Why This Blog Post is Late (or, The Nelson Sisters Wrap Up 2010 with a U.S. Tour)

THURSDAY DECEMBER 23
6:05pm – H twists her ankle five minutes into her pre-holiday workout. Next hour spent icing and elevating ankle in gym manager’s office who regales her with tales of his Greek heritage, his four sisters’ affinity for high heels, and how his being a part-time bouncer at a nightclub in Queens led to his recent breakup.

FRIDAY DECEMBER 24
6:30am – S, H & O head for the airport to celebrate Christmas with family in Atlanta much later than S would have liked who flies out earlier than H&O on a different airline (*this fact will play an important role later on). When O wants to go back upstairs for his forgotten newspaper, S threatens to take her own cab.

12:00pm - S, H & O pick up rental car at Atlanta airport (*this fact will play an important role later on).

5:00pm - H’s ankle has taken on the features of a ham hock.

9:00pm - Christmas Eve celebration in full swing, H starts feeling sick.

SATURDAY DECEMBER 25

6:00am - H wakes to full blown chest cold. Adds hack to hobble.

12:00pm - S, H & O consider impending snow storm in NYC and opt to reschedule flights out for earlier options. Trip to Atlanta foreshortened, but all feeling quite self-congratulatory for taking matters into their own hands before it’s too late.

3:00pm - H’s automated flight notification alert assures her that the flight she is no longer on will depart on time.

7:00pm - H’s automated flight notification alert says the flight she is no longer on will depart 11 minutes late.

9:05pm - H’s automated flight notification alert tells her the flight she actually is on has been canceled. The only way to fly home is on Monday through Chicago. Flight rebooked again.

SUNDAY DECEMBER 26

Blizzard hits NYC
All NYC airports close

MONDAY DECEMBER 27
9:00am - H wakes to S yelling back at Delta’s automated message.

1:00pm - S sends H pictures from the Atlanta airport of the Delta terminal chaos to forward to local Atlanta TV station. Someone should do something!

1:30pm - local Atlanta TV station replies to H’s email with a “Wow. Thanks!” H wonders if they are being sarcastic.

2:30pm - H gets email notifying her that while she can still get to Chicago without any problems, it is no longer possible to get from Chicago to New York. Big surprise. American Airlines agent tells H & O he can get them home on Saturday, maybe Friday. H & O decide they will drive to New York.

3:00pm - Rental car company informs O of the $600 penalty if rental car does not first get returned to the airport so a new one-way contract for the same car can be issued.

4:00pm - O & H drive the hour south to the airport in order to get the paper that lets them drive the car north.

6:00pm - Road trip! H’s cough & cold meds are keeping her bleary eyed and foggy headed. O drives the whole way.

11:00pm - It is surprisingly cold in North Carolina. O & H stop for dinner.

TUESDAY DECEMBER 27

12:30am - O & H drive through mountain ranges with wind that threatens to pitch the car off the road. While wrestling with the wheel, O laments it is not day time so we could see what he is confident is a beautiful view.

2:00am - O & H check into Roanoke Days Inn. The heat that manager swears will kick in doesn’t.

7:00am - O feels insufficiently compensated by grumpy front desk employee who refunds him a measly $10 for our troubles.

11:00am - the Shenandoah Valley is as pretty as the songs say. The Dunkin Donuts where we stop for coffee is less pretty.

2:00pm - what’s a road trip without a stop at Cracker Barrel? H discovers O’s liking for peanut brittle.

5:30pm - O & H make it home to find S in armchair reading newspaper. Scene belies her recent travails.

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 28

Someone observes we haven’t posted a blog entry in a while.

FRIDAY DECEMBER 31

H begins working on blog post, ankle wrapped and cough at bay, all the while keeping in mind David Sedaris’ comment about how travel woes are uninteresting to anyone but the traveler. Oh well.

The Year of Being the Annoying Eater

I realized today that I have not yet conveyed my love for food. This is the equivalent to my forgetting to mention that I’m female.

It is impossible for me to speak of my identity without including how happy eating good food makes me. On the list of things that make me happy, I’d say eating good food is in the top five…maybe even top three. (Struggling with my weight has made me equally unhappy, which has caused quite a dilemma for me in my lifetime, but that’s another story.)

When I turned three, my friend’s father held my birthday cake hostage until I could properly pronounce the “th” sound of my new age. (What an asshole.) I would do whatever it took - nothing was going to get between me and my cake.

At milk-and-cookie time in kindergarten, I would swipe more than my allotted share of butter cookie to savor at a later date. I would be crestfallen when it prematurely crumbled in my pocket.

In fifth grade I would opt out of running around the playground during lunch recess in order to carefully lay out my thermos and sandwich to better enjoy a proper, civilized meal.

