Somehow I failed to record that I got a Cow Footrest for Christmas. There’s probably other stuff out there that I’ve forgotten. You’ll just have to forgive me till I get it all back to Illinois and unpacked.

Another Tuesday, another episode of Senior Citizen Discount Grocery Shopping. The main theme of this trip was purchasing food for the New Year’s Day meal. Our family traditionally has sausage and sauerkraut with mashed potatoes. Pork is believed to bring good luck. As a child and well into adulthood, I consider it poor luck, as it was accompanied with the sauerkraut gravy.

Most of the recipes that I can find online for sauerkraut and sausage use smoked sausage links or bratwurst. Mom’s recipe uses loose sausage, essentially breakfast sausage. It’s fried up. You make a white gravy with the fat, and dump in a huge container of sauerkraut.

One year when I was in college, I became wise. None of us ever liked this meal, though I actually don’t mind it now (but that’s another story). So I quizzed mom on what the element was that caused “good luck” and was able to argue that we could have pork chops for those who would rather die than eat sauerkraut. Thank you, analytical skills!

I don’t think that I’ve mentioned that I have my traditional visit to Virginia cold sores. Why do I get cold sores every Christmas here? Why? As if I don’t have enough problems, I have to go around with lip rot.

Everyone is happily coasting in post-holiday bliss here. I created Mini-Cheeseburger Puffs for dinner, to the delight and joy of all. Okay, maybe they weren’t that excited, but they ate a lot and no one was left hungry.

I’m sure that there’s something wrong with just listing your presents as an entry, but too bad. Here is an incomplete list of my haul.

• ToastStation Toaster Oven
• Hearthstone Stoneware
• Fiestaware White Pasta Bowl
• Rolling Herb Mincer
• Moleskine 2006 Daily Pocket Diary
• Bartelt Crumb Box
• Ginsu knife set
• The Last Hero: A Discworld Fable
• Virtual Cody
• The Story of Tracy Beaker
• Lady Cottington’s Fairy Album
• Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Letters
• Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Book
• Logitech Quickcam for Notebooks Deluxe
• Assorted candles
• Assorted Pampered Chef and generic kitchen things
• Yearly assortment of Hallmark ornaments

So you’re probably wondering why on some of those things. Some of the books are for my collection of children’s/young adult lit focusing on computer technologies. The Bartelt Crumb Box is something that I bought for my father many, many years ago, so that’s for sentimental reasons. The collected kitchen things are probably obvious.

I have a working webcam at home, but its base is broken. I have a mcgyver solution with a glued on screw as its base. It works okay, but it’s a pain to try to get it in the right place when I’m working on the computer. This new webcam is the kind that hooks onto the screen of the laptop. I had been looking for one like this for quite a while; so I’m happy with this new one. I’ll probably take the old one to work. I’m sure we can find some use for it in the office.

Every year, for many years, mom has been buying us each an assortment of Hallmark ornaments. I have a growing boxful of them in Illinois. The excellent thing about this tradition is that all of us in the family can have beautifully decorated trees, as they’ve accumulated over the years.

After all the presents, there was ham. I think we flew through that ham in record speed. We don’t have a sit-down dinner in Christmas in my family. Instead, there are piles of snacks and goodies around. People eat what they want when then want. There are cookies, dobish torte, petit fours, brownies, cheese ball, Swiss Colony Beef Log (baby, that’s what Christmas is all about), bread, crackers, deviled eggs (blech), and who knows what else. No one goes hungry. It was my job to cook the ham, which was surprisingly easy. Much less work than that evil Thanksgiving turkey breast was.

Now that all the gift giving and eating is winding down, I think everyone is ready to collapse into bed. It seems we’re always up into the wee hours every night before Christmas. So by Christmas day, we’re all ready to take very long naps.

Today is the day of much wrapping. Even though most stuff goes into gift bags, there’s still wrapping of things that are too big for bags and wrapping of things so that they are not obvious when you look into bags.

I have perfected the sandwich shop wrapping technique. I roll all presents in tissue paper as if they were submarine sandwiches and I were a worker at Subway. Occasionally, I secure them with shipping tape to annoy the recipient. One of the most important joys in life is making a recipient struggle with a package. The other important joy is giving your niece and nephew presents that are embarassing. There may be other joys, but they are absent at the moment.

