Once again, I’m avoiding my paper.
I’ve done everything instead of writing it today. I have my normal onset-of-cold-weather bronchitis, therefore it’s a perfect excuse to curl up in my computer chair, sip water and lemon juice and poke out my ten to twenty page essay (oh, who are we fooling? It will be exactly eight and a half pages, double spaced, with the margins tweaked and a big giant font until it eeks out nine and three quarters pages and then I will smile and say ‘Finally’ and then try to remember how to write a bibliography) but instead I have made the bed, gone grocery shopping, took out the garbage, cleaned out the mailbox (holiday cards are still making me smile. I got teary at Mare’s because I am maudlin when I cannot breathe of my own power, but then I smiled for fifteen minutes at how damned talented Mopie is and it made me just in awe of her all over again), washed four loads of laundry, put away five loads of laundry, did two loads of dishes in the dishwasher, cleaned off the kitchen counters, started putting away Christmas presents, went to Target to buy storage bins for the Christmas decorations, also bought fifty-percent off wrapping paper and cards for next year as well as a storage bin to store them in.
Then I baked a squash.
Something about the smell of raw squash makes me feel like it is 1932 and there is a cupboard full of enameled steel pots and pans waiting for me to boil water above a blue gas flame and perhaps there is a hunting dog, a beagle basset mix named Buster, sleeping out under the back porch, a dog that will bark ‘Aroo! Aroo!’ in that throaty kind of hound dog bark they have.
I realized as I was scraping the thready squash guts from the two hollows that I have my mother’s index finger. There was something about the contrast between the rich brown of the single clove dropped unceremoniously onto the satsuma flesh and my perfect bloodberry red oval that made me realize that this is not my finger any longer. It is hers. Exactly. A little (a lot) chubbier, but it is hers.
In fact, it’s her recipe for roasted squash, too. Damn.
For Christmas, among other things, I gave my mother some Body Butter. If I have to have her finger, she can join me in smelling like a well-lubed stripper.
It was a lovely Christmas day. Esteban and I slept a little later than we should have. Then we went into our living room. It’s amazing that we recognized it, as it was pretty much covered from wall to wall with Instruments of Massive Wrapping. We burrowed through the silver foil and stepped lightly over empty cardboard tubes and tape dispensers and white marabou feather boas (my wrapping theme this year was Glam, baby, Glam!) and then opened our presents to each other, which was lovely. I got Esteban a DTS surround sound compact disc copy of one of his favorite CDs, the Firefly DVD set, a B&N gift card (really, it’s just a guilt-free excuse to go buy books) and also some kind of strapping device to hold things down in his truck (I don’t know’ I knew his were broken or crappy or something, and when I saw things that looked like his broken ones, I bought them, and apparently it was a great gift, because he was very excited about his Boy Gifts). He got me a professional garment steamer (which I had asked for because while I really want one, I would never buy one for myself because they are stupidly expensive) and also a remote starter for my car, which is going to be lovely in the morning when I don’t have to remember to run out and start the car before I eat my bowl of Cream of Rice cereal (Operation Hottie tip of the day: I defy you to overeat if you’ve had a bowl of Cream of Rice cereal in the morning. Seriously, you won’t be hungry until the sun goes down). Then I whipped up a cranberry cheese ball and a batch of fudge (seriously! I know! I’m just as shocked as you are!) and then thrilled the hell out of my husband when I walked through the kitchen wearing the Boots, black thigh high stockings, black panties and a black bra, asking him if he could take the shrimp out of the fridge. His answer ‘Shrimp?’ like he couldn’t understand the meaning of the word. What was this shrimp thing, Earth woman? I got a blank stare’ or rather, the Dayam!Bra got a very pointed stare. Then I stomped out of the room, wiggled into the dress of the day, and when I returned, he was still standing there, hand on the door of the refrigerator. I reminded him, ‘Esteban! Shrimp! Refrigerator!’ And then he shook his head and then opened the door to remove the shrimp, muttering ‘Remind me when we get home, there’s something I have to tell you.’
We then sped 15 miles to Ward and June’s house, in hopes of seeing some of his crazy paternal family who do not comprehend any need to adhere to schedules or the like. His lovely Aunt Teresita and pseudo-uncle Dawid were there, but we only got to see them for forty-five minutes before we had to take off and drive 15 miles BACK to my neighborhood to Mo and Abby’s house. I declared this year that I hated exchanging presents with Abby, Jonathon, Mom, and Mo while we were at Mafia Grandma’s house, because everything is insane, everything takes too long and we never get to watch each other open our presents, therefore we got together. Mo, lovely sister that she is, gave me a gift certificate to my favorite spa, and I returned the favor by giving her a bag full of all of her favorite scented lotions, shampoos, conditioners, and also a Body Butter and sugar scrub so that she can have the luscious skin to match the rest of the women in our family. I also gave her a Sbux card and told her to come to the dark side. Then I laughed wickedly, because that is what I do best. And also, because the wicked laugh was the perfect accessory to my all-black outfit.
We gave Abby, among other things, a karaoke machine. You have never had Christmas joy until you’ve seen a five-year-old shaking her hips and singing Elvis’s ‘Hunk a Burnin’ Love’ while twirling around a white marabou boa. Seriously. Never. And not only does the karaoke machine have the added benefit of filling my ‘Excellent Auntie Present Requirement’ of being a noise-maker, but also, it helps her with her reading skills. As a testament to what a genius she is, she is in kindergarten and was able to more-or-less keep up reading/singing with the karaoke machine. Clearly, she gets this from me. And also the fact that she wants to be a rock star when she grows up. I am not making that up, either. She told me so.
We then went over to Mafia Grandma’s house, where we watched television and opened presents and talked with the ex-Skinny and ex-Malnourished (who is now the spitting image of Gwen Stefani) and my freaky Aunt Brunhilda, who now that she does not have the ability to starve her children, has turned on herself and has the scary look of a prisoner of war, complete with enormous dark circles under her eyes. It’s sad, really, because she’s actually the most beautiful of my grandmother’s three daughters, with classic high cheekbones and big expressive eyes. Ah well, nothing like crazy wrapped up with a pretty bow.
Mafia Grandma is losing her hearing. It’s becoming very obvious. I wish someone would tell her that she needs to get it checked, although maybe someone has and she didn’t hear them. Also, weirdness, she invited some strange old loud lady to our get-together. That wasn’t the weirdness, but rather, she was a very brass bawdy old lady, talking about green pee and swearing and yelling inappropriately whenever someone would get close to her cane. My family, for all of their Lutheran/Catholic dysfunction, demonstrates considerable decorum in social situations. We do not use what my great-grandmother would have called ‘low language’. Even my mother frowned upon swearing, feeling that it was the sign of an uncreative mind. I suspect that I swear like a mofo just to be contrary, but even still, I wouldn’t even think of letting loose with an F-bomb at a family gathering. Not Crazy Old Cane Lady, though. She didn’t care that there were several kids under 15, including one five-year-old. She just kept exclaiming that my brother should be careful or his peter would shrink, and then my mother and Aunt would get flustered and pretend that no one had said anything groinal whatsoever.
Afterwards, Esteban and I went for a drive along the frozen Bay to look at Christmas lights and to stare out at the black expanse of ice and distant harbor lights in the stark frozen night. Then we went home and watched The Godfather, which always seems right on Christmas Night. Our family has NOTHING on the Coreleone’s. Nothing.
