New Year's Eve Launch

1) All this glamor doesn't just happen so much that sometimes it just doesn't happen!

1a) I think I must've taken half a dose of Screwitol, 'cause if it doesn't all get done, Life will just have to go on. Still, I'll do my best not to botch some necessary cosmetic surgery before New Year's Eve dinner - my favorite night of the year.

2) But this is really my New Year's message for you, as seen yesterday at Haymarket:

2a) Thank you, dahlings, for being part of his - how shall I say this? - this interesting year with me. I couldn't have managed nearly so well without you.

3) And now, one of my favorite arrangements of "Auld Lang Syne" (though I really prefer it in E-flat major):

3a) Joe: "Happy New Year, Norma." Norma: (gasping) "Happy New Year, dahling."

3b) Me: [bursts into tears]

Fifteen Random FACTS

I do love these odd surveys that pop up every now and then! And today it's a nice break between cleaning the bathroom and putting away the laundry. Fifteen random FACTS about yourself that may surprise people:

1. Do you make your bed everyday? Oh no, but I really should, since it feels so much more comfortable at the end of the day getting into a smoothly made bed.

2. What's your favorite number? 7

3. What is your dream job? If I could figure out how to make being charming a paying job without it involving fund-raising, that'd be it. White House social aide?

4. If you could, would you go back to school? No, but that doesn't mean I don't want to continue to learn.

5. Can you parallel park? Alas, my parallel parking skills are unenviable.

6. What's a job you had which people would be shocked to know you had? For three months in college I was a D***** Donuts counterman.

7. Do you think aliens are real? I don't spend much time contemplating this issue, but I see no reason to reject the notion that there are other life forms in the universe.

8. Can you drive a stick shift? No

9. Guilty pleasure? Last summer it was B** and J****'s Urban Bourbon.

10. Favorite childhood game? What I remember is Parcheesi and a board game called Trouble. My Granny Dimmick also taught me canasta (though I can't remember it now).

11. Do you talk to yourself? Yes, including in public.

12. Do you like doing puzzles? Less than I enjoy playing Scrabble.

13. Favorite music? At this moment, it's Postmodern Jukebox.

14. Coffee or tea? Up to 1993 I was a confirmed tea drinker. After 1993, an over-enthusiastic coffee drinker.

15. First thing you remember you wanted to be growing up? An actor.

December 31 - the Morning of New Year's Eve

1) Up just before 6 AM after having gone to bed after midnight. Candlelight coffee in the parlor, devotional, and the Boston Globe. I predict a NAP early in the evening.

2) There is simply too much to do - and I do feel like I'm putting the zzzzzzzzzzzzz in laissez-faire this morning - and I'm going to have to become comfortable with some things just not getting done.

3) I do love the last day of the year! The taking stock, the speculation and planning of what's to come, the anticipation of the joy I always find in New Year's Eve, even the bitter cold - though that last is strictly from a sense of tradition and the knowledge that I have clean long underwear.

December 30, One Year Ago Today

One year ago today I was flying home to be at the bedside of my dying father. I don't dwell on it, but the anniversary is there, and I often think in terms of anniversaries. And one observes anniversaries.

Daddy waited for me to get there, just as his mother waited for all her children to come to her when she died in 1982. Reviewing the events of Christmas 2016, I realize how I missed so many signs that he was coming to the end of his time with us. But he held on for Christmas at home because, as he communicated to his aide, he wanted to sleep in his own bed one last time.

I also think it's significant that he died on the wedding anniversary of his parents, but I recognize that I might find it more significant than he would. Daddy was devoted to his parents - mercy, they moved in next door to us when I was a year old, so he was Johnny-on-the-Spot when they needed help - especially his mother. In the years after Grampa died, Daddy would take his grapefruit next door in the morning and have breakfast with Granny.

He loved to have the family together, and he created week-long summer vacations for us to be together every year at one of his timeshares, or at D*****World, or twice on Caribbean cruises. I realized in 2006 that I'd better start saying yes to those invitations while I could, and I'm glad I did.

Mother and Daddy on our family cruise in 2010.

He made a lot possible for me, most very especially Interlochen. He discovered it, found a way to make it work, sold Mother on it, and then me (I didn't need much selling). And he was proud of his role in saving my life in this way. He placed a high value on education, evidenced by his reverence for the Great Books and his repeated reminders that he'd pay for as much education as we wanted. He was always disappointed that I didn't go on to get a doctorate and teach, but that was not the life I imagined for myself. He observed to Mother when I was in college, "Robert actually enjoys what he's studying." I guess that wasn't his own college experience, when basketball was his driving passion and business administration was his major.

Two songs come to mind when I think about my father: "Detour," 'cause he used to sing the chorus (he loved country music), and Perry Como's "Prisoner of Love." Only within the last ten years did I learn that he sang that to Mother when they were courting. But the movie that changed his life was Rhapsody, because it introduced him to classical music, which he also loved and enjoyed.

