Merry Christmas!

The Christmas preparations have really taken their toll on my available blogging time. But here it is, Christmas Eve eve, probably the busiest day of the holiday season for me. Middle Monkey has school today, but the other two Catholic school simeons have the day off. They shall be my helpers today! Today is the traditional clean-the-house challenge. I try to put it into a religious perspective. The mess in the house represents our sinful nature and how we can lose focus on the final ultimate prize of salvation. So that stack of papers left on the dining room table is a sin which must be cleaned away in preparation for the Savior's birth. O.K. The Pope may think I'm off my rocker, but it's the only way that I can have a happy attitude about a job which is pure drudgery. I was even in a good mood at the grocery store today. The place was packed with people who thought they were going to beat the Christmas food shopping rush. There were women everywhere who looked like they had just fallen out of bed and headed straight for the produce aisle. (I was one of them.) And if the three thousand or so of us who were inspecting fruit and lettuces were the ones who avoided the rush, I hate to see what the place is going to look like later this afternoon, or even tomorrow. But, like the comraderie that forms in the trenches of war, all of us had smiles on our faces and were laughing and talking to each other about all the work we have ahead of us over the next 36 hours or so. I was even pleased to come across my mother-in-law in the dairy section, and I spared her the walk home by driving her once we both battled through checkout lanes.
But I am a very happy camper. I love this time of year. The Christmas tree is almost decorated and good friends are coming tomorrow to share "La Vigilia", the traditional Italian Christmas Eve meal of fish that I will make. We'll go to church together, too. This is the part of Christmas that I love. Nevermind the presents. It's the gathering with loved ones and sharing meals and laughter. We celebrate the wonderful gift that God gave to us in Jesus Christ. Share His love today and throughout the entire year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Here Kitty, Kitty!

Oh, yeah. Cute as a button. Who can resist a soft, fluffy kitten? Meet Lily who now belongs to Baby Monkey. Regular readers to this blog know that Baby Monkey was dealt an emotional blow when Clancey, his 20-year-old cat, died just before Thanksgiving. I thought Baby would be in mourning for quite some time, but about two weeks after his beloved pet's passing he asked me, "When can we get another cat?"
"Don't you think it's a bit soon? Has it been a respectful amount of time?" I asked my youngest son.
"Mom, it's a cat, you know. It' s not like replacing a person." He had a point. Besides, I am alone in the house during the day, and believe it or not, I get a little lonely without even a cat to talk to. (Kong will attest to the fact that I like to talk.)
So about a week ago, Baby Monkey and I found this little cutie at a cat shelter. She was found under a porch with her siblings, alone and frightened, no mother to be found. I feel we've done a good deed by rescuing her and providing her with a "Forever Home", as the shelter likes to say. Baby Monkey is completely taken with her. She is gradually getting used to her new environment, and it's his responsibility to feed her, clean her litter box and generally take care of her. He's even set up housekeeping in the back room downstairs, sleeping on the sofa bed to make sure that she wants for nothing in the middle of the night. His devotion is actually quite sweet. He reminds me of Coco the Gorilla who was famous for learning sign language and being able to communicate with her scientist/trainer. Coco was given a kitten at one point. It was amazing to see such a large creature be so tender and loving with her tiny pet. It's the same with Baby Monkey. He has enormous hands and stands 6 feet tall on size 13 shoes. But he's very gentle and considerate of his little kitten's fragility. For example, Baby Monkey is careful to set Lily in a safe place before he picks up a broom handle and chases the Monkey Prince through the house. There must be hope for him.

O, Christmas Tree

Let me just say this. I like Christmas. I really do. I especially like it since the year we scaled back all our gift giving to only those people living in our house. It certainly cut down on all the holiday stress. But I do like Christmas! However, there's one task that I just don't like, and that's tree hunting.

