Friday, December 31, 2010

End of December reading update

Well, it is done. We are back from all our holiday travels and I have finished my 100 books. Yes, that's right, at the same time that I was experiencing all the Christmas hullabaloo, I was busily reading the last 10 books. This afternoon, on our way home from Escondido, I sat in the passenger seat reading away, while Rocket Boy drove. Normally I always want to be the driver (when we're in my car), but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Now that it is all over, what have I accomplished, really? What have I learned?

I have learned that I do not want to do this again. I don't have to have a goal like this to read a lot -- I love to read. Instead, this goal often prevented me from reading what I wanted to read -- I felt bad about reading magazines, or short stories, or dipping into books to read a bit of this, a bit of that, because it wouldn't add to my list. I also, to some extent, chose shorter, easier books. In 2011 I look forward to reading many really long, dull books!

This experience has also been a warning to me not to set other goals that would turn a pleasurable experience into a chore. I will soon be getting to work on my resolutions for the coming year, and I must keep that thought in mind.

But, on the other hand, it is very satisfying to set oneself a difficult goal and then achieve it. (That is especially true for me now, when the rest of my life consists of such mundane work as changing diapers and cooking dinner.) When I was sitting here this evening, frantically reading the last section of book number 100, I was reminded of what it was like to finish my dissertation. Don't get me wrong, finishing my dissertation was a LOT harder than reading 100 books in a year. But there was that same frantic feeling that I HAD to get it done, pointless though it might be. Rocket Boy said to me, tonight, "Why don't you just finish that book tomorrow?" I almost hit him over the head with it, while at the same time acknowledging that no one but me cared about what I was doing. But it was important to me. And I did it.

Edited to add: one other positive thing about this experience was that I could defend my endless reading by saying "I have to stay on schedule! I have to read one more book this month!" etc., etc. I realized this morning (Jan. 1st), as I started reading a new book, that I no longer have that excuse and will have to think of some other way to justify my favorite hobby.

Here is the final list:

91. The Ballad of Beta-2 by Samuel R. Delany. A short book, more of a novella than a novel. I decided to read more of Delany, even though I am not a scifi/fantasy buff, because he does such neat tricks with linguistics, as in this book, which I found at our local used bookstore. A nice little story.
92. The Land of Little Rain by Mary Austin. A group of essays written about the Owens Valley and nearby areas, including ours, in the early part of the 20th century. Her prose style is hard to get through, but the book was worth reading. I should probably buy a copy for our collection.
93. The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany. Another short novel, not as interesting to me as the other one.
94. The Best Revenge by Stephen White. Another enjoyable White mystery, set in Boulder and elsewhere in Colorado.
95. Shattered by Dick Francis. I'd never read a Dick Francis novel before, but picked this up at a rummage sale to see what he's like. Awful! But to be fair, this was one of his last books, if not the last, and supposedly his earlier books were better. I'm not going to worry about them, though.
96. The Soldier's Art by Anthony Powell. Book 8 in the series, I liked this one very much. I can understand why these aren't much read anymore -- they're so hard to follow, and so closely tied to the times they were written about. But I love them. Finding this series might be my favorite thing about this reading year.
97. Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas by Elaine Pagels. I found this book at the Salvation Army thrift store -- a nice hardback copy for 50 cents. It just called to me, so I bought it and read it immediately. Such an interesting book about the history of early Christianity, so thought-provoking.
98. Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan. I liked this post-modern mystery set in Ann Arbor, but I wanted it to be better! I know I haven't lived there in 13 years, but I still thought the local color would mean more to me. Instead, he focused on the story. Oh well.
99. Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro. I like Munro's short stories a lot, but there wasn't one in this collection that really grabbed me. Maybe it's because I had read about half of them before, in the New Yorker, but actually the one that grabbed me the hardest, "Deep-Holes," was one I'd read already, so that isn't it. I feel as though she's repeating herself. I also was disappointed in the title story, a longer piece about a (real) 19th century woman mathematician, which seemed to me to be too much about her romantic feelings and not enough about math. But that's just me, always wanting there to be more math.
100. The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell. Book 9 in the series, and what better place to end the year. I enjoyed this one, but it was read under such difficult circumstances (from 3 to 5 am in the hotel bathroom, in the car as previously noted), that I don't think I fully appreciated it. No matter -- I have decided I'm going to collect the whole series, and then I can re-read them at my leisure.

