Bumper Sticker Seen in Berkeley

“I’m already against the next war.”

How excellent is that?

Remind Me Why I Like it Here Again

I swear I’m not sitting around the house wallowing in a sea of one-eyed self pity. But I must say, there is something in the air that’s got me in a mild funk, and I think it’s the growing number of friends who seem to be high-tailing it out of the Bay Area.

Monday the Politos packed their bags and bid SF an adieu after 16 years. School issues, the high cost of living, job stuff and general city-attitude malaise wore down Julie’s will to continue on here. And after a night of discussing whether a move to Marin or some other part of the Bay Area might be the antidote, the idea of Boulder, Colorado leaped to mind, and next thing you know they were on an exploratory mission looking at housing. Two months later their flat is sold, their kids and possessions are packed, and they’ve become our friends who used to live here.

In the time they were prepping for their move, they did what I’m sure I did when I decided to move out of NYC. They kvetched and complained about every element of this place that they couldn’t wait to be rid of. They lamented the public transit, the pushy people at the gym, the school system and the job environment. Granted, they had had a spectacularly crappy year for a number of reasons which may or may not have been directly associated with San Francisco. But at one point I had to sit Rick down (over email) and entreat him to suspend the Bay Area bashing until they were out of earshot from all of us they were leaving behind. Part of it was I didn’t agree with everything they were lamenting, and part of it was I agreed with some of it and just couldn’t deal with hearing it. I wanted to stick my fingers in my ears and drone, “La la la la la la” until they stopped talking and decided not to move after all. (That never happened.)

The thing is, that things don’t suck for Mark and Kate and I here. Mark loves his job. I have a great gig too (when I have two functional eyes and am able to do it, that is). And even though we don’t own our house, it works for us and is in a great little ‘hood with neighbors we’ve come to know and a great library, restaurants and shops just two blocks away. Somehow, the shift just from SF to the East Bay has had an impact on some of the kinds of things it seems were getting the Politos down. People truly seem to be friendlier here. We’re not ensconced in fog. And where SF has an almost weird lack of children–babies, sure, but no kids ever to be seen–we’re in a vertible family wonderland here.

But sometimes, despite all this, I feel like my emotional attachment to this place is tenuous. I think about all those places where successful professionals and their families are living happily in large homes they own, in good school districts and with friendly neighbors. And no one is working 70 hour weeks to sustain the dream. Beyond the fantasy image of this place though, I come up against a roadblock when I try to determine just where this Utopia is. And when you add Mark’s career in the limited magazine realm to the picture, our potential pool for paradise locales dwindles to even fewer places. And let’s face it, New York City ain’t going to solve our real estate woes.

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend, who casually mentioned that he’s talking to some companies in Austin, Texas. He made it all sound like a remote possibility that he’d move–though he did remark on how damn affordable a 4-bedroom house with a pool is there. Despite his downplaying the potential for the move taking place, I could just tell that he is a goner. In six weeks we’ll be planning his goodbye party and Mark and I will be down another dear old friend.

Ah well. If you love them set them free, right? And maybe someday, when the time is right for us, the McClusky family will find our Boise, or Boulder, or Austin or wherever it is that the grass is greener. In the meantime, we’ll be chillin’ here in Oakland if you’re looking for us.

Karma is a Bitch

So Thursday night I come back from a dinner out with the mother’s group. And as I start to get ready for bed I walk from the bathroom where I’m brushing my teeth and washing my face to the living room where Mark is sitting to give him the download.

“Some of the babies are still not sleeping through the night!” I reported.

“Some can’t fall asleep on their own in their cribs!” I say between spitting toothpaste.

Not very charitable of me, as my mother would put it. I guess what I was trying to say to Mark was that we are pretty lucky with Miss Kate. She is doing a good job, and some of the things that we’ve now kinda taken for granted, are things that we should be grateful for.

But I didn’t really say that. I was gloating a bit. But I got my pay-back.

At about 10:30 while I was still awake, I heard Kate call out from her bed, “Mama!” as I was walking past. And it didn’t really phase me. If anything I smiled and thought, I’ll go in for a minute, arrange her blankies and she’ll doze back off. She almost never does this, so going in when she calls won’t start a bad habit.

