“This is the Best Christmas Ever!”
In today’s Lectionary readings, what Christmas is all about:
1 John 4:7-16
7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world. 15God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. 16So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
Last night, our family arrived breathless and energetic after the Children’s Service at Christ Church (Episcopal) in Pensacola. My granddaughter was a reader at the service and had worked very hard to give a dignified delivery of the New Testament reading. We were all exhilarated at her success, and she was full of joy.
We did something different this year, a self-service buffet. AdventureMan put together two lavish charcuterie boards, We had salad makings and all sorts of garnishes, a cheese dip and chips, and many condiments. Ever-creative, our granddaughter asked if we had any salsa, and used that to dip her shrimp, rather than cocktail sauce or remoulade.
“This is the best Christmas dinner ever,” remarked our son, a rare and genuine compliment. We had agreed to simplify, and it was fun seeing how people chose, differently than we would have expected. It worked for us, for our family, giving people choices and creativity in what they ate.
As we ate, we played silly Christmas games. One was to take a phrase and go around the table with everyone taking the first letter of the next word and saying the first word which came to mind (assuming it was family-friendly). We ended up laughing so hard. It was then our grandson said “This is the best Christmas ever!” and my heart sang with joy, because there wasn’t a present in sight, this dinner was all about celebrating the great gift of a God arriving as an infant to show us what true love was all about, and that true love was flowing around the table. How often can we say “my heart is full?”
We will be rejoining them shortly, for the great gift-giving. For the first time, our grandchildren are excited about something they are giving us, something they know we will love. We haven’t a clue, but already we are feeling so blessed because they are thinking about the giving, rather than the getting. Thanks be to God! He is merciful, and he loves us more than we can ever comprehend.
The Sad And Painful Truth
AdventureMan and I have a lot in common; we share a lot of the same values and we’re in our 49th year of marriage.
And yet . . .
We also have our differences. Because AdventureMan is very commanding, I have had to learn how to gently but firmly set some boundaries.
So today he suggested we hit Shoreline Deli, which was fine with me because I love their Greek salad and I also buy a lot of my spices there. You can buy them in small quantities, and they are more fresh than the ones that stand waiting in your pantry for years.
It’s not a sit-down kind of place; we stand with others who have ordered, waiting for our order to be prepared and taken out. There is always a lot to look at, and often they have something that no one else carries.
As we finish lunch, AdventureMan says “I see you found some of your favorite cookies. I saved room hoping you would share with me.”
I said “Of course, what is mine is yours.”
Very quickly I had a second thought and reframed my response. “Of course, what is mine is yours, up to half.”
At this point, I opened the little box and counted the cookies, a very plain Greek cookie with very little sugar and some cinnamon.
What does AdventureMan say? “I can’t believe you’re counting the cookies!”
He knows why I am counting the cookies. We have stylistic differences. I can buy a large 85% Cocoa chocolate bar and eat one square a day. I don’t need more, and rarely do I really want more. AdventureMan, on the other hand, has unrestrained cravings. There are things I have to hide – mixed nuts, Japanese rice crackers, cookies, cakes, and M&M’s. If I don’t set a limit, or hide them, they are free game.
I am not saying this is wrong. It is simply a stylistic difference. At the same time, if I want something special, the only way I can be sure there will be some left for me when I need it is to hide it.
I am not an ogre. I also bought beautiful mini chocolate macaroon cookies Two years ago at this time we were in the Bordeaux region of France and bought a package of traditional macaroon cookies with dark chocolate bottoms and each had one at the end of each day, and they lasted right up to our very last night before we flew back home. They were so rich and moist that one was more than enough.
AdventureMan was delighted to see the chocolate-bottomed macaroons. We each had one. I have no idea how many there are. I am not counting; AdventureMan is free to nibble as he needs. I just needed one. Well, maybe two, they are tiny, very tiny.
Into The Great Wide Open, Day 10, Lamar Valley, Gardiner, Montana and Reflections
We are up at 6:30 without even setting the alarm, and head out to pick up coffee and go directly to Lamar Valley. Once again, no biscotti. AdventureMan buys a muffin, too sweet for me.
