All Year Through

Charles Dickens is one of my favorite writers. Hold back your hollas of agreement groans of disgust to hear me out. Yeah, he was a wee bit droll and - here, here - some of his longest paragraphs are about as desirous as a crocodile in your swimming hole. Nevertheless, the man knew how to tell a person's story. And stories - yours, mine, and ours - are just about my favorite beguilements on this planet o'mine.

Which is what most readers of the classics know. The rest of you just don't care. Which is just dandy because that's not my only point. (You wish). Nah, here's the kicker: Dickens had a thing for Christmas. If you've seen A Christmas Carol, then you already know he wrote about it. He also tidbitted the occassional interview with it, too. And, thanks to the handy internet, I didn't have to pull out my grad school books to find some of those very literary vittles. Thank you, Quote Garden (fave, fave, fave).

 I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

 Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home! ~ The Pickwick Papers

By far, though, this is the one that plays the sentimental chord on my heartstings:

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

Emphasis added. Because I love that last part. A writer with a skilled pen captured the nugget that slips easiest through my searching fingers...and comes up with the truth that unites in lieu of divides on Christmas Eve and Morn.

It yums the festive up in families - mine included, for sure - so we can celebrate the traditions of the season. Like attending service on the Eve with my mother-in-law, Sandy, and standing for flash after flash (thanks, Kim!), until you get the one.

Or eating our annual family dinner out, opening all our presents, and then picking up Mom again for "midnight" mass...a relic from my own childhood alive in present day.

It's in the belly-laughs of the boys' "gut bumps" in their Eve jammies

and relishing the smells (new leather!), sights (an "It's Gross!" section), and subjects (Habba-who?) of Elijah's new Bible.

Along the way, we can't forget the rock stars in our lives - like Uncle Tim. They all wanted pictures with his gifts to them...rather like getting a backstage pass or autograph at the concert, I s'pose.

When we intersect on this journey, I find that Dickens is right. Again. Our hearts really do open: whether closed by the scars of pains long-carried or wounds and hurts only just buried, we catch a draft of hope here and there. We pause and breathe and remember the best of what we have rather than the worst of what we've lost.

For me, I see them

 and how only they can make this "us".

Seems to me, we could all remember a bit more intentionally that the folks to your left and right, before and behind, aren't just the schlubs rubbing you the wrong way or - flip the coin - the bests of the bestests, arms entwined with yours. We're all fellow passengers on a journey to the grave, and life is short -
    if I can get that into my heart, maybe I'll find it even easier to carry the Christmas spirit...
           all year through.

That Was You

11. What's so great about 11?

Yeah, if you don't care - I get it.
  And I normally wouldn't, either.
   Except that, today, I do.

Because it's the 11th year since she came.
And made contact.

And a family.

 And a dream come true.

In these pictures, I see the first time she held Aunt Jessi's hand; the first time she met her Nana and nuzzled her cheek - as she still does today.

I regard the way she engages the world with her simple approach of love mixed with authenticity peppered with gentle compassion and quickness to giggle at all manners of humor.

If children are hope for the future, then our "ahead" will surely be better than what lays "behind" for I have met few so abidingly pleased with the white-bread, everyday pleasures of a life spent simply living.

She has grown from baby to little girl

to young woman bloomed.

She is a sister twice over.

      Part artist...

       















part dreamer...

...if you opened her mind, horses would stampede out.

        
She is an in-the-flesh reason we know blessings exist.
The first in every category we'll face together.
Our original "you and me" come to make "us".

Perfect? No.
Polished? Maybe.
Paramount? Definitely.

What's so great about 11? The Story of Grace: much in the same way she made numbers 1-10 equally brilliant. Because she's perfect and ever-pleasing and without any flaw to force constraint, not so much.

But because she came.

And made contact.

And a family.

And a dream come true.

Yes, Gracie. 

That was you.