And there we are. What will I read next? Anything I want. It is about 10:30 pm and I need to go do a few things to prepare for 2011. Happy New Year, everyone!

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Farewell for now

It's been a lot of fun writing these Christmas posts, but now I must stop for a little while because Christmas is FINALLY ACTUALLY HAPPENING and we are going away to celebrate it, along with what must be at least half of Ridgecrest. The town already feels deserted.

I'm looking forward to our trip up north, but there is one thing I'm really disappointed about. Winnie-go-house is having an Open House! Or sort of. They're going to hand out candy on Christmas Eve, so it's like Halloween all over again, and it would be a chance to meet the owners. I want to stay and go to that! But then we would be stuck in Ridgecrest with no one to have Christmas Eve dinner with. So it's better we leave. Still, seeing as how we're Winnie-go-house's biggest fans, I think we should be there. So I'm bummed.

But other than that I'm feeling pretty good. The presents are all wrapped and now that the twins are in bed I need to stow them in the car in our Trader Joe's and Whole Foods shopping bags. The stockings are in a Target bag along with the new Christmas PJs and the new Christmas books -- all to be opened when we get ready for bed in our hotel room on Christmas Eve. The stocking stuffers are in a SEPARATE bag, a BLUE bag, which I have already decided Rocket Boy will mix up with the other bag and thus the twins will get all their stocking stuffers without having hung up their stockings first. I got so mad thinking about that possibility today that I almost got in an accident. Must focus and remain in the real world, not a fantasy world where everything goes wrong.

We haven't quite finished the cards, but maybe we'll do that tonight -- we've only got about 6 or 7 left to do. I packed the boos' suitcase this afternoon and also mine. Still have some other random packing to do, and cleaning. Have to write out the instructions for our pet sitter. Have to write some checks to stick in the mail on our way out of town.

Christmas is so different when you're a parent. It's so much work! Not only do you have to do all the usual stuff, decorating and baking and shopping and writing cards and all that, but you also have to explain everything you're doing, why you do it, how it works, what they mustn't touch. You have to teach the traditions. Also, you have to pretend that Santa Claus is a real person who is going to come into our hotel room on Christmas Eve and put presents in our stockings. This is all very tiring. But it's fun, too. Very meaningful.

Thanks for listening, everyone. See you -- probably not till January, or close to it. I'm at 97 books and counting, so I'll be checking in to report on whether I got to 100 or not. Have a happy Christmas, if that's what you do, or even just a happy vacation. Take care!

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Giving

So I'm checking things off my holiday list -- shopping is done, baking is done, cards are almost done, presents are almost all wrapped. And today I worked on another thing on my list: giving money away.

I've written before about the unbelievable number of begging letters we get from an unbelievable number of organizations, due to Rocket Boy being the executor of our dear friend Clifford's will and thus getting all his mail. I have contacted so many of those organizations telling them that Clifford is dead, and they still deluge us with mail. And stuff. We have received eight full-size 2011 calendars so far, three attractive fleece blankets, and literally thousands of address labels. Actually, one of the blankets was from an organization that I sometimes give money to and one or two of the calendars were also mine and yes, some of the address labels were ours too. But most of the stuff is due to Clifford's kindness in the past, and it really gets to me -- it just seems horrible the way some organizations waste their money trying to get yours. Case in point: The American Diabetes Association. I will never give those people another dime. All they do is send you stuff and beg you for more money.

But it's Christmas and Christmas is a time for giving -- right? Plus, it's almost the end of the year, gotta be thinking about tax deductions -- although something about the way our taxes work out means that we usually don't itemize deductions -- don't ask me, it makes no sense to me, it's just the way our CPA does it. So forget tax deductions. But I do firmly believe that people who have money should GIVE SOME OF IT AWAY, so when I get to the end of the year and haven't given much away, it's time to do something about it.

Rocket Boy actually gave away quite a bit before the election, to various political candidates and organizations. That's his thing -- I'm cool with it. But I prefer charities.

