Moo-ry Christmas And Happy Holidays From The Dept. Of Nance

 

It's a different Christmas, to be sure, but our tree is up, and most of our ornaments are on it. This year, Jared's ornaments are not on our tree, but are put aside for his family's tree. It's bittersweet. 

Every year when the boys were little, I would take them out on the first day of Christmas vacation for a special day. We'd start first thing in the morning, stopping sometimes for a breakfast sandwich at McDonald's. Then we'd start our day, shopping and looking at Christmas decorations at the local mall. The boys were always allowed to look for a special ornament each. They could pick whatever they wanted, and I didn't care what they got. 

Jared got on a run with food-themed ornaments for a while. We have a hot dog, a kiwi, a watermelon slice, and a pear. They're beautiful ornaments, too, lifelike and some dusted with crushed crystal. 

Sam was more eclectic in his tastes. He chose a polar bear (and no matter how you hang it, it always shows its butt), a Santa, a gorgeous beaded ornament with swags of gold, and he swears the hot dog is his ornament, along with the pickle. He has his own tree with Emily, but being sentimental, he likes the idea of his ornaments living on our tree for the time being. 

Once the boys (yes, even though they're in their 30s, I still call them that) got too old for our Ornament Trips, I still got them each an ornament every year. One year, I got Jared a rainbow trout to mock his fish phobia, now outgrown. Another year, a glass dragon for Sam, who was into dragons and Asian designs.

As you can see from the photo above, my love for cows has made it onto our tree. There are at least a dozen cow ornaments of various kinds, and I love them all:  my puzzle cow, my Rudolph cow, my Florida cow (in Bermuda shorts and sunglasses), and my cow made by a fancy china company (I forget which one...Lenox? Haviland?). 

Today on my walk, I was going to take the teeny tiny bird's nest that I see every day out of its little tree. I wanted to put it on my Christmas tree. It looked especially cute today with its topping of snow; we had a gorgeous frosting of it early this morning that coated every branch but left our roads and sidewalks clear. The nest looked like a miniature cheesecake sitting on the bough of the baby oak. I decided not to take it away, but leave it there, ornamenting the tree it was already in. Why tamper with the Perfection Of Nature?

This Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever holiday you may celebrate or observe, I hope you remember that it's the Love Behind It that really matters. Everything else is just Decoration. 

See you in the New Year,

Nance

When Bears Attack

One of my favourite things is when Rick comes home from work, sits in his recliner, and reads to me. He is addicted to a news service on his phone called Flipboard, and he reads me anything he finds interesting that he thinks I'll find interesting, too. Sometimes, he does some editorializing, which is a nice bonus. Often, I do the editorializing, which is sometimes not nearly as nice because I use a lot of profanity if it's political news. 

What can I say? I get stirred up.

Anyway, the other day, Rick was reading me a story from Flipboard about a heroic man in California who saved his dog from a bear attack. 

Here's how that went:

Rick:  So, some guy in California punched a 350-pound bear in the face to save his dog Buddy's life.

Nance:  (looks up from her game of Wordscapes on her phone) Wow. I have not done anything with my life.

Rick: (looks directly at her; pauses meaningfully) No.

Nance:  Wait. The dog's name was Buddy? This guy will punch a 350-pound bear right in its face, but he can't be bothered to think of a better name for his dog than Buddy?

Rick:  (ignores her) Now it says the bear keeps coming back and won't leave them alone. That it sees the dog as food and knows it's still there. 

Nance:  Who says that? And where the hell does this guy live, in a national park or something? 

Rick:  Nance, I don't know. I'm just reading the story that's here. It doesn't say all that.

Nance:  Maybe it's time to change that dog's name. That dog is probably embarrassed. Poor thing. 

This whole story reminded me of another Bear Story that made me feel bad about myself for not ever stepping up and fighting a bear for...anything, really. 

Back in 2006 in Quebec, a woman named Lydia Angyiou got between her seven-year old son and a 700-pound polar bear who wandered into a kids' street hockey game. The polar bear swatted Ms. Angyiou down, but she kept fighting until someone with a gun fired off a shot to distract the bear. He backed off, and the shooter had to fire four times to fell the bear. I wrote about it here in 2006, lamenting my parenting failure compared to Ms. Angyiou's obviously superior efforts. Let's face it; unless you save your kid from a rampaging bear, you're in the minor leagues at best.

But I digress.

The question is--would I go up against a crazed and hungry bear to save my cats, Piper and Marlowe? As the Magic 8 Ball would say, OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD. Oh, sure, I'd scream and bang on some pots or something to distract the bear (and, hey! what is a bear doing in my neighborhood?), but I have to tell you that, really, they're goners. 

Be real about your pets and a bear attack in Comments.

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TGIF: The Pandemic, Political, Procrastinating, Polar Edition

It felt so strange to be away from writing every day! I think I'm having a sort of Withdrawal. In order to combat that, I thought I'd pop in for a quick post, a little TGIF nattering.

T:  Time.  As in, I am wasting a lot of it lately. My mornings especially have become like slowly spreading puddles of molasses as one hour flows into the next, with me in my robe and jammies, comfortably cozied on the couch or in my big chair. I sip my coffee (sometimes flavoured with various spices I toss in), read my paper and blogs, and lately, shop for Christmas presents online. Each hour, I say, "Eight o' clock is my Go Time," then "Nine o' clock is my Go Time," then "Ten o'clock is my Go Time," and on and on. Today, it seems as if Noon is my Go Time. Sigh.

G: Gobsmacked. Here is a picture of me on Wednesday.

You likely did not know of it because I do not live in New York City or Chicago or Miami or Los Angeles (the only cities in the United States, according to Major News Outlets), but we here in NEO had a massive winter storm. In its wake we were left with 14.5 inches of snow. That is OVER A FOOT OF SNOW for those of you scoring at home. It started as rain, which meant lots of slush and ice first. It was heavy and wet snow. I could not even shovel, which I usually love to do. It took Rick two and a half hours to snowblow our driveway and clear the bottom detritus left by the snowplow. And all of it will still be here until July, probably.

I:  Irritated. I had to go to the grocery store yesterday. I had not been shopping since before Thanksgiving, and we were out of some key items. Unfortunately, it was busy, as it often is on the third of every month. This meant I was confronted with an unusually high number of Idiots who: wear their masks UNDER their nose; pull their masks down to read labels; pull their masks down to talk to someone RIGHT NEXT TO THEM; hover right behind or next to me rather than say, "Excuse me" or wait their turn. In addition, as I was helping to bag my groceries, the cashier suddenly said to me, "Ma'am, where does your order end?" I was confused and asked her to repeat herself. "Which items are yours?" she asked. I looked at the end of the belt and saw that some pushy woman had already begun loading her stuff on the belt, INCLUDING HER DIRTY PERSONAL BAGS, WHICH HAD FLOPPED ONTO SOME OF MY GROCERIES. Let's just say that I restrained myself as much as I could, but let her know I did not appreciate her rudeness, breach of the rules, and lack of respect for my health and safety.

F:  Forward.  As in Looking Forward and Moving Forward. I may have mentioned that I keep a Countdown To America on my whiteboard. It is the number of days left until the Inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. (When the pandemic lockdown began in our state, I used the whiteboard to record a happy thing each day. I called it "Today's Yay".) 

I'm trying hard to look Forward to Christmas, but I'm just Not Feelin' It. I feel happy picking out presents for my grandchildren and children, but the prospect of putting up our tree right now simply feels like Work. I hope I get there; I truly do. 

Happy Friday to all of you. I missed you! Talk to me in Comments.

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