Today: In Glorious Detail.

Well, bits of it.

After a slow morning (in which I went back to bed for an hour or so after the first attempt at consciousness), I found myself fluttering into the bathroom, having a yummy shower – the kind where I love the feel and smell of my shampooful hair – and then putting on my reindeer antlers to offset my new red turtleneck (from Ms Spur!) … As I clicked my belt into place and looked up at my mirror, I couldn’t help smiling from sheer satisfaction.  I couldn’t have worn this outfit in September.  Even Ms Spur remarked as I got ready to go on errands: "You’re looking much slimmer, you know, Music Shivers … "  I beamed back, "I know."  I feel much lighter on my toes (when I’m not exhausted after long days, that is).  And I feel more upright.

(Mom said on Wednesday night, as I rehearsed the 45-minute baby class routine with actions and all: "No wonder you’re losing weight.  How many of those classes do you teach in a week?")

I zoomed out the door to pick up two parcels from A Curious Mango.  I didn’t have the slip that the postperson left behind for me yesterday; Ms Spur thinks she may have done something with it.  But I didn’t anticipate any difficulties, because I had my ID with me.  But I forgot that the last time I picked up a package from the Mango at this particular postal outlet, the woman at the counter had had absolutely no sense of humour, and had almost refused to give me my parcel because the Mango had addressed it to "Linty *********," instead of my real first name.

So today, I showed up with a letter to mail for Ms Spur, and said, "I’d like to mail this.  Also, I’m here to pick up two parcels from Montreal.  I don’t have my slip with me but I have my driver’s license."

The woman looked up and without even a ghost of a smile, she said, "No."

I blinked.  "No?"

She said, "You don’t have the slip."  But, tilting her head to one side and seeming to consider, she said, "But I can mail that for you."

I said, "Isn’t ID good enough?  I think my slip got recycled by accident or something.  They would be two parcels from Montreal, likely from someone calling themselves Stringman … "

She looked at me levelly for a moment, then snatched my ID card and went into the back with it.  She returned with two huge parcels that were very clearly labelled with my real name (the Mango had made sure to be official this time … except for her return address name of Stringman).  Grudgingly she handed them over.

I hopped briefly into the nextdoor grocery to get some Noel Nog for Ms Spur (she can’t have milk products – Noel Nog is soybased, I think).  Then I sat in the van and opened the parcels.  I couldn’t wait to get a hint of what I was in for.  When I opened the second parcel and lifted the lid from the box, and saw all the perfectly wrapped and humorously labeled gifts, my eyes started to fill, but it was when I saw the Quality Street-shaped box that I actually gave a little sob.  She had labeled it with "Could this be a tradition?" – a reference to the fact that in my family, each of us kids got a little box (or later, big tin) of Quality Street.  It just wasn’t Christmas without it.  I think this will be the first Christmas we will go without that tradition in our family.  Actually, it is the first Christmas without some other traditions, including the Sibling Sleepover on Christmas Eve (now that P1 and Asterope and the twins are a family unit, it would be sort of … hard? weird? … to do that).  I don’t think I told the Mango that we’re going without Quality Street this year; it wasn’t like she was trying to make up for it – but just the fact that she keeps track of little things like that about me – I don’t know, I feel so loved and blessed.

(I wonder if I do the same for her.  When she got my package, she opened one of the little boxes that she was permitted to open before Christmas, and saw the fish-shaped cookie cutter I had found in a dollarstore.  On the phone, she said it was really cool, and I said, "Is it any kind of fish, do you think?"  She made thinking noises, and I went on, "Because it reminded me of the cychlids in your lab."  She said, "Hey, it’s neat that you remember things like that.  Yeah, it is kind of like them!")

After parcels and general Christmas madness, I taught my last lesson of the year.

Then, I put on my red dollarstore lipstick to match my red turtleneck, let my hair gloriously down (it was GOOD today … even the silver hairs showing up at my part were like a tiara to me … ), and drove Trooper and Ms Spur with me to dinner and a movie!  All three of us wondered aloud when last we had had time to do something like this.

We saw The Nativity Story.

I liked the beginning (O Come, O Come Emmanuel … on a viol? or a more ethnically exotic instrument? … ) and parts of the middle.  The end was dreadful.  But overall, I am left with good feelings about some of the things they were trying to do.  I liked the way Joseph and Mary related to each other.  I loved the friendship between Mary and Elizabeth.  I wasn’t too hot about the three wise men serving as comic relief, or about the hokey special effects (the conjunction of planets and a star turning into a spotlight?).

(I wonder how many people know the implications of myrrh, or why that particular Magus started to weep when he handed it over.  He says something about "the sacrifice" but it isn’t really explained that myrrh is a burial spice.)

I must admit that Joseph seemed way too good to be true.  I thought it was wonderful to make him a real character in the drama, but … ach.  It is a vision of manhood (like Orion) that I want to believe in but am skeptical about.

—

Underneath all this, a current (nautical? electrical?) of JOY.

I was vain today.  I looked in mirrors a lot.  The relative trimness of the butt region, the way the hair and turtleneck framed my face, the eyes sparking … even the expressive hands …  I remark on all this because it dawns on me now that the summer feels like a distant adolescent memory.  (I did not feel attractive last summer.  I think this was due mostly to exhaustion.)

I am waiting till after Christmas to call U and suggest a movie night.  Oddly enough, a few nights ago, the Mango said to me on the phone, "How would U react to fluffy voice?"

"Fluffy voice" is something L and I started to do in grade seven, and it spread through our friends (off and on like a coldsore virus) during high school.  It’s hard to describe.  It’s sort of like The Chipmunks but not.  Maybe the Chipmunks with a Georgian drawl?

So I said to Mango, "Why do you ask?!"

She said, comfortably, "Well, I don’t know why, but I’ve just been assuming lately that you and he are going to be better friends and that the next time I’m in town, we’ll all hang out, and I’m wondering if he would be able to take fluffy voice, and the other stupid stuff we do.&qu

ot;

I guffawed, "I … honestly can’t say I’ve been picturing him hanging out with my friends yet; but now that you mention it … well, I don’t know what he’d think … it would depend how many people were around."

Mango pressed, "Do you think he’d get along with the Chou?"

I said, "Definitely.  I think once they started talking about Chou’s work or something along those lines, they would get along quite comfortably in a conversation."

"How about L?"

I thought, and finally said, "I don’t see him and L having much to say to each other."

And later I said, "Do you really see this happening?"

She said, "Sure I do.  I’m not saying you guys will necessarily be a COUPLE, but it sounds like you feel free to be friends now."

Honestly, the idea of hanging out in my living room with him, watching DVDs of old TV shows that we like, fills me with mirth.

And the idea of him talking to the Mango about fish, or to KT about DNA mutation, or to C about optometry, or to Mr. Steadfast and Miss J about music, makes me even more excited.

Which reminds me.  I haven’t heard from Mr. Steadfast or Miss J in a coon’s age – not since I couldn’t make it to Miss J’s concert and left a message on a wrong answering machine, I think.  I intend to reconnect this Christmas and hear their stories.  I’m wondering how their first semester back at school treated them.

—

In case I’m not around a computer until then – MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Try to remember those times when you have felt that something unimaginably GOOD broke into your world and changed everything.  That’s how I feel about Christmas right now.  That, and also this: The humility and utter joy of obedience to a gift; everyone in their own way has to do what Mary did, and bear something to fruition that they didn’t ask for, only accepted.

(When did I get on the soapbox?  I’ll get down now … )

Muchas smooches to all, and to all a good night.