On the eleventh day of Sockmas, my true love gave to me... sweet South Hill stocking, tamarins aleaping, client file kindling, eight blue bulbs, cat-nipped Advent chocolate, one impromptu date night, reams of wrapping paper, tango shoes and shoe bags, four sock santas dancing, two moosies skiing, two cobalt bands and a loris in a pear tree.
I really do like where I live. They tape notes to my door that are not the slightest bit passive aggressive. Usually they wish me a happy whatever-season and remind me that they're sponsoring some charity for the season. But this newsletter came with a teeny stocking and chocolate inside! Good chocolate too. Godiva truffles and dark chocolate bliss bites. I feel like it's Christmas already and Santa Clause is a nice fellow who wears a onesie and fixes my screen for the fiftieth time after the neighbor's cat shreds it.
On the twelfth day of Sockmas, my true love gave to me... frolicking ovines, sweet South Hill stocking, tamarins a leaping, client file kindling, eight blue bulbs, cat-nipped Advent chocolate, one impromptu date night, reams of wrapping paper, tango shoes and shoe bags, four sock santas dancing, two moosies skiing, two cobalt bands, and a loris in a pear tree
My previously cited tradition of buying one ornament a year to commemorate each year is complemented and likely inspired by my father's tradition of buying one ornament for me and my sister each year. I'm not sure if he chooses them for symbolic purposes, but he added Mr. (W)right to the ornament roster about two years ago and gave us sheep. One was black and one was white... guess which one we decided I was! Even if I am paler than the moon on a snowy night, I will always be a little bit the black sheep. And, actually, in my family of over achievers, I really rather did hold that title. Which probably says something about our family, since I may have underachieved in that role a bit with my relative lack of drama enough to at most have been an ecru or dusky sheep. Still, while my family tends to follow the path to prominence and responsibility with an arrow's fealty, I may have come to Mr. Frosts' roads diverging in yellow wood at adolescence and said "screw, it, I'm gonna wander through the forest until I find a good tree to climb.
The fairly tame black sheep is a proud tradition I may carry on from my mother, whose early adolescence took her from being a french major, to almost a nun, to a Moonie, to a mom called Fang by her children.
On the 13th day of Sockmas, my true love gave to me... one fulgent faux fir, frolicking ovines,sweet South Hill stocking, tamarins aleaping, client file kindling, eight blue bulbs, cat-nipped Advent chocolate, one impromptu date night, reams of wrapping paper, tango shoes and shoe bags, four sock santas dancing, two moosies skiing, two cobalt bands, and a loris in a pear tree
Some day I'll grow up and get a tree of my own! Until then, I'll stack my gifts under my mom's and dad's tree (parceled out respectively for balance on our sequential celebrations). Aren't parents the ones who are supposed to live vicariously through their children? Ah well. I've had trees in Christmas pasts. Last year and in law school, my tree was made of construction paper and glittery nail polish, and a bit before that I had a coruscating fiber optic little tinsel thing that far out-did any lava lamp for sheer dazed staring pleasure. A little younger and I made a tree out of a spinning magazine rack and garlands.
This year, I very nearly pulled the trigger and bought a real tree. I do have ornaments, after all! And plenty of space. But I'm lazy. And I want the perfect tree. One I can store somewhere easily (yeah, as above, I'm lazy and a real tree defies laziness), decorate quickly, and which ages gracefully without too many trips to the collagen-specialist for a top-me-off. But I'll be a married lady next year, in addition to this whole professional thing, so I may be one step closer to being ready for a family... me, Mr. (W)right, and a tree. Pets might be pushing it a little bit.
On the fourteenth day of Sockmas, my true love gave to me... a small sporting goods store, one fulgent faux fir, frolicking ovines, sweet South Hill stocking, tamarins a leaping, client file kindling, eight blue bulbs, cat-nipped Advent chocolate, one impromptu date night, reams of wrapping paper, tango shoes and shoe bags, four sock santas dancing, two moosies skiing, two cobalt bands and a loris in a pear tree.
