Life of Wry

It’s that Home for the Holidays time of year again! We’ve missed one or two since the tradition to gather local musicians for a holiday-themed, if unconventional, concert began thirteen years ago. We’ve enjoyed each and every one.

The show always begins with Joe Craven shaking sleigh bells in the rear of the theater, at the top of the stairs to quiet the audience. Then he sings the line, “Happy Holidays,” as he slowly descends on his way to the stage, followed by “Home for the Holidays.” Regulars (most of the crowd) know to respond in kind when he pauses after each line.

Then it’s about eight different musical acts, each typically performing three songs, mostly holiday-themed. Most of the performers are returnees year after year, and many repeat certain favorite songs.

Knock-your-socks-off talent, heavy doses of local humor, smily-worthy warmth, many familiar faces in the crowd, set changes on the fly, and lotsa improvisation and inside jokes make for just a great night.

Some of my favorites:

The insanely talented and funny Joe:

Rita Hoskings:

Little Charlie (Baty):

Tracy Walton, Chris Webster and Bill Edwards:

And a new act this year, this 14-year-old harpist who got the first-ever HFTH standing ovation! Her name is Alaina Rose, who’s played with the Sacramento Youth Symphony, the San Francisco Civic Orchestra and the University of the Pacific Youth Orchestra. Ridiculously poised and talented:

You can tell we’re in the first row.

The talent and passion blow me away every year. I walk out hurting from all the smiling.

I went to another Kaiser class today, this one they called “pre-hab” and was all about the physical therapy of hip replacement surgeries–the before and after exercises, do’s and don’t’s, techniques for bending (or not bending) in the right ways… stuff like that.

I went home with a $48 hip kit.

From left to right: a stiff leg lifter upper; a shoe horn; a general picker upper; a back washer; a clothes hook, and a sock putter oner. They all work pretty well. The kit also included some elastic shoe laces.

Here is a photo for scale:

And, I suppose, they’ll ease the challenges of the first few weeks post surgery. No tirades here.

Other tools, beyond the hip kit: a walker, a riser for the john, maybe a cane, ice packs, a body pillow.

This being Peter’s first home-for-the-holidays Christmas break, I was adamant about spending as much of it at home with him as possible. So far, we’ve spent a lot of time with him and he’s joined us for more outings and events than usual. It’s been just great.

It’s deeply heart warming how much we’ve enjoyed him and maybe even vice versa. 🙂 He’s luxuriated in being home, I can tell. He’s been sleeping in very late, he’s spent a lot of time hanging out with us in the kitchen or even the living room, we’ve all spent many nights (any night we’re all three home) watching episodes of Seinfeld (we’re working our way through seasons five and six). He’s joined us for dinner more often than usual, and we’ve had lots and lots of good conversations.

Just couldn’t be better.

Here are a couple oldies…  this one is from 2006 (age 8 1/2)

And this one’s from 2007, age 9 1/2:

(The scar on his face was from an accident at Chase’s house, where they’d been bouncing on a bed and Peter boinged off and landed on the corner of a table… a little bit of a horrifying trip to urgent care, but all okay in the end.)

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Our counters are full up with sweets, mostly gifts from neighbors and friends. Way too many cookies, brittle, candy, honeys and toffee. We also got some olive oil, granola and, from Uncle Dean, a Harry & David gift box that included, among a bunch of savory things, those insane pears:

Which reminds me of Bill Edward’s great song (sure to be sung at Wednesday’s Home for the Holidays concert):

Chorus:

Eating My Way Through the Holidays

Eating my way through the holidays

bite by beautiful bite.

Packin’ the freight, plate by plate

on the wings of appetite.

Swallow some, wallow some

then I go back for more.

I’m eating my way through the holidays

’cause that’s what a holiday’s for

(that’s what a holiday’s for.)

~~

Tonight’s dinner with friends was at Janet’s with Janet, Walter and his girlfriend, Elle. I’m telling you… these kids are getting older and more grown up right before our eyes.

I have to say, Jim doesn’t take many photos, but when he does, he’s got a lovely eye.

As the story goes, he was standing in the bathroom, looked out the window and a bit of geometry caught his eye…he went out and captured this:

Good one, Jim.

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We had Vicki over for dinner. She has been a part of Peter’s life since he was an infant–baby sitting, storytelling at birthday parties, baking… but it’s been years since she’s spent any time with him. We had a very good time taking about all kinds of things the most engaging of which was a discussion of music, the piano, scales, notes, octaves, perfect pitch… we found a great intersection of interests there. I was pleased that Peter chose to stick around for the whole evening and that he enjoyed the company of the three ancients.

