Friday, December 24, 2010

Caffeinated Babe: Merry...um...Holidays.

Caffeinated Babe: Merry...um...Holidays.: "In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the Jews called it 'Hanukkah..."

Merry...um...Holidays.

In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the Jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukkah!' or (to the atheists) 'Look out for the wall!' - Dave Barry "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"

So.  The Caffeinated Babe knows nothing about bloggery, but I CAN change the font color in honor of Festivus.  Enjoy the red and green...we'll return to placid blue soon enough.

I love this quotation--really.  To me, Christmas is in the heart, not in the words "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Solstice" or  "enjoy your time off due to some irrelevant, consumer-driven holiday season".  Even though I am more than a little enamored with words, I am definitely a SPIRIT of the law vs. a LETTER of the law kind of gal.  Which applies to my spriritual journey as well.

This is my take on Christmas: Celebrate.  Or don't.  Worship. Or don't.  Go to church.  Or don't (Easter is right around the corner, if you are more of a spring fashionista).  Shop.  Or don't.  Drink to excess.  Or don't.  Whatever you do, or don't do, don't blame it on Jesus--the little dude was born in a barn.  And let's face it, the way our society celebrates Christmas these days has very little to do with Jesus. 

Here's the thing about Jesus--really, all he came to do was share Love.  Cosmic, pervasive Love.  And if that Love takes the form of your family ringing the Salvation Army kettle bells or bringing a jar of peanut butter for the food drive, personally, my God is good with that.  If you enjoy celebrating Hanukkah or ignoring any insensitive mention of The Christ in Christmas, I'll just bet that Jesus gets EXACTLY where you're coming from.  Just try not be nasty about it (I notice that few fierce anti-Christmas peeps are devout enough to insist on working through the holiday...).

When Jesus was born (whether you think he was the Messiah or not), he was a pretty low-key guy.  His dad may as well have worked at the shipyard, his mom helping in her mom's beauty shop.  He wasn't so much about loving HIM as loving each other, even if the "others" were tramps and thieves.  Which is the challenge.  Because it's always easier to judge than to love, whether you are a scripture-quoting Christian or a devout Atheist. 

Spiritual musings aside, my point is...be kind.  Not because it's Christmas (though being kind is an excellent way to demonstrate Love), but because it makes our shared time on the planet much more pleasant.  If you are a homeless person getting a hot meal, I don't think you give a shit whether the person serving it is a self-proclaimed Christian or not. 

And I don't think Jesus much cares either.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Caffeinated Babe: Pageantry...(have you ever seen an angel/star/wise...

Caffeinated Babe: Pageantry...(have you ever seen an angel/star/wise...: "'Tis the Season Tis the season...Christmas Pageantry has arrived. Christmas pageants, like so many elements of the holidays, ratche..."

Pageantry...(have you ever seen an angel/star/wiseman pick his/her nose?)

'Tis the Season


Tis the season...Christmas Pageantry has arrived. 

Christmas pageants, like so many elements of the holidays, ratchet up expectations.  Which, inevitably, means your own expectations.  Almost everyone, churchgoers and non-churchgoers, believers and atheists, whatever label you slap on yourself--almost everyone has some enchanted memory of a winter holiday, often including something like a candlelight Mass, Christmas concert, holiday party, etc, when finally:  for a brief, sparkling moment of festivus, the world was equal parts beauty and magic.  The trouble comes, when later, you cannot find that moment again, no matter how hard you look.

Which brings us to the pageantry.  Today's rehearsal is confidential:  my church is a group of people I consider to be extended family.  Hence, actual facts must be omitted...because we all have expectations, and the greatest of these (in most cases, at least) are our children.  Pageantry makes a parent humble.  In the past, my children have played the baby Jesus, angels, stars, innkeepers, shepherds, etc.  Thank God, my baby Jesus behaved.  By the time my 3rd child was of age to play Jesus the Babe, my nerves were shot...I begged a fellow parishioner, whose baby was fresh and new, to let her baby play the part.  Because, I was older, and KNEW my limitations.  Rationally, I knew that Baby Jesus (MY baby Jesus) could scream to kingdom come for the entire pageant and that people would chuckle kindly, and that there would be a quiet sea of empathetic murmurings from the moms in the congregation, but that really, it would be just fine.  Emotionally, the very thought caused me unacceptable palpitations.  No f*cking way.  I called my friend, who happily agreed to play Mary, tote her own sweet and beloved offspring to the stable, and call it a night.