In the middle of the night–God knows what time it was–Kate calls out, “Mama, uppy!” This is the annoying way she asks to be picked up, which dates back to our Easter trip to RI when Aunt Mary taught Kate a little game that had the phrase, “Uppity uppity to the wee house” in it. (The “wee house” of course being the armpit. Long story.) Somehow after that Kate started asking for “uppy” instead of “up” when she wanted to be picked up.

Sooo, back to the middle of the night. Here she is calling out, “Mama, uppy!” clear as a bell in the middle of the night. I was hoping she would doze back off, but she said it about 5 more times.

This was weird. Up twice in one night. But again, since she never does this I figured it wouldn’t hurt for Mark to just go in and quickly tell her to go back to sleep. But that didn’t work so well. First off, Mark didn’t think that was a good idea. So we had a delightful exhausted and grumpy exchange of varying parenting approaches. Then I won and Mark stormed off to Kate’s room.

She was not interested in Daddy, uppy, as it turns out. He tried to calm her down. He picked her up. He even went to the kitchen and got her milk (something we haven’t done in months and months in the middle of the night). When that all failed, he tried putting her back in bed and she was wailing.

But then she stopped. For 15 minutes. And as we are dozing off another, “Mama, uppy!” rang out. This time followed by crying. At this point it’s clear she is getting back at me for the not one but three other children I was gloating that she was sleeping better than.

Mark and I tried to tough it out. Since I won the last argument to go into her room, but that didn’t help, it was Mark’s turn to prevail, and he insisted that ignoring her was the solution.

20 minutes of hysterical screaming of “Mama, uppy!” was essentially Iraq prison torture to me. At one point Mark said he was confident she wasn’t losing steam, and could quite possibly continue bellowing “Mama, uppy” for a good hour at least.

So I went in. And all it took was me saying, “It’s time to sleep. Mama and Dada are sleeping [or should be, damn it]. It’s time for Kate to sleep.” And she didn’t even need to be picked up. Just wanted to know I was there, I guess. So I re-arranged her blankets and gave her a kiss and she was quiet as a mouse.

And I crawled back into bed exhausted and convinced that karma had dealt me an immediate and undeniable blow. Next time the mamas meet, my download to Mark will be all sympathy and no glory. I just can’t risk losing the sleep.

Please Claim Your Bra

A few weeks ago I was in my car and reached across the seat for something and realized that I’d made a dent in my shirt. In my bra in particular. Further investigation revealed that the bra was clearly huge on me. It was one of those padded-type ones that holds its shape even with no boobies in it, so it was kind of resting there, but you could poke at it and leave an impression. (And people attribute car accidents to cell phones. How many women are out there driving distractedly due to surprisingly large undergarments they discover they’re wearing?)

I knew that my breastfeeding buxomness wasn’t going to last forever—especially since it’s been four months now since I’ve weaned Kate—but this was ridiculous. Had I recently experienced a sudden, dramatic shrinkage that made a bra that fit me perfectly yesterday seem immense today? At this rate I’d be convex by summer.

Later that night while getting ready for bed I looked at the size on the bra and realized why it was so big, or rather, why I seemed so small in it. It wasn’t anywhere near my size. This bra was an imposter! This was not my bra!

So whose was it?

Although I was (thankfully) confident there was no foul play, I couldn’t resist teasing Mark about it. “Your girlfriend is clearly irresponsible—leaving her bra here. What a tramp!”

Mark played along with the concept of an imaginary girlfriend. “Oh yeah,” he said casually. “She’s always leaving that thing everywhere.”

Then I did a mental checklist of the many houseguests we recently had. My father. No, this black lace bra clearly wasn’t his style. My mother-in-law. Didn’t seem likely it was hers, and I don’t even thing she did laundry when she was here. My friend—or frienda, as I like to say—Brenda. “Aha!” I thought, utilizing all my Nancy Drew sleuthiness. Brenda had to be the rightful owner. She fit the bill in terms of bra size, and she’d done laundry while visiting.

I called her. “I’ve got your bra, I think. But if it’s not yours, don’t tell me. I’d rather not have to figure out how it got into my house.”

Of course, the bra sat on my bureau for a couple weeks. The mailroom at my office is in the building across the street and I never seem to muster the energy to make the trek there. And on my days off, jaunts to the post office didn’t seem like a good use of my free time. So one day as Mark was heading out to the office I handed him the bra. “Could you please mail this to Brenda? I’ll email you her address.” I could trust Mark to not be the kind of guy who would wear it on his head through his office.

