10 Achievements for December

10. Remembering to update the budget almost as often as old information needs to be replaced -- and in a timely manner.
9. Riding my recumbent bike almost every day since The Cable arrived.
8. Buying Mom's Christmas gift. At least someone was easy.
7. Remembering *not to forget* to buy Christmas cards to send to everyone, which will happen this weekend.
6. Thinking about what to buy for people before Dec. 22
5. Making plans in advance - I already have something planning for January.
4. Reforming the Dog. Yeah, right.
3. Being social at the work Christmas party.
2. Bowling a 203.
1. Friends For Life

Trouble 'At Home'

The Dog has been having some issues since we moved into our new place. She appears to have developed Jedi powers that enable her to move rugs, purses, and other items into her cage without actually leaving the cage herself. Needless to say, she is using her powers for evil and may very well be building a Death Star somewhere in the three-season porch. The vilest of her heinous acts took place Tuesday, Dec. 4. On that day, she destroyed my favorite winter coat. It looked like she killed a bunch of geese in her kennel, as the down feathers that kept me so nice and warm while I shoveled all weekend were scattered in her cage. I could have cried. She can truly be a hateful beast. Now though, she has four sheets of corrugated cardboard on three of the four sides of her kennel, preventing her from even so much as FANTASIZING about the damage she could do to any of the few items remaining in the “dog room.” I have hindered her mobility by wedging her kennel between two tables. The arrangement worked for one day. We will see how things look by the end of day two…

Time to Ventilate

I am feeling really tired and there is a funny feeling in my throat that corresponds to another funny feeling below the back of my jaw. Lymph nodes? I don't know. Now I will run over to Wal-Mart and get my oil changed. Then I shall go to the video store and rent the next disc in season 7 of CSI: Las Vegas. This will be the last night I rent a video for a long time because I am getting cable tomorrow. Yeay!

Sticking to my budget is really hard right now, because it is Christmas-time and suddenly all of my clothes seem to pale in comparison to the brightness of the season. At times like these, I try to remind myself I am beyond my ideal weight and therefore would not relish the trying-on-of-clothes-experience anyway. Besides, generally the clothes look nicer on the rack than they do on the people. I am trying to get more exercise into, and more calories out of, my life, but it will be a while before those small changes will show. In the meantime, I have to run on faith alone and glare at the middle-aged women who bring their UNENDING parade of Christmas cookies and candies to work. Yes, I may write about cows, but that doesn't mean I want to look like one.

Work, problems at home* and seasonal stress are also bringing out the best in me; an impromptu period, weight gain, and nail biting.

I have some good news regarding my budget. The Holidays will be dealing it a gentler blow than I originally thought. That is welcome news. Tomorrow I will get a self addressed stamped envelope and in an attempt to secure more financial stability instruct my landlord (former) to get my deposit back to me. However much remains. He is an asshole though (sorry Grandma, but that is the most appropriate word to describe him) so I am sure he will keep all $400.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

I am thankful that I moved into my new place well before the first of the month, this past Saturday, a day that will be known in history as the day the "great snows came." OK, maybe not exactly. We DID receive 6.5 inches of snow though, so I was able to put my new shovel and coveralls to some serious use.

Notes on "Box"-ING

The great thing about being a kid is that even though there are innumerable toys - electronic, plastic, and otherwise - all you need to have a good time is a cardboard box. I believe that this remains true today, despite the number of high-tech gadgets available to even the tiniest of tots.

As a child, a cardboard box had unlimited potential. If a box were big enough - say, a refrigerator-sized box - it alone could be a fortress to play in and around. Many boxes of this size, tipped on their sides and lined in a row, could be a spooky tunnel. Smaller boxes could be stacked upon one another to create any number of structures. There were countless possibilities.

My most recent encounter with cardboard boxes had less to do with creative innovation than with necessity. I was moving and I needed cheap, temporary storage for my many possessions. Cardboard boxes fit the bill.

I collected Dole boxes from the grocery store and booze boxes from the saloon and filled them with crap until they were ready to burst. Each box was masting taped to secure its contents, then heaved into a mighty trailer for transport.

After serving their noble purpose, the boxes - some empty, some full - have come to occupy space in rooms throughout my new house. Last week, I built my first cardboard box tower, albeit inadvertently, as I stacked the boxes that were stapled in the bottoms and would require scissors to render flat. A few days before that, I created a cardboard box wall designed to prevent Ella from escaping the confines of the kitchen. After about 15 seconds behind the wall, Ella made a dramatic escape and the boxes fell to the ground.

