Parts of a Whole

Did you all enjoy feasting again and again on your Thanksgiving leftovers? Each day tupperwares being emptied, the options becoming fewer. At the end of the week you're eating a plate of 3 brussels sprouts, a mountain of sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce on the side. Not a meal most of us would normally prepare, but somehow because those were each part of what was once a whole, we welcome it. Next year I'd like to try something my coworker did with her friends this year: a post-Thanksgiving leftover potluck. Genius, no?

Speaking of genius, and of leftovers, I'd like to direct your attention to one of my most favorite bloggers. Krista's writing is honest and poetic and effortlessly profound. The kind of writing that makes you wish you could peer out at the world from behind her eyes, think it through her brain. Her post today is about who she used to be and who she is now, how those two people are connected, and how they're not.

"i used to be me. and now i'm me all over again. with the dirt and pebbles sifted out. i am what's left over.

the gold in the pan."

I love this metaphor, and I found it resonating with me I think because lately I have been more preoccupied than usual with the direction I'm heading in, the person I'm going to turn into. I know this is a mystery for everyone, and when you ask most people to look back on their teens and twenties they'll say they never in a million years would have guessed they'd end up where they did.

Similarly, I look ahead toward my thirties and forties, and the person I'm picturing is not me. She doesn't have my face, my hair, my body. She's imaginary. Not an older version of myself, but someone else entirely. I already know I'll turn 40 one day and be surprised that I'm actually still me.

Growing up is funny, isn't it? At all stages. My niece, Alice, has grown and changed so much since the last time I saw her in early September that I look at pictures and videos of her now and feel like I've never even met her. Like it's some other baby, some other kid, and I desperately need to make her acquaintance, meet this month's version of Alice. This bright smiling little person who moves and laughs and does things intentionally is certainly not the same tiny thing that emerged from my sister 6 months ago. That is, quite simply, impossible.

I guess what I'm saying is we never really know what time is going to do to us. It is both the most constant, predictable and unchanging truth of our existence, and our greatest mystery. But whoever we become, all those versions of ourselves that take shape over time? What we can know is that they will always remain part of a whole.

Jump

It's time I break the news. Drumroll, please! There. Shh.

I found a place to live in San Francisco. I'm moving on Sunday to a flat on Haight Street. The building is 100+ years old and the apartment is nestled above a record store. There are 3 friendly flatmates, and my room has pretty blue walls, a window, and a closet. What more could a girl want?

So, friends and loyal readers -- here, as they say, goes nothin'. I'll be sure to let you know how it all turns out.

*Beautiful (and inspiring) print found at the Etsy shop of Jessica Swift. If you want to see many, many more beautiful things (or buy me a Christmas present), go and have a visit.

The most fun you can have with your trousers on

What is...The 32nd Annual Great Dickens Christmas Fair & Victorian Holiday Party?

Yeah, I went there. With my mom. And it was -- you guessed it -- awesome. It's at the Cow Palace for the next 3 weekends and I'd recommend going if you fancy a little "magic, mirth and mystery," being wished a Happy Christmas! by everyone you see, and herds of people dressed up exactly like this:

We feasted on hot cider, meat pies, Turkish coffee, shortbread, sausage rolls, copper ale, and butterscotch candies all while scanning the crowd for the likes of Oliver Twist, Fagin, Dickens himself, and my personal favorite, Uriah HEEP! I recently finished reading David Copperfield and I was simply tickled when that devilish Heep walked by slowly, his hands hanging limply folded at his chest, his back slightly hunched, whatever current evil scheme no doubt hatching in his twisted sweaty head.

We also enjoyed a number of performances including but not limited to some Scottish and Irish dancing (HELLO kilts!) at Mr. & Mrs. Fezziwig's dance party.

My, how this fellow could leap..

Also, a performance of The Mikado during which I may have fallen asleep if it weren't for the quite authentic-looking Victorian gentleman at the end of my row who kept chuckling heartily and shouting "Here here!" in a thick British accent. When the play ended, the gentleman deemed it the most fun you can have with your trousers on. And by jove, he was right! Speaking of trousers, we also saw The Saucy French Postcards Tableaux Revue featuring...live nudes! Yep, nudes. It was racy, and there was a man with an eye-patch patrolling the aisles for cameras.

Actual beggar children. I don't know where they got them.

Some of you may not have known what a huge geek I am, but there you have it. Don't ever tell me I wasn't open with you. If you want the whole truth, this is actually my second year in a row as a visitor to the Cow Palace's London. I remember thinking last year it was something fun to do once, but somehow, I couldn't stay away.

