While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Good grief Heidi. Christmas time is here!

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I’ll be honest, Christmas stresses me out. Consequently, I end up blogging less around this time because my head is crowded with the things that distract from the true meaning of the holidays. You all know what these things are so I’ll refrain from ranting. (OK, one rant: The cavemen from Duck Dynasty just released a Christmas album – Duck the Halls. You can purchase it for $11.88 at Walmart, where the Duck Dynasty reigns supreme over every department in the store thanks to a MAJOR licensing agreement with America’s favorite bearded buffoons. I can only imagine what the workers in Chinese labor camps must think of us as they pump out Duck apparel, home goods, antibacterial band-aids and now a Christmas album. Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-lame. Rant over.)

As a child I loved Christmas. (Duh, right?) I was neither spoiled nor religious, which meant at Christmas time I fell somewhere between the girl in a department store dress who went skiing and got the Barbie Power Wheels Jeep and the girl in a homemade jumper who read about Jesus and served soup to homeless people. I loved Christmas for all the twinkly reasons that many of you love Christmas.

I loved decorating my bedroom with strings of white lights. I loved curling up with my dog under the Christmas tree. I loved how the house looked from under the glittering pine branches, all speckled with ruby lights and homemade Christmas ornaments; my family coming and going in sweaters and scarves.

I loved watching the snow fill our yard. I loved being the first one to walk in it. I loved stomping a path to the grape fields. Always an alpha female, I loved knowing my sisters would have to (literally) follow in my footsteps. I loved listening to Christmas music. In the days before CDs, I’d record tunes right off the radio. Each Christmas I’d create a mixed tape of holiday songs, many of which were half-songs since I was repeatedly late to pressing the record button on my purple radio. I loved helping my mother address Christmas cards. I loved baking cookies. I loved advent calendars, mostly because behind each window was a piece of chocolate. (Who wouldn’t love that?)

I loved watching Charlie Brown make a statement with a sad, droopy tree.

I loved that my aunts, uncles and cousins would gather every Christmas Eve at my Nana and Papa’s house. I loved that even though we didn’t see each other all the time, we were guaranteed to see each other at Christmas time. I loved seeing us all shuffle around in big socks, my aunts huddled over serving trays, my cousins telling crude jokes, my uncles wondering how anyone will get home in the snow.

I loved Christmas because it stirred up a dreamy kind of feeling. Not because I knew I’d be showered with gifts or visited by Santa – though I’m sure these trappings played a small role in my excitement – but because everything seemed a little less ordinary in December.

As an adult this wonder starts to wane. Why? Because Christmas is a lot of work for adults. There’s the cooking, the baking, the shopping, the Christmas card distributing, the house decorating, the house cleaning, the present wrapping and a steady stream of exhausting social obligations. Traffic gets ugly. People get irritable. Money disappears quickly. Kids get greedy. Retailers trick you into thinking you need to buy reindeer antlers for your car and the next thing you know the inflatable snowman in your neighbor’s front yard is flipping you the middle finger.

Unless you’re Charlie Brown this stuff doesn’t bother you until you get old and crusty, but if you’re anything like me, you’re probably thinking I’m too young to be old and crusty! If during the other 11 months of the year I can be merry and bright, why then can’t I be merry and bright during the merriest and brightest time of year?

This is where the Lance comes into play. In an effort to NOT BE A GRINCH, I plan to count down to December 25 with posts, contests and a few unusual giveaways that evoke the warm and fuzzies, starting with a Q&A tomorrow with children’s singer/songwriter Mifflin Lowe, whose new album Wilton Wilberry and the Magical Christmas Wishing Well is so much more worthy of your attention than Duck the Halls.

A ripe old moment

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|| Note: This is a post for my Opa, whom I’ve written about many times in the past. (See The pitfalls of downhill roller skating or While my Opa was sleeping, or Dies ist Opa.) He died Jan. 6 after suffering for several years with Alzheimer’s disease. He was a jovial, outgoing sprite of a man whom most people describe as a character. He spent as much time creating life stories as he did telling them. Even at his foggiest, he could captivate a small audience, albeit by then most of his tales were wildly embellished or completely untrue. When it became clear that his star in this world was fading, I began the subconscious process of squirreling away memories — both significant and slight. The one you’re about to read falls under the second category. I’m not sure why it floated to the surface. Memories are like dreams sometimes. When they roll in you must abide. ||

A memory: I’m seven, maybe eight years old. I’m holding a coffee can that has two holes punched through the tin. An old shoelace is knotted through each hole to form a kind of coffee can necklace. It’s hot out. July, maybe. I’m in Upstate New York, wearing purple jelly sandals and a tank top. My arms are browning under the midday sun. My tongue is stained with blueberries.