The white rose at the top of this column was from the arrangement of white flowers my best friends sent for the funeral. I photographed it in the seat pocket of my seat on the plane back to Boston two days after the funeral.

Rest in peace, Daddy.

Christmas Vacation, Day Nine, Part II, and Day Ten - Departure

1) Mother and I did make our afternoon appointment with each other to research the charities on her charities list. Hard at it for almost two hours - there were 77 organizations on the list! - and there's still work to do. But priorities have been established, legitimate charities validated, and scams exposed, all with the goal of reducing the tsunami of junk mail Mother gets.

2) In the evening Younger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged and his wife stopped by, and I took them and Mother to dinner at my beloved Seafood Palace on Enterprise Boulevard. Best gumbo in Lake Charles! Taylor and I ended up discussing Feud, among other things.

2a) They no longer serve pistolettes - their vendor went out of business - so we started out with crawfish balls or boudin balls. That led me to tell the joke about Marilyn Monroe and the matzoh balls, which fell flat.

3) Early, quiet, absolutely brainless evening - all that charity research gave me a headache - but an Advil unlocked the Gates of Sleep somewhere for me between 11:30 and midnight.

4) Awake from 4:15 AM, up at 6:00 AM, washing clothes and my carcass - the latter after a dispiriting look at the bathroom scale. Then packing, breakfast, and those end-of-stay chores like washing the sheets and remaking the bed, etc.

4a) Because the weather forecast up No'th was bitterly cold, and because this was one of the very very rare trips home I didn't wear a winter coat or proper gloves, Mother and I searched the house for something to add to my travel wardrobe. Along the way we found a lot of birthday cards for Daddy from many birthdays and a whole passel of audiocassettes from his Unity days (Mother: "The people from Unity might like those." Me: "Mamma, no one uses audiocassettes any more." I tossed 'em out.) Finally, in the cedar chest in my room, out came a large pair of brown wool felt mittens and the gray wool cap and scarf Grampa Al had been given when he was in the Navy or something during WWI. (He was stationed on the Great Lakes and never saw active duty. Apparently he joked that he "fought the battle of the Great Lakes.") So I wasn't gonna freeze.

5) Mother and I had a bit of a discussion about what to do for lunch: make sandwiches in, or go to the Great H****** nearby. My argument to support local business won out, and the bonus was that almost as soon as we walked in, Miss B***** ran out from behind the counter to give Mother a big hug, and then me. Miss B***** had been one of the aides when Daddy had been at the Guardian House, but she'd left to do something new - like baking! Wonderful to catch up with her. I said to Mother, "Isn't this nice! We wouldn't have seen Miss B***** if we'd made sandwiches at home."

6) Then, sitting at our table waiting for our order, Mother suddenly said "There's your friend." I was mystified, since I don't really have friends in Lake Charles still. Looking toward the door, I certainly didn't recognize the elderly woman who had just come in. I said, "I have no idea who you're talking about, Mother." Turns out Mother didn't mean my friend, but the mother of a girl who was also in the Methodist Youth Fellowship when I was 40 years ago. This woman then made a bee line for our table, exclaiming "And who is this handsome man?" I looked her dead in the eye and asked "Who are you? I don't recognize you." And it really was that girl's mother, and she had that girl's college-age daughter with her. And because on flight days I tend to be very focused on the flight and not being late to the airport, I was very polite but also very absent.

7) At the table next to ours sat a young mother with a fractious toddler who had a book. Mother asked me the title (I could see it from my place) and she was a bit disappointed when she found out it wasn't Pat the Bunny. Before we left she stopped for five minutes to tell this nice young mother all about Pat the Bunny. Mother loves little children; I know that meant a lot to her.

8) Waiting upstairs at the airport outside security, I noticed that the food concession had closed (it had at one time been a Subway, I know). Mother and I sat together for awhile, and she shared with me some diary writings from the last year and some other things - a really nice pre-flight conversation.

8a) Exactly one year ago that day I was also waiting for a flight to Boston, only then I'd spent the morning arranging for a new hospice company to look after my father. I didn't think I'd be returning two days later . . .

9) The most eventful parts of my travel were a) a nun (!) cutting ahead of me in the security line while I hugged Mother goodbye, b) discovering I had enough time to get to Pappadeaux at DFW for a bite of early dinner, and c) both Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Funny Girl on the in-flight entertainment.

10) Taxi instantly available at Logan, and I was home sorting ~21 Christmas cards by 10:00 PM. Thus ends Christmas vacation 2017!

Christmas Vacation, Day Nine - Morning

A) How exciting to discover that my new favorite group Postmodern Jukebox has released a new version of "What Are You Doin' New Year's Eve?"!

1) I woke up like concrete at 7:40 AM from two blocks of deep sleep separated by over an hour of wakefulness - a late start to the day!

