It’s over. That
fast. The gifts are neatly stacked in a corner, waiting for various recipients
to take theirs. The living room is swept and vacuumed, and all the trash picked
up. Dinner is done, dishes washed and put up—oops, it didn’t quite go that way
around here. Years from now we may refer to it as the “Wipes Christmas” but the
joke is still too raw, not funny.
The sewer is still
backed up, or there’s a problem with the septic system. We used disposable bakeware
as serving dishes and ate off paper plates Still delicious. And the grace was
the same (thanks to TCU Pre-School some 45 years ago). And even though we didn’t
have turkey, lethargy settled in. Lisa’s parents left to go home, and the rest of
the family began to work on gingerbread houses which they are submitting to
some contest. I somehow got side-tracked
worrying about taxes and began some explorations I should have begun a month
ago. And made lists of things Colin and I should discuss tomorrow.
It had been a
warm, sunny day so Colin took a break from sewer troubles to take the first dip
in the pool—Morgan and Kegan followed but all three retreated to the hot tub
pretty quickly.
I am actually making
progress on the giant project I’m reading for aa university press—but no closer
to a conclusion. And tonight I’m too sleepy. I’ve often felt that Christmas
night households are full of people letting a giant “Whoosh” as all the piss
and vinegar rushes out of them. And they go to sleep, as I’m going to do.
Which one would you vote for? A, B, C, or D?
1 comment:
I remember one storm that came through when we moved to Nebraska. School was in session and the principal came around (no intercom in those days) and said they were dismissing school early as a terrible blizzard was heading our way. Then he called my best friend and me to his office and told us that my friend's father (who owned a ranch some twenty miles from town) had called my father and asked if I could come out with his son (who was driving back and forth to school) to help move the cattle into the home pasture. We hustled to my place so I could gather clothes and off we went. It started snowing just before we got to his ranch and horses were already saddled for us. We quickly changed clothes and went out to move the cattle down to the home pasture. By the time we got them in, the blizzard was just beginning in earnest. We spent the rest of the night riding around and around the cattle, occasionally cutting through the herd to keep the cattle from going down. When they did, we had to climb off our horses and work to get them back up then break the ice from their nostrils. His mother and sister brought sandwiches and coffee down to us with a tractor. By the time the blizzard moved on south, we were so tired well, you probably have an idea what something like this was so you know what THAT was like. Snow was really deep in some places and I didn't get back in town for nearly three days, it took that long for the maintainer to plow the country road free. We lived just over the South Dakota border (10 miles) and the storm spread all the way up to Pierre, SD. That was in 1963 when I was a senior, if memory serves me correctly. A long time ago.
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