Back, and none the worse for wear

Loooong weekend, and back to work so I can get some sleep. Whew. Too much even for me to blog about.

But a wonderful holiday it was, full of the normal things that come along at this time of year--booze, firearms, jail. (Just joking--we don't drink.) Anyway, finally did manage to get the house sorta clean Wednesday, despite the concerted efforts of the kiddies and my tooth. Which still hurts, and every once in a while has that horrible aluminum-foil-stuck-in-between-your-teeth feel to it. Eeeeeyah. The Wednesday church stuff was very nice, and a nice way to start the weekend.

Being gotten up at the crack of dawn Thursday, however, reminded me that there is no such thing as a REAL holiday, which is one in which my nicely wrapped present is being able to sleep until I quietly stretch and wake up at about 11 o'clock. Oh, well. Got up and watched Katie and Matt and the Macy's parade with the kids and went over to Reba's folks' house for Food, Round One. Traditional fare--ham, turkey, black-eyed peas, cornbread, mustard greens, sweet potatoes, dressing, pecan pie. And giblet gravy. I hate organ meat and hard boiled eggs in grease and flour, let me just say. Sometimes Reba's mom will make me some plain gravy, but this year I was just out of luck. Not complaining, there was plenty of other stuff. But giblet gravy just gives me a terrible internal quivering. The kids sat at the card table, and of course, Oldest Girl decides to act rude and condescending since she has an appreciative audience of her Grands, who believe her to be Beyond Reproach. Ahhh, holiday tension--nothing like it for fun, is there? Middle Girl was on the receiving end--"SHE'S TOUCHING MY FORK!!!" "I. WAS. NOT!!!" "QUIT LOOKING AT ME!"

The unilateral interventionist in me wants to wade in and klonk their heads together and make them sit in sullen silence, while the isolationist in me wants merely to go on with my meal and let them work it out on their own. Pity us all when they get nukes. As it was, they were eventually brought back together at the card negotiating table to work out their differences, with the understanding that if they didn't, there would be an overwhelming response from the swaggering, simplistic redneck who is the household hegemon. All the while, the non-aligned children quietly worked out their strategy of playing both the older two against each other, and managed to get some pecan pie. Which was the best, by the way--Reba's uncle make them, and they are the best I've ever had. I have tried and tried, and never can quite get the things to work right--always too runny or something.

After supper, there was the rest of the National Dog Show to watch, which would have been much easier if I could have quit snoring and opened my eyes. After a while, our welcome thoroughly worn out, it was time to head over to my mom's house. We packed up a pile of leftovers (which became supper) and headed out to Shelby County. Nice drive, although none of the kids would go to sleep, which is probably good since it kept me from going to sleep.

Got there and went in the front door, along with a special visitor. Seems my mom has a plague of wrens which keep trying to nest in the wreath on her front door, and the moment I came in, one flew in right past my head. Into the house. Which was now full of curious, squealing children. Loverly.

We took them into the den and closed the door, and waited a bit for the bird to calm down. Which is really not very likely to happen, now that I think back on it. Anyway, my sister and Reba had gone into the dining room to look at some clothes for the kids (odd, yes, but that's just where my sister dumped her stuff) and they found Mr. Wren doing aerobatics all over the china cabinet and chandelier.

Thus enused The Chase.

In a scene reminiscent of some of the better Harold Lloyd silent films, combined with the sound and action of a John Frankenheimer blockbuster, my mom got a dishtowel and started either trying to capture the bird, or shoo it out the door. My sister kept trying the door route, but my mom was dead set on catching the thing. Flutterflutter. Alight. Throw towel. Flutterflutter. "On the floor!" Throw towel. Flutterflutter. "Make it go out the door!!" "NO, close that door it's cold-just let me catch the derned thing with this towel!" Throw towel. Flutterflutter. China cabinet. Swish! Flutterflutter. "If we just get it to the door it'll go out!" "Close the DOOR! They've come in before and you throw this towel on it to get 'em out!"

Watching this display triggered my male hunter/gatherer response, and I relieved my mom of the towel. "Here, gimme that towel." The problem was that cavemen didn't have towels to do their mastadon hunting, so I was no more effective than the girls were. Chase, alight, flop, flutterflutter. Chase, alight, throw, flutterflutter. "You know the problem? This towel's too light--I need me a big heavy towel that doesn't just float around!" Once more, landed by the door to the den, loft towel, sudden shrill shrieks from beyond door--"IT'S IN HERE!!! LOOK, THE BIRD!! IT CAME UNDER THE DOOR!" Poor bird. The kids alternated between chasing and running from the bird, and I came in bearing my liteweight towel, swishing and throwing it and still having absolutely no luck. Then, it found its way back out to the foyer, and upstairs. ::sigh:: "Would one of you PLEASE give me a big old heavy towel!" "Let's get it to the front door!" "Close. The. Front. DOOR! ::grumblegrumble::gritted teeth::thing's probably pooping every time it lands."