2) Grapefruit, scrambled eggs with cheese, and conversation with Mother for breakfast. We laid plans to accomplish things on my last full day at home.

3) Spent the morning finishing my Christmas cards, writing Lovely Notes of Thanks to family, and getting Mother's name and address off mailing lists. I rose from the guest room desk at 11:30 AM with a great feeling of satisfaction.

3a) Stamping the mail to go out, I saw an outgoing envelope to a non-profit that I hadn't researched yet. Mother watched me look it up on ye Wykypediya and ye Chyryty Nyvigytor; the latter wouldn't even profile it because the organization had >$1M. I said " Mamma, if they don't even have enough money for ye Chyryty Nyvigytor to profile them, they are not players in the national discussion. Don't bother with 'em." Another website frankly labeled them a scam.

4) Realized with horror that I hadn't yet given Younger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged and his wife their anniversary card (which was December 9 - oops!), so I hope they let me take them out to dinner tonight.

5) Just now took a call from one of Daddy's timeshares, too.

6) For maximum efficiency, Mother and I now have a 3 PM appointment at the kitchen table to take care of some mailing list business. Before that, lunch and laundry!

Christmas Vacation, Day Eight - Boxing Day (including box!)

A) I simply cannot stop listening to this! It's been my constant soundtrack today.

1) Barely awake, slumped into Daddy's recliner and my first cup of coffee, and Laura asks, "If you got dressed now, could we have breakfast at IHOP?"

Me (truly bewildered): “Why wouldn’t we have breakfast here?”
Laura: “Because if we went out we wouldn’t have to clean up afterward.”
Me: “OK!"

2) En route, and learning that the IHOP was across town and had already not gotten a good review from Taylor (who wasn't joining us), I suddenly blurted out "Why don't we go to the Pitt Grill?!" The grill had the advantage of being quite close by and (at least for me) being a small local business as opposed to a chain. We all agreed, and were almost instantly there.

3) Mother looked as though she'd "stepped from a bandbox*," crisp and trim in a long brown jacket, brown slacks, a leopard-print silk scarf, and perfect makeup. As for the rest of us . . . not so much.

4) This is the third location of the Pitt Grill that I've known. And even though it's quite different from the first location, every time I come here I remember going to the first location on Prom Night 1980 for midnight supper . . . which is a story for another time.

5) A good breakfast . . . except for their coffee. A diner really has to use its coffee as the cornerstone of its reputation, and this . . . this was just tepid.

6) Bathtime with The Economist was preceded by an alarming visit with the bathroom scale. No wonder my relationship with Size 34 had become so strained!

7) Three-sided Scrabble after my bath. I had both the Z and the Q, and Laura noted at the end that I used 100% of triple word scores played in that game. Then Laura and Niece Who Must Not Be Tagged drove off home to beat the rain. Before departure I asked Niece to take a photo (see above), but when I tried to do a selfie with her, her hand immediately went to her face, and that was that.

8) After lunch the weather started to turn, and Mother was anxious to get to the post office to get more stamps. I tried to put her off since the weather (hopefully) would be better tomorrow, but nothing doing. So I hastily packed a box of chicory coffee and Christmas presents to mail myself, and off we went. I mean, it WAS Boxing Day - why not actually do something with a box? And this way my anvil collection will be that much lighter at the airport.

9) Then the bank, and the first time I'd driven through a drive-through window in many years. The bilingual deposit and withdrawal slips in the pneumatic containers started Mother on her interest in making English the official language on the U.S. We had a spirited discussion on the topic.

10) The rain was coming down by the time we left the bank, and we settled in for the rest of the day at home. Today this ended up meaning no NAP, but Postmodern Jukebox (see above), corresponding with a couple friends, and solitaire. Because at that point, my brain was Jello.

11) During more early evening Scrabble, I continued in earnest my online research of the organizations that keep pelting Mother with junk mail. My goodness! The blog Drowning in Junk Mail is quite helpful (even though some of the info is from a couple years ago), and there were some other sites. I'll refrain from naming the charities 'cause I don't want to turn up in searches, but my goodness, some of 'em are wily about reporting, changing their addresses, and their telemarketing practices.

12) Over dinner, more discussion of charities, but also health and healthcare, and Daddy, and last Christmas. Mother remembered that her father was 57 when he had his fatal heart attack, and made it clear that I need to do something about my paunch.

13) I can hardly believe it's 10:30ish now, and that tomorrow is my last full day at home. It feels like I've been here forever, but arrived yesterday.

* This phrase was used by Walter Lord in his influential book A Night to Remember to describe Mrs. John Jacob Astor as she headed to the lifeboats on the Titanic.

Christmas Vacation, Day Seven - Christmas Day

1) I mean, we had our family Christmas yesterday, so today was an anticlimax. Coffee, a bowl of cereal, the Tylers quietly preparing to go off to Lafayette for the day. I bid farewell to my brother-in-law, who won't be returning to lovely Lago di Carlo this trip.