Under the special skills section of my acting resume, I used to include “orders well.” When I read a menu, I can mentally taste the combination of ingredients in the dish and measure that effect against my mood. My selections are usually spot on. Not infrequently have my dinner companions sampled my entrée and conceded that mine was better than theirs. I know, I think to myself smugly.

If I were to have a credo, it would be that there is a food for every occasion. And a drink to go with it.

It’s no surprise, then, that my fiancé seduced me with food. In the early months of our dating, I would take note of the meals he cooked for me, reporting back to my sister and friends. When he baked halibut on a bed of ramps and served the side salad with a topping of edible flowers, I was done for.

Imagine my distress last year when I was diagnosed a Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerant. It was hard to ignore my internist’s caution that if I did nothing I might be looking at an auto-immune disease in ten years. Giving up all things gluten meant no more wheat, barley or rye. No more thin crust margarita pizza, no more tagliatelle with duck ragu, no more red velvet cake, no more fresh baked bread, no more almond croissants … and so on. I anguished over the decision. Were all these delectable delights really worth my health?

And so, beginning on January 1st, I became That Person. I gave up gluten. I reminded hostesses of my needs before dinner parties. I turned down O’s nephew’s birthday cake. When I went to Chinatown for dim sum I printed out Google’s Chinese translation of “please show me on the menu what does not contain wheat.” I became the special requester.

In return, I have discovered rice crust pizza. It’s not anywhere close to the Neapolitan deliciousness at Luzzo’s on First Avenue, mind you, but it scratches my gastronomic itch. I have found addictively delicious cookies in the health food stores and paid a small fortune for gluten-free beer. I have incorporated my new lifestyle to the point where, this Christmas, I’m bringing the gluten-free breadcrumbs with me to Atlanta so my sister can make H-friendly Swedish meatballs.

Today my doctor gave me the results of my annual check-up. My numbers are now below the alert level. The year’s efforts have restored my GI health. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. I can’t go back to a gluten-filled life, but I survived the year without it. And if that doesn’t call for a gluten-free treat, I don’t know what does.

What I Do Know

There is more that I don’t know about my father than I do know.

Growing up, I knew he worked for an American company as their European representative. I know that he drank coffee out of a green, ceramic mug that stood on feet. He made little sailboats out of orange peels and sailed them across the dinner table, much to my mother’s chagrin. Daddy had a big and distinct laugh. If I was on stage for a school play, I could always pinpoint his location by his bold, explosive HA! If I close my eyes and don’t think too hard, sometimes I can still hear it for just the shortest of moments. I know he loved to write, and wrote poetry and a play about Edgar Allen Poe. I know he loved our summer vacations at the beach, but hated the sunburns and those nasty Cape Cod greenhead flies. I have a vivid memory of him standing shin-deep in the ocean in his swim trunks, hat and sunglasses, his face slathered in thick, white sunscreen. In one hand, he holds the book he is trying to read, and in the other, a bottle of OFF that he is spraying ferociously at the buzzing, incoming attackers.

I know my father traveled frequently and that we never called him; he always called us. I know he often excused himself from the dinner table so he could head down to the local train station to check the train schedule. I often fell asleep to the sound of him typing on his typewriter, pecking away at the keys with his pointer fingers. One evening, I walked into his home office without knocking. As he quickly pushed a stack of papers out of sight, I caught a glance at the cover page. Typed in all caps was one word: SECRET. I never asked him about it; I didn’t even think to.

At eighteen, I found out what he really did for a living. He didn’t mean for me to find out; a dinner guest let it slip. I was so unsuspecting that I couldn’t make sense of the information until Daddy cleared his throat and announced, “I work for the Central Intelligence Agency.” Just like that. It turns out that he had been working undercover my entire life. It turns out that all those visits to check the train schedule were actually trips to use the pay phone. Three short years after I found out the truth, he died.

There is so much more that I don’t know about him than what I do know. I don’t know if he believed in God. I don’t know who he voted for. I don’t know why he originally joined the then Office of Secret Services. I don't know much about his work. I don’t know what it was like for him to lead a secret life.

Wherever I move, I always pack my box of Christmas decorations. In it, a sandwich bag holds ornaments I’ve had since childhood. This weekend, I decorated our tree. I pulled out a tiny, gold angel I've had for some twenty-five years. She’s made from a baby pine cone. Daddy brought it back for me one late fall after a business trip to Austria.

I don’t know what he was doing there. I don’t know if he traveled there under his own name. But I do know that he was thinking of me.

Time After Time

Today I have officially have been 41 for two weeks.

