Archives December 2024

This is my favorite tree in the neighborhood we used to live in. It’s a classic.

We went to Los Angeles for Christmas with our daughter and her family. We did a lot of things.

We went to a Christmas walk in the dark, and for the first time in years, I had no trouble doing it, since I no longer have cataracts. What an experience to walk and actually see the ground.

We ate so many calories, I think I may have gained 40 lbs. from the danishes, the cookies, the spaghetti and meatballs, the coffee coated chocolate balls, the cookies, and the cookies. This is the truth: when I got home, I could not face the candy we got from friends. I threw it out. WOW

We went to the Slime Museum. It was so much fun. We each made a slime of our own. I made mine blue and scented it like Ginger Ale. My granddaughter Birdie was very brave and got slimed all by herself. Slime is not edible, but I think it must not be poisonous, because even I was tempted to taste some. I can’t be the only one.

We went to church, where our grandson and granddaughter were Joseph and Mary in the pageant. Mary had no lines, but when the innkeeper said they could stay in the barn, Mary ad libbed, “Sure!”

The magnetic letters spelling out Merry Christmas on the garage door got changed to Cherry Smartims again this year. We think we know who the culprit is; his name is Charles Campbell. It may become a tradition. I guess it already is one.

We drove around to see the Christmas lights in Burbank. It was spectacular. We figure that all those lighting technicians who work on movie sets have both the talent and the access to technology that just doesn’t exist in Dayton, Ohio.

It is as warm here as it was there. Global warming is all too real. We Americans may have to shift our cultural association with snow and Christmas to shorts and Christmas. Coats–what will happen to the coat industry, I wonder?

I had a cold before I left, and then got another one while there. It is possible, according to Doctor Google. I have so far consumed two bottles of Robitussin. Wait: They say you need extra calories when you are sick, so maybe I only gained 30 lbs. from the cookies…

Happy New Year.

Here is little Birdie getting slimed:

As I have said before, if it’s a documentary, I have seen it. Some are so educational, like the ones about Orthodox Jewish households, in which I feel so sorry for the mothers who have to do so much work. The one about Passover Pesach rituals made me very tired for these women. They have to move all the appliances and wash and bleach behind them, wipe down the walls and take everything out of their cupboards to clean them, and search the entire house for leavened bread crumbs. They cover their microwaves, take their toaster ovens out into the garage. Some of them even exchange their stoves for special ones they keep in the garage just for Passover. There is more, but you get it.

Christmas is also put on by women, who do all the decorating, gift buying, wrapping, and baking. I myself have never made a Christmas cookie, because I am, I guess, a less than exemplary homemaker. But my older daughter makes up for this by being Martha Stewart, Ina Garten, and Julia Child rolled into one. I am going to her house for Christmas, and so I get to soak all of that in while sitting on her sofa.

I watched a YouTube video about a darling German couple living in Britain. They have no children, but they do all the things, both British and German, for the holidays. I have to admit that I was a bit taken aback by their “traditional German” Christmas Eve dinner, which consisted of, and I kid you not, boiled hot dogs (they called them sausages), but they were dead ringers for Oscar Meyer weiners, and potato salad that had both apples and tomatoes in it. Also parsley and mustard, as I recall. Boiled hot dogs. Boiled.

There was another, I guess you could call it a documentary, but it was also on YouTube, about women in Hollywood getting extreme plastic surgery just in time for Christmas. One woman wanted to, and really, I am serious, “have the biggest buttocks on record.” They were unbelievable. So unbelievable that I had to call my husband in to watch her walk down the street, and he blanched.

On the “home” channels, they feature all the designers’ homes decked out for Christmas. They all have houses festooned in literally THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS worth of decorations. Of course, they have teams that come in to decorate for them. I can’t imagine one of them mounting a ladder to attach lights to their molding. Also, they all seem to then have huge holiday parties where some sort of special pomegranate or pear flavored cocktail is served to their friends wearing tartan.

I think the concept of Christmas goose sounds really traditional and festive, but I bet it would taste gamey. It’s turkey all the way for us.  A friend’s nephews, when they were small, dubbed their turkey dinner “the Holiday Chicken.” That sounds delicious.

