Christmas and Beer Guts and Shawls, Oh MY!

Sadly, my gleeful Christmas spirit appears to have suddenly ossified and fallen down from around my shoulders, landing on the wooden floor with a loud thud. I miss it so! I’m not quite sure what to attribute this sudden weather change to (grammar mangling alert). Is it because I had to go back to work today? Because there are so many people in my life this holiday season that I am missing? Because there are too many horrible drivers on the road, even on Christmas? I wish I knew. I have been cranky in a dazzling kind of way all day long. Cranky and whiny, although the whining (and even most of the crankiness) was exclusively internal, so nobody else suffered, that I’m aware of.

Well, with that introduction, let me tell you about a few moderately disturbing things I encountered on the way home from my very short stint at work today. Things weren’t too bad (not counting aforementioned horrible drivers) until I was only a few blocks from home. Then, all of a sudden, without any warning whatsoever, and in plain daylight, my eyes were assaulted in a most unkind fashion. There, on the corner of Adams Avenue and 32nd Street, was a man waiting to cross the street–with a HUGE beer belly and wearing a tight white t-shirt. Tucked in. He was not an all-around fat guy; he just had an enormous gut. It was a truly distressing sight–it looked like the distended belly of a drowned and bloated animal. Enough said. I’m sorry if this is upsetting you, but you know, it's just not fair that I should be the only one with this horrible vision emblazoned onto the backs of my eyelids.

The other thing wasn’t a visual disturbance, but just an incredible example of genes that won’t last long in the pool. A mere half block from my house, just as I was about to get into the left turn lane, this guy zooms out of nowhere and cuts off the car in front of me. Really fast. On a motorcycle. A death wish? So soon after Christmas? Granted, the people he pulled in front of were the old folks whom I had been following at a glacial pace for many blocks, and who couldn’t maintain a high enough speed to do any harm whatsoever to any living thing should they actually manage to run into it. Still, he pulled right in front of them. That’s just not nice to do to old people.

Oh, heck, I suppose there are more things that were unpleasant today, but why go over them all? Lane change! Nice things happened to me once I got home. First of all, my lovely Christmas lights were on and waiting for me, all purple and white and sparkly and cheery. I just put them up this morning; I hadn’t felt well enough to deal with them sooner and then I was gone the last two days. It’s all right that they missed Christmas Day–I’m planning on leaving them up until at least May or so. They really are very pretty-the purple ones are those new extra-intense LED lights, and they are a lovely compliment to the sparkly clear ones.

And then I had to go out to my car to get something, and two of my next door neighbors were talking at the foot of my steps. Kerry and Carolyn were admiring Carolyn's new shawl, and then Kerry said she had one for me, too, and she ran upstairs and brought me this gorgeous silk and pashmina wool shawl! It’s beautiful. It's incredibly warm and lightweight and soft, and makes me look a lot more elegant than I really am. She had one for each of the three of us who happened to be wandering through the courtyard tonight. She had put a lot of thought into it--each one was a different color scheme, and she knew which colors we each preferred or wore a lot. I have such wonderful neighbors! This is why I never want to move out of this complex. We give each other presents and fudge and cookies. We have long impromptu talks in the courtyard. We all know each others’ cats’ names. We help each other carry heavy things upstairs. We go out to get coffee or carouse in bars together. The best thing is simply that almost every single person in this complex is generous and friendly and a pleasure to live near. I am so lucky! Hey, I think my Christmas spirit just came back to life and is giving me a big goofy hug.