I guess it's time to say happy holidays. Or merry effing Christmas if you prefer. Already, you scream? I know. This holiday season has come hard and fast. I was walking my four-legged master this morning and one of the neighbors had already decorated for Christmas. I ask you! It's not even Thanksgiving yet. I barely made it through Election Day. I sound so old. Probably because I am old.
Where am I? Thanks for asking. I'm back in Scottsdale while my friends gallivant on the other side of the globe. I'm looking forward to congealing in the tub for the next three weeks. Maybe get some writing done (besides this blog). The chair I'm sitting in is a tiny bit too low, the desk is a tiny bit too high, or I can no longer sit up straight because my spine is bent, or all of the above. Whatever, I can ignore my aching carpals because there is a little dog snoring in my blankets on the bed behind me. She's like a mobile furnace. That is good because the blue sky and sunshine beyond the window belie the hollow chill of this house. It's unusually cold in Phoenix this week. Low 60s during the day. Oh, woe is me, alas, alackaday. We are hanging out in the bedroom with a space heater.What comes next? Who cares? I guess we watch the lunatics take over the asylum. It's mildly anxiety producing but not catastrophic from my vantage point of invisibility. The world is cracking apart, but it probably won't affect me much (unless social security evaporates, then I'm toast). In any case, this mucky dissolution is normal for humans. The civilizations we create fall apart from time to time. Go read a history book, if you can find one that hasn't been banned at your local library. If we are lucky, an asteroid China failed to nudge off course will smack into Earth and put paid to the whole thing. The Earth will continue, maybe in fragments, but don't they say we are all stardust anyway? Stardust to stardust. I ate pancakes this morning, so I'm well on my way to total annihilation.
Where was I? Holidays, right. The winter holiday season was not all that important in my family. I think we all had ideas of how it was supposed to look. The Hallmark family sitting around the table laughing and talking and eating massive quantities of food that won't make them puke later. The perfect family enjoying the perfect holiday. Yeah, no. Not in my family. We all figured out that was not our reality and adjourned to our safe spaces to endure. Mom to the kitchen, Dad to watch football, my brother to the basement, my sister to her room, my little brother to pestering my sister, and me to my books. Not a Hallmark family. More like the family of Misfit Introverts.
After an upbringing like that, you can imagine the holiday season isn't a big whoop for me. This is the time of year I go into stores only to buy food. I avoid anything that reeks of cinnamon and pine cones. I never go to coffee shops for pumpkin lattes or eggnog frapuccinos. I don't look for gifts, white elephants, or bargains. To me, everyday during the holidays is Buy as Little as Possible day. I would sooner eat paste than stand in line outside a Best Buy to buy a gargantuan flat screen TV, even if I had a place to hang it. Anywhere hordes of people go, I'm not.
Now, I know some of you are thinking, wow, Carol, you are such a grinch. Lighten up, already. Go drink some wassail, eat some Chex mix, chill out, your Debby Downer routine is bringing us down.
To that I say, go peddle your White consumerism to someone who cares. Not listening. La la la. I plan to enjoy my solitude, canoodle with the little dog, bask in the Arizona sunshine, and eat bon bons until I burst.
Happy effing holidays from the Hellish Handbasket.