Merry Christmas Eve

This has been a funny day, stomach troubles again, but despite that a good day, a calm, pleasant day. We started off with snow -- a light snow, but it kept going until noon or so, so we got a few inches. Nothing to cause problems -- the streets melted quickly. But pretty, and very Christmassy, especially since I read that very few people in America were going to have a white Christmas this year.

It's been warm for several days, so it's nice to get a little cold weather, a little snow. And then it will warm up again on Tuesday and probably be nice for the rest of Rocket Boy's visit.

He arrived Friday night, as planned, a little later than planned (just after 8 pm), but we always expect that he will be late, so we weren't worried. I had made bean & cheese quesadillas, a very easy dish, and had just popped it in the oven a few minutes before he arrived. I'll never get anything that perfectly timed ever again.

We spent Saturday doing errands -- Boulder Bookstore for calendars, Safeway for gift cards for the twins, and Trader Joe's for this and that. I was having stomach troubles again, and even though I went before we left, I was still doubled over with cramps for much of the trip. I kept looking around me at the other people in the stores, thinking of what it would be like to go Christmas shopping without constantly worrying that you might have an accident. Then I wondered how many of the people around me were having the same problem. It's not the sort of thing you announce to the world (unless you have a blog).

We gave cookies to the neighbors to the west and then went to Longmont to give Rocket Boy's brother his plate of cookies and King Soopers gift card. I kept reminding myself about that gift card, over the past month, but had I bought it? No, of course not. So we went to the King Soopers in Longmont right before we went to RB's brother's apartment and got it.

RB's brother Ralph lives in what would be a pleasant apartment, if someone else were living in it, but because he lives there it's pretty squalid. He doesn't have furniture, really, except for a chair that he sits on to talk on the phone (he only has a home phone, no cell, no internet access at all). Cardboard boxes line the walls (he keeps all his things in them). I think maybe he has a desk, but he doesn't use it as a desk, just puts boxes on it. He has a bed in the bedroom (it's a 1-bedroom apartment). Everything is very dusty. He's not allowed to smoke inside anymore, but he burns incense, so the whole place smells of incense. There were no Christmas decorations of any sort. 

He seemed pleased to get the cookies and gift card, and called us today to thank us again. His gifts to us were several pamphlets about "Krishna" which he particularly wanted RB to read, and several Daily Camera supplements which he saves for me. I get all those supplements too, of course, and I usually toss them, but Ralph insists on giving his copies to me and I've learned to just say thank you. One of them was about the Denver Broncos and Rocket Boy spoke up and said "I don't think we need something about the Broncos," but I shushed him and accepted the whole stack.

Giving things to Ralph feels a little like giving things to a homeless person, because he would be homeless if his mother hadn't managed to get him on disability when he was in his 20s (he's 71 now). He has Medicaid -- well, it must be Medicare now -- I'm not sure -- and he takes his meds regularly, and he's not much trouble to anyone. (Well, OK, he's a little trouble to us, but it's OK.)

We had dinner at Aunt Alice's restaurant in Longmont and somehow managed to be some of the last people in the restaurant, even though it was only 6:30 or so when we got there. Maybe it was 7. I wasn't really paying attention. I was a little nauseated and almost everything on the menu made my stomach turn, so I had a yogurt-granola parfait (they do breakfast all day). Teen A's omelet came with pancakes and I ended up eating his pancakes too. 

On the way home in the car (I was driving) I sang some Christmas songs, including "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" and "Last Christmas." The twins complained so much that I turned on the radio instead (the Christmas station, KOSI) which obligingly played "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" and "Last Christmas," so of course I sang along. Then it played "The 12 Days of Christmas" sung by (perhaps) Perry Como, and I sang along to that too. By the time we got home, the twins were ready to murder me. But it was fun.

Today I felt OK when I first got up, but soon the nausea took over and I ended up going back to bed. Later, though, I felt better -- ate some breakfast, went to the grocery store with Rocket Boy and Teen B, took cookies to our neighbor to the east. We spent $35 on a big piece of salmon, but it's OK -- it's Christmas. I think a roast would have cost more.

After resting for a while longer, I managed to cook dinner. We had my sister Barbara's Christmas potato dish (a delicious concoction made with two kinds of condensed soup), rolls, cranberry sauce, salmon done a new way (I printed out four recipes from the NY Times cooking section and chose one -- we have the other half of the salmon to cook tomorrow and I'm going to try a different recipe on it), and sparkling cider. Teen A was done with his food before I'd had more than a couple of mouthfuls of mine, but it was fine. I told them about Christmas Eve dinner when I was growing up -- the long table, the bowls of crab and the empty bowls that quickly filled up with shells -- but I think only Rocket Boy was listening.

I wanted to watch a Christmas movie after dinner, listed off all the DVDs we have -- "We could watch "A Christmas Carol," or "Love, Actually," or "The Santa Clause," or "Meet Me in Saint Louis," or..." -- but nobody else did, so we ended up watching some holiday episodes of "Odd Squad," the PBSKids show that the kids always liked (and still do). We munched on delicious Christmas cookies (Teen A said to me, "Mom, next year could you make twice as many sugar cookies?") and watched the Advent candles burn, all four of them plus the Christmas Eve candle.

My intestines are killing me right now, but at least the pain is on the right side this time, so it isn't diverticulitis. It's too-much-rich-food-itis, probably.

I'm lucky to have my family. I'm happy tonight. And tomorrow we have stockings and presents and more cookies and another big dinner, and somewhere in there I'll probably have a few naps. I've truly forgotten what all I bought for everyone (well, I remember some things, but some of the packages I pulled out of my closet tonight were mystifying), so it will be fun to watch people open them. Also, because I bought them a few weeks ago, I've already paid off my credit card, so that's nice too. 

Christmas with teenagers is different, but it's nice. All the years with the twins have been nice. And with Rocket Boy. I am very lucky. Happy Christmas.