Displaced - Emma Carlson

I’ve been on a quest of late to find A. the best fire engine, short of getting her a real one, which, let’s face it, we just don’t have the parking space for at our current place. It’s making me really re-think the decision not to buy that firehouse last year. That would’ve been the perfect 4.5-million-dollar solution to our 25-dollar problem.

I found what seemed like a decent FDNY truck at a toy store last week but decided to check it out on Amazon to see what reviewers said before anteing up.

Good thing. The description sounded dangerous.

Irrelevant, but dangerous:

“This 3 piece skewer set is ideal for creating delicious kabobs, roasting marshmallows for smores and cooking hot dogs right on the grill. Each skewer has a wood handle with metal finish. Comes packaged on a blister card with hanging hole. Measures 15” from end to end. Handle is 3 1/2” and skewer is 11 1/2”.”

I’m not an expert in either automotives or machinery, but I’m pretty sure a fire truck equipped with skewers isn’t all that safe. Or realistic. Athough I admit I might’ve missed the skewers the last time I saw one go by. Skewers can be pretty thin.

That aside, it strikes me as tactless to mention cooking smores and kabobs when people’s lives are at risk. That doesn’t send the right message to the youngsters, does it?

I checked back today to see if matters with our fire truck had improved.

They have.

“Add some color to the table with this bright and colorful placemat. Featuring a bright print of butterflies and flowers, this placemat is a nice compliment to the table that’s also easy to clean.”

Now the truck sounds pretty flat. But very cheerful. And not sharp. So that’s two steps forward to one step back.

I’m not sold yet, but I do like the product’s flexibility. Multi-purpose is the wave of the future right? It’s a floor wax AND a dessert topping!

From Teresa Wozniak. Nicely put.

You know that scene in horror movies where the idiot family who moved into the weirdly perfect house that inexplicably wouldn’t sell for years realizes officially that their place is damned? I don’t because I can’t watch horror movies and ever sleep again. But I assume that’s how it goes because I accidentally see the occasional preview. That’s what happens, right?

Well, on the anniversary of our moving into our very first house, that’s how it’s looking for us.

Except that I suspected something was wrong with the house - you know: on principle - before we bought it, so I haven’t been caught off guard like the Idiot Family. (Let’s hear it for paranoid low expectations!)

And it’s not haunted. And all in all it’s a pretty nice house.

But it does have

• A 100% half-assed heating system (if that’s mathematically and physiologically possible)
• A stove that was a.) mysteriously not updated when the rest of the kitchen was, and b.) periodically and without provocation stops working in a non-reproducible way.
• Something in or around it that causes our eyes to itch and water pretty much every day.

So it’s not really like those horror houses at all. Except that it’s a house.

And that last thing about our eyes, which is weird, right? It’s not like, “Aargh, I have a knife and live in your wall!” homicidal weird, but it is creeping weird, like, “How can I need eye drops when I’m not allergic to anything and this never happened at our old place fourteen blocks over?” weird. Which is a pretty specialized category of weird. And not that threatening, in itself. But then so is having your walls melt like in all those movies. So the “something sinister and eye-irritating lives in our air” thing + my totally normal, not at all paranoid suspicions = SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THIS HOUSE.

I wonder if we live on a radon fountain or if the ducts are lined with asbestos or if the place was built on some werewolf burial ground. I wonder if the previous family moved because they knew all these things and they stopped emailing me not because I wouldn’t quit asking very, very politely worded things about what the hell became of the keys to the back door if there ever were any, please? but because they knew about the radon fountain. I wonder these things OFTEN.

If there were a WebMD for houses, I would be on there all the time. I think our house has rickets. That’s a thing, right?

It’s Advent, as of last week, and, as usually directed in Advent sermons, I took a moment to pause and reflect. We are not regular church attendees but old habits die hard, especially when you’re not trying to rid yourself of them: I happen to like Advent.

