He is always with me, somewhere ...

I am going to start off with something interesting. Last night, talking with my bestie who lost her son years ago. It is coming up to a hard time of year for her. She has a friend who is a medium and through him she has been in contact with her son for some time. I love to hear the stories about their conversations. I mean, they don't sit down over coffee and talk ... but they communicate in all sorts of ways. She has her signs from him all the time. 

Anyway, I was talking about how hard it is to clean out David's stuff, how all of it is the essence of him. How I can feel him in everything little thing, I know most of the stories behind his knick-knacks or treasures stored in boxes on his chest of drawers. You know the things ... old rings, Matt's tooth fairy teeth collection (yes we have one), passports, collected business cards, notes he left himself about antique clocks or places to shop, antique cuff links, watches, little gifts I had given him. It is all there ... our lives, his life in a wooden box. (I have my own treasures in my wooden boxes ;) 

SO while we were talking about all of this, Ian and David, life and death ... the medium randomly calls Faith. She hangs up to call him back and then calls me back. She told me she was talking to him about me, about David and he said "I see some poop, something funny, like David is a real stinker." Well, I had been complaining earlier to her that the cat had been locked in the bedroom and pooped in there. But then it hit me! Mason and I "went shopping", as Mason put it "an over-spending spree". 

We went to Target, Cost Plus, Trader Joe's to look for Christmas stuff and boy did we find it, lots of it. We got lots of cookies and chocolate, cheese and cream cheese dip, crackers, wine and such at Trader Joe's. We got Cadbury Chocalote finger cookies, and chocolate digestive bisquits, lots of fun stuff that mom and I would buy there every year. We got ... honestly, I can't even remember the $150 worth of stuff we bought at Target ... oh, I got a sweater and we got Noah some presents. 

But the funny thing we picked up were chocolate poop candy. Mason grabbed one, and I said "get two" and we laughed. 

So these are sitting in the bedroom in my not-so-hidden-Christmas-stocking-treasures ... when I thought about the poop comment from the medium. Of course, that was it! David would have bought one for everyone's stocking, he would have loved it. I snapped a photo and sent it to Faith and we laughed. 

And so it is Christmas. Bri put up the tree, but only balls this year. We call them the "angry balls" because one of the first years we were all leaving together, the tree wasn't going up fast enough for them and they were moaning about it. I got mad, said "f*ck it", ran to the store, David and I bought a bunch of tacky ball ornaments,  decorated the boring tree with them ... and said THERE ... THE TREE is up.

Do the balls are always referred back to the angry trimming of the tree. I am desperately trying to clean up the bedroom for my sister-in-law, who will be here soon. I don't think it will ever be like Christmas when David was here. He was the master gift-giver, stocking-stuffer person. But I try, I focus on the stockings now without spending as much as he would every year. 

I love this house, chock-full of fun things, charm, and now Christmas decorations. I just had a text conversation with a fellow sand collector-friend, around my age, about what to do with of our treasures as we get old and no one else wants them. About how we love our stuff, how we can remember the moment we found it, or bought it and how close we feel to those things. So, I appreciate Richard E. Grant’s stories about his collection of treasures. I also loved what he said 'Try to find a pocketful of happiness in each day’.

 

 

A tree in every room. 

 

Foraging for a Christmas wreath 

I have been watching the new Wolf Hall and Seinfeld reruns (for my mental health). I laugh out loud, master of my doman, the puffy pirate shirt, yada yada episodes. I am not sure my kids get it. Bri and I had an interesting conversation the other night. She told me she thought Seinfeld cast was older, not in their 30's. I said, yes, I watched this in my 30's, I dressed like Elaine, I totally identified with these characters ... when I was 30. She said she thought a 30's sitcom characters would be more like Friends ... she thought they were more like 30. I didn't really watch Friends, it felt a little silly to me? I am not sure why but I loved Seinfeld. Anyway, we just thought it was interesting the way she saw the ages of the characters and didn't feel Seinfeld was of my age group (back then).