Finals week is officially over and Mr. (W)right is officially my roommate. He'll be up here for basically two weeks, immediately after which we'll be travelling together to San Francisco/Tahoe for another week so we'll be with each other non-stop FOR THREE WHOLE WEEKS... one of those small daunting dress rehearsals for that marriage thing in which we've decided to dabble circa 2013. Not that we don't both love each other to pieces and not that we're not thrilled to get all this time together for the first time since maybe last year's winter break, but for two introverts, my apartment is maybe a little bit small, so we'll maybe have some adjustment to do. In my ideal world, we would own two adjoining duplexes, with several slidable wall/doors that can connect our respective sides. I may be a bit of a hermit at heart, or at least recognize that I - like my darling - sometimes need my own cave to retreat to. Fortunately it's all worth it for those morning cups of coffee together. The excitement is already underway with my microwave going kaput, and my gleeful attack with a photo album of my baby years. My mom never had it in her to embarrass me, sensing that I'm enough of a grown up to take agency for those details myself: "SEEEEE, I WAS A REAAAAAAALLY REAAALLLY FAT BABY!!! Look at me, I'm eating the cutlery! (puffs out her cheeks and crosses here eyes) I'm even fatter in this picture!!"
In preparation for the fun to come, I've already started practicing at having mid-day naps, and he's brought plenty to entertain himself with while I'm at work. There's also a bike (only one, which is quite the show of restraint on his part) I expect bike-skiing down Mt. Baker in dance shoes by the end of the week! In the interim, there will be languid lapping of coffee and fuzzy warm things...
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| Snuggle, snuggle |
Yesterday, disaster struck hard and early: my long suffering microwave suffered my foolery no longer. It simply ceased to work in any way, shape or form. I'd known its days were numbered, given the high use cycle and its history as a displaced microwave at Andrew's monkey-house (4 roommates and mostly college aged). In some sense, I was at peace with the loss: it has been a steady microwave, but a bit too large and the "sensor" technology was more of an impediment to perfect cooking than a boon. In another sense: PANIC. I cookeverything in a microwave most nearly. I am the microwave gourmet. The absence of this device in my home returns me quite nearly to rubbing sticks together for kindling or eating small rodents from sticks in my mind. This is not to mention the fact that my microwave serves as the sole time keeper in the kitchen and living room area and I am quite dependent upon it.
The replacement was swift and decisive, involving a morning jaunt to Fred Meyer's. There were four options. Andrew and I agreed that one should never get the lowest price option. I actually considered it, but it was Lilliputian and best fit as a slightly more powerful Easy Bake Oven. And while the priciest one was pretty, it appeared to be pricier by virtue of including a toaster that I decidedly did not need. Then there were quibbles and queries about which of the two mid-range options I might want. I almost chose the cheaper of the two because it was smaller and appeared easier to carry to the check out. Andrew made some joke implying this shouldn't matter as I'd be asking him to carry it (sometimes I wonder if he's ever me or realizes how stubborn I am...). I'm not sure if this was the final push towards the larger one, although I suspect it had more to do with the fact that the user panel was friendlier. At any rate, I naturally insisted on carrying it up the stairs and into my apartment, although I relented (I'm getting soft in my old age) and let Andrew open the apartment door for me. The handles in the cardboard box were poorly fashioned and I still have sensitivity in my pinkie from some resulting nerve pinching, but by golly I have a microwave. And it appears to work quite nicely! All is right with the world again. I will not descend into anarchy or attempt to eat the neighbor's cat (all that fur... I'm sure the hairballs would be tremendous).
On the sixteenth day of Sockmas, my true love gave to me... mad milonga jollies, nifty new nuker, a small sporting goods store, one fulgent faux fir, frolicking ovines, sweet South Hill stocking, tamarins aleaping, client file kindling, cat-nipped Advent chocolate, one impromptu date night, eight blue bulbs, reams of wrapping paper, tango shoes and shoe bags, four sock santas dancing, two moosies skiing, two cobalt bands, and a loris in a pear tree...
