Boxing Day

This was written in bits and pieces throughout the day.

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We had a tiny debate as to why it's called Boxing Day. Is it for putting away the decorations, or the stuff you got for Christmas? Neither makes any sense to me, not anyway for the 26th.

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I am super duperly bummed. Last night we went in two cars to the movies (eight people). My two best jackets were in the Jeep, and I temporarily put them on the roof while I folded the back seat into place for passengers. This morning I discovered it was temporary in the wrong way.

I got an awesome pea coat from my son, but losing my two other good coats isn't the trade I would have volunteered for.

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Long story short, Sunya and several of her offspring and I are combining forces. At present we have an apartment and a house being emptied, and a larger house being filled. Christmas and its necessities threw complications into it but we got through with a pretty good Christmas all round. There is still a lot of furniture, clothing, tools, and general possessions to move. Not to mention cleaning. But now I need to go help my son move tables and chairs for his wedding. He gets married day after tomorrow.

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I came home after work on Tuesday and immediately noticed the door from the dining room to the kitchen was two inches too narrow for the door frame. Upon further discussion we both determined it could not have been that way for a week. If so, why did it take me so long to notice? And she distinctly remembers closing that door. Not to mention the color is noticeably off.

We're not a hundred percent sure, though. And it was open and probably never shut during the move-in inspection (I guess I'm supposed to check absolutely everything) plus it was open during the couple days it took me to get my new fridge through it (had to take the doors off the fridge and the trim out of the doorway). And when I called him the owner's rep said right away that door's always been two fingers "short".

So either we're both remembering things differently than how they were, or the owners are weird mind-fuckers and liars. Neither possibility has exactly left us with a warm household feeling.

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Right about the time we found this place, after discarding the few others in the area that didn't meet our very exacting standards, we went with a friend on our Palm Springs trip. I guess that was never mentioned here. Photo album on Facebook (if you go to the right profile -- I have two). Anyway, to make a very long and interesting story ridiculously short, we came back with our collective world expanded by one. He visited the following weekend. After that I found myself in the position of comforting my primary lover and soon-roommate through the desolation wrought by another lover. I mention this so as not to leave out anything major, and because I am at peace with it, but was not always, and because while this was going on we were negotiating the joining of our households, and this made for some very interesting times, as you can imagine, and will have to imagine, as I don't intend to provide much more info. Suffice it to say this life is a rich experience. (It must be said I'm thankful for that.)

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I just read an explanation of Boxing Day. I'm not sorry I never heard of it the first twenty or thirty years of my life. Traditions built around a culture of servitude don't thrill me. (Similarly, I get impatient with modernizations of The Time Machine that forget Wells' point wasn't about time travel so much as a comment on his culture's strict class divisions.)

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Christmas was good. The night before the Eve was the first night the offspring spent in the new digs. The night of the Eve some were away, and so Xmas morn was a sleep in and wrap late sort of morn, until a rising racket told me ALL the offspring were in the house, brought a wee bit early so I could see them before I took off for my family's gathering a twenty minute drive away. A quick present handout (first year I've given to them, I'm pretty sure -- last year was not so good for them, no more to say), then off to my kids and their mom and mine. The house I built and lived in for upwards of a decade was looking good and I felt a confusion of emotions when cradling a dog's head or simply noting the permanence and solidity of my own long-finished projects, here in a house with my name still on the deed while I move people and things from one rental to another. But all interactions were warm and the food was good and when the party dissipated late in the afternoon -- my son had his bride's family to go to, my mom had church linens to go iron -- I was happy to drive back and immerse myself in this other family that has embraced me. Boisterous, numerous, and argumentative are not words that describe the families I grew up in and raised, but I was and am fully a part of it, and it was and is all good.

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Today after moving chairs and admiring the venue he chose for his wedding, I enjoyed a brief conversation with my son about paths taken and not taken. Fact is, every path taken diverts us from another, and there's no purpose to spending energy wondering about those not taken. So long as we choose our directions for the wealth of experience they hold and to follow our hearts, we can't go wrong; whereas staying on some perceived straight and narrow for fear of what could go wrong is a nearly surefire way to go wrong anyway. I have thrown open my arms and fallen like a high diver into the waters; I am happy and proud that my son is doing the same.