I live in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is a very, very large tree farm. From the banks of the Delaware River to the shores of Lake Erie there are trees. In fact, the very word "Pennsylvania" means Penn's Woods, combining the name of our tolerant Quaker founder with the forest that was his personal property, a gift from an English king. To this day, except for dots of civilization like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh (I'm using the term "civilization" loosely in reference to Pittsburgh), the entire commonwealth is a vast woodland, and a good portion of that woodland is evergreen. So, it's not at all unusual for Pennsylvanians to have live Christmas trees in their home, and it's also not uncommon for Pennsylvanians to have actually chopped down their Christmas trees with their very own hands. And I do love the smell of a fresh tree, and it certainly does look splendid when it's standing there all decked out in holiday finery. What I don't like is the spectacle that goes along with Christmas tree hunting and chopping.

For anyone who does not live in a tree-cutting area of this great country, I want to specify that at least in our neck of Penn's Woods, people don't just go outside with an axe and begin cutting down any old tree they see. Most of Pennsylvania is privately owned, and the law frowns on tree stealing. And if your local culture does not include Christmas tree cutting, then you may have an idyllic picture in your head of snow covered forests, brisk cold air, and smiling, jingle-bell-singing families traipsing into the woods together for family bonding. Well, it's not really like that, at least not when you live with monkeys.

Apparently I was not invited to the "tradition development meeting" on Monkey Island. No one told me that this yearly quest for the perfect tree had become something that cannot be altered. We MUST awaken very early on a cold December morning. We MUST go to breakfast at a diner (which I do enjoy, by the way), and then we MUST find a suitable Christmas tree farm, walk through the rows of tree and argue about which one is perfect. While this goes on, the three monkeys must run through the trees, hurling snow and insults at each other, not a concern at all for trees. In fact, they probably don't even notice trees.

This year was no different. After internet research was done, likely candidate tree farms were identified in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Kong announced the evening before that he expected us to be conscious and ready to go by 7:15 a.m. the following morning. At approximately 8:30 a.m. the next day, we pulled out of the driveway headed for the traditional diner breakfast. The monkeys were bleary-eyed, as most teenage monkeys are at that hour of the morning -- or indeed, at any hour before noon. This year, a twist was added to our adventure. We all traveled in the same car. You see, back in 1998, Kong, ever the accountant, decided to save five cents by purchasing a minivan without a roof rack. (I defy you to find a minivan without a roof rack.) So year after year, because there was not enough room in our minivan to carry a tree and all children in seatbelted safety, we'd take both the minivan and the car. In that way, when the perfect tree was procured, we could cram it into the van, and then pile people into the car to follow. But by the summer of 2005, I had purchased two kayaks, and one really must have a roof rack for kayak transport. So this year, with a custom Yakima rack on the minivan, we drove in family togetherness, listening to holiday music and anticipating the real reason the monkeys and I go on this hunt, which is the diner breakfast.

Diners are a wonderful thing, especially at breakfast time. Kong and I share a love of diners. I'd rather go to a diner for breakfast than a Michelin five-star restaurant for dinner. And Pennsylvania, along with being a vast woodland, is also a diner Mecca. We've been known to drive the width and length of the commonwealth in search of diner fare. Kong has skidded to screeching halts at the site of an unexpected stainless steel gleam of a Silk City classic. The monkeys love giant omelettes, great stacks of fluffy pancakes with gobs of butter, and even that Philly classic, scrapple. The only reason that I go on this yearly expedition is because there's a diner breakfast involved. This year was no different, except we ended up at a chain diner, which is, in fact, a mutually exclusive term. The place was o.k. It had a diner theme, but it wasn't the real thing. What was all too real was the monkey floor show that we brought with us.

Lately, meal times have been a chaos of teasing and creative name calling. It has the potential to be funny, but it's gotten stale. Baby Monkey calls the Monkey Prince fat. Monkey Prince declares that Baby Monkey has no friends and needs a haircut. Baby Monkey responds, "Cut your throat." And on and on it goes. The Monkey in the Middle usually joins in by laughing at the two biological monkeys, who seem to get encouragement from this. Kong and I just sit with weary looks on our faces. We're long past the point of caring if people think we're horrible parents. Eventually the monkeys will move away, and we can move about in public again.

