Reading: Douglas Coupland, Girlfriend in a Coma

Listening: Furbies. Also an electronic parrot has learned to imitate my laugh.

Viewing: The ocean, finally, after three days. A sea wall that turned into a line of tall palms, once I got close enough. Also pelicans.

Moving: two mile walk through the surf.

Learning: what a sly devil my husband is.

25 December 1999: Christmas

Picture, if you will...

In the first month of my senior year of college, I assumed somewhat the (more) flirtatious personna of my freshling year. I was single for the first time in two academic years and if I had been so since May, well, my opportunities in Old Lyme over the summer were limited. At school, not only were there men but also the particular man (and his girlfriend) for whom I was anxious to convince I had no residual lust. I know I was not convincing, despite the act, but the act was fun and I did meet a lot of people (including my next boyfriend).

One of those I met was Jeff. I caught his eye in Whitney caf; he was worth looking at (confirmed my sister in a rare visit) but not, I soon learned, worth romancing. Somehow, the Waterboys came up, of whom I knew only the single from 12th grade, "The Whole of the Moon." He lent me This Is the Sea. He brought it over one evening and we talked through "Don't Bang the Drum"and "The Whole of the Moon," but during "Spirit," not a long song, he abruptly said he'd have to leave. He didn't think anyone could listen to "The Pan Within" without being overcome with desire. I was surprised at his abrupt departure but didn't urge him to stay, an invitation to stay apparently being, in his head, an invitation to much else as well. I listened to "The Pan Within" alone, and I agreed with his theory.

I loved the Waterboys from that instant. Jeff's and my friend Simon dubbed This Is the Sea, Fisherman's Blues, A Pagan Place, and an eponymous album for me. Simon would later claim to another mutual friend to have no recollection of me, whoever I was, this person our mutual acquaintance was describing. I find this hugely insulting since he made his own pass at me during that September of 1989. No memory of me. Ha. I still have those four albums on two Maxell tapes labeled with his parsimonious Pomey cursive, damn his eyes.

If I buy This Is the Sea now, though, I'll be able to get rid of one of those tapes. Someone gave me Fisherman's Blues for Christmas. That someone was Beth. I made my Amazon wish list over a fortnight ago but couldn't ohsocoyly advertise it here, since penguindust was inaccessible to me and the world at large. But Beth looked for me all on her own--knowing that such a selfish prig as I would surely have compiled one with stee's or Lucy's generous allowances for charity. And then she bought me something, one of her favorites! (I mean one of her favorite albums.) I am so pleased.

I am yet more amused that before the box arrived in my mailbox, I had already bought her one of my favorites from her wishlist.

But d'you know what this means? It means Beth likes me! Wheee! I pranced.

Fisherman's Blues. What an album. "We Will Not Be Lovers," "When Will We Be Married," and "When Ye Go Away" became anthems to heartbreak and anguish. If I didn't already love Yeats, "The Stolen Child" would have pushed me over the edge. I love the Waterboys. Thank you, Beth.

Except shit, now I know her other initial from the packing slip. I refer to her privately as EBC or XEBC--see, Shelley, I'm incorrigible--but now I know her middle initial as well. And, as I knew, Beth is a diminutive, not a middle name, and Xeney an alias, so she should be EMC but if I write her as such even I--see, Shelley, I even fuck myself up with this system--wouldn't know whom I was talking about. Damn it. Speaking Confidentially's initials are in my private journal as well and result from my high school having six Kims and five Davids in a class of 120 and I like 'em.

---

The rest of Christmas:

Blake woke us as he had the past two mornings, as soon as sun penetrated the maroon towel we used as a cage cover, chirruping and saying "Good boy buddy?" I nipped down to make his breakfast and saw, before nipping back up, that Santa had visited. A little while later RDC nipped down to make tea and discovered RDC2 sitting on the floor surrounded by plenty and asking in an awed whisper if he could open stuff yet. He waited, though, for everyone to come down. We all exclaimed over the cup of milk, mostly empty, and the cookies, mostly nibbled, on a plate, and then RDC2 dug in.

RDC2 got everything and, being five, wanted more, including gifts that were marked for other people. RDC tells me I delay opening my packages so I can have stuff yet to unwrap when everyone else is done, but this is not true, or hasn't been since I was RDC2's age (except probably older, since at 5.75 I was probably just as demanding). As we got older and the under-tree pile of loot shrank (since we matured to prefer quality to quantity), my family, probably very Puritanly as befits our New English upbringing, got in the habit of opening one present at a time.

I like that, because it means everyone gets to enjoy everyone's opening (like Francie enjoying her friend's penny-a-pick) and you know when your sister is unwrapping the one perfect present--and the opening lasts longer.

