"Hot Ones"

I didn't know what to make of it when one of the kids asked me, "Do you know Hot Ones?" 

Apparently, it's a long-running show where people eat progressively spicier chicken wings/cauliflower as they are being interviewed by host Sean Evans. The fam watched the Padma Lakshmi and Gordon Ramsay episodes with me to catch me up.

It's the 23rd of the month a.k.a. Big A's 'Boss Day,' and he decided that he wanted to recreate Hot Ones at home. We have a lot of hot sauces! 

Nu and I "chickened out" after the seventh; At and Big A made it to the end (obviously, Scout and Huck got some chicken but no hot sauce). Big A and I even tried to play some Buzztime Trivia to recreate some of that old eating-chicken-wings-at-Buffalo-Wild-Wings magic. Also, I did a mashup of this hot wings show and Ang's outdated greeting in ATLA to come up with "Flameo Hot Ones" just to annoy everyone. That was today's success.

Yays

A floor-to-ceiling balloon bouquet from JG showed up at dinner time. I mean--I can't even get a good picture of it, it's that huge. We can't celebrate in person, but we have a walk-and-talk planned for next week after the Christmas excitement calms down.

In the meantime, a loooong trek by myself today: I feel somehow aligned in mind and body.

I used to do it for hours in fancy (yoga) pants...

I used to do it for hours in fancy (yoga) pants... but today I did it in my jammies, for 15 minutes and I feel good... at least about restarting my yoga practice. You know when it would have been most useful? Every single day I didn't do it, probably.

Made a winter solstice meal (stew, roasted veggie salad, biscuits, and apple cider hot toddies with brandy) to share with BS and EM for good cheer. We'd planned to build a fire in the firepit, but it began to hail, so we lit some candles indoor instead. 

LB and TB were having their own solstice celebration and I was supposed to head over after dinner, but I stayed home, had a long boozy chat with EM and then Zoom-ed into JL's book club meeting of Mexican Gothic. I hadn't read it, but no one was talking about the book anyway. We haven't met in so long and everyone's hair was SO long!

I'm inordinately excited about yoga, and hangouts, and the two minutes of extra daylight we'll get tomorrow. 

Humdrum

I must have a million versions of this picture, but I love family meal times. Even when the menu is uninspiring (as it was today) and even when we're not actually at the table.

A quiet day with quiet tasks (rearranging the the snack drawer, watering all the plants, laundry). Then I finished Mrs. America with At and Nu after dinner. Wow/Ow: it was tough to watch all that second-wave momentum entropy like that...

Expiry Date

I want so much for us as I wake this morning

wordless--moving only heart, breath 

surprised at how steadfast

for much goes missing all the time: plans or

a present or something that lies, dead

as a future kindness unsaid.

I lose my sense of self, my words; I have

become that one actor who played 

that part in that one movie--

Do you remember? How much bigger could I 

have been, how much bigger my role, 

my words trawl empty

yet full of yearning; and errant words return

sad, humble. I need an army--an armor--

...I'm too numb to concede

our decline of tenderness, as every sign of 

bitterness witnesses us forward,

begrudges us to a deadline.

Light, Lighter, Lightest

Tenured and promoted! Yay! It took more years to get 'on track' given all my travels and moves and life choices and tangents and missteps. I'm way behind so many of my cohort, BUT--I'm relieved and so very thankful. I can feel my shoulders settling and the weight lifting.

After I turned in my portfolio, I felt so strongly that whatever the committee decided, I did deserve tenure. I have zero imposter syndrome, apparently. What I do have is survivors' guilt knowing there are so many equally--or more--deserving peers all over the world trying to make it in an unjust higher-ed system. Also moments of sadness knowing that it won't be what I dreamed since JG and KB, two of my besties on the third floor of SAC, resigned this year. 

The "celebration/crybaby" present Big A had been promising for weeks turned out to be... a new laptop. Whomp, whomp. I tried to fake my way into being gracious and enthusiastic about it, but honestly--it feels like a "vacuum cleaner present." I had imagined a big ol' massage chair or a hot tub or something indulgent... Ha. 

Minding the Gaps

Our Nu had been plying everyone with drinks that come with pull tabs so they could gather more pull tabs for a project. I found them a piece of white elastic to pull it together... Not only did Nu dye the elastic an edgier black, but also wove the whole thing together in a most impressive way... I'd wear that piece of jewelry! I used to wear a tab on my ring finger for a while when I was a teenager and expected some similar haphazard maneuvering, not this!

My Nu is amazing and I'm so proud of what they can do when they set their mind to it. 

