I’m here today to commiserate with those of you who may be thinking that The Most Wonderful Time of the Year always seems to have some small slip-up that knocks a bit of the sparkle off.
I suppose is happens to us all, but once you become a repeat offender, you tend to get somewhat of a reputation. Family members in attendance at gift-opening time are known to ask outright if one of their gifts happens to be from last year. Or, they lean forward with a raised eyebrow and inquire, “Are you sure that’s all?”
They’re not greedy. They’re just offering me an opportunity to right my wrongs. I take a little comfort in the fact that, though this seemingly unshakable tendency of mine irritates me to no end and adds to the general mirth at the festive gathering, at least it’s not dangerous. Unlike Smuffy, no matter how many times this has happened to me, I never run the risk of being drowned, impaled or dismembered. So far.
Are you ready for my Christmas confession? Are you longing to learn of my annual downfall?
I am a lover of gift-giving! My brain is an idea factory! I am a super-shopper and, most of all, I am a master-hider! My skills at the latter are my nemesis, however. All year long, I scrounge, I create, I store up and I stash. I make lists of things I’ve bought, want to buy, want to make and need to assemble and still lack parts. I am in my element at thrift stores, garage sales, online, clearance aisles, craft stores and, yes, retail establishments.
I blame it on the house. Limited storage causes me to scatter my treasures to the four corners, layer them between other stashed away items and wiggle them into cubbyholes already occupied by other items which then serve as camouflage.
Then, the tree goes up. Then, wrapping begins. Amid oven timers and cooling racks, when everyone’s backs are turned, out come all my treasures to be boxed, wrapped and fancied up with hand-made bows. Except one.
I always miss ONE!
Smuffy’s been known to receive a cozy cardigan in May when I’m on a closet cleaning binge. Poor Pookie has learned that she, too, is likely to be handed something in mid-summer that was intended for the Christmas stocking. This has been going on for more years than I care to count. I swore I’d turn over a new leaf when I got a son-in-law, but he’s been around long enough now that when I handed him his last gift this year, he smiled and asked if I was sure about that.
A grandchild is on the scene now, causing me to repent afresh and overcome this tendency. Leaving out something intended for Little Snookie would be unpardonable!
I’ve been known to misplace a paper list. This year, I installed a new app in my phone to help me list each family member and each gift. I had my act together. I cleaned out one spot and one spot only and collected my stash there. I did all the wrapping at once and checked it off again on my phone.
Ah! Christmas went like a dream. I took all the ribbing with a smile, informing everyone that I was 99.9% sure that there wasn’t a single thing that didn’t make it into a stocking or under the tree.
Then, it happened. Christmas festivities wound to a close. The house seemed strangely quiet – too much so – as the car pulled away with Pookie and her loves, leaving Smuffy and me (and Phoebe June and several bags of paper and cardboard boxes). I went into the entryway, checked the front door and turned out the light.
As I turned around, thinking nothing was the matter, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a tuft of tissue amid red and green over there. For behind the TV there sat a small bag. I rolled my eyes and felt my shoulders sag. I knew what it was – there was no denying. I merely chuckled, walked past and refused to start crying.
Pookie will love it! She’ll think it’s just right – when I place The Un-given Gift into her hands tonight!
I know exactly what happened. It was small and easily crushable under the tree with all those bigger gifts. That little bag would be safer tucked away just behind the edge of the TV. Well, wouldn’t it?
What can I say? It’s a tradition.
Happy New Year! May you change the things you can and learn to laugh about the things you can’t.
Any true Christmas confessions? Just leave those in the comments. I can’t be the only one. Can I? Hello? Hello? Anybody out there?
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Lest you think all Smuffy does is renovate the kitchen, let’s get back to what the man does in his off hours. He doesn’t get too many of those, so he likes to jazz them up as much as possible. I remember closing out Episode 6 of Life With Smuffy by giving thanks that there are enough angels to go around.
If I am to be honest and share the little phrase that floats through my head most often lately, it is this: “Poor Smuffy”. Living in an old house means constant upkeep and what isn’t actually broken needs updating. Then, there are acts of God, nature’s tendency to descend from order into chaos and the animal world to contend with. Because Smuffy knows how to do everything, he does everything. Why call the man when you can be the man?