There was a heavy rain last night, the day is very clear, partly cloudy, with rays of sun beaming down. It is beautiful. Just past Roosevelt Lodge, and the turn to Lamar Valley, a truck in front of us slows down as a group of bison approach the road, maybe 20 of them, and start a trek across the bridge over the Yellowstone River. Cars start to pile up behind us, but they are all the kinds of early morning people who are respectful, there is no honking or people exiting their cars to take photos, and it is really a delightful experience.
On the other side of the bridge is a trail the bison are climbing to get wherever bison go. Why shouldn’t they take the easy route, rather than down into the basin, cross the river, struggle up the other side?
We saw lots of groups looking for wolves in Lamar Valley, and bear, but we saw no wolves or bear. Often they are just little dots, off in the distance. We see many anglers casting their lines in the Soda Butte River, having the time of their life. Maybe they are all catching and releasing; I never see any fish being taken back to the cars.
When we got to the Soda Butte the light was beautiful. It has been blocked off since the time we walked around it and attracted the attention of a very annoyed bison, probably because people like us were attracting too much negative attention of territorial bison.
We went into Gardiner for breakfast, eager to get back to Tumbleweeks, a combination book store and cafe we particularly like. I had hot cereal with fruits, and . . . a slice of coffee cake, full of huckleberries and raspberries. One bite and I knew I was in trouble – it was SO sweet. And I ate the whole thing, knowing I would pay the price. (I did. The next morning I had the worst blood sugar reading I’ve had all year. I am usually so careful. I still remember that slice of coffee cake with great fondness.Sometimes we can’t help what we love.)
Tumbleweeds is doing gang-buster business, of course. You have a good product, it attracts business. They also are located next to Flying Pig adventure rafting business, and they have a sign that says “You do not get fast tracked because your rafting trip is about to leave.” I can only imagine the situations that have led to the posting of that sign. We heard one of the guides say to the cashier that they were closing down; “once the rains came the season is over.” People are closing up outside the park, also, clearly, inside. Yesterday, in the coffee line at the Mammoth Springs Hotel, we learned that there is noplace in Mammoth Springs serving breakfast; they tell people to go into Gardiner.
En route back into the park from Gardiner, there is not even a person at the gate to check our pass. Back in Mammoth Springs, we walk around the village, visit the old Mail Carriers House, and head back to A23, our cabin. We ask the housekeeper about all the empty cabins, and she says “Yes, many cabins have been blocked because we don’t have people to care for them.”
I have a friend, a little younger, who asked me how aging is impacting the way we travel. I remember telling her first, that it hadn’t. Then, as I thought about my answer, I had to go back to her and tell her that we have changed, and because AdventureMan would get sick and tired from so much driving, we had devised a strategy of “shorter days, longer stays.”
On this trip, we discovered we still have the energy, we can do more than 10,000 steps per day, but we have to do it earlier, and later, and we have to have a rest or a nap in the middle of the day. Our transition days are the hardest, when we have driven further and we really need a nap and our room isn’t ready yet.
In spite of rests we are sleeping very well, mainly due to quiet locales and cooler nights, also good mattresses. We also need our reading glasses more often, for maps, for menus, for directions, for bills and receipts, for fine print in guide books.
So we are packing, tomorrow is another transition day, Mammoth Springs to Teton Village, just outside Jackson Hole, WY.
I like my small suitcase; it is easy to manage, and I have enough clothing because I wear the same things over and over. I only brought the one sweatshirt; sweatshirts take up a lot of room. I brought too many short sleeve shirts. I brought one very casual dress and one dress that works for dinner, and one linen dress I use for travel and for transition days. All three of those items did heavy duty in the two weeks. One skirt got baggy because I wore it so often, it was pure cotton; the skirt that had some spandex in it kept its shape better.
As we sit outside on our porch, we talk with some people we have talked with before; we were talking with them when I spotted the elk walking by behind our cabins, so they also got some shots. They were up this morning at 3:30 to go out with a Wolf spotting team and they saw lots and lots of wolves in Lamar Valley, and watched two packs of wolves meet up with each other.
We have never seen wolves in Lamar Valley. We go there a lot, but I guess not early enough and/or not with the right people.
Tonight, we have our last dinner at Wonderland, but this is a valuable and hilarious evening. We know they open at five, so we make it a point to be there at 4:30.
