I have forgotten what I came in here to write about. Oh! I remember! I chose two of our calendars for 2017: the one for my kitchen, which will be Smithsonian Seed Catalogues, and the one for next to my computer, which will be Cats in Color. I’d been hoping they’d go down in price after Christmas but they did not, and then I started getting anxious about wanting to have the kitchen one all set up before January 1st, and also I was worried they’d go out of stock, so even though I didn’t know which one would be for which room, I went ahead and ordered both. I made my final kitchen vs. office decision based on square size: the Smithsonian one has bigger squares with more writing room, which I need for the kitchen calendar; the one next to my computer only rarely needs anything written on it. I also impulse-bought this page-a-day calendar called It’s Different Every Day: A Non-Boring Calendar for 2017.

But! A further complication is that Elizabeth still has the option to choose the Cats in Color calendar for HER room, in which case I would order something else for next to my computer. …This story is less interesting now that I see it typed out. ONWARD ANYWAY.

I have seen a lot of talk about how awful 2016 was and how people can’t wait for it to be over, but I have been increasingly anxious as the final days run out. I’m returning to some of my inclinations to shop ahead and stock up. There are a few large purchases we’ve made recently, such as a new dryer to replace the one that had to run each load twice to dry it, which make me feel happy to have reset the timer on when we will next need to replace those items. I’m not likely to get rid of clothes right now, despite the usual New Year’s urge to clean things out. In general I’m making purchases now rather than delaying them, and keeping duplicate items rather than donating them.

My friend Miss Grace was asking on Twitter about solid life-skills for hard times. Like, her husband is a chef who can take a pig from alive to bacon, and her brother is a doctor, so both of them would have useful skills even if things suddenly got a lot more primitive. Blogging would not be so useful. Nor would Target end-cap clearance shopping. Those are my main skills. Can I build a shelter? No. Can I hunt? No. Can I garden? No. Can I even start a fire without matches? No. Am I quick-thinking in an emergency? No. I do know what to loot from a pharmacy, is that a skill?

Awhile back, after I’d quit my eldercare job, Paul suggested I might want to take the 6-week nursing assistant course ANYWAY. My first answer was of course I didn’t want to, what would be the point of that NOW? But then I was thinking more about it, and one of the main things I wanted from that job was EXPERIENCE and KNOWLEDGE, so in that context it makes sense to take the class: I’d still like to learn the correct way to do the things I struggled with (boy, I still resent my employer for not training me but putting me in those situations anyway), and now that I’ve tried them WITHOUT the education, I think the education would be much easier to understand/incorporate/apply. I’d anticipate a lot of “Oh, so THAT’S how I was supposed to do it!!” light bulb moments.

Also, that course would add to my Basic Life Skills—not a lot, but some. I’d learn the body mechanics of supporting/helping another person without hurting myself, and I’d learn to be a good assistant to a nurse. I may not be good at quick thinking, but if someone else is thinking quickly I’m good at taking orders from them. If a clinic were set up and needed help, I could be useful doing the bathing/changing/moving, to free the nurses to use their higher training on other things.

Well. The whole life-skills thing is interesting to think about. Long ago I used to make jam, and I believe I remember enough of the basics to do that again. I said above that I don’t know how to garden, but I did work in a plant nursery for a year so I know some basics about planting things and propagating from cuttings/seeds (but in an artificially sterile/controlled environment). I can take care of children from newborns on up. I’ve made some of my natural anxieties work for me by channeling them into the acquisition of useful books (survival manuals, edible plants, basic first-aid) and supplies (camp stove, matches, water purifiers). I can do basic haircuts. I can…sew a button back on.

Paul can work with metal and wood (and has a lathe and a bunch of other tools/equipment), and can weld, and is learning to be a ham radio operator, and has attempted a garden several years in a row and is learning from that (and one year we got a MIGHTY crop of butternut squash). He’s a computer guy, so if there are computers to be managed/fixed/networked/firewalled/secured, he can do that.

What basic life skills do you have? Were you a Scout? Do you have medical knowledge/experience? Can you manage livestock: milk cows, care for chickens, etc.? Are you good at gardening? Do you know how to preserve food by drying or canning? Can you sew and/or knit and/or patch and repair and alter? Are you good at finding ways to stretch supplies or make things work in creative ways? Are you good at building and/or repairing? Can you fix/maintain machines? Can you use weapons? Can you hunt/trap animals, and process the meat? Can you build/maintain a fire, and/or cook over one? Can you speak other languages? Can you teach? Can you think of other things that seem like useful life skills?

