And our world is quiet again…no thanks to the cat.

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

So ranch life slows down a little around here in the winter when the snow is up over my knees, the horses have been turned out for the season and the cows are off to be fed up nice and plump in a more civilized area for the winter. So we go about our business, moving snow, graining the horses, feeding the dogs, feeding ourselves and taming the cats.

The cats we have in our homes to keep the mice away. The damn dirty rodents who are looking to get a taste of the crumbs we may have dropped on the floor (not that I would ever drop anything) or the sunflower seeds we have hidden in the closet.

I am not a fan of mice. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the type of girl to stand up on a chair and scream bloody murder as the sneaky little rodent makes his way across my kitchen floor. But I have been known to wake husband out of a deep, dreamy sleep to go check out that squeaking noise I heard. And I may have used the phrase “it’s your manly duty” to convince him to find the creature in the depths of the dark night while wiping his eyes and wondering how on earth it came to this as he proceeded with caution in the war zone area of the living room in his full on mouse hunting stance…in his underwear.

(No underwear photo available)

See that’s what usually happens around here. No matter how many cats we have, these wild animals turned domestic house pets usually wind up finding just enough to eat in their food dishes so as to completely lose their taste for the hunt. Well, at least their taste for hunting real, moving, heart beating pests.

Funny thing, they seem to be really good at attacking my curtains, rugs and that little patch of sun that streams through the window and onto the carpet. Yup, they’ve killed all of those things flat dead about three hundred and thirty times already.

But mice? Eh. They’ll get to it later.

Which brings me to my point about how there is never a dull moment, even in the depths of winter. Because my momma lives down the road…and she has a cat.

A devil cat.

A cat I picked out for her from the Humane Society because she reminded me of a feline we had when we were growing up named Belly (don’t ask). But I distinctly remember warning my dear mother not to blame me if all hell broke loose in their house when I brought this kitten home.

Because they asked for it.

(The devil herself)

And I delivered.

But who would have known that this cat would turn out to be all spice and not a hint of sugar. This pet does not allow cuddling, moves from room to room at lightning speeds, has eyes that stare into your soul and read all of your most hidden secrets and swats at my feet from underneath the chair every time I come to visit while I scream “Why? Why? I saved your life!”

And most annoying, if not the most unreasonable thing of all, this cat has a taste for high places and makes her home on the top of my momma’s cupboards, between the wine glasses and the fine china. A smart and perfect spot really, because if you make any sudden swatting “dammit cat get down” motions, the devil cat will indeed flee, leaving a wake of glassware and fancy, shiny things behind her.

So there she sits on top of her world despite my momma’s best efforts to find her a new favorite spot.

But this could work out right? I mean, if she’s going to be up there at least she has a great view of any rodent shaped intruders and she can finally put the moves she uses tackling my feet to good use.

So when my momma called one evening during dinnertime to let me know that pops was gone and there was a minor emergency that involved a mouse, I told her not to worry. I told her that me and my feet have been suffering and grooming this cat for a moment like this. Do not worry. That cat is ready for battle. She hasn’t lost the taste for blood.

I know from personal experience.

So I hung up the phone and carried on with my tuna noodle hot dish (my night to cook).

And when the phone rang again I thought for sure it would be a report on how her heroic pet finally earned her keep and swallowed the tiny beast whole and then got back up on her throne of wine glasses and waited for her next attack.

I put down the noodles and answered the phone.

Me: “Hi mom. Did she get it?”

Momma: “Oh, hi Jess. Ummm, well, no…no she didn’t.”

Me: “Really? Well what is she doing? Where’s the mouse?”

Momma: “Yeah, well…yeah. The cat? The cat is on top of the piano…”

Me: “Ok.”

Momma: “And, well, the mouse is on top of my curtains.”

Me: “What? What do you mean on top of your curtains?”

Momma: “Well, you know the curtains in my family room?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Momma: “Well the mouse is sitting on top of the curtain rod and the cat is on top of the piano right next to it–just staring. Just staring at it…”

Me (with a noodle hanging out of my mouth): “The mouse is on the curtain rod? It’s just balancing up there like a little rodent gymnast?”

Momma: “Yeah. Well, and they’ve been like this for a good thirty minutes…I have my broom here and I’m just waiting for her to make her move…”

Me: “Oh gaawwwdddd. What are you going to do with the broom mom?”

Momma: “Well, I don’t know…”

Me (running out the door): “We’re coming over.”

So I grabbed husband who was secretly happy to be saved from the tuna hot dish and glad to be dressed in more appropriate mouse slaying gear and we drove down the road in anticipation of saving my momma from having to use her beloved broom for anything other than sweeping.

