Christmas Lights

Not only had I never set up the Christmas tree before, I hadn't put lights on a Christmas tree in years.  That was Gary's job.  Once he was finished, I put on the ornaments.

I managed to put the tree up before I left for Illinois, with only one branch left over.  Today was light time.

The red lights I used for years finally finally stopped working a year ago. I bought replacement lights in January at an end of the year clearance.  It was a great deal at 50 cents a box.  However, when I opened the box, I found out the wires were white instead of green and were meant to be used outdoors.

I rummaged around and found two more boxes of clear lights. They weren't red, but the wires were green. I would adapt.  I tested the lights to make sure they worked and set to work.  The tree is seven feet tall so I got a step ladder.  I started winding them around and around the tree until I got to the bottom boughs.  Then I plugged in the lights to see the full affect.  Half of the top lights didn't work. I had tested them!  No matter what I did, I couldn't find the problem.

I went to the hardware store to get more lights but they were out of clear ones.  So I began to shop.  It was the third store before I found a string of lights that would work.

Back home, I had to remove the top string, move the second string up, then add the final string on the bottom. Then I moved the lights around and until they were evenly spaced.  Then I plugged them in and hallelujah! they worked.

The project took almost all day.  I'll put the ornaments on tomorrow.   

Home Again

It was a five hour drive from the Illinois farmhouse to my house. I like driving, it gives me time to think and now it was about the two houses.

My little house here in Seymour started out as a farmhouse, probably much like the one in Illinois and maybe even older, it's hard to say.  A carpenter named Schultz bought the house and moved it into Seymour around 1949.  Then he cut it in half.  One half is the beauty parlor on the other side of the street.  Mine was just the kitchen and perhaps a parlor, now the living room, topped by two bedrooms.  What what once was a pantry became a bathroom.  Later, a garage was added to the north side and a dining room to the south, making it a seven room house.

I have no idea of the location of the original farmhouse.

Shirley's farmhouse has four bedrooms upstairs, and a kitchen, dining room, sitting room and parlor downstairs.  Cut it in half and take the kitchen and dining room downstairs, two bedrooms upstairs, and it would be very close to my house about the time it was moved.  

But I prefer my little half house the way it is.

I've always liked little places. I prefer a tent to the fanciest camper. I like my little office, just the right size to work without too many distractions.

I once lived in a two room house trailer, so narrow that there was no couch, only a love seat.  The bedroom was so tiny the double bed reached the walls on three sides. That house was perfect for me.  I liked that I could clean it from one end to another in fifteen minutes.

So the Illinois farmhouse?  If I am to stay there much this winter, I'll select a little corner somewhere and set up there.....

What Would Shirley Do?

This weekend, Gary kept saying "WWSD?" or What Would Shirley Do?

His aunt Shirley is in the nursing home but she tries to keep informed about what Gary is doing here at the farmhouse.  The first thing on her mind is her two cats Mommy and Lily, a mother and daughter.  They are farm cats and are not allowed in the house but neither does Shirley want them roaming around to be preyed on by coyotes.  She keeps them in the chicken house and tends to them daily.  They've been in that chicken house for about thirteen years.

So as soon as Gary took over he let them out and started spoiling them with special treats.  He found out if he opened a can of cat food they followed him anywhere, so at night he is able to bring them back to their domicile.

However, you cannot fool Aunt Shirley so when we visited her this morning, the first thing she said was, "You're letting those cats outside, aren't you."  Gary had to admit she was right but said he got them back in at night and she was satisfied with that. He didn't tell her that Mommy was now spending part of her day inside the farmhouse.

Gary was relieved that was her only question because he told me not to mention the big one.

Over the past few summers he, his sister, his niece and his nephew have been clearing brush from the property and stacking it in one part of the yard.  It was an enormous pile.  They wanted to burn it but Shirley insisted that they would set the house on fire so there it stayed.

Last night there was a bit of rain so the ground was wet.  There wasn't a breath of wind.  It was a great day to burn brush and so he did.  The flames went about ten feet in the air.

While he was at it, he burned bags and bags of garbage and papers that had been around for far too long.

The deed is done and Shirley is none the wiser, but I tell Gary I am capable of blackmail. If he doesn't do whatever I want I can tell her about his misdeeds.  He says Shirley knows he was always a naughty boy so it wouldn't surprise her any.

We'll see.

Dixon conversation

Years ago at some family gathering, my relatives were talking about people they knew and how they were related to so and so and what happened to somebody's children, and on and on.

My sister-in-law suddenly got up to leave.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Oh," she said, "it's just another Seymour conversation." She is not from Seymour and didn't know what they were talking about, and didn't care.