Time once again for one of my favorite posts of the entire year. I need one calendar for the kitchen, one for next to my computer, one for Elizabeth’s room, one for each of the two boy bedrooms, and possibly one for Paul’s office. One thing that’s interesting this year is that we switched the boys’ rooms around: last year we had a big and a little in each room, leading to difficult calendar-choosing; this year the bigs are in one room and the littles in another, which I hope will make things easier. Another thing to consider is that if all goes according to plan, partway through the year Rob will be leaving his room and going somewhere he may not even WANT a wall calendar.

Every Day’s a Holiday. This one was a finalist last year for one of the boy rooms. I am torn about whether or not I can stand to have a child tell me every day that it is National Moose Day, or National Handkerchief Day, or whatever.

 

Do It All, Secret Garden. For the kitchen calendar, I definitely want a good picture: I don’t want one of those calendars that sacrifices the picture for more writing room. But…..I also like lots of writing room, so. This one has a small strip of picture, plus extra writing room, plus a pocket at the bottom for things like party invitations.

 

Masha D’yans. Pretty and sweet. I consider it each year, and have not yet chosen it.

 

Lang Around the World. I dig the moody, rainy, international vibe. I dig less the smaller writing squares.

 

Farmer’s Market. I had this one year and liked it so much that Paul bought me two prints by the artist.

 

Rigel Stuhmiller’s Farmer’s Market. Another farmer’s-market-based calendar, but in bolder colors.

 

Surrealscapes. I don’t like surrealism, but the older boys do and might want this for their room.

 

Master of Illusion. We had this in one of the boy rooms one year and it was popular.

 

Goats in Trees. Immediate reaction: YES. Second reaction: But for twelve months?

 

Trees. Maybe I want just the trees, sans goats. There is something enduring and above-it-all about a tree.

 

Wolf Kahn. I like the look of this, and also the description of it as tranquility in violent colors. But so many of the pages look basically the same: whole bunch of thin trunks.

 

Fractal Cosmos. Contender for bigger boys’ room.

 

Tiny Houses. I would not want to LIVE-live in a tiny house, but I would like one just for me in my back yard.

 

Fantastic Cities: A Coloring Calendar. As of posting, this is only $2.42, perhaps because so many people thought what I thought, which was “Oooo, I would LOVE this, if someone ELSE would color it for me!” Then I thought, maybe I could put a keyrack next to it, with colored pencils tied (or super-glued) to strings attached to each hook, and we could all work on coloring it throughout each month? That might be fun.

 

A Colorful Year. This one isn’t as cheap, but has the advantage of variety: I’m not sure I’d want to color cities all year long.

 

Feathered Friends. Jess thought I would like this one and she is very correct. Top contender.

 

Hamilton. I suspect a TON of people will have this calendar next year.

 

Super Mario Bros. Contender for the littler boys’ room.

 

Pusheen. We had this one in the kitchen just a couple of years ago, but I think I’d be ready to see it again. We all liked it so much. Or maybe it would be a good one for Elizabeth’s room.

 

Hot Dudes Reading. Well…OKAY!

 

Unlikely Friendships. In the right mood, this kind of thing can fill me with teary hope for all of humankind.

 

The Art of Brushstrokes. Looking at the back of this one gave me a pleasantly doped feeling, so this is definitely a contender.

 

On This Day in History. This is one both older boys wanted last year, but neither younger boy wanted it. I might want it for the kitchen this year, for the perspective. But perhaps that would be grim.

 

Fat Cats. Contender for Elizabeth’s room. She appreciates a nice fat cat.

 

A Walk in Paris. This is so charming. And you know, I think fully half of the appeal is the title. If they’d just called it Paris, I would have scrolled (strolled) right past. But A WALK in Paris is lovely.

 

New York in Art. I love this idea. Frequently I will like an artist but not enough to have that same artist up all year. This is all different artists. I wish I felt more of a connection to New York.

 

Steal Like an Artist. I think Rob would like this one. Each month has a drawing/saying for anyone working on a project—it doesn’t have to be art.

 

Codex Seraphinianus. You have got to look at the back of this calendar. I think I should get this for the older boys’ room, or for Paul’s office: they all really liked the book.

 

Modern Art. A nice assortment, but it seems as if there are always a couple of pages I actively don’t want.

 

A Zesty Year of Boynton.

 

World Travel Classic Posters. I love this style, and I’m in the mood for something international. Scroll down to the “Customers who bought this also bought…” section for a lot more options with this same look.

