Almost the end of the year, where did this one go so fast?  Anyway, I like to look back on the year for the events that made me happiest.  I will start with Solomon playing "When the Saints Go Marching In" at  Ria's grave on St. Patrick's Day.  Those blasts could have awakened the dead.  Then I will go to Henry's Kindergarten graduation.  I've been to lots of these, starting with Jer 20 some years ago, but they always put a lump in my throat.  All those innocent kids.  Then we will jump to July in Wellfleet..lots of happiness there.  The fourth of July parade to start with, waiting on Main Street for the start, seeing Caleb the pirate and the boat dragging the dead fish.  Dead fish, why?  Then the family reunion at Wellfleet.  Meeting Orson, the latest addition to our family, Jer and Tim in a picture together (only a few months separates their ages - but miles separate their appearance!).  Then we will jump to August in Alexandria and the pirate festival.  Great fun, grrrr.  Let's go to October for the street painting in Tivoli and the Oysterfest in Wellfleet, where again the crowds, the music, the people watching and giving Caleb a hug, all make for happy memories of those festivals gone by.  Next, and maybe the best, was the election of Obama.  I had feared the worse, and when I woke to the news of his election, I was in heaven.  I will end with the MRI.  Strange you may think that a scarey 30 minutes in a tube with loud noises coming at you, would make my list.  But I really believe "that what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger".  So there you go, 2012 in a nutshell.  Oh, yeah, I did laugh on Christmas morning when I unwrapped Regina's present to me - a Nutcase.  That's what I am always calling my family - nutcases.  So nutcasadina to all and to all a good night.  Please add any of your comments as to your best moments of the year.  I would love to read them.

What happened to me this weekend reminded me of Bucky.  Bucky was in the hospital for tests and Bob, Diane and I went to visit her.  As soon as we got in the room, Bucky sat up and said, "Good news, I have leukemia".  We looked horrified, so she explained, "The good kind".  I had a stroke this weekend, but it was the good kind.

A TIA or transient Ischemnic Attadk is a "warning Stroke" that causes stroke-like symptoms.  It happens when a blood clot temporarily blocks an artery in the brain or neck - mine was in the brain.  A TIA can happen fast and does not last long.  Mine was just a few minutes, upon waking, trying to walk, feeling very strange and calling for Tim to help me downstairs.  By the time I got on the couch, I felt better and asked him to make me a cup of peppermint tea.  I did notice my right hand and arm were weird, and the next morning when I went to do the Jumble, my handwriting was terrible, like either a child's or a very old person.  My blood pressure was sky high, so I decided to go the hospital.  Good thing.  Anyway,  I was told a TIA does not damage the brain and I will get back to a normal handwriting.

So that is my Merry Christmas gift and a wake up call that I love my WHOLE family and am very glad to be with them.  Love to all and a Blessed and Merry Christmas

My heart is so saddened by the Connecticut event, as is everyone.  The President said what we are all feeling, "our hearts are broken".  How any parent can send their child to school on Monday, without a worry after this has happened, I cannot imagine.  I go to Sabra's every morning to watch the kids get on the bus.  The bus comes, and Henry and Solomon and the little girl across the street, hurry to the bus steps.  The steps are high and the two little ones have to really reach to get up them.  "Little soldiers" I think and have more than once said, as I watch them go.  Innocence and trust personified.

When I went to Spring Street School there was no need for security.  The school was a tall brick building, so old that half of it was condemned and only used once a year for our physicals.  The teachers were all women, even the principal.  The only man in the building was the janitor, a quiet man that was only called in when the toilets were overflowing or someone had been sick in a class room. Oh, we had drills, fire drills and then with the Russian scare, Air-raid drills.  We would go out into the hall, sit down against the wall and put our head in our hands, making a tight little ball.  This was scarey enough.  But no thought of a gunman, or a lockdown.  Poor, poor children.  Poor, poor parents, our hears are broken.

There is a line in the last Harry Potter book that I love.  It is in the scene where Harry is facing his death and the people that have already died are walking with him for comfort and courage.  He asks his mother is it hard to die? and her answer is the line I love:  "dying is easier than falling asleep".  I thought of that last night when I woke up about 2:00 and couldn't get back to sleep.

