Deer Valley Road After Christmas

On the day after Christmas the sun is brilliant on the new snow and the sky is Colorado blue. I dress in numerous layers against the 10-degree chill and pocket my camera. The snow is crisp under my boots and makes that crick-crick sound as I head uphill, across Broadway, up Dartmouth to Deer Valley Road. On the way up an elderly lady ventures carefully down her drive and onto the newly shoveled sidewalk in front of her house, walking stick in hand. We say hello and agree that it is a fine morning if you don’t have to shovel. I tell her of my plan to take some pictures of the snow-covered foothills further up. She is impressed that I have already walked this far up the steep hill from the other side of Broadway. Her son is coming to get her in awhile and they plan to drive around taking pictures.

As she ventures further along the sidewalk I say, “Be careful on the snow.”

She says, “That’s what this is for,” and smiles as she gestures with the walking stick. “Have a good day, my dear.”

And with that benediction from a wise woman, I feel blessed. I wish I could sit down with her over a cup of tea and have a long conversation and learn all she has to tell me. One day will a young woman somewhere wish that about me? I continue to the top, and the foothills are beautiful, covered in thick white. The camera can never capture the sparkle of sunlight on snow but I try anyway.

Joggers and dogwalkers join me in admiring the beauty of the day. I have discarded my sunglasses because I want to soak up every bit of sunlight possible. I walk back down the hill to Caffe Sole and order a skinny latte, double shot, in a real glass. I like Caffe Sole because it is not a chain, so it has little unique touches like a self-serve “express coffee” station with a hand-lettered sign posting prices for various sizes and $1.25 if you have your own cup, with a jar where you leave your money on the honor system. Two guys sit next to me over coffee discussing an on-line business venture. Two women my age at a nearby table are having a heartfelt conversation and seem to be enjoying each other’s company. A very beautiful young woman with long blonde hair wearing a gray knit cap with a bill talks to a besotted young man who wears his hair burr short with several tiny braids sprouting from the back of his head.

I feel very present, and suddenly am sure that any fear or sadness I feel is purely my own doing. If I can just stay awake and remember that one idea, I will be so much happier in 2008. So much more will seem possible. I am getting some perspective with my time off, apparently. Reading “The Four Agreements” again is helping – it still makes a lot of sense, even though the style seems kind of rough around the edges.

The Tinsel Controversy

It is surprisingly hard to get a good picture of a Christmas tree. This year our tree looks perfect to us (more perfect than usual) – just the right balanced shape and very beautiful. It is very fresh, smells wonderful, and soaks up lots of water from the stand each day. We are not proponents of the decorator Christmas tree with all matching ornaments in a single color, but more into the kind with the ornaments dating back many years. Some of the ornaments were handcrafted by us one year with friends on Boulder's Marine Street in a pre-child era; we stirred up a batch of clay-like substance, made our shapes, baked them, and then painted them. We still have several to this day made by friends we see each Christmas at the caroling party.

Other ornaments, each with their memories, were bought over time, or sent by grandparents to our children. Minnie and Mickey Mouse were sent from Indiana by my mother many years ago when my son was still young enough to be so excited on Christmas morning that sleeping late was absolutely not an option, and my daughter was a baby who also frowned upon late mornings. These ornaments still bear my mother’s neat, fifth grade school teacher handwriting on the backs: “From Granny and Grandpa, Christmas 1988.”

My husband likes the kind of ornaments that reflect prismed light, and we all spend a certain amount of time positioning these ornaments near lights on the tree.

This year we had quite a quandary about tinsel. The tree seemed to look very beautiful without it, and we thought long and hard, but in the end we placed the tinsel on the tree once more. Accordingly to tradition and theory it is carefully distributed one strand at a time. In reality there is a wild frenzy of tinsel throwing and messy clumping that must later be straightened out by the compulsive among us.

I learned recently that a good friend of mine also has the tinsel controversy at her house every year, and I suspect it is much more common than can be imagined.