 

Pets Rock. Guinea. Pig. Pope.

 

Brady Bunch. So first of all: no. But I find I am happy it exists.

 

Bloom County. Oh, I am SO pleased to see this. I had a Bloom County calendar in high school. I think this might be the winner for next to my computer.

 

Art of the Heart. I am usually take-it-or-leave-it about Heartsy McLoveLove stuff, but this year I’m into it.

 

Smithsonian Seed Catalogue.

 

Blue and White. I love this idea. I would love to see more calendars in other color combinations.

 

Cats in Color. Strong contender for the kitchen (everyone would like it) or Elizabeth’s room.

 

Albino Deer. This is so surprisingly specialized.

 

Embroidered Nature. These pictures are of things made with EMBROIDERY.

 

Plastic Classics. Artworks recreated with found plastic objects. It seems to me there are more than the usual number of interesting ideas for calendars this year.

 

Mid-Century Modern Wallpaper. I’ve twice had a vintage-wallpaper calendar, and both times found it very satisfying.

 

Prints and Patterns. This is similarly appealing, but less vintage.

 

********

As usual, I long for you to tell me about the calendars you have purchased, or will purchase.

I have a movie from 2013 to recommend, if you want to get a feel for how long my Netflix queue is: Now You See Me (Netflix, Amazon). It’s an action movie but with MAGIC. In fact, I would say it’s a MAGIC movie with some action, including one overly-long-to-the-point-of-dull car chase. I would like to say ahead of time that I found the romance plotline unpleasant: there is no way she should ever consider that disrespectful, dismissive pinehole. But I liked everything else, and the romance didn’t ruin the rest of the movie for me.

I have a book to recommend, but with caution:

The Wonder, by Emma Donoghue

The recommendation is because it fell into that category of books I look forward to getting back to. The caution is because the plotline has a strong religious element that is not flattering to religion. My guess is that most people who were religious would think, “Well, but MY religion isn’t like that” and still enjoy the story, but I don’t know. I’d also like to say that I found it repetitive and tiresome how often the main character asked herself cynical questions. But it didn’t last forever, and it was not enough to ruin the book.

 

Paul has put up the tree, and the lights. Now it is my turn to supervise the putting up of the ornaments, and I realized I really, really didn’t want to. The whole idea made me tired. I am trying not to let current events drown the holiday season, but there is a spectrum of Doable/Undoable, and the ornaments were falling way on the joyless side—even considering that all I would need to do is supervise the children doing it. It was more like I didn’t want to see the ornaments.

I wondered if this might be the right year to do something I’ve thought in the past might be fun, which is to decorate the whole tree with only homemade ornaments. As soon as I thought of that idea, it opened up a little pocket of Doable. I broached the idea lightly to the children and they were ON BOARD, so that’s what we’re doing this year. I like the feeling this gives me of looking for ideas. I’m making dinner and wondering if I can find that gold paint we used to have and if it would work on dry pasta noodles; I’m emptying the trash and wondering if I could do something with the egg carton; I remember making paper chains as a child, and wonder if I’d have to make one for the entire tree or if I could just make one until I felt like not making it anymore; etc. But I don’t feel PRESSURE to do anything: with five children, the tree will get plenty of decoration whether or not I make any ornaments.

I’m making a couple of exceptions to the only-homemade rule. One is the chocolate ornaments I’d already bought. This is my third year buying those, and they were another little pocket of Doable, so I’m not changing that. The second is candy canes. Sure, I know people can make those. Not me—or at least, not this year.

Long ago, back when we were at the financial level where it was WELL worth it to return a 99-cent bottle of shampoo if I didn’t like it, I found a whole bunch of Christmas cards on clearance at a bookstore for $1/box. They weren’t what I would have chosen (one was a scene with pagodas, another was an Andy Warhol red shoe, a third was a very plain light blue with a few white snowflakes on it), which as it turned out made them all the more fun to send.

Every year since then, even now that we can afford to just buy them at regular price, it’s been a ton of fun to go scouting for clearance cards in January. One year, when we had a new Target that didn’t yet know how much stock it would need, I bought three or four boxes each of half a dozen kinds, all at 90% off. Most years, I add more like half a dozen boxes: enough to replenish but not enough to oppress. Every year near Christmastime, I go down to the basement, pull out the two big cardboard boxes labeled “CARDS”, and pick which style I feel like sending this year.