The word is out. Wonderland already has a line about twenty-five people long when we arrive. We are behind a group that is talking about having been out this morning watching for wolves, and they saw two packs of wolves meeting up, something no-one has seen before.
We can’t even look at each other. We have heard this phrase often, on safari in Africa. The wildlife spotters work together, they contact one another, they do their best to make sure their clients spot the game they want to see.
So we’ve been looking for wolves and never saw a one.
Next time, we might have to bite the bullet and hire a game spotter. We kind of prefer being on our own, not being in a group with other people, not being subject to someone else’s agenda, not being a part of those big groups along the side of the road. But this is our last night in Yellowstone, and we are thinking we might need to bend a little if we want to see wolves.
Dinner at Wonderland is delicious, as always. I have the squash soup and a grilled chicken Caesar, and AdventureMan has the Caldera Burger, which he loves. We love to watch the Wonderland team work together; they are a great team.
AdventureMan Does Yoga
“Move your spine in all directions at least once a day,” AdventureMan’s new yoga-instructor-via-Netflix advises.
AdventureMan has a whole new cadre of bossy women in his life. He has Julia, his Netflix advisor, he has Petrina, his expert masseuse at the YMCA who can tell just by touching him what he has been doing. She can be much more direct, and expects results. AdventureMan, who is a man who will not be bossed, is amazingly docile when it comes to these two women.
He also objects to bossy males, so when our yoga-naturals, Ragnar and Uhtred, join him in his exercises, we just laugh. They can bend in ways he can never aspire to, get their heads between their legs, roll and curl backwards. They love it when he cranks up the computer to do his spinal exercises. Cats have certain advantages doing yoga.
It all started months ago during COVID when I couldn’t swim at the Y and felt the need to DO something. I got out my mat, found a good program and started in. It was Yoga for Beginners, with Adrienne, very relaxed if you are not me. I used to do ballet, form is everything, and you strive for exactness. Trying to do yoga exactly is sort of the opposite of all intents, so instead of feeling relaxed when I finished, I had a migraine from trying too hard.
But AdventureMan watched and was intrigued. He likes privacy. He also has issues I don’t have, aches and pains that gentle yoga can help. He got a beautiful yoga mat for Christmas. We did yoga together a couple times, and then I was back swimming laps and he got into walking and yoga. To my surprise, it is July, and he is still faithful, both to Julia and to Petrina. He has lost weight. He has gained some balance and stability, and his spine is more flexible. I join him occasionally in the spinal tape; it is gentle and doable without pressing my OCD button.
No, these photos are not AdventureMan, just images that give an idea what the gentle art of yoga can help people do to develop strength and balance.
Bird in a Basket
We’re home from tutoring, and I ask my granddaughter if she would like some strawberry crepes for an afternoon snack.
“How about Bird in a Basket?” she counters. This girl knows what she wants.
My husband is even better than I am at teaching the grandchildren to cook. He has them doing eggs over easy, eggs sunny side up, omelettes and even baked beans.
She watches me cut the hole, butter the bread and turn on the stove. She is attentive at my elbow as I break the eggs into the holes. (She says she is not ready to do it herself.) And then, as it cooks, she loses interest and runs off to chat with AdventureMan.
She can smell when they are finished; she has the family nose. She handily eats the whole thing!
The Covid Conversation
It’s been an interesting week. Last week, there was no swimming. It was a welcome break in terms of sleep; no alarm, being lazy (LOL, being lazy is sleeping until 0600 instead of 0530) taking a walk now and then when I needed movement . . .
It was also handy because at my annual skin scan, my adorable dermatologist wrinkled her brow as she looked at me through her magic magnifier and said “Oh! we need to take care of THAT!” and THAT was prominently on my cheek.
(A brief aside because I cannot resist – when I was shown to the exam room, the tech asked if I wanted a gown and I said yes, and then, not being a smart-mouth but because I wanted to understand, I asked “What is the alternative? Like I stand here naked? Do people do that?” Sometimes I really am a stranger in my own land, and maybe I’ve missed some growing lack of self-consciousness? The tech laughed and said “No, there are people who will NOT take their clothes off!” I tried to comprehend that and totally failed. “So what’s the point of a skin scan?” I asked, “How can they be examined?” The tech said “We pull at their clothes a little and look underneath, but yeh, it’s not complete.” Totally boggled my mind.)
