New Year's Eve, Russian Style!

 Since the first of every new year comes a mere week after Christmas in most countries, sometimes the lines between the two become blurred.  Families tend to leave their Christmas decorations up until after New Year's Eve (NYE) and hope for decent weather in which to take them down as soon as possible thereafter.  Still, NYE doesn't have the same family togetherness and twinkle that Christmas does because it has taken on the more adult feature of imbibing in alcoholic drinks to celebrate.  It's more of a couples thing, with children included....sometimes.

Every year, when I was much younger, I sought to find the glorious NYE experiences that were always shown on television.  Oh yes...the Times Square crowd standing out in the cold, waiting for the ball to drop.  What fun!  Or so I thought.  Of course, it is cold.  Of course, it is outside.  Of course, if you do anything different INSIDE, it is expensive...and then you have to go home.  Who's going to drive?  In all of my 73 years, I have never once had a NYE that equalled the hype of the celebrations that I imagined in my brain.  The older I got, the more I realized that the best place to be on NYE was at home.  It's not the kind of holiday that generates traditions.

And then, my son-in-law (SIL) came into my life.  He is a naturalized citizen, born in Russia, in America since 2008.  Along with him came Russian New Year's (NY) traditions.  Why would Russia have NY traditions?  Well...it seems that all those years when Russia was part of the Communist Soviet Union, religion was discouraged and sent underground.  Thus, Christmas was devalued (at least publicly), while NY was roundly celebrated.  It wasn't acceptable to celebrate Christmas, but NY was, complete with all kinds of Russian traditions, with family and community.  The Russian public then saved their gift-giving and family celebrations for NYE.  

There is no Russian Santa Claus.  There is, however, Father Frost, a figure in Russian folk tales.  

Russians generally don't have private Christmas trees, but do gather around a communal decorated fir tree outside on NYE to celebrate with neighbors.

Unbeknownst to me and most of the Western World, much of the pre-Bolshevik influence in Russia was French.  Thus came a Russian tradition of serving Salade Olivier for NY.  Olivier salad is the American equivalent of glorified potato salad--glorified because it contains non-brined pickles, peas, and some form of meat, all combined with mayonnaise.  It's delicious.  

Another traditional food, at least in my SIL's family, is garlic deviled eggs.  This is traditional deviled eggs infused with so much garlic that it will make your eyes water.  Oh...and caviar!  NYE is the one time that Denis's Russian beginnings are enabled and encouraged.  He's worth it.  He's worth every single crumb of traditional foods.  This man is American, through and through, and has been a kick-ass provider for my daughter and grandchildren, so if NYE provides a time for him to celebrate his Russian origins, we are all the richer for it. 

Sadly, I haven't learned how to say Happy New Year in Russian, but it is my wish for everyone in any language, no matter your customs.  May 2021 provide all that you need!       

Brain Density; The Struggle Is Real

 Oprah Winfrey calls it an "Aha Moment"--the instant a cartoonish light bulb goes on in the brain, shedding light on something in a different way.  Sometimes Dr. Phil will speak a truth to someone in trouble on his show, and he/she will reply, "I never thought of it that way before."  That light bulb comes on, and the audience can tell that what might have been obvious to everyone else has only just now come to the front of that person's consciousness.  It's all about perception, I guess, and it takes a "friend at the factory" to help us see reality when we've been hiding in the forest of trees.  DUH!

I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person and a good judge of character, and yet I have Aha Moments virtually every day of my aging life.  When they hit, I am shocked at myself for not having seen with clarity sooner.  What does that mean about my previous knowledge?  Confirmation Bias?  Head in the sand?  A brain so dense with fantasy that reality can't get through?  What's up with that?  In those moments, I come to understand the significance of what I don't know.  It's as if the Universe is saying, "Oh, so you think you've figured everything out, do you, human?  Well, how about THIS one?!"  And then the bottom falls out of everything I ever believed to be right and true.

