Campfyre Stories

This was both one of the most traumatic and one of the most wonderful holidays ever.  Though the overall stress level was exceptionally high (because of non-holiday family issues - ask for password), the holiday stress was less than usual.

I have the opportunity to reconnect with some family members that I haven’t really seen in years (one of them over 20 years) and while the circumstances aren’t great, the end result is a good thing.

Solstice/Christmas loot was the best ever, not just for me - heh.  But it’s bittersweet when you take the entirety of the circumstances.

I really needed this Christmas to have as little holiday-themed drama as possible, and I think I got that, so for that we are grateful.  We’ve also had a bit of what feels like Christmas miracle (or something), so that’s good, too.

But I’m very tired, and I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon.

I’m starting to think, though, that Christmas hates me.  Heh.

I’m not done shopping.  I have one more trip to make, but I know exactly what I’m getting and where, so that’s something anyway.

I have mall-phobia to some degree.  I don’t like to go to the giant mall because it makes me angry and claustrophobic, so I go to the smaller mall, which is expanding (and what that will bring, I do not know).  Usually this is a good thing.  It means that there are fewer people and shorter lines and I am all about that.  This time, however, because of the expansion going on, it meant that there was ONE bathroom in the entire mall that was open…  well, not even, because it was closed for cleaning.  ARGH!

No, seriously, why would you work it out so that there is ONE bathroom available to the patrons of the MALL?  A week before Christmas?  WTF?  Whose brilliant idea was this?

Lack of foresight and planning.  It’s everywhere.  I took Spawn to the mall to do his shopping and we went to Friendly’s for an early dinner.  I have a lot of patience with restaurants - especially when it’s busy, but there is NO excuse for making us wait 20 minutes to order, get one order wrong, wait another 20 minutes for the right food to come out and then never bring our dessert.  I think the manager was shocked that I actually answered him when he asked me "How was everything?"  Not with the terse "Fine" that everyone else offered, but with "I am extremely disappointed with the service and your kitchen staff needs to pay better attention."

Don’t ask me questions you don’t want the answers to.

Just a handful of things I need to wrap up this week.  I’m trying to focus, but it’s hard to not be scattered.  It’s also hard to have so many things that I’m supposed to focus on and not really have the time or energy to focus on any of them the way I need to.

Christmas hates me.

Those of you who know me IRL probably already know what’s going on. Those of you who don’t, well, you’ll have to ask. Suffice it to say that things are really rough right now and some of my blogging is going to become significantly more personal. As such I have decided that I will be using password protection on some of my more personal posts as they are not for the general public’s consumption.

Please don’t think that you’re not welcome to know. Most people certainly are, but you have to ask - once. The password will be the same for all the protected posts, as will the category and topic. Further, because of the nature of the topic, most (if not all) of the protected posts will have comments disabled.

Since I blog as a journal, there are things that I need to write about for me. If you don’t want to read it, I understand fully, but if you do, just ask.

‘Tis the season…  I suppose.  To be completely honest, I haven’t really been feeling it this year.  I think part of it has to do with the craptakular week (and not-so-fabulous month) that I’ve been having, but also the weather isn’t very seasonal.  With the exception of 3-4 days, it’s been pretty warm and for upstate NY, that’s not right for December.  Also, my situation means that I’m not inundated with the city’s decor and publicly blasting the Christmas tunes.  I thought I’d be happy about it, but I think I miss that piece - it helps to get me into the spirit of things.

I don’t see as many decorated houses as I thought I would.  Every time I hear the radio announce XX more days ’til Christmas, I’m shocked.  I also hadn’t started my holiday shopping until pretty much yesterday.  Yes, I know, I have, like, 9 days to do all of this.  I am aware.  (And, actually, I only have about 7, so leave me alone, I am aware).  I saw two things this week, while riding the bus, that brought me back to the holiday season.  It was a reminder that the goodwill toward man(kind) does come out in stronger force this time of year.

The first was a little old lady.  She was a tiny, frail-looking thing who got on the bus and asked "Where does this bus go?"  The bus driver told her and she seemed satisfied with the answer.  A few miles down the road the driver went over to the little old lady to try to find out where she needed to get off. 

She was a little confused.  She couldn’t explain where she lived other than to give her address, which was a street no one had heard of.  It turned out (after calling in to the dispatch) that she was on the wrong bus.  So he took her as close to where she was going as his route allowed and then, as he escorted her off the bus to the bus stop, he explained to her that his supervisor was going to come and pick her up.  It was too far to walk so "stay here" (he sat her on a bench in a bus shelter) and this supervisor would drive her home.

I found that really sweet.  No one seemed to mind that we were a little delayed in getting wherever we all were going, it was nice to see that this little old lady was being taken care of. 