1a) Gramma and Uncle Bill would wave until the car was out of sight, and I continue to do that 'cause I think it's important - even if no one else does.

2) Once they were on their way, Mother and I exchanged our remaining gifts over coffee. She chose for me a deeply ridged plate for grating garlic and a tiny copper skillet from Sweden that I remember from long ago (but I don't know why). I got her a hat and a daily calendar with quotes related to simplicity.

3) Mother then went down for a great big NAP, and I wrote Christmas cards in the dining room while watching Alfred Hitchcock's fun-for-the-whole-family Christmastime thriller Spellbound.

4) After lunch, this dialogue:

Mother: [brings clean silver into dining room to put away]
Me: "I'll take care of that."
Mother: (smiling) "Oh no, you need clean hands and a pure heart to handle the silver, and you joined the ACLU."

I posted this on ye Fycebykke, and it got quite a response. Later, over dinner, my sister told me it got a big laugh from all her assembled in-laws, most of whom have met me at least once, and all of whom fall further right on the spectrum than I.

5) I took a brisk walk through the subdivision after lunch. It's roughly shaped like a figure 8 with two tails, and I have a particular route I take so that I don't miss any of it. Took me about an hour, after which I allowed myself a NAP.

6) Laura and Niece Who Must Not Be Tagged returned in the late afternoon, and Laura and Mother and I set ourselves down to some Scrabble. For a change I came out victorious, though I began the game with five Es.

7) Oldest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged also showed up, and gave us some Postmodern Jukebox for background music. Their take on K*** P****'s "Last Friday Night" is surely my favorite.

8) Nephew headed out, and we four remaining enjoyed leftovers in the dining room. Discussion of the "silver ACLU" dialogue (see above) led to some brief political discussion.

9) After dinner, I did end up reading cards for Laura and Niece, something I rarely do for family. Mother was interested to see, but not to have a reading.

9a) Niece was annoyed that I wasn't using the Alice in Wonderland tarot deck they'd given me for Christmas, but I explained that I'd been using my Rider pack for 35 years . . .

10) They are all off to bed now, and I'm back in the dining room (with the sound down, as my ear buds are missing) to write more Christmas cards.

Christmas Vacation, Day Six - Christmas Eve

1) Tony brought in a platter of sandwiches from ye Sybwyye for lunch, God bless him, and then I closed my eyes for a time, but did not sleep. I don't know why.

2) Early in the afternoon the grownups went to the cemetery, and I was able to see the headstone in place for the first time. The four of us stood around - as one does, I guess, when visiting a grave - remembering what it was like this time last year with Daddy, and things about him from before his decline: his laughter, especially, but also his devotion to his own parents. An excessively sunny day to visit a cemetery, and a soggy cemetery at that.

3) Conveniently, Hokus Pokus (the preferred liquor store) was just a hop and skip down the road, and Tony and I each stopped in for a needful potation: vermouth, in my case. I laughed like a drain seeing "Spiritual Advisors" across the top of their sign!

4) And then homeward, and to work on a carrot casserole. Laura put in Frosty the Snowman, clearly tickled to be sharing it with me since she and I grew up sharing all those Christmas specials together.

5) The casserole was a bit of a fail, for reasons too tedious to go into. Mother, because she is an expert, was able to salvage it after her well-deserved nap.

6) These days we open our presents before Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve - that was the tradition in Daddy's family, and besides Laura's family goes off to her in-laws on Christmas Day anyway - and when it is time for presents it is time for presents and let's not let anything interfere with it! Today's For Better or For Worse kind of sums up my attitude. So we got derailed almost at the beginning because of a lamp that had been moved with the best of intentions and do we move it back or not, or can other lights in other places provide sufficient light for that one chair by where the lamp was moved, and on and on and on and on. And I'm standing there restraining myself from saying "CAN WE PLEASE HAVE THE PRESENTS NOW?! BECAUSE IT IS TIME FOR THE PRESENTS!"

7) All six of the Tylers claimed all the sofa space, leaving me isolated in the chair closest to the tree, which made me Santa. And there were many amusing moments.

8) I was delighted to receive dishtowels with Louisiana motifs, an Alice in Wonderland tarot deck, a daily calendar of Shakespearean insults, and a box of notecards featuring photos of succulent plants. This led me to point out that the irony that I was receiving stationery in a year that I was not giving any, which led the children to applaud.

8a) Best of all was a gift from my nephew's wife: a needlepoint she made herself for me with a bowtie and the legend "Carpe diem." I am going to bring it to the office.

9) Often the distribution of envelopes comes at the end of our Christmas, and this year the visible envelopes for Santa to distribute were from my nephew's wife. The note she wrote in mine was enormously sweet and I almost got verklempt.

9a) All this prompted Mother to trot to the other end of the house to return with her own envelopes, which was very nice.

