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HoHoHo. We are off to Chicago tomorrow for the weekend. We are going to the Lyric Opera to hear “Die Frau Ohne Schatten” by Strauss, and “Julius Caesar” by Handel. There is a pair! I have been looking forward to ‘Frau” for many years. I plan to be riddled with Starbucks coffee so as not to fall asleep. After years of waiting for this opera, it would be awful to miss it by dozing.
It is rumored to be 20 degrees in Chicago! Quite a drop from the 70s here in Phoenix. It’s time to get out the stored away winter clothes. We will stay with our friend Bob. Last time I was there, last spring, I left behind a book. I hope he still has it. I want to finish it.
I hope to contact good Mr. Mahoney, the finance wizard, from Merrill Lynch. The dear man invests my pennies.
I want to see the Magnificent Mile lit up for Christmas. I miss that.
We will try to meet up with DougT, of Gossamer Tapestry, and his partner Leon AKA the Wild One.
I hope everyone has a good weekend.
See you Sunday night!
I come from a family that feeds the birds.
My maternal grandfather had several feeders. He also put out ears of corn and placed scoops of peanut butter on the trees outside the kitchen window for the squirrels. Watching the birds, squirrels, and the occasional deer was a fun winter pasttime.
My mother continued this hobby. “The bird lady’ we called her – she trooped out in all sorts of weather, buckets of seed in hand, to fill up the containers. She mainly did this in the winter months on the hypothesis the birds needed help then. She never lacked for customers.
And now I feed the birds. I started feeding the birds when we moved to a house whose previous owners left behind the bird feeder. I would start filling the feeder on Thanksgiving Day, and continue until spring time. I had binoculars and a bird book. My favorite birdss were the cardinals, who looked so striking against the white and gray of winter.
Moving to AZ gives me new birds to see. There is a sort of quail that comes around here– Arizona’s version of the pigeon (we have pigeons as well; apparently they stop at nothing, not even the heat). There are a few cardinals too, but they don’t look so handsome with the brown of the desert for contrast.
I sstart on Thanksgiving Day, mostly because it is too hot in the summer time to use a metal container. Our neighbors feed hummingbirds; it sounds fun but hummingbird feeders are high maintenance. I mean to try it out. I hear hummingbirds can be aggressive.
Over the years I see fewer ‘pretty birds’ and more “trash” birds – sparrows, pigeons, and grackles. I wonder if the usual birds are being squeezed out by these species. DougT at Gossemer Tapestry or RCWBiologist at Rural Wat may be able to answer this question. Or Rodger and Mark H. in Oregon may know; Scruff Productions has lovely photos of the local birds.
Any one out there enjoys bird watching?
Do you feed the birds?
Believe it or not, doctors are shuman beings and they like positive feedback they made a difference. The amount of gratitude voiced by patients varies, depending on the medical specialty – and doctors in training would be wise to know how important is to them for patients to adore them.
If adoration is important, then you should go into surgery.
If it doesn’t matter, then pediatrics or psychiatry or ER work is OK.
Still, all doctors want to hear a “thank you”.
Psychiatry is unique when psychiatric symptoms clear up, the patient’s reaction is either indifference or discomfort. You would think that if a patient was hearing voices, or believing their house invaded, or with intrusive thoughts about doing something dreadful in public, the removal of these matters would evoke relief, elation – and thanks. This seldom happens. A lifelong malady once eliminated seldom feels a relief; it feels odd and not quite comfortable.
”I guess I am no longer depressed but it feels really weird” is often voiced.
Some other examples – “X” is an elderly man, dragged in by his wife as he has paranoia his wife is not really his wife. This is driving her bats. He gets started on medication. In the follow up appointment, I notice X is talking about his physical matters, not the ‘this is not my wife’ complaint. I point this out. He states she is his wife. I point out last week he was thinking she was someone else. He acknowledges this but quickly goes back to talking about his aches. There is no ‘What a relief to be rid of that awful symptom! There is no “Thanks, doc for helping me out’.
Another example: “Y”, a woman with body image issues, thinks her nose is so big she can’t go out without a low hat; she is considering yet more surgery to remove the ‘elephant size’ nose. After treatment is started, she too starts talking about anything but her nose. ‘How do you feel about your nose these days?” (pause) “Oh it’s OK”. And quickly moves onto something else. If I call her on it, she will acknowledge the discrepancy of last week’s beliefs to this week’s – but that is all. There is no relief: no ‘wow!’; and certainly no ‘Thank you!’.
So shrinks have to get their satisfaction from the job done, rather than from gratitude.
Then there are the patients I assist through years of ups and downs and crisis. Upon completion they say: ‘You never helped me at all’.
