The Thirty-three Days of Christmas

'Twas the morning after Thanksgiving

And all through the house,

I began stirring

As soon as I roused.

Well... I may have mentioned that there was a time when I considered a career as a poet. In college, my poetry contained pools of angst populated with 'deep' thoughts pulled from the depth of my psyche. Reading them now I am reminded of an emotional prison-break through a swamp. Give me a break. It was college. And I was one of those English majors.

I suspect roused, as a word, might be a bit antiquated. Wasn't Ebenezer Scrooge roused from sleep when visited by Marley and the subsequent spirits? I am pretty sure it doesn't exactly rhyme with house. But, these days, I think my poetry would lean a bit more towards Calvin Trillin's. Or my favorite contemporary poet, Billy Collins (read The Reverent by him sometime. It gives you a whole new perspective on dog ownership).

Here at Casa de Bronte, Christmas starts immediately after Thanksgiving dinner. But this year, it didn't start until this morning when I got up early, and made tea, pouring it into my favorite Christmas mug. I took the mug, my laptop, and The New York Times back to bed with me. I propped up all of the pillows, hit A Charlie Brown Christmas on my iPod, and began to write this post.

It is a brilliantly sunny day. We finally had rain Tuesday night, and yesterday's sky was filled with gorgeous cottony clouds clustered in every direction you looked. I am always thankful for clouds, even more so than sunsets. And I looked around in awe as we drove up the 405 towards our friends' home. But, back to today. Once I get itchy to get up and get going, I will begin to pull boxes and my small Christmas tree out of closets and begin decorating the house for the coming holiday. There will be clusters of bells on doorknobs, and a big wooden advent calendar with spaces for chocolates behind each door. As people come to visit, they get to open the door for that day. And each one plays a Christmas tune. I can't stand it, it's so adorably silly. I will be using Christmas pot holders, towels, and napkins. And Santa Claus will appear all all over the house. Following my aunt's tradition, I started to collect large Santas and have purchased one each year, mostly from Gump's.

Christmas is hard for many, and was a major struggle for me for several years. And, truth be told, it is still a struggle; the struggle to be mindful and keep your thoughts, like a rudder, straight ahead and in the moment. Frankly, with the recent, local mass shooting, it is more of a battle than a struggle. But, I work at it hard. And, as time passes, I am more and more able to keep the dread down, which, so far, makes the coming holiday feel less insurmountable than it has felt in recent years. And I constantly remind myself that it also can be such a lovely time of year. I love attending Mass during the Advent Season. I love hearing the choir and singing the familiar carols. And I plan to attend an evening event of Christmas music at the church I attend.

Last year, Joel and I went to a staged radio show reading of Miracle on 34th Street at The Pasadena Playhouse. It starred Alfred Molina and Peri Gilpin. This year they are doing It's a Wonderful Life, and we plan to attend that, as well. We've all seen the film a bizillion times. But the story of someone driven to the brink, and then realizing what their life means and what meaningful space they fill in the circle of the people they care about, speaks to me in a different way than in the past. For at least a decade, my favorite Christmas film has been The Ref. This year I feel less irreverent and may get back to the classics. Though, while the radio play was great fun, I really can't handle watching Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street. I fear cavities. And I just don't get Frosty the Snowman. Nor, The Grinch. We all have our holiday boundaries.

Yesterday, on Thanksgiving, as we were leaving our friends' home where we had celebrated with their extended family, another close friend shot Joel and me a group text that read:

Happy Thanksgiving Deborah and Joel!

We have so many blessings in our lives and you are one of them!

We wish you were here to celebrate with us.

And as the season begins with Thanksgiving and the Christmas season following, I carry those thoughts with me. With each decoration put up, and each ornament I attach to my mini tree, the ornaments I collected through both the years and my travels, I will take a moment to think about the meaning of Christmas, and my own devotion to the circle of people I care about. We shouldn't need Scrooge's three spirits to rouse us from our bed to remind us.

Christmas. Starting today, for thirty-days, let's try to be joyful, appreciative, and grateful for our blessings. Let's try hard to be kind and generous to each other. Maybe we will feel better. Maybe we can even start a trend...

