I keep mentally composing yet another post about how I don’t have a chore partnership in my marriage, but I am so extremely sick of thinking about that and writing about that. Usually the way it seems to work is that once something like that occupies my mind, I HAVE to write about it before I can write about anything else; but I deeply don’t want to, and it doesn’t feel as if it would be therapeutic to do so. Maybe it would work to pretend I already wrote about it, or pretend that this paragraph counts as writing about it. Or what if I just say that one of the other things I’ve been mentally composing is a little speech that begins “I’m leaving,” and then goes on to explain why actually I should have left 25 years ago / why nearly anyone should be able to understand, without 25 years of explanations, that they need to do their own fair share of household chores / the many, many ways in which men systemically and societally and personally exploit women. Okay, let’s call that “written about.”

We have been home from the hospital for a week and a half. I don’t remember if I mentioned that, when we’d been home several days, and it had been a week and a half since Edward’s surgery which led to a hospital stay, we got a letter from our insurance company explaining that our doctor’s request for the emergency surgery and hospital stay was denied, because it was not medically necessary. As if it were not FAR TOO LATE at that point, and as if they were not WELL AWARE OF THAT, and as if they did not KNOW that such a letter would stop the heart of anyone receiving it.

The main reason I did not need to be scraped out of the batty attic is that this has happened before, and what has happened each time is that, without my needing to get involved at all, our doctor has called the insurance company and, I like to imagine, used some colorful language to explain to the insurance company that ONE OF THE PEOPLE ON THE PHONE is the Chief of Pediatric ENT at a large children’s hospital and knows what is medically necessary, and THE OTHER PERSON ON THE PHONE is not and does not.

And that is what apparently happened in this situation, because we got another letter yesterday, two and a half weeks after the surgery, saying that the doctor had provided them with “new information,” and the procedure and five days in the hospital were now approved. We spent either seven or eight days in the hospital, depending on how they count it, so let’s see if we get another letter soon. In any case, imagining having to pay out-of-pocket for two or three days in the hospital (which will not happen) is a much nicer nightmare than imagining having to pay out-of-pocket for surgery plus seven or eight days in the hospital. (My understanding is that doctors actually get all of these things fully approved before the things happen, because they know, as the insurance companies do, that almost literally no one can afford to pay for them out of pocket, and doctors/hospitals would like to be paid; and that this paperwork is just the late-arriving chaff of those long-since-made decisions.)

We are home from the hospital and have been since Wednesday afternoon. I feel as if I have barely stopped moving since then. There was one day when I got to bedtime and realized I had NOT PLAYED ANY OF MY PHONE GAMES ALL DAY; I had to hurry and log into each of them, just to avoid losing my streaks. Paul and Elizabeth and Henry kept up with dishes and so forth while I was gone, it’s not like I came home to a big mess—but there are a million little things that accumulate surprisingly quickly: the dish mat needed cleaning, and the toothbrush cups needed to go through the dishwasher, and the flowers needed fresh water, and the clock needed winding, and there was laundry and grocery shopping and bill-paying to be done. That’s not a very impressive list; I don’t know why it’s been keeping me so busy. I think part of it is that thing where once my Feeling Busy detectors get triggered by a certain level of responsibilities (giving Edward his antibiotic three times a day; monitoring his incision and putting more ointment on it; making sure he’s catching up on his schoolwork; asking my boss for yet another day off to take him to his follow-up appointment next week), any additional responsibilities, even normal/small ones, tip me over the edge into Overwhelmed. And when I’m Overwhelmed, I see Overwhelming Tasks EVERYWHERE. Obviously the toothbrush cups can wait another day, but IT FEELS LIKE THEY CANNOT.

I had a blood donation appointment on Thursday. I’d been sulking/abstaining, because of how EXTREMELY LONG the Red Cross keeps me waiting past my appointment time—and they are ONLY doing appointments right now, so this is not an issue of needing to figure out how to incorporate walk-ins: they are DELIBERATELY AND KNOWINGLY overbooking. The last time I donated, I sat in the waiting area breathing air unnecessarily with strangers for well over an hour past my appointment time; and, while I did that, THREE donors had to leave because they couldn’t wait any longer / had to go pick up kids from school / etc. One of them said he lived right in the neighborhood and asked if he could run home to meet the bus and then come back, and the Red Cross person told him no, if he left his appointment would be canceled.