I hand the coffee can to Opa.

I loop it around his neck like I’m crowning him with a gold medal after a long race. It dangles against his chest like a clumsy locket. Inside the can is motor oil, or at least I think it’s motor oil. It’s thick and black and Opa won’t let me touch it.

“Dees is dirty stuff,” he says, as he plucks a beetle from a raspberry bush and drops it into the can.

I trail closely behind him. My sisters too. The air smells like grass and manure. The breeze is subtle, but my hair is fine and flies away easily. We’re in my Oma’s garden, a large unshaded plot divided into neat rows of cucumbers, zucchinis, tomatoes and berries. We’re inching our way through bushes, my sisters and I, our shadows following Opa’s shadow, our legs burning from thorn pricks.

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Mr. Big Deal Package

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When I was a senior at Buffalo State College I attended a frat party at nearby SUNY Geneseo, where my best friend Ro was studying speech pathology. I was less than a year away from earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism.

In between keg stands and the Beastie Boys’ greatest hits I met a guy who started our conversation by bragging about his package. Uh. Wait. I mean his degree in packaging.

“PACKAGING?” I asked.

“Packaging engineering,” he replied.

I was incredulous. Frat boys are expert bullshitters, especially condescending drunk ones.

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The Electric Bicycle Diaries: Turtle Porn

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My father recently started riding a motorized bicycle to work.

I’m pretty sure he’s the only fella in town with one of these things, so if you live in North Collins, N.Y. and a man buzzes past you at 20 mph with a lunchbox strapped to the back of his seat, it’s my dad.

He bought the bike last fall while visiting me in Florida. He got it second hand for $150. It originally cost $800, or so he says.

It took him five hours to properly disassemble it so it could be bubble wrapped, packaged and shipped via FedEx to New York.

It arrived broken.

My father, crestfallen, immediately began searching for replacement parts. Because he’s a veteran at fixing broken shit, he had his bike up and running within a few days. The only problem was it was winter and there was snow on the ground.

“I’ll just have to wait until spring,” he chirped enthusiastically.

Well guess what folks? Spring is here and my tool-and-die-maker father has been leaving his house at 5 a.m. and pedaling motoring through rural back roads like a blue collar Pee-wee Herman in steel-toed work boots and a reflective vest.

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A love letter in a Rubbermaid tote

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I’ve never been a big fan of fate.

It’s a lazy ideology and an easy way to make sense of the fortunes and misfortunes that steer the course of our lives.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a wistful dreamer with an overactive imagination; raised without a religion, save for the convictions I borrowed from a dog-eared copy of “The Little Prince.”

I’m not saying fate doesn’t exist. I’m just saying I’m better equipped at tempting it than I am at waiting for it to happen, because often it’s the choices we make (or don’t make) that decide our destiny.

I found proof of this a couple months ago buried under a stack of clothes in my bedroom closet.

A love letter in a Rubbermaid tote.

I came across it the way we often come across faded notes and old photographs: by accident, by chance, by fate or whatever you’d like to call it.

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Five points (that don’t concern babies)

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♥ I watched my first episode of the Rachael Ray Show this week. This led to my purchasing the September issue of her magazine, which touts “1 Month of Make-Ahead Meals.” I’d really like to get a grip on this cooking thing and if Rachael Ray can’t help me, no one can.

♥ My sister PK wants to sign me up for What Not to Wear because of my love affair with quirky graphic tees.

♥ I applied for a front yard makeover by the DIY network because our front yard is the fugliest on the block, barring the vacant house on the corner.

♥ I should’ve known my favorite cozy down-home ice cream shop is run by a former Western New Yorker.

♥ My next triathlon is one month away and I’ve slacked in the running department. I wonder if those freaky Five Fingers running shoes will motivate me?

Things you can’t shake

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There is (of course) a story behind the salt shaker on my kitchen counter.

It was an unintentional wedding gift, given to me on my wedding night inside a carton of french fries.

