hrj

(I've kind of gotten out of the habit of posting links here to the blog on my website. I write lots of interesting stuff there. You should follow it. There's an RSS feed here at Dreamwidth--see the pinned post at the top of my feed.)

If you ever want to make a darkly comedic movie about a winter holiday family get-together, there is some useful starting material in the recent Jones Family adventures. The basic plan: we all congregate at Randy & Lisa's place in Maine, which has the dual advantages of having lots of space and providing appropriate winter scenery--especially when Christmas Day delivers a blizzard. So the plans were for eight of us to hang around for most of a week, with a shorter visit from my nephew and his lovely girlfriend (who had multiple family obligations to tour through) and a slightly longer visit by my dad and Earl (who drove out and wanted to wait until after NYE to get back on the road). A fairly standard plan for the Joneses, with a sufficient supply of snacks, great food (Randy does some kick-ass things with large chunks of meat), lots of tabletop games, and whatnot.

The first inkling of disaster came when the Keurig machine in the kitchen inexplicably crapped out. Like terriers with a tattered scrap of chew-toy, after online customer assistance was of no avail, the machine was disassembled on the kitchen table to attempt to diagnose the problem. (There was some acknowledgement from the beginning that successful reassembly would be unlikely even it the problem was diagnosed.) But fortunately there was a second coffee maker in the upstairs office, so consequences were not dire.
The second inkling of disaster came when the kitchen sink--which evidently had been draining sluggishly for some time--decided to stop draining entirely. Disassembly of the sink piping itself found no assignable root cause. The plumbers came the next day (a Christmas miracle!) and after two diagnostic visits identified a collapsed drain line under the concrete slab in the basement.

Ah, but fear not! The kitchen drain line was a separate connection to the sewer because that part of the house was an add-on, so the collapsed line was located upstream of where it joined the other outlets of the house plumbing. So there was no possibility at all that the drain issues would spread to result in raw sewage backing up into the basement from eight people's occupation of the house, right?

That would be: wrong.

Whatever was going on in the sewer lines, the initial kitchen sink prohibition was expanded to any and all use of drains. So now we have eight people in a house with no functioning plumbing and raw sewage in the basement. Water can be drawn from the taps but not put down the drains. Cooking can be done, but dish washing is out. Bathing is right out. I suppose that, in theory, the male members of the household had the option of using the woods back behind the garage for certain functions, but there was a definite chance of frostbite involved.

Some rapid (perhaps even precipitous) executive decisions were made. The nephew+girlfriend relocated their base of operations to one of their other local family obligations. Two nearby hotel rooms were rented. And the remaining stay involved a great deal of shuttling back and forth between Randy's house and the hotel, more restaurant meals than anyone had intended, and--in the end--the curtailment of the visit for those whose travel plans did not involve nonrefundable airline tickets. Oh, and somewhere in the middle of all that, the microwave also decided to go on strike.

But presents were opened, Settlers of Catan was played, a fabulous roast was served, snow was enjoyed, and in a year or two (or three, or four) we will all look back on this as one of the amusing family stories. For now, I'm still recovering from the mental exhaustion of turning lemons into lemonade. (Oh, and I'd somehow gotten the flight dates confused when I booked to match Seth's flights, so I'd told work that I'd be back yesterday. And I was...if "back yesterday" includes driving in to work at 3pm after dropping off my suitcase and picking up the car at home.) I'm sure we'll all laugh about this some day. I keep telling myself that.

I've been corresponding in the last couple of days with a guy who maintains a historical website for the area that my great-great-grandfather Abiel (he of the voluminous Civil War diaries and correspondence) came from and who wants permission to include his writings, which I gave. But I reacted a little strongly to something he wrote in his letter and I though I'd share that snippet and my response to it.

him:

The items such as this diary are exactly the type material I have wished to share with others about our great ancestors. Mr. LaForge wrote with a simple grace that expresses the high values that our gritty ancestors possessed. Simple farmers, mostly, who lived for family, country and lastly self.

my response:

The funny thing is, a "simple farmer" is about the _last_ way I'd describe Abiel. The more I read through his writings, the more I appreciate what a complex, sophisticated, highly educated, funny, and contradictory person he was. A family man eventually, yes, but quite a "man about town" with the ladies (even after starting to court my g-g-grandmother) until he got married. While stationed near DC, excursions while on leave included avidly attending Italian operas and one of his letters home asks that they send his French dictionary (I believe he was reading some French novels). There's one vignette where he remarks "I have been reading Moors translation of Homers Odyssey, very interesting I find it. gave Lt Hepburn a lesson in french this evening. There has been a good deal of paper exchanging until the middle of the afternoon when the Rebs took the notion of firing which stoped it of course."

I love that the everyday detail in his letters demonstrates how very much he and the people he knew were just like us: complex human beings who loved and hated, who did good and ill, who were generous and selfish, who worked for the future and lived in the moment, who could be both kind and wise and in the next moment ignorant and bigoted. It does Abiel a disservice to try to frame him as some sort of plaster saint who "lived for family, country, and lastly self". And the great treasure he gives us is not a glimpse of some lost golden age of "high values" but rather his wonderfully articulate descriptions of the ordinary lives of ordinary people that demonstrate that "ordinary" should never be mistaken for boring or meaningless or trivial.

It is the ultimate judgement on how discombobulated this Christmas holiday has been. Normally, it is required that there be two (2) pecan pies. This ensures that everyone who wants some gets a piece. This year, we baked only one (1) pecan pie. It sat untouched until two days after Christmas. The final sliver was not consumed until last evening.