A few days later I got a voicemail from Brenda who had gotten Mark’s package. “It’s a very pretty bra, but I’m sorry to say it’s not mine. Too small.” (Show off.)

I called her back. “I told you to lie if it wasn’t yours, remember?”

“Maybe it was yours from before you had Kate?” she offered. “You know, before you moved onto nursing bras.”

Huh, I thought. She’s got a point there. Maybe that was the bra that I was so proud to have bought in such a large size towards the end of my pregnancy. Walking home from the store I left about four voicemail messages for friends showing off my new cup size.

Brenda promises to bring the bra back the next time we see each other. In the meantime, a woman’s brown and black reversible jacket has now appeared on our coat rack. Mark’s Mom says it’s not hers, so I’ll have to call Bren again to check in on whether it’s hers. If it’s not, I hope she remembers to lie this time.

Back to Just Us

February has been Come Visit the McCluskys Month. Perhaps it wasn’t printed on your wall calendar, but it was on many other peoples’ and they made good. Which is a good thing mind you! We love seeing all the family and friends who we never see anywhere near enough of because either we decided to live out here, or they decided to stay back there. I’m not sure who is to blame, but the outcome is far-awayedness and not-see-each-other-alotedness.

But now everyone is gone and our subterranean guestroom, which is in our low-ceilinged unheated basement, is left empty for the time being. My brother-in-law John is probably in some cranial contusion unit of a hospital by now for the number of times he wacked his noggin on the beams down thar. Ah well, at least we had him sign the legal disclaimer when he arrived.

Anyway, Mark and Kate and I are now working our way back into whatever routines we used to have when it was just us. Well, Mark and I are. Instead of just being a nice mundane lass for us, I went into her room this morning to get Kate and she was lying in a small puddle of barf. Poor girl even had a corn kernel stuck to her forehead. And she’s just lying there all sweet and mellow and freshly awoken, having soaked in the stuff for God knows how long. It was sad, but the corn thing was also kinda funny, and I had to take her to the bathroom where Mark was showering to show it to him.

So I clean her and it all up and open the windows and spray some hippie non-toxic odor eater around and then after all that notice it’s still not smelling quite right. Then I see the previously undiscovered pile of puke that’s on the wall and the floor at the head of her crib. D’oh! At least the poor gal managed to aim most of it away from her sleeping quarters.

Too bad she didn’t wail or cry or do anything to indicate to Mark and I that she was doing something other than sleeping peacefully. Alas, she and the room are now fully scrubbed and back in order, and she seems to be perfectly fine.

So now we can get back to our mundane routines. Ahhhh.

When the Bough Breaks

Today we had a scary scary experience at the local play structure. Brother-in-law John, nephew Gavin, and Kate and I wandered to Frog Park while pregnant sister-in-law Lori took a nap.

At one point while Kate and I were climbing on the wooden structure, she started to head off somewhere just a few steps ahead of me, and in a weird slow motion moment while realizing it was happening but unable to make my body catch up to my brain, I saw her toddle, stumble, then horrifyingly fall backwards off a 4 foot ledge, landing on her neck, head and shoulder, and letting out a heartbreaking wail.

I was terrified that she could be hurt in some horrible head or neck way. From the moment I saw her tip over I started screaming like a crazy lady in some way hoping that drawing attention to what was happening would signal Kate’s guardian angel to swoop in and catch her. My screams only alerted the other mothers to run towards us, as I jumped down alongside the fireman-like pole where she’d fallen to gingerly gather her up.

Thankfully, thankfully, thankfully, she seemed fine. She didn’t seem to have anything broken or terribly wrong. She was sobbing, and later chanting, “Bump, bump, bump” about her head (though it wasn’t until an hour or so later that I realized that was what she’d been saying). She had to have felt some pain but as I clutched her to me, I was totally okay with that. I was just grateful to the gods that she wasn’t gravely hurt. Bruises or a bump on her noggin we could totally deal with.

Thankfully, she landed on woodchips which were covering some kind of spongy astro-turf-like playground cover. Designed for the very purpose of cushioning the fall of your most beloved and adored and cherished wonderful child.

John assured me I wasn’t a bad mother for not being right there to prevent it from happening. A nanny who was nearby looked at a little red patch on Kate’s head and brushed off some woodchips from her hair. A dad who had been on another part of the play structure and saw it all go down assured me she landed on her shoulder and not right on her head. It was one of those times when the smallest kindness from strangers was wholeheartedly welcomed and appreciated. Yes it was scary, they all seemed to say, but it was going to be alright.