They say you should give larger amounts to fewer charities, rather than giving $25 here, $25 there, so that the charities won't run after you trying to get a little bit more and waste your whole $25 in the process. So this year I decided to give to 6 groups. This is my list -- what do you think?

1. American Lung Association. We like them for 2 reasons -- (1) I've now lost 3 relatives to lung cancer, which is a pathetically underfunded disease, research-wise, and (2) we hate smoking and they work to prevent it. They also send us address labels constantly throughout the year, which annoys me, but at least no blankets.

2. American Kidney Fund. I started giving to them after my nephew was diagnosed with kidney failure. They help kidney patients with funds for dialysis and also health insurance and that sort of thing. They almost lost me this year because they sent me a friggin' BLANKET, but I decided to overlook that. For the most part they're quite restrained about sending things.

3. Oxfam. I debated this one for a long time. I wanted to give to some sort of international aid group, and I like Oxfam's work, but they were really obnoxious to me this past year, all because I gave them some money to help with Haiti. So I considered Doctors Without Borders instead. But finally I went with Oxfam. If they're awful to me again this year, I'll do something different next year.

4. Nature Conservancy. I wanted a conservation group and I just like what they do, buying up all that land and keeping it away from developers. Now if I could only get them not to send me a tote bag.

5. Kern County Library. I wanted to do something local and I thought about the local United Way, but then I noticed on the library's web page that they had a wish list on Amazon. I chose 7 books to be delivered to the library -- 4 children's, 2 adult nonfiction, and 1 in Spanish. What fun!

6. ????? I want to do one more, and I want it to be a conservation group that would specifically support and protect the desert, but I'm not sure what to choose. One possibility would be the Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee. Another would be something like the Sierra Club (but they tend to deluge you with stuff). I'll have to do a little more thinking about this one.

Once you start doing this, you want to do more and more. It's very addictive. Now I'm looking around the house thinking about what else I could freecycle. At least with Freecycle, no one ever sends you address labels.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The reasons for the season


Reason 1. Axial tilt.

I like this reason a lot. It's so basic. Axial tilt causes the earth to have seasons. The winter season is cold and dark, so in ancient times various cultures celebrated the rebirth of the sun god at the winter solstice. This has evolved, over the centuries, into Christmas and other December holidays.

And yet, though axial tilt is the reason that there is a winter season, and the reason behind some of the things we do during the winter season, like drape little colored lights all over everything, it is not the reason we hang stockings by the fireplace, munch on candy canes, and insist on traveling long distances at great expense and inconvenience to spend time with our relatives. I mean, maybe there's a connection, but I think there's also more to it.


Reason 2. Jesus's birthday

Don't you just love that big candy cane J? Yes, I know candy canes are supposed to be shepherds' crooks, but check out snopes.com for the details on that one. It's so goofy to have Jesus be the reason for the season, since he was born in the spring (if the Gospel of Luke can be trusted, that is, since no one really knows). And yet, if Jesus's birthday hadn't been grafted onto the existing pagan winter solstice holiday, is it likely that we would make such a to-do about Christmas? Jesus may not be the reason for the season, but he has probably had something to do with maintaining the holiday for us.

When I was a kid, my family celebrated Christmas with great gusto, but we were not religious. My father was an atheist, my mother less clearly so. We didn't go to church. I wasn't given any religious training. It made me quite uncomfortable to sing carols about "born is Jesus the infant king" etc. I felt strongly that if I did not believe in Jesus, or God for that matter, I should not be singing these songs.

Later, as an adult (a grad student in Ann Arbor), just to find out what it was all about, I started going to church. First Presbyterian had a fabulous music program and a very intellectual minister, who liked to quote from New Yorker articles and the writings of people like Annie Dillard. During these years, my "religious period," I enjoyed Christmas a lot. I acquired an Advent wreath and started my own tradition of lighting the candles (my family had never done that). I liked the church services during Advent, the whole thing about making spiritual preparations for Jesus's birth, despite the fact that I didn't believe in Jesus (yes, he existed, but I don't believe he was God's only begotten son and all that), nor did I believe he was born in December.