I hope one day to put the cardboard boxes where they belong - packed away in the basement, keeping seasonal items safe from dust and damage.

But in the meantime, they will be whatever I need them to as I organize my new home.

Road Reservations

A long-awaited lunch, purchased by my editor, is now sitting uneasily at the bottom of my belly. I continue on with my day, seemingly unawares that the grease-laden meal is slowly planning to wreak havoc on my arteries. Oh joy. But who can say no to a free lunch? Not me. In any case, I have been consuming more than my share of low-fat, low cholesterol Subway sandwiches (and chocolate chip cookies – uh, oh) lately so maybe the effects of this, my midday meal transgression, will be minimal. Things are winding down here and soon I will be on my way *home. I don’t much enjoy the trip *home. I am not accustomed to long drives and regard them as perilous, especially this time of year when weather can be spontaneous and creative in its crappy manifestations. Adding to my anxiety about this particular trip is daylight savings time, which thrusts my Grand Prix and me into the unwelcome darkness that much sooner.

But before I can even get on the road, I will have to unload some excess baggage from my trunk and my backseat: cleaning supplies and miscellaneous other items I brought home from the apartment last night and was too tired to unload at 9 p.m. Then I should really throw some personal items into a bag for the next few days. I won’t need much; I will only be home for two days. There are a few items that are imperative to the trip (glasses, contact lenses, my purse, gas money, maybe one nice outfit to wear on Thanksgiving), anything else (soap, underwear, socks, clothes that in general match) aren’t as important because the homestead continues to have many of these items in stock.

Then I will have to drop off the sunshine of my life, the consummate underwear inspector, Ella dog, at the Doggy Boarding House. Oh my sweet little Ella dog. I am feeling like a bad “mother” lately for having put her through such trauma as moving, then refining her to a cage in the nippy, three-season porch during the long workday. Next week things will be much more normal: I will be working eight-hour days and we can go for a nice walk over my lunch break AND after work. Unfortunately, try as I might to convey this to her, it is highly unlikely that she understands. If only it were as easy to breakdown as “Walk” or “Potty outside.” Despite her usual, unaffected, ever-optimistic demeanor, I have to believe the situation has been stressful on her, too.

The first day I left her in the new home, alone, unhindered. She chewed a hole in “our” bed comforter. Chewing anything other than a bone is not really part of her usual behaviour.

Again I feel guilt. Bad “mother.”

They like Ella at the Doggy Boardinghouse, and she is a brave little soldier when I drop her off. This experience, I believe, is more traumatizing for me, than for her. We will only be apart for a few days, but throwing yet another trauma right on top of the move - right on the heels of my “bad mothering” – I can’t help but feel guilty.

I know of course, she will be fine, and God-willing, so will I. Soon it will be time to hit the road. I better get ready.


*Home refers to the “Mother ship” or my “place of origins” in Wisconsin.

New Digs

As of this weekend, Nov. 17, I moved into a new place. It's a cozy little house on Birch Street. Could I sound anymore cliche? But its true - all of it - the "cozy little house" part and its location on Birch Street. I will have more to say about this when I have more time.

Thought Bulemia

OK. I am officially operating on pilot. I cannot think I cannot feel I can only move from one thing until the next until I get home for Thanksgiving tomorrow night/Thursday morning. My brain has reach maximum capacity. All new information will have to go on a waiting list. I will let the world know when I will be accepting new information again.

The Bane Of My Existence

Top 10 Reasons Why I am Stressed Out
10. Work. We are putting together a 16-page "special section" in addition to our three section edition next week, and we have one less day to accomplish this because of the Thanksgiving holiday. This is not even the result of poor planning, it is just how the cards fell.

9. Money. I am still trying to master my new budget (week four) and am not doing a very good job. I am staying pretty close to what the budget allows, but I think I may need to find a new way to spread the money so I don't end each second and fourth week with barely nothing in the allowabl-funds-I-can-spend category and two or more days before I get paid again.

8. Christmas. This could also fall under the "Money" Category. I am concerned about about saving some money to spend on gifts for my loved ones and friends.

7. Friends for Life. I didn’t get to go to the Pet CPR class I wanted to go to this week and I haven’t had time to call all of the Humane Societies I need to call for our calendar of events. The first publication is coming out and I really want things to go over well so maybe someday THAT could be my full-time job.

6. Ill relations with my soon-to-be former landlord. He is a dink and he is causing me a bit of stress and he is taking up too much of my time.

