All right, all right! I decorated. Happy now? Probably gave myself a hernia from bringing it in off the porch. If I did, I'll hate Christmas even more. I don't know what made me think it would be a good idea to haul that thing in. I think it's because the other day I found a bag of those little battery-powered lights in the closet and I do love those and I figured that I might as well bring in the tree so I could use them. I have another string I may put on if I get motivated. I woke up feeling fine today. Absolutely fine. I don't know what was wrong with me yesterday but I'm pretty sure it was not a reaction to having gotten in a tiny tiff with my fella. As I said in many of my comment replies, I do have a strong mind/body connection but after all these years with this mind and this body, I can generally tell the difference between the two when it comes to ailments. Sometimes I'm not sure, but in this case, I am almost certain. Honestly, I only got angry and fearful for a little while. Not nearly long enough to make me sick. Once I'd said my piece, I was fine. I just needed to get it out.
We all liked having the Thanksgiving brunch so much that we're planning a Christmas "early lunch". We're calling it that because Lauren missed having the traditional foods at Thanksgiving so we're all going to make something in the traditional vein, I suppose, and do a pot-luck. I'm making the very-traditional Moon Family Chicken Salad. It looks something like this.
That's the one I made last year. Glen's mother used to make it and I'm not sure but his grandmother might have too. There's no recipe and I just wing it, trying to replicate it the best I can. But there must be grapes and pecans on top because that's what you do. No deviation permissible there. Usually one uses green and red grapes but last year I think I was being particularly Scrooge-ish and just bought red grapes. I don't really like grapes anyway. But today I bought both the red and green because that is the proper way to do it. I'm to the point now where I don't even especially like the chicken salad and I love chicken salad but everyone else wants it except for May who is a vegetarian and has been since about age eight.
I'm also bringing a ham and as we all know, I love ham. I bought one at Costco today.
Yes. I went to Costco. Amazingly, I got a good parking spot by sheer luck, got in and got out in less than twenty minutes. I really did not need much there but what I needed, I needed. There were about forty-thousand people there and I've never heard as many excuse me's in my life as I heard in there today. You could not turn a corner without coming perilously close to ramming into another cart.
Publix wasn't either. I got the stuff I needed and got on out of there. I had a little chat with the check-out guy and the bagger that was enjoyable. When I'd gotten all my groceries on the belt, I said to them, "So. Let me ask you guys a question."
"Okay..." I think they were probably expecting me to ask something in the area of customer dissatisfaction but no, what I asked them was how did they do Christmas? Who made the Christmas dinner? Mama or Grandmama or everyone?
They jumped right in on that. Seems like in both families, everyone contributes. One said that his grandmother always brings banana pudding but only he and his dad get to eat it. Everyone else knows not to touch it. I'm sure that says something about his family dynamics but I don't know what.
So that was pleasant. I live for these little windows into other people's lives. I'm not really nosy, but I am very interested. Plus, it's just a missed opportunity to only have the most surface of interactions with others. I'm not trying to get all up in anyone's business. I think it's more that I just want to let them talk about themselves a little.
And I've felt cheerful enough all day long. I washed the sheets, of course, and did a whole bunch of other laundry and put all my groceries away and have mahi thawing for supper. It's gotten chilly again today, supposed to get in the mid-thirties for the next three days. That is fine with me.
I am waiting on my husband to come home. He left the house today with a list as long as Santa's of things he needed to do to try and catch-up on because of the days he missed working at Moon Plaza.
The paperwhites are blooming in the little kitchen bed. As you can see, they are all but choked out by the horrendous chenille plant.
They are hardy little things, aren't they? I'd love to bring some in but I find their fragrance rather unpleasant. Camellias, on the other hand, have no odor. Just beauty.
Happy Friday, y'all.
Love...Ms. Moon
Your Norfolk Island pine has some growing to do!
ReplyDeleteIt's plenty big enough for my purposes.
DeletePaperwhites already? The first harbingers of spring, but I think yours might be getting ahead of themselves. I don't enjoy their fragrance either.
ReplyDeleteThat pan with the pecans and grapes, I thought that was unbaked cake batter under the nuts and grapes. Your little tree and lights looks lovely.
Yes. Our paperwhites bloom earlier than those in more northern climes do.
DeleteNope. Not cake batter. Not even a pan. It's a bowl. Guess that wasn't a very good picture.
Well done to you for speaking to those employees like they were humans, not automatons. I will talk to anyone and it is very satisfying for the most part isn't it!
ReplyDeleteI don't want to be a pest and I think there's a fine line between being friendly and a pain in the ass whom you wish would move along, please. So I try.
DeleteI agree with you about the fragrance of paperwhites. SG used to love to force bulbs in the house, but I found the smell overwhelming. I’m glad you’re better. That’s an awful lot of Christmas decorating!
ReplyDeleteYou have no idea how stressful it was to do all that decorating. I'm still exhausted.