(As an aside, I just finished a very interesting book by Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief, about some of the other gospels (the ones that didn't make the canon). Apparently there was quite a bit of disagreement among the early Christians about whether Jesus was a deity or not. In fact, only the Gospel of John (in the writings that made it into the official New Testament) really says Jesus was divine. The Gospel of Thomas (one of the ones that didn't make it) specifically says that the light of God is in all of us, not just in Jesus. I like that idea so much more than the standard Christian view.)

But even though learning about the Christian tradition and incorporating that into my own celebration of Christmas has been meaningful for me, I still don't think Jesus is the reason for the season. He's helped it along, he provided its current name, he's an interesting aspect of it, but he's not the whole story.


Reason 3. Family and tradition.

In my view, this comes the closest to being what it's all about.

This is a picture of my atheist father in 1981, calmly reading the newspaper in the midst of our Christmas detritus -- greeting cards, the tree, opened gifts, and even one of my famous gingerbread houses. The excess! The waste! The utter nonsense of it all!

And yet, and yet, it grips us. It calls to us. We need this. Every year, we need this. I personally need to send out 70 greeting cards and flavor all my food and drink with peppermint. You likely have other needs.

It's OK to simplify Christmas, to cut out the parts that drive us crazy. But be careful about cutting out too much. You might accidentally remove the piece that is the most important to you. Sometimes I think the stress and depression of Christmas might be one of those important parts for me. If it doesn't hurt, it isn't Christmas.

For me, the essence of Christmas is this: sitting in front of the fireplace with my mother at my parents' old house on Christmas Eve, no lights burning except those on the tree, listening to her tell the story of Christmas Eve 1945, when my father came home from the war.

My mother is gone now, my father is gone. The house has been sold. But I have my memories. And every Christmas is another chance to revisit them, on a more visceral level than I can achieve at any other time. This is why I put up the tree and bake cookies, why I spend money and time to visit what's left of my family, why I play carols and eat entirely too many candy canes.

It's to remind myself of who I am and where I came from. And to start giving my children their own traditions and memories.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Christmas in Ridgecrest

All these posts could be called Christmas in Ridgecrest, but I felt that this past week or so we have really been participating in the Ridgecrest Christmas experience, rather than the Anywhere-But-Here Christmas experience, the Los Angeles Hanukkah experience, etc.


First, on Saturday, there was the annual Christmas parade. It started at 10 am, so at about 9:55 we drove over to Ridgecrest Boulevard and parked on the street, oh, maybe half a block from the parade route, and pushed the twins in their stroller over to where we could watch. Couldn't have done that anywhere else I've ever lived in my entire life. There were about 50 entries in the parade (an entry meaning, e.g., the Burroughs High School Marching Band), so it went on and on for what seemed like hours, and we got pretty tired of it. But all in all it was a nice parade. No particularly special floats or anything like that, but lots of smiling people, some of whom gave the twins candy.


Second, also on Saturday, I freecycled a whole bunch of stuff. When we lived in Boulder, if we wanted to get rid of something, we just put it out in front of the house. We lived on a very well-traveled street, and most of what we put out vanished quickly. Rocket Boy used to put out just dreadful pieces of junk and I would get mad at him and say "NO ONE would ever want that!" and then look outside and it'd be gone. And better stuff we'd sell on Craigslist. Anyway, we don't live on a well-traveled street in Ridgecrest, and there's no Ridgecrest Craigslist unfortunately, so we've taken to using Freecycle.

I find Freecycle annoying, to be honest. Sometimes I post things on the website and no one responds, or else they say they want it, but then don't show up to pick it up. But sometimes it works.

I had a ton of outgrown winter clothing to move, plus some electronic toys that the boys received last Christmas that I didn't want them to have, plus some other stuff, so I posted 8 different groups of things and managed to get rid of 7 of them, which is pretty good. The electronic toys went like lightning -- I must have had 10 requests for them within 15 minutes. Everybody wanted to use them as Christmas presents. The clothes went a little more slowly but almost all of them went. One person said she could use them but didn't have a car, so I offered to drop them off. Oh, such a pathetically awful little hovel of an apartment she lived in. And she was so young. It upset me that a little baby was growing up there. Another person who came and picked up a box of clothes looked pretty desperate and thanked me profusely.