From John’s cell phone (am I sure I’m not a bad mother for also not having mine on me?) I called Mark, and then Dr. Robbins. The receptionist ran through the concussion checklist which provided further encouragement. (She didn’t lose consciousness! She wasn’t bleedling! She cried when she fell! Questions that gave me insights into worse scenarios and made me realize on a deeper level how terribly lucky we were.)

Tonight, following doctor’s orders, Mark woke Kate up a few hours after she went to sleep to check on her. She responded in the way that indicated all was well. A kind of yo-why-you-wakin’-me-up? reaction, before settling back down to sweet baby sleep.

All is well, save my regret about not being closer, about not having caught her, and about not always having a helmet strapped on her head. Our dear sweet Kate who we love more than life itself is well, and I got a sudden big dose today of appreciating just how lucky we are in so many different ways.

Some day I may even take her to a playground again.

Mazel Tov Klezmatics!

I am thrilled and honored to report that our dear friend Lorin Sklamberg, lead singer of The Klezmatics, won a Grammy Award today!!!

Well, the whole band did, really. It’s for best world beat album. That might not be the exact name of the category, but I don’t think today’s winners have been posted on the Grammy site yet, and I’m too excited to bother to dig around to find it.

Anyway, it’s incredibly cool and not at all surprising for an immensely talented and spirited band. They work so hard, travel around the world, and take on super cool projects with other amazing musicians. Lorin even played at our wedding! (I’m sure that was an all-time career high for him…)

I spoke to Lorin briefly this afternoon and he was utterly thrilled and suprised by the win. They were off to the second part of the award ceremony–the televised portion–which Mark told me The Police are playing at. (Wait, they’re not still together, are they?)

I hope that Lorin is having the time of his life tonight. And I can only assume that by now his mother, Libby, has imploded with pride.

The Rain Cometh, But Will It Goeth Too?

My God, I’ve got mushrooms growing on my mushrooms. It’s only been raining for less than a week, but you’d think I’d moved to Seattle. Somehow rainy season with a toddler is a whole new ball of wax.

Pre-Kate, Mark and I would loll around reading or watching movies. Or even–gasp!–going out to matinees. But since we are blessed with our little blonde peanut relaxing during her waking hours just ain’t an option. And vegging out in front of the tube with her is something I can’t even tolerate the thought of.

So there’s lots of cabin fever indoor play, along with some dripping wet jaunts to the grocery store or out to lunch just so we can see some people other than ourselves.

Mercifully there was a break in it all this morning and we were able to go and worship at the farmers’ market. Nothing like a Blue Bottle latte, a hand-out of free pumpkin bread and your pick of local organic matter to set one straight on a Sunday morning.

Later today we’ll venture to SF to see Dad one last time before he leaves Ellen’s for a Palm Dessert visit with Judy. He spent three nights with us in Oaktown, in which time we had some nice meals in, had some nice meals out, and spent lots of time marveling at Kate’s beauty, vocabulary, and charm.

And once she’d be asleep for the night, Dad would say, “I’m telling you guys she is something! What a communicator! And she is just beautiful–just beautiful!” And Mark and I would agree in a kind of tell-me-somethin’-I-don’t-know kinda way, but still love more than anything to hear it all coming from someone else’s mouth.

So after he leaves tomorrow morning, another session of the Mutual Adoration for Kate Society will come to a close. And Mark and I will need to continue to convene privately until another grandparent crosses our paths.

Meantime, I’m going to go online and look into some vacation options while Little Miss naps. The plan is to be somewhere fabulous when I greet my next decade of life. Somewhere where it will hopefully not be raining.

A Belated Thank You

I’m way behind on my thank you notes, and unfortunately there is one that I no longer have an opportunity to send.

The father of my great childhood–and adulthood–friends the Connerys died two weeks ago today. Mr. C was as good an egg as there is. I don’t know what all to say to describe him because when you describe someone you liked who has since died it all sounds so cheesy and trite. But Mr. Connery was this good-natured Irish American guy who looked a lot like Jimmy Stewart, always seemed to be wearing madras plaid, and had those kinda twinkly friendly eyes. (I told you it’d sound cheesy.) That said, he also was one to tell it like it was.