Our holidays got off to a smooth start with Thanksgiving. We beat my basic criteria of, “No one died,” by quite a bit even though it involved me doing most of the cooking for eleven people. By all accounts it went very well. But, as most holidays are, it was a sprint to the finish, which left me not only tired but wondering, as Oprah and all the editors of women’s magazines do: how do you enjoy the holidays when they are such a project?

The obvious answer is that you make them less of a project. Reduce gift-giving, don’t decorate, attend fewer parties, skip family gatherings and book a hotel in Cabo instead. The thing is though, I like finding and giving gifts, decorating, throwing parties and making merry. I love Christmas.

So what else can be done so I don’t arrive at Christmas gasping for air and a glass of spiked egg nog?

Planning helps, and God and everyone who’s ever worked with me knows, I’m a planner. I’ve bought nearly all of our gifts already, and I’m wrapping them as they arrive so we can avoid the Christmas week blowout of express shipping charges and the Christmas Eve wrapping frenzy. Our tree is up and decorated as of last weekend. The outdoor lights are twinkling.

It’s good, the planning. The last-minute sprint has been removed (if I can define what “done” is and not just stretch out “almost done” till the 24th!), and we will definitely save some money on FedEx and panicked last-minute purchases. Plus, who doesn’t love checking things off a list? I am getting a sense of satisfaction from a job efficiently done. But I’m still feeling pretty frantic. It occurs to me that I may have accidentally just moved the stress forward on the calendar.

I know that clearing some space before the holiday to slow our momentum is a must. As with going on a beach holiday and screeching from 100 mph to 0 just at the edge of the sand, Christmas itself - one evening, one morning - will go by disappointingly quickly if you’ve been on line at UPS, worrying about your sister-in-law’s gift, and stuffing stockings until seconds before Christmas Eve dinner. We are not wired to shift gears from “frantic preparation” to “savoring the holiday” in the space of half an hour. Advent provides that space on the church calendar, and I think we’d do well to find it on our own schedules.

As I so often do, I have a theory. My theory is that the, “how,” not the, “what,” is the issue underlying holiday stress and the “what’s-the-point-itude” that occasionally creeps in as we rush through the weeks before Christmas, piling up packages and not cheer. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the journey, not the destination, matters most (especially when the destination is filled with fantastic Swedish carbohydrates and complicated ribbons), but yes, the journey deserves more of our focus and can be an enjoyable gradual climb to the peak where we enjoy the wonderful view rather than a gravely slide of increasing velocity that leaves us scraped up and exhausted at the bottom of the hill, back at our car, wondering why we went that way again.

Advent is about the “how,” it provides a stretch of time before Christmas to downshift gradually towards Christmas’ celebration so that we arrive intact and joyful. As the weather turns chilly and the air gets crisp, we’re supposed to slow down, have some cocoa and cinnamon toast, pause and consider. (OK, the toast isn’t in the gospels, but if they’d ever had my toast, they’d have put it in. Trust me: I make really good toast.) Advent is the season of reflection, anticipation and contemplation, a reminder to pause and think about the coming holiday.

Whatever your religious beliefs, the winter holidays mean something to you or you wouldn’t get all worked up about them. Whether it’s an opportunity to see friends, shower your sugar-addled child with gifts, celebrate the birth of your Savior, re-engage with family, or just show off your amazing ability not to electrocute yourself while installing a well-lit, over-fed elderly gentleman and his pet caribou on your roof, something is there at the core of your drive, and that’s worth thinking about so it rises to the top of your list.

Even if you consider the holidays a pain in the ass, Advent can be a time of constructive reflection, acceptance and planning. Own your desire to retreat from Aunt Ethel and her terrible fruitcake and plan a lovely, calm day at home with friends instead of booking through O’Hare with 4000 other people on Christmas Eve. Make the holidays your own. Once you accept that they aren’t your bag, you free up space to see what you do want rather than Grinch-ing it up and gnashing your teeth through another December.