That's the other thing about Freecycle -- some pretty desperate people use it. I know that giving stuff to people is supposed to make you happy, but it often has the opposite effect on me. If I didn't freecycle stuff I wouldn't interact with these pretty desperate people -- I would think that everyone was as comfortable and secure as I am. So is that a plus or a minus... I'll let you decide.


Third, Winnie-go-house has lost its mind. Not only has the Wicked Witch on the roof acquired a red cloak, the Winged Monkey in the tree is now wearing Santa pants and has exchanged his monkey head for a man's head -- but what man? He doesn't look like Santa, he looks sort of like Ken (of Barbie and Ken). But he still has wings. Next to him, there's a Mrs. Claus sitting in a swing. It's all very odd.

We continue to visit Winnie-go-house every day, and I try to make sense of it. They now have set up a large TV in front of it and they show the Wizard of Oz movie every night, so we always stop by on the way home from daycare and watch for a few minutes. I've noticed other cars doing the same thing.


Fourth, tonight was the tortoise club party and it went well, very nice evening, though the twins were, shall we say, DISTRACTING? I kept reminding myself that no one else offered to have the party at their house, so this was better than nothing, but hmmmmmmmmmm. I don't think we'll offer to host a salon here, as we had considered doing. But such pleasant people are in the tortoise club. I'm glad we are part of that.

Earlier today I stopped by the toy store in town to pick up a box of See's chocolate for the party. I remember when we first moved here and I saw the sign in the parking lot saying "See's" and I thought "Ridgecrest has a See's? That's amazing!" Then I found out what it really meant: the Kiwanis club sells See's chocolate out of the toy store as a fundraiser. Stupid Ridgecrest, can't do anything right, was how I interpreted that. But this year I saw it in a different light: how convenient for the Kiwanis club to sell See's chocolate at the toy store. You see, I really am starting to fit in here. Sort of.

Fifth, Thursday is Jesus' birthday party at daycare. Oh sigh. Welcome to Ridgecrest.

Still haven't written a single Christmas card. Maybe tomorrow.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

And on and on December goes

Now it is December 9th and I have decided that I am getting stressed. It's not the shopping. The shopping is done! Well, I do need to buy some "toys for tots" gifts, but that's easy. A few things have been ordered and may not arrive in time and all that, but really we're good. Shopping's not the problem. So what is?

1. The cards. OK, they arrived, all 75 of them. I made a rough list of who to send them to and that list has about 70 people on it (70 HOUSEHOLDS, I should say), so I ordered 75 cards in order to have a few extras. Tonight I put return address labels on 70 envelopes. Do you know how long that took???? Actually, I didn't time it. But it took more than 5 minutes, I'm sure of that. Tomorrow I'll start addressing the envelopes. Do you know how long it takes to address 70 envelopes???? I don't either, but I'm sure it is a long time. Then I have to think about each card. We do a Christmas letter insert (not finished yet, must finish it ASAP), but I also like to write a note on each card. Do you know how long it takes to write notes on 70 cards?????? And who are all these 70 people and their families? Do they really want to get a holiday card from us? And have I forgotten anyone? Anyway.

2. The party. OK, so we're having this tortoise club party next week. I'm looking forward to it, should be a pleasant evening. But Rocket Boy is losing his mind worrying about cleaning up for it. I look around our living room and I think, "looks nice, could use a little sprucing up, but overall looks nice." Rocket Boy looks at our living room and thinks "OK, if the twins could go on a nap drive ALL WEEKEND maybe I could start to make a dent in this disastrous mess." I swear it's not that bad, really. We don't use that room very much. But Rocket Boy was raised by a German hausfrau for whom cleanliness was way more important than godliness. Anyway, I am going to try to clean to Rocket Boy's satisfaction, while still enjoying the party. Stay tuned.

3. My 100 books! How can I possibly read 10 books this month! I have read 3 so far and it is December 9th. If I keep up this pace (1 book every 3 days) I will be OK. But how can I keep up this pace later in the month???? I just know that on December 31st I will be at 98 books, frantically trying to read 2 more.


