It's still the Season to be jolly, dammit

I spent last weekend in Nashville with Arnie and perhaps one of the most fun things we did was to indulge our inner child by escaping after 20 minutes from a party where we knew no one and where it was clear that we would never know anyone....We both felt like bad 2nd graders who had gone kicking and screaming to birthday party of a kid they didn't like. We had a drink, I ate a ham biscuit and then we snuck out, changed our clothes and went out to hear some local musicians. Nashville is full of music but this is practically the first time that the timing has been right and we could actually get a seat in a club. The song that I loved the most by this popular group -- don't ask me what they are called -- was "be Good or be gone."

Yeah baby. I think that's my new mantra.

And shopping in Nashville is of course so different than shopping in New York because people there wish you a Merry Christmas and indeed it is a Merry Christmas. I'm sure I won't win any friends on this one but frankly it is not the Holiday season, it is Christmas. And on then on Friday we will leave for our annual trek to Georgia to celebrate the Holidays aka Christmas with Sheftalls..Earlier this week.Kate and I bought a Christmas tree so that we will have that to come home to and I see now that it is towering in our living room that it is a very big tree indeed. Beautiful but big. We will do the lights tonight and then decorate it just in time to leave for 5 days! LOL

Tis the Season

Yesterday was quite a day. I almost got into 2 fights with women before I had even struggled onto a super crowded subway. How do these things happen? people who should know how to be nimble on city streets and subway stairs become belligerent and refuse to move. Holy cow. Of course I am talking about me, too. I was definitely belligerent, aggressive and un repentent...sort of. But I finally made it to work and tried to have a zen moment. Zen moments in the plural. More Christmas cheer. I went to a super swank staff party with a guest list and then dashed home to attend the lobby party in our building with the much anticipated annual visit by Santa Claus. All the kids in the building have stockings with their names on them and Santa gives them presents which he personally has bought. Apparently this year there was some grabbing at presents and accordingly great chaos which I lay totally on the 4 or 5 boys who live in the building, and so I have volunteered Kate as an enforcer next year to help Santa Claus to keep these boys disciplined.

Long Live the Plum Pudding

It's not like a plum pudding is the same thing as a travelling fruit cake, you know, which I am told lasts for generations. I frankly don't know what the ingredients are for a fruit cake besides massive amounts of glaced fruit which come to think about I have in great abundance sitting on my kitchen counters. However the plum pudding is finished. Bravo for me. It's the rest of Christmas that I have yet to really deal with, like the damn tree

And in celebration of completed kitchen duties I wore high heel boots to work today. I know that makes no sense but to me it was a triumph that I finished the plum pudding and that I could wear high heels. It's taken me years to recover from these ridiculous foot surgeries.I may even wear them to Nashville this weekend because I am a wild and crazy girl.

Harry Houdini

Now that Mr. Frou Frou has escaped once more and been found again , I have chosen to rename him Harry Houdini and perhaps also rename Kate the Mistress of sloppily locked cages. Do you get my drift.....

I am drinking too much coffee, tea and other stimulants tonight as I pace and consider changing my resume to fit a job that I would really like. Brings out all my anxieties...like the fact that I haven't' really finished my Christmas shopping although the biggest job is the Plum Pudding which requires a gathering of ingredients for this traditional dessert that I make for Christmas dinner at the Cedars. I went with Kate to her Saturday morning piano lesson and then ran -- NOR LITERALLY -- downtown to the Florence Meat Market which is a small but wonderful butcher shop on Morton Street to shop for beef suet but only if it's from the kidney. To be ordered they tell me. Next week. Which is what they tell me every year when I arrive breathless and fretting because I've left everything to the last minute. But oh I do love butcher shops. One of met first conversations in Nashville was with someone who thought that opening a butcher shop would be a great idea. Of course I have no experience, no real experience other than taking some butchering classes but there is just something about the smell of blood and all the sawdust that I find intoxicating. Call me strange I'll understand but won't care. Now back to the plum pudding: Then I reached out to Ronnie who lives somewhere in Brooklyn that is very close to one of the few remaining stores that sell glaced fruit and citron. Waiting for the ingredients to start rolling in. Such a part of the traditions but the newer tradition is that I ship two of them by Fed Ex so that some clueless TSA creep won't take it away from me thinking that the amount of brandy in a plum pudding will fuel a rocket. I'm sure it could. I read a book several years ago about two peripatetic British travelers who went to Siberia and they took plum puddings along as their food. Would work but oh my gosh you would probably kill for a lettuce leaf in under a day.

My other dilemma is about the Christmas tree. I have been nothing but scathing about fake trees all my life but I see that occasionally one might be helpful, specially if you are not around but want the flash and dash of a tree....Do you see my problem. I have scads of ornaments and lights and the prospect of having to put it up myself. Actually I want badly to give a party with new people....And so a tree would be nice.

In the meantime I spent equal parts of my day thinking about plum puddings and fake christmas trees and the rest of it sitting in on Kate's piano lessons and then she participated in a recital and did brilliantly. She taught herself how to play on a keyboard and in three months performed very ably. Mozart, she said. Mozart I want to play that. And jazz of course. And she won a prize for being the champion piano practicer!