We try to take a bit of leisure on Saturday mornings before we plunge into the mammoth project of the day and discuss the plan of attack, sighing a lot as we exchange looks that tell us that we are of like mind in wondering when and if this will ever end this side of Heaven. A couple of weeks ago, we were doing just that.
I took a sip of tea and snuggled more comfortably into the sofa. Smuffy, while never having contracted the Boogie Woogie Flu, has had a severe case of Rockin’ Pneumonia all his life and I’ve had to train myself to hold my head still when conversing with him while he’s in his rocking chair lest I get whatever it is people get in their necks from sitting at tennis matches and whipping their heads from side to side all day. I hoped against all hope that I wouldn’t be losing my kitchen contractor for the day. Nature, in the form of a once orderly tree, had descended into such a state that the whopper just to the south of our driveway would soon be causing plenty of chaos should the next big storm send it crashing onto the vehicles or the house.
“What’s the day look like, Dear?” I asked.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that tree,” Smuffy sighed, taking another sip of coffee and making me wonder, yet again, how he can sip the hot stuff while moving so fast. He can hold a plate of hot food and eat an entire meal while rocking at top speed, too, but that’s another story.
I stifled my own sigh and the groan that threatened to escape me. Smuffy didn’t have any business up in that big old tree, but I’d never known that bit of common sense to stop him. In addition to the danger of plummeting from a great height, the day promised to be hot enough to cause a heat stroke.
“The more I think about it,” he went on, “the less I want to climb it. I’ve decided I’m just gonna call somebody and have it taken down.”
I could have jumped off the sofa and gone into a buck and wing dance right there in my jammies, but I refrained, lest it send him into one of those so-are-you-saying-I-can’t-get-that-tree-down-by-myself? attitudes.
We spent a few minutes discussing who we might call for the job and I actually began to feel like we were getting a little posh just for calling anybody for anything. Smuffy listed off a few smaller outside chores he wanted to attend to before getting to work on the kitchen and then we each went our own way with him heading outside while I set about to get dishes, laundry and a few other things started before I got dressed and plunged into serious cleaning.
Just as I grabbed some clothes and headed for the bathroom, the phone rang. Smuffy’s voice on the other end came slow and measured.
“I’m on the roof.”
Before the “Why?” that trembled upon my lips could escape me, he continued.
“There are wasps. I have agitated them. They are between me and the only way down. I need you to bring the wasp and hornet spray out and throw it up onto the roof so I can spray them and get down.”
“Okay,” I said, “but I hope you realize that I’m the last person you want throwing something at anything. And I’ll have to find it first.”
Smuffy tried to tell me where the can of spray was, but I knew he naively spoke of where it was supposed to be. When we’d moved and reinstalled the reverse osmosis for the kitchen, I’d had to empty the shelf that held all that sort of thing and disperse the items around the basement wherever they’d fit. On the way to the basement, I shed the robe, knowing it would hamper my (as I loosely referred to it in my mind) throwing arm. The neighbors, if they didn’t get too close, would interpret my nightie to be a sundress, or so I told myself.
I don’t know if you have one of those “old house basements” that looks like a game of “Where’s Waldo and How Long Do You Think He’s Been Dead?” but locating the can nearly had me weeping at the thought that by the time I finally found it Smuffy could be sliding off the roof, a swollen mass of stings. Laying hands on it at last, I imagined this must be how Sherlock Holmes felt every time he searched through cigar ash and discovered a speck of something that could only have fallen from a gentleman of independent means wearing a scarf of Shetland wool and carrying an Orpington hen.
I ran outside and around to the back of the house to find Smuffy perched near the highest point of the roof. I thought this might be the proper time to ask him why he was up there. He reminded me that he’d been wanting to adjust the antenna for a while now. He explained that he couldn’t come any closer without agitating the wasps further and that I needed to back up and fling the can with all my might.
It went just about like I had expected. In fact, it went that way three or four times. Finally, Smuffy suggested that I go around to the northwest corner of the house to higher ground so I wouldn’t have so far to throw. He could then climb over the roof and most of the way down and be ready to catch the can. I didn’t balk at this, but I do admit to having the unpleasant awareness that I would now be much nearer to the street in my nightie, flinging myself about while being hollered at by a guy on the roof. Oh, well…
While sound in theory, I had no faith in this new plan of Smuffy’s. The last thing I wanted to see was Smuffy scrambling up, down and sideways across a steep roof trying to catch an oblong metal object launched by a woman in a manner which was bound to convince passersby that she’d been having a couple.
