Filed under: Uncategorized
12/22/08
It was FREEZING.
My sister shut the door to my room and none of the heat in the house was allowed in.
I put my hands under the faucet hoping for warm water and the pipes froze so all that I was given was icey cold.
After thanking the Lord for wool socks and layering, I went on a search for any extra blankets in the house and situated myself on the sofa.
My mother who had fallen asleep in the front of the fireplace mid conversation 2am last night woke up a couple of hours later and visited the frozen tundra of a room that we were staying in…..unable to find me she hunted the house for her youngest daughter, finding me wrapped in swaddling clothes on the living room couch.
The next morning we swapped stories of the event while mom’s king snake crept slowly from person to person sucking the heat out of their bodies and eventually pooping all over my mother.
My nephew entered the scene shortly after the snake poop incident with his body head to toe in snow after wading through the 4 foot drifts that graced our backyard.
He said he couldn’t feel his toes….we believed him.
The day finished up with one final act at 2am….
My childhood friend and I stood in the backyard…staring at the snow.
WHAT WOODPILE she said.
We both scratched our heads wondering what my mom had been smoking when she said there was a woodpile in the backyard.
I knew where she had stored the wood years prior, but the backyard showed no wood to the naked eye.
I jumped around in someone else’s tracks in the hopes that it would lead us to the wood pile…we saw a blue tarp….I thought… “Its gotta be here, where else would it be?”
So I grabbed the shovel and started shoveling out the woodpile.
It emerged several feet of snow later and as we pulled back the layers of blue tarp to find the hidden treasure, we rejoiced at the victory with sore backs and ruff hands.
We took a few handfuls of wood up to the house and put them next to the fireplace. Along the route from the woodpile to the door I thought to myself; “I have nothing to complain about”
“I live a charmed life and I have become lazy and comfortable”
There is something about manual labor that reminds a person how lucky they are.
But there is something about manual labor done in 10 degrees that makes a person look at their life and see not only who there true friends are…but what real work looks & feels like.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: family, home for the holidays, snow, travel, west coast vs east coast, white christmas
We were in the car for 13 hours. Three adults & two dogs with presents and suitcases piled up to the ceiling. The snow wasn’t the only reason we had zero visibility.
I was the only meat eater among the vegetarians I traveled with apart from the dogs.
I was jonesing for some protein and although my past experience had left me with major gas I reached for the mixed nuts and heavily consumed.
The last time I had a bunch of mixed nuts was on a cross-country trip. I spent most of that day with the car window open, apologizing profusely to my driver. This time I thought only a few mixed nuts wouldn’t hurt…well I was wrong, but thankfully I could blame it on the great dane sitting in the back.
We made it to the house before the Blizzard hit and found that Mom had bought enough food for a small army. She was preparing for the big party the next day. She invited the whole neighborhood.
She greeted us with a smile and the news that she finally found her cat in the dryer. He was lost for two days, and found to be very dry after 48 hours. I could say the cat was stupid, but it probably was the warmest place in the house.
Once we entered into the house, I glanced to the right and sadly remembered that Mama had the piano gutted to make it into a bar…it became the setting for the gingerbread houses. I strummed the strings with my fingers, longing for the ivories so I could play again.We put our things upstairs and stayed up late talking the night away.
The next morning the snow fell and then the wind came, and then loud thunder. It grumbled with great vigor threatening any travelers…so what did we do? We went grocery shopping!
After shopping for more food (just in case) Mom jumped out in the middle of an intersection to clean off the snow that had just shifted from the top of the car to the front windshield causing the visibility to go from 10 feet in front of us, to a complete white-out. Thankfully Mr Plow was behind us and was super patient until the task was done & Mama jumped back into the drivers seat to complete her left turn.
We made it home, started party prep and put on the Christmas tunes. The winds continued and so did the snow. One by one people began to call and cancel…but Mama continued with the food prep. “They’re hardy Buffalonians and know how to drive in anything”.
After the snow plow’s early sweep and the shoveling of the walk done earlier by my mom’s husband failed to sustain after another foot or two of snowfall, my pregnant sister and her husband and I started shoveling.
My brother in law yelled to me “Man its so warm here, I can’t believe why people would ever live anywhere else” – “I know” I shouted back. “I was thinking of wearing my bikini but didn’t want to neighbors to talk”….my brother in law replied back “If I only would have brought my sandels…these tennis shoes are making my feet sweat”
We laughed at ourselves and I thought to myself “This is why I thought Global warming actually seemed like something good to me as a child” because ultimately I knew too well how it felt to be cold 8 months out of the year.
