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.

Anarchronism (sic)

Los Angeles, California


I think I inadvertently coined a new word recently. It was an uncaught typo; one of many that remain out there, I'm sure. I tend to publish posts (I'm not being lofty, that's what the button says: PUBLISH POST) hastily. I don't write them in haste. I go over them several times a day, during the course of about a week. I make a lot of changes and often move text around. This, too, causes problems, as I often leave part of a sentence behind, rendering what remains unintelligible. I'm only an average speller, but good enough to notice that spellcheck has its problems. After going over the posts quite a number of times, I eventually hit a wall and just punch that button to put the post up on my blog. Then, over the next couple of days, as I keep noticing errors -- typos, bad syntax and whatnot, I continue to make corrections, even though it's already out there.


And that is what happened with anarchronism, which I misspelled in the first paragraph of my last post, entitled, The Golden Age (and available here for a limited time or more). And don't bother looking there, as I've already cleaned it up. But, here's the thing. I kinda sorta like it. I've decided that anarchronism is the melding of anarchy and anachronism. This happens when the anachronisms are done out of rebellion. Like the rules of this time period don't apply to me! I saw this in Joseph Papp's production of Two Gentlemen of Verona. The hell with convention, let's send a telegram in the middle of Shakespeare's play. You know, sometimes mistakes can create a lightbulb-over-the-head moment. Ok, maybe this wasn't exactly one of those times . . .


In spite of my shortcomings, spelling and the like, I do know a couple of things. And, recently, I had a conversation with some friends about uncommon knowledge. We defined this as things we know that a lot of people don't. We weren't talking quantum physics here, nor even geometry, which might as well be quantum physics for my lack of comprehension of it. Rather, we were talking about things like words that are commonly mispronounced; words so commonly mispronounced that if you use the correct pronunciation most people will think you are the one pronouncing it incorrectly. Like flaccid, which I learned long ago is pronounced flak-sid. Luckily, like zoology (zo-ol-o-gy not zoo-o-lo-gy), it doesn't enter into my everyday conversation. However, when it does, I pronounce both the way everyone else does even though I know it's incorrect. Call me crazy, I just like to fit in.


And, while I'm on a roll here with the mispronunciations, I'd like to cry out against dropping H's. No, not like a Cockney dropped H a la Eliza Doolittle. But rather the ph and th sounds in amphitheater and anaesthetic. Ph as in fuh, and th as in the. Why on God's green earth do people say amPitheater and anaesTetic? There's a phuh and a thuh in there, people! Ok, sorry, just a pet peeve of mine.


As I recall, the conversation didn't start with the pronunciation of words, however. It started with disbelief at how fast rules of etiquette seem to be changing (or perhaps, more accurately, how they are currently being ignored). One of my friends, Debra, mentioned that she was aghast when, at a wedding reception she attended, a cash collection for the bride and groom was taken by passing around a large bowl. On point here, we recently received an invitation to an out-of-state wedding shower where it was indicated that the soon-to-be bride and groom, who both have quite good jobs, didn't really need anything. So could we all just pitch in and help send them on their honeymoon to Australia? Hmmm. I hate to be a buzz kill about this, but I think if you can't afford to take yourselves to Australia for your honeymoon, you should maybe set your sights a bit closer. Bakersfield, perhaps. I would say that it was just me feeling that way, but my friends seemed to agree. Still, the times they are a'changing.


I'm not quite sure what purpose etiquette serves anymore. While people do continue to beg forgiveness for an unexpected belch, a lot of the rest seems to have gone out the window. And I mean flown, not meandered on its way. And, evidently, some new rules haven't stuck around town for long. Clearly, as I learned from Sex in the City it is no longer a breach of etiquette to sleep with someone before the third date. The thing is, I didn't even know about the third date rule, and already it's old hat. It gets really challenging to keep up. In Calvin Trillin's new compilation Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin, he confides that he's "decided to skip holistic," adding that "the speed of trends being what it is these days, about the only way a citizen can exhibit an independent spirit is to remain totally inert." Inertia's not a bad thing, I think. And in the case of these new wedding trends, I think I'm going to give it a skip. Gluten-free? Ditto. Reality TV (do you really have to ask?)?


Therefore, I'd like to fall back on the very important things that I do know. I hope they are still true and impactful. Here's one: when a wedge of cheese is set out for self-serving, you should take your portion while maintaining the shape of the wedge. None of that slicing right across the point. No, no, and no. And, do you know that while you should leave a guest room and/or powder room in the same state as when you walked in, conversely you should never refold your napkin before you leave a dining table? This gets confusing because of those waiters who will run over and refold your napkin if you leave the table, say, to make a phone call or use the loo. Still, when your meal is finished and you are walking away from the table, you don't refold your napkin (you just don't).


