Life of Wry

Favorite holiday thing: the Home for the Holidays concert. Eight or ten performances and a huge range of music with just a tinge of holiday.  That above is Bill Edwards.  I think Peter was mesmerized by his coolness, especially since Bill is Peter’s best friend Jack’s dad.  Peter doesn’t have such cool parents.

A few more pics:

Chris Webster (from Mumbo Gumbo) sang with Tracy Walton (also from Mumbo Gumbo) and Bill. All the sets were short, but this one was WAY too short.

This is Hattie Cravens, Joe’s daughter.  Ridiculously talented little thing.

The Davis High Madrigals did a set. Gorgeous.

Joe Craven’s trio included professional drummer Jeffrey Minnieweather (wow).  He also backed up the Fabletones.

These were the only pictures that turned out, otherwise I’d have included Little Charlie and Rita Hosking, both of which were crazy good.  Well, all of it was good.

This was the 8th annual, and except for the year we were in Brazil over Christmas, we’ve been to all of them. Looks like they’ll continue for a long time.. so go next year.  It’ll be your favorite holiday thing, too.

Right. Swim. Didn’t do that.

For any number of reasons.. not the least of which was the fog and 30-40 degree temps.

Funny season, Christmas is. It’s a grand mix of burden, accomplishment, sweetness, cynicism. For many years, it’s been a confusion of traditions and a search for meaning. It’s not a big deal, life needn’t be so complicated, but then, with a 13-year old, it just is. It’s all fine, but really… it’s all wrong. Want a great big do-over.

May jot down some thoughts in a later post.

But for now, this evening, it was a really pretty, wintry sky.

… or wrapping, or baking, or addressing cards, or anything even remotely holiday related.  But I was sitting on metal bleachers in the shade on a low 40s kind of day for 7+ hours with Jim watching Peter play three baseball games in far East Sacramento.

Sufficiently warm, but just barely, wearing:

Thermal underwear, fleece pants, fleece turtleneck, down sweater, thick windbreaker jacket with fleece lining, high tech socks, thick neck scarf, furr-lined hat, fuzzy gloves, covered with two thick fleece blankets.

Here’s the view:

A fine way to spend the day, one week before Christmas.

I went to a latkepalooza tonight, but neglected to take any pictures.  Could have taken a great one of the latke-making operation in the kitchen, complete with splattered oil and potato scraps everywhere.  But didn’t. It was a messy proposition, and a messier cook.

Wish I’d gotten a pic, but how about a couple of nutcrackers instead?  These are ours, taken a few days ago.

Back to food: A few weeks ago, I thought, hey, I can be a sane person.  I can go through the holidays without eating in the holiday way.  But, man, it’s not turning out like I planned at all.  Tonight’s overindulgence, besides some monster latkes (with sour cream and applesauce) and the usual wine and cheese and interesting crackers that I can never seem to avoid consuming great gobs of, was this killer, killer fudge. This stuff was as dense as a gold bar and actually glistened.  It was cut into pieces about four times the size one should ever eat in a single sitting and I had about 3-ish of these.  At one point, I’d set a piece down on a coffee table and along came their giant labradoodle and hoovered it up in one swift motion.  An impressive move.

Anyway, eating too many things that are not any part of my regular fare. But loving every bite.

A few days ago, I wrote about finally putting up decorations around the house, and about my favorite–these funky little snowmen that Jim cut out years and years and years ago.  Well, these are they.

There are a bunch of other paper-doll-like cut outs, too. I pull them all out most years and tape them to the window; they seem sort of Christmassy in a paper snowflake kind of way.  Nice scissor work, huh?

They look like this in their natural habitat… wee little things:

The snowmen remind me of a book that we used to read to Peter long ago called Polka Bats and Octopus Slacks by Calef Brown, and in particular this poem (best if read rap style):

Funky Snowman loves to dance

You’d think he wouldn’t have much chance

Without two legs or even pants

Does that stop the funky snowman?

No!!

Turn up the music with the disco beat

When you’re in the groove, you don’t need feet

Crowds come out and fill the street

Kick it, Funky Snowman!

A little gospel (and by little, I mean rousing, well-choreographed, and booming), a bit of folk & impressively-fiddled blue grass, and some gorgeously sung Christmas songs, all courtesy of the Blind Boys of Alabama, and an opening act that featured Sara & Sean Watkins.  

I’m making it my personal mission to drag Peter to more and more shows.  I figure when a world class performing arts venue is within walking distance, we really have no excuses.

Well, this just sort of erases any doubt, huh?

What makes this a Christmas table are 1) the mandarins and 2) the amaryllis — gifts we receive each year from our good friends Susan & Jim.   There is much to cherish in that friendship (and it’s not just the Christmas goods).

Photo-a-day desperation…

Start with a blurry picture taken in very low light. Over expose and over saturate it, cool it way down, crank up the contrast,  definition and sharpness, and there you have it: a blurry, overexposed, oversaturated, cool, contrasty, overly defined, not very good picture of Peter at the Holmes Junior High annual Toy Shop where some of the kids dressed as elves and gave away wooden toys they’d worked on all semester in wood shop to dozens of children from neighboring low income communities, while other kids–band students, including Peter–thoroughly entertained the crowd by playing [seventeen rounds of the same three or four] Christmas songs. They all did great!

If you were me, you got to sit in all that holiday madness (a good madness) listening to somewhat repetitive, if lovely, music.  You also got to drink wonderful hot chocolate with marshmallows and candy canes. And take bad pictures.

A nice way to spend a cold Monday evening.