It was quite a relief to not be turning 40 again, what with all the build-up and hoopla. The hoopla was lovely, by the way. But this birthday came with fewer expectations; no one really asks what it feels like to be turning 41. For this I'm grateful.

My fortieth year began at a waterfall in Maui. H & O were visiting to help me bring in the forth decade. The three of us were lounging about on rocks amid the bamboo when O. clambered up the waterfall, jumped off the cliff and plunged into the waters. H. hemmed and hawed wanting to follow suit but feeling nervous. She gathered her courage and she, too, took the leap. I completely chickened out. As I chided myself later, O. gently offered these wise words, “Well, next time you really want to do something, you will.” So simple. On day one of turning 40, I set the goal to do just that.

So I've been thinking, how did I do with that 40th year of mine? Here’s a quick summary:

1. I became the proud owner of two (count ‘em, two!) aprons, and I’ve even worn them. (Yes, for cooking.).
2. I have baked and cooked with some amount of success, finally.
3. I moved in with D. (And Petey the dog moved in with Kitty the cat.)
4. I learned to meditate…for at least a few minutes.
5. H & I kicked-off Heffalumps.
6. I finally made it to Africa, one small, red-dirt, rural corner of Africa.

But now I’m 41, and I can’t help but notice that many of the Big Questions I had at 40 still nag at me and I’m tired of the “I don’t know” that bounces back. I still don’t know if I will start a family. Or if I'm really okay with not doing so. I still don’t know what would come next after teaching. I still don't know how to do the Crow yoga pose. And it's okay. I'm just saying...

I live next door to two little girls aged 5 and 3, or thereabouts. These little girls run and skip and meander about their yard in ribbons and ruffles, long skirts, bright-colored dresses with striped socks, and decked out in full princess ballerina sparkles and pouf. The other day, as I looked out my window, I caught them in a quiet moment. The youngest one was sitting in a little red chair - wearing a full white tulle concoction - holding onto a pink balloon. Her older sister was lying in the shaded grass beside her in her own fairytale dress. She was gazing up at her balloon as it danced on its string above her head. If Tinkerbell had flitted into the scene scattering fairydust, I would not have been surprised.

As I looked out on the girls, I remembered childhood; how my to-do list was much simpler, and how time felt so different, slower, more expansive. I don’t know what this year has in store for me, or rather, what I have in store for it. But I here’s what I’ve proudly accomplished so far:

1. Yesterday, for a few glorious minutes, I lay in the grass of my backyard looking up at the blue, blue sky.

Winter Wish

My office desk is piled with toys and wrapping paper. My boss and I are doing Winter Wishes again (read: I am doing Winter Wishes again). This is a local charity organization that distributes underserved children’s letters to Santa and companies like mine sign up to be on the receiving end. Each year, an office-wide email announcement invites all willing participants to stop by the Human Resources department to choose a letter. There are never enough letters to go round: the response is like a land grab. There is a minor stampede to get in line for the chance to answer a child’s Christmas wish.

Of course it makes me feel good. This year, a 7 year-old boy is getting the Batman Wii game he wants, thanks to me. Last year, an 8 year-old girl got sparkly in-line skates that I would have wanted if they had existed when I was her age.

I don’t fool myself; these are but tiny drops of help for a city filled with children who need so much more, and other than enabling their belief in Santa for another year (I hope), how much does a game of Kerplunk really enhance their lives?

I am the product of a privileged upbringing. I had it all: a top notch education, a childhood filled with ballet and piano lessons, friends, travel, and to top it off, a family that loved, supported and encouraged me. I had it good. We opened presents on Christmas Eve, Swedish-style. Thinking back to those Christmases past, I remember sitting near the fireplace with a full stomach and a house filled with people I loved, eagerly eyeing all the wrapped presents with my name on it. I’m pretty confident I was also eyeing the chocolates.

By the time I was a teenager my mother’s drinking had become an extra presence. The holidays were something to get through. After my father died, I dreaded the choking sadness that filled the home. My mother’s happiness had evaporated. Her valiant efforts to rally for her children’s return to the fold for this supposedly happy occasion were torture to witness and achingly futile. Once she was gone, each successive December 24 drove home the disparate reality of the life I once had and the one I now lived.

Over the past few years, however, a new tradition has evolved. I now spend Christmas with all my siblings - whole and half - and my niece and nephews. This brings out the happily sentimental side of me. I eat too much food, and drink too much coffee, and we catch up on the past year as best we can with the little time allotted. And at Christmas Eve, I look around the room and know that my parents would be so glad we are all together.

On Monday, when I wrap the Play-Doh Ice Cream Shoppe for my Winter Wishes child, I’ll include my own wish for her. I know what we all want for Christmas, and it’s nothing we can wrap up with a bow.