I scrambled in amongst the petunias and boxwood, tightened my grip on the can and drew my arm back in preparation to let it fly.
“It’s not a shot put!” Smuffy yelled. “Here, watch me.” Instructing me to back up, he stood up and motioned with his arm, instructing me how to hold the can, how to swing my arm and when to release. Then, crouching as near the edge of the roof as he could safely get, he cupped his hands and squinted as though he fully expected to receive a concussion.
Well, you can’t call me a slow learner! I’ll have you know I landed it near enough to Smuffy that he managed, with a few interesting dance steps, to grab the can on my second attempt. I ducked inside out of public view and he slithered over the top of the roof and down the other side to tackle the swarm. Watching out the dining room window at the back of the house, I asked myself if this was the kind of thing I’d traded the tree job for and if it might have been wiser to save the money for hospital bills. I gave thanks that there are enough angels to go around and went to get dressed.
A short while later, with the washer and dryer going and now the dishwasher, I finished dusting and pulled out the vacuum cleaner and continued my mission to get the basic chores done before I started my list of extras. It was then that the earth moved.
The whole house shook with the crash. The windows rattled. The floor moved under my feet. Phoebe June did a little shaking of her own. The force was such that I looked around to see if cracks were snaking across the plaster on the walls and I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that the foundation had shifted. Had some huge explosion occurred on the other side of town? Sirens would probably sound any minute. I raced around to the south kitchen window and my eyes followed a tall ladder as it stretched up into the very tree we had just decided not to cut down ourselves. The gutter dangled off the east end of the porch and the fallen portion of the tree wouldn’t let me get down the deck steps. I spotted Smuffy at the top of the ladder before I ran back through the house and out the front door.
I still couldn’t get anywhere near him for the tree lay over the front lawn, flower beds, driveway and the yard on the other side of the driveway, not to mention a portion of our truck.
Seeing me, Smuffy pointed at the truck. “I thought I parked the truck far enough away,” he yelled. “Guess not.”
I looked at our dangling bumper – a nice match for the gutter. Turning to the house, I gave it the once over. No broken windows and the porch remained attached. Shingles seemed to be in their places. Now I gave Smuffy the once over.
“What are you doing up there? What happened to calling the man to come cut down the tree?” I yelled.
“Well,” Smuffy replied, and I’m not sure he didn’t give his chin a thoughtful rub. “I just decided I wasn’t going to let this old tree beat me.”
I resisted the urge to scream that for two cents I’d be happy to beat him.
“I suppose it never occurred to you to tell me in advance that you were going to climb up there and cut down that tree?”
At this point I threw my hands up in the air and went back in the house, figuring that his logic must be that after the wasp incident, this was mere child’s play. Your mind can’t help but take some sort of stab at Smuffy’s reasoning.
Once my heart stopped racing and the urge to strangle Smuffy subsided a bit, I stopped to give thanks again that there are enough angels to go around.
The scary part about it is that Smuffy only took down a third of that tree. Maybe he’ll give me a while to recover before the next chapter in this story.
The answer is “yes” in case you are wondering – Smuffy has always been this way.
Dig those socks!
Life With Smuffy does, indeed, have its ups and downs. I’m glad that his angels specialize in bringing him down gently.
As winter lifts her white robes and moves around the
stage prior to her big exit, the audience here in the Midwest is waving the
back of its hand at her to shoo her behind the curtain and out the stage door
before they give way to applause.
Nevertheless, we cannot deny her beauty at times. She does put on some stunning performances to help us tolerate the bleak tragedies that seem to play out day after frozen, cold day.
When a heavy snow falls, creating an etching from the usual blur of the woods behind our house, we do have to stop and view it as a winter paradise.
Branches laden with heavy snow droop down to display their beauty right at eye level, begging us to take a few moments to notice that they’ve turned to lace.
