It’s almost here!
The chaos has set in. The gifts aren’t finished. Well, most of them are, but…
There was a mix up with the tickets to see A Christmas Carol. I ran down to the box office to try to exchange them. It was closed. But the workshop next door wasn’t, and Christmas magic would have the longest-serving employee there, working late. He couldn’t find anyone, but at the last minute, a colleague walked up, badly needing tickets for a big donor. I ran back, blue Santa hat bobbing along, We all called it a Christmas miracle.
Actually, they called me the Christmas miracle…and a gentleman. :)
“Please, ladies, you’re too kind.”
(Seriously…I’m going to bring them some honey or something. What an amazing thing.)
I’ve made the library a cedar carved sign that says “HUSH.” I’ve made the county building inspector another that says “NO.”
Speaking of building inspections, I hosted my first gathering of friends at my new place.
(You know you’re doing something right when your friends are more real than walls.)
With some excellent sports
The coffee table is rather humble, but when I move in (and there are walls), it’ll probably get an upgrade.
With some excellent cookies and a candy mouse
There’s still a telescope build to design for the library astronomy club meeting, and holy smokes, I need to wrap these gifts?
What fun, and what a blessing.
I had dinner with an old guitar student and his new wife the other night. He started taking lessons when he was twelve. He’s one of the key people who opened my eyes way back in the day to “Hey, good people might not vote the same way I do.” We have talks about building bridges and how to reach folks. (I’ve since come around to his way of thinking, but that’s almost irrelevant.)
Sitting at the restaurant table, trying not to rock it back on wobbly legs and continually forgetting once it was steady, I told his wife how important his example was to me, and how that experience of dialogue way back in the day threw a wrench in the sinister gears of narrow ideology.
He told me that it opened his eyes, too.
And then pizza showed up.
What a win, man.
Treasures from Earth
In this swirl, this whirl, this stress and this joy, a haunting sound floats above the sawdust and the paper.
Choral Christmas music, ancient, holy, sung by anonymous, faceless voices, the closest evidence we have of ghosts of the season.
Imagine my surprise and delight to get an email from a writing buddy with a link. “Made this recording back in the day.”
A disembodied voice come to life, in my email, with a song.
I always wanted to be famous, but now I’m having serious doubts. I’m still a goober, though. Maybe I can be famous when I’m dead. But what’s the point of wanting that?
But if I am, and they make one of those “Letters and Correspondence” books, my emails with this fellow should have their own edition. We rant and grouse and opine and mutter and I often steal his use of italics for crying out loud and the way you can use the word “and” to link up thoughts as if they’re train cars of wit and sly humor and spite and conviction, building them into a mighty zephyr to run down hapless bystanders, and then dust off your hands and shrug your shoulders with a “Well?”
The correspondence would make a good book.
But that’s thinking too far ahead.
For now, I’m alive and joyfully obscure. I need to go back to the woodshop and wrap up a few more emails and drop off honey at the post office.
Have a Merry Christmas.
(Here’s what the pal sent.)