Daddy had insomnia.  Some mornings he would complain about trouble sleeping and he would say with admiration and envy, "your mother falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow."  I probably had trouble sleeping because I go to bed so early...right after Wheel of Fortune, unless it is a Seinfeld I really love.  Timmy and I listen to books on tape.  Afer listening to all the Harry Potter books at least twice, we tried some other books.  No luck.  Even Garrison Kellor, who Timmy loves, read too fast.  New York Times book review reviewed audio books and they commented  that a good reader can make even a bad book enjoyable, and a bad reader can ruin the best book ever written.  Jim Dale reads Harry Potter, so I looked to see he he has done other books and that is how I found our current nighttime listening - Peter and the Starcatchers.  This series is written by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.  The story is familiar, a twist on Peter Pan, but what makes it so special is the reading by Jim Dale.  He does the lost boys, Peter, Molly (who will be Wendy's mother in the one we got today), the pirates, Smee especially good, and the Mollusk tribe people.  Also, of course Tinkerbell and the mermaids, who turned vicious in the second or third book.

Listening to a story being read to you, lying under a goose comforter on these cold nights and drinking my nightly ritual of fundador all leads to a fast deep sleep - almost as soon as the CD ends.  But last night was a tosser, partly due to knees that need an injection of roster comb or the fact that we didn't have the reading.  Peter and the Sword of Mercy had not yet arrived at the Tivoli Library and I had handed in the Peter adventure in Rundoon.  Or maybe it's just the season, so much to think about.  When I was five and we moved into 17 Falconer Street I shared a bed with my older sister Barbara,  in fact we slept together until the night she got married.  Anyway, one night I couldn't sleep and Barbara, probably fed up from listening to me, said, "just close your eyes.  That is as good as sleeping."   Well, today I know that is not true, but it is still good advice.  Sooner or later, closing your eyes, you will sleep - and have the opportunity to complain in the morning, how I didn't get to close my eyes all night. 

The parade last night was the best ever - almost on time, lots and lots of characters, puppets, music and just good fun.  A great way to get into the spirit.  Today I started my catalog project.  This is something new this year.  Laura and Sabra were at the house and started to look through my box of Christmas catalogs.  "I like this," Laura said pointing at an object in the nature catalog.  "What is it?" I asked and was told it was an orange hangar for the birds - you stick a slice of orange in it like a bird feeder for the birds that like oranges. I was shocked to see the price -something like $18.00.  "That's crazy," I said, "you can make that for a few cents with a coat hanger and some wire." "That's not a bad idea, Ma" and that's how the catalog project was invented.

The day after Thanksgiving when Paul, Helene, Laura, Sabra and Tony were here, we all looked through the catalogs and picked out something we liked.  Then we ripped the picture out of the catalog, wrote our name on it, and put it in a bowl to draw names from.  I put a picture in for Timmy who was at the gym.  There were a few groans as the drawing proceded, but everyone went home with a picture and an idea of how to make it for the person.

It's not so easy trying to recreate an item from the catalog.  There's a reason they send out all those catalogs at this time of the year.  People don't have the time or energy to make stuff...easier to place an order.  But this is a challenge and we'll have to see how it comes out.

A wintry start to December, light coating of snow on the ground, and raw weather with no sun all day.  Depressing, isn't it?  Add to the mixture of cold, gray weather - 24 days to Christmas shop and a shopping list that fills a whole notebook page, and you have a recipe for winter blues.  But I won't give in to that.  I've been having a reoccuring dream of parades.  All kinds of parades and in all different places.  Some in Tivoli, I recognize Broadway as the start of the parade, some in Beacon, some in places I've never even been.  But parades.  Timmy looked up the meaning of this dream on the internet and came downstairs telling me that it meant I felt like an observer, watcher of the parade of life going by.  And I guess that kind of explains where I am - watching, but certainly not leading the parade.  I guess when you are seventy that's good enough. 

Tonight we are going to the Sinterklaus parade in Rhinebeck.  This is a wonderful parade, with lots of puppets, characters, lights and St. Nicholas on a white horse, with rough looking scarey men near him rattling chains, but throwing candy to the kids.  Years ago Rhinebeck had this parade, Jer was about two years old bundled up with a blanket in a stroller.  It was a night just like this, cold with light snow on the ground, but a full moon.  We would have a large moon tonight if the clouds would disappear.  Anyway, Ria and I and Jer were watching this parade in Rhinebeck, lots of large puppets, the four seasons puppets, all represented as women, filling the whole street with their skirts.  The people working them stayed under the skirts and they moved smoothly past the cheering crowd.  A man or woman dressed as a large owl stopped in front of us, lifting his wings high above his head.  Jer almost jumped out of the stroller in fright.  And Ria and I laughed.  That parade was more about the winter solistice.  And I remember Tivoli used to celebrate the beginning of winter with a parade organized by the Tivoli Artist Coop.  I marched with Atticus who was probably about three then, we had made a big white flag made out of an old towel and I had attached giant sleigh bells to it.  Marching in a group of cold people in the dark of night, ringing a towel lined flag felt right.

So maybe this parade tonight will get that dream out of my head.  Or else, I might just start dreaming about a bearded man on a horse that is going to help me get ready for Christmas.