10) File the resulting confusion of serving the dinner under Too Many Cooks. At least I can ham my way through the blessing without making a fool of myself.

10a) My brother-in-law is one of those people who likes to be the last one through the buffet, so it amused me to tell him that my latest column is on that very topic. And he was all set until I got called to take care of something, and I was the last one through anyway. So we had a good laugh over that.

11) Sitting in Daddy's seat at the head of the table, I recognized that the Tylers were all sitting in their usual places, and my old place in the center on the left side is now taken by my nephew's wife. That family all has a great rapport with each other, complete with their own jokes and references and they all know; they are not just family, but friendly with one another.

11a) They all looked lovely from where I was sitting. I wish I could show you, but that family is notorious for not liking to be photographed, and I gave up long ago.

12) I will confess to having felt a bit frayed by the end of dinner, and rather than debate whether or not to let the Audubon plates air dry on the counter before putting them away after wiping them dry in the first place so that they would be sure to be bone dry, I ceded the kitchen to others. #thisshouldnotbeanissue

13) By now the family has frittered away to bed, here or elsewhere, and I am the last holdout, continuing on this entry after a long phone chat with my best friend. I don't know that I can call this a merry Christmas, in spite of the laughter. But it has been a good Christmas, and I'm very grateful for that.

Christmas Vacation, Day Six - Christmas Eve Morn

1) I was awake before 5 AM, and eventually heard someone (likely my brother-in-law, a noted early riser) moving about the house. But eventually I was conversing with a Los Angeles-based high school friend wearing black with orange and yellow paisley accents at the elbows, and then witnessing what might have been a gay Italian travelogue . . . and suddenly it was almost 7 AM.

2) Tony made the coffee and provided delicious baked goods from a nearby bakery (om nom nom), and he and I and Laura just sat around in the kitchen reading the news or social media. A traditional, sleepy start to Christmas Eve Day.

3) Chilly in the corners. Laura says it was 39 degrees outside.

4) Ye Fycebykke led me to a post about George Washington's various Christmas experiences, which led me to Martha Washington's recipe for Yorkshire Christmas Pie. Intimidating, to say the least!

5) We are not going to church this morning after all, and Tony has suggested we go to the cemetery this afternoon (I haven't seen the headstone yet), so at some point I'm going to have to clean my carcass and figure out the cooking schedule with Mother and so forth.

Christmas Vacation, Day Five

1) Awakened pain free after five continuous hours of sleep before 6:00 AM, even before Mother (a noted early riser).

2) After yesterday's summer weather, a welcome Christmas chill in the air when we stepped out to get the paper.

3) Once breakfast was out of the way, we came to challenge of finalizing the Christmas Eve menu and grocery list, featuring a lot of debate about questions (from Mother) such as whether having both yams and a carrot casserole was too much orange on a plate. #thisshouldnotbeanissue

4) So it was off to the grocery store - Mother decided to stay home and round up dishes - down nearly empty streets around 9 AM. I found everything but one item on the list - of course it would be the dried prunes - but still made it home in record time.

5) We're having ham this Christmas, and pondering their wine selection, I was really unsure what wine goes best with ham. In the absence of a reasonable rosé, I opted for merlot, and my God defend the right!

5a) A lady in the same section, shopping with her two five-year-old girls, and I congratulated each other on beating the rush.

6) Mother was determined to get those dried prunes, and she also had to go to a funeral today as well, so she was off in the car and that was that. Then I got one Christmas card written before - surprise! - early arrival of Niece Who Must Not Be Tagged! So off we went to complete my Christmas shopping, and she had several helpful ideas.

7) We lunched at my beloved Café Luna downtown on Ryan Street, one of the few places that keeps the Flame of Originality burning in lovely Lago di Carlo. And such a good conversation with my niece.

7a) The Luna menu uses names from mythology, and I took a chance on the Uranus sandwich for a change (but without the fried egg): grilled pork loin with bacon and cheese and avocado.

7b) In the words of the late Anna Russell, "I'm not making this up, you know!"

8) Niece and I strolled downtown a bit, checking into an art gallery on the ground floor of the Charleston Hotel building (which has been vacant if not abandoned during my lifetime). Lots of various fleur-de-lis motifs and whatnots, in general a nice vibe.

9) After more errands, home finally to wrap my Christmas presents - not part of the Gay Gene I ever inherited.

10) And then, just after 3:30, a NAP - I was totally dropping!

11) After 5 PM I rose as from the dead to discover that Niece was AWOL and Mother was becoming a wee bit anxious about what to do for dinner. And I was aware that it was the cocktail hour. Cue retreat to the dining room with bourbon on the rocks.

12) And then, while working on a column, appeared my sister and her husband on schedule! The dining room then became the center of family activity for an hour or so. Laura and Tony joined me at one of the table (and Tony joined me in a drink) to catch up, and later I joined Mother at the other end for dinner. During all this time both Niece and Oldest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged showed up, and it was a matter of which conversation one was able to follow.