Spo-Fans who are fretting about getting me the ultimate Christmas prize need not worry. I have put together a list of wants in plenty of time for shopping.
What I want for Christmas –
A Blizzard – I miss snow and cold. I would like a king size titanic unsinkable Molly Brown size blizzard, the type that closes schools and roads and forces people to stay home and hibernate for a few days. Please send all your snowy weather to Phoenix.
The back scratcher of death – my back continually itches and the wooden back scratcher isn’t sufficient. I want something that digs its claws into the itch, just short of drawing blood.
A new red button – all shrinks have a red button they can push to send the nasty patients dropping through the floor to the hungry alligators waiting below in the dungeons. Apparently my red button is faulty and I can’t send anyone away.
Jack Radcliffe
One of those fancy phones from Apple, but I want the one that allows you to travel back in time and transport yourself at will.
A nice lad to have around the house for doing the dishes, cleaning up, running to the grocery store and other housekeeping activities.
A pony
A case of Sir Winston Churchill Champagne from Pol Roger.
My first Christmas trees were at my grandparent’s in Western Michigan. They got their trees from a tree farm south of town. We two kids were titillated as the farmer used coarse language, words that would never heard or used in our household.
The Christmas trees of my youth were always ‘real’ of the Douglas fir. There usually was a challenge to get it them stand up without wobbles. Mother didn’t like the feel of needles, so father would wind the lights around the tree. We used the big screw-in type bulbs. It was my task to make sure identical coloured bulbs were not near by each other. (These old bulbs still reside in a vintage KFC bucket with the colonel dressed as Santa Claus.)
After the lights came the bulbs, a collection of heirlooms types, those newly purchased, and the ones the kids made in school or church. Later, we kids would get a “kid’s tree”, a very crude artificial tree that fooled nobody, on which we hung all the homemade ornaments. It was a genuine Charlie Brown tree – it was tacky, but lovely in its sincerity.
About 10 years ago mother started bringing up the ‘A’ word – Artificial. She thought it would be easier. The grown up children living away were horrified – we wanted everything at home to stay the way it was, and an artificial tree was the first sign of the Decline of the Roman Empire. But in the end she got one – it goes in the front hall with all her felt ornaments and it looks lovely. Most years they get a real tree for the living room too.
When I first had my own house in Chicago, buying a tree to decorate for myself seemed a bit of a waste – besides I went home at Christmas time. But in the end I bought a tiny tree from the nearby expensive city lot. It was decorated with what few bulbs I had – mostly cheap store bought ones and a few precious items pinched from home.
Living with Someone meant combining traditions and ornaments. Someone likes a different sort of tree. And his ornaments were different than my own. We had to stop using tinsel as the dumb cats would eat it; we missed the tinsel.
During the 5 years we lived in Michigan we did the yearly pilgrimage to Frankenmuth to obtain new things, and eventually we had enough ‘our tree’ ornaments.
Then we moved to Arizona. A live tree doesn’t last too long out here with the heat and no humidity. In the first year we were determined to get a real tree. There was a lot of work to keep it hydrated. We got an artificial tree, purchased the day after Christmas. It was opened for the first time last Christmas. I am still not quite sure of it – perhaps it is 40 years of tradition being challenged– you unfold the thing and plug in all the bits. Instant tree. We’ve learned to put a lot of colour onto the tree or it looks too white and bright. We will see how it fared over the summer. Do the lights go out as frequently as the strand lights? Shudder.
I wonder if we will evolve to the point of ‘no tree’. Will it all become too much effort and not enough time and (worse) no interest to set up a tree?
The Christmas Season has officially opened with the conclusion of Thanksgiving. To set the season right, we have “Black Friday” which is a combination of orgiastic consumption of material goods AND the national angst over whether or not people are spending enough to boost the economy. Anxiety and spending – the two pillars of Christmas.
So while most of my neighbors are at the mall I am getting out “How the Grinch stole Christmas”.
I fell in love with the Grinch early on in life. At first I liked it mostly for the clever, silly rhymes – who else was rhyming houses with mouses? In the annual watch, we kids cheered the arrival of the Roast Beast and Who Hash.
Over the years I grew to appreciate the basic concept of the Grinch – he is the anti-Claus who comes down the chimney to take away Christmas and gifts. Clever. And he seems to be growing in popularity. I suspect some of this is Baby Boomers longing for childhood. But I also think the Grinch ‘hits home’ about removing the crap from Christmas. When I was growing up it was verboten to even think, let alone voice, the negative feelings about Christmas –it is all too much and can’t we chuck it?
