Christmas 2010

Once in awhile Christmas doesn't disappoint. Expectations meet actual events. Until I had children, 1961 was my favorite Christmas. Fifty years ago almost. It seems like yesterday, since my memory bank is running on empty. 
            My elderly grandparents were there. Despite their generally cantankerous ways, I actually liked having them around. Perhaps they seemed more congenial at the time, because their appearance during a holiday was especially rare, since they didn't like to travel the 700 miles from Delaware to Chicago at their advanced ages. Wait a minute.
           We interrupt this narrative to do the math. O Holy Crap -- to paraphrase the Christmas song -- in 1961, my grandmother was 66, a year younger than I am now. My grandfather was 76. They seemed ancient at the time. Heck, they looked ancient. At some point I have to stop being in denial. Just not today.
           Even though they eventually endured a nearly 70-year marriage, it wasn't what you could call a good one. But when push came to shove, they could hold it together for the sake of the grandchildren, particularly during a holiday. Or two weeks at the beach in August. Fortunately, I don't have a bad marriage to deal with during the holidays, its own kind of Christmas blessing.
           You'd never guess back then, watching my kindly old grandpa reading the newspaper, dressed in a crisp white shirt and freshly pressed suit pants for dinner, that he'd once held his wife and family hostage, terrifying my mother and her two sisters. He came home drunk with a loaded shotgun and threatened to kill them all, for reasons no one remembers, until my mother managed to talk him out of it. I have always wondered how that night affected the rest of her life. I know it must have. I just don't know how. 
           Christmas in 1961 was also my first time home from college after leaving in September. Maybe the holidays seemed more sparkly and fun because of that. I'd spent Thanksgiving in New Jersey with my roommate's family. After turkey and dressing, I'd taken the bus to New York to be with my boyfriend, who was finishing up his last year at Dartmouth. And making plans to have his way with me. 
          For Christmas my mom always baked several kinds of Christmas cookies, which she usually kept organized in the freezer. We used to take them out and let them thaw, but, over time, that gave way to preferring to eat them frozen. The pre-microwave era, don't you know. At that time of my life, I was still able to enjoy excess food with impunity and without longing for a Zantac. Meanwhile, the tree was up, the house was decorated with fresh pine boughs, and every room smelled wonderful.  
          For good or bad, because our lives didn't intersect that much, I have no memories of my younger brother and sister from that year. Or my father. They were peripheral, like music in an elevator. My mother was the heart and soul of our family. She was the centerpiece of my life. In 1961, she let me contribute to the holiday decorations by creating stained glass windows, using black tape and colored cellophane. No really, it didn't look like a fourth grade art project. The rest of my dance card was full, since I also had two boyfriends to spend alternate days and nights with. 
          When my children arrived, Christmas was even more fun, obviously. Watching the excitement unfold through a child's eyes produces a kind of joy that cannot be exaggerated. At one time I had Super 8 movies of my daughters' delight as they ran into the living room on Christmas morning. They were almost four and not quite eighteen months. That wonderment lasted for many Christmases.
          Now they're on the far side of their thirties. And for some reason, this Christmas has been more memory inducing than others. Perhaps because we had such a wonderful, untraditional Christmas dinner at my older daughter's house -- absolutely perfect beef tenderloin instead of the old standby, turkey. Roasted, not mashed potatoes. Stuffed tomatoes. No cranberry sauce. Not to mention, I didn't have to cook. The table was lovely, covered in a beautiful black and gold tablecloth with gold chargers, gold candles, black and gold napkins with gold napkins rings, and a bouquet of bright red roses in the center. 
          Maybe because I didn't know if she'd ever get here from London's snowy airports, my younger daughter's eventual arrival seemed more auspicious than usual, after her three day delay. Now, thanks to more snow, she's not sure if she'll get to NY for New Year's. Her plane from here was cancelled. Her husband's plane from London has been cancelled. Bad for her, but good for me. I also don't know when I will see her and my son-in-law next, since they're moving to Hong Kong for her job. So every minute seems to have meaning. From baking cookies, to opening presents, to dinner out, to just hanging around, playing with the dogs. Yep, so far this has been a good one.            

Suddenly, it's 45 years later

An ex-boyfriend just posted this picture of his Harvard/Michigan Law/Bass Weejuns/short pants self on Facebook [above] -- from 1965, the year I met him. I had recently posted my own picture from around that same time, ironically, sitting next to his younger brother. A picture that my former bf had taken, as a matter of fact. 

What I find so interesting from the vantage of 45 years in the future is that, aside from looking so different now from those halcyon days of yesteryear, the lives we might have predicted for ourselves bear no resemblance whatsoever to the lives the three of us have actually lived.

               The former bf and I did have a discussion once about where our children would get their education -- he was all for sending them away to prep school [his experience]. I assured him that my children would not be leaving home until college [my experience]. So we would have had to sort that one out. Turns out his kids went to public school after all.    

               Regardless, we didn't get married, as much as I thought I wanted to. Marriage wasn't my prediction for us; it was a wish, one he didn't share. My prediction was hazier -- more like smog -- we'd be together, he'd be a lawyer, I'd be his wife. We'd be living comfortably someplace around Chicago, have some kids, go to the opera and the symphony, haunt museums. Nothing out of upper middle class ordinary. 

               Oddly it was something that happened when my mother died that made me realize I couldn't marry him. My mother's death at 50 was something I never could have predicted. Both her parents lived to 95. The bf freaked when I asked him to be a substitute pall bearer at the last minute. When I needed him, he wasn't there, even though he finally agreed to help out.

