December 29th, 2008, a Monday

Here it is after Christmas and before New Year's.  I' m glad Christmas is over, and sad Christmas is over, and filled with even more big plans for completely reinventing myself before the new year begins.  Doesn't it make you want to clean out your closet, and your drawers, and old e-mails, and voice mails and start fresh?  Even though you know it can't last and before long you will be buried right back under all the same ole stuff?  But there is that whiff of fresh air, fresh thinking that really wakes you up.  Starting over in a brand new year.  The possibilities are endless. 

Santa was good to me.  I got a Moon Goddess necklace, a hot pink wig from the Littlest Dutch Boy, and ten bucks in my stocking.  The cold, rainy weather was really Christmasy and all the lights are pretty and festive.  But it was also our first Christmas without Rusty and Jill, which made us very sad and left us feeling like we had a big hole in our hearts.  Jilly wasn't there to destroy the wrapping paper and the big cardboard rolls the paper comes on, shaking her head back and forth with her little growl going all the time.  How we miss those two.  I guess I just didn't realize when they were both alive, how much two family dogs and a little teddy bear have in common.  Something people just can't really understand.  They say we are not getting another dog.  And I think they believe it.  We'll see.  

We had some people over on Saturday night.  They were theatre people, friends from long ago.  It was funny to watch them get together, not like the usual crowd you would expect.  They love the camera, just light up when it comes their way.  One of the guests, a nice woman who smiled a lot, brought a camera and a printer and set it right up in the den.  She would take a few shots, go in and print them, and show them around.  She always made enough copies for everyone in the photo.  When they left at the end of the evening, they had their photos to take with them, like a present.  It made everyone really happy, and her especially it seemed.  The video camera came out when they gathered around the piano to sing.  They started with Christmas carols but it wasn't long before they were performing Broadway show tunes.  One right after another.  The Impossible Dream, Oh What a Beautiful Morning, Mame, If Ever I Would Leave You, and my personal favorite, Try To Remember.  (One of them recalled how their friend got cast in that show, the Fantastics, in New York and when they went to see her, they got to have dinner after the show with the two fellows who wrote that wonderful song.) They knew almost all the words and even when they didn't, they just kept singing and smiling and swaying, even dancing occasionally.  One of them didn't join in the singing, but sat in the big chair by the fireplace quietly enjoying the show.  Every now and then he would say, "I love seeing this, this is great".  He had such a look of contentment and joy on his face.  When the party finally broke up and everyone went out into the cold, there were hugs and kisses and promises of future gatherings.  I guess it's true what they say that there's no people like show people.  I hope they all come back.  They might be the kind of people who could accept me.  Maybe next time I could sing along with them.  I know all the words, too.

The Little Dutch Boy went North for snowboarding and there was four feet of snow at our little cedar house.  He came flying down from the tip top of the mountain in eleven below weather and never stopped when he got to the bottom, jumping the stairs that lead into the park and snowboarding right to his truck in the back of the parking lot.  People were running after him yelling "hey, you can't do that" but he said he had always wanted to.  Conditions were just perfect this time.  Snowboarders are such rebels, you know.  So he was happy.

The Littlest Dutch Boy shot the last Cardinals game of the season yesterday.  One of the big catches happened right in front of him in the corner of the end zone.  He changed cameras while the long pass was in the air and got the shot.  So he was happy.

The Dutchman finally got to have a quiet night in his favorite chair.  So he was happy.

I just can't wait to see what happens next year.  Can you?