Pandora

I am trying hard to let go of work for a few days and relax my mind. Today I’ve been playing on-line Scrabble (very much against the advice of my chiropractor who says I should be on the computer as little as possible lest I turn into a hobbly hunched old woman). As I play I’ve been listening to the wonderful on-line radio station Pandora, which plays – well, it plays whatever you please. And it never, ever has commercials. And it tells the name of the musician or group and the name of the piece. Oh, heaven. I was turned on to this by my clever son when I was whining once again about commercial radio and how all the stations sound alike. You create your own radio station specifying the name of an artist or song. Or you can choose from a variety of genres. Lately I have been listening to the holiday channels “Peaceful Christmas,” “Folk Christmas,” and “Traditional Christmas.” I have also created a few channels including “Joni Mitchell Radio” and “Bob Dylan Radio.” Songs that match the key words are played, not necessarily always the artist him or herself. You can also give feedback, e.g. “I don't like this song. It's not what this station should play,” or “I'm tired of this song, don't play it for a month,” or “Why is this song playing?” and it is all taken into account the next time you log on. Pandora is provided as part of the Music Genome Project, which collects information on the taxonomy of music and analyzes it based on 400 musical characteristics, then adds to this information over time. Oh, sometimes the Internet and computers are marvelous things...

Christmas Letter 2007

hen a person is expected to come up with a Christmas letter under a strict deadline, that person has to take her inspiration as it comes. As I lay on my back on the family room floor with the Styrofoam tube under my spine doing my chiropractor-recommended exercises, with Emily the cat sitting on my stomach purring loudly and reflexively digging her claws into my chest, inspiration struck.

However, it is not really a blow-by-blow account of our family’s year that I want to write about (although there would certainly be some drama in that), but rather how profoundly grateful I am that we are all still going strong as the year ends. Anne Lamott says the two best prayers she knows are: “Help me, help me, help me” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I’ve said both of these a lot this year.

Okay, I can’t resist a little recap. Happily, Caitlin and Shannon are both living on their own in rentals but attending CU in Boulder now, so I get to see them almost any time I like and they are often over for Sunday dinner. In fact, last weekend Caitlin helped me put up the outdoor lights, including the brand new, politically correct LED lighted doe and stag in brilliant blue. The stag’s antlers are poorly designed and he has trouble consistently standing up straight, whereas the doe is steady, stalwart (i.e. boring), and has not given anyone a lick of trouble. Who knew?

Caitlin is doing quite well with her classes this fall and working hard toward a degree in Biochemistry. Ironically, she's living in a house on another part the same street she grew up on in South Boulder. Shannon turned 21 in July and is pursuing a degree in Integrative Physiology. He also has a new job working at a restaurant on Pearl Street. He’s climbing a lot and really enjoys his membership at a local climbing gym called The Spot.

Mark put up the inside decorations last night and got three poinsettias today, so things are looking pretty festive both inside and out. Mark’s doing great, by the way, watching a Denver Nuggets game as I write this. He is still smarting from a severe trouncing I just gave him at 9-ball in The Foundry, Boulder’s local pool hall. Tonight the hall was packed with people in a billiards tournament, a situation that makes me a little shy as I attempt to take my shots without being in anybody’s way or revealing too blatantly my own inability to consistently make bank shots (although I get lucky once in awhile).

Did I mention I got a digital camera about a year ago and have been trying to figure out how to use it ever since? It has been a lot of fun, actually.

The company where I work is doing very well and shooting for their first $1B year with good prospects. I had the opportunity in September to travel on business to visit two groups that I manage in China and Singapore. The visit was productive and I got to be a tourist one Sunday in Xi’an.

Christmas letters are often not read beyond the first page (or perhaps the first paragraph) and I’ve already exceeded that, so I had better wind this up.

To all of you from all of us we wish you the merriest of holidays and best wishes for a happy and healthy 2008.

Christmas Lights

Cait and I put up the Christmas lights today. The little golden deer were dead on arrival so we had to go buy new stuff. When we got to Target, we found a brilliantly blue stag and doe made with the politically correct LED lights that use much less electricity, so we got those, along with some additional lights for the front bushes.

It is so much fun to have Cait’s help when I put up the lights, and once they are up they always cheer me. We’re a good team. Once we got everything set up we took a few pictures; it’s not so easy to capture Christmas lights but we did our best with my trusty digital camera.