13) After dinner I had to turn to making a chocolate honey pie. No, not like that chocolate pie in The Help! It's one of the recipe clippings Mother found that I thought might work. Now when I have to cook a new recipe, I generally like the kitchen to myself. But nothing, not even Of Oz the Wizard, could dislodge Mother from washing dishes I told her I would wash with all the pie-making dishes, etc. etc. etc. And to my surprise Tony hung out in the kitchen, too. And, as it happens, I needed Mother to tell me where she kept things.

13a) Parts of this kitchen are assembled tighter than a Chinese puzzle.

14) At this point the pie is done, all the gifts but one are wrapped, Mother has decided we are not going to church tomorrow, and Of Oz the Wizard is up to "the."

Christmas Vacation, Day Four - Headache

1) I forget which writer it was who used the phrase "as though the crystal beads of speech were strung on a black thread" or something like, but that's kind of how yesterday went. Everything was influenced by a headache that started at the base of my skull and certainly involved my neck and shoulders. It wasn't until dinner that I realized it was likely due to having to tote my collection of anvils through airports more than expected on Tuesday.

1a) The weather was like summer all day long - hot and softly humid.

2) One of the sybaritic pleasures of staying at home is Daddy's large sit-in bathtub with the door. I soaked in there a good long time in the morning.

3) "When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but the entrance of . . . Oldest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged!" A welcome and unexpected visitor, he had come to drop off Christmas presents. He and I went off to the mall for lunch at Pizza Artista, some Christmas shopping, and a good general catch-up.

4) Pizza Artista is a new pizza place, really good. Remembering the cheddary goodness of Ruggles Cheddar Cheese Pizza from college, I created a pepperoni/mushroom/black olive pizza with only cheddar cheese - and it was savory and delicious, if a bit busy.

4a) Oldest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged has inherited a particular talent from both his father and my father: grabbing the check. #sneaky

5) The mall . . . well, I'm old enough that I still remember when the mall was a small baseball diamond with a gas station at one corner. Now it (and its parking lot) lap up against all possible streets. The retail landscape has changed, inevitably. In spite of D******'s as one of the anchor stores, I think any time you add Sp***** Gifts to the mix, you're going decidedly downmarket.

5a) On the plus side, Perf****** is now there, and I was able to find one Christmas gift there at a significant savings.

6) Then we had to go across town to get something for Mother, and my goodness, traffic in Lake Charles is as bad as or worse than Boston.

7) Oldest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged also had to pick up some craft supplies, and said he was going to go to H**** L****. I encouraged him to consider another place, since their politics were so bad. The traffic situation helped me out, as M******'s was closer to where we were going for Mother. Despite Oldest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged's misgivings that they wouldn't have what he needed, they did. And the bonus for me was finding two blank books that were buy-one-get-one-free!

8) We took back roads home for speed, listening to Postmodern Jukebox (fabulous).

9) A quiet evening at home, dining on leftovers and discussing Christmas menus and junk mail. We have been eating at one corner of the dining room table, as all the other tables are covered with papers.

Christmas Vacation, Day Three

1) Up before 7 AM, good coffeezzzzzzzz, and read all of The Private Life of Tasha Tudor, which I gave Mother for Christmas several years ago.

2) Late morning trip to [Insert Name of Big Box Store Employing Younger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged] to purchase new router and do a bit of Christmas shopping.

3) Lunch at home, and a NAP, and more Christmas cards, and then Nephew arrived (on his birthday!) to install the new router. So I was very glad I could give him his birthday card in person for a change.

4) Mother and I went out to S****** S**** for a good etouffé dinner. It's as warm and velvety humid as summer. I have to wonder if my growing-up years when we did have cold Christmases here were an anomaly.

5) The Christmas tree is now done!

6) Mother, who is really unable to throw anything away without asking at least 20 people if they want it, led me to a little basket of unwanted trinkets and such on top of the washer. I was surprised to find myself claiming a necklace of coins for myself. Insert References to Brecht's Mother Courage Here.

7) Mother also discovered a whole cache of Daddy's books that she didn't know about (but I did), mostly religious works around metaphysics or New Thought. But also books given to him at different Christmases: Anecdotes of Destiny, by Isak Dinesen, which Mother gave him one year because of Babette's Feast; Ricky Alan Mayotte's The Complete Jesus, which I gave him one year; and All About Me, which I also gave him (and which I don't think he ever opened).

8) Now that the internet is back on and I have full use of my laptop again, I can begin one of the more important tasks of this Christmas vacation: evaluating the many organizations that are sending Mother these constant waves of junk mail. They are keeping her from writing her book!