I moved to the Golden state of California 3 years ago and as much as its nice to have a white Christmas when I see my family back in Buffalo, I look forward to the warm sunny temperature that will greet me in just 5 days.
Does that mean I’ve forgotten my roots? Certainly not! But it does mean I appreciate the sun more than your average Californian.
In high school I was Tzeitel in Fidller on the Roof and sang the lyric:
Matchmaker Matchmaker make me a match…..which was a song about Yente the Matchmaker.
Now lets face it, we’ll all tried to be a Yente to the ones that we love, because why….we want them to be happy. And for some reason singleness means being unhappy?
Absolutely…..not…but still we do it and of course friends and family have tried to play the matchmaking role with us (especially during the holidays) Just make sure you’re not related to any of the suitors…nasty…
When I was driving cross country to move out to Los Angeles I was speaking with a friend on the phone – and I remember saying “I think one of the reasons that I’m coming to LA is to meet my brother’s future wife”…..as time went on I forgot about that converstaion and never tried to hook up my brother with any chick. Mainly because he had turned into a mountain man growing his hair long while sporting a scary beard that set young children running for their lives in Santa Monica (which has the greatest homeless population in any city in the USA). So lets just say he did not embody the look of “the ladies man”.
But one day he shaved off his beard, and buzzed his hair off. Then called me a week later and asked me to take him shopping before we went to a party of a mutual friend.
Turns out he only needed to purchase one nice outfit cause the minute we walked into the room my friend Jennie ran up to me and gave me a hug, I introduced Jennie and Lincoln, 4 days later they were dating, and 6 months later they were engaged…. BAM!
Look at that turn-around!
Then there was a memorable plane ride which actually happened right around the same time that I introduced my brother and his now wife. I was taking a red-eye to NYC from LAX in the middle of a giant snow-storm St Patrick’s Day weekend.
The turbulence was making a girl in the back feel ill and the lady who initially sat down next to me somehow convinced the stewardess to bump her up to 1st class (cause it wasn’t full – so why not?).
The sick girl from theback of the plane came up front and took my ballsy neighbors seat. We proceeded to carry on a 4 hour conversation while I was especially thankful that she didn’t hurl during our conversation.
This lovely (not so sick any longer) lady was a pious Jew. She was talking about how she had been praying and asking God to bring her husband to her….but kept on getting hooked up with the wrong kind of Yentes – who knew the wrong kind of men. So at a last ditch effort she was flying to NYC from Los Angeles to meet with a match-maker that her cousin set her up with who had some male suitors in mind for her.
I wished her the best and met up with my family for the weekend.
On my returning flight I happened to be seated right next to… A guy who also happened to be a pious Jew. He was flying to Los Angeles for his mother’s wedding (her 2nd marriage) but resided in NYC. Wait a minute, I thought. “I’m sitting here talking to a guy who pretty much was everything that this girl had talked my ear off about for 4 hours just 3 days prior, and she was going to NYC to find him. Now this guy was leaving NYC to go to Los Angeles’…. So I decided right then and there that I was going to be their Yente….well, their Christian Yente. The young gentlemen agreed and we toasted the occasion with some Coca Cola (which happens to be Kosher btw – how brilliant is Coke).
I don’t know what the outcome was of that. I contacted both of them, but to no avail… who knows maybe they found their Yente somewhere else…and it turns out that my brother and his wife were shadowing each other for 1 1/2 years in Los Angeles and just happened to meet on the day I introduced them.
So I guess all this to say…when you meet the right person you’ll know. It doesn’t take a matchmaker to get you the right one. And when you are ready and they are ready the stars will align.
As one of my mentors says “Don’t worry about finding the right person, worry about being the right person”
The rest is in God’s hands….
Is that a quick wrap up ?
Absolutely…
is there more to say?
yes on another day….
Help me in my unbelief.
Help me in my trials.
Help me in my weaknesses
And Help in my denial
Help me in my vision – the loss of sight I see
Help me in my purpose – the reason I am me
Help me in relation – with others and with You
Help me to walk in the path – Your way of light and truth
Help me Lord to breathe, the clearest freshest air
Untarnished by selfish desires, and other worldly care
Help me indulge in purity, and all that edifies
To meet desires of my heart and not that of my eyes
Help me realize the worth of everything You’ve taught me
To rest within the arms of love and see how far You’ve brought me
Help me understand the ways that clearly are Your own
To never try to justify the sin You have condoned
For whether in the depths of hell or within pearly gates
The understanding of Your love, comes from a heart that breaks
So break my heart and mold it, and help me Lord to live
In peace that passes comprehension – and sets me free from sin
For You Lord God have given me, all that I desire
Help me Christ to live as you, rekindle my heart’s fire