Today, I knew just what she meant.

Gary and I visited his 92 year old aunt at the nursing home.  We took along the Dixon newspaper.  She immediately turned to the obituaries and commented on the people she knew, how they were connected to her family, where they lived, what they did for a living, and how their children turned out.

My eyes glazed over.

Later, we visited Gary's cousin Donna, now in her 70's.  She talked about a friend who is in an assisted living facility that Gary's aunt might like, but that led to the friend's daughter and how she is related to Gary's family and what her children are doing and so on.

My eyes glazed over.

These were Dixon conversations, impossible for an outsider like me to follow.

It makes me realize that while I don't mind visiting Dixon, at my age I don't want to start over in a new state. So for the time being, Gary and I will be living in separate places, visiting each other whenever we can and waiting for the situation down here to resolve itself.

The Farmhouse

Today I drove the 250 miles to Dixon, Illinois to be with Gary, whom I hadn't seen in three weeks. That is a five hour drive and I won't do it weekly, but since he is likely to be here for much of the winter, we are trying to work out how to do this.

We are on the farm his family has owned for 140 years. His aunt Shirley, now 92, is in a nursing home recovering from a fall. It is unlikely the family will let her live here alone again, so someone must be on hand to run things and that someone is to be Gary who is a young 69.

Gary's family claims they are collectors, but it sure seems like hoarding to me. When her cans of tuna were way past the expiration date, she simply marked them “old” and put them back in the cupboard. The house is full of stuff like that: cottage cheese containers, Kleenex boxes stuffed with used Kleenex, bins of rags, and on and on.

I am enjoying myself here in the farmhouse which is much like the one I grew up in. The wainscoting is original as are the woodwork an doors. The furniture is a hodgepodge of epochs. There are Victorian dressers, arts and crafts rocking chairs, overstuffed chairs from the 1950s, and an Eames chair.

Tonight we read and listen to music. It is a vacation from the “real world”. I'll be here until Tuesday.

We've agreed that we will take turns making the trek to the other's domicile during the winter.. He thinks he will be in Seymour over Christmas and I will return here for New Year's and again when I am en route to the Gulf of Mexico for a tour at the end of January. Somehow we will work this out.

I tell Gary we now have two homes, only one short of the Romneys (or maybe two). What luxury!

Christmas Trees

Gary asked me to come to Dixon, Illinois to keep him company.  He's living alone in the family farmhouse and visiting his aunt daily at the nursing home. He's been there for three weeks and I think he is getting lonely...and bored.  I'll drive there tomorrow.

So I had to get busy. I had all the Christmas decorations in the dining room. I needed to clear the room so Elaine can come in to check on Rascal, but I didn't want to take all the boxes back to the storage area upstairs.  It would be better to put everything up and be done with it.

Today I put the last Christmas tree together.  I say put together because I am allergic to conifers so have to have a fake tree. This is a big tree that takes up almost a eighth of the dining room, but I need a big tree for the ornaments I've accumulated over the years. Gary has always constructed the thing but with him gone, I had to figure it out myself.  I think I did OK except for having one branch left over. That was in the back of  the tree so I'm not going to start over.

The lights and ornaments will have to wait until I get back from Illinois. When I looked at the strings I bought for 90 percent off last year after Christmas, they turned out to be white lights and I wanted red.  I have some red lights from previous years but some don't work, so I have to do some bulb swapping.

I already have some other Christmas trees inside and some outside, too. All told there are eleven trees.

Gary's little tree has been up for almost a week. It's the one that belonged to his father. That one glows satisfactorily in the evenings.  Because it is dark when I get up I turn it on so the school children have something pretty to look at on a cold morning.

When I get to Illinois, I think we need to find a little Christmas tree for Aunt Shirley.

Another Milestone

Today, with the help of Polish readers, Black Coffee Fiction, the blog I began with Wade Peterson, reached its 7500th "hit".  We started Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com in September, 2011.

I passed 25,000 "hits" on this blog a couple of weeks ago, but but that was over two years ago and I post daily. At Black Coffee Fiction we post weekly with a short story every Friday so 7500 readers in only a year is impressive.

I began a Twitter account a couple of weeks ago posting as Colleen Sutherland@MathomGardens.  It takes time to build readership.  So far I have five people following my tweets. I would be discouraged, but I know that consistent and regular posts are the secret of success. I stop in at Twitter several times a day to leave "tweets".

We began Black Coffee Fiction with five readers.  I began this blog with two.  I fully expect that after a year, I'll have the same success with Twitter. 

