wideeyedfunk

Tag: Christmas

  • Lemme me see the other side.

    I’ll tell you what. I have lived in Minnesota. I know what cold feels like. I spent a couple of winters in Anchorage. I know what big snow looks like. I grew up at the South Jersey shore.  I am familiar with bone cutting, sand carrying, January winds that administer the midseason microdermabrasion treatments. Stings a bit when the feeling comes back into your cheeks.

    Now I’m in Buffalo. And I am becoming expert in the wintry mix. Sloppy.  Gusty. Raw. The Christmas pine garlands are flopping all over the place. And dog walks are wretched.

    “Yeah.”

    Sorry, that was Miss Tibbit interrupting us. This afternoon she pranced onto the back porch, got blasted in the face with a sleety snow, and turned around to come back inside. Wasn’t worth it. No thank you ma’am.

    Buffalo winter means that Hamish the Corgi and Sweet Tibbit come home from walkies with salty wet feet. Hamish’s undercarriage is a cindery mucky mess. Every time. (The cat just sneezed in my wine by the way. Just saying. Nice moment.) If I leave the dogs alone I have mud on the sofa, salt foot prints all over the house, maybe a sick dog because I guess they aren’t supposed to lick that rock salt.

    So. Every day, several times a day, we do the lemme see the other side routine.  The dogs know and when it is gross outside they climb the first set of steps and wait for me in the hall landing. I unglove, unshoe, unhat, uncoat, unscarf, grab the dog towel, and crouch down. Hamish stands stiffly in front of me and presents his near foot – usually port side, held high in the air. I wipe it, rub his chest under there. Let go. He steps forward and balances his weight on the starboard side. I wipe the back foot, wipe the belly, let go. Miss Tibbit, who is anxious that this isn’t going fast enough, pushes past. “Lemme see the other side,” I tell Hamish.

    He steps forward a bit, performs a Corgi K-turn, hoves into reach and presents his starboard foot. Wipe. Forward. Wipe. “Next,” I say. Miss Tibbit appears in my face, one front foot in the air. Wipe. She steps forward. Back foot wipe. “Other side,” I say, like a train conductor announcing the stop. Tibbit steps away and carefully negotiates a turn, presenting the other front foot. Wipe. Forward. Wipe.

    The dogs assemble conveniently near the dog treat storage area while I drape the dog towel on the heater. It’s irritating, the dogs get rubbed with a warm towel after the Buffalo winter walks. What am I running here, a dog spa?

    Anyway, I rattle the lid of the treat jar and toss snacks into waiting maws. “Alright,” I tell them, “I’ve got work to do,” and we head back up to the desk. Oh boy, only a couple of hours until the next Buffalo winter dog walk.

  • 1,500 miles of family, Or, Caviar tastes like chicken pox.

    Stop 1: Scottsville, Esmont, Charlottesville Virginia WideEyedFunks:

    I was spooning caviar onto a smear of cream cheese at the pre-Christmas dinner snackie spread. Sister-in-law L. and Older Brother set us up with fine cheeses, Dracula’s Dilemma pickled garlic, some kind of awesome aged herbed salami.  And caviar.

    Our WideEyedParents were across the room and from around the Christmas tree we could hear dad shouting at mom: “Do you want some cold cuts?”

    “A cool one?” she said, “no, I don’t want a beer.” Heh. Might be time for hearing tests.

    Sister-in-law N. pushed through Sister-in-law L. and me to get to the snackies, “Quit snack blocking,” she told us. I inched my counter stool over an inch or so, but not really too far. I hadn’t tried all the cheeses yet.

    I lifted my caviar cracker to take a bite. “You eat that stuff?” Older Brother asked, clearly doubtful. I shrugged and ate the cracker. Older Brother watched me chew. “I don’t eat it,” he said. “Good,” Sister-in-law L. said, “more for the rest of us.”