So it has been A BIT RICH to see all these many, many articles recently about how the Red Cross is DESPERATE for donations, it’s an EMERGENCY. I feel as if change, in this case, should come from within. Let’s not START by nagging donors; let’s instead schedule appointments in a way that makes sense, and not overbook the drives, and KEEP the regular donors we have rather than losing them in droves and then having to harangue them to get them back. I said so online (am I new here), and got a lot of people Explaining to me that a lot of workers have been out sick. Oh, yes, thank you for the news. But this has been going on since LONG before the pandemic, and at MULTIPLE locations, so I believe this to be systemic rather than fleeting/coincidental. (Someone else informed me that SHE has never had to wait longer than 5 minutes. Oh…….good…….?)

Also, it is hardly new to have the Red Cross claiming that there is an emergency. EVERY email I get from them claims there is currently an unprecedented and urgent need for blood.

Anyway, finally I succumbed to the barrage (and the story on NPR) and was like “FINE I WILL DONATE BLOOD, IF IT’S SO URGENT.” I couldn’t get an appointment for weeks, and only at a place half an hour away, which, again, if it is so urgent, CAN SOMETHING BE DONE ABOUT THAT. The happy thing was that at this location, maybe it was a fluke, but I was seen as soon as I got there, and was out of there half an hour afterward. But with the hour of driving, the whole thing still took about as long as when I have to wait for an hour—though, true, I was not breathing air with strangers for that hour, but was instead driving along listening to music and enlarging my carbon footprint.

Well. It is good to be home. Edward can’t shower for two weeks after the surgery, but we are already a week and a half into that time. His HAIR is the main issue, because the important thing is to avoid getting any water or dry shampoo or anything else on his incision, which is about an inch below his hairline. In the hospital they gave us an interesting “shampoo cap,” which was like a microwaveable shower cap lined with soapy no-rinse shampoo—but it didn’t actually work. Or rather, it might have made his hair cleaner, but his hair didn’t LOOK any cleaner. And it was still really difficult to avoid getting anything on the incision. Today I might try bandaging it up and putting plastic over it (but it’s hard to tape it securely, because of his hair) and then washing his hair in the sink.

[Edited to add: The comments section seems to be getting derailed on the topic of How Often People Shower. I hope we can all agree to agree, whatever our own personal bathing philosophies / skin issues / avoidance of consumerism / etc., that for a TEENAGED BOY, two weeks without a shower is NOT GOOD.]

Hello, still from the hospital! This morning when a crew came into the room at 6:30, it sounded as if I might not even have enough time to zip downstairs and acquire a coffee before they’d be whisking Edward away for a second CT scan and then a second surgery. (A nurse told us last night she’d been told to have him stop eating/drinking at midnight, which was our first clue that something might be happening today.) I fairly FLEW for the coffee, then flew back, panting. At around noon, they finally came to get him for the CT scan. We have become familiar over the years with the concept of Hospital Time: things happen when they happen, and not when anyone says they’re going to happen, and the term “soon” means “in the future, that’s all we can say”—but it still fools me from time to time.

What I should have done was race down to get some lunch right after the CT scan, since we knew it would HAVE to take at least a certain minimum amount of time before the results could be evaluated/communicated—but I didn’t think of it. I was still in foolish Poised For Action mode, plus I wanted to update family members. Then it was 2:00 and I hadn’t had lunch, but now it really did seem as if any minute the doctor might come in and want to talk about the CT scan and discuss surgery options, so I didn’t feel I could go.

The ENT doctor/surgeon came in around 3:30 and talked about how things were kind of inconclusive, and that one option was to send us home and have us come back Thursday—so we could at least get a couple of normal nights of sleep. He said he would go talk to Infectious Disease (that’s the department handling the antibiotics, and they decide when it’s okay to switch from IV antibiotics to oral ones) and get back to us. He left, and about ten minutes later the Infectious Disease doctor came in to talk to us, and we told her the ENT surgeon was looking for her, and right around the time she was done talking to us her pager went off and it was the ENT surgeon, and she said she would go talk to him. It is now 7:00 p.m. and no one has come back. I guess we are staying another night? The nurse did come in and say Edward could eat and drink again, so in any case we know surgery is not imminent; he had a nice big dinner and is feeling a lot cheerier.