DeletePaperwhites smell of Tom cat pee to me so a ‘no’ from me too. I need a camellia here. I had a beautiful blood red camellia one in my old garden, a present from my mum, and importantly the flowers dropped off when they finished blooming. Yes indeed, the charges against Mick and Keith were part of a right wing conspiracy enabled (I want to say trumped up) by the gutter press. My husband who was born in 1952 in Chichester remembers the trial. I am fortunate that I can do all my food shopping in our excellent village shop and two nearby farm shops and they together with the wine merchant, chemist and health food store cover all our needs. And there is always time and space to chat. Peace to you Mary Moon. Sarah x
ReplyDeleteThat's what I think paperwhites smell like. Same-same.
DeleteYes. The British government was hand in glove with the gutter press- not that unlike how things go now, I think. They set that bust up. In his book Keith said the reporters were there before the cops had gotten to the door. Or something like that. And the lies they told. Keith is still tiffed with Mick for getting knighted by the country that tried their best to make their lives a living hell.
Your village sounds so lovely. Just perfect.
the few times we've had static in 15 years have involved drinking and now Tony drinks non alcholic beverages as our compromise. I had to ASSERT myself as the child of two addicts and i made the point that needed to be made. sometimes you have to say what you need to say. PS I also hate xmas. I get it. xxalainaxx
ReplyDeleteTony is a good man.
DeleteInstead of learning to assert myself, I just got to the point as a child where I knew I wasn't going to be listened to or taken seriously so I just started keeping things in and taking it out on myself. I still do. I wish I'd been as strong as you.
Christmas fucking sucks.
Well, I am glad you are feeling better and getting your shopping done quickly. I think I am ready for Christmas as I have my presents wrapped and my food bought. I have one friend staying with me who will leave before the next group comes in so I will clean that room again but that's not too much work... We will have tacos for Christmas and a birthday cake for my grandson, Adam, who is 1 year old today.
ReplyDeleteI haven't wrapped one single thing. I hate wrapping too.
DeleteI like the idea of Christmas tacos and birthday cake. Happy birthday to sweet Adam.
you brought in that little pine and put lights on it, I made ornaments, adding a third, an origami star, with no tree to put them on. I've been slowly moving bulbs from Pam's yard to mine. I think there are some paperwhites but don't expect ny blooms until next year.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad your adopting Pam's bulbs. That is a beautiful thing and what a living testimony to her they will be as they bloom.
DeleteEllen, I didn't even put the second little string of lights on that tree today. I could not be assed, as the Brits say.
I'm glad you're feeling better and I like your Norfolk Island Christmas tree! I love chicken salad with grapes in it. I think my stepmother makes it that way. Isn't that a Waldorf salad? (Oh, I just Googled it, and I guess a Waldorf is just grapes, apples and nuts and no chicken.)
ReplyDeleteI think a potluck for the holidays makes a whole lot of sense, particularly in a big family.
I don't put grapes in what I call Waldorf salad. Just apples, pecans, celery. I think that's it. Oh, raisins! Of course!
DeleteYou're right- potlucks are where it's at when there are many to be fed.
Your Norfolk Island pine (NIP) tree is lovely with the lights glowing. My NIP grew to 5 feet, so they grow well and in FL they probably survive outside too.
ReplyDeleteYour holiday brunch sounds like good fun for all. I also like to keep things simple. My idea of simple is putting a prime rib roast in the oven, making a few side dishes and buying multiple deserts from a good bakery. I am no cook so simple is important. Nobody goes home
hungry, and the table is festive.
I'm glad you are feeling better.
I planted one of my Norfolk Island Pines outside and it died. So, I guess they don't survive our winters here or maybe mine was just not very healthy. That is possible.
DeleteYour prime rib sounds so, so good. I love a roast.
Now here we part company. How can you not like grapes? Nature's perfect snack.
ReplyDeleteI'm making a ham, too. I have no idea how to cook fancy beef.
Have a wonderful Holiday(s)!
Some years back something happened to my taste buds when it comes to fruit. Apples and grapes both just taste wrong to me. I have no idea why but it's just unpleasant for me to eat them.
DeleteHam, however, still tastes good. Of course.
It's like a whole different world. Paperwhites. Camellias. I think how nice it would be to go outside to pick flowers right now. I do like having 4 seasons though. Well. 3 of the 4 seasons, anyway.
ReplyDeleteI used to have a Norfolk island pine tree as a hossuseplants
ReplyDeleteAs a houseplant, that is, and it would only tolerate very lightweight ornaments, so flexible. I can't be near paper whites, instant asthma. The scent is not very flowery, too.
ReplyDeleteI learned not to speak up for myself because it would be ridiculed loud and long, literally for months. The sibs who weren't bullies wouldn't stand up to the ones who were, probably because they didn't want to be the next target. It takes a lot of undoing, that fear.