I wish I had my life to live over again, knowing what little I do know now.  I would have listened more and talked less.  I would have connected the dots of clues that were clearly telling me I was going the wrong way but didn't want to admit that the commitment I had already invested in relationships was going to fail.  I would have made better decisions along the way.  I wouldn't have taken anything or anyone for granted, but would not have made excuses for the bad behavior of the people in my life.  I would have given no thought to what others thought of me so I could cut to the heart of what I thought was best for me and my family.  I would have asked for a little more for myself without giving away all that I am.  I would have disengaged from life's trolls before they took my self-respect.  But--as always--hindsight is 20/20, while life in 2020 has pulled the slats out of civilization.  I don't get that chance to relive my life.  The best I can do is warn others about what is ahead, if they choose to listen.

I have learned to open myself up to new ideas that are foreign to my generation; yet some things must stay the same.  Truth is still sacred, as is integrity.  Lie to me, and you're done.  I might still love you, but I won't trust you anymore.  My dense brain still can't accept hypocrisy, although I'm fairly certain that I am guilty of it here and there.  The struggles are real.  When I die, no one can say that I didn't try!             

'Twas the Day After Christmas...

 Boxing Day to the rest of the civilized world.  In America, it's more like Recovery Day.  O Holy Night turns into O Chaos Morning.  Trash cans are filled to overflowing with wrapping paper and discarded boxes.  And trash collection normally scheduled for Friday doesn't happen until Saturday.  All is calm; all is bright.  Sort of.

I can say that I survived Christmas all alone.  There is an actual disconnect from all of the emotion of Christmas Eve to the reality of Christmas morning.  The eve of "our dear Saviour's birth" gives way to Santa Claus.  The whole dynamic changes, and I changed with it.  I was a bundle of tears on Christmas Eve but managed to get through Christmas Day with only minor issues.  My family called.  My friends and neighbors checked on me.  I talked to my daughter online throughout the day on Google Hangouts.  I called my sister to check up on their news.  I drank a little wine, ate some outrageously caloric foods rather than balanced meals, watched some mindless television, and surfed the internet.  It was all good.  Then, too, I have an Australian friend who told me that I was surrounded by angels and loved and precious.  At the risk of sounding blasphemous, I'm not sure the Lord himself could have sent a better message at the exact moment that I needed to hear it.  He uses us to carry His message!

So, what did I learn?  I learned that I could survive.  I learned that others were in my same boat and needed as much love as I did.  I learned that today's troubles are enough for today but should not carry over to tomorrow's.  Finally, I learned, as did the Grinch, that Christmas was going to happen whether I was surrounded or alone.

And now, I am ready to kiss 2020 good-bye without looking back.  Bring it on, 2021.  I'm ready for you!

Thank You, Charles Dickens!

 So very many of our our Christmas thoughts, expressions, even traditions, come from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.  Thanks to that book, we all know about ghosts and happy people vs. miserly ones, especially at Christmas.  The very name of Scrooge has taken on its own meaning, as well as the expression, "Bah!  Humbug!  (What is a humbug, anyway?  Is that anything like a poppycock, or a fiddle-faddle? Or perhaps the more Shakespearean "zounds"?  Is it an exclamation or a profanity?  Inquiring minds want to know!)  

For the first time of my life, I am avoiding anything sentimental about Christmas.  Call me a Scrooge, if you wish, but it is just self-defense.  I am so weary of weeping over Christmases past, present, and future that I just want to get Christmas over with this year.

It's part of my profile...of who I am.  Every time I have been faced with problems in life, I approach with the thought that I just want to get through it.  "Let's just get this over with."  Whether going to the dentist, attending a funeral, facing something unthinkable, or trying to deal with personal failures that I caused, I do what I must in order to get it in my rear view mirror with as much dignity as I can.  (I even did it the night my daughter was born.  She wasn't due for a month, but when I went into hard labor with no lead-up, I decided I'd just get a good night's sleep and deal with it in the morning.  Yeah...didn't happen that way but is a glimpse into my brain.)   It's a kind of grit-your-teeth-and-move-on mentality that I got from my mother and my grandmother--both very strong women who endured tragedies that would have put other women helplessly on their knees.  Learning from them how to move on and never look back was both a blessing and a curse.  It has made me seem hard on the outside when my inside is total mush. 