Maybe the holidays are your thing but you’re just feeling low and lonely. It’s OK to be a little sad. Advent gives you some time to to acknowledge that and reach out in time to have some light in your window by Christmas. Ask for visits. Plan small outings. Take a short walk on a bright, chilly day. Find a Seattle’s Best Coffee and order the gingerbread latte: they’ll give you lots of whipped cream AND a tiny gingerbread man on top of it.

A couple of years ago, while planning a long-ish trip to New Zealand, we got some great “how” advice in amongst all the “whats”: find a quiet moment, think briefly about all the things you could do, and notice which three rise to the top. Not the Must Do things that everyone says are great: the three things you want to do the most, the ones you think you’ll enjoy, the ones you’ll regret not doing if you miss them. I chose swimming with dolphins, R. picked sailing through the fjords, and I can’t remember what the third thing was because the two we picked were so awesome. Literally awesome. They were the best things. THE BEST. Two of the most fun, most memorable, fantastic things we’ve ever done.

(Even if they hadn’t been the greatest things ever, it doesn’t matter: we knew wanted to do them and we did them. That in itself is a success. If they hadn’t turned out so well, it would have been good information for the next time we planned a trip as well as probably hilarious: fjord trips are pretty much limited to “majestic” or “Bob Saget in a dinghy” experiences, don’t you think?)

This is what I think Advent is for: finding a quiet moment to reflect on what matters to you in your holidays. Think small. Think specific. Think bright! Don’t judge them. It doesn’t matter: they’re yours. It’s your holiday too, not just your kids’ or Aunt Ethel’s. What matters to you? Be open to what some part of you already knows but which is hidden under a pile of candy cane boxes for Timmy’s class party. Prioritize those things. Put them on the list above finding the perfect #$(*&$#! Santa-shaped cake because last year’s fell to pieces and tasted like wet styrofoam.

Focus not just Christmas but the whole season on those. If you love being in touch, make Christmas phone calls throughout December when friends have more time to talk, not just on Christmas where it’s a three-minute chat before rushing off to the matinee showing of Sherlock Holmes (which is a super-great Christmas afternoon idea, by the way, thank you very much). If you love baking - actually love it, not must do it - book a Saturday with yourself and take your time doing it. If you like pleasing people with gifts, yeah sure, go shopping - but plan in it for a time when you can enjoy it and keep the volume to a level and cost that doesn’t stress you out, now or when your bills arrive in January. Or if that’s not working, think more broadly: make someone’s holiday by giving some of your amazing gifts to people in need like homeless kids, the gift-less, toy-less children, or lonely elderly people.

I know this is easier said than done. And checking boxes is a great, great thing. Trust me: I know. It’s just an Advent thought, a reminder that slowing down isn’t just an unrealistic principle that only people who can sit for hours with their legs crossed can manage. Step out of the tide for five minutes in the quiet before everyone else is up in the morning. This is your Advent, your Christmas, your time. What matters to you?

It’s been a rush of holiday prep around here lately, punctuated by feeding my seasonal addiction to Starbucks’ gingerbread lattes (light whip, no nutmeg - yes, I am that person in line in front of you with a lot written on her red cup, thank you very much, it’s only this time of the year, so back on up off-a me, ah-right?)

Today I dashed off to collect my liquid fix while R. got A. and her stroller into the car to go home.

Me: I got lucky! No wait. This whole herd of teenagers came in just after me.
R: Is that the right word? Herd?
Me: Like a gaggle? “An annoy of teenagers?”
R: Like “a murder of crows.”
Me: Yeah.
R: “A punishment of teenagers.”
Me: Yeah, that’s it.

“Story: A lonely desk toy longs for escape from the dark confines of the office, so he takes a cross country road trip to the Pacific Coast in the only way he can - using a toy car and Google Maps Street View.”

Looking for brilliant stocking stuffers? Love Swiss Miss’s taste? Both? Great! Tattly is for you. Perfect little packets of temporary tattoos selected by Swiss Miss. Excellent designs from, “Mama,” to a bike made of font bits, and new ones every week. Most, a pair for $5, shipping included. Get ‘em while they’re damp!

