"It came with out ribbons! It came without tags!"
"It came without packages, boxes or bags!"
In spite of it all, it was really a nice day.
I got up at 6 to make a special cranberry bread, which finished cooking
while Walt was at Mass.
Later we found that Lizzie had
discovered a decoration I was going to put on my yet-unwrapped gifts and had
dismembered Hermie, the elf, the companion to Rudolph who had been de-nosed
yesterday.
Probably just as well...Hermie without
Rudolph? Unthinkable. I'll just consider those two figures the
dogs' Christmas gift.
In the afternoon, we went to Atria to take my
mother's laundry to her. She was not feeling well, said she couldn't
define what was wrong, but that she just felt bad and didn't feel like going
out to meet a lot of people.
We reassured her that we were only there to
bring her laundry. She perked up as we visited, but she was definitely
not feeling well and doesn't even seem excited to see Jeri today.
In her guest comment yesterday, speaking of
her own mother, Elaine said "In looking back, I realize
that the things I found so frustrating at the time, her increasing lack of
engagement with life, and her refusal to do anything for herself, was in
fact a symptom of her decline."
That expressed perfectly what I am
witnessing...her increasing lack of engagement with life and I must factor
that into my response to her when I visit, so I can make the end of her life
as pleasant as it can be for her.
We left Atria and went to the movies. I
had hoped to see The Theory of Everything, the Stephen Hawking movie,
which had been at the theater the day before, but it was gone. In its
place we saw Big Eyes. For those of you who read this journal,
I'm curious about how aware you were of the Keane paintings in the 1960s,
which seem to have loomed large in my young adulthood. They were
everywhere and I loved them. There is a Keane museum across the street
from Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. I'm wondering how many
people relate to those paintings and that era in the way that I do.
I wish my cousin Kathy were still alive. One
of her proudest possessions was an "original Keane." I know she would have
loved to find out the story behind them, that Walter Keane painted none
of the paintings and that they were all painted by his wife.
We got to the theater early because I worried
about crowds on this opening day for this movie. I need not have been
concerned.
When the movie was over, we went looking for
Chinese food, but the place we had chosen was closed, so we decided to go
for Thai, the restaurant next door to the theater, where they staff knows
Walt and we always get free dessert. The place was jam packed but we
didn't have to wait too long. We sat there, in stereotypical
fashion...crowded restaurant on Christmas night, both of us on our cell
phones...and the guy at the table behind me was talking about Hanukah.
We were both very tired (and stuffed!) after
dinner, so came home, watched Jeopardy and then went to bed. No
dishes to wash, no pumpkin pie to look forward to in the morning. But
other than that, it was a very pleasant day, for a non-Christmas Christmas.
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