So here I am on Christmas of 2020, alone for the first time in my life.  Alone by choice, in order to save myself and my loved ones from the virus.  Alone in the hope of being alive for NEXT Christmas.  In order to prevent meltdowns, I am avoiding anything--particularly music--that brings on tears.  Lord knows, I've wept enough!  Tired, ya know?  I just want to get Christmas over with so I can move on to moments less difficult to endure.  I miss my family.  As of December 27th, it will be a year since I have seen them.  Too long, Lord.  Too long.  

I haven't forgotten the meaning of Christmas.  I went to my church's service remotely this evening.  I don't say "Bah!  Humbug!" because I am Scrooge who hates Christmas, but rather because of self-preservation.  Let's just do this thing and to hope to be around next year under different circumstances.  

So, in the words of Tiny Tim, another Christmas Carol character:  "God bless us, every one!"  We sure need it!

Cinematic Influence?

 A private Facebook community out of Washington that I belong to asked today for people to submit the titles of the first and last movies they had watched in a theater.  I'm older than most so considered not contributing, but after a bit, asked why not?

The first movie I remember seeing in a theater was a "sneak preview" offered at a theater near us.  A sneak preview meant that the audience had no clue what they would be seeing, and this was in the early 1950s, long before movie ratings were even around.  My brother hadn't been born yet, so I think I was 5-years-old or maybe less.  Mom and Dad took my sister and me to see the movie.  It had Rock Hudson in it and was titled Something of Value.  It was a horrible movie, about a Mau Mau uprising somewhere in Africa, where the natives were attacking "innocent" white people.  The movie was black-and-white, which was probably a blessing because one frightening scene of a Mau Mau attack showed a living person whose tongue had been cut out.  The blood was black, not red, but I was horrified.  I didn't know what was going on.  I asked my mother.  She told me...and then we had to leave the theater because I immediately felt like I was going to throw up.  (My guess is that we would have left anyway.  It was no movie for children!  Had my parents known, we would not have gone to it in the first place.)

All things considered, I was a fairly unflappable kid.  It took a lot to frighten me.  Still, this movie haunted me.  It was my first introduction to man's inhumanity to man, and I was too trusting to believe that it could happen in the real world; plus, I was somewhat protected.  My parents were of the Old School that believed that children had the rest of their lives to worry about adult things but should not be challenged by them until it was their time.  The folks didn't consult with us about family decisions that we couldn't affect anyway.  I do remember at the same age being sent to a movie with my older sister after seeing the Mau Mau movie.  We lived in Coronado, CA, at the time, and within walking distance of the movie theater.  It was a Red Skelton movie--can't remember the title--but didn't want to go because I thought it would have skeletons in it.  I'd had enough of things to frighten me, thankyouverymuch.  My mother assured me that it would be okay because Red Skelton was a funny guy.  I went, and she was right, but I've been suspicious ever since.

I've never heard of the Mau Mau movie before or since.  (It can be found on Google, however, so I know it was real.)  When I was 10, the Navy sent our family to Japan, 1957...12 years after the end of the war with that country.  Our ship docked in Yokohama on the island of Honshu; we were booked on a train that would eventually take us under the ocean to the island of Kyushu, in at least a 20-hour trek, to the city of Sasebo; were boarded at a guarded building known as the Bachelor Officers' Quarters (BOQ), while Dad sought private lodging for us.  Base housing wasn't available.  Can't remember, exactly, how long we were at the BOQ before we landed in a little settlement of somewhat modernized homes on Yamata-Cho.  What I do remember was lying in bed in the BOQ, fearful that the Japanese could rise up against us and we would be the "innocent" victims of the same hatred from the Mau Mau movie.  I prayed a lot in those days.  Prayer was like casting a spell on all of the evil in the world.  I never saw a moment's evil in Japan, but that first movie had scared me, lasting many years.