4. Christmas candy! Ack! I haven't bought any in the past week but I am losing my mind because I WANT to buy more. Soon the mint M&Ms will be gone from the shelves until next November and I will have missed the opportunity to eat several thousand more of them. I am going to a wedding at the end of December and I would like to be LESS fat for that, not MORE fat, which is what I will be if I buy and eat more mint M&Ms. So must stay away from the mint M&Ms (and all forms of peppermint bark), focus on the joys of the new Weight Watchers, and... and what? I lost my train of thought because I was thinking about mint M&Ms.


5. It's past 10 pm and I need to go to bed and read!

Christmas stress, can't avoid it, gotta love it.

Monday, December 6, 2010

December is moving along

Here it is December 6th, and as always, the holiday season is whizzing along at breakneck speed. But I don't feel as stressed as I usually do this time of year. The holidays feel -- dare I say it -- under control. Of course that isn't right, the holidays are never under control. But it does feel that way. Maybe it's because I have a lot of other things to worry about right now. Maybe it's because I'm just too hungry (the new Weight Watchers kicked off on Saturday and I am STARVING). Or maybe I'm forgetting something. Let's help ourselves to a piece of zero-points fruit and go down the list.


1. Advent candles. We actually found our wreath in a box in the garage, bought some candles, and lit the first one on the first Sunday of Advent. This is almost unheard of. Of course, on Monday we lit two candles, and on Tuesday we lit three, and tonight we lit all five, and yes, I know, the colors of the candles are all wrong (this is Ridgecrest, give me a break, I couldn't find any purple and pink candles) so we're not observing the tradition correctly, but the twins are enjoying it, so it's all good.


2. Advent calendars. I bought these AHEAD OF TIME! Completely unheard of. We were in a children's bookstore in LA in October and they had Advent calendars, so I bought two. And I was able to find them on December 1st, TRULY completely unheard of. The twins and I open the little windows every morning.

3. Christmas cards. Ours are ordered -- might even arrive this week. Then there's all the fun of writing and addressing them. But it really is fun for me. Incidentally, I haven't received a single Christmas card yet. My cousin Kathy always gets her cards out right after Thanksgiving, so now I'm wondering -- is there a problem? did someone die? or did we just get dropped from her list? This is actually stressing me out, so OK, one teeny tiny source of stress here.

4. Decorations. We're going to put up the tree and all that this weekend. I'm not worried about it.


5. Cookies. I'm planning to bake ONE BATCH, probably sugar cookies that the twins can help decorate. Maybe this weekend. Not worried.

6. Gifts. I've bought a few things for the twins and Rocket Boy. I have just a few more people to shop for, then I'll be done. No worries.

7. Parties. We've already gone to a few. We've decided to host the tortoise club party next week, so there will be some preparation work for that. Not worried. Probably should be worried, but not worried.


8. Hanukkah. We went to my niece's Hanukkah party in LA on Saturday night. There are two more nights of it left, so I'm continuing to read the Hanukkah book that we got out of the library to the twins each night. But heck, they still want to read Halloween with Max and Ruby every night too. We'll probably go on reading the Hanukkah book until it's due back at the library.

9. Charity. I need to sit down and make a list of who we're donating to and get those checks sent off. But that's enjoyable.

10. Holiday lights. Maybe this weekend we'll drive around with the twins and look at lights. Last year they only had a few words and described everything as "do-bitty" ("so pretty"). This year I know already that everything will be described as "Winnie-go-house."


11. Music. We sing a carol (laboriously played on the piano by me) every night after we light the Advent candles. Probably ought to spend some time practicing. Probably ain't gonna happen. It's OK, there are always holiday CDs, records, and tapes to listen to instead.

12. Christmas candy, specifically mint M&Ms and all the different varieties of peppermint bark. We are DONE with this and are not going to buy any more. See note about the new Weight Watchers above, and have another piece of fruit.

13. The actual holiday itself. Well, it's not for a few more weeks. Cross that bridge when we come to it and all that.

What can I say? Things are humming along very smoothly, even pleasantly. I might even decide to make a gingerbread house. OK, no, I won't, because then I would lose my mind and that would defeat the purpose -- I wonder, is it necessary to get all stressed out at Christmas? Is it part of the whole experience? Never fear, I'm sure it will happen, but right now things are OK. Let's leave it there.