And who decides this stuff anyway? Billy, who is rather a devout iconoclast, would be inclined to do these things just because he knows he's not supposed to. And yet. And yet, he can be a real stickler about other stuff. Don't even think about whispering even one comment to him during a movie. To him, this is a felony etiquette infracture; one to which he refuses to dignify with a response. Any response. He will not speak during a movie. Stonewall Jackson was a loose goose compared to Billy in this area.


Clearly, I believe structure and form serve a purpose, and I think some sense of etiquette has its place in our chaotic world. Isn't it fundamentally just bad manners for each of us not to let in one car ahead of us, when the adjoining lane is closing? And I fear that if we throw it all out, one day we'll find ourselves caught in the nightmare of passing the hat at a bridal shower to fund the bride's Vera Wang wedding dress. And with our luck, this would also be where we encounter the flaccid napkin, and that badly hacked wedge of cheese. But, I think it really is too exhausting to fight. Besides, it could just be that my dedication to the cause of maintaining order is misplaced; or worse, that in the last analysis, it is merely an anarchronism. Thank you for reading my fblog (F is silent).

Posole: Just Under the Wire

Los Angeles, California

Here's a typical conversation during the rainy season in Southern California. I'm with my friend, Joy, who is driving us to an event we attend each Tuesday evening (more about the event in posts to come). It is late April, which would be springtime in other places in the Western Hemisphere. But here in what was once a desert region, we now only have two seasons -- each lasting for years, or so it would seem. We have drought. We have El Nino. Now, El Nino is cool because you can blame everything on it. It's a lot like adolescence; PMS; or a mid-life crisis. Bad behavior, moodiness? El Nino. Get the picture?

Anyway, we are in the middle of a declared drought, but it's still raining. We've had twice the rain that we had last year, and are above the season average. Still, we're Angelenos. So, we don't really believe in rain. Therefore, on Tuesday evening, even though they had forecast a fifty percent chance of rain, we didn't recognize it when it came.

"Is that rain?" I asked Joy, when I saw spots on her windshield.

"No, I think it's sap," she replied (as if we live in a forest).

"It's moving," I said.

"OmiGod. It is raining!"

Trust me, there were conversations like this all over Los Angeles that night. And that rain is what brings me to the topic of today's post which is posole.

Now, if you're not familiar with posole, than you must turn away from your screen and run to your nearest bookstore (ok -- I know you stayed with the screen but logged onto your Amazon account) to purchase Calvin Trillin's book Feeding a Yen. He is my favorite food writer, and one of my favorite, favorite LOL writers. In this book you will find everything you need to know about posole in an article entitled Posole Dreams. Without giving too much away, the story chronicles Trillin's thwarted desire to open a restaurant in New York that only served posole. I would have eaten there. Often.

Posole is what you want on a rainy Los Angeles night. It's what you might want the night after too much tequila (though purists will say that is when menudo is indicated). It's what I want after Thanksgiving to use up the leftovers from the only turkey I roast in a calendar year. And it's what I crave for comfort during all the rest of the cooler months, but then prepared with chicken (which is frankly better, though the recipe below is for late November's version. It has a catchier title).

 Thanksgiving Posole


1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon
1 teaspoon smoked, bittersweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
ground pepper
1 quart chicken stock or broth
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 cup shredded turkey
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon chipotle chilies,

in adobo, pureed
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon diced green chilies
1 14-ounce can golden hominy, drained

sliced radishes, scallions, chopped avocado, lime quarters, chopped cilantro & dried oregano (all in small condiment dishes; each person to add his own to the pozole)

Heat butter and oil in large dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; saute three minutes. Add salt and continue sauteing until onion is soft. Sprinkle spices over, combine. Add pepper. Cook for one minute, then add chicken stock/broth. tomatoes, and chilies. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for twenty minutes. Add chicken and hominy. Simmer for five more minutes. Serve with condiments above.

Double recipe for six servings.

Note: 1 teaspoon of the chilies will make a rather mild posole. Conversely, 1 tablespoon will make a fairly hot one.


So there you have it. Posole. Even if you haven't heard of it, it will taste somehow familiar. And if you develop a yen for it, like Calvin Trillin, you may travel far and wide to eat a lot of it. Or, if you're like me, you'll think of it in an ambiguous, spring rain one night in Southern California. And you will prepare it once more before the rain stops falling, and the sap stops running. For it's a long, long time from April to November. Or something like that. Thank you for reading my blog.