Here are some things I have personally witnessed, at Christmas pageants past, present and future (so you know there's some fiction here, but work with me...):  one friendly beast kicking another (siblings); an angel picking her nose; a star wetting her pants; an entire choir not singing; an entire choir singing with NO discernible melody.  Sometimes you can catch a wise man getting his myrrh stuck in his neighbor's hat, and sometimes the Baby Jesus doll gets hurled across the sanctuary.  Sometimes the stage hands hammer while the stars are singing and the Innkeeper goes by Judas of Marriott (thanks for that, Tom Hay!).  To sum up, shit happens.

Here is my point--whatever pageantry you attend this year, Christian, Pagan, Whatever Holiday Doesn't Offend You--bring your expectations.  But expect that you will leave with different ones.  If you think your sweet baby angel is going to sing like one, that you might see actually starlight in her hair as she sings her heavenly song, then most certainly, she will sneeze a great, goopy, green sneeze, mid-anthem and wipe it on her white angel's garment.  But if you are lucky (even blessed), you might catch your angel's eye, post-sneeze, wink and let her know she is the most precious one of all...and if you are very lucky, you will have so many of these precious moments that they might all run together .  Both you and your angel will know that the purpose of pageantry is love, laughter and sharing these gifts with a cold, windy world. 

So.  Wipe your nose and enjoy.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Murder. Just perfect.

You may find this hard to believe, but--sometimes the effort of feigning a "normal" household is exhausting.  Don't get me wrong--I have a pretty dandy life--my children are fun and funny, my husband is much kinder and better-looking than I, and buying groceries is very do-able within the parameters of our household income.  When shoveling the Thomas tracks back into the toy bin for the 75th million time starts to wear on my authentic and groovy "babeness", however, I look to a good murder mystery for inspiration.

Let me be specific.  I need a good mystery (murder is the juiciest, of course), with compelling and charismatic crime fighters.  Frankly, I don't like my criminals to be too sympathetic--this messes with my head.  I need some good writing, with a healthy, but unsentimental element of sexual intrigue.  The plot can't be TOO complex, or it's too much work to stay fun.  My current favorite:  John Sandford's Virgil Flowers series, an offshoot of Sandford's "Prey" series.  http://www.johnsandford.org/flow01.html  Read Dark of the Moon, and you'll want to solve crime with Virgil too.  In fact, you might think of a few other activities...he's a great outdoorsman and possesses mad skills. ;-)

So.  While my domestic life is actually some flavor of idyllic, for me, there really is nothing like a good, old-fashioned, "OH MY GOSH...THEY'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME...OH, OUR HERO IS DRIVING LIKE A MADMAN ON A MISSION FROM GOD..."story to occupy my mind while shoveling those Thomas tracks.


Plus, I think Sir Topham Hat has been up to mischief.  If we could crack the diesel engine conspiracy on the Island of Sodor, we could blow the Wikileaks thing off the map.


Think about it.

Caffeinated Babe: Murder. Just perfect.

Caffeinated Babe: Murder. Just perfect.: "You may find this hard to believe, but--sometimes the effort of feigning a 'normal' household is exhausting. Don't get me wrong--..."

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Caffeinated Babe: Parade day...unfettered joy and rapture.

Caffeinated Babe: Parade day...unfettered joy and rapture.: "A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.' ~ Garrison Keillor (1942-)..."

Parade day...unfettered joy and rapture.

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together."
~ Garrison Keillor (1942-), American author. 'Exiles,' Leaving Home (1987)


Greetings, friends!

Today is the Gloucester Christmas Parade--well, it might be Holiday Parade(holiday v. Christmas designations are a whole nother blog):  the festivus which entails lots of people, gathering together to see and be seen.  Usually, I anticipate these festivities with guarded glee.  Today's festivities are no exception.

When I think of Christmas Parades from years gone by, I should drop to my knees in immediate and enthusiastic gratitude that I have survived thus far.  Some doozies which come to mind are:

*One special parade day in the early 90's
I was much younger, as the iffy date tells you.  I tell you this because I was too young to honor the misery of a toothache ignored, and had a nice, abscessed tooth festering.  Cleverly, I thought to eliminate the situation with the liberal use of my then very-good-friend, Alcohol.  I bonded with said friend Friday night~I was so soused that I was hurling before midnight. 
    
My plans for attending the big Christmas parade were replaced by wretching dry heaves, and musings about whether or not I might require treatment for alcohol poisoning.  Even now, I would say that ranks as one of my top 5 most hideous hangovers ever, and I can claim expert status in that department.   So much for that parade.

*Another parade, this one in the late 90's. 
By now, my friend Alcohol and I had broken up.  Thanks be to God.  Anyway...this was the Williamsburg Christmas Parade, a morning exhibition.  I had just finished having coffee with some friends on this morning, and had completely forgotten that I would be blocked in by parade-related street closures.  So far, no big deal. 