Breakfast went on for the better part of an hour, but once it was over, I realized I now had to deal with the actual tree search. We drove and drove and drove through miles of trees, looking for a tree farm. We eventually found the farm that Kong had researched on the internet and found that we had to park on one side of a busy road, then cross in front of a flashing police SUV which blocked our view of speeding cars, and climb a nearly perfectly vertical hill, past an impressive display of over-priced, pre-cut trees from other tree farms to reach the field of trees. Short trees. Most of them were seedlings. To be sure, there were some lovely 4 and 5 foot beauties, and if you like small trees, this would be the place for you. But we have 10 foot ceilings in our house, and Kong is proud of the size of his tree. Each year it must scrape the ceiling, and if he has to cut off part of the tree to make it fit in the house, then so much the better. Nothing pleases him more than to hear visitors exclaim, "Wow! You have a big tree!" The little trees in this field were not making the grade. And even though we could clearly see over all the trees to the very ends of the property, Kong insisted that we must walk the entire acreage, checking for some 9-foot conifer that might be hidden behind a 4-foot cousin. Never mind the laws of physics. He pointed out that in the distance there were large trees. "Dear, those are on the property line. They're 20 feet tall and they aren't part of the crop." "Who the hell plants trees in a tree field to mark the end of a tree field?" He had a point, I suppose.

While this was all going on, the monkey boys were running through the field acting like monkeys. Kong suggested that we try another farm. Ugh. NO!!! Even the monkey boys did not want to go any further. But no short tree for Kong! In the pre-cut section we had passed on our way to the seedling field were many tall trees, exactly the same stinking trees that some roadside guy was selling at half the price in parking lots an hour closer to home. Undeterred, we now embarked on the search through the pre-cut trees. The boys ran away, we knew not where, and I didn't care. Kong, now searching through tall trees, was a voice unseen, as he called out to me, "Look at this one! How about this one! What do you think of this!" I'll tell you what I think. Take one. Any one. Because we'll just cover it with lights and ornaments, and it will look like every Christmas tree we've had for the past 20 years. At one point, he found one that he seemed to think was perfect, but he was afraid that he might be missing a more perfect specimen in an area that he had not yet searched. He instructed me to stand next to his perfect tree while he went off to check out the other identical trees. I suppose he expected me to engage in a fight to the death if someone else also considered his tree to be perfect. I stood there, unenthusiastic, and watched another family looking at trees nearby. They had a springer spaniel with them. A male springer spaniel. At least I'm pretty sure a female spaniel would not have lifted its leg to pee on a Christmas tree.

As I leaned toward the tree I was guarding, sniffing the air to see if this family and their dog had considered "our" tree, Kong called out to me. "There's a good one over here." He came running back to guard the tree himself while I walked off about 10 feet to look at yet another tree. It looked exactly the same as the first tree. In fact, it looked exactly the same as every tree there, but since it was a safe distance from the spaniel, I decided it was more perfect than the other perfect tree. Kong went in search of one of the tree technicians to tie up our tree and to empty our bank account to complete the purchase. There was still no sign of the monkeys who missed out on this moment of family bonding. But Kong seemed happy.

Let Your Light So Shine . . .

An update on Middle Monkey's hand: Nothing is broken! He just has to buddy tape his pinky to the next finger for a while until the strain heals, apply ice and take ibuprofen. It looks like his music career has not come to an end.
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Today I'd like to post about monkeys and their use of electricity. Being simple creatures, they do not understand the concept of pay-as-you-go. In fact, they don't much understand the concept of "pay". They know that they want money. But as to the finer points of earning and spending it wisely, they are clueless. They take many of our modern conveniences for granted. I'm sure that they believe that electricity, water and heat are all free. After all, these things conveniently appear at the flick of a switch or turn of a handle.