Tattly from Made by Hand on Vimeo.

OK, seriously? A shotgun shell wreath? Really? REALLY??

I’m all up on the holiday decor thing and each to their own, but honest to God this is beyond me. Who in their right mind is going to put this up? And who is going to buy it except as a not-funny gift? The guys who don’t just snort the first time they trigger Big Mouth Billy Bass at Walgreens but think he’s a hilarious present? You know what I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving weekend? That I don’t know anyone who would give me this wreath.

Oh wait - I just read the full description: “Chamaecyparis, rose hips, and Pheasant Feathers (feathers not pictured in this wreath, but we will update the photo soon!)” Ah. I see why I hate it: it’s because the feathers aren’t in the picture. If it had feathers, it would be 100% awesome.

Lord Almighty. Wow.

Amazing. Photography from inside waves.

New book: The Shorebreak Art of Clark Little. More previews.

This is our daughter’s doll. His name is Cailin because that’s what his box said. He’s French and wears a fetching shorts playsuit year round, regardless of weather or what any particular event calls for. No black tie, no jacket. Ever.

This policy has started to take its toll on the striped suit and is causing a minor gender issues dilemma.

Let’s start at the beginning. Cailin joined the household - we don’t say he was “bought” because that demeans him - from a local toy store. A nice one too. One of those ones where they have a lot of wood toys that cost $150. The choice was between him and another over-dressed, flouncy version of him, so we went with him. He was sleeker in his cap and suit.

(The hat is a thing of the past. There was no keeping it on him. I’m not clear if this was his choice or A.’s, but the hat has been put in storage for the day when sleeping caps make a comeback among the hipster crowd, and it will be cool again to wear it. Sadly, Cailin did not arrive with a full beard or a fixie. If he had, maybe the cap could have stayed as a fashion-forward ironic statement, but on it’s own, it was just too 1850’s.)

The holidays are coming, and I’m sprucing things up around here, so I washed the… let’s call it a pants suit, shall we? And it looks cleaner but still not very interesting. So I did a minor search for a replacement. Turns out Cailin might have to become a girl. Or a cross-dressing boy.

There are two exceptions to the all-girl outfits available for Cailin: a pair of denim overalls retailing for $64 and an MC Hammer top-bottom combo that, with your eyes crossed at an Iranian night club, might suggest “male” or at least raise some questions about the issue. Given that Cailin himself cost less than $40 (shhhh), $64 seems extreme for some tiny glorified jeans. (I know I will be having this argument with A. herself in not so many years, but let’s save later for later.)

All the other choices are some version of a pink dress. So the question is, will transitioning Cailin to being a girl suddenly undermine A.’s confidence in her ability to distinguish the genders or will it be a nice kickstart to her gaydar? (Which she will not have inherited from her mother by the by. I don’t want to get into it, but I’ve all but been on a date before realizing I was being hit on.) Although cross-dressing doesn’t necessarily mean “gay.” Hoover was a fan of the angora cardigan and he wasn’t gay. Creepy, yes. Gay, no. Eddie Izzard loves the ladies and his high heels. So OK, maybe yeah: Cailin just switches back and forth.

On the other hand, maybe Cailin is transgender. In that case, we would, of course, support his decision to make the shift, and we’d have to ramp up to the new outfits by giving him hormone shots. Which, in turn, would make him really moody and hard to be around for a few months. And then there’s the cost of counseling. Huh. That route is starting to look more expensive than the $64 overalls.

Maybe I’m overthinking this and throwing Cailin into a gender crisis he’s not actually experiencing. Maybe he’s just a boy who wears the same clothes day after day after day and has no sense of style. There are boys like that. In that case, I guess my responsibility as his grandmother extends only to making sure he knows how to do his own laundry. The rest is just a lifestyle choice.

You can see how this gets confusing. What to do, what to do. Parenting is so complicated sometimes.