Rambling

The shopping is almost done, still have cookies to bake and (i cheated) a cake to pay for.  Tomorrow is a day off, and everything should be done by Sunday (except the sausage balls), and then it will be time to sit back and relax.

Don't you enjoy the hustle and bustle?  I do.  Sure, you encounter a few sour faces out there in the trenches, but you also encounter some of the nicest people, and it makes the work of it go easier.  And how could you enjoy the quiet without it?

And soon it will be time for the New Year.  I have a very special project lined up for 2008, and Santa has helped make it possible.  He called me at work last week to tell me about it:

Santa:  I have your Christmas present with me, and it's bigger than a bread box.

Me:     Is it a stove??

Santa:  No.

Me:    Is it a dishwasher?  (I could hide the dishes in there).

Santa:  Nope.  It's a laptop.  And you can't have it until Christmas.

I had to smile and wonder what kind of bread box was the size of a laptop, or vice versa.  He was so excited.

But I decided right then and there that this present will benefit someone besides me:  my children and grandchildren.

There will be quite a few empty spaces around the table this year...my aunts and uncles, almost all gone.  And the stories my father tells...well, it's difficult for him to talk, now, post chemo and radiation to his face.  His salivary glands are cooked.  But I remember those stories well.

I used to love being the fly on the wall and listen to them all talk about growing up, about their parents and grandparents.  It gave me a sense of history and continuity, and after listening to how it used to be, I'm not so sure our progress has been for the best.  Or perhaps I romanticise the good old days I never lived.  Those cornshuck mattresses don't sound like they could compete with my Sealy.

But I want Sara Pie, Josh and Mason to know their great- great-grandfather couldn't read or write and "courted" his wife by having someone write postcards to her for him and he signed his X so she would know it was from him, and that my father used to make mom madder than a woman experiencing intense PMS by saying that when he met her, she didn't know what shoes were, until he bought her a pair.  They should know about AuntRobbie and Uncle Tracy, and how they baked together at Christmas (the best mounds candy and carrot cake you could ever sink your teeth into).  And the grandkids will read in disbelief of days when there were no drive-by shootings and you could leave your doors unlocked and windows open at night.

Omigod, this might as well be Little House on the Prairie.  But I want them to know where they came from, so I will write it - type it - on my bread box laptop, from wherever I might haul it...and maybe when they're older, perhaps their aunts and uncles and  my mom and dad will be a more vivid memory.  And if the world hasn't changed so drastically by then and there is a Christmas table at which they gather, there will be family there that can't be seen.