I hate winter. My preference would be to have beautiful fall colors and jacket weather right up until dusk on Christmas Eve, at which time around two inches of snowfall would blanket the earth, bringing a respectful hush over all creation. Then, just to be fair, I’d allow it to do it’s thing right up until January 2nd and then we’d all go back to sunshine and jackets again.
Though we long for outdoor activities and that roasty-toasty feeling of the sun warming our backs as we bend over new growth in flower beds, our last round of snow reminded us that we will be waiting a little while for those joys.
It’s difficult for me to feel like I’m thriving in
winter. At times, it takes its
toll. There are only so many gray days I
can take in a row before a gloomy mood sets in.
Phoebe June’s antics keep me cheery, along with outings for lunch with
friends or Smuffy on decent days and a stack of giggle-inducing P. G. Wodehouse
books.
There have been winters that left me feeling like I’ve taken a hit – a bit like our big pine tree is feeling right now.
Like the tree, I suppose it might do me good to have some weak areas fall away to allow light and air enter and new growth to fill in the empty places when spring arrives.
Even now, as I conclude these observations, I realize what a terrific writer I must be, because if I can romanticize this awful stuff, I can romanticize anything! I’ve spent this afternoon writing, ignoring the fact that there is an ice storm warning going on out there!
Upon hearing Smuffy’s truck in the driveway just now, I left my lair to greet him. He entered the back door, telling me he’d just had a bit of excitement. He’d parked the truck at the top of our driveway’s hill in hopes of being able to leave for work in the morning and while moving the car out of range of an ice-laden tree limb that made him a little nervous, he heard a scrunching sound.
We’re blessed that he’d parked the truck with the wheels turned, because it missed the car, three trees and Smuffy as it slid all the way down the driveway and into the neighbors’ yard. If a fallen limb left over from the last round of nasty weather hadn’t stopped it, who knows where it might have ended up! I could use another chapter of Wodehouse after that.
My little afternoon romantic fling with winter’s beauty
is over now. It’s lost its appeal again
and it’s time for a break-up! It’s time
for SPRING!
To all my readers who live in winter’s grip – hang in
there! Try to think of March as only
days away.
To all my hyacinths – you should have listened last week when I told you to pull your heads back below ground because those two sixty degree days were just a cruel joke!
Need a spring preview to chase away the gray? Take a tour through my garden in full bloomhere!
If the gloom requires a good laugh, make a cup of tea and settle down with the stories on my “Life With Smuffy” page. You’ll feel better in no time. He isn’t the only one who’s here to entertain – the “Laugh” page has more!
Questions? Comments? Click on “Leave a comment”. I’d love to hear your thoughts on winter, wherever you live!
Ah, September! Everyone has their own reasons for loving this transitional month, but the first thing that comes to my mind is the joy of having a passable hair-do again.
I have no idea what month of the year my Scotch and Irish ancestors arrived here, but it must have been in autumn or at the first greening of spring. They gazed at the rolling hills, lush foliage, sighed with relief and exclaimed, “Ah! Just like the old country!” I’m convinced if they’d arrived during one of our ice-encrusted winters or during a summer such as we’ve just had they would have kept right on moving. They’d have been justified in doing so if only to spare their children and grandchildren endless bad hair days.
One of the great mysteries of the universe is humidity. Hanging at one hundred percent day after day and holding moisture so thick you can feel it part like the Red Sea as you pass through, it does not nourish the clouds. It may not rain for weeks at a time. Anything that heavy and oppressive ought to give way to sheer gravity, wouldn’t you think?
All the straight-haired girls complain about the humidity’s affects, but I caution you – don’t do it in front of us Curly Girls. It’s the equivalent of hearing a guy say that his pain is worse than being in labor. On a good day, we Curly Girls will offer a weak, indulgent smile and keep our mouths shut, but once we’re about three weeks into Bad Hair Season, we are no longer responsible for our actions.
Some of us were blessed with curls from the get-go. For others, like me, it comes upon a person suddenly and without warning. There I was, going along through grade school, minding my own business, when the sudden change blindsided me.
It had never been perfectly straight. My mom or big sisters could wind my wet locks around their fingers and get it to turn up or under on the ends. My bangs, cut straight across my forehead, lay in an even line, behaving as bangs should.