There are several things that would vastly improve The Hospital Experience for me. One of them is not even something I’d waste a wish on, which is that I would love it if things happened when people said they were going to happen—but I know that is not possible/realistic. I think the more realistic wish (not that I will get this wish, either) would be to NOT HAVE the consistently-wrong predictions. I remember when I worked at a pharmacy, I would start adjusting the time I told people the prescription would be ready, as prescriptions piled up: so, like, if we only had one prescription to fill, I’d say it would be 10-15 minutes (and often we could do it quicker than that); but once we had half a dozen prescriptions, all for people who wanted to wait for them instead of coming back later, I would be saying 30-40 minutes; and if we hit more like 10-12 waiting prescriptions, I would say I was afraid we were rather backed up and it would be about an hour. My boss did not like that, and wanted me to say 10-15 minutes to everyone. But I know for myself, the absolute WORST is to be told 10-15 minutes and have it be an hour! That’s the WORST! If I KNOW it’s going to be an hour, I can choose to come back later! If I am TOLD it will be 10-15 minutes, I will notice and count and resent EVERY SINGLE EXTRA MINUTE! And my BOSS was not the one who would have to deal with those absolutely-justified noticing/counting/resenting people!

Where was I? Oh, yes. So I would not even think to try to fix Hospital Time, because obviously there are always going to be things that take longer than expected, and emergencies that have to be dealt with, and unexpected complications, and so forth; and it is in everyone’s best interest for doctors and other medical professionals to take the time things NEED, and to take care of situations in THE ORDER THAT MAKES THE MOST SENSE. But I WOULD enjoy it if people didn’t make predictions when they KNOW, FAR BETTER THAN I DO, how unreliable those predictions end up being. I feel like a lot of hospital people are like my boss at the pharmacy telling everyone it will be 10-15 minutes even when they know it’s going to be an hour, and that’s not good for anyone. (There ARE some hospital people who will say things like “They say 2:00, but–*HUGE SHRUG*–you know how these things go. We’ll just see!” I love them.) (Their bosses probably tsk at them.)

The second thing that would vastly improve The Hospital Experience for me would be having one or two times per day when I could be assured that no one was going to come in with anything important. If I just knew that between 11:00 and noon, or 1:00 and 2:00, or 9:00 and 10:00 at night, NO DOCTOR WOULD COME IN, then I would know when to take a shower, or run downstairs for coffee, or go for a little walk, or use the bathroom. Just as it is comically uncanny how people in a hospital will come into the room the minute you doze off, it is comically uncanny how we will be in the room for hours and hours and hours undisturbed, and then I will go downstairs to get a coffee, and when I come back 10 minutes later Edward tells me the doctor was there while I was gone. (The doctor, probably: “Nurse, please page me when The Mother leaves the room.”) Or I finally decide I will risk a shower, and I am undressing in the bathroom and I hear a knock at the room door and then I hear the doctor’s voice. For heaven’s sake, what is a person to do?? Just tell me even HALF AN HOUR A DAY when I can COUNT ON being unmissed. Right now, in fact, I would like to take a shower, since evenings in general seem less busy/doctory than mornings. But sometimes a doctor comes to see us after handling their last surgery of the day. When is it definitely safe to take a shower? After 9:00 p.m.? After 10:00 p.m.?

The third thing that would vastly improve The Hospital Experience for me would be if someone came through each day and checked on supplies, just automatically, perhaps when they came to collect the trash. I hate having to tell A REGISTERED NURSE that we need more toilet paper, as if I think she is our personal servant. And you were all SO helpful last time I was here and was afraid to ask about towels, but I was STILL AFRAID AGAIN TO ASK ABOUT TOWELS. (Partly because I wasn’t sure if Covid restrictions might apply to the showers, but mostly because I am as ever a wee sleekit cowrin tim’rous beastie.) I wish there were towels already in the room, and also sheets so I could change Edward’s bed when the medication makes him all sweaty, and really I just wish I had access to all relevant supplies so I could do my own fussing/housework and didn’t feel like I was constantly asking for things / asking for people to do things. I know it’s NOT like this, but it FEELS like I am snapping my fingers and demanding room service. I was so happy and relieved when I realized that I could take our finished meal trays out to a cart in the hall, instead of the nurses having to do it for us. Surely there are other things like that that I could be doing if I only knew! But I think for most of the things I just CAN’T: I don’t have access to the sheets or the towels or the toilet paper.

The fourth thing that would vastly etc. etc. would be a good gift shop. Our local hospital is not anywhere near as well ranked as this city hospital, and they do not specialize in children (they’ll take out children’s tonsils or set their broken bones, but as soon as Edward needed a more extensive procedure they sent us here), but they have (or used to have—I haven’t been there since Elizabeth got her tonsils out, and that must be about a decade ago now) a really good gift shop. They have the expected stuffed animals and toys and cards and flowers, but also it’s like a small drug store: they have over-the-counter medications, pads and tampons, a small section of socks and underwear. Here, I have to leave the hospital and walk to a drug store, which does not sound so bad when I type it out, but I am not a city mouse and would prefer to stay tucked into the hospital—especially now, when there are screening stations to navigate at the entrances.

