Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, show off our favorite pet pics and perhaps share advice. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. :-)
This diary was written in the midst of our holiday preparation devastation. Not one square inch of the living room is free of mess. We are making most of our gifts this year and project pieces are everywhere. Some are supposed to be where they are, others have been picked up by Mithra the cat and carried elsewhere, just for fun. Tissue paper is shredded and strewn all over the table and carpet (bad kitty).
Last night, we put up our new tree. Even one more foot of height (or "heighdth" in these parts) really makes a difference, doesn't it? This tree is way too big. But it has realistic-looking pinecones and that is something.
I keep tripping over the enormous tree box, and Mithra won't stop head-butting it or gnawing on the corners. I'm waiting until my Republican downstairs neighbors leave the house to drag it to the basement because I know exactly what will happen if I am heard in the hallway:
Republican Neighbor (opening and striking me with hallway door as I pass by dragging box): Oh, it’s you.
ME (who has lived in duplex since August 1, 1992): It IS me.
Republican Neighbor: So you’re taking a box to the basement.
ME: I AM taking a box to the basement.
Etc., 15 minutes.
* * * * * *
We self-selected Christmas Chaos because my daughter and I are repulsed by the corporate hijacking of this sacred, lovely holiday. My daughter suggested handcrafting as many gifts as we could this year and I enthusiastically agreed, partly because time had softened the memory of how much harder it is to do Christmas the old-fashioned way. So the place is a disaster and the fabric colors I am using are making me crave milk chocolate and caramel. I can’t eat milk chocolate or caramel because of lactose intolerance but I do remember how they taste. Singly or apart, chocolate and caramel are delicious.
If Brett Favre was a confection (and I would argue that he is), I think milk chocolate (or semi-sweet) and caramel should be included in the ingredients. But dark chocolate and orange are wonderful too.
The other reason I agreed to handcraft gifts is because shopping malls make me froth at the mouth. After negotiating the icy parking lot filled with whizzing cars, lumbering SUVs, and careening minivans flickering soundless Simpsons episodes from backseat TVs, entry into the mall itself is a poor reward.
My God but shopping malls stink. Fabric dye, cheap flavored coffee, Food Court residue and overheated shopper armpit tang--ew.
Across from MACY's perfume and cosmetics department at the local mall, just at the interior north entrance, is a cheese and sausage kiosk. The mingled pungency of summer sausage, perfume, cheese, fabric dye, cheap flavored coffee, Food Court and overheated shopper is a toxic cocktail served straight up from the main bar at Satan’s Tavern. I imagine grinning imps or minor demons armed with high thread-count pillowcovers from the Ralph Lauren Home Collection fanning the oily fumes rising from a noxious, smoking cauldron (do they sell those at Williams-Sonoma? You can probably find one a little cheaper at Target) through the seven rings of Hell and into the air vents at Mayfair Mall, located in beautiful Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Every time I go to the mall, I leave exhausted, numb, sick to my stomach and a whole lot poorer, with a new ding in my car door and the scent of sausage stuck to my coat.
Corporate greed will never wreck our holidays again. We are setting family problems, money woes and work worries aside. Even if the Republican neighbors do catch me in the hallway--even if the new tree does break and crash into the TV set on Christmas Eve, grinding shards of broken glass from once-loved ornaments deeply into the carpet like last year’s did, we are going to have a good holiday.
Mithra Louise (a.k.a. Christmas Hellion) and I are here to listen. Christmas Chaos is our fp this week—please tell us, what is yours?