No witing About tmountains

Ahhh, Christmas cards. What say you on the subject? If taking a multiple-choice test, would your answer most likely be:

    A. Strangely curious fabrications of life and joy mailed solely to propagate falsities at Christmas?
    B. Mildly irritating notions on what can be labeled interesting, but products of the festive season
        nonetheless
    C. Enjoyable ditties on lives you love near, far, and in-between. Sure, why not?
    D. A critical imparting of soul juice for the celebration of friendship and family. Absolutely - how
        can you not?!

Well, depending on your letter option, you're somewhere between a craven Eboneezer or a candy-coma'd Cratchit. Wherever you fall, reflect on this: it's an option, not a requirement. It's a gift to receive, not a curse to begrudge. It's an opportunity to love and laugh - and maybe get a pretty good story, too.

This is our card this year. It's got a story. I mean, other than the one written on it. 

What's the short of the long?

 There is no witing about tmountains.

The long of the long? I found a great deal that would, essentially, take a nickel from my pocket for each print. Yeee-aH: sold! I fast found this template and plucked it from the bed of options because it let me use some candids rather than a full family pic. Why not the full fam? Well, it's a whole other story involving hair and clothes and meltdown possibilities- mine, not theirs - so I'll spare you the brutals. Suffice to say, my happy equation that day was candids + letter space = done deal.

Course my joy took the fast way downhill. I open the template. I place the photos. And I begin to write our ditty...in 4.5 point cruel even to the biggest, buggiest, micro-vision eyes on God's green earth. I zoomed, I widened, I got glasses. I squinted, I scrunched, I groused. I gave up.

And now there's two typos. TWO! Yes, yes: I could give it up.
Let it go.
   Roast some chestnuts over an open fire.
     Put a partridge in my pear tree.
        But I cannot. Why?
          Um, because I'm book smart, street stupid:
            have we not met?

What's that mean? Future post, for sure. Summarily, it's a keen intelligence capable of recalling volumes of data but lacking any singular ability to often apply it common-sensically. Yeah. That's me. To an "A" - for Anal-retentive.

It bears no surprise, then, that while complaining to my treasured friend, Amy, badmouthing and blundering the bits for a good 10 minutes, Amy (I did call her treasured, yeah?) calmly...but with that quake of "Seriously, Candy, you really are prone to missing the simple, aren't you?") quips, "Why didn't you copy it, paste it into Word so you could see it?"

Well, oBviously, the answer is this:

Because there would then be no witing about tmountains.

Which could make for one sad card

            ...except that it turns out to be a pretty good story.           

The Numbers 101

I've been crabby lately. Grouchy groucherooski. Grumpster. Cranky lady.

You can tell I'm crabby because I'm resorting to these biting, annoyingly syrupy......ugh, they're so gross, I don't even know what they are. Which must mean they're epithets on the tombstone of wherever my happy place went and died.

Yet, I shan't be deterred: annoying can die and happy places can be resurrected. And, after a day of rest at home (fully!), I'm just about up to par. There are a few juicy tidbits that have helped along the way: receiving what I'm about to share is but one. It boarded my Happy Boat in blog post form some weeks ago, and I only just read it thoroughly. It's about students. And teaching. And writing. And the perils of teaching students "writing". But, if you've never taught high school or college freshman English, never fear: this is pert dern close to what you'd encounter if you ever had ventured into the depths of writing despair usually preceded by the numbers 101.

Have a giggle - syrup and epithets safe - on me.

The 25 Funnniest Analogies (Collected by High School Teachers)

Update: Tens of thousands of readers have found this post and hundreds of you have commented. A few have said that these analogies were actually taken from other sources and were not written by high school kids at all. Now, we have a link that ends the debate. These analogies are the winning entries in a 1999 Washington Post humor contest, and there are more than 25. Please look at the comments sent August 3, 2008 by “Jiffer” to get to the complete list and the names of the authors.


Original Post: I have to share these “funniest analogies” with you. They came in an e-mail from my sister. She got them from a cousin, who got them from a friend, who got them from… so they are circulating around. My apologies if you have already seen them.
The e-mail says they are taken from actual high school essays and collected by English teachers across the country for their own amusement. Some of these kids may have bright futures as humor writers. What do you think?

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a ThighMaster.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. 

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.