The big deal was that I was pregnant, newly so.  And during my post-coffee, restroom visit, I discovered signs that the pregnancy was not going well.  I was aching to get out of there, to call my husband, my sister, anyone who might be able to help me figure out what to do about this.  Instead, I spent the hour, folded into the crowd, fighting the sick, clammy feeling of panic that my miracle was slipping away, amidst the indignity of marching bands and Shriners scooting about recklessly.  All the happy loudness just made me want to scream.  Not that anyone would have noticed...but that's the magic of the parade--you, as you, don't count.  You are part of a bigger You, for better or for worse.

*The last parade memory I will make you read about in this God-forsaken Blog. 
This memory comes courtesy of the 2001 Gloucester Christmas parade.  The late 90's, early 2K's were rough on our little family--in the space of about three years, we lost my mother, my grandmother and both of Ed's grandparents.  Of course, the whole country was still reeling from the 9-11 bombings, and in other news, Ed had been diagnosed with Hodgkins' Lymphoma and was smack-dab in the middle of a grueling chemotherapy regimen ("the chemo we give you is tough, because we're going for a complete cure," said Fran, one of our favorite nurses).  On top of this, we had a crotchety toddler (the happy result of the previous parade scare) with abysmal sleep patterns and had just moved into the big, old farmhouse where we now reside. 

In a well-intentioned attempt to feign normalcy, Ed, Christopher and I set out for the Christmas parade.  Gloucester was experiencing a mini-heat wave that day, and I remember thinking that, on top of everything, it was a sin against God and nature that I should be sweating so damn much at a Christmas parade (actually I probably thought "fucking Christmas parade").  Our toddler faced the traditional sirens and marching band music with terror rather than delight.  While he climbed my body in an attempt to escape the festivities, Ed pushed the empty stroller.  I recall fantasizing about lying down on the sidewalk to rest, just for a minute.  But, by God, there we were, celebrating the season--even if it damn near killed us.

Present day Parade plans.
Another decade has passed, and here we are again, preparing for the Gloucester Christmas Parade!  No-one interesting has died lately, and Ed is downstairs, making eggs for the short people, cancer-free.  Our toddler has grown into a 10 year old, and our little Montessori School has decided to march in this year's parade.  Our numbers are slim this year, so every marcher counts.  Barring an automechanic or medical emergency, I see no way out of it--I'll be there with my elf hat, marching with the Montessorians.  While I know that lots of people delight in parade marching, I would rather have a root canal.  I will probably spend some time wondering why I quit drinking...   :-D
   
     The point of this bloggery is a reminder to myself:  no matter what, it could be worse.  And, as always, watch out for those Shriners.
 
 
 

Friday, December 3, 2010

A real bite...

First, do no harm.

Parenting, I believe, is the single most important thing I do, will ever do.  I spent most of my pre-parenthood, adult life trying to repair myself so as not to inflict my parents' mistakes on my own children.  Not to mention my own, authentic character failings--it seemed only fair to TRY to keep the babies out of the cycle of recurring pain and suffering.

So.  ACTUAL parenting humbled me profoundly.  It turns out that all the swaddling and breastfeeding in the world will not make a baby stop crying at 5:03 pm.  Or 5:03 am, for that matter.  Mercifully, I knew just enough to know that "every baby is different" and that my little man's weepiness was not really my fault...  Which didn't always help on 2 hours' sleep.  I tried not to do harm, but I was in the soup now; as my husband says, I had skin in game.

Having said that, now, here, ten years later, there are some parts of every day when I'm pretty sure I've ruined them, that my best efforts have amounted to shit.  As an example, my third child, a handome little blond boy, who has a better sense of humor than most grown-ups, has had two incident reports written up on his behalf this week.  It seems that he's taken to biting his peers.  Yum.

Luckily, his teachers and peers are an understanding lot, and, truly, at three years of age, biting is not the social faux-pas that it is at say...40 years of age...BUT...  Not such a happy after-school report.  A muzzle? 

To me, it is a reminder that no matter how often I say, "Gentle, gentle.  Use your words," Luke might chomp his peers anyway.  And while there are many times I say "the right" things to my children in an effort to civilize them, there are many more times that I raise my voice to them, saying grandly inappropriate things like, "STOP DOING THAT!  WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?  DAMMIT, I SAID 'QUIT IT'!!!"

My point is this:  no matter how good my intentions, I am going to screw up my parenting daily.  The result?  A whole NEW flavor of addled family life, with the goal of spilling no blood before sundown.  

Now.  If you see Luke today, give him some space...  :-D