               But, even though I knew he would no longer be the man of my future, we still had the present. So we kept on dating. After a pregnancy scare a year or so later, I became absolutely, positively sure there was no way we could ever get married. By that time, the idea of marriage itself had started to bother me. More than marrying him. The institution began to feel like a prison to my emerging feminist self.

               During the pregnancy scare, he and I even went to the marriage bureau to get a license. When I had told him I thought I was p.g., he had announced, "Well, then, we have to get married." That was as close as anything got to a proposal. 

               But on the way to the Daley Center with the man I once thought I loved, I began to have a panic attack, which gained momentum at the bureau of vital statistics, as I surveyed the bilious green walls and Diane Arbus people waiting in line ahead of us. Finally, I said to him, "I don't care if I'm pregnant, I don't want to get married." And we left.

              Finally, after four years of dating, and no more false alarms, we just faded away. I wanted to have children, so I married someone else. But we've stayed in touch, because that's what he does -- stay in touch with all his old girlfriends. I've met a few of them. I even met a couple of them while we were dating. His wife, now his ex, and I even became friends. 

              Having a long friendship with an old boyfriends cause people to ask if I would like to rekindle that old flame. That answer is "no" on both sides. Not because we're so different. But because our bad habits are so much alike. Kiss of death. The good news is I'm often told we have the same sense of humor. Perhaps that is our one saving grace. 

               I am sure neither one of us had plans to be living the single life when we got old. Back then, I could not imagine what it would be like to be 67. He's over 70 now. Those numbers are impossible to contemplate in your twenties. The way 19 seems so far away when you're 11. 

               At 25 I remember realizing I would be 57 when 1999 became 2000. That seemed like such an advanced, useless, sexless, functionless, meaningless age to be on such an auspicious occasion. So conjuring up myself as old as I am now -- 67 -- was pretty much out of the question. When midnight arrived in 2000, announcing the arrival of a new millennium, I remember thinking, "Well, here you are at 57, at a really nice party, watching the next century about to ratchet into place. At least your hair looks good." As historic moments go, not particularly earthshaking . 

               As earthshaking moments go, the most unpredictable one affected the third person in this story -- my boyfriend's younger brother -- the young man in the picture with me. What happened to his life had the greatest, and most profound, impact on my old boyfriend. Like many brothers, they were best friends and confidants, even though one lived in Chicago and the other in New York. Shockingly, when he was 26, not long after the picture was taken, his brother was murdered.  Working for ABC at the time, and living in NYC, he was shot by the disgruntled former husband of the woman he was dating. She was having a small dinner party and the ex broke into the apartment and killed everyone at the table, leaving two children sleeping in the bedroom. 

               At the time, I was married and nursing a brand new baby. I got the call about his death from a mutual friend. "You've got to come to the funeral," she begged. With a husband who was not comfortable with me having any relationship with a former bf, especially that particular one, I knew my presence wasn't possible. "I can't; I've got a new baby." True, but not the whole truth. She pleaded with me to be there. I didn't go. I didn't call either. I did sent a telegram to their father. But, all these years later, I still wonder whether my old boyfriend felt I let him down in his time of need. In the end there was no excuse. His brother's death was so shocking, I should have been there. I wasn't. 

               Now, forty-five years later, the two of us continue on, posting on Facebook, emailing, iPhoning, blogging and MACbooking. Who could have predicted that? He's got grandkids. I've got grand-dogs. It is what it is.          

Social Networking -- The Triumph of Evil

I like to go to movies during the off hours. I also like to go alone if it's a movie I'm really interested in because I don't like any distractions. Okay, kinda creepy. But for a good flick I always try to go when the place is mine all mine except for an occasional old couple down in front. That way I can pretend I'm a Hollywood mogul sitting in my media room with the elderly housekeeper and her husband who got the evening off because I'm such a kind and benevolent boss. 
          Lately, except for Fridays and Saturdays, it's looking like the movie theaters are fairly to mostly empty all the time. Why? Considering that one movie costs $9 bucks with the senior citizen discount [$10 without it] and for just a little more I can stream as many movies/tv shows as I want each month on my computer with Netflix, there's almost no reason to hit the cineplex anymore. Especially since you also don't have to pay much more for unlimited dvds you can watch in your home media center. Which in my case is a 30-something inch tv monitor with a handy, built-in VHS player and my SONY dvd player perched on top. 
          So the movie biz has got to be taking a mudbath. I saw Social Networking last night with seven other people in a theater that holds hundreds. Maybe no one was there because it was Monday. Or since the movie has been out forEVER, nobody was there because most people have already seen it. But none of the other 13 theaters had anybody in them either. I smell discounted prices. And soon. 
          Even worse, the only place they were selling popcorn, nachos and cheese, seven kinds of sugary drinks, 28 different types of candy, and Vienna hot dogs was on the main floor. Which I found annoying since my theater was upstairs and the upstairs place was closed. 
          Another interesting aspect [for me] watching Social Networking was that the twin Harvard rowers, whose idea Mark the Nutberger stole, were played by one guy, Armie Hammer, grandson of Armand Hammer, the philanthropist for whom Arm and Hammer is named. Kidding. About the Arm and Hammer part. Watching one guy play twins and getting to see Justin Timberlake acting. He wasn't bad.
          How's that for a scintillating movie review?

For People With Too Much Time On Their Hands

I highly recommend taking a headshot of a friend who is celebrating a milestone birthday, then putting it on a bunch of famous bodies and making a slide show of the results for the inevitable party. Laughter will ensue. Even better, throw them up on a HUGE screen in lifesize proportions. These are just SOME of the reconfigured people we created. Can you tell who the famous ones were before my friend had her face plunked on their bodies?