verbal rorschach testing

My favorite game to play is Scrabble. I played Scrabble once with a bunch of college graduates -friends of my husband's- when we were first married. I was very intimidated and they beat the pants off me. I was so busy trying to put words together that I wasn't paying attention to the strategy behind the word-making. A smaller word might actually fetch more points by looking at every possible placement on the board before deciding. And always try to have a backup when other players take your spot. So I started playing against myself (yes, how lame is that? do tell...) and we have a computer version too, so I've gotten better.

You can always tell when we get down to the Dr. Seuss letters in Scrabble. Or when we have a fistful of vowels. Or consonants. We look at one another and say things like

When it's pretty hot, it's ovenish, right? Or take my friend here, he's somewhat Owenish. And that sign might be a little omenish.
A fish from Jakarta would be an Indofish.
When you simply must make a sound with your car to save the lives of yourself and your passengers, it becomes a needbeep.
If one was to attend a formal angling event, one would need a fishntux.
Is gwiser a word? Oh. Well, do Spanish words count?

Even with all that sillines going on tonight, Bria managed to pull ahead and use all her tiles before we did and won the game. 143-137-133. We were all stunned and proud! She wanted to give up a few times, but we sat and explained how to move her tiles around between turns. Then we showed her to find a small word first, then try to add just one more letter, then try to add another...she figured out the colored sqaures on her own! I am looking forward to another match with her in the near future. *sigh* My baby's growing up!

catching claus

 Kevin and I went over to Grandmother's house on Christmas Eve. We did every year. We opened all the presents from the people who didn't live inside our house on Christmas Eve. That left the presents from mom and dad and each other for Christmas Morning. And of course, Santa's presents too.

We ate dinner with Grandmother and Grandfather. Then we watched Grandfather build the fire in the fireplace. It had such a cool, smooth white marble hearth. I liked to sit on the chill of it just to get goosebumps and have a reason to sit on it and get warm! When the fire was going "Snap! Pop-pop-snap!" that's when we knew Grandfather would settle in his high green rocking chair, put up his feet and say, "Well now, what do we have under this tree here?"

That was our cue to run to the tree and play Santa; passing out one gift at a time so no matter who was opening the present, they had the spotlight. That night I guess we stayed a little too long. We stepped out into the frosty chill, snow crunching underneath our warm boots. Daddy made a noise and said, "Oh my! We have to go!! Santa's on his way down this block already!" Mouths open, we turned and saw a single red light aglow on top of a house at the end of the street. Rudolph's nose!

How we rushed home and jumped into our pajamas! Daddy set out a bowl of oatmeal for the reindeer and Mommy set out cookies and the snowman mug of milk for Santa. Kevin and I lay there, we two; giggling and listening for bells. I heard Kevin get really quiet and I knew that he had fallen asleep. Then I heard it. The Sound. It was the sound of someone dunking a homemade sugar cookie into a glass of milk.

I leaped from my bed and crept quietly to the door. I peeked out the crack and saw---


Nothing.

I opened the door as far as I dared, almost closing it behind me and crawled down the hallway to the living room. I held my breath as I peered into the living room and I saw---


Nothing.


I turned my head around to see into the kitchen and that's when I knew I was done for. Two big black boots, sitting in front of Daddy's chair. But the feet were missing. I looked up a little further. The feet were propped up on Kevin's chair and sitting in Daddy's chair was the Man himself. Santa Claus was dunking my cookies into my snowman mug. And the bowl of oatmeal was nowhere to be seen.

"Good Morning, Katie. Have a cookie," he said. Just like that. As if we ate Christmas cookies at 3 am every day.

"How-how did you know my name?" I asked; then I felt really silly for asking. Of course he knew my name. He's SANTA.

We sat there, munching and dunking in silence. Really, I couldn't have spoken if I wanted to, I was that surprised. He finished off the last of the milk and sat back, wiggling his toes in his purple socks. Purple socks?