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One thing that helps those of us that mess around with social networks is the advance in internet translators.  In the past I could only read the comments in English or French, but now I can chat with people from all over the world no matter what their language.  I am now reading comments from Spanish and Icelandic followers.

What a brave new world!

Christmas at the Retirement Home

I performed at a retirement community today. It was a beautiful place, decorated from ceiling to floor with Christmas decor.  There were lighted trees in all the lounges and a big one in the lobby where I performed. Christmas music was playing through the sound system.  I asked that it be turned off.

This likely was my last performance of the year.  I never get called for December gigs because there will be many groups coming in to sing Christmas carols: scouts, school classes, church volunteers. Every so often there will be a competent choir, but most of the time enthusiasm tries to make up for lack of talent. Sometimes the volunteers bring cookies and hand them around to everyone...even to the diabetics.  The staffs have to be ever vigilant.

Years ago, I had a performance at one of the nursing homes a couple of days after Christmas.  As I was setting up and tuning my autoharp, one of the residents asked, "Are you singing Christmas carols?"

"No," I said.  "I'm a storyteller."

"Good.  If I hear one more Christmas carol, I'll puke."

Residents of these homes are deluged with attention that one month of the year.  Then in January, no one comes to see them.  That's when I am called to do performances, to lift the spirits of the elderly.  I tell funny stories and do sing-a-longs, and some of the songs are a little naughty.  They like that.

Today, I told my story about the hired man who was hit with manure. There was the story of the dog's election. We sang "Sweet Violets" and "Lambing to the Wool".  Then there was the "King's Storyteller".

My audience was receptive and wanted me back...just not in December.

Bad Luck

Because Gary is still in Illinois, I decided I would have to decorate the house for Christmas by myself.  That means crawling into the cubby hole to drag out the trees, lights and ornaments. The first step into that hole is thigh length downward.  Gary put a plastic step in there, but it wiggles too much when I step onto it. I would much rather go in backwards with my stomach on the bedroom floor.  

The cubby hole is a space over the garage. There are no lights in there, so I have to go in with a flashlight and gingerly step across the floor which is just a few pieces of plywood that creak under my weight. Somewhere down there is the concrete garage floor.

I take along the cell phone set to 911 in case I get in trouble.

I kept thinking there would be some kind of accident, but in fact it happened while I was asleep.  There was a mirror affixed to the cubby hole door that fell off and smashed.

Seven years of bad luck?  Or not?  I didn't actually break the mirror, but perhaps it was all the opening and closing that loosened the glass from it's backing. If I didn't break it but it was my fault, does that count?

So tomorrow, I'll get a strong pair of work gloves, clear up the broken glass and continue climbing in and out of that cubby hole.

I'm not superstitious. There is no such thing as bad luck. On the other hand, if I break my leg, if I fall through the plywood floor, if I electrocute myself while working on the lights....it was probably the mirror that did it. 

A Disgruntled Kitty

We woke up this morning to a white world.  It was only half an inch, not even worth shoveling.  The streets and sidewalks melted by noon. It was enough to upset Rascal.

He went to the back door as usual and asked to go out so he could check out the perimeter of his property. Since neighborhood cats Koala and Mittens moved north to the village of Abrams, things have been quiet in Rascal's territory, but he still checks in case a growl or two is needed to chase off any interlopers.  He put one paw out and it hit that nasty white stuff.  He gave me a dirty look.  Once again, I had failed to stave off winter. He was not amused. Humans are so disappointing.

It got worse.

I started bringing down Christmas paraphernalia. Soon there were boxes and cases of ornaments, lights and holiday bric-a-brac all over his favorite sleeping spots, especially the sunny place on the easy chair. By mid-afternoon, I had Gary's tree (the one he brought with him when he moved in) set up and was stringing the lights.

It was too much for Rascal.  He swatted at me, turned, stuck his tail straight up and headed up the stairs to hide from the insanity.  He knows that for the next month strange people will be showing up. He hates strangers. There will be parties. He hates parties. Gary and I will leave the house on some days to go places. Rascal hates being abandoned.

When he was younger, he would go out and kill something in the backyard and drag it in.  We found dead starlings and baby bunnies stashed under the Christmas tree.  Gary told me he was just trying to give me a present.  I think he was getting even.

Now that he is an old cat of nineteen years, he can't catch anything.  He shows his disapproval by hiding from it all and waiting for spring.

I am with him on that.

......
Wade Peterson, Colette Bezio, Susan Manzke and I will be having a booksigning at Sissy's in Seymour on December 15 from 3-5 pm.