2009 still has one more opportunity to bite me: the de-icing delays at Newark (my transfer point) are currently 3 hours and climbing. And keep in mind that de-icing delays are experienced in the plane. This means that the deicing delays do not decrease the possibility that I will miss my (half-hour-window) connection entirely. Fortunately, they were able to double-book us onto the next flight out just in case. But at the moment I'm not betting on arriving in SFO this year. (Note: currently I'm posting from Portland, and Continental is still claiming that our Portland-Newark flight will be on time, so all of the delays are still potential at this point.)

1. Massive doses of sleep seem to have mostly taken care of my cold. All that remains is general housecleaning on the various mucous membranes.

2. However, no jolly family get-together being complete without vomiting and emergency room visits, cryptocosm has embraced a stomach bug (or possibly food poisoning). No one else is yet affected except tangentially.

3. Other than a few drifting flakes yesterday afternoon, my promised snowfall is yet to appear. There's enough on the ground that I may take the skis over to Colby today anyway and see what the trails look like. I'd hate to have paid the extra luggage fee and then not use them.

4. Making significant progress on the first editorial pass through Part I of the novel. Mostly doing the naming thing and cleaning up a few details and transitions. The environment is too distracting for serious fresh composition.

5. Have made some initial stabs at the Xmas shopping problem, none of which involve running around to stores today.

I mentioned this briefly in passing in a previous post, but here's the actual pitch.

In the context of my mom's recent death, a lot of friends have said "Let me know if there's anything I can do." And since I keep reminding myself that I always like it when people take me up on offers of that sort ....**

I'm coordinating logistics for the west coast iteration of the memorial service (on Saturday Dec. 19) and one of the things I have to coordinate is refreshments for after the service. And it occurred to me that something concrete that my friends could do to support me in this is help out with food. This is definitely a case of "if it would be convenient and if it would make you happy to do it." What I'm thinking of is small appetizer-like finger foods. Bonus points for items that keep sufficiently well (in the fridge or otherwise) so that I can assemble them a day or so in advance rather than trying to coordinate day-of pickup or delivery.

(A couple of people have already volunteered and you're already on my list to get back to, but a reminder wouldn't go amiss either.)

And thank you again, everyone, for your support whether tangible or in-.

**Yeah, I get that weird dichotomy where on the one hand I think "Oh, no, I wouldn't want to put anyone to any trouble" and yet I know that I always feel much more loved and cherished by friends who ask me for things than by ones who never want to bother me.

I'm starting to long for some stretches of time unbroken by emergencies and sudden changes of plans. Between work and family, it feels like everything's been tilted off balance since ... hmm ... (checks old postings) mid-July when the big headless chicken dance started at work. December ... well, in December I will either have or be a houseguest for 20 out of 31 days. I'm sort of torn between figuring that being heavily scheduled will keep me moving through the tough parts and thinking that eventually I need some space to get my balance back. When I'm going to manage the xmas shopping escapes me entirely.

Tomorrow's tasks involve dealing with the leftover prescription medicines and contacting the local homeless shelter about whether they can use mom's clothes. Other than that, there's not much to do at the moment. In retrospect, changing my return flight from Monday to Tuesday was unnecessary, but who knew?

The Thanksgiving dinner leftovers have been whittled down to a few slices of turkey, a cup or two of mashed potatoes, half a pumpkin pie, and a stockpot simmering away at the turkey carcass. We haven't really cooked anything since then.

I got the call this afternoon saying "come now", so my original Thanksgiving travel plans have been changed to flying out tonight (instead of Wednesday) to Augusta ME (instead of BWI). Those of you who were expecting to see me at Darkovercon (or who might have been surprised to have seen me at Darkovercon, knowing what was going on) -- sorry to miss you. Next year for certain.

This totally validates my decision to pack my suitcase yesterday.

The last we saw our intrepid heroine, she had abruptly made plane reservations to fly East for a couple of days, and sent out various emails to cover necessary bases. Collegium classes went well on Saturday, although sparsely attended. At the potluck dinner afterwards, I made arrangements for my dirty platters to go home with someone else (rather than sit in my car at the airport) and around then my adrenaline charge started to wear off, leaving me dead tired. There was ... foo at the airport, which I'll leave to cryptocosm to tell, if he chooses. But we ended up on a plane, made it to Boston in the morning, picked up our rental car, and drove to Waterville with an hour to spare to make it to Randy's performance as Herr Schultz in Cabaret.

In the evening, we had an extensive family "path forward" discussion about my parents moving into something along the lines of an assisted living facility. I think they'd pretty much made the decision already, but we tossed around alternatives and did pros and cons.

Today is various errands and projects, then a birthday dinner for my Dad. Then in the morning cryptocosm and I drive back to Boston and fly home.

Not only do I have all my travel arrangements made for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, but the brothers and I have succeeded in all being on the same flight to Maine for Christmas. Someone on the other end will be thankful for only needing to make one incoming airport pickup. (Although two outgoing ones.)

Had a delightful grill time on the deck with the family today. Tried a pork roast on the rotisserie: ( The Hunk O Pork ) Take a boneless pork roast with some fat on the outside. Slice it so that you can open it into a large rectangle. Brine for a few hours in a mixture of equal parts salt, sugar, and wine vinegar in sufficient water to cover. Take sprigs of whatever fresh herbs you have available: oregano, marjoram, rosemary, bay, sage. Leave them on the stems and lay them on the opened roast so that the stem ends protrude slightly from the sides, then roll up the roast around them and tie firmly. Place on the spit and roast over a relatively high heat (with with the cover open) until a meat thermometer says it's done. (Took about 1.5 hours.) Take it off the spit and let rest for ca. 10 minutes, then pull the herbs out before slicing. (This is why you leave them on the stems and sticking out.) It had a nice delicate flavor and was very moist. We also had salad, corn on the cob, and grilled red peppers, portobello mushrooms, and asparagus.