Thanks to the Grinch, the Shadow side of Christmas, voicing disdain for Christmas is not only out of the closet, but going strong.
Over the years I have grown more empathetic towards the Grinch and his issues. Christmas can be one large ‘noise’, and the notion of having it all taken away for some peace seems reasonable.
If there is anyone out there who hasn’t seen or read “How The Grinch Stole Christmas”, he is redeemed when Christmas arrives anyway, after he takes away all the decorations and presents. Then he gets the gist – the Christmas tinsel is superfluous to what Christmas really is.
Still, we remember the Grinch in his pre-epiphany state. Thank you Mr. Grinch for allowing us to observe all the chaos and conclude:
“Why, for 53 years I’ve put up with it now! I MUST stop Christmas from coming! But how?”
Despite everything this is a day to recall the people and things for which you are grateful. And there is a lot for which to be grateful. When patients pull ‘I have nothing to be grateful for’, or ‘How can I be grateful as X is in my life?” stances, I respond:‘Nevertheless (or) Regardless, be grateful for Y.”
One of the things for which I am grateful is you, my blogger buddies. You all are an important part of my life. I thank you all for coming to visit.
I thank you all for sharing your lives as you do.
I thank you that I am part of your own blogging process.
I thank you for caring.
And I thank you for being who you are.
Urs,
Michael
Since folks are telling what they are doing tomorrow, so I thought I would share my day. A lot of my thanksgiving routines and rituals stem from something I did as a lad. I liked them enough to continue them.
1– For breakfast, I have toast with cinnamon sugar. This once-a-year treat lets me know it is Thanksgiving morning.
2- I watch the Macy’s parade. It doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving Day without the parade. Although we lived in Detroit, which had its own parade, it seemed paltry compared to Macy’s. I used to watch for the Broadway scenes ( That’s not snickering I hear is it?).
3- I will somewhat watch the annual loss of the Detroit Lions. Father watches this every year. Afternoon football is the ‘yin’ to the Macy parade ‘yang’.
4- Eat turkey. Another food normally not in my diet, but it seems almost sacrilege to not have any. The tryptophan quickly puts me to sleep. I have to be woken for dessert, which my family wisely delays for an hour after dinner.
5- Edam cheese. My grandfather got his from the Netherlands, a “proper” Edam cheese, to have with the pies. His opening of the cheese, wrapped in red plastic and wax, was a ceremony 2nd to carving the bird. ‘Grandpa cut the cheese!’ was the traditional response – relatives made us kids stop that.
6- Oolong tea with dessert. I forget how this tradition started, but it makes me think of Brother #3 with whom I shared the pot.
7- Get into the endless process of who wants what for Christmas and how are we going to exchange gifts this year etc. I learned not to pay too much attention to the summary, as by next week it would be all changed anyway/people would do what they wanted anyhow.
A) Are you at home or away this year?
B) If you are away, how far did you travel to get there?
C) Will there be drinking?
D) Will you watch football?
For me –
A) I will be next door at the neighbors.
B) I will travel by foot ~100 yards.
C) I will have a pre-dinner cocktail, and a glass of wine with the dinner. If I am still awake after dinner, I may have a cordial of Nucello.
D) Yes, I am sooo butch at times. (I just won’t let on I am clueless what I am observing)
Your turn now!
They started to play Christmas music over the speaker system at work. I join the chorus of bloggers who believe Christmas is coming way the hell too early each year – we are going to see Christmas crap up before Labor Day if we are not mindful.
I pointed out at work people forced to listen to Christmas music too early (sales people, office workers, and such) often becomes depressed, go bezerk, or barking mad – but they called my bluff. There isn’t paper in JAMA on the topic.
In contrast to this premature celebration of Christmas is the ongoing trend not to allow anyone to take off work for it. “In the good old days” people took a lot of time off – there was no where to go, not much to do on the farm but feed the animals; and the weather was too awful to travel. So a 12 days of Christmas, eating and drinking, did not interrupt anything important. Now we are supposed to show up the next day, bright and sober and have it all done.
Bah humbug.
12/24 falls on a Monday this year – new Spo-fans may not know I work at a clinic that worked used to be open on all holidays, including Labor Day and Memorial Day. My arrival put an end to that nonsense, but I am still expected to work the Friday after Thanksgiving and Monday, 24 December. Who the hell wants to see a doctor on Christmas Eve? Actually many people should see a psychiatrist that day, but they have enough sense do focus on getting ready for the morrow.
This was a year of hardly any Hallowe’en spirit, and it is my favorite holiday. I wonder if there will be any Christmas spirit. We shall see.
Spo-Reflections 