What have we been up to for the past few days? (pictures to be uploaded when I am less tired)

December 21, 2010. 

It’s a few days before Christmas, and I couldn’t be less in the spirit.  I don’t know if it’s because we essentially skirted the natural rhythms of Fall by skipping to the west coast, or because the last few months have been so challenging and I don’t yet feel like celebrating.  I’m sure the holiday bug will catch me soon enough, but for now we are escaping to Asheville, North Carolina for a mini visit with my brother Michael and his girlfriend Kim.  We’ve spent the past few days in Cincinnati with my family.  My sister Julia has been home (filling her 6 week college break with taking 12 credit hours of online classes, and working full time at UPS).  My brother Matt and his fiancé Maggie have also been around.  Matt is intermittently staying at my parents house until they move into their new apartment tomorrow.  Maggie is wedding planning, starting a new job and mostly stays at her parents so we don’t see much of her.  And of course my lovely and idiosyncratic mom and dad have been so great to be around albeit briefly.  My mom’s slowing getting into the swing of relaxation, the knitting has taken on a life of it’s own, and the decorations have appeared!  My dad is working a lot and is sleepy most of the time, but we’ve had a few classic and epic conversations that only Dad’s can authenticate.  And Julia, well she’s as brilliant as ever, tortured with the struggle of making the world a better place and her “idiot professors” who clearly aren’t fit to be in charge of propagating knowledge and reason to the online masses.  If anyone can save the world, it’s her.  

Of course, we’re in the car right now, and of course I’m writing.  Much has happened in the past few days, Nick’s been shoveling up a storm, we’ve been riding the elliptical in the basement, we went to a XAVIER game with my folks, Matt and Maggie, and her parents.  XU wins!  We’ve done some purposeful hanging out, some half hearted holiday preparation, a bunch of lengthy conversations around tea and coffee and the breakfast table, and a whole lot of sleeping.  As mentioned in the last blog, my students have given me the gift of the never ending and transmutable cold.  Somehow it infiltrated my ear canals too, and I am on heavy antibiotics for a bad left ear infection.  Today my right ear started crackling, I’ve been out of school for a week and a half now, and I am still a sicky.  Geez that was some powerful cold.    

The primary reason we came back to Cincinnati so early was because I wanted to take the opportunity that this 3 week Track E break affords to go to my high schools annual Alumni day.  Every year, Alumni day falls on Friday of the week before Christmas, which is always way too early to take off of work.  It worked out for the first time this year that my break included this week.  The School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA) is in a new, beautiful, state of the art building, the school that I grew up in is no longer, and while some of the traditions are the same, being in the new building was almost like spending time with a different school entirely.  It’s clean and gorgeous, the dance studios look nothing like the rippled marley that I learned ballet on, and the wide open hallways were nothing like the musty and dark corners that a random saxophone music would waft out of, but, when the music to FAME started, and alumni music theatre majors took to the stage, all was well at SCPA.  It was great to see progress, and it was amazing to see that the legacy of public, top notch arts education lives on in Cincinnati. 

Right now, our soundtrack for the trip to Asheville is Hank Williams and Willie Nelson, two cds I procured from my favorite bookstore, Half Price books yesterday.  Of course, these are both Christmas presents for someone in my family (can’t say because I hope to publish this before then :), I’m sure he won’t mind that we opened the cds to help pass the time!  I worked at Half Price Books the summer I lived at home post college.   It was easily the best job of my entire life so far.  I got to stick my nose in books all day, the hours were a perfect 11-7 or 10-6, I got full health benefits (not that I used them, but it was nice to know I could if I wanted to), and of course I had a summer bookstore boyfriend that I really liked, which made the days fly by.  I loved being able to recall authors and titles as if I’d read all of them, I felt smart and everyday there was a tangible amount of work that had been accomplished.  And now I know, if all else fails, I can always feel successful at a used bookstore. 

Of some note, we have been distracted the past few days with Matt and Maggie’s dog Lola, who has been habituating the green rug in the front room of my parents house.  She is a golden lab, Matt says she’s a cross between a deer and a dog; I added “cow” to the mix because she is SOLID, and makes her presence known by side humping your leg, not vicious or voraciously, just solidly.  She’s beautiful, but hilarious in her intellectual shortsightedness.  Apparently she hasn’t been around kids or people bundled up for winter weather ever, and sees them as threats.  Nick and I were walking her and coming upon a 6 year old kid with a hat on, she got in to serious attack mode.  We had to turn around, Matt says that she puts on a big show, but then is timid and ignores the unknowing offender.  And this takes the cake: today was trash pickup day, so people had trash bags and trash cans out last night when I was walking her.  With no person or animal around in sight, Lola starts to growl, her tail goes down, and she is barring her teeth.  Turns out she is growling at the trash bags on the sidewalk.  Hilarious.  I don’t mind a simple minded dog, I’ll take whatever I can get, I am in serious dog coveting mindset these days.  I think it has something to do with wanting a home.  Having a dog implies settling of some sort, and that seems to be at the forefront of my mind lately.  

We’ve left the snowy environs of Cincinnati, and have been enveloped by the cloudy and misty southern states.  Here in Tennessee, the snow is completely gone, the ground looks soggy and light rain prevails.  It’s a springy 40 degrees, and we are almost to Asheville!