13 November 2010, Boise
Bicycling to work into the foothills, climbing into the sun layer pouring across the ridges, the amber light in the yellow and ruddy and still-green treetops of the North End; various flocks of birds streaming like confetti over the valley across the pale turquoise sky. This new job couldn't have come at a better time for us. It involves renovating a house in the hills not far from our place. What was once quite a modern Eighties home is now in need of contemporary upscaling: new kitchen layout, new energy efficient windows, all the heavy oak trim and baseboard pulled for clear flat stock moulding. It's a fun project and the owner has a great eye for design. In fact he built the place in the Eighties and still has piles of period Architectural Digests to prove it. Now those mags are replaced with Dwell and Wallpaper, and perhaps in another twenty years the whole cycle will start over again. But like I said, it's a fun process.
Last week Republicans stormed back into congressional power, taking around 60 seats in the House on their way to controlling it (and halting just a seat short of commanding the Senate). Perhaps Obama did exchange hope for pragmatism, but how practical is missing your opportunity for real change by playing moderate, thereby losing your progressive base, and then getting reamed anyway by the far right for being a 'radical'? He should have played Bush-Cheney hardball from the start, rammed through genuine health care legislation, and then lost the landslide of seats in the House. The real loss the Dems suffered was not of seats, but of opportunity. And that was lost for taking half-steps. If you're going to go down in flames, at least take out a target on your way down.
4 December
It's snowing. Plump wet flakes that slide down the windows and paste the bare limbs of the trees and heap white the yards. This is our fourth or fifth snowfall in two weeks, and the neighborhood is piled high, the streets crested, and the hills are downy sheets billowing out of sight into the low sky. The strange thing is how content I am to watch it come down without the old need to go into it and ski. I'm waiting, or my body is. It's been a decade since I lived in winter and didn't have to drive three hours to it, and my body needs a little more time to absorb the season. But as I light the fire and romp about the living room with Ada and have breakfast with sleepy Anna, a certain spark is lit and starts to grow, a long-waiting pilot light turns up its flame and you can hear the old furnace grumble into action. Diving out into the snow is a little like first jumping into a river: after the cold shock of it, you're warm as you want to be, that is, as warm as your spirit is alive.
That's why kids hardly feel the cold. We bundle up Ada tight as a tick but her engine's so warm already she could go out naked and melt a path across the yard. It's hard to say she loves the snow – any more than she loves everything else about being outside. “Walk” is her word for going out, and it's now her favorite word after ball (and mamma and daddoo, of course.) After a big snow the other day I walked her down the hill to the park where a hundred or more kids were sledding the steep ridge known as Camel's Back. It was a carnival of cruising sleds, scarfs flying. Wisely the park ties hay bails to all the nearby trees to limit knockouts. When I was a kid they skipped the ounce of prevention and just had an ambulance sitting in the parking lot on weekends.
It didn't take Ada long to want to join in the fun. I picked up one of the busted jalopies in the brush and sat Ada in it and tugged her a short ways up slope. Gave her a push and she slid wobbling down a dozen yards to relative safety. Relative because all the while kids were kamikazeing down around her. When I rejoined the girl she had a serious look on her face like she'd either had a fright or was demanding to know what the hell I'd put her through. Then she put her mittened fists together, tapping them in the sign for more. (Anna taught her that small bit of sign language — and I guess that's her other favorite word after ball.) So I pulled her up the hill and gave her a push and she skidded down with great concentration. Seems she took the whole affair quite seriously, like she had some future in it which she wasn't going to derail with any frivolous shouts or peels of laughter. After an hour of riding I finally pulled her out of the sled and she protested with tears. Of course that caved in my resolve to get home and I put her in the flapping plastic sleigh for another couple runs. Still that didn't sate her. On what I thought would be the last of the last rides she saw me coming for her with what must've been a poorly disguised look in my eyes because she got out of the sled and began pulling it herself by the chord up the hill. The tiny puffed critter wobbling and slipping up the ant hill tugging an oversized snowbuggy behind her was too cute of a sight. The girl has spunk, that's for sure. And maybe not a shabby future on skis. We sledded a few more runs and wetted the snow with tears on the way home.
27 December
Christmas was a sweet one. The neighborhood strung with lights and edged with snow. We were invited to a couple parties, Christmas Eve and day, and it was a fine feeling to bundle up and stroll over under the arching maple trees to a warm house full of cheer and beer and new friends greeting you like family. At the Christmas Eve party there were other kids around Ada's age and the youngsters roamed underfoot and played about the house as the rest of us made dinner (paella cooked outside over an open fire) and drank sangria. It was a Spanish-themed party and a good one. Certainly Ada didn't know anything about Christmas but she did sense something was up, the holiday-glow of yet another late night out at a party with kids and toys and music streaming about the place. She was in good spirits, played nice most of the time, and didn't seem to tire, even on the way home, insisting to walk.
But the next day she came down with a fever. Her illness made the experience of opening presents a kind of lurid color dream of slow-motion puff explosions. (Or that was my slightly hung-over interpretation.) Which is to say she liked the present opening sensations more than the toys that issued from them. The grandparents were more than generous and if it wasn't for them we would've had a pond instead of a sea of wrapping paper on the floor.
Anna made blueberry pancakes and fluffy scrambled eggs while I got the fire crackling and put on Christmas records: Loretta Lynn, Bing, even a Kitty Wells Christmas that Anna found at the thrift store. After all the excitement we lay down on the bed together to rest. Poor fevered Ada was as docile as a wounded bird. She's never like that, so when her engine idles you know something's amiss. Later though, after some napping, she popped back with enough convincing pep that we decided to make a go of another friend's party in the neighborhood. We bundled up and walked down the hill and across the park and west a few more blocks to the home of our new dear friends T. and J. They had a fire going — oak that J. had split from one of his downed trees — and T. was baking away in the kitchen. She is a wonderful cook, a wonderful Italian cook, and to show up at her house is to be offered fresh coffee and treats of all kinds from her oven. This day she had delicate pastries, ham quiche, sizzling wursts, and rich cheeses set out on the kitchen bar, where we sat and drank flutes of prosecco. Other friends of theirs arrived and Ada ran about flirting with the teenage boys of the house. Already she's got a thing for older men. It was a lovely afternoon and we were sad to go.
Sadder still for that despair that always skulks in towards the end of Christmas day. The neighborhood looked a little grey and the house lights beginning to glow did so cheerlessly. There's always a hangover to good times, isn't there? Physical, spiritual or otherwise? Even the sweetest times leave a bittersweet nostalgia in the wake of their passing. But that's life, right? Still, we couldn't help but envy our families in Germany and Italy, where the Christmas season isn't a couple day pause in the work week, but a season of celebrating that lasts almost as long as winter does. Ada slept well that night. We watched a little of A Christmas Story and pretended for an hour that the world was still plump with magic and swirling martinis. And the next morning it was: Ada's illness was somehow gone, I got the records and the fire roaring again, and Anna made another delicious breakfast.