Hope you had a fine Thanksgiving, and let me be the first to wish you a Happy Christmas! And thank you for reading my blog.

Borderline

Los Angeles, California

Joel and I met at Borderline. We each remember this totally differently. He remembers that I asked him to dance (Wrong! I never asked men to dance). I remember him asking me to dance, and that I had never seen him at the club before, though he later told me that he always danced on the opposite side. In the group I hung out with, we mostly danced with the same people each week, and I was not in the habit of dancing with men I didn't know. It wasn't that I had a problem dancing with strangers, I didn't. I had gotten used to that back when I was a beginner. But, I was no longer a novice salsa dancer, and I had a problem dancing with men who didn't know how to effectively lead. Occasionally, I took a chance, as I did in Joel’s case. And to this day, I don’t know on what that decision was based. Fate, perhaps. As we were waiting for the song to start, he said to me, I don't really know how to dance salsa. Oh, great... I thought. What's he doing here? But then he said something about knowing how to dance the way he learned where he had come from. And that turned out to be cumbia and Mexico City, respectively. But he did know enough salsa, and he was a fun lead. I didn't see or dance with him again for awhile, because I went out of town just after that night. When I returned, I didn't connect him with the previous dance and conversation. When I asked him his name, he said, Joe. I'm Deborah. He shot back: I know. We've danced before.

Joel became popular with our group and we all danced with him. And I got to know him better over the years that we went to Borderline. Later, I saw him and danced with him at Mama Juana's. He was not my favorite partner, but we danced well together. And eventually, we started meeting to dance at Bogie's, and Noypitz in Glendale, after texting: Bailando esta noche? We were friends at that time, and talked and laughed a lot together. After we fell in love, we danced a few more times at Borderline. But salsa nights there ended shortly after. Like a lot of salsa nights, they had become disorganized. Out of all the clubs I just mentioned, only Bogie's continues with a salsa night, though with a diminished dance floor since we started dancing there.

I know every part of Borderline, from the parking lot up the stairs to the door and cashier's counter. I know the bar, the stage, and the DJ booth. But, especially, I know the dance floor. It always reminded me of my figure skating days, as it is surrounded by what, in skating, we called the boards, with openings to enter the floor in the corners. When I received the text from my friend in Florida, early Thursday morning, I clicked on the TV to the news that the shooting, about which my friend had texted, had, indeed, happened at Borderline. There have been so many shootings that they no longer carry that sense of once-in-a-lifetime news that they did back when the Columbine massacre occurred. Still, every time I have heard about one, I have felt sickly distressed, my thoughts going to a place where I have trouble throttling back to return to a less unsettled place. But I didn't realize what it would feel like to know that it had happened in a place I knew so well. To see video of that familiar place, a video taken while it was occurring. To hear the eerie silence of that video. I could not stop thinking about it. Thirty-six hours later, Joel was evacuated from his home, not far from Borderline, due to the Woolsley Fire, and he and his dog, Buster, came to stay. Borderline was still a crime scene. There were memorials scheduled at churches, but they were difficult to attend, as the 101 freeway was shut down. Attention and the news service shifted to the fire. Borderline became, literally, yesterday's news.

There is much to say about these shootings, but the solitary question is always: Why? Brian, the owner of Borderline, who I remember often saying hello to, wants to reopen. I admire the sense that these people can't take these things down. But nothing will bring back those lives. And, for us, nothing will bring back the security of earlier days. Where is safety? Not in churches, hospitals, offices, theaters, nor schools. Not at dance clubs, nor concerts. Despite current rhetoric, it's not the terrorists, nor illegal immigrants, who are going to get us. It's our crazy neighbors who have guns. The ones who their neighbors and friends and even family members later reported that they knew were crazy. Crazy enough to go on a suicide mission to take out innocent people enjoying music and dance together. Innocent people praying. Or kindergartners. That crazy, and armed.