After our wedding was through, and the band had packed up, and nearly every guest had been carried away by pumpkin at midnight, Joe and I looked around the ski lodge where our reception had just taken place in a stardust swirl of bliss and we realized, we had no ride back to our hotel.

My cousin Cory and his wife Krystle, always the last to leave a party, were still milling around as we packed up leftover favors and the last of my mother’s centerpieces.

They offered to drive us in their Hummer.

So, around midnight we piled into our off-road chariot and set about a short ride to the hotel.

I was starving.

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Pregnancy Confession No. 5

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[I want beer.]

This does not mean I've had a beer.
It just means I want one.

Or two.

I want the bubbles.
The foamy head.
The cool carbonation sliding down my throat.
The bottle sweating in my hand.

The buzz.

The subtle clinkety clink of the bottle hitting my wedding ring.
The white vapor tickling my nose

A fine mist
rising from the bottle neck
like a genie
granting me a wish the second I crack the cap.

The way one sip brings me home.
To my roots.

My beer drinkin
campfire sittin
motorcycle ridin
muddy
country
dandelion roots.

I was chatting with a fellow preggo the other day
and she mentioned that there's a bar in downtown Sarasota
that serves delicious non-alcoholic beer.

Clausthaler.
It's a German brew. (Like me.)

"You walk in with your belly and I promise you,
they'll hook you up," she said.
"The bartender loves pregnant ladies."

---

PS. Happy St. Patrick's Pug-trick's Day.
Guess where I'm going Saturday?

Western NY must sip: Winery of Ellicottville

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Over the summer, one of my nearest and dearest childhood friends opened a winery in Ellicottville, N.Y.

Psssst … Joe and I got married in Ellicottville in September 2009. Sam Sheehy and his father-in-law, Dominic Spicola, opened the Winery of Ellicottville on Monroe Street in the village just one year later.

Had it been open for our wedding, you can bet our bridesmaids and groomsmen would have enjoyed wetting their whistles here.

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From Gate C34

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Five things before I get on this plane to Buffalo:

1. Remember that 10.10.10 footage I shot of my father flying his Cessna for the One Day On Earth documentary film project?

It was accepted! I received an email from the organization earlier this week asking for the raw video files on a memory card. How awesome would it be if it actually made it into the film? My dad would be a star.

2. On a related note, I’ll board my dad’s puddle jumper any day over a commercial airliner.

I don’t care what your opinion is on the matter. Airport security is a racket. A circus. I don’t believe for a second that a fraction of the “precautions” and rules instituted by the Transportation Security Administration are in place to protect us. While standing in the security line this morning, the guy behind me accidentally slapped me in the face with his belt. I’ve never been slapped in the face with a belt before. It stung. He was mortified. I told him it was only a matter of time before I took a belt to the face at the airport. In no other place do hordes of strangers stand shoulder-to-shoulder and strip at a breakneck pace.

And then, after setting my bags on the scanner belt, I was pulled aside and lectured for having packed a small SEALED bottle of juice. I admit, I was pretty sure the bottle wouldn’t get past the TSA screeners, but as a nearly-six-months-pregnant lady, I require nourishment every few hours. A small fruit smoothie is a good way to get it. Plus, it was expensive. I blame my rabble-rouser husband, who when I expressed my concern over having the juice confiscated by airport security, said:  “To hell with airport security. If they take it from you, you tell ’em, ‘I dare you to steal a bottle of juice from a pregnant woman!'”

3. Thanks to the Snowpocalypse 2011, my flight yesterday was canceled.

I’m now minus a day with my family.

4. My mom is throwing me a baby shower this weekend.

I cannot wait to see my aunts, my cousins, their babies, my friends and Uncle Homer The Pug. To welcome our female guests, my mom and I are planning to build a pregnant snow woman in the front yard.

5. If you Google “boyfriend sleeping” The Lance is the 4th hit down!

I’ve not paid for this privilege, nor have I done anything to make my site SEO-friendly. This is simply thanks to you people. The way Google works is the more hits you get, the higher you climb on the Internet search food chain. As I’ve mentioned before, I have no idea how many hits I get. I stopped tracking traffic two years ago.

The words “boyfriend” and “sleeping” are pretty common, eh?

I’m flattered and grateful for your readership.

—

PS. I took the photo inside my dad’s airplane hanger the summer of 2006.