El Burro Volador

Christmas has come and gone once more, this time in the midst of a torrent of wrack and ruin.  Still, the day itself provided some uplifting moments which were badly needed to keep up morale.

Speaking of morale, I’d like to digress for a moment.  The other day I posted about Merlyn’s diagnosis.  I had been putting on a brave face for ‘Bekah, and hadn’t really let myself react to the news emotionally until I had slipped away the next morning and was sitting in front of the computer.  I had myself a good cry as I wrote that post, and quite a bit of emotion got into it.  Now, I am unlikely to be mistaken for an old-school man’s man, but I was raised to keep my feelings to myself in true tough-guy fashion, and I am a little ashamed that I had my vulnerable  moment on the internet in front of literally thousa…well, hundr…umm… several people (if my traffic stats are to be believed).  Some good has come of it, however.  Someone I have never met before came to the site, I can only assume by flagging or searching for “Waldenstrom’s”, and left a comment on that post which did a lot to move me past the “shock and despair” phase of the process.  Thanks again, Fionna.

‘Bekah and I began our Christmas Day by finishing our advent calendar, a tradition to which she introduced me during our first holiday season together.  Then it was time for me to finish Merlyn’s belated birthday present, on which I went a little crazy to make up for being about half a year late with it.  Then it was over to the Paulson house for Christmas Morning.

Apart from her other qualities, Rebekah’s mother is one of those moms who have a mania about Christmas going according to some private plan, which makes things tense around the Tree at the best of times.  This led to the bizarre situation of Christmas being more relaxed in many ways with Phoebe absent in a rehabilitation center.  There are few people more low-key, genuine, and just plain good than ‘Bekah, Merlyn, and Abbey, and we had a pretty nice time.  It was kind of a bittersweet glimpse of the mellow Christmases that might have been (or might yet be?).

The general levity of the situation was increased considerably by your humble scribe, who was in rare form.  For example, Rebekah received a pair of seriously effective binoculars as a gift.  Now, I have never cared much for binoculars, on the principle that anything too far away to see should probably just be left alone.  But ‘Bekah seemed to get a big kick out of looking through them, so I asked if I might take a gander as well.  I took my glasses off before she handed me the binoculars, and when I held them up to my eyes they improved my vision some, but nothing like ‘Bekah had experienced, so I said something non-committal and handed them back.  As ‘Bekah continued to describe what she could see through them, however, I began to have the horrible suspicion that I had looked through the wrong end of the damn things.  I asked for another chance, checked carefully before I took my specs off this time, and when I put the binocs to my eyes I was astounded at the difference.  I admitted my mistake to general amusement, but I wasn’t done there.

A short while later I saw a flash of reddish fur among the shrubbery in the back yard.  Knowing that the Paulson yard is haunted by foxes, I pointed and exclaimed “Ooh, fox!”  When we all turned to look, however, it quickly became apparent that what I had seen was the reddish tail of a big brown squirrel.  I felt like one of ‘Bekah’s students, holding up a triangular block and proudly saying “Circle!”

Ah, well, as we burros say: you can’t be a donkey without making an ass of yourself sometimes.

After Christmas at the Paulson’s we headed over to Greeley for the Ross-Lee Christmas.  This was, I think, a tremendous success.  It didn’t hurt that Mom and Bryan masterminded the whole thing, and that they are so good at staging get-togethers that they could easily make a profession of it.  It was like being inside a giant group hug for four hours (metaphorically, of course; actual group hugs tend to be really awkward and break up as soon as they are allowed to).  I never would have thought, as an angsty, rebellious adolescent, that some day hanging out with my family this way would be my idea of utter bliss.

What an exhausting week.  In Hell on Tuesday, Heaven on Thursday, and back to the sulfur mines three-quarters of an hour from now…