Mr. Connery was never afraid to ask the “What’d you pay for that?” or “What’d you do that for?” kind of questions. And it was never obnoxious. It was just refreshingly candid. A couple years ago when his son Matt broke up with a girlfriend who Mr. C had vehemently approved of, he called her himself to let her know she was still welcome to come by the house on 4th of July. Nothing like the dad of a 40-something reaching out with a my-son-might-have-dumped-you-but-I-think-he-was-crazy-to phone call. Oy!

Somehow we–okay, I–overlooked inviting Mr. Connery to our wedding. It’s something I still kick myself over sometimes. Thankfully he never let it become the uncomfortable unspoken thing between us. When Mark and I dropped by to visit the Christmas after the wedding, he greeted us at the door saying, “You know I would have loved to have gone to that wedding!” I laughed and went to the kitchen to find John–leaving Mark to stammer his way through a response.

Anyway, when you’ve got history with someone, it gives you license be that up-front. Mr. Connery and my mom were friends back when they both looked hot in bathing suits and hung out in gangs of fresh-faced sunglass-wearin’ kids on the beaches of some New England town or other. It’s weird to think Mr. Connery knew my mom when she was probably smoking cigarettes out the bathroom window so her mom couldn’t smell the smoke. I ended up hanging out with the Connery kids through the same years of our lives. But in that self-absorbed way one has as a child, I never thought much about that ancient history our families had. I was more focused on my own friendships with Ellen, John and Matt. The thought that Mr. C and my mom might well have made out once (eeew!) never crossed my mind until just now. (And now I must deeply repress it.)

“The Connery Kids” as they’re dubbed in Bristol parlance, are all 100% originals. They were especially cool friends to have during teendom when adopting a more follow-the-flock life approach seemed the path to least resistance. But the Connerys were somehow hard-wired to not roll that way. They had the confidence to do their own things, so being with them let me do that too. With the Connerys, I let my freak flag fly (such as it was). I’m not saying I pierced my nose or anything–just that I never felt I had to act, dress, and speak in some prescribed way. Wackiness was welcomed. So my friendship with them was somewhat liberating, I guess. Plus, they were super fun, creative, and as the locals’d say, “wicked smaht.”

Example: One summer when Ellen had her tonsils removed she sent them into David Letterman. We watched the Viewer Mail segment religiously thereafter, desperately hoping she’d get some airtime. (She didn’t.)

So this is all my long way of saying that, especially as a parent myself now, I realize that cool kids are made from cool parents. Or maybe I should word it as: Cool kids probably just don’t happen on their own. More likely they come from the diligent good intentions of their parents. So, big props are due to Mr. and Mrs. C.

One thing they did right for sure was Forta July. Even after Mrs. Connery died about 10 years ago, Mr. C still hosted the Forta July celebration at their prime parade-route Victorian on High Street. Those first years with Mrs. C gone felt palpably different to those of us who expected her to round the corner at any moment with a cigarette in the corner of her mouth and a tray of brownies. But even without Mrs. C’s physical presence, the spirit of the Connery’s celebration was so strong it was irrepressible. And thank God. Going to the Connery’s is what makes July 4th like Christmas for the rest of us. When you’ve put something like that out there for so many people for so many years, you just can’t let your fans down.

And their fan base is sizable. Literally hundreds of friends and families of every age and description make 123 High Street their Mecca. It’s not uncommon to see a 70-something woman sitting on the back deck next to a young guy with a pompadour and sleeve tattoos, both of them cooing over how good the chourico and peppers is this year. Mr. C walks around in his Keds and Bermuda shorts taking in the parade with his own brand of low-key bemused enthusiasm. One heat-wave year he really got hopped up and dragged the hose around from the backyard. He had a hell of a time spraying down sweating polyester-clad band members as they marched by.

The parade ends each year with the Bristol Police cars bringing up the rear, and like a six-year-old I feel instantly and suddenly deflated that it’s over. We lope home from the Connery’s to my dad’s house and all the onlookers that lined the streets are suddenly sucked into backyards for barbeques. One minute a marching band stops to play a command performance for you (a priviledge we’ve grown to expect in the past few years Chez Connery), then suddenly it’s all over.

Getting back to California after our July 4th pilgrimage to Bristol always is a big transition for me. I miss Rhode Island summer and the beach. I question why I live so far away from family and friends in a place where we can’t even afford a house. And I feel a deep sense of honeymoon’s-over loss that I’ll have to wait another whole year until I feel like a kid again on the Connery’s front porch.

