Thursday, December 21, 2000

 

11:30 p.m. We've begun to re-light the lights that animate the world. Believe it.

Every time you go back down the hall and say "I'm sorry," you add to the light. When you smile and give in, instead of fighting to the death of civility, you win. The world becomes a slightly brighter place.

There are hands to be held and cups to be filled. There are fences to mend and snug houses to build. When rhyming comes upon one, I believe the only sure cure is a stun gun.

Slight break.

Ok. Ahem. We lit the first Happy Hanukkah candles tonight and we had latkes and some nice brisket. I listened to Handel's Messiah while I dug out the candles and the wrapping paper and the rest of the Christmas things, because I pack them all together as one holiday bundle.

Tomorrow, I believe we will get our tree. We still have our tree from last year -- for two slightly good reasons. First, we had to pay extra for the stand and the stand is perhaps hard to remove. I'm not sure, exactly; I'm assuming this is the case. I decorate and undecorate and move on. I don't look below the surface to see how these things work.

So, we'd have to remove the stand and then we'd have to either cut it in half, get it out for the garbage on the exact right date, or somehow manage to stuff it into the big green bin. Ouchy ouch ouch ouch, even with gloves on.

So, it's been standing out in the back, looking quite festive as it turns brown and crinkly. You can imagine that I've even considered bringing it back inside and decorating it (very carefully) with maybe diaphanous spidery webs and popcorn and tinsel, but then I've mused on this idea for a bit.

See those candles? Each night now, another lit candle and there's the distinct possibility that the old brown crinkly tree could become the Hanukkah torch.

So, somehow we're going to try to do it right this year. Get to the tree place before it shuts down. Put the new tree and the old tree out for the garbage together, in due time. There will be looks askance no matter when we put the thing out there on the curb and the whole entire street will now know we missed the deadline last year, but really, there isn't room for two moldering brown trees in the back part of the property.

It's so hard to be a good citizen and an able neighbor. I know this is how those crazy old coots got that way.