Saturday. December 8, 2001

Jane the barber has decorated for Christmas

Jane thought these too 'smirky' so we took the one above!

can't be fifty with these shoes

"Old age is woman's hell."

Ninon d L'Enclos

I still hear the rain. I keep sleeping. At about 8 the phone rings and it sounds like voices under water. I sleep a bit more, trying to recapture the gist of complicated elaborate dreams that seem important.

I get up and shower and brush my teeth and get coffee and just leave my hair wet for a haircut. I finish yesterday's entry and call Jane.

"You aren't dog walking in the rain?"

"No, can you cut my hair?"

"Get on in here!"

So I go. There is one in the chair and one ahead of me so I surf the WEB a little from her box, make a fresh pot of coffee for her.

"Someone wanted to buy the place. Had money in the bank and everything. But I didn't sell because she was a beautician. I couldn't do that."

I get my haircut, pay her and give her a nice tip and go back outside. The promised cool front is here but the Gulf air resists and makes 'partly cloudly' into 'very rainy.' I go home. Forrest isn't home. He was going shopping. I'm not sure where he is.

I decide to clean out what was once called 'the sports closet' but should now be called the 'gift boxes, gift wrap, gift sacks, wrapping stuff and gift and decoration' closet. I need to find these picture frame ornaments I bought last year and send one to Jenny for their tree with Jack's picture in it.

I get that done. In the process, I find three gifts that I can give someone for Christmas. Not that I do Christmas gifts per se. These are some funny or useful items that I know someone needs.

FFP is back from errands and fries catfish and makes spinach salads for lunch.

We go to the hospital and hang around the critical care area during a visiting period. We finally see our friend's son and daughter-in-law and their baby but our friend is off to get a test or something. Hospitals are depressing.

I mess around printing a little picture for the silver frame ornament for my great nephew's Christmas tree and then I decide to work on a Christmas card for us. Well, not a Christmas card really. Well, a holiday card. Well, not that either. I decided I only wanted to send them to see if people were still where I thought they were and, you know, to say a once a year howdy. I may not send them to people I see all the time and am sure of their address. Unless I want to write them a note and say, "Hi, let's get together." OR "Merry Christmas." OR "Happy Hannukah (or however you spell it)." So I made a card. Well, a postcard. And started printing some front and back and getting my hands crossed on upside down and rightside up. And of course the color ink cartridge warning is blinking so I'll have to go out and find an ink cartridge tomorrow. And now, of course, I have to do hand-to-hand combat with Microsoft Word and Access to get labels printed for them. (I figure it out every year and forget before the next.)

Someone else turns 50. And has a party to honor the occasion. So we are off to the Four Seasons.

The party. First, it is weird because we are a little early but then at the appointed hour on the invitation, no one is there. The hotel thinks it is a half hour later. Maybe it was designed to make people like Ben Barnes show up at a reasonable semblance of on time. (He was only ten minutes later or maybe fifteen from the double secret real time when he arrived.)

The small dining room (there were twenty-two guests) was set with nice flowers and a phlanx of wine glasses. We got printed tasting notes on the wines (1982 Lafite among them but a 1990 Montrachet the shining star, I thought). The tomato bisque with shitaki mushrooms and wild rice sounded ordinary but was extraordinary.

We were invited to say something about the birthday girl. I said that only she could have talked me into a Gebhardt fund-raiser and that when I thought of her I could only think of smiles and laughs in spite of how extreme her intellignece and serious her causes (mental health care availability...trust me readers if you and I are here we need this) And, of course, I had to say that I loved a smart woman who could also wear those shoes.

There were lots of enlargements around the room of old snaps of the party girl. My favorite was as a young med student in a mini skirt and form-fitting white jacket.

We sat in the bar afterward and heard Rebecca sing and shared Nick Crawl's table with a couple who are movers and shakers of Westwood. The woman claims she will whack some tennis balls with me if I call.

Home, two Aloe Vera gel caps, two Advil. Bed.

JUST TYPING
The ritual.
Of sending holiday greetings.
Is silly, of course.
But I still like it.
It makes some people write if only once a year.