"Well, there's only one thing left to do here now, and that is entirely up to you. You can choose to forget this ever happened or you can choose to remember it for the rest of your life. Makes no nevermind to me. I'll tuck you in your bed and you'll wake up in the morning just as if you'd fallen asleep when Kevin did. Or not."

"NOT!" I yelled, jumping off my chair.

He held one finger to his lips in a silent shhhh! "Well, there's a catch to that one," said he. "If you choose to remember, you must agree to help me when you're big enough for me to count on. When you're a grownup."

"What do you need help with, Santa?" I asked in a small scared voice. The man who flew completely around the world, stopping at every child's house to deliver a gift of some sort; the man who could make reindeer fly; the man who had a whole army of elves at his elbow; was asking ME for help? How could I possibly help him?

"Well, as you know, I have a workshop full of elves that help make the toys and get them ready for delivery. They also help take care of the reindeer, teaching the new ones how to fly, feeding; things like that. During December, it's just too much for them anymore. So I am asking for grownups to help me wrap presents. The elves will drop the presents off during the reindeer exercise time and you could wrap them up and leave them where you found them. They'll be gone in the morning. Just a couple of nights a year is all I'm asking. Or I could just carry you off to bed now..."

"I'll do it," I answered, feeling very much like a grownup already. "Please don't make me forget that you were here."

"You always were a good girl at heart," he ho-hoed at me. "Let's snuggle you down into your bed now." He held my hand in his and we both tiptoed back to my room where he turned down my blankets. To my surprise, they were just as warm as they were when I crawled out of them. I climbed up and grabbed him around the neck to give him a big hug.

To this day, I still remember how his cheeks looked like he'd been standing in a windstorm, but they were as warm and soft as sugar cookies straight off the pan. He smelled a little bit like cinnamon and firewood. His eyes were the softest of blue; like my old favorite Noah's Ark blankie. And his beard was more grey than white. But at least I can remember him.

Now I still get a few little bags of presents every December. I wrap them up in pretty paper, tie on a tag and ribbon or bow and put them back where I found them before I go to bed. They are always gone in the morning.

the overachiever

"You never live up to your potential."
"You are capable of better than this."
"I don't understand why you don't apply yourself more."
"You'll never amount to anything if you continue on like this."

I got the message, mom. Now look what you've done to me. I've been called an over-achiever, but the real thing is, I am just trying to live up to my potential. Seriously. I am SuperGirl, remember?

We have decided to try a new tack on the road to figuring out "What Ails Kate?" I have to clear my schedule through the first of the year to determine if all my illnesses are due to stress. That's right! So many people say to me (and I hear it on a daily basis, mind you), "I don't know how you do it." Well, since I am still sick and have dropped almost 15 pounds this fall, I just might be doing it wrong.

I sat down and made a list of all the times I have taken sick in the past year and they all coincide with events like: the month I went camping every weekend, our vacation to Phoenix for Christmas, the day my parents actually, physically entered my home for the express purpose of eating a Thanksgiving meal for the first time ever, and election day. More recently, I get sick every time I have to be somewhere: a Halloween party, a girl scout meeting, or dinner with friends.

It takes a lot to rattle me, but maybe I reached that point sometime in the spring. I was scheduled for teeball, baseball, softball and girl scout meetings five days a week. And there were two events on two of those five days. I thought my schedule would be easier since we had no fall sports on our calendar, but maybe I just need to back off completely and chill for a while. I have handed over some girl scout duties, I have stopped studying Arabic, I have cancelled Thanksgiving preparation, and we are not going away for Christmas this year. Everything else should be cake. Right? So we'll cross our fingers and hope that I get better.

In the meantime, I'm looking for a new series of books to read, since I'm not allowed to volunteer for anything in my free afternoons. It actually sounds quite boring. I've been looking forward to these quiet afternoons for how long now???? Well, maybe I'll get all the laundry caught up or re-arrange the closets or paint the dining room - oh, wait, I'm not supposed to be doing that stuff, either. Damn. Somebody's gonna have to tie me down, you know that right? This is gonna be difficult....