Last night I hosted Tango Experience's Second Mauve Elephant Milonga. Geee, guess who came up with that idea? The conceit, of course, being something sort of like a white elephant exchange held in the mad anomie of a tango rush. Or, "Adella has lots of nice stuff that she wants to give to somebody but can't specify whom, so let's pretend that everybody is invited to bring a "gift" and take a gift from our table as an excuse for Adella to bring in arm-loads of her finest unwanted jewelry, clothing and cds." It's always fun to watch people dancing around in my dresses, frosted with my rhinestones by the end of the evening... it's like I'm infecting people. Little reindeer! Apropos of nothing, I am physically incapable of pronouncing mauve correctly. I try and then my mouth rebels and suddenly I'm saying "moooohwaaaaaaaaaviabieoooowouuuuuuuu"... just saying. But back to how the Adella virus spreads like a bad case of MERSA in a hospital, my friend Pam came to the event in her own socks and stilettos in my honor! Rudolph!
But I must speak of the media monkey meltdown that chewed up most of my day and left me eventually chained to the dj table all night (neither barefoot nor pregnant to my knowledge, at least) so that I could do the following highly sophisticated and artistic dj-ing tasks: pushing "pause" at the end of every song, counting to ten so that dancers could bask in the afterglow of a good dance, then pushing play to the next song would come at a more patient pace. Before anyone jumps in with advice, let me say, trust me we tried it all yesterday - crossfade wasn't on, the mp3 of silence I kept adding to my computer kept disappearing as if we were in a musical Bermuda triangle, and the script I downloaded to fix the lack of pauses between music worked great except for causing the player to skip every other song, and the fix for that just wouldn't work! Mr. (W)right was an inveterate trooper through some teary eyed moments and awkward "so we're going to do announcements while Andrew sees if... oh wait, we don't want to do announcements yet?? Um, ok ANDREW MOOOOOVE!!! WHY ISN'T IT PLAYING ANYMORE DEAR GOD WHY????" But once I resigned myself to sitting out and watching, the evening was quite nice. I did a pretty safe play list by relative terms - mostly old school tango - but I did get in some really pretty piano versions of Carol of the Bells, and Greensleeves for tango valses and my favorite Christmas Tango With Santa on top of my holiday cortinas (cortina = a snippet of non-tango music play in between sets of three to four like tango songs; literally "curtain" and meant to clear the dance floor so people can start the next group of tango songs with a new partner)
In other news, I found a pine green Rudolph night shirts to go over a red long sleeved number and my holiday socks, and then tied the shirt off with a festive sash. Since I'm fresh from the stylist, my hair is also defying gravity in a surprisingly coiffed "messy romantic curl" (so she said... I'd say more like "oh my god, my hair magically got all merrily petillant instead of aggressively frizzy, due to mere scrunching, coconut scented spray and an enormous hair dryer! Why it's a Christmas miracle!!"). Anyways, when I added my rain boots to the sashed t-shirt and flouncy hair, I did in fact look quite a lot like a pirate. A Christmas Pirate! You saw three ships come sailing in and one of them definitely was after Christmas booty (probably those gold foil chocolate coins; argh I could use a chest of those, if only they'd make those in dark chocolate).
While the persistent media monkey churlishness quite nearly ruined my night I came away with these things that made me smile: (1) my guy is a real sweetie who put up with my insanity, rode in on a technological white horse and attempted to battle an immortal hydra of media problems, and hung out with his not so charming fiance for the rest of the evening instead of hiding in the room with all the cakes and sweets, (2) I have infected half of the tango community with my sparkly shinies and all the ladies were dew-dropped in glimmer, (3) I have a tango sock sister! (4) all said, I really liked my set. So merriment abounds!
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Follow the days of Sockmas to that loris:
Days 5-10
Days 1-5
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