And the final thing is that I would love to be able to order Edward’s meal trays ONLINE. I have to use the phone every single time, and I would say 9 out of 10 times I get someone brusque who sounds like they hate their job, and often it’s someone who is pointlessly trying to correct the way I’m ordering (“No, ketchup is a condiment, tell me that at the very end”), when their colleagues have corrected me the other way (“Hamburger, okay—you want ketchup or mustard or anything with that? And fries, okay—you want salt and ketchup with those?”). And why correct ANYONE, when most of us are merely passing through and no one will be long-served by these educational efforts, and it will only frustrate the employees who will feel as if they SAY it and SAY it and no one EVER LEARNS?

We are still in the hospital. Today is Sunday. We got here Wednesday morning. The incision should be “running clear” by now, but it is not. Bloodwork should be showing decreasing inflammation/infection markers, but it is not. The likely explanation is that some of the abscess is still there—a possibility we were warned about, since it was multichambered, extensive, and not in a location where they could see what they were doing (the surgeon said that in order to see it all, they would have had to take risks that were not worth taking). Tomorrow they will likely do another CT scan to see what the situation is. After that, it seems likely there will be another surgery. This is what happened with his sinus abscesses as well, except that time we went home in between; this is longer, but less hassle, and hopefully will result in fewer weeks of antibiotics (last time he took antibiotics for the weeks in between surgeries, and then for a month after the second surgery; it was a lot of antibiotics).

I have finished another book: Plainsong, by Kent Haruf (Target link) (Amazon link).

I would NEVER have selected this book at the library, NEVER. I would have judged it by its cover (boring/bleak), title (sounds like a reference to either the Amish or The Great Plains), author (older white guy), and plot (sounds depressing/bleak). I was sure that I read it ONLY because Sundry recommended it, but can I find that recommendation to link to it? Can I hell. But I know it was before Henry was born, because I remember I was reading the book when I found out I was pregnant with him; I was thinking about that riveting news for the entire rest of the book, and it got locked in. If he’d been a girl, we were strongly considering the name Victoria, the name of one of the characters. It is one of my favorite books I’ve ever read, so I can’t explain why it took me so long to re-read it, except that there are some difficult/sad scenes, and sometimes when I’m considering a re-read, such scenes loom too large, even if I know at the time I considered them well worth it.

Anyway, I’d bought the book at some point during the pandemic, and it was on my To Read pile, and I brought it along to the hospital; and I just finished reading it, and I loved it all over again. I think it is the kind of book that some people would love so much they can’t stand it, and other people would be like “What the heck? I don’t get this at all”—because so much of what I love is the exact way things are phrased, and that is the kind of thing that can yank one heart all around and leave another heart right where it is. So maybe get it from your library and see what you think. This book too has an Unexpected Baby plotline, which I will go for every time.

I have Eventide with me; that’s the sequel, which I don’t believe I ever read. And there’s a third book, Benediction, which I wonder if I’d better just go ahead and order now so it’ll be at my house if we ever get discharged from this hospital. And the last book I have with me is The Tie That Binds, another Kent Haruf, and one that I have because when I ordered Plainsong and Eventide, used books were buy two get one free, and they didn’t have Benediction.

I brought five books with me to Edward’s appointment on Wednesday, feeling a little silly because what if all we did was go to the appointment and then go home, perhaps with a new prescription? Or what if he WAS admitted to the hospital, but we went home the next day? I took two of the books with me in my backpack and left the other three in the car just in case. I have finished the two from my backpack, and have taken a refreshing little walk out to the parking garage to pick up the other three.

The Story of Beautiful Girl, by Rachel Simon (Amazon link) (eBay search link).

It is hard to know whether or not to recommend this book. If someone had described it to me the way I would describe it to you in order to explain why I don’t know if I’d recommend it or not, I would not have read it; but I am glad to have read it, and would not want to have been talked out of it. There are hard parts about the mistreatment and abuse of people with disabilities, in institutions and in communities and by police. It’s hard to read, as it should be, but it feels valuable to learn more about those things, and also to have those points of view represented. And it’s not just bleak/educational: there’s friendship and care and love and the good kinds of secrets. And a major plot point involves an older woman who is suddenly in charge of a baby, and I find those sorts of stories very appealing. I read them the way I used to read books about people getting pregnant: just, if that’s one of the plot points, I will try the book. Which is why I tried this one. But there are times I can handle reading about how bad people can be (knowing that these people continue to exist, and continue to exploit and abuse vulnerable people, even if certain kinds of institutions fall), and there are times I can’t, so even with the balancing factors, this might not be the right book for you right at this moment.