I haven’t actually finished wrapping presents, and I’m not sure when I will. Not tonight, I suspect, but people aren’t coming over till 3 or 4.

Hauled off to Roanoke with mom, for the poodle clipping, around noon. Her appointment at PetSmart was at 1. Picked up my brother and went to lunch together. Whirlwind shopping fun: Sam’s, Books-a-Million, PetSmart (we needed some doggy and kitty Christmas presents). Picked up the perfectly groomed and pedicured Miss Daisi. Dropped my brother off at his house, and came back home to drop off the dog. Then it was out to Texas Roadhouse, for my mother’s birthday dinner (her birthday was Monday).

I set up a wrapping station in the living room, so that mom can work on the presents that she needs to wrap up. We all began that process this evening, but the bulk of it will be tomorrow.

Oops. Almost forgot. Saw this bumper sticker today :)

I am so very afraid.

From the e-mail ad I received:
“The Doughboy® has a dance for you! It’s no surprise that a guy dressed in
white can hustle… but did you know he can do the Robot and Running Man, too?”

So the 22nd was also the day my father died. I have blacked out on all this. I couldn’t remember the date, and I have been thinking that I have to find a chance to turn over the thing that his ashes are in to see if there’s a date on it. Maybe it was 2002. I don’t know anymore. It’s one of those things where I would have to try to remember a series of events and place it in context. And it’s all too sad to do. Too hard to do. I have a block, and it’s hard to concentrate around the barriers to figure it out.

Anyway, I never thought about it today because I have blacked out the date. I couldn’t remember it, so I guess it couldn’t hurt me. But what happened is that we finally finished decorating the Christmas tree and my sister was talking about running to Target for some things that she needed. I asked if today was the 23rd, because I get my days all screwed up when I’m here and not “working.” I was told it’s the 22nd. I said, “Oh good. That’s so much better.” At that point, I noticed my mom. Her face was all tight, like she was in physical pain. I keeping asking what’s wrong. Does something hurt? What do you need?

My sister, who is smarter than me. Um, actually, I don’t remember the details here either. I even black out current events it seems. So I do recall that Mom started weeping, and I didn’t know what was wrong. My sister Kerri comes over and hugs her and holds her for a few minutes and while she’s doing this Kerri turns to me and mouths, “it’s when daddy died.”

So now i’m crying because it’s all my fault. I didn’t mean that the 22nd was better that way. I couldn’t have told you it was today. And I tried not to cry, but I couldn’t. So I had to get up and leave the room because I knew I was just going to make it worse and it was all my fault anyway. So i sat at the desk crying and feeling stupid for not knowing the date and being an idiot and missing daddy and everything.

And it’s making me cry more to know that I’m in the room that he died in. I wasn’t here. I had started driving to Virginia very late that day, but about 2 hours from home, I realized that I’d forgotten my prescriptions so I turned around and went back home. It was already dark then, and it was clearly too late for me to have left anyway. I should have waited till the next day regardless, but I was trying to get home before…

Kerri eventually came down to talk to me, and said it wasn’t my fault, that it was the time. Daddy apparently died around 8 pm, which was when all this happened tonight. But i didn’t know that. As I said, I wasn’t here. Kerri says I didn’t do it, but I was the one calling attention to the date. And we had just finished the tree, and he’s not here. I’m so completely stupid. Why couldn’t I remember what was going on? Kerri said that she had come over her early this evening and stayed because she expected mama to do this. She knows and thinks ahead. I can’t even make myself remember what year it was.

Found out today that one of our ReadWriteThink colleagues at IRA is having twins in April/May. We’re all excited (and glad it’s not us).

I got the lights all strung on the tree this afternoon. My mom had a doctor’s appointment, and it was my goal to have the tree all lit up by the time she got back. I wove lights in very carefully, and I had my nephew put the angel up on top (he’s taller than I am). I pity the person who has to take the lights back off. They’re wickedly intertwined. This is another benefit of leaving before the tree comes back down in early January.

Another whirlwind day in Virginia. Target, Michael’s, Chick-fil-a (a girl’s gotta eat), Books a Million.

I think that I have all the odds ‘n’ ends that I was waiting to buy here taken care of now. Of course, I can’t tell you about any of that because you’ll tell the recipients.

Still need to deal with the Christmas tree. Perhaps tomorrow.