Then, it happened. Within a matter of months, things spiraled (literally) out of control, resulting in a series of school photos unfit for the human eye. My parents and siblings, who may have shared a dozen or so waves amongst themselves, had no idea what to do about the walking bush they used to call little sister. I still remember being perched on a stool, surrounded my multiple siblings all offering advice to my scissor-wielding sister as she stood beside me trying to figure out where to start. Their hand gestures scared me to pieces.
If your hair is straight, humidity will reduce the volume and relax the curl. You may even get a frizz or two on top. My advice – take it and be grateful. I, on the other hand, can gauge the relative humidity by consulting my bangsometer. It’s readings fluctuate all the way from winter’s “sprayed-and-stayed” to spring’s “why-are-you-pointing-over-there?” to mid-summer’s “oh-for-cryin’-out-loud-I-used-a-ton-of-spray-and-they’re-actually-curling-FORWARD!”
When that happens, we Curly Girls bear it as best we can, along with life’s other injustices. However, it does provoke nasty looks when someone approaches with a camera.
I know what you’re thinking. I can hear you saying, “Silly girl, when it’s humid outside, just let it do its own thing!” Ah! Again, let me enlighten you. Curly bangs must be inches longer than straight bangs. Otherwise, they will bunch up next to the hairline in a wad. I refuse to post a picture of that sort of disaster here. Ever.
There are times when you just pretend that voluminous is glorious and smile anyway.
The squiggles you see in my little blondie’s hair were but a foreshadowing. She grew up to have some pretty sassy curls, too, and yes, they brought with them the trauma I’d expected they would.
Once a year, on my birthday, I throw caution to the wind and actually approach open flame with “the hair”.
You’re probably assuming that Smuffy is off-camera, stage left, holding a fire extinguisher, but no, I do it like Evel Knievel.
The nineties offered an opportunity to express myself. I loaded up on styling gel and while everybody else turned upside down to blow dry and spent a fortune on perms and hours achieving volume, I just air-dried and walked through doors sideways.
It balances out the shoulder pads and the wallpaper really well, don’t you think?
On really bad hair days, I could shove in a few pins and contain the mess on top (if you call this look “contained”).
A friend told me that this attempt at a “glamour shot” succeeded in making me look like Miss Kitty Russell, owner and proprietor of the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City, Kansas. I took no offense. (I still have a crush on Marshall Matt Dillon.)
Photographic evidence does not lie.
Taken just one day apart, these photos show that just when you think you’ve got a grip on things, humidity and humility arrive hand-in-hand, causing your smile lose its natural ease and become strained. Please, someone tell me that I did not leave the house on Day 2! (These are not mug shots. We were testing lipstick shades, just in case you’re thinking I got arrested for that hair.)
Over the years, I stopped moaning, “I hate my hair!” Parts of God’s plan will always remain a mystery to mere mortals and He certainly performed a mysterious work on my head. I made peace with the fact that He knew what He was doing, especially after reading the words of the ardent lover in Song of Solomon. Remember him – the one who bounds over the hills like a young stag, pleading, “Arise, come, my darling, my beautiful one…”? One of the physical qualities that had him so worked up was the fact that his beloved possessed hair “like a flock of goats”.
I think I’ve offered enough evidence here to prove that this man would go wild over me! If there’s ever been a woman with hair like a flock of goats…I’m just sayin’.
Smuffy has embraced my curly look as though he’s Solomon himself and has come to the point where, if a wild notion strikes me to straighten it, he gives me the thumbs-down.
The struggle to come to the place where I could shout from the rooftops, “I love my hair!” came almost nineteen years ago when I walked into the chemo room knowing we would soon say good-bye.
Since then, all I can say is , “Love it! Love it! Can’t get enough of it!” But, golly, I’m glad it’s September!
If you’re struggling to embrace your curls, I hope my story has helped you appreciate them or, at the very least, smile a little and lighten up! Need a stronger remedy? You’ll find more on my “Laugh” page. enjoy Life, Laughter and Lemons here and, by all means, catch up on my exciting “Life With Smuffy”!
My little goats have been corralled and now behave themselves to a much greater degree. A lifelong search has brought me, at last, fabulous products that separate the curls and define them, making all the difference. Coming up: A review of my all-time favorite Curly Girl arsenal of products!
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Today I am linking up with Anna Nutthall. For more inspiring posts, click here.
