Most Wonderful Time

And we're off!  Now it is just a footrace to Christmas.  Yes, Christmas.  When you hear a Black person on tv say "community," you know what they mean.  Community was a very important component in surviving hatred and prejudice.  I understand it.  I, too, have "community."  In some places, the vectors of community overlap.  In others, they don't.  I like Christmas.  I think Kwanza is fine and I'm all for Chanukah, too.  Once, when I asked my Indian book rep if he believed in God, he very excitedly told me, "Yes. . . I believe in God.  I believe in all the Gods!"  How wonderful, I thought.  What an opportunity.  Our little chats have had an outsized effect on my own world view.  So yea. . . I like it when my "community" overlaps with others.  I'll celebrate them all.  

But I like Christmas.  Oh. . . not so much the religious one but the Santa Clause one and the ones I saw as a child in Christmas specials.  

This week has been Christmassy on the Boulevard.  Thursday carols, last night the lighting of the tree, and this morning the local Christmas Parade.  It is a big draw now since Gotham quit having theirs.  They got WOKE.  I preferred things before GPS and iPhones let everyone find the Boulevard, but now my own hometown is like a free version of Disney--only it is authentic, not made of fiberglass, styrofoam, and plastic.  So now the cruise ship lands every Saturday and the hoi-polloi come in from the outskirts where they live near shopping centers and strip malls and all the retail outlet stores built on humongous parking lots, the kind of shitty existence that developers and corrupt politicians have given them, to  mill about a real village from the past when people lived near Main Street.  Such places exist here, usually a day's hike, or about twenty miles, from one another.  Some of them have been ruined by economic forces and, again, corrupt politicians, but they are struggling hard to make a comeback.  My hometown, however, is small and has remained, by and large, intact.  Piece by piece and day by day, though, politicians and developers chip away at the very fabric that made it special.  There is nothing to be done, I think, if history is to be our guide.  Just look at what happened to The Last Paradise, Key West.  I watched that over the decades.  People tried to stop it, but where there is profit, there will be pain.  Let me recommend something to you if you do not understand--Milton's "Paradise Lost."  Yea, I know, it sound odious and not a lot of fun, but you should try it and see.  It is--trust me--a horrible delight.  You'll come away with a different perspective and more insight into life after reading it.  

They don't call it a classic just because it's old.  

I've gotten lost in the weeds, though.  What I meant to say is that I enjoyed the Christmas Parade on the Boulevard when I could walk down and get a seat in a sidewalk breakfast joint and see all my friends from the Friday night before telling tales of adventure and daring.  There would be Betsy, the little rich girl who drove the gold Mercedes convertible her daddy bought her when she graduated from high school still wearing last night's dress, a cup of coffee in her hand, looking like she had just fallen off the pages of Vogue magazine. 

Etc.  

Today, you'll get elbowed out of the way by some hillbilly with six grubby kids picking up candy off the sidewalk that some passing paraders were throwing to the crowd.  

I had decided to go to the parade in the Farmer's Market town to take photos, but I know now that I won't.  I'm tied by the apron strings to my mother's needs all morning long.  2025?  Oh. . . I missed that.  How was it?  

My nerves are shot through with it this morning, though.  I am peevish.  I just want to live my own life for a bit.  I miss it.  

Yesterday, I had to run umpteen hundred errands for mama.  She broke her new glasses.  She needed her prescriptions refilled.  I needed to find some gifts for her birthday and Christmas.  I needed to get groceries for dinner.  I hit every corner of the county.  

One of my stops was to the art supply store.  They sell Maison Berger lamps.  "Lampe Berger."  I didn't know a thing about Berger lamps, but I saw a full wall of them last time I went for art supplies.  I used The Google to find that they were "invented in 1898 to purify hospital air, that uses a special burner to eliminate odors and perfume the home by destroying odor-causing molecules and releasing pleasant fragrances through catalytic combustion, creating a fresh, clean scent without an open flame after an initial lighting. It's known for its stylish designs, which range from classic to contemporary, and its dual function of air purification and home fragrance."

So I went back yesterday to look again.  I walked straight back to the long wall of lamps to see, but I couldn't figure things out.  How did they work?  There were twenty or thirty fragrances and dozens of different styles of lamps.  I walked back to the counter and asked the store manager if there was anyone who could give me a Berger tutorial.  He pulled down a lamp from behind the counter and gave me the lesson.  What I hadn't seen because they were stored inside the box was the wick.  It was easy. You fill the lamp with oil and put the wick inside.  You let it soak up oil for a bit, then you light the wick and let it burn for a couple of minutes.  Then you put it out.  But it stays hot and keeps releasing the oils until you put the top back on.  

I went to the wall and chose a style and an oil.  I was excited until he rang it up.  

$100!  Cha-ching.  

"This is just the thing I need," I said.  "I'm going to start doing surgeries in my home."

His eyes popped at that.  

"I don't know if that's a good idea," he said, uncertain.  

"Oh no, I've read up on it.  As long as you keep things sterile, and this lamp should really help, minor surgeries can certainly be done at home." 

He looked at me a little cockeyed. 

"No, don't worry. . . I'm just doing ear piercings and small tattoos."  

When I go home, I am going to try it out.  If I like it, I am going to give them as Christmas gifts.  

"To whom?"

I only have my mother to buy for.  But truthfully, I don't think she would like it.  She's afraid to turn on the ceiling fans.  "My sinuses won't take it," she says.  She comes from the old ways.  

When I got back to mother's last night, I made boiled shrimp and yellow rice with peas and chopped olives.  Oh, the rice was really good, but the shrimp had no flavor at all.  I bought fresh caught in the wild shrimp, or so it said, but they must have been bait shrimp from the tackle store.  Seriously bland.  

Santa will bring up the rear of the parade today.  He always does, he and Mrs. Clause.  I will be on the Boulevard later today, I guess, to buy some coupe glasses I saw and desired.  I can always find presents for me, of course, but I need to figure out something for mother.  All the women I've ever known were great at picking out lots of special gifts.  I am not, and I end up buying one BIG gift and spending too much money because it is much, much, much easier.  I'm a "Here's a toaster," kind of giver.  It has been a source of grief for me often.  

Did I say I loved Christmas?  I hate it.  I like everything that leads up to it.  Christmas Day, however. . . I can do without.  

And so. . . it is time to begin the sprint.  Love love love and ho ho ho.  Yesterday, the disparate kids from the factory picked up an old group chat sending photos of the snow where they lived now, Minnesota, Virginia, Illinois. . . .  

They love their Winter Wonderlands.  Falalala.  

It's the most wonderful time of the year.