Surprise!

Our family refers to it as “the Talent,” and we should know. All of us have some manifestation of it or another. When I saw my nephew, as a toddler, start to cry when his sister, out of sight in a different part of a playground, fell, I knew we had yet another generation. This is hardly rare. Most people have a sixth sense of some sort and degree. Our family just acknowledges it, encourages it, and uses it.

My sister’s particular Talent is one I found exceptionally annoying as a child. She can touch a package or envelope and know what’s in it (and sometimes its history) with unerring accuracy. A natural morning person, she’d be up and downstairs on Christmas morning, handling every gift she had not already probed. Next, she’d be bouncing on my bed (her usual method of awakening her grumpy, night-person sibling) telling me, not just what Santa brought, but every item in every wrapped package. I can’t emphasize how much I hated this. I am no actor, but had to fool my parents into thinking I was surprised and delighted by every gift.

Since she moved to the West Coast forty years ago, some mystery has returned to my life and the holidays in particular; although I now embrace a Pagan path, and celebrate the Solstice rather than Christmas, with feasting, gifts, and  libations. This Solstice Eve, however, I found surprises are not always gifts. My housemate walked down for the mail, as is her custom. I was just beginning to think she’d been gone longer than usual when I heard the door open and the sound of labored breathing. I leapt from my chair.

“Take a look at this shoulder, will you?” she said, her voice strained. One glance and I knew it was dislocated. My particular Talent told me more: this was not an injury I wanted to touch, or subject to my driving over Potter County roads. I followed the ambulance to the emergency room, and a few hours later X-rays showed a break at the ball-joint. Surprise! A Solstice gift neither one of us will ever forget.

Over a week has passed, and she has had surgery to reinforce the bone and joint and put it back in place. This is hardly the end; It will be weeks until she can actually use the arm muscles to lift its own weight, months until she can get back to her usual activities. In the emergency room we both voiced the thought that we’d thought our roles would be reversed: me taking the fall, her being caregiver. But here I am, Rabbit the Caregiver.

This is not a natural role for me. I tend to be impatient with helplessness, and my maternal instincts are limited to kittens. However, Maggi really tries to be independent and does everything a one-handed woman (on pain meds, too) can do. The big challenge for me has been mental organization and memory. I’m the one that has to remember appointments, care instructions, medications, and so on. I’ve been taking care of the sick cat, too, and the other five kitties. In addition, it has fallen to me to do the lion’s share of communicating her progress to family and friends. From the first call to 911, to the most recent appointment with the orthopedist, I’ve had to supply her insurance information, personal information, and even what vitamins she takes and in what strengths. This has exercised my poor, Swiss-cheese memory, yielding results I’ve found impressive; and required mental organization and cognition outside the limits of my testing that qualified me for Disability. My long-dormant paramedic training has supplied knowledge and even technical terms, which astonished me. Best of all, my slippery-slope of deepening chronic depression has ended. Nothing like having to take care of someone else, exercising abilities long-unused, and proving equal to the challenge, to nurture self-esteem and derail the depression train.

It’s probably selfish of me to be happy about the benefits I’m gaining from this while my friend is in pain and frustrated by her own helplessness. Perhaps it’s just me being a control freak and gloating over my current (temporary!) domination of the household. But I prefer to think that there is nothing bad that happens that one cannot derive some good from. In this case, a lesson: I’m more capable, and have fewer limitations, than I thought. A surprise Solstice gift, indeed.

A Wee Nip o' Holiday Cheer

Sometimes it seems I have only two default moods:  “Grouchy” and “Serene.”  When I’m expected to be “Jolly” for the holidays it’s usually a difficult job.  Perhaps it’s a sign of aging that it grows harder to get in the holiday spirit every year.  Maybe I just expect too much of myself.  After all, eleven months of the year my two moods are adequate;  why change just because it’s December?

When the holidays approach, my mind is filled with a singular combination of anticipation and dread;  combined with the stress of cooking, cleaning, decorating, spending money I don’t really have on gifts, food, and cards, and the numerous social and family functions that are too often duty rather than fun.  What will the family find to quarrel about this time?  Which friend am I going to unwittingly insult and have to beg forgiveness from this year?  Who is going to send me a card out of the blue, that I just dropped from my card list?

It seems the only thing that gets me through those social occasions where I’m expected to be “Jolly” is alcohol.  Normally a single glass of wine once or twice a month satisfies my taste buds, but not during the holidays.

It doesn’t do to be “Grouchy” at parties, one must appear to be having fun.  This requires at least one, usually two glasses of wine.  Unfortunately the quality of this wine is so variable that it occasionally kicks my Mood-O-Meter back to “Grouchy” and I’m forced to have another glass to numb my taste buds enough to restore my party mood.

Wine is often also served with the fancy dinners so common this time of year.  I normally prefer water with meals, but if wine is offered I feel obliged to pretend I’m cultured and accept a glass.  Not to mention, these feasts are social occasions and my usual silent surliness at meals is not appropriate.  I’m going to be expected to make pleasant, polite conversation.  Pour that wine, and quick!

There are occasions for toasts, such as the obligatory bubbly on New Year’s Eve.  For me, it had better be a good champagne and not sickening-sweet sparkling wines or (heaven forbid) non-alcoholic substitutes.

Cold evenings after a day of visiting or shopping (and shredded nerves from same) require a sleep-aid and restorative in the form of a nice liqueur such as Bailey’s or Amaretto.  Come to think of it, fortifying myself before such activities with a cup of coffee with either of these additions or a shot of Jameson’s added is needed to generate some holiday spirit and motivate me to actually visit or shop with a smile on my face.

What can I say about eggnog?  That it is necessary for the true holiday experience?  That this is the only time of year one can get it, so enjoy it while it’s here?  That it is not worth the calories unless enhanced by a large dollop of Kahlua or Amaretto?  Then it’s ambrosia… and the only thing that gets me through Christmas Eve and Day without committing homicide or suicide.

For those who accuse me of alcoholism, let me just ask this:  Would you rather have me drinking or “Grouchy?”  Please answer, the former.  I’m running out of places to hide the bodies.