    Older Brother glanced at her and put his attention back on me. “Caviar reminds me of when I had chicken pox in my mouth,” he paused, I think to judge my response. I had stopped chewing, riveted despite my worries for what was coming. “When the chicken pox popped they released salty juices that tasted juuuuust like caviar.” He smiled at me. I swallowed my chewed up and popped caviar with difficulty.

    Younger brother walked by, jiggling Baby Nephew. “Oops,” Younger Brother said, watching a big drooly spit up splat to the floor. Hamish and Miss Tibbit were mildly interested. Oldest Brother called from the Sunny Southwest. We talked about Sister-in-law J.’s belly dancing costume and safety pins. Young nephew strolled past in his new skateboard helmet, and Niece clacked at her new laptop.

    Stop 2: Ocean City, New Jersey Family of WideEyedSpouse

    Two particularly elegant women from My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding accidently joined us for Christmas 2.0.

    Older Niece wore her excellent new hat while she thumbed at something on her new smarty phone and Younger Niece trotted around the living room, tormenting Hamish with her interest in his plush fur. He ran, WideEyed, from corner to corner seeking asylum.

    Sister-in-law K and Brother-in-law P sat numbly watching Younger Niece and Christmas 2.0 events. They manage in retail and Christmas is Not Kind to the folks who at the most fundamental level facilitate our national economic security.

    Mother-in-law sniffed her new Chanel perfume, remembering Valentine’s gifts from her dad back in the day, and WideEyedSpouse and I waited to see what the relentlessly greedy Miss Tibbit would manage to steal from the table.

    All the while, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding flickered on the TV behind us, benign and quiet, until we noticed the bride and her maid of honor beating each other into the sidewalk outside of their wedding hall. Sister-in-law K. grabbed the remote to turn it up. We watched in awe.

    Stop 3: Buffalo, New York WideEyedHousehold

    1,500 miles, 14 accidents in the cat hut, 2 major winter storms, 9 bottles of water, 7 travel cups of coffee, 6 days later, and we are home. The Christmas candles burned in the windows of the WideEyedHouse to greet us. The new snow gleamed on the garden fence and pergola, and Miss Tibbit did a little dance in the drive while Hamish rolled and rolled in the snow.

  • Peanuts, Beer, and Minor League Baseball on a Spring Evening

    The Buffalo Bisons beat the Columbus Clippers in a dramatic bottom of the 10th inning run from third as the Clipper’s catcher scrambled for a mis-pitched ball. The 1000 or so Buffalonians in the stadium hooted and whooped as they filed out of Coca-Cola Field into the gloaming twilight.

    We were at the game last night because the Spouse won the department lottery for the company’s baseball tickets. We fed the poochies, locked down the household, and set off to the Metro station. We walked past permanent Santa who watched us from above, and we descended level after level into the bowels of the creepily uncrowded Metro tunnel. I emptied my pockets for the $8 round trip ride for the both of us. Parking downtown was $5. But then, where’s the adventure in parking a car?  I do that every day one place or another.

    The Buffalo Bisons mascot Buster and his son Chip wandered the stands – the Spouse high fived Chip. The Boy Robin tromped up and down the stadium stairs yelling “Snow Cones! Three dollars!” with relentless cheer and hope. I think he was selling the same couple of snow cones the whole evening. Like Batman’s true sidekick he remained stalwart in adversity, and his cape fluttered heroically in the wind, his eyes were sharp and clear behind his mask.

    “Cold Bud, Bud Light, Peanuts!” Alrighty. I got some peanuts and the Spouse got a can of Bud from the Conehead – “With this can the Conehead guarantee, if it’s warm, this beer’s on me…” The Spouse sipped – it wasn’t warm. And the peanuts were great, fresh, salty, flakey. When I was done with the bag the Spouse was covered with the red peanut skins caught by the evening breeze.

