Still Alive with Christmas Recap

No, I did not get stuck in Fort Worth for an extra week due to a freak blizzard. I've actually been back home since Dec 31 but undergoing a more harrowing than usual period of pain and the inevitable painkiller withdrawal. Yesterday was not only the first day I left the house this year, but was also the first day I did not spend 90% of my time either curled up on my recliner (which I sometimes did not actually have the strength to recline or get up from without assistance) or in bed, asleep.

Fortunately, I was feeling mostly okay while I was visiting my parents at Christmas time, although I napped a fair bit. (For instance, one day, my cousin B came over while my brother-in-law RMell was fixing the computer in my bedroom and I was there lying under the futon covers from a nap I had taken and B, himself an accomplished late sleeper, gave me major shit about "still being in bed" at 4:00 p.m. After a while, I got up and was all "See, I'm fully dressed! I am not just now getting up!" though I could not actually demonstrate that I hadn't fallen asleep in my clothes the night before.)

My visit in Oklahoma was good. I was happy that my sister J and RMell made the drive from California... in their new Prius, which freaked me out the first time I rode in it because there is no sound of an engine starting, so it appeared that the car started rolling down the steep driveway of its own accord. [Trying desperately to get a Toyota Accord joke into this sentence, but can't manage it. Damn.] They got an average of 44 mpg on their trip.

My mom had truly excellent birds at her backyard feeders, which kept Robert busy and added several new birds to her "yard list" (list of all birds seen in/from her backyard). The huge array of fallen branches in the yard, plus the dusting of snow we had, contributed to the bird-friendliness of the yard. After the other guys cut up all the branches (cause there is nothing that says Christmas like using a chain saw), Robert put up a branch structure which we hope will keep the yard attractive to birds by providing shelter near the bird feeders and bird bath.

I got a minimum of 2 miles of walking in each day, for which I was extremely thankful given my painful condition. I displayed my horrible running form to my family and found out that the memories I had of wearing weird shoes and leg braces in my early childhood were real, according to my parents.

My brother-in-law also fixed my dad's laptop so he could start streaming his favorite German radio station, which alternates German with English-language songs in a bizarre and eclectic mix. (When is the last time you heard "How Much is that Doggy in the Window?") But because he didn't have speakers for the laptop, he was listening on headphones. This allowed for several random outbursts of song from my dad who was grooving in his own little world. I got to hear again the strange German version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" I heard last year, in which all of the gifts but the 5 golden rings are weird animals; the first day brought "a highly unusual animal" that is not named. But the 12th day yielded "12 hypnotized rabbits," which begged the question of what a person does with such a gift of mesmerized lagomorphs. I thought they should build a pyramid (like a cheerleader squad would make) and someone else suggested synchronized thumping. After discussion, we determined that they could make for a hell of a circus act. My dad also reported that the dj said that "Last Christmas by Wham" (you know you want to listen to that; listening to it just now, I was struck again by how utterly perfect the songs in that Drew Barrymore/Hugh Grant movie "Music and Lyrics" was to this period) was the most commonly played Christmas song on the radio, but he didn't know what it was. RMell sang part of the song but he still didn't recognize it. A while later, my dad handed me the headphones and asked me what the song playing was, and of course, it was "Last Christmas" as we had just discussed. I incidentally discovered that adding the words "by Wham" can make many phrases funny to me.

We never managed to make it out to see "The Golden Compass" but did watch on DVD the Civil War movie "Andersonville," which managed to marry almost uniformly bad acting, sometimes terrible dialogue that rivaled "Murder by Moonlight" (at one point, a character says "We're not murderers, Jim!", which had RMell and me exchanging glances because we both had a "wtf, is this Star Trek?!" moment; the crazy prison commander's repeated refrain of "Tunnels... are useless!" took on a life of its own), and a fundamentally quite interesting plot that in important respects was historically accurate. This movie could form the basis of a great drinking game. I can't exactly recommend it, but it offers much accidental humor and teaches you something about American history. For me, it was worth watching.

We also saw the video from my sister's dance performance this past fall. I quickly found that I am too ignorant to discuss dance in any meaningful way (I sort of felt that my comments rivaled the famous philosopher conversation skit in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life," falling just short of "Does Nietzsche begin with an S?" levels of inanity), but my primary takeaway of the number J choreographed did reflect her primary intention with the piece, so I did not feel too idiotic in the end. During one piece, I found my eye drawn to this one dancer who was much better than the others and a few minutes later, J (who usually let us know at the beginning if she was one of the dancers) told us, oh yeah, I'm that one, referring to the superior dancer I had been watching but from my distance did not recognize.

Noticing that I had no special skills to offer in fixing computers (RMell), solving problems involving items such as CD players and Christmas tree lights (J), patient birdwatching and habitat construction (Robert), shopping, cooking, and doing dishes (Dad), or doing every other necessary thing (Mom), I wondered aloud what purpose I serve in the family, considering that the need for survey research is unlikely to develop. I was told that I provide "comic relief." I am glad that no one thought to say that the purpose of my life "is only to serve as a warning to others."

Although, I have to admit, I was a real champ for the long, surreal conversation my mom and I had with my grandfather's wife, who has serious memory problems - it remains undetermined (and basically impossible to determine experimentally in an ethical manner) how much she really believes what she is saying vs. kind of knows she is making it up as she goes along vs. is just flat-out fucking with people. Most of the conversation kind of looped back on itself as I learned that an easy technique for keeping up my end without bewildering or frustrating her by asking something she could not remember was to ask questions that allowed her to repeat something she already had said. But one rambling story that only I heard (because Mom was getting on the case of the other people who were hiding in the kitchen to avoid having to participate in this thing) was truly weird - it started out about some dog that she had but morphed into a tale of her son being kidnapped by the babysitter, the FBI looking for him and taking blood samples from the scene that did not ultimately help, her husband and father and other relatives going to the hospital because they were so distraught, and her hope that some day her son will do like you see in movies and look for his real mother. (It is impossible for me to replicate the disjointed, circuitous, and confusing manner in which these story elements were expressed.) Throughout this story, she maintained the same level tone and affect she had displayed in talking repetitively about her sister's stubborn hair. O-kay.

Oh, also: I found out that soft serve vanilla ice cream eaten with fresh oatmeal cookies is a food of the gods. Even complete knowledge can be dangerous, people.