 

The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel (Target link) (Amazon link).

You know how with most books, you can tell someone what the book is ABOUT? Not this one. I don’t think I would have selected it based on the flap; I got it because I’d liked Station Eleven by the same author. It’s kind of about a woman named Vincent. (Her name was my main complaint about the book: it was TOO distinctive and TOO confusing, and I kept thinking accusingly that the author did not HAVE to choose that name.) But it’s not just about Vincent; it’s about a lot of Vincent-adjacent people, without being clear as to why it would be about them, or about her. The book just sort of talks about them, and sees things from their points of view, and moves around in time, and some things come together and other things just exist. I don’t know if I’m explaining this well, but I liked the book, and found it kind of intriguing to be reading along without feeling like the story was on a particular PATH.

I am hoping to access our hive mind. I have a child who is 6’4″, male, wears a medium or large in tops but it HAS TO BE Tall sizing, absolutely HAS TO BE. And he says all his clothes depress him, and he is expressing interest in things such as lilac sweaters with daisies on them, and colorblocked pastel hoodies like from the ’90s, and Keith Haring dancing-guy shirts, and rainbow-striped sweaters, and sweaters like this one:

But I am having trouble finding these things in his size. Elizabeth has a friend who wears things of this style and she asked him where he shops, and so I got this:

But only a certain number of their items are available in Tall sizes. And every other path I’ve gone down the last hour looking for Keith Haring hoodies/tees has led to frustration. We found a GREAT site with TONS of good stuff, including that shades-of-green sweater—but it said it had “Asian sizing,” and I know that is not going to fit a 6’4″ medium/large man.

Before books, I have a product to recommend. It’s my new favorite keto candy:

Reese’s Zero Sugar. Like most keto treats, they are startlingly expensive. Some days, I would rather just wait for my next Day Off and eat regular, normal-price Reese’s peanut butter cups. But some days are dreary and bleak, and a little bit of expensive candy can help considerably.

 

Okay: books! I finally read The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow (Target link) (Amazon link).

There were some things I didn’t like: the cutesy title; the way toward the end it seemed like it was just one thing after another, as if to meet a page requirement. But overall I liked it very much and would recommend it. I like when a book puts magic into the real world. I kept wanting to get back to reading it. I don’t try to figure things out as I’m reading, so things dawned on me gradually in a way I found pleasant. I came to like the name January.

 

Next I read They Left Us Everything, by Plum Johnson (Amazon link).

This was a great book to get out of the library: it was about 50% interesting, and the rest I could skim and be glad I hadn’t bought it—but the part I did find interesting has continued to be interesting to me, and I’ve thought of it many times. The book is about a woman dealing with her parents’ possessions after their deaths. The part I found interesting was where she was talking about things she found and what she decided to do about them; I was also interested in the help she received from other people (it seems very appealing to have a friend come help, or to be that friend helping someone else). And I was interested that, in the end, she came down on the side of saying people shouldn’t try to clear out their own possessions before they die, but should let their children do it—which flies in the face of some of the other books/articles I’ve seen on the topic, so that’s been some food for thought.

The part I didn’t find interesting was all the Family Tree Bragging. I think she probably wrote this book in part for her own family to use as history/keepsake, so it was excusable/understandable. But I found the stories boring at best, cringey/embarrassing/basking-in-reflected-glory at worst. And it seems like it would only take one charmingly unscrupulous story-spinning ancestor to invent a whole bunch of boastful stories, and who would ever know?

I also had trouble identifying with the overall Boomer nature of the book. There are a lot of the sort of jolly stories many Boomers tell about their upbringing, which sound to my Gen X ears like disturbing emotional/physical abuse. I would love to read a memoir on this same topic written by someone from my generation, and another written by a Millennial, and so forth.

Proof-reading this, it sounds like I didn’t like the book, but I definitely did, and would recommend it! (Get it from the library, though.)

 

Next I read The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton (Target link) (Amazon link).

For quite awhile I had this book confused with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, a book I found mostly boring; plus, in general I’ve been avoiding books by male authors. When I finally decided I’d read it, if only to get it off my list, I found certain elements obnoxious: the dialog, for example, where someone seriously says “It will little profit you.” That’s Drama/Cape Phrasing: anyone else would say “It won’t do you any good.” Also, people in this book SNARL their words, and many of the women have TUMBLING CURLS and so forth. And there is one extended scene where the (thin) author writes some JAW-DROPPINGLY fat-phobic/anti-disability stuff that almost made me put the book down on principle, and is still making me mad. But the good plot prevailed, and soon I was having trouble stopping reading it when it was time to make dinner. I might start it over again at the beginning to see if everything makes sense now that I know what’s going on.