Christmas Vacation, Day One (Part II) and Day Two

1) The last, delayed leg of my trip home left DFW one hour late. We endured what I thought a rather turbulent flight, and it made me remember a VERY turbulent flight many years ago on which, by happy chance, my late cousin Susan was sitting next to me. While I was calling on the Almighty to preserve us every moment, she was calmly folding origami paper into pieces to make an origami globe.

2) Younger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged and his wife collected me at the airport and drove me home. He has scrawled my name on his smartphone to hold up as a sign, which gave me a big laugh.

3) Mother was sound asleep when I let myself into the house, and no wonder.

4) On rising the next morning I became aware of three things almost simultaneously: a) I had an urgent need to get to the bathroom, b) Mother was awake and about and I didn't want my first sight of her to be cut short by a dash to the bathroom, and c) the sensation of a hot vibrating baseball being injected into my right calf - CHARLEY HORSE!

5) Mercury retrograde provided a frustrating morning for the entire household. For me, complete absence of internet service for which there was no remedy before Younger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged could get off work late in the afternoon. All the more unfortunate since I had to run a committee teleconference for work at noon - and as it happened, many things were sent since I left the office Monday that I couldn't access. At least the telecon went well.

5a) For Mother, it was getting the runaround between being asked to provide a proxy for some sort of meeting, but having to get a PIN to do so, and then being provided a PIN that wasn't associated with her name or something. Plus that, the housekeepers fiddled with the thermostat in such a way that Mother couldn't correct it and now feels too cold.

6) Younger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged did come over, and eventually diagnosed the need for a new router. 

7) I then took the family out to dinner at Big Daddy's, the Doyle's of Holly Hill. Two attempts to order a manhattan led me to go behind the bar to discover that they had one bottle of Jack. So I had Jack on shaved ice, a sort of whiskey Slurpee. 

8) After dinner I was decorating the Christmas tree when one of the neighbors stopped in, freshly returned from a trip to New York, to give mother a bucket of cookies from the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. Sounds like they had a wonderful trip, and I am so much looking forward to going next month!

9) Finding old ornaments so often brings back happy memories. I'm sure it's the same way for you.

Christmas Vacation, Day One - Travel

1) Alarm clock at 2:15 AM, car service on the tick of 2:50 AM. The radio was playing Christmas music, and when they got to Karen Carpenter's "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" I remembered how she was one of Daddy's favorite singers. One year I actually gave him the Carpenters Christmas album.

2) The advantage of arriving early and (I hope) looking respectable was being directed into the TSA Pre-Check lane, where I was number five.

3) The one occasion on which I'll indulge in McD*****'s is for an early departure flight from Logan Terminal B. Bacon/cheese biscuit, coffee, and the indulgence of the hash brown patty.

4) One of the best parts of traveling through O'Hare is V***** chocolates. Om nom nom. It just happens to be located next to a wine bar, and even at 7 AM (or whenever it was) their little pianist was going at it. I thanked it. It was so civilized!

5) Breakfast with my beloved The Economist - not their big end-of-year issue, which I always anticipate with pleasure.

6) Mercury retrograde came into play after we pulled away from the gate at O'Hare. I suddenly realized I was reading an awful lot of The Economist! Long story short (too late!), we had to return to the gate because all three of the air-conditioning indicators were on. I really had lost track of time, so when the flight attendant announced the 800 number, I called and got rebooked "just in case you miss your connection" on the only other flight left to Lago di Carlo - leaving at 8:40 PM . . .

7) And you guessed it, I missed my connection by about half an hour at DFW after a comparatively turbulent flight. But I was surprised at my own equanimity, waiting in line for over an hour to get a new boarding pass. Certainly there were people there in worse situations than mine.

8) The bonus in all this, of course, is that now I can enjoy the best part of ANY layover at DFW, my beloved Pappadeaux! I'm in a banquette at the back, tucking into shrimp etouffé and washing it down with coffee. Fabulous.

Monday Morning, December 18

1) The phrase "Flight from the consequences of the dishonorable act," from Eden Gray's Mastering the Tarot, keeps coming back to me. It is one of the meanings of the Seven of Swords.

2) Typo alert: Just picked up a box of savory treats from a gift basket, and the caption on the box read "For the discerning palette." Ahem, I do believe it's the palate that needs to discern some savory treats!

2a) And they were savory. Om nom nom.

3) Last day in the office until, with one exception, January 8. Yikes!

Sunday, December 17

1) First, a doughnut brunch. Fresh and hot homemade doughnuts made by the host right there in his own little fryolator thingy, prosecco, berries, ham, sausage, and mostly very few people I know. Conversation covered travel plans, South America, driving directions in Maine, and New Year's on Cape Cod. Someone was wearing a marvelous cologne, and it reminded me of a bit of dialogue from my beloved Rope:

Janet: "You smell dreamy! What is it?"

Brandon: "Oh, a bottle of that swill you gave me last Christmas."