(Certain to be prepared this time)

I told husband she must be exaggerating. I cannot picture this. A mouse, balancing on a curtain rod? My momma really has a flair for the dramatics, so you see, I come by it naturally…and on another note, she really should start wearing her perscribed glasses and maybe she’s on some medications I am not aware of…oh, maybe I should be worried about her…and….

….oh…oh really? Really?

(small photo taken inconspicuously with a super secret camera phone)

Really.

And while momma and I huddled together in a corner holding our breath with our hands to our chins, husband took one look at the situation, walked right over to the mouse perched up on top of a three inch diameter life line having flashbacks to his rodent childhood and all of the things he would do if the sweet Lord would save his tiny little mouse heart from a death with whiskers that had been staring him in the face for the last thirty minutes (which on mouse time, I am sure is more like a good week and a half) and reached out his manly, hero hand, grabbed the trembling creature by the tail and threw him out the door.

Game over.

Breath released.

Broom back in the closet.

Tuna noodle casserole still not delicious.

Momma found her glasses.

Cat returned to her perch.

And our world is quiet again…

…for now…

But maybe momma wants to trade in the demon cat for something more like this:

(I mean, they seem to get along…)

Just a thought.

Here’s to a rodent free weekend.

My mom is Santa Clause

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Let me tell you something about my momma. She’s a woman of many talents: she can make a mean appetizer with ten minutes and any kind of cheese, has great taste in shoes, picks out the best wine, can teach a monkey how to dance, is fully capable of saving the world given the time and the proper outfit….

….and she’s really good at Christmas.

Like really good.

And by good I don’t mean that she creates a Martha Stewart type of holiday where her days are spent weaving her own wreathes out of baby junipers adorned with hand-cut glitter. No, my mom has never been caught crafting. And she is not the kind of person to plan her entire day around cracking eggs to make pie crust and pealing and cutting apples that she grew out back in her very own orchard to make a pie filling…in fact mom owes most of her baking success to the step by step on the backs of boxes.

So you see, I come by it naturally…

Flashback to my childhood when my momma attempted a carrot cake and pulled it out of the oven only to find that it was literally shrinking before our eyes. Yeah. It went from a normal sized cake to one that Barbie could serve to Ken on a cute little dollhouse plate in about an even three minutes. This phenomenon was so miraculous and disturbing that my mother, laughing hysterically could do nothing but open up the door and throw the cake, pan and all, out into the wilderness while her girls pressed their noses to the glass to see how small it could actually get.

I guess she wanted it out of the house in case it was possessed or something.

Either that or the sight of it just pissed her off.

But not enough to stop laughing.

No, mom’s not a real Betty Crocker, or Paula Deen of some sort of clone of Martha herself (although she may have dressed as her for Halloween one year).

My mom is much better than all those women.

And she has Christmas down pat.

See, Thanksgiving comes and goes and it’s like my mom sprinkles something in the air and poof, there are poinsettias exactly where poinsettias look best, boughs of greenery adorned with twinkling lights placed carefully around door frames and on window sills, pinecones in all of the right places and everything magically smells like cinnamon.

She transforms her house in the sticks into something you see in magazines. So I come over to visit so I can feel like I am one of those fancy “people-props” you see in scenes in Better Homes and Gardens. I wear my khakis and wool Christmas sweater with the deer on the chest for effect.

And we sip cider, or Tom and Jerry’s or wine and talk about how nice it looks., how wonderful it smells…how khaki is most certainly my color.

See my momma is one of the most unlikely characters you would find out here in the middle of all of this wild stuff. And when she fell in love with a cowboy from Western North Dakota who was in love with a landscape and lifestyle that didn’t quite match the lawn mowing, polo shirt wearing, dog walking man she may have been expecting, my momma wasn’t phased in the least. Nope, she just packed up her ballet slippers, knee high boots and her greatest jackets and marched her butt out to the ranch to make a life for her and her children.

Oh, I may have heard a few stories through the years of some growing pains my mother experienced when she first made her home out where the nearest mall is a good two hours away. Like the one where she was greeted by a rattlesnake when she brought me home from the hospital. And I might have heard one about a woman who didn’t notice as her husband’s pickup slowly rolled backwards into the nearest coulee while she grabbed her purse and walked blissfully unaware into the house and shut the door. Then maybe I overheard at a few gatherings something about someone’s mom who drove the entire thirty mile trek from town on gravel roads dressed as a witch on Halloween, with the hatchback of her car open, groceries flying…and then complained to her husband about the damned heater when she got home.

Yup. I may have heard a story or two.