Backstory that will temporarily feel irrelevant but later I will tie it in: When we moved into this house, three years ago now, Edward’s hoodie (the one he wore daily as a light jacket) disappeared—which shouldn’t have been THAT big of a deal, but I was already finding the entire move so emotional and overwhelming, and I HAAAAAATE the feeling of not being able to find something, and also WHERE COULD IT BE. I opened nearly every box, even ones that made no sense (maybe I’d lost my mind and used the hoodie as PADDING or something??), and finally gave up, thinking of it as just one more thing the new house had swallowed: money, joy, memories, coping skills, mental stability—and now Edward’s hoodie.

Finally someone thought to mention the issue within earshot of Paul, who, as it turned out, had inexplicably taken two large plastic bins and shoved into them: snowpants; several random pairs of our winter boots; some extra coats; AND EDWARD’S HOODIE—and put them in an awkward, unheated, difficult-to-access rakes/shovels/equipment-type closet in the barn where no one would ever go to put on snowpants, boots, an extra coat, or a hoodie. He had ONE SMALL SURGE of unpacking, and he somehow made A DELIBERATE CHOICE to put those things INTO BINS and then into an HIDDEN/BAFFLING PLACE; and it was even MORE unfindable because WHO WOULD EXPECT HIM TO PUT ANYTHING AWAY; and it caused me to waste SO MUCH TIME AND EFFORT for NO REASON. I found this so discouraging, so disheartening, so metaphorical, and so symbolic, I couldn’t face dealing with it; and so I took out the hoodie, and left the rest of it there (TO ROT IN HELL WHERE PAUL COULD TAKE THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR CASTING IT).

I may have mentioned before that I have an Alcohol Policy. My Alcohol Policy is this: if I have alcohol on a night I was intending NOT to have alcohol, I (with qualified exceptions) MUST do chores with that alcohol. I wish the dieting comparison didn’t spring to mind, but sadly we are part of this society whether we like it or not, so what it reminds me of is when someone on a diet might decide that they ought not to have the extra cookie—but if they DO have the extra cookie, they need to do exercise to burn it off. Though—it seems like in the case of the cookie/exercise, that’s generally considered a punishment/penance; whereas with me, and alcohol, it’s more of a feeling of let’s not WASTE the extra cheery motivation. It would be like reframing the diet thing so that you were saying let’s not WASTE the food energy of the cookie, and instead let’s use it to build strength and stamina, which is something we want to do but sometimes have trouble finding the energy for. Like that.

Tonight I had alcohol when I had planned not to have alcohol, and so I asked myself what chore I was going to do, and I decided to do the one I most dreaded, which was working on putting away Christmas. I HATE putting away Christmas. It’s a big chore, and also it’s so sad: the worst chore combination, and the perfect chore for being under the influence. Christmas dishes, Christmas mugs, assorted Christmas decor, the Melissa & Doug advent calendar—boxed up and brought to the barn. Wrapping paper and gift tags and ribbons and one stray box of Christmas cards—boxed up and brought to the barn. Empty ornament storage box brought down from the barn and put invitingly NEAR the tree at least.

Then I reached an impasse: I was not done, but the rest of the Christmas dishes/mugs were in the dishwasher. And I was not quite ready to de-ornament the tree. But I still had cheery alcohol motivation remaining.

While walking back and forth to the barn with boxes of Christmas stuff, I had noticed The Closet From the First Paragraph. I hadn’t thought of it or noticed it in literally years—but the other day Elizabeth wanted to go sledding, and was looking for snowpants, and she asked if we had any, and I Thought Of It. I sent her to go look, and she reported that the bins had not been latched closed (FOR SOME REASON) (WHYYYYY) (NO BUT WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY), and so had been infiltrated by dust and spiderwebs (JUST WEBS, I AM SURE JUST WEBS AND NOT WEB-MAKERS), so she had to borrow snowpants from her friend. I decided that alcohol and I would finally tackle this project that had been hanging over my head for three years.

And so now the snowpants and coats are in the washing machine. Items that are too small for anyone in the house AND non-spiderwebby are in the Goodwill bag, waiting to be joined by the items that are too small for anyone in the house but were spider-webby so are in the washing machine. My forgotten hot-pink polka-dotted rainboots are back in my life, though I don’t know how I can ascertain if there is anything spider-webby IN them, without putting my HAND or FOOT in there with, maybe, spiders. Elizabeth’s long-lost winter scarf is on the hook with her backpack. Several new items purchased to donate to a charity drive (where did Paul even FIND them?) are back in the donation pile. Two giant empty bins are newly available for storage, this time in a place that makes sense.