Okay, check this out….

Here is a very nice picture of mom and her four acorns. It was taken in August 2002 up at Fallen Leaf Lake. The whole extended family was in Tahoe for a few days to celebrate Aunt Ellie’s 70th birthday–such a wonderful time.  Here, we are standing in front of the tree planted in Grandpa’s honor at the far end of the lake, just beyond the lodge:

AND…. here is the Christmas present I ordered for my mom this year… a blanket made from this photo:

I do believe this is the all-time best gift I’ve ever given. The blanket–100% cotton, soft and cozy–is actually woven as a reproduction of the photo.. the threads take on the actual colors in the picture. It is an extremely impressive process!

I got it from Costco, of all places, and it only cost $69, plus shipping. It was ready in a week or so.

I just cannot believe what they can do these days.  Next thing ya know, there’ll be self driving cars and robots that can talk to you.

~~

The holidays are in full swing. This evening, Jim, Peter and I headed down to Albany for Monica and Dror’s annual Latkes and Carols party. Its usual fun. I ate about 18 latkes and then sang my brains out. Not really. Just sang. But I notice that my voice seems to have dropped an octave or so. I have such a low voice.

Notable this year was Nina.. Ben’s Slovenian sweetie, who has been here for a few months now and looks to be settling in for the duration. They make a very good and solid couple. They could be each others’ one!

We also saw Paul this morning for breakfast, who was down from Oregon and was making early Christmas rounds with Davis friends–Janet and us. Very nice to see him.

My left leg does not hurt.

The rest of my body… it all hurts. Or most of it, anyway.

Mostly, I’ve been keeping it together–emotionally, I mean. Considering. I remember being on the verge of despair when, at only 59, my right hip did that thing it did and I was sure I’d completely severed muscle from the bone and saw my doctor and she sent me to an orthopedist who said I had arthritis and would likely need a hip replacement (two of them, prolly, she said). I didn’t believe it. I cried. I hated her. I got a second (identical) opinion.

After two years of trying to cure my arthritic hip with every imaginable non-surgical remedy, I’ve accepted [hangs head] the reality of my arthritis, and [grits teeth and rattles fist] hip replacement surgery cannot come soon enough.

I AM SO READY TO BE DONE WITH THIS CONSTANT STABBING PAIN every time I put weight on my right leg or twist it into some previously-benign position.

And then there are these two frozen shoulders.

I think maybe I’ve written about the one… (the right one) that was the result of 36 holes of golf on shoulders completely out of golf practice, when Peter and I played on that luscious course in Maui in June.

After four months of regular body work–thanks Hideshi and Kellie–and some focused workouts (Hideshi’s weekly frozen shoulder class and one-on-one sessions in between), I’d regained some range in my right arm and it was feeling better (like, maybe I’m 60% of the way back to normal). So much better that I thought it was time for a return to my arm weight workout routine. I wanted two strong arms during the hip surgery recovery process because they say that helps to compensate for awkward lower body immobility.

But, I made a huge mistake in resuming my entire workout routine at the weight levels I’d last worked out at. My perfectly happy and functioning left shoulder stiffened right up and now it’s worse than my right shoulder. Messing up my left shoulder was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. Trust me.. you don’t want two frozen shoulders.  If you’ve ever had one of these, you know they’re enormously painful (if you happen to move in the wrong direction) and leave you with a ridiculously limited range of motion.

And now, times two.

So, yeah, my right hip’s killing me these days, and the two frozen shoulders.. AND, a couple days ago, I tweaked my back reaching too far forward to lift a large tupper ware container full of winter sweaters. I’m not kidding. We’re looking at a week, likely, of that lower-back kind of reduced mobility, on top of the other limited ranges of motion.

I wasn’t ready for this much so soon in my young life!

I thought once I got clear of that three-years long achilles deal (injury brought about by a sudden–and joyful–surge of running hills in late 2009) I’d be back to normal.. and I kind of was but for the increasingly annoying hitch in my git-along that portended a complete hip joint failure.

Sigh. This whole failing body thing depresses the hell out of me.  But as Jim reminds me over and over, I’m on “the path.” I’m doing all I can do to manage this big messy mess until I get a new hip, and I AM doing okay most of the time. When the new hip’s in and I’m recovered from the surgery, the rest ought to resolve itself.  A few months down the line, things ought to be a LOT better. Then I can exercise, lose the damn weight and start acting like an athlete again.

