I've been praising P. G. Wodehouse for months now.  We've been listening to his stories on audio books and for Christmas I bought Tim the television series Jeeves and Wooster.  The same stories, but visually quite different.  On audio, you never see what a bonus it is to have a butler, especially one as meticulous as Jeeves.

Jeeves brings Bertie his morning tea on a tray right to his bedside.  Jeeves makes a cocktail for the morning after a rough night that straightens you out in minutes.  Jeeves irons the clothes and lays them out on a pillow for Bertie's daily wear.  Jeeves draws the bath, putting salts in, placing the towel near by, so Bertie never has to even take a towel out of a closet.  Jeeves answers the phone, and will cover for Bertie if Bertie doesn't want to talk.  The same with the door, if an unwanted visitor, Jeeves makes an excuse for him.  In short, he is like a doting parent, but acts and is treated as an equal with Bertie.  And all the stories have Bertie getting into trouble, either with the law or a female (he has been engaged many, many times - often to the same woman) and Jeeves devises a plan to rescue him. 

So, I am wondering if there is still in this day and age, someone like Jeeves, a butler, but more than a servant, who you can hire.  I will have to look on the internet.  If I ever win the lottery, I will hire one.

On another note, Hugh Laurie plays Bertie Wooster, and his eyes popping out, jaw dropping antics are nothing like the character in  house, M.D. which I am now watching too.  Timmy looked up Hugh Laurie and it said he had been in a deep depression and it was the Jeeves' books that brought him out of it.  I can believe that.  I dare you not to laugh at them. 

Winter is finally here - single digits on the thermometer, windows all iced in the mornings.  This is when I most appreciate the feather bed comforter given to me on Christmas by Paul and Helene several years ago.  It is a pleasant weight on the body, and holds the heat under the other two covers, making for a warm nest.  It makes me think of the squirrel nests that I can see so clearly now the trees are bare.  We have a big one in the back yard, mostly made of oak leaves, which do not deteriorate very easily. 

The squirrel's nest is called a dray and can be as large as two feet wide and a foot high.  In cold weather, like this, they share the nest.  January is also the mating month for squirrels - that's why you see them acting crazy in the roads.  (I use to think they were so cold it made them suicidal, but now I realize it is something else.)  On the internet they had a drawing of two squirrels sleeping in their cocoon like nest. This is how I feel.

Years ago my sister Diane gave me a "Bucky ( that's what we called our mother).  Anyway Bucky is filled with buckwheat, and you stick it in the microwave for two minutes and it is toasty warm.  That goes on my feet.  In only minutes, the featherbed has done its job and the bed is warm.   The warm bed, the fundador and the one or two pieces of candy, and you can't ask for anything more.  Nighty night, as Aunt Lillian used to say.

End of the year wind up - what were my favorite memories of this year.  Lots to chose from, but here goes:

March - Ria's 7th anniversary, cold day, and it's only the Bagges and myself.  But Solomon sets up his music for his trumpet.  Below us two young men are hanging out by their friend's grave, drinking beers and smoking.  Solomon started off with the Theme from Rocky and ended with the Star Wars theme.  What a sound in the graveyard, Gabriel waking up the dead!  The two guys joined us in applause and because it was so cold, we left soon after. 

May - little baby boy Cove arrives and Miles tells us that he heard a voice in his bathroom, say "What the hell are you waiting for?  Get her to the hospital"  We all knew who he meant.

June - Vivian has her first birthday, born a preemie, now she is the perfect size and has eyes and a face that makes you smile.

July - Wellfleet vacation, I enjoyed laying in my bed at night listening to the Bagges play Family Feud, laughing all the time.  Then the next week with the Kelly's, Jer cooking oysters and a Kelly family picture in the water at Power's Landing.

August - back to Wellfleet this time with my sisters.  Laying in bed with Maureen, drinking the fundador and laughing.  Diane remarked "sounds like a pajama party in there'.  Then the day the toilet started to make a noise like a hot water heater exploding, loud and constant.  Diane called the maintenance man, no answer, and I finally had the nerve to take off the toilet back and pull the plunger up. The noise stopped.  Apparently, it was set up to make that noise if the toilet was running too long.

September - Sabra sees the Pope and brings me back a shirt with I Love Pope Francis that I wear to the Haley clambake and the shirt is a big hit.

October - third trip to Wellfleet, seeing my old friend Caleb in the Library and watching the drones taking pictures of the event.  Listening to Jeeves and Bertie Wooster on audio book.

November - Timmy's race - he comes in second in his age group and craves the first prize award, a mug like he received 15 years ago.  After their picture is taken, the winner Bill D hands it to him, saying "this is your lucky day".