My morning routine does not follow a June Cleaver time table. I'm sure that June rose before the sun, formed her hair into an attractive boufant, donned her heels and pearls and hurried down to the kitchen to prepare breakfast and bag lunches before her family grunted through their last snores of the night. (I personally think that June never slept, or if she did, she slept standing in a broom closet in the kitchen.) My schedule, however, often finds me at the computer working late hours. I often don't get to sleep until well after midnight, and most nights it's more likely to be 1:00 a.m. before I finally am able to thud into unconsciousness. The first monkey gets up around 5:45 for his 6:30 departure for school. After that, Kong gets up, then the Monkey Prince at 6:18, and lastly the Middle Monkey. I have boys who know how to cook or at least, how to pour cereal into a bowl. Kong is useless in the kitchen, but after 21 years of marriage, he can complain all he wants about my not having a steaming plate of bacon and eggs for him each morning. I know he tells everyone in the office that I don't make him breakfast, and that's perfectly true. However, he neglects to say how many times I've made breakfast only to have him turn it down saying that he doesn't have time to eat. Somewhere around year 4 of marriage I decided that I wasn't going to play hit-or-miss breakfast with him. Besides, he doesn't need the added cholesterol in his diet, and I need the sleep. (See, honey, I'm only thinking of our health!) Add to this picture that there are four man-sized monkey-males using two bathrooms over the course of an hour or so. It's a jungle beyond my bedroom door, and I'm not going out there! I get up around 7:15 when the last one leaves.

As I've mentioned before, I am blessed to have a work-from-home job. My commute is a simple walk downstairs to my computer station. Pajamas are perfectly acceptable office attire, and I have no office mates to complain about my not brushing my teeth until after I've had a cup or two of coffee in the morning. But I do not roll out of bed and go straight to work. Each day I must patrol the island to survey the damage left by the monkeys' early morning preparations. Bathroom sinks and floors are splashed with water. Wet towels are left piled on the radiator . (I know that's you, Kong!) and dishes are piled on the counter above the dishwasher where the monkeys assume that simple osmosis will cause the dishes to be absorbed through the formica and deposited into the dishwasher to be cleaned.

But the very first damage control that I have to perform is the electrical stand-down. Every glowing electric-powered item in the house is left on: bathroom lights, bedroom lights, hallway lights, kitchen lights, living room lights, dining room lights, family room lights, televisions, radios. If a boy or man passed by it, it was turned on. Perhaps they can't resist the magic buttons and switches that make light and sound appear. I can't help but feel guilty that I taught them to do this by providing them with toddler toys that squeeked, lit up, and danced about with the push of a button. It might be the result of baby conditioning. Those toys should carry warning labels! "This seemingly harmless educational toy may cause your electric bill to skyrocket in years to come."

What really aggravates me is the lighting. I have to peer into a room and examine lampshades each morning. Are they glowing? Is that a bit of brightness coming from the top of the lampshade? The rooms are flooded with morning sunshine. Window blinds are open and God's glorious gift of warming sunlight streams in to show us the paths which we must walk throughout the coming day. What 75 watt bulb can compare to that? There is no puddle of light on the floor or soft glow surrounding the floor lamp in the family room. It's meager offering is overpowered by the brilliance of natural, and yes, FREE illumination. Yet there stands the lamp, valiantly trying to strain against the growing sunlight that rises out of the east with the passing of each morning-minute. And the stinking lamp is costing me money! This scenario is played out in each room of the house as I walk through snapping off lights, switching off television sets, and shutting down the Monkey Prince's continuous connection to talk radio.

Try as I might, I cannot seem to change the monkey habit. I think the clicking noise of on/off switches is too attractive to their simple sensibilities. They must, MUST turn the knob, push the button, flick the switch. They can't help it. What puzzles me, however, is why they never try to repeat the process. They like to see the light go on, but it never occurs to them that they might get the same pleasure from switching the light OFF. Or maybe they just get bored easily. I think that's it! They see it once, and that's the big event for them. After that, they walk around oblivious until they walk out the door. My only comfort is that someday the monkeys will move on to islands of their own. But I want to be there the first time one of them opens an electric bill.