    We watched the fast game. We looked over at the General Mills Big G on their heritage cereal plant. Trucks heading to and coming from Canada roared past on the 190. The Spouse and I were featured on the big screen not once, but TWO times – the Delta Sonic Super Kiss Cam and the other time during a lull in the game. I know, right – how many times do you get to be on the screen in a professional league arena? TWO times in one game when you go to minor league. I think we are celebrities now. I could tell people on the train home wanted my autograph. Actually, the Spouse and I speculated that since the audience was sparse we ALL got a turn up there.

    A crazy old guy dressed in full Bisons regalia, including batting cap, which maybe was for his protection, shrieked incomprehensibles at the Clippers – he’d point at one coming to bat, run his finger across his throat, punch one fist into another, point at his belly button and then back the batter on deck. You know it was weird. But, it was unnerving the Clippers, we could all tell. So, we cheered our unconventional psychological weapon as the innings of no runs, no hits, all strike outs and walks marched on.

    The tension of the 10th inning was eased by a tiny blonde girl in the front of the stands. “Let’s go Bisons!” her little voice piped – we clap, clap…clap, clap, clapped in response. She called it again. We clapped. She looked transcendent with joy and it was on – she chanted, we clapped, over and over until her little voice rasped and she collapsed, exhausted, next to her dad. I think we transformed her life last night, and taught her the intoxicating power of controlling a crowd through performance. I hope she’s ok.

    Massive mosquitoes like small fighter planes arrived and menaced in the lights above us. They weren’t quite hungry enough to come down for dinner, but everyone was scared and looked up at the swarm pretty regularly. A new player for the Bisons stepped up  – his stats at all zeros. The crowd cheered him on, welcoming him to their club. He struck out I think, but I was busy watching the mosquito swarm.

    The Spouse and I have been to ball games in a lot of states. Big stadiums in PA, WI, and MN, little Wrigley where we saw a home run go through someone’s window across the street – and more. Last night’s game in the more empty than full stadium, with little contests, races, and swag give-aways between most innings, with young guys in ill-fitting uniforms trying real hard– was the best, fastest, and most cheerful game I’ve ever seen.  We’ll be back Bisons – because your baseball is fun baseball.

  • Santa Lives in Buffalo, Strapped to a Railing

    Last March Santa looked forlorn strapped to the fifth floor balcony of an apartment building near the Canisius College Metro station. His cherry red suit was faded to a soft tea rose pink. His pink cheeks had bleached to vampire whiteness. Traffic soot embedded into his beard, hair, and the rim of fluffy white on his hat gave them an ultra-real dimensionality that shouldn’t be possible on his round plastic body.  Now a year later, Santa still rigidly dangles that hundred or more feet off  the ground. But between last March and today he had his weeks of glory, and the true brilliance of the apartment owner shined into the December nights.

     We assumed that Balcony Santa was collateral damage in someone’s busy life. You know what I mean – wreaths that were perky in December but flap forlornly in February’s gusts, the spindly Christmas tree carcass that appears on the curb in April, and one of my favorites – Rudolph standing in an unkempt front garden with late summer purple coneflowers bobbing around him. We figured Santa was just like those forgotten remnants of Christmas spirit. But this winter, on a fine December evening we were hurtling down the Scajaquada Expressway and there he was shining far above the road. Santa was lit and glowing: his red suit agleam, his dark eyes like holes in his dreadfully cheery winter-white face. He hovered, one arm in the air raised to spread a message of Christmas cheer: “Farewell to all, and to all a good night…” He lit up the Christmas season. He glowed through New Year’s Eve. And then he was shut off.

     You have to figure that Santa is tied onto that balcony railing pretty firmly. Even permanently. He hasn’t sagged. He doesn’t move in the 50 or 60 mile an hour winds that howl through the city. And when I think about the annual effort of untangling lights, hanging lights, prying lights down, stowing lights – I wonder if Santa’s owner isn’t much smarter than me. Sure, a person would have to have selective vision, to be able to look past Santa on say, the Fourth of July, but I bet that is easier than going hypothermic for the Christmas spirit every year. Balcony Santa isn’t forgotten. He is simply waiting in his aerie. And maybe, he is keeping an eye out – checking off the naughty and the nice.