2) Then a much larger open house, full of friends too rarely seen - and also prosecco, Egg Thing, and a sumptuous array of carbohydrates. At one point a friend and I carried our glasses to the top of the stairs for a quiet chat. I ended up staying much longer than expected.

3) This evening has been full of reminders that it's Mercury retrograde - lots of problems with communications:

• First, after sending an email, I get an auto-response that it's been rejected because it's considered spam! Why, why?
• Next, a second problem on Flickr I'll call "sexy spam." An account identified by a photo of some nubile tween girl has tagged me (and about 900+ other Flickr users) in comments under a photo from an account identified by a photo of a different nubile tween girl. This is the second time in a week it's happened to me, but apparently it's happening to other users a LOT more. Someone on the Flickr forum reminded us all of the theft of a lot of Yahoo! data a couple years ago. Damn Russians . . .
• This sort of "sexy spam" thing is what hounded me off Ello about a month ago.

Saturday Night, December 16

1) I picked up the phrase "thrilled with horror" from Madame Campan's biography/memoir of Marie Antoinette*, and right now I am thrilled with horror that there is a holiday party going on this very evening to which I forgot to send my regrets. Etiquetteer is going to remonstrate me a great deal over this one!

2) My afternoon started to go in a direction I did not care for, and I asked myself, "Well, Robert, if you could do whatever you wanted to (and you can), what would you do?" And I said back to myself "I would go home, get into bed, and take a NAP!" And gosh darn it, that is exactly what I did.

3) Remember last summer how I saw that Mennonite group singing on Boston Common, something about the City of Zion? Found the hymn! "We're Marching to Zion" is, I gather, kind of a big deal by Isaac Watts. I've never heard of it. Not one of the hymns I grew up with at First Methodist.

3a) Transfixed by the lyric "a thousand sacred sweets."

3b) At my funeral - at least 30 years away, I hope - I would want to bring out the hymns I did grow up with, "The Church's One Foundation" and "God of Our Fathers," but none of you will know the tunes, which would be kind of a big fail. I don't remember when I discovered Wesley's Directions for Singing, but number four has always rested with me (and I would have my funeral open with it, too): "Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan." [Italics mine.]

3b.1) Mama Rose translated that as "Sing out, Louise!"

3c) But how many people who know me would read Wesley's Directions, look over their glasses at me, and point out number five: "Sing modestly. Do not bawl, so as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy the harmony; but strive to unite your voices together, so as to make one clear melodious sound." AHEM.

*A birthday present to myself from the dollar rack at Boston Book Annex back in 1984. Never regretted it.

Saturday Morning, December 16

1) This morning first thing I was reminded via a total stranger's post on ye Fycebykke that my beloved cousin Susan died one year ago today. A courageous and beautiful woman inside and out, Susan made her mission connecting the descendants of slaves and slaveowners. She discovered a lot of inconvenient truths about our great-great-grandfather Trotter, who not only owned slaves and fathered children by them, but even wrote a book on slave management. Had she lived, I know Susan would have been actively engaged in the national dialogue earlier this year about the fate of Confederate monuments.

2) Haircut at 8:30 AM, General Mail Facility for Christmas stamps, shopping near South Station, and phone chat with Niece Who Must Not Be Tagged.

3) Now at the Athenaeum to work on Christmas cards (see above), perhaps the latest I've ever gotten started.

Thursday, December 14, Now Billed As Yesterday

1) Office holiday party in the afternoon at Le M*******, which had been glamorously redecorated since I'd ankled over there last. The theme was plad, but I wore my traditional Christmas sweater (not happy with any of the plaid in my closet). More than one person asked why I wasn't wearing plaid, and I answered "If you're stoned it looks plaid."

1a) There's nothing like swearing a blue streak and then realizing that a Very Important Person is standing just behind you. #oops

1b) Best macaroni and cheese ever, and some lovely passed bits, and petit fours.

1c) Really, having run the holiday party myself for seven years in the 1990s, I'm thrilled and grateful that other people do it now.

2) In the evening, Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans in Whatever Happened to Baby Jesus? The first Ryan Landry production I saw was Johnny Guitar in P'town back in 1996 (which was outrageous) and since the move to the Ramrod Center for the Performing Arts, the shows have included more Golden Age Hollywood-inspired dance numbers, and the audience has included many more heterosexuals. Packed in tight as sardines in oil, I tried not to remember that this year is the 75th anniversary of the Cocoanut Grove fire.

2a) I have to remind myself that you can't take this troupe literally, so when considering Whatever Happened to Baby Jesus? I shouldn't have been surprised that most of the plot came from Summer Stock. Let's just say it's quite a mashup!

2b) My new Boston theatre crush is the actor who played Orville Smirch.

3) Afterwards, gleefully piled into the wayback of a friend's SUV/van/whatever to get to the parked car of other friends who drove me home. This prompted nostalgia of childhood family vacations when my sister and I greatly preferred to ride in the very back of the station wagon.