Joel and I will dance in other clubs. But there will never be the ease that we had back in the day. With Borderline comes the personal, permanent realization that we just don't live in that world anymore. But we must try to live with the hope that someday we will once again. Once the madness is over. For now, its all you can do. You just cannot give up the hope.


You can find updates as well as the link to the gofundme site supporting victims and families of the Borderline mass shooting, through this link to borderlinebarandgrill: here

A Duck + Two Girls

Los Angeles, California

Every so often, though not often enough, my friend, Lynnette, comes to stay. There was a very short period of time when I was upset with her for abandoning me so shortly after we became, what she calls, official friends. We had begun walking together at the large recreational space near my home. And she dropped by often, bringing baked goods during my bathroom rehab. She was very popular with Kevin, my contractor, and the workers who all coveted her lemon bars. But shortly after, she and her husband, Jim, moved from a few miles away from me, to an Orange County beach community. I forgave her when she started coming to stay with me.

Last month she came for car repairs and then somehow ended up recaulking my kitchen sink. We had each run in different directions that day, and at my local Ace Hardware store, I inquired about tools to remove the old caulking as well as buying the tube of material to recaulk. Lynnette has a Nike personality. Not much for talking endlessly about getting stuff done, but likes to just do it. Or, as she says, you have to have a plan.

This time she had planned to spend the night after attending to an appointment in my area. But I convinced her to come the night before. So she spent two nights with me. The first night, Lynnette picked up take-out from a very good middle-eastern restaurant. Afterward, she helped me clean up (by way of saying, she did the dishes, as she always seems to do...) and then we commenced playing my new favorite game. We played for an hour or two, then took a break to shower and put on pjs, then back at it. We have to set a time to stop, otherwise we might continue to play until one of us cries uncle and drops to sleep like a pre-teenager at a slumber party.

The next day we again ran in different directions, meeting back in the late afternoon. She was returning home the next day for her own birthday celebration at her home, and needed to bring home ducks from the local Asian market, 99 Ranch. Or possibly from the Chinese restaurant next door to the market, Sam Woo's. She wasn't sure, so she suggested that we make a run there. We had planned to get Indian take-out that night (no time to cook -- gotta get to the game). But now our plans changed. Did we want to get take-out Chinese instead? So off we went...

The Asian market was amazing. Joel has introduced me to Latino markets, and I love shopping with him and treasure-hunting all the aisles. Lynnette is someone who moves with purpose and intention, but I told her I had to go up and down every aisle, and she slowed her pace and pointed out different things. Some enticing, some looking strange to my eyes.

At first I was put off by the sight of the ducks hanging by their necks, although I'd seen them before at restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown. But I like duck. So I got over it. Lynnette's sister had advised her to buy the ducks at the market, but she was thinking the duck at the restaurant next-door was better. So an idea emerged: Should we get a half-duck at each place for tonight's dinner? We ordered at the restaurant and I waited for our number to be called for pick up. Lynnette ran back to the market and purchased the half-duck from there. She also got shrimp: whole shrimp fried and crustily salted, which you eat shell and all. At the restaurant I carried out duck, rice, and Chinese broccoli. And home we went.

The restaurant duck was mahogany-dark and the glazed sauce permeated the meat. We thought we would like this one the best, as it looked the prettiest (so to speak). But the lighter-sauced duck from the market was the most delicious. We never even got to the rice. We sat at my counter, in my kitchen (my kitchen table taken over by the game and my dining room table unapproachable due to all of my living room furniture and art currently stored there since the recent flood). Did we two girls get through a whole duck? Well, no. But I now have duck stored in my freezer which, hopefully, Joel will utilize into tamales at Christmas. I have duck stock and duck fat (french fries), also in freezer for holiday use.

We cleaned up (Lynnette Does Dishes), each took off for our respective quarters, showered and finished off the night playing the game well into the early hours of the morning. Lynnette left the next morning, picking up four ducks at the market and heading south for her birthday celebration. I enjoyed leftovers from the kabobs and the duck for three days, even sending some duck home with Joel before freezing the remainder.

Two girls, a duck and a board game. And a good time was had by all (well... not by the duck, but that's just a figure of speech, after all).

Thank you for reading my blog!