Well, yesterday we broke in the spirit not by watching the South Park short "The Spirit of Christmas" but by having a party. We didn't watch the short until this morning, but I think the spirit found its way to our house anyway.
I had wondered how to entertain the hatchlings. (Like the selectively particular matron I am, I put the dozen ornaments I dragonly love the best on the tree-shaped ornament stand I dragonly bought for dragonly display the year we didn't have a tree, so that there on the mantel they would be safe from hatchling exploration. As we trimmed the tree this year, one ornament already went off to the Great Big Christmas Tree in the Sky, and I didn't want it joined.) I printed several sheets of a hunt ("on the tree, can you find an elephant with a howdah? a spotted reindeer with wings? a merry-go-round? etc.") and brought my picture books upstairs and--big effort--offered up my crayons for sacrifice, along with a pack of construction paper, which last stayed downstairs in the kid-friendly basement. From my crafts box, left over from a Hallowe'en costume or two, I pulled red and white pipe cleaners. (I think the red ones gave shape to my Cat in the Hat bow tie, but I can't remember what the white ones were for. Maybe for when I wanted to be the misfit Spotted Elephant, to shape the trunk?)
Although Booboo didn't make the same fuss Mrs. Bates does, I stowed him safely in the fruit cellar called my closet. No child happened to play in the bedroom and there discover the less destructible Hamlet, Morse, Monty, and Pantalaimon, but in my study they did discover Dan'l Bloone the knock-off Beanie Baby blue bear, Ophelia the okapi, Babe the gallant pig, and the salamander from the Prado, as they were welcome to.
(Dan'l Bloone has not previously occurred in the census of my animals because it has lived at work all its years. A coworker gave it to me, a give-away from a Big Top the year that someone named Blue from Kentucky was involved with Dot Org. I brought it home specifically as a hatchling party favor.)
Almost-four-year-old Gethen is my new best friend (since Hallowe'en). She and I made candy-cane jewelry with pipe cleaners and colored pictures and played bumper balls (with the exercise balls) and one of us got a booboo on her toe and required two kisses and a band-aid to make it better. She wanted to be barefoot like Miss Lisa. I'm a bad influence.
Ms. Begonia has Scarlett call adults Miss or Mister Firstname, which I think is an excellent compromise between the possibly stand-offish Title Surname and the possibly overly egalitarian First Name Only. And Miss is just fine, easier to say than Mizz.
This morning on the porch (whither I had gone to shoo off some pigeons that are trying to nest atop a column) I discovered scary lump of…something. I am really hopeful that it is the Silly Putty that someone discovered and that I last saw with Scarlett. Does it discolor as it freezes? Because otherwise there is Silly Putty somewhere in the house.
A few coworkers came, including ÜberBoss who had never come to the house before. He liked it, which made me happy. He admired the upstairs décor and the downstairs plentitude of space and the kitchen work, and he admired Blake and had him on his shoulder. By the time Minne arrove, there was enough of a crowd that Blake was imprisoned, but he wasn't yet so frustrated not to be friendly. He bowed and chucked to her, and she asked how she should respond. I suggested bowing and chucking, and she did that for a few volleys. Another coworker's almost-two-year-old daughter really wanted Blake, and while her mother sensibly kept her fingers out of the cage, the proximity of children and the crowd in general respectively frightened and frustrated Blake, whose mood didn't improve for quite a while after the attendees thinned and aged enough for him to have the liberty of the top of his cage.
I invited Kal's aunt and uncle, since I have been to their house for dinner but never met them: Kal was house- and pet-sitting, so I had met Picasso the green-wing macaw (red otherwise, and so perfectly Christmas-colored) and the dogs and cats but not them. Also, parrot people should flock together. We hit it off, as Kal expected.
RDC fishes with Gethen's father, but I have seen the parents only at party intervals since they moved a distance away. They hosted us for a lovely Thanksgiving in the mountains, lo these eight years ago, but Gethen's mother and I don't know each other very well. So in the basement as Kal and I played with Gethen, her mother asked if she and I were sisters. We looked at each other and grinned. She was willing, because she never has had a sister, and I allowed as how I'd have to vet the situation with CLH but it would probably be okay. Gethen's mater meant physical resemblance, more than inner sanctum communion. I don't see it, but maybe because I am used to looking like only CLH. Certainly how we followed each other's cues playing with Gethen could have increased whatever resemblance exists.
Gethen asked if this was my house, and what my name was (I might not be her best friend, even is she is mine, but her father said she'd been looking forward to going to Lisa's house all week). And when she ran to me for huggies and I swooped her up, a stranger asked if this was my little girl.
Yes, a stranger. I invited some neighbors to come, including the man across the street whose ex-girlfriend I knew better than him. They both saw the garden evolve from its inception, and while he and I had not been on more than hi and isn't the garden beautiful, thank you so much, basis until last night, the girlfriend, while she lasted, and I chatted a bit more. Anyway, I invited him, saying it was an open house for neighbors and regretting that I know only the people on my own block. Farther afield I know dogs' names but not so much people. He took my mild chatty statement further, inviting some other neighbors to meet him here, which friend-of-a-friend-ing I have never participated in but worked really well, I am happy to say.
RDC came down into playland to say that people we had never met were in the house, and I went up to say hi, and the woman, Scarf, and I hit it off immediately. Meanwhile Scarf's husband Drums and RDC did so over Thomas Pynchon, Java programming, and the North Mississippi All-Stars. Scarf invited another neighbor, and all was good.
Lou invited us to her own party in the evening, and while I like her a lot and am clearly swinging more toward outgoing again (see below), when the neighbors left to continue their evening at a nearby jam I used Lou's party as an excuse not to accompany them but didn't go. I had been on all day and had had enough.
I asked Dot Org's COO if I might ask her daughter to the Lemony Snickett movie, since she is the only child I know (of) who has read them. I met her only once, on the way to Don Giovanni, but I know she is outgoing and friendly, and the COO and I are palsy about Harry Potter and Lemony Snickett, so I figured it would be okay. And it is. We three have a date for a girls' night this week, and if it is not Tuesday then I will celebrate Solstice with Scarf and some other neighbors.