This year, I went down and…no cards. It SEEMED like I had a lot of cards, because I had a dozen and a half boxes of leftovers from previous years; plus another half-dozen boxes of cards I bought just one box of; plus a bunch of things purchased but not often used, such as decorative business-size envelopes. But NO sets of enough cards to send out to everyone. This is the first time this has happened in probably close to fifteen years.

Paul had the good idea of getting cards from the ACLU or something. I loved that idea, but ACLU doesn’t have holiday cards, and neither did the next two charities I tried, so maybe that is less of A Thing now; I’ve noticed most of my list sends photo cards instead. But in any case, I don’t think I’d want to order this late.

Then I thought, well, it’s a perfect year to need new cards, because I want something a little more…SOMBER this year, anyway. But I looked around and didn’t see anything that exactly communicated what I wanted to say, which was, “Sure hope this isn’t our final year living in the world as we know it” or “Who’s really in the mood for this right now anyway?” or whatever.

So! New plan: this is The Year of Using Up All the Scraps from Previous Years. I have three of this card, two of that card, half a dozen of this other card, a nearly-full box of this card, etc., and I am going to clear them out to make space for all the cards I will buy THIS January on clearance.

I am on Day Three of waiting for a package to be delivered so I can sign for it. If I’m being fair, I can’t really count Day One because on Day One I was not aware I was waiting, but I am counting it anyway because by chance I WAS IN FACT AT HOME ALL DAY. Furthermore, it was raining on and off so I was on FULL ALERT for UPS/USPS trucks: a few days earlier we’d had some things delivered while it was raining and they got SOAKED. So I was (1) home and (2) alert for deliveries, and still somehow they missed me. That takes real ninja skill.

On Day Two, after I’d received an email saying they were sorry they had missed me, I waited at home all morning. At lunchtime one of the kids called and I had to go bring something over to the school; I stopped at the library on the way home, so I was gone 45 minutes total. There was a “Second Attempt” sign on my door when I returned, with a tone that went too far into reprimand for my liking, considering this is not an appointment I made or agreed to. Today I am NOT LEAVING THIS HOUSE UNTIL I SIGN FOR THAT PACKAGE.

And you know what’s extra dumb? This package I have to sign for is NOTHING SPECIAL. It is a $14 stuffed animal from Amazon, a totally normal, routine sort of purchase. I have NO IDEA why it requires that an adult over age 18 must be home to sign for it in person. Is it filled with CIGARS or something? I can’t even sign the little slip saying it’s okay to leave it on the steps or with a neighbor: that section is crossed out. I must be here ALL DAY LONG to sign for it—there isn’t even a delivery window to shoot for. I have been doing my best to work up a little holiday feeling and THIS IS NOT HELPING.

Speaking of cranky, if you have not yet seen The Lady in the Van (Netflix, Amazon), I highly recommend it. Did you like Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey and in Harry Potter? Her facial expressions, her way of moving, her way of talking? Imagine her very similar to those roles, but playing a homeless woman. She was an utter delight as always. And I liked how the movie was DONE. I don’t know what to call what I liked, but I thought it was cleverly and interestingly done. And it’s funny and heartwarming without being too cheery or optimistic, if you’re not really up to cheery/optimistic right now but also do not want to be shoved deeper down.

I have chosen the winners, and I also wanted to send a couple more to people I knew, so long story short I rounded up and had a few extras so I picked fifteen instead of eight, and here they are:

Heather
2016/11/28 at 2:16 pm

Kristin H
2016/11/28 at 10:44 am
Seaside

Lorraine
2016/11/27 at 12:26 pm

Grace
2016/11/28 at 6:14 am
Seaside

CourtneyinFL
2016/11/28 at 8:36 am

Judith
2016/11/27 at 7:10 pm
Victorian

Nancy
2016/11/27 at 7:06 pm
Victorian

Trudee
2016/11/27 at 3:26 pm
either Victorian or Seaside

Charlotte
2016/11/28 at 6:12 am
Victorian

Jill
2016/11/28 at 12:05 am

Deanna
2016/11/27 at 12:59 pm
Seaside

Marlene
2016/11/28 at 9:53 pm
Seaside

Tess
2016/11/29 at 1:06 pm

Erin D
2016/11/27 at 6:28 pm

Dr Pusey
2016/11/27 at 4:34 pm
Seaside

I’m going to start working through the list now, emailing to make sure I’ve got the right email addresses and also to find out whether people want Victorian or Seaside.