Last summer when I was struggling to get back into my big-girl real-life routine I realized I should send a thank you note to Mr. Connery for hosting my favorite day of the year. In fact, I should have been sending him thank yous for nearly twenty years of Forta Julys. Of course, some little thing must have come up to distract me from the thought, and I never got around to it. And now, all those un-written thank you notes later, I won’t ever have a chance to do it.

So, in my too-little, too-late way, I send a thank you out to you now, Mr. Connery, wherever you may be. Thanks for making Matt, John, and Ellen the greatest friends a gal could have–from my foolish youth to my childish adulthood. And thank you thank you for years upon years of small-town family friendship, and for graciously and grandly hosting my favorite party on my favorite day of the year. I don’t know whether there will be a 4th of July throw-down at your house again this summer, but if there is, I can assure you there will be hundreds of people there making it one hell of a tribute to you, and I’ll be there on the front porch as always, waving my flag like a crazy lady.

The Joys of the Season: Packing It All Up

It may make me sound like a holiday curmudgeon. And I’m not. I swear! But this year, one of the highlights of the holidays was packing up all the ornaments, decorations, and Christmas crap.

And not for any reason like we had a bad Christmas, or I that I have any negative associations with the baby Jesus. In fact, we had a lovely time. Christmas Eve we had a fun dinner party with Sacha, Joel and Baby Owen and Joel’s parents who were in from Chicago. I made Aunt Mary’s eggnog, we dressed the babies up in special waiting-for-Santa PJs, and when they were in bed we made our way through some good food and wine while chatting about everything from being deprived of junk food as a kid, to what causes Joel’s mother wants to fight for when she retires. When it was time to go I got Kate from the Pack and Play in their bedroom and her hair was sticking straight up like Phyllis Diller and even though we’d woken her up and dragged her out into a brightly lit room of fairly lit adults she was wincing and all smiley and it was so darn cute you just had to laugh at her and hug her to pieces.

And Christmas day was relaxed and lazy and fun. Peggy was here being Supreme Grandma to Kate. After a 10-minute period of Kate not totally gushing over Peggy when she first arrived, she shook that free and the two of them dove into in a wonderful love fest that was fun to see. You just can’t help but love it when another person is as gaga for your baby as you are.

On Christmas after opening presents and eating cranberry bread that I made (just like my Mom used to) and lounging around, we headed out for a before-it-rains hike with Kristen B and fam. Afterwards we ended up going to their house for an impromptu lunch of leftovers and to check out Milana’s Santa loot. Neither Mark nor I even thought about taking a shower until after 7PM. It was a dirty-haired Christmas, and it suited us just fine.

In the post-holiday shopping blitz (in which we probably spent more money than we did on all our pressies for others), I bought some ornament storage boxes at The Container Store. Then at OSH I got a Rubbermaid wreath storage bag. And at Target I picked up a wrapping paper and ribbon holder that looks like a golf bag, but lacks wheels (which would be a nice feature for their next gen product).

It was all I could do not to rip the ornaments off the tree the moment I entered the house with my storage boxes. But in a maternal act of selflessness I saw how much Kate enjoyed looking at the tree, so I left it intact until yesterday.

Suffice it to say, I’ve never had so much fun taking down a Christmas tree. I let my OCD out of the closet and wore it like a badge of honor. If I could have I would have alphabetized those damn ornaments, but I managed to derive enough pleasure from simply stowing each one carfefully in its own compartment where it will be safely stored and easily retracted next year. Oh simple pleasures!

My grapevine wreath, along with the pinecone ones Mom made and the shell one Aunt Mary made me are all wrapped and sealed in the wreath bag–and labeled neatly with green masking tape. (Do other people own six wreaths? Am I normal?) I covered all the other random decorations in bubble wrap and put the manger pieces in the same old newspapers that my mother stored them in for years. (I didn’t look at the year on the papers but I should have. I bet it’s old!) And Grandma Kohl’s divine Christmas tree skirt and 12 Days of Christmas wall hanging got furled up and packed away in the special cotton bags she made for them.

What, I ask you, could be more fun? In fact, I blew off the neighbor’s New Year’s Day party I was having such a dandy time doing all this.

Mark tossed the tree out front and vacuumed up stray needles and I slapped my hands together gloating with satisfaction while surveying the house. Without the tree and all the fixings it seemed like we suddenly have so much more room.

And just like that we’re back to non-holiday mode. It’s over and packed away perfectly until next year when we do it all over again.