This family opens and opens fast.

---

The rest of the loot: Despite how specifically I had described to my mother Victoria's Secret Thigh-highs, black large no backseam, she got me some other damn thing that I tossed aside without investigating. Later, I did try, and I like. One pair is called "stay-ups" and this reminds me of a diaper, but they are more opaque and shimmery than regular thigh-highs and have much better gription. I forget the name of the other pair and I haven't tried them on yet--waiting to see whether they'll be a treat, as the stay-ups are, or a torture. A candle-stick holder, apple-shaped and apple-sized but made of wood, purchased in a gift shop in Oregon, where my mother and BDL went this summer, a magnet from Yosemite (same trip). An Eeyore ornament.

From DMB and JJT: books, a watch, a Hummel figurine, two hand-painted Christmas ornaments, bath stuff, and underwear. The books: Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma and Shampoo Planet and A.S. Byatt's The Game. The watch is small, gold, and girly, on a black band; the Hummel figurine is Hummel but it's of two kids caroling and I can deal with seasonal kitsch; the ornaments depict angels but the craftsmanship is mind-boggling: they were painted from the inside, rather like constructing a clipper ship in a bottle; the bath stuff ("cleansing gel," lotion, and spray) are pear-scented from Vicky's, and the underwear is cotton string bikini from Vicky's, just what I wanted (and asked for) and in various shades of blue (which should make RDC happy). She thought there wasn't a lot under the tree for me (there was) but the main present would be my dress for her wedding.

From JJC and RDC2, candles and candlesticks; from KBH, wineglasses; and from Roz, a gift certificate to Williams Sonoma. From DEW, a check and I wish she'd stop doing that, considering how few assets she may possess for the state to help with her maintenance.

Which leaves my father, my husband, and my sister. My father would bring gifts with him on Tuesday.

When I unpacked my sister's boxes, I filled my own stocking and then Blake's with her little boxes. Blake has two stockings, the little cockatiel-sized one I made for him into which I shoved the cuttlebone my mother gave him and the big one, bigger than RDC's or mine, that Sheryl got him from Lands End with his name embroidered on it.

I got CLH the print of Mary Cassatt's Two Sisters; she gave me another watercolor, contemporary and colorful and exuberant, figures and words

The usual stocking stuff: Bioré strips, kaleidoscope glasses, Lifesaver storybook (as usual, I kept the two rolls of Wild Cherry and the one roll of Butterrum. The next day, A----- would select her favorites and I'd give the remainder to JJC), Altoids in a tiny little box (I don't know if she knows I dislike Altoids but she does know I like little tiny boxes and RDC likes Altoids), a really cool hairpin, a smiley-face bar of citrusy soap, and stuff like that. A Godiva box to throw me off the track of little ornaments shaped like Christmas tree lights (the big kind we had when we were little) and two little Santas, white and gilt. A lavender merino wool sweater.

RDC had cruelly dropped nary a hint about the first three smallish packages and been talking against what was in the large one for weeks. I had been angling and angling since the first discussion of new job and higher income, but he led me astray like the wiliest of foxes. I gullibly believed him when he told me nay, all the way up to when I opened the first of the four packages: a box of AA batteries. I guessed immediately and whooped.

He denied it. He began talking about MP3 players, but he was lying. I unwrapped a 32mb chip with a floppy converter, then software. And then I opened my digital camera.

Heh.

So that's why he bought so much space on our new ISP.

I'll need it.

I called my mother. She liked her stupid Buttertub Barn that I can't believe I humiliated myself into purchasing in person. BDL appreciated the esoteric hot sauce that boiled-potato Connecticut doesn't offer. She had wrapped the four books I sent to DEW so they didn't look fresh out of a box (she offered to do that, and I thanked her). She even liked the four bird ornaments I got her and BDL showed his continuing utter lack of understanding by thinking I had sent her four boxes of Dove soap instead of guessing those might be the only present-sized boxes I had around the house.

Then, having waited till noon like a well-trained sister, I called CLH. She had waited for my call to open her presents, except the Catalog O' Tackiness, since I hadn't wrapped it. First the stocking stuffers: the keychain editions of Operation, Twister, and ViewFinder; the gluesticks for her gluegun; a bag of Wint-o-Green lifesavers; the mini garlic grater; Christmas tree hooks; gold "C" seals for her stationery. The white turtleneck, stationery, and gold velvet tree skirt, but not the Alfred Sung perfume. Then, "What's this Monopoly thing?" This was not the reaction I wanted and had been expecting.
"What Monopoly thing? Doesn't that say 'open last'?"
"No, this is a Monopoly tin with cookies in it." Clearly assuming I had given myself away, she said, "I guess I'll save my new Monopoly game to open last." When she opened the Cassatt print, she wanted to know who was who, but at that point all I remembered was the print's name. Finally came the moment of truth.
"And here's my Monopoly game....What's this?" She read the subtitle: "'Because your sister finally bought something from one of those stupid catalogs.'" That made her look at the title again: "Cindiopoly? Oh my god!"

