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A Stocking
Happy or unhappy, families are all mysterious. We have only to imagine how differently we would be described -- and will be, after our deaths -- by each of the family members who believe they know us.
-- Gloria Steinem
Sunday, December 19, 1999
One year ago: Winter Blast
Don't miss updates for all of last week, starting with December 13, you folks who only read the most recent.
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I was already awake when Jack called Saturday morning -- my cold is still making the nights hellish. So I soaked myself in a hot bath, and was all ready when he arrived to take me to breakfast. I suggested IHOP, forgetting that there was a brunch place on 15th Avenue that we could have gone to. It's probably just as well, since I don't think we'd have been able to eat so expeditiously at Jack's Bistro, the place up the street from me.
I chattered away, filling Jack in on my doings this week. That was easy, since my cold (still in evidence) has limited my activity. He was not looking forward to a long drive to Yakima and back. His daughter in the treatment program doesn't seem to get the point of the treatment. She's in complete denial, thinks she has no problem, and keeps asking Jack to take her away from there. Makes me shudder! And what will happen when she comes home again, more of the same bull?
Jack brought me back to my place after breakfast, and gave me a great big hug before leaving.
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During the day on Saturday, I shifted between my bed, the computer, and the living room couch and TV. I finally got a chance to see Crumb, the documentary about comics artist Robert Crumb. What a fascinating portrait! I have to say that most of the women who were expressing their discomfort or disagreements with his material didn't come across as thoughtful or acute. Surely someone could have talked about his misogyny without seeming prudish or wrong-headed?
He's certainly an artist who has taken his childhood and experiences, and transmuted it all into something original.
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In the later part of the evening, I was intrigued by the TNT Patrick Stewart production of A Christmas Carol. He's been performing this as a one man show for several years, basing it on Dickens' read-aloud edition (but not doing it as Dickens). I didn't follow past the opening sequences in Scrooge's counting house, but he seemed to be a very angry Scrooge. He looked like Punch from a puppet show, stooped with a hook nose. I'm sure it will be repeated many times this season, and for many years, so I'll catch the rest sometime. My favorite Carols are still the Mr. Magoo version (razzleberry dressing, anyone?) and George C. Scott's edition.
My sisters and I agree that the classical literature that was portrayed on Mr. Magoo has really stayed with us! The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, Treasure Island...
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I'd wanted to attend the Bob Dylan Holiday Choir today, a Cacophony event. But I was really feeling too fragile. Instead, I munched on chips and salsa, and started getting caught up here! My cold and missing a contact lens had been keeping me from writing, even though I wanted to.
Midafternoon, I decided to walk up the street and make an attempt at doing some Christmas shopping. I needed something for Jack's daughters, and a birthday present for H----, the younger one. There was even a chance that I could give the presents to Jack and H---- tonight, since they might be able to meet me for dinner on the way back to Bellingham.
So I wandered up the street, through a drizzling rain, to City Peoples Mercantile. I noticed signs for a website for the neighborhood business district, which seems like a reasonable marketing idea. City Peoples was doing landoffice business! But I found some reasonable bath things for the two girls, and a good tooled leather-covered notebook (with blank book inside) for H--- to write in. I picked out two inexpensive pens (but nicer than Bic), also.
I checked Tibbens (?), a rah-tha fancy gift store, and noticed a nice knit Christmas stocking. One of the things I've been wanting to do for Jack was a stocking of little gifts, so maybe I should give him that tonight, if I saw him, I thought. I added a bar of sandlewood soap and a little picture frame to the pile, then came home and wrapped.
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Jack called a bit before five, from North Bend. Could I think of somewhere to eat near the highway, and come and meet him and his daughter for dinner? We decided on Factoria, the south end of the mall, and I drove off.
I was listening to a cool edition of Sound Print while driving, all about five thirteen year old girls on a Newfoundland island, who have all learned to play the button accordian and are preserving the traditional music there.
We decided (after seeing the line at the buffet place in the mall) to eat at Billy McHale's, one of those steak/margarita places with a ton of "junque" on the walls. The dinner was good.
Jack is not feeling hopeful about his older daughter's progress in the treatment program in Yakima. They visited her for an hour yesterday, and about two hours today. The time today was taken up by her throwing a fit, an outright tantrum, because Jack refused to remove her from the program. This was a surprise to him, and to the counselors!
H---- seemed pleased with the journal/blank book and pens. She was experimenting with them periodically before, during, and after dinner. I didn't realize she'd been doing some calligraphy in school, or I would have added a shaped pen into the package. I wonder if she has read Harriet the Spy?
Jack seemed happy with his stocking. I'd put in it: "the best toothpicks in the world" according to the package, a pack of black ponytail holders guaranteed not to do bad things to your hair, a bar of sandlewood soap (see above), and a picture of me in a small frame. To find a suitable picture, I'd gone through a bin of polaroids and loose photos, most from the last twenty years. These weren't principally of me, but of my family. I had a few gusts of tears while I was looking at them; it brought back some strong memories.
I figured Jack wouldn't mind these little gifts mostly being of a practical nature, since he often says that he'd love christmas gifts like socks or underwear. I got a gift, too, from Jack's parents: three little multicolored candles. Cute!
Jack will be coming back through town and spending the night with me Thursday night, on his way back to Yakima for three days of family therapy. These visits are a bonus that I wasn't counting on! I had thought that his involvement in his daughter's treatment, and his work, might mean that I wouldn't get to see him until after the new year.
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