New Year’s Eve went well! I was successful in avoiding last year’s issue of discovering I was doing all the work while everyone else had a nice relaxed time. It meant I had to keep delegating/instructing, because no one leapt in to help unasked, so it was better than it could have been but not as good as it could be.

For dinner we had homemade bread (a dear friend gave us a jar of the ingredients plus a recipe for Christmas, and Paul baked it), with homemade jam (a dear friend gave us a jar for Christmas) and homemade apple butter (Paul’s sister gave us a jar for Christmas), which made me think this could be a fun friend-group Christmas gift idea: each person buy one thing that would work well for New Year’s Eve dinner a week later. We also had: cheese and crackers; grapes and blueberries and watermelon (the grapes are tradition, the blueberries and watermelon passed the “What looks good in the produce section today?” test); spinach dip as another option to go with the homemade bread (I like this jarred kind); potato chips and French onion dip (Paul re-learned that he doesn’t like the jarred kind and needs to make the kind where you mix the powder with the sour cream; he made a mental note for next year, but I’ll make a written note here). I had the kids help me put everything out on the table, and we ate while watching one of the Christmas movies we didn’t get around to watching this year.

Then I had the kids help clear everything away, and we had a little break before starting the second stage, which is Party Snacks and Staying Up Late. I had Paul make the first round of oven snacks, because he is the one who MOST loves mozzarella sticks. While he did that, I had the kids bring out the other snacks: Pringles, Doritos, M&Ms, chocolate-covered pretzels, several kinds of odd popcorn (Oreos, Butterfinger, Snickers) found at the grocery store, fudge-covered mint Oreos, fudge-covered Nutter Butters, savory pretzel twists, peanut-butter-filled pretzels. It seemed to me that the kids did not Absolutely Demolish these snacks the way they have in previous years; it could be that they’re getting older and less thrilled by such snacks; or maybe they have not yet learned, as I have, to go light on the first course in order to save room for the second.

I made pizza rolls next, and never got around to making the egg rolls: I asked everyone, and no one felt strongly about having them, and I didn’t feel strongly about having them, so we skipped them; I’ll make them as part of dinner another night. Paul went to bed, and the kids were sort of lounging lethargically as if no one could think of anything to do and maybe everyone was feeling like New Year’s Eve was not as fun as it used to be; so I thought about what I would like to do, and then asked if everyone would like to watch one of the Christmas movies I’d meant to watch on my own this year but hadn’t gotten around to (The Holiday, with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz), and everyone said yes, and we did that, and it was fun.

By the time the movie was over, it was time for the last half hour of the countdown on TV. I’ve thought of the Dick Clark New Year’s Rockin’ Eve as The Standard, but the last few years it’s been disappointing and odd (it feels to me as if Ryan Seacrest wanted this job very badly and then discovered he doesn’t like it but now he feels stuck with it; and his co-hosts are often yelly and unfunny and trying very hard to be Fun!! and Cool!!), so next year I think we’ll try something else, or we’ll at least channel-flip to see what else is available.

 

My resolution last year was to buy more fun clothing. I was thinking along the lines of all the fun t-shirts available in the kids department, with a picture of a llama or a big flower or whatever, and how I wished those were available for adults as well. Through a combination of Christmas, birthday, and gin-inspired impulse ordering, I succeeded admirably in this task. It is unfortunate that most of these ended up being from Amazon, since I am trying to decrease Amazon purchases; but Amazon is the place where I can find these shirts and have them fit me, as opposed to having size choices of “unisex” (i.e., men’s fit, which does not look nice on me) or else “women’s” (i.e., babydoll/juniors fit, order two to three sizes up and STILL too tight and too short) as on many other fun t-shirt sites. For size comparison, I order a XL Tall in t-shirts from Old Navy, and I order a 2XL in the Amazon t-shirts (I can also wear the XL, but it’s more fitted than I want for wearing to work). Some of the acquisitions:

 

Thermal long-sleeved shirts (sold as pajama shirts) to wear under t-shirts, for cute patterned arms. (Link to individual shirts; link to two-packs.) These are getting pretty thoroughly sold out in most patterns/sizes, so I will try to remind us all of this idea next year when they are freshly in stock again.

 

Flamingo t-shirt.

 

Tulip t-shirt.

 

Red rose t-shirt.