The last movie I saw in the theater happened maybe a year ago, with my co-grandparent friends.  The movie was 1917, and had received some critical acclaim.  It was every bit as dark, depressing, and violent as the very first theater movie I had seen.  The main difference was that I was older, and the movie showed some redemption for the characters.  Honestly?  I wouldn't pay to see it again.

For most of my life, I have maintained that violent movies, video games, and television shows don't influence children--that it's the family that has the most power.  I still think I'm right, but looking back to post on that Washington Facebook site has caused me to doubt myself.  I choose musicals, comedies, and chick-flicks for my own viewing pleasure.  Am I hard-wired for that?  Or did that very first movie scare me too much?  

My next question, of course, is "Who cares?"  I think I'd rather be too frightened than too accepting of the violent themes.  To each his/her own!  

What Do the Simple Folk Do?

 Taking a line from a song from the musical Camelot, in this our Christmas season, my old brain began to wonder, as did King Arthur and Queen Guinevere did about what people do to find happiness when they already have everything. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSgxA-i_amk

Here I am, a scant eight days before Christmas with no clue how things will go on my meager budget.  I didn't plan far enough ahead.  Or rather, I didn't stir up my gift recipients soon enough.  Whatever.  But I do wonder what people who already have everything get for Christmas.  What represents love to them?  Diamonds?  Yachts?  Experiences?  

Think about that for a minute.  If you had enough money to buy yourself anything you wanted, from gold toilets to private planes, what would be on your Christmas list?  Thank GOD, I am not one of those people!  I mean, what's a heaven for?  Some of the loneliest people in the world are rich.  Which is why the likes of Arthur and Guinevere are seeking answers about happiness in their song.  The greatest gifts come from the heart and not the pocketbook.  Being with family is the best we can hope for.  That won't happen this year, so I have to make lemonade out of lemons.  

I guess I'm about as simple a "folk" as anyone you will ever know.  I've never been a diva.  Don't need much and usually make do without whatever society thinks I need that I don't already have.  Still, I'm not ungrateful for gifts that come from the heart.  And that is the secret to Christmas.  It's the thought that counts.  Every single gift deserves gratitude, even if the giver didn't spend a cent.  

What do the simple folk do?  They love.  So they say...      

Gotta Keep Laughing

 The simplest things make me laugh to myself these days.  It's a blessing because the simplest things also make me cry on a daily basis, and I never was a weeper before.  I am now!  Still, I am thankful for the little glitches that bring a smile to my face, even if they aren't FUNNY funny.  Maybe just IRONICALLY funny is enough to keep my personal mirth going.

I have written before about my helper named Debbie.  Technically, she's my "cleaning lady".  (I prefer "housekeeper".)  She cleans my house twice a month and takes care of my yard work, as needed.  But she is actually more than just a housekeeper.  She has become caretaker.  If I raise a red flag, she's right there, with the added bonus that her son, a plumber by trade but handyman by function, has also helped me out in soooo many ways.  But I digress.

One of Debbie's tasks has been to change the burned-out light bulbs under my kitchen ceiling fan.  I don't use the fan much, so the burned bulbs can't be blamed on vibration, but they burn out on a more-than-regular basis.  I try to keep plenty of extra bulbs on hand.  She's just a little slip of a thing who can still stand on a chair to reach the lights.  (Obviously, I can't.)  Wish I had kept records to prove how many times she's had to do that over the last two years!  