Happy Holidays to all of you out there. I will be back after Christmas.

I have coughed five thousand times in the past week. I have little energy.

Why is it that when you have a “significant” cold, things like walking from one room to the other become almost insurmountable?

And the sore throat. On fire. I went to my social media friends to ask for sore throat remedies, and I got so many suggestions. As I posted this at midnight, I could not implement any of them, because I was in the dark in my pajamas. I thought the suggestions I would get would be to utilize stuff I had on hand, like honey. Yes, honey was suggested, and it did nothing for my throat. But I got some very interesting ideas for future sore throats

• Eat three (no more, no less) marshmallows
• Use propolis, which I do not know what that is
• Gargle with vinegar, which sounds sore throat inducing
• Suck on root turmeric (What??)
• Take a shot of bourbon
• Oregano tablets-there are oregano tablets?

You get the picture. But the sore throat subsided on its own.

Then, yesterday, I got the deep chest cough. You know the one–it is ok as long as you are vertical. You cough, and then stop. But LIE DOWN and you are doomed to a cough cycle that never ends. Thus, no sleep for you! I have to admit that I texted a friend last night at 1:45, and she answered. And she doesn’t have a cold at the moment. I felt better that I was not the only person sitting in the dark at 1:45.

After two cups of tea and honey, with no respite lying down, I got up again and emailed my doctor. At 4:15. I pleaded for help, but prayed that he wouldn’t answer right then, because 4:15. I stared out the window for a few minutes, remembered to “feed a cold,” and had an English muffin. That was delicious, and I didn’t cough once while eating it. So I went back to bed.

We have the “old people” bed, the one made up of two single mattresses that you can lower and raise at will. I configured my side sort of like a recliner, and finally dozed off.

So today, I am sick and tired. I have no “get up and go” anywhere inside me. So I am lumping. Sagging into the sofa in a heap and staying there with not a glimmer of desire to do even the simplest of tasks. I gave myself a full-on pep talk in order to shuffle to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I hope I will have the wherewithal to stumble into the tv room to watch a Christmas movie, but people in movies walk around so much. It’s exhausting to watch all that bustling.

My doctor did answer my email this morning, like a well person who sleeps all night long. He told me, and this is verbatim, to “try not to cough.” He did prescribe a cough medicine, however, that precipitated a call from the pharmacist, who cautioned that this particular formula might make me very sleepy. Apparently, if one is over 65, one must take the syrup while already in bed, it’s that strong.

I cannot wait until tonight.

I am fatigued. My nose is on the verge of a sneeze all the damn time. I was going to put up some Christmas decorations today. I got so far as taking the pumpkin off the dining table, then I crashed. You know that tickle in your throat? The one that instantly hurts the minute you cough? I have that. My eyes ache behind my eyeballs.

But I have a cold, not covid. I tested negative. (Swabbing nostrils hurts, and in the midst of the swabbing, I sneezed.)

I found a soup recipe with cabbage, potatoes, and Kielbasa. We are not meat (only poultry) eaters, and so my husband made what we both thought would be very hearty, cold-fighting, soup. But the turkey smoked sausage did nothing, I repeat, nothing in the way of flavoring the broth. So we had pallid cabbage and potato soup. It didn’t even soothe my throat on the way down. Apparently, pallid cabbage soup isn’t medicinal quality.

Artificial Intelligence informed me that being sick requires a caloric upgrade, and this is the best news I have gotten in a long time. Did you know that you need extra calories when you are sick? I spent almost all day in bed, so now my back hurts. I got up and chatted Gpt with the AI, and found out that the old “saw” about feeding a cold is actually true. You need more calories when you are sick.

I am that fortunate individual who almost never loses my appetite. So this feeding thing turning out to prove that old wives never lied made me so happy. I can eat an extra snack. So I am sitting here, typing and eating a Killer Dave’s organic English muffin at two in the morning. With English Breakfast tea.

As soon as I finish this, I am going back to bed, because writing this post with food on the side has not given me the huge burst of energy I was expecting. I need to tune up my “feed a cold” game. Tomorrow I am sending my husband out for pizza.

Feed a cold. Starve a fever.