Happy New Year - so there!

 

   I don’t get it. 

   I’ve been trying to figure this out: I’m not really crazy about the holidays – as I’ve mentioned, the music and the lights are pretty much the only things I like about them – but I’m sad when they’re over.  You’d think I would be glad, relieved when they’re over.  It doesn’t make sense. 

   Maybe part of it – although not the reason – is that I don’t like New Year’s.  As my friend John says, I don’t do New Year’s. 

    There are a few reasons for this.  One is that I’m not a big partier and not a drinker.  When I was a child, New Year’s Eve was for adults, and I was stuck at home with a sitter or my older sister.  When I did go to New Year’s Eve parties, it felt like everyone was burnt out from holiday parties, and they were just putting in the time.  In any case, I’m not interested in partying and getting drunk with a lot of people. 

   More than that, I don’t like thinking about a whole new year, facing and dealing with if not planning the next 12 months.  It’s like diving into an icy cold pool.  I don’t really advocate just sticking your toes in, but I’m more about one day at a time. Perhaps the bottom line is that I don’t like thinking or am afraid of thinking about what I may have or won’t have when the next holiday season comes around (which feels like a long time but will no doubt come soon enough). I don’t like being made so aware that time has gone by, that time is going by. 

   Perhaps in an effort to counter all this, I have made it a point to say, in at least my e-mails, “Happy New Year!” for a good part of January.  It is my way of feeling just a bit better, of sloughing off these non-sensical post-holidays blues. 

   And with Trump being inaugurated this month, I will need “Happy New Year!” all the more.  It will be something of a stand, an act of defiance, if not a war cry.    
   A friend says she’ll be saying “Hopeful New Year” instead of “Happy New Year.” Perhaps that’s worth a try.  Or what about “Happy, hopeful New Year," for just a touch of defiance? 

Christmas lights

 

   Perhaps in the spirit of my last post about needing as much light as possible this Christmas season, I recently got a cat from the local pound – an orange one-year-old. I had not had a cat for some time, and I had been saying that I wanted to get one (or two) for a while.  When I got him, his name was Cashew, which I thought was stupid.  I named him Aaron, because I like biblical names, because it remind me of a lion and because he is small – I suspect he’s a runt - and I want him to be brave. 

   Also when I got him, his tail had been amputated.  Perhaps he touched my heart as a fellow disabled creature. Also, his backside is shaved and waddles when he walks, like he’s strutting around in chaps – quite funny!  Unfortunately, the cone he had been given was too small, and he was able to lick the stump, and it began bleeding. I took him back to the pound where he had another surgery and was given a bigger cone and more meds at no cost.  He doesn’t like either, but he’s being a pretty good boy.  He was even good when I had his nails trimmed – he was hurting me and my attendants, although that clearly wasn’t his intention. 

  Aaron was hurting me, because, soon after I got him, he was climbing up and sitting on my lap, purring like a motor boat.  I’ve had many cats – yes, I’m a proud cat lady/man – but only a few have sat on my lap and not so soon.  He is indeed brave as well as sweet – truly an Aaron.  What a gift!  Although he does like to push my joystick – a problem – and his meow is really a squeak, making me wonder if I got a mouse instead of a cat!

 

   The best gifts are the ones that are not expected. 

   I’ve been able to go out strolling this late in the year.  It’s cool, but I’m okay in my warmer overalls, turtlenecks and beanies. This has been a special treat, since, as I’ve written about before, Fall is my favorite season, with its colorful, falling leaves and special light, and I was confined to bed jail with a pressure sore on my butt last year. 

   One of my routes includes a small concrete path from the end of a cul-de-sac to an adjacent street.  There were a couple problems with this path.  One was a dangerous split in the concrete – which, much to my pleasant surprise, the city paved over a few years ago when I pointed it out but left it at that.  The other problem was a driveway with a nasty, high lip – a trap for my wheelchair if I wasn’t careful. 

   A couple weeks ago, some unrelated work was done, and the concrete path was replaced and even the driveway lip was paved over.  I assume the wood plank, asphalt and metal plates are temporary, but I’d be quite satisfied with them.  After the Fall we had and with what’s coming next month, I will take any good thing, any gift, any light.

 

   Watch Black Doves on Netflix.  This is a superb, six-part, dark, sexy, London-set spy thriller that’s also a refreshingly not-so-sweet Christmas tale.  Also on Netflix is Hot Frosty, about a buff snowman who comes to life – naked! – which is corny and sappy but also sweet and hot.  (The sleeveless coveralls are sexy; too bad they aren’t overalls!)

 

The leaves turn red, fall

here just in time for Christmas –

an end’s beginning. 

Whenever and however, we need a little Christmas now

 

   The other day, a box arrived on my doorstep.  It was big, but not as big as I thought it would be.

   I’m not sure what I was expecting – probably because I wasn’t sure about what I was getting, if I was sure about getting it.  It felt weird to be getting an artificial Christmas tree, to be getting a Christmas tree in a box.  . 

   All my life, I’ve gone to Christmas tree lots to get a tree when the season came, first as a child with my family and later, proudly, for myself as an adult.  There was always something special about having and celebrating with this vibrant piece of nature in the house (or apartment for a time) with its wonderful fresh smell and decorated with cherished ornaments and lights (or, as I prefer, only lights). There were a couple years when I was in high school when I was allowed to have a small, fresh tree, decorated with lights and ornaments, in my bedroom, like some pet, and there were years when I withstood my environmental friends ribbing me about “killing trees.”

   When I bought my tree last year, I paid a crazy amount that I didn’t feel right paying.  I mentioned this to my sister, who lives in Northern California, and she said she has an artificial tree, which shocked me.  She was `the last person who I thought would have an artificial Christmas tree.  I told her I don’t want a tree that looks fake, and she said the tree she has looks nice.  Last week, I checked out the company (Balsam Hill), and they were having a big Black Friday sale. Even on sale, the trees weren’t cheap, and I bought one, trusting that my sister wouldn’t be wrong and that you get what you pay for. 

   I have the tree set up, and it does look nice – cheery and homey – with lights on it, although, even at 5 and a half feet, it looks oddly small.  Were the trees I was buying really that big?  I may try to put it up on a platform.  And, yes, it will be much easier to set up than going to the lot, getting a big tree into and out of the van and into the house, etc.  Plus, I’m not killing trees. 

·         *

   I suspect the people in the house on the corner down my street have a real tree.  Or are they enlightened environmentalists?  Either way, they and their house look pretty cool, even for liberal Claremont, with plants growing wildly in the front yard and cars plastered with bumper stickers saying things like “Mean people suck,” “I brake for critters” and “Speak the truth, even if your voice trembles.” They always say hi when they see me go by in my overalls.  It’s like having a bit of Berkeley down my street.

   At least a week before Thanksgiving, the front yard was festooned with funky lights and artsy elves and gnomes. I saw a lot of other houses around town with Christmas lights up very early.  When I was talking to my sister recently, she said the same thing was going on in her small town. We agreed that people – at least the ones we see, like my hippy-dippy neighbors – are devastated by the recent Trump victory and desperate for some holiday cheer. 

   So, yes, bring it on.  We are desperate for some holiday cheer this year.  Even if it’s early and is a tree that comes in a box and is small.