happy hanukkah

first world problem

Fortunately, we have people coming today to clean our house (yipee!).

Unfortunately, because it is snowing (barely) outside, they closed Miles's school.

So now I am now I am stuck at home trying to entertain two kids while keeping the house clean enough to be cleaned. This is not an easy task.

In truth, we couldn't go anywhere even if the cleaning ladies weren't coming, because Houston is freaking out over the snow. Everything that isn't closed now will be soon.

In Chicago, this is an ordinary spring day. In Houston, they close the schools and pre-empt daytime television to cover the Big Storm.

I am losing my last shred of respect for you, Houston.

christmas wish

This year I want to not miss the old house too much.

We got our boxes of Christmas and Hanukkah decorations out of storage, and I felt a little sad. In the old house, I had a spot for everything. There is something very comforting about that.

But I want to appreciate where we are and what we have been able to do this year.

So this morning I forced myself to open the boxes and take out all the familiar things. Stocking and lights and dreidels. And funny enough, just seeing the stuff was nice. It took me a while to figure out what to put where, and some things are probably just staying in the box. It isn't worth hanging nails for things that will only be put up once.

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and I am happy about it.

thanksgiving: now

We spend Thanksgiving with Brian's family, so we always travel. Usually to New York, but this year it was North Carolina. It is always kind of crazy. There are a lot of people and a ton of food. At some point, there is usually an argument related to the food preparation. Every so often, someone cries.

My job is to take the pictures.

It is sometimes exhausting, but never lonely.

thanksgiving: then

I grew up in California, far away from extended family. We never traveled for Thanksgiving. It felt mostly like an ordinary day, except that my mom cooked a lot of food and we ate dinner at 4 pm. At some point, two or more of us usually got in a fight about something unrelated to Thanksgiving. Someone always cried.

My job was to polish the silver and set the table.

It was kind of lonely, that ordinariness of just us five.

yawn

When I was eighteen, I did an Outward Bound program in Oregon. One week of river rafting, two weeks of backpacking. And a 24-hour solo.

The solo may have been my favorite part. The instructor took each of us to a spot along a small creek, gave us a ziploc of gorp (but encouraged us to try to fast), and said he would be back in 24 hours.

Even though it was only four p.m. or so, the first thing I did was pick a spot between two trees to tie up my tarp, and went to sleep. I woke up about an hour later covered in giant black ants. I had not picked a good spot. I relocated, slept some more, spent a long time trying to comb the knots out of my hair, and because I was fasting, made lists of the food I would eat if I was at home. It was great. I loved being completely alone for that length of time.

In North Carolina, the only time I was alone was when I took a shower. There were eight adults and six children staying in my MIL's house, and more family nearby. And Brian's family is full of extroverts who thrive on a lot of conversation and social interaction. I am, of course, the opposite.

My body took care of me though. At least once I day, out of nowhere, I fell asleep - on the couch, reading on the bed. It was defensive sleeping. Not quite as good as twenty-four hours alone, but it got me through the day.

annoyed

I came across this article today.

An excerpt:
"Vegetarian parents may produce offspring who are curious about meat but worried that they will get in trouble with their folks if they eat it. That can be a stressful situation for a little kid, says Jennifer Nelson, director of clinical dietetics at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

'You need to be able to support your child in situations where he is going over to Tommy's house and Tommy's family is not vegetarian,' Nelson says. 'Are you going to tell the child he can't go to Tommy's house, or are you going to raise your child to deal with that so that he doesn't feel like he's trapped between two world war events?'"

What the hell? Trapped between two world war events? We are talking about chicken nuggets here, right?

No one seems concerned about kids whose families keep kosher. Or what a child raised on natural peanut butter with organic wheat-germ crackers will do when he sees Tommy's pantry crammed full of doritos and oreos.

I mean, I get the wisdom of giving your children "reassurance and strategies for making food choices when they're not with you," but I don't think that is specifically a vegetarian issue. Don't we all need to do that?

[stepping off soap box]