Merry, merry Christmas, baby!, as the king would say. Pop is going to celebrate at Jack's place. It looks like they are going to have a big festive meal, a sort of Thanksgiving 2. I feel like I dodged a bombshell: they aren't coming here! And it is not as though the kids are kids anymore - cute little things joyously lost somewhere in the seven heavens with their new toys and games - thus, in principle, freeing them to come over here and run down our stocks, and as a bonus, make my life that much more miserable. As it is, not only have I been spared house guests and get the house to myself, but Pop got me a little turkey and some dressing so that I can treat myself to a cozy holiday meal for one. He must be feeling a little guilty. I would have preferred Kentucky Fried Chicken, but I didn't want to play the spoiled brat.
And there is yet more in our Christmas stocking. Pop invited me to order a book from Amazon, again. It was getting a little late in the season, and I started to think that this was one new, experimental tradition that was winking out, after only a couple of years, but, no, it flamed back to life at the last minute, though due to the lateness of the order, I will not actually receive it until tomorrow, on the day after Christmas. If I was six years old, instead of forty-nine, I might have cried wet, streaky tears. Instead I am feeling as giddy as a street beggar who is given a dollar bill instead of a shiny quarter.
I might have made Amazon's Christmas deadline, if I had ordered right away. The thing is, I did not actually have a book in mind. While I was waiting to see if Pop would let me order a book on his dime, I planned to ask for a couple of pairs of Crocs instead, those plastic-like, Swiss-cheesy shoes that don't hurt my right foot. I had been holding off on asking for the shoes, because I thought things were too financially tight. So, if Pop should feel overcome by the Christmas spirit, I was going to take care of this little need of mine. In the process I ended up getting both. I keep bracing myself for the big crack-up, but Pop continues to be a fountain of cash and credit.
Choosing a book is always a fun problem to have, but it is not without its stress. How was I to make the most of this opportunity? Although I did not want to be such an ogre as to order a fifty-dollar book, I didn't want to order a seven-dollar paperback either. Maybe this was the time to get one of those poetry collections, by E. E. Cummings or Philip Larkin perhaps. However, I just recently considered such an acquisition, when I was thinking about my evening reading, and I continue to feel averse to the idea of skimming my way across hundreds of pages to end up picking up only a few choice poems that catch my fancy, even if Pop would be the one financing this fishing expedition. I needed a bigger payoff than that, something practically guaranteed to be fun. I need a good time, and I need it now. But what?
I have been in the mood for a novel to sweep me off my feet, but the one calling out to me is Le Guin's "Lathe of Heaven", which is only a six-dollar Kindle download. I can swing that on my own meager resources. We needed bigger game, something more Christmasy than that - love should hurt a little bit. But what? I am actually kind of well-stocked in books and very satisfied in my reading life at present. Then I remembered that I had let my celebrity reading slip off my radar after finishing Nick Tosches's "Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams". The New York Times recently gave a good review to a new biography on Richard Pryor by Scott Saul. I am sure it will make a nice present to myself. I know what I like. It was either that or Richard Zoglin's big new biography on Bob Hope. I thought it would be better to go with something more cool and less white.
So, relatively speaking, it is a pretty good Christmas for me, especially if you throw in the Samsung smart-TV and the Netflix subscription, which I have been using rather more than Pop has, as he still tends to stay home on basic cable and the tumbleweed-strewn range where the antelope roam and cowboys strut around with gun-belts and cowboy hats and spurs on their boots. He watches shows from the middle of the last century on 21st-century technology. He has a strong taste for the latest gadgets and goods, but his imagination still romps in the TV Land and movies of his childhood and youth. In the end, I have to appreciate that this Christmas is closing out what has been another good year, realistically speaking. Pop is 73 years old, and I am not even going to think about what the end of 2015 will look like, not being sure that I will even see it. It's like when you are nearing the end of a movie and expect the closing credits to start rolling any moment now. My life may not be a big, great, fun movie, but I am not ready to see it end yet either.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