The year went fast, as they all do now.  Happy New Year


  

13 days and counting - I think I'm almost done.  48 years ago when we had our first Christmas in Tivoli, my friend, my only friend in our new location, was Jane O, and she asked me if I wanted to exchange stocking with her at Christmas.  I never did stockings before, the Murphy's didn't do that, but I said sure, and bought a red stocking at the grocery store and filled it with little things, a comb, some candy, a cheap toy.  Well, Jane handed me a homemade stocking, shaped like an old fashioned high buttoned shoe, with fake pearls and lace on the outside.  Inside were all treasures, individually wrapped, sewing needles, a pincushion, homemade candies, each wrapped with different paper, even jingle bells on some.  Boy was I embarrassed.  But the next year, I redeemed myself, copying her lead, and ever since then I have given my kids stockings,  and these stockings are the most fun to fill. 

I use to use stockings and then as they overfilled, I used boxes, now I just buy Christmas shopping bags and fill them.  I buy stuff all year, filling a box in my bedroom and then figure out who gets what.  The girls all get fancy underwear, Maria used to get black underwear like Bucky liked, and Paul gets silly men's underwear with a Christmas theme.  I really like the pair I bought for him this year.  Little things, big things, I wrap most of them, a la Jane, and I usually go over to Sabra's to watch her open her stocking.  By then, I will have forgotten most of what I filled it with, so it's as much a surprise for me.  13 days and counting.  

The Christmas lights are on the front trellis, and I see their reflection on the ceiling of my bedroom after I shut the light off.  Trying a new audio for a break from the Woosters, I rented Neil Gaiman's short stories "Trigger Warning" and the title should have tipped me off.  Trigger Warning - short fictions and disturbances.  They are disturbing and after hearing them, watching the lights flicker on the ceiling is calming. 

On the night of March 17, 2008 I was lying in bed.  What a day the whole experience had been, I kept playing if over and over in my head, trying to make sense of it.  Then I yelled down to Timmy "Put on the Christmas lights" and he didn't even question my request, just went on the porch and plugged in the lights on the trellis which had never been taken down after Christmas.  Those light lit up the ceiling and I thought that now Maria could see us.  It made me feel closer to her and that was just what I needed. 

Winter is a dark and like Neil's stories, as the cover puts it, waits for us in the dark corridors of our lives.  Let there be light.  

I told you how our church in Tivoli closed.  Now I go to Red Hook, about a 20 minute drive and except for the extra mileage, I am enjoying it very much.  The church is packed and there are lots of little kids, which I have always found entertaining in church, dating back to my own experiences with my kids.  Paul would run the zipper on his coat like a car on a track, making the appropriate noises.  Sabra took the pencil and paper which asked "who would you nominate for sainthood?"  and she penciled in "My mother, for giving birth to me."

Anyway this past week, I had several kids to choose from and selected a little boy two pews in front of me.  He was about three and was with his father and an older woman, maybe Grandma.  The father was a large man and very attentive to his son. At 9o'cock Mass our priest calls for the kids to come up to the altar and answer questions about the homily.  The little boy, who was about three, started to go then changed his mind. He was carrying a stuffed blue rabbit, that had floppy legs.  His father picked him up when he got restless, and the boy put the rabbit on his father's head.  That large man with a rabbit whose legs flopped on all sides of his head, was the sight that did it to me.  I started to laugh, and the kid made eye contact with me.  Now I was caught - he knew he had an audience.

Church to me is being part of a community.  Mrs. R who went to the church in Tivoli and always sat  two pews in front of me, joined my pew this week.  The old man next to me held a rosary in his fingers, the first time I have seen that in years.  All the old people used to finger rosaries in church.  I guess it was like bringing a toy rabbit - something to do if you needed it.   It was a good day for a person watcher like myself, and even Saint Nick all dressed came to visit the kids. 

About a month ago I sent my grandson Shane a letter.  He goes to early college and I hadn't had a chance to say goodbye, so I wrote a letter, stuck in a few bucks, and sent it off.  A few weeks later I asked his father if he had gotten the letter, I wasn't sure if he still had that post office box number.   Paul said he would ask him and I forgot about it.

Then last week, talking to Paul on the phone he said that Shane brought home the letter for his father to read it to him.  I said is my handwriting that bad? and Paul said "no, he can't read script."  Now this blew my mind.  A kid in college that can't read script.  I talked to Sabra about it, and she told me they don't teach script in school anymore.  No penmanship, no three lined paper, with each letter just the right height, nobody is learning to write or read script anymore.  Just not taught in grade school at all.

I can just picture a class going to a museum and staring at the Declaration of Independence. I had a teacher once who would call sloppy writing "chicken scratches" "How do you expect me to read and grade you with all these chicken scratches?"  So these kids are staring at the 200 year old precious document and not being able to read a word of it - nor recognize the John Hancock signature.  All chicken scratches.  Am I nuts or is this crazy?