 

Butterfly t-shirt.

 

Daisy t-shirt.

 

Retro Robin Hood t-shirt.

 

Scandinavian birds t-shirt. (This one is a different brand than the other shirts. I ordered an XL, I think based on reading reviews, and that was the right fit.)

 

Rocket Dog shoes in Daisy and Rainbow.

 

 

My resolutions for 2022:

• Continue to buy fun clothes. That was a good idea and led to a lot of happy clothing.

• This one is hard to express, but I have noticed a LOT of areas where I have accidentally gotten in the habit of deferring to Paul’s way of doing things, even when it negatively affects me AND there is no reason for it except that it’s what he prefers—while HE does not make the same adjustments/deferrals toward me, and instead lives his life centering his own preferences and not feeling weird about that. Just for one single example: he prefers to go to bed about an hour before I do, AND he prefers us to go to bed at the same time. And for some reason, this has resulted in me following BOTH his preferences, and so I lie awake night after night listening to him snore until I can finally fall asleep. But…he does not lie in bed awake listening to ME snore when he wakes up EARLIER than I do, so that we can get OUT of bed at the same time! Nor does he seem to feel any inclination/obligation to stay up until the time I would like to go to bed. So why don’t I go to bed when I would like to go to bed, instead of when HE would prefer me to go to bed? It is a mystery, and one I intend to work on noticing and adjusting in the coming year, in many many areas of life.

• Re-write recipe cards, especially for important recipes. I noticed at Thanksgiving that one reason I had trouble turning over some of the work to others is that there are a lot of things I Just Know about the recipes, but have not actually written on the actual cards. (I’ve done the small, easy-to-write corrections; this is more about the complicated or extensive kind of corrections, or the lengthier descriptions of HOW to do a particular step I Just Know how to do.) The cards need to be re-written—not only so other people can help, but also so the recipes won’t be wrong/mystifying when I’m no longer around to make them. I don’t know if I can make myself do this, but putting it as a resolution may help.

That last post was such a bummer considering how many good things there are:

• All five kids at home, staying up late playing games together, merry laughter and merry swearing

• THREE of the kids are getting Covid booster shots tomorrow (the remaining two kids are not yet eligible)

• More Christmas cards than usual this year

• SO MANY DELICIOUS CHRISTMAS TREATS IN THE HOUSE

• Mayyyybe some Christmas clearance shopping in the near future?

• A pair of jeans Elizabeth wanted for Christmas was TOO BIG—but I despaired about exchanging them, because when I’d ordered them, they’d ONLY been available in that size (which I’d thought was SO LUCKY because it was HER SIZE)—but when I looked again after Christmas, they were also available in the two next sizes down, so I was able to exchange them, and they are on their way

• A new baby coming to our extended family in the new year

• I finally feel like I am not run off my feet with busyness/stress, and there is time again to play Candy Crush and read books and not resent everyone in my household

• Even though my recent motel stay was…not great, cleanliness-wise, and it appears that’s not a rare experience these days, I am still looking forward to my upcoming trip to take Rob back to college in a couple of weeks

• Unasked, Paul took my car to have snow tires put on it, which involved a fair amount of Figuring Out How To Do That, since we’ve never done that before, and also involved Researching the Best Snow Tires and price-checking them at various locations and then ordering them, and then involved TWO HOURS of waiting even though he’d made an appointment

• Also unasked, he ordered a timered plug for the Christmas lights, so that they would come on automatically and go off automatically; and he set it up so that they would come on a little too early and go off a little too late, which is exactly perfect; this improved the quality of my life

 

Also, New Year’s Eve is coming! I love New Year’s Eve! But thank goodness I made a note that LAST New Year’s Eve it felt as if I was running back and forth between the living room and the kitchen with snacks while everyone else relaxed and enjoyed themselves, because that COULD NOT HAPPEN AGAIN. Instead, this year I am buying a bunch of things that anyone here can help put out on a table in the living room (Pringles, grapes and whatever other fruits look good, the frosted animal crackers that somehow became a tradition, M&Ms, Doritos, Ruffles and baby carrots and French onion dip, bakery bread and spinach dip, cheese and crackers), and I am only going to make a few Oven Things that I personally want: Totino’s pizza rolls, mini eggs rolls, and mozzarella sticks (IF we can find any! the past two weeks our grocery store has had NO MOZZARELLA STICKS OF ANY BRAND). If anyone wants anything else, they can feel free to make it themselves.

Do you want to talk about holiday loot—like, good gifts you received? Not that that is the true meaning of anything. But on the other hand, loot is fun!