I have never been so happy about masking in my life. Having a big crispy spot about the size of a quarter on my cheek makes me feel like a teen-ager again, like every eye will be fixed on my boo-boo.
With my mask covering my big blotch, I got my second COVID vaccination. Yes, I might be suggestible, and then again, I am not a big baby, but my arm was sore almost immediately. By evening, I had chills so bad I was taking hot baths to feel warm enough. I had a headache just between my two eyes, and I was SO tired. The next day, I felt the same. Finally, the second night, I took an Aleve and slept wonderfully. The next morning, I was fine.
So I really needed the week off from swimming. One funny thing about the COVID vaccination, and again, who knows, it may be in my mind, but all of a sudden I have a sharp sense of smell again. It comes from my father’s side of the family, some of us have it and some of us don’t, but I think it had faded, and right now, it is noticeably back again, and oh, what joy it brings me.
So all the health drama is over now, I am back at swimming, and we continue to have work done to make our house safer and more energy efficient. A roof inspector, seeing our stack of photo albums (labeled Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, etc.) asked us if we had ever been to Alaska, and that started a great conversation, one we are hearing over and over as more people get vaccinated.
“We’ve decided we don’t want to wait any longer. We don’t know how many good years we have left. We are going to travel now, while we can,” he said.
He and his wife want to see Alaska. They want to see France. We had a great conversation, and I sent him some information by e-mail.
COVID has had its gifts, and awareness is one of them. Couple after couple have told us the same thing, this feeling of urgency to do it now, while we can.
We have four trips booked. One, a passage from Japan through Kamchatka and the Aleutians and the Alaskan Gulf, we’ve had booked for over a year. Another is a trip which COVID cancelled, but we want to do it and have scheduled it again. Another is coming up soon, a trip with our family to New Orleans, where we will continue to socially distance in a VRBO near Magazine, near the Audubon Zoo, near the Saint Charles trolley and several of our favorite restaurants with our family, and one back out to Yellowstone and Glacier, staying in cabins, mostly with kitchens. We’re good with take-out; in fact we’ve grown to really like it.
It’s not a hardship for us. We are introverts. We travel quietly. We stop and observe. I take photos. At night, I write reviews and research possibilities for the next day’s route. Part of the fun I have in life is finding really fun places to stay, some of which, like El Tovar at the Grand Canyon, or Ahwahnee in Yosemite, (LOL, “Yo! Semite!”) have to book far in advance, like sometimes a year out or more. Right now, several of the most popular cruises are already booked in 2021 and 2022 by people a lot like us, yearning to be back out on the road.
People in Florida are concerned about another wave of COVID following Spring Break. I am thinking here we are, all eager to get back on the road, us restless Boomers, and we’ve forgotten the pounding compelling imperatives of youth – meeting, mating, maybe even committing. But that’s another conversation . . .
“Can’t I Buy You a Diamond?”
“No,” I replied. “How about we buy another house?”
So we did. It’s the house we are living in now, the house we bought, we sold, and we bought back again, and, God willing, I will never move again.
It always cracks him up that I don’t want a diamond. He says it would be cheaper to buy me a big diamond. He is right, but houses are better long term investments.
We had a great division of labor. AdventureMan worked hard, and his career took us to exotic locations, locations we both loved and found intellectually stimulating and challenging to our assumptions. He always chose his jobs in consultation with me.
I handled logistics and finances. I moved us, I packed and unpacked (AdventureMan handled movers on moving days) and I recommended investments, on which we decided together. Until we closed on this house, AdventureMan had never been through the closing process (the first time we had to place a call to the Red Cross in Germany, all planned in advance, who would verify that my husband was alive and well and standing in front of them) so that I could sign the papers with a power of attorney.
So no, diamonds are of no interest to me. I quilt, I cook, I garden, I do upholstery, I strung electrical wires – I work with my hands. When we travel, if I see some little earrings I can’t resist, real gold or real gemstones, we might buy them and they show up in my stocking at Christmas. I am content.