Speaking of minds, I gave the kids fidget cubes and personal copies of If You're Freaking Out, Read This as a Pre-Christmas/Hanukkah present today. If ever there was a year to pay attention...

"The Long and Winding Road"

 

I know I'm a sentimental fool, but I'm always taken by surprise when the beginning of "The Long and Winding Road" makes me swell with emotion. I mean, "crying for the day" sounds just like me. LOL. There's no real reason I can fathom, and it doesn't remind me of any one person or place--just some general sense of beauty and nostalgia and malaise. 

Today: L and I discovered a new (to us!) walking path in the Eyde Woods just as the snow began...

Tomorrow: There may be some resolution on (one branch of) my long and winding road...

Time Sheets

It's 5:30 am. Nu just woke up to practice the bass clarinet and catch up with missed school work. At was up late since it was the last day to help people file for compensation from CalTrans, and there's a time lag, and also I think I saw a tweet from him in the last hour. Big A has been doing patient charts post shift after napping in the early pm. I napped from 9-11 pm last night and then I've been up scrolling, working on a poem and other stuff. (I'm going to try to get a nap in before breakfast at 7.) 

I saw everyone at breakfast and dinner, but otherwise, at least one of us has been on right round the clock... 

Scout and Huck who snooze all day seem to be the only ones with adequate sleep and solid sleep hygiene around here.

Through my Head

My children's love passes right through me

(like an arrow, like a bullet)

My parents' love steeps all through me

(like a tantrum, like a blush).

I fear death; there are deaths I fear more:

My deaf father sleeps deep

through knocking, my mother and sister 

talking--unmoving.

My tired children sleep past the blare 

of smoke alarms, heavy

I wonder if I can shake them awake

like a pair of dead batteries.

But the world does its singing, then

my body curls like smoke

plummets, coaxes with folded hands

draws doors in heartache.

So let me tell you how I scan the dates 

of people's lives, guessing--from 

the headlines of their last year--if death 

might have felt like a blessing.

_

Tiny Notes

The tiny tree went up this weekend--powered 95% by At and Nu. 

😍

While I was writing that poem about Chelli's moving day yesterday, I was trying to make the verses look like the many roofs we've been under, but it actually looks like a tree too!

Also, as she said after she read that poem, I completed it "so fast!" High praise indeed! 

😛

Moving Day 8000 Miles Away

8000 miles away

my sister is moving  

her furniture is being taken apart now

it will be put back together again, very soon.

She remembers how I arrived at her 

house in Delhi the week before she did,

how I cut my hand open unpacking boxes, how 

I made that a joke about my rakta dan--"blood sacrifice." 

I don't remember this story. But 

she giggles and so then I giggle and then 

we tell each other how much we love each other. 

When will we see each other again? (There aren't even plans.)

And I want to say: Take a break! 

Need to ask: Are you tired? Is that heavy?

But I look at the telephone; I just... miss you. 

There's more air than we can breathe between us.

Exile now feels like breaking--

like an earthquake--inside out, fragile 

as though an eggshell holding hatchlings,

a coming to--on the other side of worldliness.

There are stones in my throat all day

so I stumble. I speak slowly as though in 

a foreign language (all language feels foreign,

cannot say what I feel, clots like moonlight in my brain).

I just parrot from poems I read:

"Art thou weary? Art thou weary?" I dream you 

give the movers the address, but Bangalore traffic sounds

harmonize it into my name, send it--back in a whisper to you.

-

Out with At

I thought At would be embarrassed by my mask vigilantism while we were out on the riverwalk, but actually, he approved. He kept joking that I might have sounded more authoritative if he'd dressed better--he had to raid the hall closet for hat and gloves and has on a Doctor Who hat and flip-top mittens from Nu's elementary school days. Not quite intimidating enough despite the hammy pose in this picture.

We saw a license plate that said "DRKING," which the new 21-year-old misread as "drinking" and then wondered if the missing letter was because it mimicked how a tipsy person might slur their words. I pointed out that it was probably "Dr. King"--and we laughed about his misreading and over-reading.  

And then At: Well, either way, that license plate is probably going to get them pulled over. Regular cops/ Racist cops. [makes weighing/shrug/balancing gesture.]

Gulp. 
 

On the Road

Early morning run. Frost. Today. I will 

love. Everyone. Like I'm long lost

family, prodigal,

like you're special. I'll stitch love to 

even your lack of care, neglect,

share a request--like

tossing a small wish, easy as pennies

into some mall fountain--please,

can you wear a mask?

It lingers in our air--your answer is

irritable, the road rifts, rebels

at your insolent stride

I follow that script, know that road

I sift regret from the open

arils of the day 

I still. The road calms, a dove coos

I know now it is "mourning"

not just--"morning"