I do accept that aging brings brittler bones and less elastic tissue. The whole deterioration thing is one big assault on our image of who we are and our expectations of what we’re capable of doing. I get that our job as we age is to accept this deterioration with grace and humility and manage as best we can a profound disharmony of body parts.

But man.

Today? I seriously feel like I’m about 102 years old.

And the only major body part on my whole damn body that actuallly doesn’t hurt right this minute is my left leg. The fact that no part of my left leg hurts seems like a blippin’ miracle.

~~

A very nice thing happened this Friday evening… Peter joined Jim and me for a movie and dinner afterward. I think the last time the three of us saw a movie together was when we saw Particle Fever (about the Higgs-Boson particle and the standard model and the reason we went to that famous physics research lab in Geneva).

Tonight we saw Manchester By The Sea at the Varsity. It was good, but mostly it was nice to have a grown up night out with Peter.

Annual hikers pre-Christmas gathering time! It’s been a long time since this group has hiked together, but that’s okay.. still the greatest of friends, and still gather for this potluck-gift-exchange.  I so look forward to seeing everyone.

It was at Heidi and Jim’s in Dutch Flat. The storm shoulda brought snow, but it was just a tad too warm, so rain it was. This is just as you cross the tracks on the way into “town.”

Couple road shots where the pavement ends and the dirt begins…

Arriving at Heidi’s & Jim’s:

Did some sitting around (Ricker, Susan, Linda, Jim J):

Did some food prep (Heidi, Susan):

Here’s the table:

Here’s Rick, who’s dealing with health issues, but you wouldn’t know it here:

Here’s us minus Rick and Linda, who’d taken off before we got a group photo (Jim J, Jim R, Jim F, Susan, Heidi):

(Other versions of this photo had too many rabbit ears… this was the most serious of the bunch.)

Great afternoon. Fingers crossed for Rick’s next few rounds of tests and treatment strategies.

As seen in the TSA line at LAX. Gives me hope for and faith in the future.

~~

After being away for ten days, it felt good to be home. Peter picked me up at the airport, which, I have to say, gives me such a warm feeling. I had about an hour to unload, unpack, settle in (and wash down my brand new suitcase after it got soaked in some kind of sweet, creamy drink–maybe a liqueur–that leaked from another suitcase) before I had to head out to a SURJ (Standing Up for Racial Justice) meeting in Sac. I’d have far preferred staying home with my guys and reading Christmas cards or whatever, but I’m very anxious to plug into the work of SURJ and wanted to attend their member orientation tonight. However….. I got too late a start and realized I’d not make the orientation portion of the meeting (again), so decided instead to attend a meeting in Davis–one I’d wanted to attend, but for the SURJ conflict.

The Davis meeting was all about our Sanctuary City status and the challenges we face from the Trumpster, who has threatened to withhold federal funds from cities across the country who stand in the way of his plans to deport immigrants and refugees. It was gratifying as we learned from an expert panel the limits of his inhumane and immoral threats. It was nice to see such a huge turnout for the meeting–over a hundred folks crammed into the Blanchard Room at the library. Damn, I love this community.

This has to be my favorite photo of the day.

I took it while waiting for some coffee to heat up in the microwave oven… that is, this photo is on the wall in the kitchen and, as I often do while reheating food, I was staring for the gazillionth time at all these crazy photos…

The photo was taken at my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary party.  It features grandpa and grandma with their grandchildren (at the time) on the couch, and their three kids and their spouses standing behind.

Clockwise from top left: Uncle Vic (Peterson) and Aunt Joy; Uncle Bud and Aunt Ellie (formerly Peterson); Dad (Peterson) and mom; Matty, Chris, Grandma, Heidi, Grandpa, Jay and moi (she of the white lipstick).

Not pictured/born yet: Bob and Eric (Johnson)

I’m going to ask Aunt Ellie what the year is.. stay tuned.

This photo comes courtesy of Wes, who’s far braver than I am about taking photos of his kids and their friends.

Since back, Peter’s hung out with his friends, played golf, attended the Monday night pub quiz at DeVere’s, prolly napped a bunch. It must be nice to come home with nary a worry in the world and do as you absolutely please with friends in the same boat.

He’s received most of his grades already (wow, talk about immediate gratification)–a satisfying punctuation mark (in his case an exclamation point) on one’s first college quarter.

So happy for that boy.

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Chemistry, A; Calculus, A-; Linear Algebra, B; and Ethnics, Pass.