Instead of Go, the unlicensed word "Start," with a picture of our house. Pale blue properties, Nuggets and Filene's. Next, Oliver's Tavern (Essex), Coffee's Market (Laysville), and Hallmark's Ice Cream (Old Lyme), none with pictures since southeastern Connecticut is so slow to get on the web. Instead of Jail, Lyme-Old Lyme High School. Instead of the licensed Reading and other railroads, Essex Steam Train, Napa Valley Wine Train, and the Boston T, all with pictures. Museums: Florence Griswold House, the Nut Museum, and Laura Ingalls Wilder's houses (with pictures). Instead of the licensed Free Parking, the Old Lyme-Phoebe Griffin Noyes library. Instead of Park Place and Broadway, the Bee & Thistle Inn (Old Lyme, with logo) and the Hotel Jerome (Aspen, with a picture). Her kindergarten picture with the one curl of hair like a horn on the smallest denomination, the Bioré shot on another, and herself as BJWL's spinster of honor on another, and hamming a silly face in Newburyport on the last (there are only four). The Community Chest and Chance cards (here unlicensedly called "Good News" and "Bad News")'s jokes are way too personal and funny only to us, except I did manage to refer to the Two Straws story.

I cannot even pretend to represent the rest of that conversation. Suffice that she was exactly as amused and pleased by it as I wanted, laughed just as much as I hoped, and may it not be another eight years before I think of another idea as good.

KBH and Roz came over for the next wave of unwrapping. Roz is a great favorite of mine. She is a family friend, drawn close while DMB was still practicing regularly as an RN. Roz's husband was DMB's last oncology patient. RDC said he'd never seen a more loving marriage, and after Hal's death Roz and RDC's family adopted each other. She thought the digital camera was pretty neat (everyone loved seeing their photograph moments after it was snapped) and she has WebTV (which means she might discover that she's famous).

She complimented RDC on his new job and I promised her a convertible Mercedes roadster, all in good time.

---

RDC and I went to the beach, just the two of us, borrowing DMB's car. Two years ago, we couldn't park at Delray beaches on Christmas Day; today we could at Boynton Beach (which sounds more like a Neil Simon play than a town). And we took the camera. Of course.

The regular bridge is being rebuilt, so by the time we crossed the Intercoastal (an artifical and natural waterway), we had a gorgeous stretch of the A1A to drive along to the beach. Here, the land on the ocean side of the Intercoastal is just wide enough to fit a beach, a mansion, its grounds, the public thoroughfare (the A1A), and a narrow strip of green leading to a dock on the Intercoastal for a large yacht. This pattern repeated several dozen times before we reached public beach and our rightful place.

Here, you park on the inland side of the A1A, try not to gawk at the marina, and cross to the public beach. Notice at the bottom of the sign the four color boxes: green means it's completely safe to swim, yellow a caution of one sort or another, red for no swimming at all, and blue for man-o-war. The flagpole down the steps had a green flag, but I decided if I swam I'd freeze in the wind afterward.

At the left is a large jetty on the south side of an inlet. There have to be inlets or you could never get your yacht from the Intercoastal to the ocean. I myself have never attempted to portage anything larger than a canoe, so the inlets make sense. Also, the manatees nip into the ocean here and there when the water's right.

This is the denim shirt I appropriated after RDC wanted to throw it away for having a two-inch rent down the backseam. One thing I have missed out on in this relationship is stealing his clothes (I cannot imagine the humiliation of trying to borrow his jeans) and so I was quick to snag this shirt. Worn over a white t-shirt with khaki shorts, it makes the perfect outfit. Walking at home in it once, RDC called me his Colorado girl, which made me very happy. I tried to elicit the same comment this day, but the presence of beach and the absence of hiking boots nullifies the look. Oh well.

This jetty might have been used by the house in the background as a dock once, but now it's all covered in algae and coral. I liked it.

This camera is going to be a Good Thing. For me. I'll get over the excesses of new ownership sometime. Soon.

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There was voicemail at our Denver number, some little kid saying "Thank you for the books." I have no idea which kid it was except that it was a little boy, so it would have been either NKW or NAV. There was commotion in the background, but I couldn't tell if from one younger sibling (NKW) or two (NJV). Probably the V's, though. Gotta email the parents.