This last time, it was a bulb in the light bar over the bathroom medicine cabinet that burned out.  The bulbs are spherical and need to be only 20-25 watts.  (Cheap light bar that I put in years ago.)  I went to Meijer to find replacements but couldn't find any, so I messaged Deb to stop somewhere else and get some for me the next time she came.  She found a four-pack for $4-something at Menard's, then found a four-pack for $2-something at Walmart.  Penny-watcher that she is, she returned the first pack to Menard's for a refund and brought the Walmart pack to me.  That is a lot of effort just to find light bulbs!  But here's the rub:  when she touched the burned out bulb to replace it, it came on.  Apparently, it had been merely loose.  (Someone needs to explain to me how a lightbulb that is never touched can become loose after years of just being there.)  Anyway, we both sort of chuckled about that, but at least I had replacement bulbs now.

The biggest laugh came the next day when that very same bulb burned out for real.  The god of light bulbs had spoken!  "Thou wilt be burned out, whether you or the bulb like it or not!"  That's what I get for thinking I can be in control of anything in life!

Know what else I don't seem to be able to control?  Muh pills.  (There is an old Andy Griffith Show episode in which poor, long-suffering Emma Watson went to the drug store and plunked a dime down on the counter to get a refill of "muh pills".  The new lady druggist--niece of the regular pharmacist--hadn't been in town long enough to know the dynamics of the customers and so refused to refill the pills without a prescription.  Of course, poor Emma languished near death's door, claiming "I will die without muh pills", for a couple of days without them, and everyone in town rallied around her--all against that heartless lady druggist.  Then Ellie [the druggist] miraculously appeared with a refill, explaining to Sheriff Andy that Emma's pills were merely a placebo--sugar pill--something Ellie hadn't known before speaking to her pharmacist uncle.  Emma's psychosomatic life was saved, and Ellie's reputation in town improved greatly.)  And thereafter, I have come to call my daily medications, "muh pills".

Up until I had my heart attack in 2009, considered "mild to moderate", I had always prided myself on not requiring medications.  Yeah...well...life had other plans.  Since then, I take five pills in the morning, and one at night.  Only three of those are prescription drugs.  The other three are supplements recommended by my doctors:  vitamin B12, vitamin D, and a baby aspirin.  I take them faithfully, if not begrudgingly.  

What gripes me more than having to take muh pills is how fast a week goes by.  I did invest in one of those weekly medicine sorter things for AM and PM.  I fill it one week, and the next thing I know, I have to fill it again.  I had a brainstorm.  I'll just put TWO weeks' worth in each little daily compartment, and will know if I did/didn't take that day's meds by whether there are one of each or two of each in the compartment.  Brilliant!  So what is the source of my amusement with this system?

The doggone pills are hard to hold with fingernails.  To get one week's dosage out of the compartments, I have to dig in to bring out one pill of each kind.  Most of the time, I come out with more than one of each, which then have to be returned to the sorter, if I haven't already dropped them out of the palm of my hand.  Before I throw all five in my mouth, I check to make sure that I really do have five pills in my hand and that each one is different.  It is only then that I can knock them back from my palm to my throat and swallow them down.

But not so fast!  I was sitting on the toilet the other day when I noticed what looked like one of muh pills on the floor by the door.  Huh??  Sure enough, it was one of the prescribed ones.  I fill my pill dispenser in the kitchen.  How did this pill make it to the bathroom??  How did this escapee manage to migrate from one room to another...and why?  (The larger question is: did I pick it up to take on another day?  Guess!)  My best conjecture is that the one pill somehow missed my mouth that morning when I knocked them all into my throat to swallow, fell onto my bathrobe unnoticed, and then fell off my robe onto the bathroom floor when I went in that direction.  Why not fall off somewhere else in the house?  Why?  How?  What?

Do I think it's funny?  No...it's hilarious, especially if you take the whole pill situation into consideration.  I've dropped pills before but always knew it when I did.  This time, all I could do was laugh.  Yeah...okay...pills have lives of their own, and I can't fix it!  HAHAHAHA1

If I couldn't find these little amusing things, I would go crazy.  I'm sure there are more to write about, but I get a bit wordy and tend to ramble.  Just please, if you can find anything in life to help lighten your load, rejoice in it.  Gotta keep laughing.  The alternative just isn't much fun.