5. Family. Several members of my family are dealing with health related issues and it stinks.

4. Unpacking.

3. Moving.

2. Packing

1. Ella. How will naughty dog behave once she is in our new place. I am terrified that she will ruin something. We have never been in a “nice” nice place before. Real wood floors, fancy bathroom tiles. I cringe just thinking about her and the kind of damage she is capable of. It’s true, it’s small; but the number of things she could potentially wreck is infinite. Please, dear Lord, let her be a civilized little lady and not ruin this great new opportunity for us!

The Best of Times

Heifers don't know it, but this is the best time of their lives. Frolicking in the fields with their friends. Running and playing. Eating. Life is carefree. But not for long. Soon they will be bred and turned into milking machines. They will probably have calving complications the first go 'round, and every move they make will be monitored. If they don't say healthy, provide ample, quality milk and good offspring, it's off to the salesbarn; or worse yet, the meat processing plant.

But today, they are heifers.

And it is good to be a heifer.

The Word Economist

Nov. 15 - It is almost an hour before Minnesota's First Lady is going to call ME to chat briefly about her newest acquisition - a butterhead carved in her likeness. A man I interviewed just called to go over the story I wrote about him. We tweaked a couple of things and as usual, I was thankful for the clarification. There are many areas of his field that are not second nature to me, and that can be painfully obvious in my writing. His feedback enabled me to make the story better, which is fantastic, but even better, he paid me what I deem a high compliment. He told me he liked my "prose" and that I was a word economist. I am a firm believer that the newspaper is no place for wordiness and highfalutin terminology. I was once informed that the average reading level of newspaper consumers was eighth grade. While I don't know that this is still accurate today, it was a "fact" that made me take pause. Big, beautiful words and colorful language has its place in literature and in magazines, but in newspapers I believe it only serves to alienate. This is not to say I don't like to paint a picture for my readers. I do. But too much paint on a canvas can ruin a lovely picture.

She's done it again!

Trish the Amazing has refreshed my blog layout, which is good, because even I was growing tired of looking at the saccharine sweet pinkness everywhere - althought I still loved the graphic. Trish is the multi-talented, superhuman, pretzel person. Men adore her and women want to be her. All bow down to Trish.

Did I mention Trish is the most witty person I know?

Prostitutes in Smalltown

I don't like country songs, as a general rule, however I like Miranda Lambert. I also like her most recent song about how everyone dies famous in a small town. I tend to agree that once you hit a certain age, everyone in town follows your "extracurricular" activities (for better or worse) with a tabloid fascination.

Strangers (those who don't have at least five generations of family roots planted firmly in the ground) are also a subject of much interest and suspicion. I have been a stranger for the last two years leading a pretty boring life by onlookers' standards. Then some new people moved into my apartment.

If Smalltown were a theatre, my apartment might be a stage: It's right on the corner of mainstreet and from my living room window I have the best seat for watching the locals stagger home from the bar on any given night (if I so choose). There is one thing to be said about voyeurism...if you are in a prime position to be a voyeur, it is likely you are in a prime position to be "voyeured."

My neighbors, who probably struck the Smalltown multi-geners as even odder than I (a Cheesehead by birth) were either unaware or did not care that they were on the mainstage of the town arena. They would have been famous even if they hadn't inadvertently tried. The man downstairs is divorced from the woman who lives upstairs. Their children live with her. His girlfriend-apparent (perhaps live-in, perhaps frequent guest) adds to the already thick tension of the living arrangement. Throw in the fact this is a multi-racial couple in a white rural town, and it's inevitable that these folks will generate some interest amoung the yip-yappers and jaw-jabberers who patronize "downtown" businesses.

This being said, my neighbors took it upon themselves to have frequent, loud arguments, which my landlord too often dismissed at unruly hours of the morning. Girlfriend-apparent, launched personal belonging out the front door for all of the world to see, and was prone to dramatically storming off.

As if this wasn't enough, the couple cinched their celebrity status by being arrested in nearby Metropolis Wannabe (a city about 25 miles down the pike) for prostitution and other related charges. In the days following the arrest, Smalltown was "a-buzzin.'"

If this is what it means to be "center-stage" I have had more than enough and am looking to move to Bigger Smalltown. There, if all goes well, I can live in a house on a city street, in a neighborhood, so if people want to know what I am up to, then they will at LEAST have to go to the trouble to drive a couple of blocks off of the main drag. I find that much more palatable than being just a drunken-stagger away from any weirdos, yip-yappers and jaw-jabberers who can easily observe me anytime, although most likely, taking my dog outside to crap while I am wearing my pajamas.