Christmas Eve

Someone wrote me recently that I should have a blog, an on-line diary. But I have 3 good enough reasons why I don't blog.

I'm not that interesting. Trust me on this. If I could write well, day after day, I would be a professional writer. I would be living someplace warm and shiny, with a yard scattered with fallen hibiscus flowers, and I'd request that the natives call me Papa.
I know that the FBI has a folder on me, same as anyone else who has ever had a government job. And it's not the fact that my fingerprints are in a fat manilla folder in the basement of some gray government building. It's the 4 sets of fingerprints that got misplaced while setting up the file. And exactly where have my missing fingerprints gone? I prefer to make the little government buggers (and I mean that in the nicest, electronic sense of the word) work a little to keep track of me.
Under the pressure of filling a page, I might actually tell the truth about who I am and how I fill my days. Does anyone really want to look that closely at another person's life? Does anyone really want to know that last night I dreamed I was doing laundry, but instead of pouring detergent from a box, I used little soap bombs that looked exactly like white powdery gingerbread men and I talked to them, giving detailed instructions on how to handle the clothes? Does anyone really want to watch me struggle with love?

That said. Let's continue the story I haven't yet started — what I was doing Christmas Eve. I woke up 7am Christmas Eve morning and it was pouring down rain. I could hear the wind rattling the windows. Dean had already left for the gym and I knew that I should get out of bed and join him. But I just couldn't. I just couldn't face wearing myself out on a machine. So, despite the rain, I went for a brisk walk through the neighborhood. Taking my older digital camera which fits better into a pocket, I found myself gravitating towards the empty, wet children's playgrounds. Normally the park at this hour is filled with older people who stand in a circle, bundled in down coats, and do elaborate stretches. Their lap dogs sleeping under the picnic tables. But the grass was empty today. The single jogger stared at me as I knelt down in the rain to take pictures. You know, to get a kid's eye view of things.

My sister and her new boyfriend came for Christmas Eve dinner. He's new and they're obviously sweet on each other. Dean made 3 mushroom soup, lamb with apricot-mint sauce, potatoes, green beans with a creamy tomato sauce, and baked fennel with anise. My sister made a cake, because she wanted to light birthday candles and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and have each of us make a wish as we blew out the candles together. Unfortunately, she'd put a lot of time and effort into the cake, but something had gone terribly, dreadfully, inedibly wrong. The frosting (coconut) was delicious, the top of each of the three layers was fine, but the bulk of the cake had harden into some sort of gelatinous, rubbery mass. Imagine the silicon grout they use to seal showers if it was very sweet and tasted of passion fruit syrup. Out of politeness we all ate a piece, but I made her take it away with her and warned her about disposing of it properly. I expect to hear of a sudden massive fish die-off...

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