The second thing happened last night and it was a really touching thing.  Three boys got on the bus with their aunt.  They were on their way to see Monsters, Inc on Ice.  They were just being boys, pushing and jostling, complaining about how there were no seats when they looked up and saw their dad.  The little one, who was 4, there aren’t any good words for this…  his entire face lit up in that blissful joy that you only see on little kids.  He ran to his dad, threw his arms around him and pretty much attached himself.  The eldest, 14, sat next to dad and chatted his ear off.  The middle one was somewhere between 6-8 y/o and was apparently too cool to focus on dad, but was still happy to see him.

These boys were thrilled at the chance to see their father for the half-hour or so they were on the bus.  It was completely unexpected on all their parts, which I think made it all the more special for them.  I wasn’t eavesdropping - when people are in a public place and shouting across aisles and over people, it ceases to be eavesdropping because you can’t NOT overhear them.

Finish Reading »

I think I was 12 when I "discovered" Stephen King and tried to read everything he had written.  It wasn’t until I was older, though, and the unabridged version was released that I was actually able to make it through The Stand.  For some reason, I was never able to read the original version, but I couldn’t put the unabridged version down.

So why am I talking about this?  I saw a guy on the bus this morning reading The Stand and one of the first things I thought was "wrong time of year".  See, whenever I would (re)read that book, I would wind up getting , at the least, the sniffles, at the worst, full-blown flu.  Every.  Damn.  Time.  It got to the point where I just had to stop reading the book.  And somewhere in the past couple of years my box of Stephen King books went missing, so it’s not even really an option anymore.

Anyway, I was just about to say something about his timing with that particular book when I noticed him sniffling pretty badly.  And coughing a little.  And I remembered that I’m not the only one who would get sick upon reading that book.  I can think of numerous people who run into that same problem, some to the extent where they had to stop reading entirely and took their time reading the book only when they were healthy.

This guy was entranced in the book, though, and not *too* far in yet.  I figure he’ll follow the same pattern that so many of us have where he gets the full-blown flu another couple chapters in.  Oh well, I hope he agrees with me that the book is worth it.  Heh.

This is a new development, but in the past 6 or so months, I have had many encounters with Mexicans.  Some of them speak excellent English - the ones that I work with and don’t have face-to-face interaction with, but the ones I have met in person do not speak English much at all.

Yesterday, Spawn and I went to do some laundry.  I noticed, when we first got there that one of the washers in the front of the laundromat had overflowed and there was a flood in the front.  I avoided those mega-washers, but I noticed that there was a guy who seemed to be watching one of the mega-washers.  I didn’t realize at first that it was the one that flooded.

In fact, it wasn’t until my clothes were in the dryer that a man came up to me.  "Can you help them?  They don’t speak English - I don’t speak much English, but I understand it.  They don’t know what to do."  Turns out, the mega-washer wouldn’t unlock and this poor guy had been sitting there for HOURS trying to get his clothes out of the washer.  We all looked at the washer with the one guy who understood English and spoke Spanish, but there was nothing we could do.  I called the number and left a message, but there wasn’t much else to do, really.

But here were these poor guys who didn’t want to leave without the clothes (and, really, do you blame them?).  It was getting later and later and the laundromat closes at 11pm.  The service number is a voice mail box that doesn’t even ring - it’s just straight to leave a message, and they don’t speak any English.  I can’t just leave them.

So I find the form that you put on the broken washers and patiently, slowly try to explain what information needs to be filled out by THEM, so that I can fill out the form, explain the issue and indicate clearly to the mystery person who reads these that not only does this guy want his clothes, no one speaks English at the phone number/address.  Heh.

I think they understood enough of what I was saying.  We were all trying to communicate and I think that we did ok.  Spawn has taken some 3 years of elementary school Spanish and refused to help, so even little things like "11 pm" could have been translated, but the 13 year old refused, choosing instead (I kid you not) to fold the laundry while I muddled my way through this conversation (such as it was).

Right before we left, I tried to tell them that the first translator guy mentioned that there’s a man who comes to the laundromat in the morning.  That they could try coming in around 7 am when they open and maybe the guy could help them.  This morning, on my way to the bus, I walked past the laundromat and saw that the clothes were no longer trapped in the washer, but also, not anywhere to be seen.  I do hope those guys got their clothes back.  It’s one thing to not speak the dominant language in an area, but I can’t imagine having a crisis like that without being able to readily communicate the problem.  I feel for them, you know, but I also think that of the three guys I "met", at least one of them understood English better than the others.  They say that the best way to learn a foreign language is to immerse yourself in it.  I really hope, for their sake, that they jump in with both feet and try to learn it, though I can understand that surrounding yourself with people who speak your language probably makes you feel safe.

It would be too bad if they missed this opportunity.  I always think that the universe is trying to tell me something when I run into a crisis of that magnitude.

But I think we did ok.  Maybe we didn’t speak the same language, but I do feel like we were all able to communicate.  Broken, though it was, I was able to offer a little assistance.  Whether or not it did any good, I don’t know if I’ll ever find out, but I hope it did and I wish them well…