I even imagined a romantic scenario (something I do a little too much lately... time to up the social life!), in which I meet and fall in love with a hot man in character and a tailcoat, perhaps with those giant sideburns indicative of the time. We'd have a great story to tell our friends -- we'd pretend to be embarrassed about having met at the Dickens Fair, but we'd keep going back year after year. I'd dress up like a proper lady with feathers in my hair and we'd stroll through the foggy streets of London, arm in arm.

Hey, thanks!

Well, everyone, I hope you had a super lovely Thanksgiving. As heartwarming as this American holiday is, the funny thing is that the best word I can think to describe it is gezellig, a Dutch word that we have no translation for. It means... cozy, warm, friendly, homey, inviting, fun, etc. Any number of tasty English adjectives the combination of which doesn't even cut it.

Here's what some of our gezellig looked like yesterday (not pictured: a rousing game of Jenga, stimulating table conversation, catching a yellow jacket in a mason jar, and a family trip to see Disney's new Tangled):

The short list of what I'm thankful for? My family, obv. They're nice to me even when I'm a horrible little brat (yeah, that still happens), and every day I can't believe how lucky I am that I have parents who understand, and siblings who I can call best friends. Oh, and the most beautiful little niece you ever did see.

Now it's time to set our sights on Christmas! I'm at home getting inspired by handmade goodness rather than out with the terrifying masses on Black Friday. I mean, who wants to participate in something with a name like that? It sounds like the plague. But instead of locusts, shoppers.

This, however -- this is little more like it.

32 Years

I have given my parents almost no anniversary cards over the years. Certainly no gifts or parties. I think once or twice I've sent an email congratulating them and saying... ya know, thanks? It was never really on our radar as kids, just something that was maybe mentioned around Thanksgiving every year -- my dad coming home with a card from the drugstore that he'd sign in a burst of emotion and present triumphantly to my mom, wanting simply to tell her he's glad she's here, glad she's always been here. We'd hear him say "Happy anniversary, Dear" -- and they'd hold each other close in our old kitchen while we, the fruits of their lasting marriage, focused on whatever else there was.

That's, at least, what I noticed. As most kids raised in nuclear families, we took the fact that they were still married, that they had ever gotten married, for granted. The idea that they had ever not known each other, had ever been anything other than our parents, a single unit, seems in my mind to have been nonexistent. Immaterial. Blank. There they were, and to change it would be to change the earth's orbit. To change it would be to change gravity.

Last weekend, my parents bought a motor home for little trips, particularly down to LA to visit their grandbaby. It's small, somewhat of an antique, let's say, but it's cozy and it's right. My dad brought me out in the cold last night to give me the grand tour (all 21 feet worth). We reached the back and I realized the toilet is there, out in the open as though the whole thing is one giant bathroom that happens to also have a table, sink and bed in it.

"Isn't there a door?" I asked. My dad slid said 'door' out from inside the wall -- it's really nothing more than a thin sheet of paper that doesn't even reach all the way across the opening. Surely, I suggested, one person would have to leave while the other person.. you know. My dad threw his hands up in the air and said loudly, his face incredulous, "We've been married 32 years! You close the door and what happens, happens."

This, I think, is marriage. At least, it's my parents' marriage. What I know is you can't stay bound to a person for 32 years without being able to let what happens, happen.

Last night, my dad did the same thing he's done many times before -- he ran out and bought a lovely card and bouquet of flowers, laid on the sweetness when my mom came home and when he said "Happy anniversary, Dear" there was a brief moment of confusion when it became clear that my dad had the date wrong. "Thanksgiving threw me off!" he said. This year their anniversary, November 25th, falls on Thanksgiving day and that just didn't sound right to him, so in his mind, the 24th it became. An honest mistake, really.

We all had a laugh, but in the end it's not really about the anniversary of a little wedding that happened a long time ago, it's about every single moment since.

 Happy anniversary!

Ain't nothin' Ron with that.

I don't know where this came from, these heroic hipster wizards and witch. The chosen one, The Boy who Lived in old man shoes and skinny jeans. I found it on Facebook and I normally wouldn't share something I can't credit, but I just couldn't pass it up. It makes me want to see the famous trio in any number of other themed ensembles: Olympic gymnasts, perhaps, '90s grunge, Target employees? What I'm saying is that I love them and I'd love them in any variety. Particularly (and I don't want to make any of you uncomfortable here), Ron's bulge in those pants. I mean, have you seen ol' Rupert lately? Our squeaky Ron Weasley has become, oh yes! a man.

Boy's beefed up, eh? Now if you'll excuse me, it's almost 8:30pm so it's time I get in bed with book 7 and fall asleep with a certain ginger on my mind.

Some pretty I found in Colorado

This? This is my parents, looking up at the little mountain cabin that was their first home together, over 30 years ago.