Holidays 2023

The holidays felt brief, but good. It was the first time that I had a Christmas without my mom ever. And after last year I was going to keep it that way! Mom had caregivers that day, but unfortunately mrguy got a migraine, and then another one. And one yesterday. So it was kinda solitary. But I'll take it.

During December I went on a walk with a friend:

And I saw X for the first time, with a different friend (and did not get Covid). Upside: seeing a friend from the forklift factory who I haven't seen IRL in years. Downside: the rest of the show was a recreation of the Talking Heads' Remain In Light, and it was apparently a singalong. This may be payback for that time in the 1980s when I saw Donovan at a small club. I'm sure everybody hated me. I remember thinking that it was ok because my voice was so pretty and everybody would enjoy it. For real.

Fact? We do these things because we are selfish assholes. Now we know.

Anyhoo, X was great. RIL was well done, but not Talking Heads as I saw them perform it at the Greek.

Also great? Nice talk with my brother, who is going through some problems with his extremities. Or as he put it "If my body lets me live any longer, I don't think my toes will be along for the ride". And he sent me this beautiful mid-70s Kamaka 8-string. Wow.

Somewhere along there we had a white elephant exchange with the 'ohana. All of us together! I had a great gift stashed away -- a horrible plastic rock with cute plastic bluejays and cardinals on it. Touch the rock and piercing electronic bird calls issue forth. The friend who received it gave it to his mom, who really loved it and took it back home with her on the plane. Another friend, who I'd given a history of the Coco Palms hotel to, gave that to *his* mom. I'd bought it from one of the aunties when we were in the big ukulele band and I never read it and our friend is from Kauai. Well his mom LOVED it, and that made me so happy. And she went on Amazon to buy a copy for a friend and it sells for $450!! Wowza. I found it for her in some local libraries on Kauai, but I can't do better than that.

I also saw Cack and Blick, who were in town visiting family. Mrguy was down with one of the migraines, so we went out to dinner and froze to death indoors. But it was great to see them, as always.

And before the migraines, mrguy and I went to a party. We don't think we've done that since 2019. It consisted of a bunch of retired punk rockers comparing notes about their parents with dementia. One of my friends and I were talking about how awful my mom is, and she told me a story about her grandmother. She was visiting her gran, who started saying disparaging things about a local newscaster on tv (Asian). She turned to her and said "Hey, Grandma. I didn't know that you were Hitler's girlfriend." Grandma started to sputter and then just got quiet and said "Well shit."

Love it. Will use it. Probably won't work.

Finally, on New Year's or such, we opened our Christmas presents. Mrguy bought me divorce cheese. I was extremely impressed that it had been in the fridge so long that it was beyond its "best by" date. Mrguy's comment? "Well that's why they call it 'divorce cheese' and not 'trial separation cheese'"

Attaboy. So delish.

And then I went to see Godzilla with Hitler's girlfriend's granddaughter and grandson-in-law.

That's probably more than I did in all of 2022, in terms of socializing.

What was I thinking?