I have already reached my political Twitter quota for today, so let’s turn our minds to other things before it starts to seem like a good idea to go hide under a pile of leaves in the woods.

I have a brother-in-law who likes to bring costume/accessory items to get-togethers, which is how I explain owning:

• a green cowgirl hat
• a clown nose
• a lei with matching crown
• fake teeth
• a chicken mask
• a giant, heavy, bib necklace similar to this one

To our most recent gathering he brought tiaras for the women and crowns for the men, and I now have a tiara to recommend:

This picture of it in the packaging is less glamorous but better at showing the iridescence:

It’s made of metal so it’s heavier than the plastic ones I’ve seen for little girls, and it has to be put in with hairpins—but with no practice and two hairpins (included with the tiara, though some reviewers say they did not get any), I got it pretty securely in my hair in a couple of minutes. I mean, I couldn’t have gone jogging in it, but I easily made it to and from the kitchen for drink/snack refills.

If you want to Get The Look, the way celebrity magazines recommend, I wear it with jeans, an Old Navy t-shirt, and these shoes, which I also own in black for more formal occasions and funerals:

(Why such a blurry picture? It’s a mystery. They are not blurry in real life, only sparkly. And it’s sequins, not glitter, so they don’t shed everywhere; it seems as if that feature should be easier to see.)

You are I’m sure WELL FED UP with hearing how I feel about phone calls so let’s just take it that you already know, and I refer to it only because I want to make sure I get extra credit for making a phone call this morning that saved us $68. One of Edward’s medications is a compounded medicine, meaning a special compounding (i.e., custom-medicine-making) pharmacy has to make it specially for him. I know from getting a compounded prescription for one of our cats that a lot of the price of a compounded medication is the cost of having something custom-made; so for example, with the cat’s medicine, a one-month supply was $40, but a two-month supply was only $52 because the medicine itself wasn’t all that expensive, and it was the custom nature of the product that drove the price up.

Anyway, our insurance will pay for Edward’s compounded medicine for a $50 copay. But before I realized they would do so, I was paying cash for this medication—and it was $58, which included a $5 shipping charge. (We have since then found a pharmacy we can drive to.) So this morning I geared up the courage to call the pharmacy and ask if we could fill it WITHOUT insurance, and get a three-month supply: it is almost always insurance companies that limit patients to a one-month supply at a time, not doctors or pharmacies. And the answer was yes we could do that, and it would cost $82. So, I can get it filled in three separate one-month supplies, driving half an hour to the pharmacy each time, and pay a total of $150 with insurance, or I can get it filled once and pay $82 without insurance. SCORE.

I am telling you this in part to celebrate a small victory, but also because it’s only because (that is awkward to have those two becauses like that, but let’s just move on for now) I’ve worked as a pharmacy technician AND gotten a cat’s medicine specially made that I knew to try this, and you might not have done EITHER of those things. Before I worked in a pharmacy, I didn’t know it was the insurance company limiting patients to a one-month supply of medicine at a time. So I am telling you, in case you can benefit from this as well: with almost all prescriptions (certain narcotics are different, and certain doctors may have their own policies), if you are willing/able to pay cash, you have TONS more flexibility. You can get all of your refills at once, for example. You don’t have to get prior authorizations: that’s your insurance company too, and not the doctor or pharmacy. If your insurance company says that you may only have ten of the thirty pills your doctor prescribed, they are only saying that is all they will PAY for: you may still have those other pills, if you pay cash. (“Cash” here includes credit/checks. I don’t know why it’s always referred to as “paying cash” when it’s self-pay instead of insurance.)

Of course with some prescriptions, the price of the pills means this won’t help you one tiny bit. If the month’s supply is $600 without insurance, and a $30 co-pay with it, there is no advantage to paying the $600 to avoid the hassle of getting a prior authorization, or paying $1800 cash to get your three refills all at once. If the pills your insurance company will only let you have ten of cost $20 each, it’s slim comfort to know you COULD have the other twenty if you paid $400. But it is good to keep in mind as a possible option for some cases where it might help, especially since I have found there are some pharmacy employees who enjoy explaining such things and/or telling customers their options and/or looking up cash prices, and there are even more pharmacy employees who don’t and don’t and don’t, and in fact don’t seem to understand it themselves. I had a co-worker who would say “You’ll have to call your insurance company, ma’am” to almost ANY issue/question brought up by a customer, when it was something that could be explained/fixed by us in about ten seconds. I think the pharmacy/doctor/insurance triad is a very confusing one, and that it could be made a lot clearer.