Fall break

Thanksgiving vacation is a little early this year -- we have a full week of November after the holiday. Nevertheless, Rocket Boy wants to put the Christmas tree up while he's here. I disapprove of putting up the tree so early, but maybe I'll give in. It would be nice not to have to do it myself after he goes back to St. Louis. We'll see. The problem is that we put up the tree on the card table where he keeps his suitcases when he's here (in this photo, the suitcases are covered by a blanket, which the cat is sitting on). So then where will the suitcases go? What do we normally do at Christmas time? I've forgotten.

OK, I just looked back at pictures from previous Christmases and there is no sign of Rocket Boy's suitcases in the living room. So we must keep them in our tiny, crowded bedroom. Lovely. I can see why I might have blocked out that memory.

I swore last year that I was never going to put up the old Christmas tree again, the 50+-year-old falling apart tree from RB's youth. So, before Thanksgiving, I found a tree online and sent Rocket Boy the link -- "what do you think of this one?" He didn't respond, so I nagged him about it on the phone. 

"What about the tree in the basement?" he asked.

"What tree in the basement? I SAID I don't want to put up the old tree again."

"No, it's some other tree, I don't remember where we got it."

I disbelieved in the existence of this other tree until Rocket Boy arrived on Thursday, went down in the basement, and brought it up. Oh, that tree. We got it at McGuckin's -- but when and why? Fortunately, my old blog gave me the answer: in 2015 our regular tree was mysteriously missing a part (a part? what part?) so we rushed off to McGuckin's and got a new tree, which we apparently only put up that year. In 2016 there is a note saying that the new tree could not be found, so RB fixed the old tree. And we've gone on using the old tree until last year, when I said NO MORE.

In 2016, we rented the house next door to our neighbors who still live there, and I vaguely remember some confusion about Christmas trees. We had been storing things in the garage of that house, and then they moved their stuff in, and some Christmas trees got mixed up... Anyway, something like that.

So we have a tree, a perfectly good tree, that's been either lost or in the basement or in the garage next door for the last almost-8 years. 

It's hard getting older and losing your memory. When I was younger I would not have forgotten about something as large as a fake Christmas tree. But my life is more complicated than it used to be, there's that. We have a lot more stuff than I used to have as a single person, and we also have a lot more places that stuff might get to. I probably should cut myself some slack.

Anyway, we have a tree.

***

Last week was a busy week, and the coming week promises to be busy too, with Rocket Boy here and the holiday. Fortunately, one planned event didn't happen -- he was supposed to get up on Friday morning and drive to Alamosa for an interview, but they wanted him there by 12:30, and he just wasn't sure he could get there in time. So they switched it to a Zoom interview. It lasted all of half an hour. I was very glad he didn't rent a car, drive 227 miles (4 hours) to Alamosa, stay overnight in a hotel, and then drive 227 miles (4 hours) back, with numerous side trips because that's what he does, for that. It seemed clear from the interview that he didn't have the qualifications they were looking for, though I was also struck, listening to it, by how much he knows.

Just watch him get this job. I am worried about it because back in 1997 when I was just about to give up on the academic job market, I got a tentative offer from Adams State, down in Alamosa. I turned it down, but a connection was made, somehow, and that makes me suspicious that I might have further business with Alamosa. It's like Ridgecrest. I made a memorable trip to Ridgecrest in 1979, and then we ended up moving there in 2009. 

***

I had a long honey-do list waiting for Rocket Boy when he arrived, but he's been checking off items like mad: fixed the light switch in the kids' room, fixed the vacuum cleaner plug, put in the new light bulbs underneath the microwave, changed out the screens on the doors for the glass. He likes to keep busy.

Today I asked him to look at my bar stool, that I sit on to eat breakfast, because it felt as though it were about to collapse. He discovered that both of our bar stools are disintegrating, due to very shoddy construction (we got them at Walmart using a wedding present gift certificate back in 2002, so they've probably outlived their useful life). He didn't feel they were worth fixing, so I found some nice-looking ones on Craigslist for $25, and he and Teen B are off to buy them right now, as I type.

In addition to fixing everything, he's also gotten sick, which pretty much always happens, but he's not TOO sick, no cellulitis yet, no trips to the ER, so we're OK. Just a cold. Teen B has a cold, too, so that means Teen A and I will probably be next. It's OK, it's the holidays, people get sick.

I have to think about how to manage the week ahead. I'll do my normal shopping tomorrow (Monday) and get most of the food for Thanksgiving. I'll probably do a second shopping on Tuesday and get the swordfish then. I would normally get it on Wednesday, but we're thinking of doing a cabin trip on Wednesday because that looks like the best weather. So we'll come home tired Wednesday night and then get up bright and early on Thursday and do all the cooking. It's doable, except that I'll try to make the cranberry sauce on Tuesday, to have that out of the way. 

The idea is to have a traditional holiday celebration without making too much of a big deal about it. Rocket Boy wants to DO stuff, fun stuff, not just sit at home getting ready. So I have to be flexible and agree to go out and about, do fun stuff and all that. At the same time, I know everyone would feel weird if we didn't have a traditional Thanksgiving, so I have to make that happen too. It's doable. It is. I've cooked enough Thanksgiving dinners in my life -- I know how to do it, even if I am tired and sick. One foot in front of the other.

The new bar stools have arrived! Here is Baby Kitty sitting on one. I think they're very nice looking. The black metal doesn't really go with our kitchen "decor," but the brown seats fit in fine -- and really, nothing in our kitchen matches anything else, so it doesn't matter. And, you know, heck, for $25, what's to complain about?

I have to leave in a few minutes to take Teen A to get a haircut. It's a new person, we've never been there before. He has an appointment with our regular hairdresser, Melisa, but it's not until December 2nd (she's very popular and busy), and he didn't want to wait that long. He's been begging me to find someone else. So finally last night I went online and found a single appointment available today. So we're going. I hope this new person does a good job.

Beyond that, not much else to say. We're enjoying Rocket Boy's visit, though it always takes a little time to adjust. He always walks in and moves the dish soap to the left side of the sink (I like it on the right side). He gets his rubber gloves out from under the sink (I don't use rubber gloves). He closes all the windows and sets the fan in my car to 0. I go around re-opening the windows and moving the fan setting to 1. We go back and forth about these things the whole time he's here.

Sometimes I think, what on earth am I going to do when he finally moves back permanently? I guess the answer is that I will compromise on some things and not on others. We'll work it out. Marriage is a compromise, and living apart so much the last four years we've been able to let those compromises slide. It would be worth it to have him back -- I'd be willing to bend on some things. Not everything, though. The dish soap definitely belongs on the right.