Oh yeh, and I like to buy houses.
AdventureMan knows me well. Last night he looked me deep in the eyes and said “With the pool closed this week, I know you’ll miss the exercise. I am willing to get up as early as eight to walk with you.”
That is a true sacrifice. AdventureMan loves his sleep, and he has earned every moment of it. I have a need to front load my day; I am an early riser and like to get it done. I don’t begrudge his sleeping in after all his years in the military rising at what he called “the crap of dawn,” and I fully appreciate his willingness to get up early and walk with me.
I love walking. This neighborhood is a great neighborhood for walking; the area between the two major thoroughfares are quiet and peaceful. Most of the houses are family owned, people are friendly, and where there are rentals, they are mostly to families with young children who want to be in this particular school district.
We are sort of looking for our next house. No, we are not going to move, but I think this is a really good neighborhood to own a small rental house. We’ve learned how important it is to have a good property manager; we wouldn’t manage it ourselves. I’m looking for something small, something we can clean up and modernize and rent out. I’m not in a hurry; we have enough going on right now with the updates on our current home, but we are who we are – we are people who need projects, who thrive facing a challenge, we are good problem solvers. And I like to have diversity in our investments.
AdventureMan is fully on board. With investments, I am the cautious one, he is more of a risk taker. Together, we do pretty well.
Best Birthday Ever
A few years ago, I hit a number and I felt like my life was over. Rationally, I knew I was doing fine, but just the sound of the number hit me hard. I remember feeling the same way when I hit 50, and I thought it was going to be terrible, but that very day I went to pick up my photos for my Saudi pass and my photograph was fabulous.
OK, you know, here goes that rationality thing again. The RULES in Saudi Arabia say you are forbidden to retouch photos. The photographer just stood there with a big grin as I looked at photos of me with all signs of aging totally removed. Inside, my heart was dancing. My head knew it wasn’t really how I looked, but my heart danced.
In spite of the heartache of my Mother dying of COVID, this has turned out to be a sweet year. I had some stellar moments, dancing-heart moments. I love our new/old house, as you can guess from all the sunsets I post. Now, my son and AdventureMan installed a Little Free Library for me to care for, and another dream has come true, and my heart dances for joy. My family was together, my grandchildren helped fill the Little Free Library, and we all had cake and ice cream together, masked most of the time.
I’ve always loved libraries, and the first job I ever had, at six years old, was checking out books at the little library in Alaska. The clerk had failed to show up; the librarian was busy with a big time-sensitive book order and I volunteered. She showed me what to do. So easy a six year old could do it, and I had a ball.
I avoided book clubs until I ended up so many years in the Middle East. A group of women I knew and trusted asked me to form a book club, and I reluctantly turned them down because I didn’t want that responsibility. Very gently, they kept inviting me to start a book club and finally, I asked “Why me?”
“You’re the only one who can bring in the books we want to read,” they told me.
I learned so much from these women, and the book club was a huge blessing, a window into the way a lot of women think who are from different countries and different cultures from me. I learned how HUGE it is when ideas can be examined, and discussed openly, even when one must speak indirectly. I learned again and again how many mistaken assumptions I had made, how narrowly I saw the world. Books matter. Ideas matter. Sharing books and ideas challenge our narrow views and give us broader understanding of our complex world, and our fellow human beings.
Tonight AdventureMan is making Pasta Carbonara, which I should never eat, but once or twice a year, I do. It’s not like AdventureMan loves Pasta Carbonara; he makes it for me because I love it. Some of those excess calories come off as I dance and dance for joy.
The year I thought my life was over, some amazing things happened. I’m not going to get all excited, like this is going to be the best year ever, but I am so grateful, I feel so blessed, to have some dreams I know I dreamed come true, and some unexpected dreams I didn’t know I was dreaming also come true.
“In my life, I’ve loved them all.”
Thank you, Dr. Martin Luther King
I love that Google does these special doodles to honor men and women who make a difference. This is their doodle for today, to honor a man who knew how to incite for all the right reasons, and to keep it peaceful. He had a vision. He had the patience to watch his vision unfold. I wish he could be here long enough to see Joe Biden’s cabinet. We’re not there, but we are learning to practice what we say we believe.
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