Upstairs Mom, Sister, and I went. Followed closely by Catherine. "No--go back in there and keep the den door shut!" "But I wants to see the little bird, Daddy!" "There's a set of encyclopedias in there--go find a bird picture to look at." What palpable disappointment. But, it was made up for by my renewed energy with my new weapon, a thick cotton bath towel. "Now THIS is a towel!" Finally we track the bird to my mom's bedroom. Swishflutterflutterthrowswishflutterflutter. The little fiend has taken to flying back and forth between the valences over the curtains on the two windows, to the dresser mirror, to the highboy, back to the valences. Even my big heavy towel was just too slow to get it trapped. "Let it land and just swat it!" Golly, Mom was getting a little bloodthirsty. Finally, it lit on the valence by the door, and the big towel popped through the air and the poor little bird hit the bedroom door with a awful thud.

Oooch.

Suddenly, I felt like Lennie in Of Mice and Men (or his alter-ego the Abominable Snowman in the Bugs Bunny cartoons--'I will rub him and pat him and call him George. And hit him with a towel.')

Silence.

"Oops. I think I hit it a bit too hard." "Yeah, I think so, Terry--get it and put it outside." "You don't think he's big enough to eat?"

Nothing like inappropriate humor to revive a lagging holiday. Back downstairs, over to the neighbor's bushes, and back in to a barrage of questioning--"Did you catch the birdie, Daddy?!" "Did you catch it in your big towel?!" "Did it fly away?!" "Is it still outside?!" "Kids...kids...HEY! I put it in the towel and put it outside--now, who wants a sandwich?" The rest of the evening was uneventful, mainly because after supper the kids found Star Wars on TV, and the rest of us sat around the kitchen table doing the other thing my family is good at (aside from killing small animals with loomed goods) which is talk. As usual, this consisted of about 80% politics--a feisty roundtable which would caused even Chris Matthews to wince and blanch and squirm uncomfortably in his chair--and the remainder being a catch-up of everyone who is sick, dying, or dead, or who has had cosmetic surgery. Now THAT'S a holiday. And it was over too soon. My sister has to go back to Mobile today, and I hardly got to see her. Hurry up Christmas!

To home then, and then up once more way too early on Friday, which I can remember little about, other than I made a gigantic crockpot full of homemade chili, and we went and did some Christmas shopping, and cleaned out some stuff from the kids' closets, and something else. Likewise, Saturday is a bit of a blur, except for going to see Santa Clause 2. What a darned nice movie! I am the biggest sucker in the world for sentimental stuff with kids and Christmas and Elizabeth Mitchell in a cashmere sweater. As my friend Zippy says, "YOW!" Anyway, the movie itself was so sweet, and it made me sniffle and laugh and display all sorts of other non-hunter/gatherer-type behavior, and Reba and the kids just loved it. I give it four Possumblog opposable-toe-thumbs up. BUT, if you're going to go see it, and your kids want to see the first movie on video, and you don't already have it, be sure to buy the video FIRST because it has a voucher inside for a free movie ticket to the Second Movie. Just a tip from a very disappointed cheapskate.

Back home after a bit more Christmas shopping, then it was time to take the children to the creek and douse them with water and soap and dry tangly hair and discuss Santa some more and clean ears and clip razor sharp toenails that slice your legs to ribbons when one particular little tiny girl decides to sneak into bed with her ice cold bare feet and uses your shins like a ladder to pull herself up under the covers, and then there is some more talk of Santa, and it's time for bed and then the alarm clock is ringing again and it's time to get up and go to church again and see who all is visiting and say hey and then go eat and get a paper to read and start watching the TV and almost doze off when the phone rings. AAAArrrgh. How I wanted to sleep Sunday afternoon. Back to church for a couple of meetings and then services and to home, where supper is cooked and the bills are paid and the notebooks are signed and snacks packed inside backpacks and lunch money is enveloped and repeatedly mentioned as being required to be given to various teachers and then the plates are put in the dishwasher and I tromp upstairs and read My Crayons Can Talk to an appreciative audience of giggling girls and I sneak into a little boy's room who is supposedly already asleep and I stand there until he squeaks like a mouse and says "I know it's you, Daddy!" and manage to get Oldest Girl to give me a goodnight kiss not accompanied by her eyes rolling upward and then snuggle under the cold sheets with a nice soft warm woman who is wearing my great big blue Auburn sweatshirt and who slaps at me when Mr. Hand Takes a Journey to the Mountains and I turn off the lights and set the alarm and then I wind up here, writing all about it as if it were a normal thing to do.

Hmm. Imagine that.
posted by Terry at 10:59:00 AM