Because my momma tells them. And laughs knowing full well who she is and what she does and does not have time for—like learning to drive a stick shift, shoot a gun, make pie crust and figure out why the heater doesn’t work on her hatchback

And that’s ok. Because this woman who may have found herself a little misplaced at first, sure knows where she stands now. And she tackled her life out here on the ranch the same way she tackles the holidays: fully prepared, with grace and patience, a touch of class and great taste (now that I think of it, she handles accessories this way as well).

So here she is, in her home under the big winter sky, having raised three daughters and dressed them well (despite the late 80s and early 90s), created a successful career, over-fed her housecats and her family and is preparing to give us the best Christmas ever, just like she has done year after year.

Because my mother’s zest for this festive holiday only begins with the decorations and immaculate Christmas tree and ends up in a great big hearty, hug-worthy pile of love induced giving when it’s all said and done.

Oh, my momma lllloooooovvvveeessss to give presents.

She lights up at the thought of it. She makes lists throughout the year like Santa’s own personal assistant, collecting all of the hints her friends and family may have dropped on their way out the door, or while making dinner, or when getting dressed for a party. She gathers her ideas and waits for December so she can finally wrap them up tight in neat little shiny packages with ribbons and bows that coordinate perfectly with each other and the bulbs on her sparkling, immaculate Christmas tree.

She stays up late filling stockings with her family’s favorite candy and soap and socks and trinkets we most definitely don’t need. And she always gives Santa credit on Christmas morning as she pours champaign in our orange juice while she waits for us to come mingling in to discover our gifts displayed in a picture perfect pile next to our respective seats.

This is how Christmas has been (minus the champaign) since I was old enough to create a memory. And this is how I want Christmas to be until I am old and gray and can no longer bite into a candy cane because I must respect the dentures.

Isn’t that how we all are? If we were blessed to get a really wonderful mother who created her own rendition of the greatest Christmas ever, baked the best gingerbread cookies in the entire world, played a mean “Joy to the World” on the piano, conducted the church Christmas pageant every year, donned the most obnoxious sweaters and woke you up at 6 am on Christmas morning because she couldn’t wait any longer, no matter how irritating or embarrassing, isn’t it your momma who makes the holiday special?

And even now, as adults, when our belief in Santa Clause has long faded and we are left to do our own shopping and deck our own halls in our own obnoxious sweaters, don’t we all just want to be in our footy pajamas, sitting under our mother’s tree adorned with the ornaments that remind us of our youth in our parent’s house eating those gingerbread cookies (or that really great appetizer) on Christmas day?

And if we can’t be with our mother’s don’t we all try to recreate the Christmas she made for us in our own homes?

So I am feeling lucky tonight as I pull out all of my decorations and think about where I can perfectly place the pine cones and how I can get my home to look just right, just like mom’s, this Christmas. I am feeling fortunate for a mother who taught me how to evenly distribute the lights and color coordinate the table setting and miraculously make the entire place smell like cinnamon and feel a little magical.

But most of all I am feeling so blessed that I never really was disappointed in the idea that Santa doesn’t exist, because I have a mother.

And I’m pretty sure she is Santa Clause.

P.S. All photos were taken at my momma’s house. What’d I tell ya? Beautiful.

Right back where I started from…

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Have you ever found yourself in a moment, deep in it, smiling, laughing, crying soulful tears and suddenly everything around you slows down. The people are illuminated in theater-like lighting, the objects at your hands and feet seem to be placed there to create a scene, the conversation is flowing, witty and real, the atmosphere is filled with air the perfect temperature and scents that remind you a place you have been before, or a place you have always wanted to be.

So you pause to take a breath from the laughter or the tears of joy to really look around , to notice that your heart is completely full and you find yourself asking, “Could this really be my life?”

I have had a few moments like these. I have found my feet on stages singing to the best crowds and on hilltops on the back of the best horse and deep in the snow covered mountains, stars above soaking my life-weary body in a hot spring

And in all of these situations I have been struck to find that for a few minutes, this world was indeed, picture perfect.

It happens sometimes.

It happened to me this weekend.

See, every Saturday for the month of December I have been scheduled to bring myself and my guitar (and my pops if he wants) to sing my songs in a lovely restaurant in the small tourist town of Medora, in the middle of the beautiful North Dakota Badlands.

This is a gig I have had before. In fact, if I remember correctly, this was one of my first gigs ever as a singer/songwriter at around 13 or 14 years old. Before the debut of my guitar and the songs I penned on my own, I had been singing alongside my father at fairs and festivals around the state for a few years. I was the melody to his harmony, a voice to the lyrics of other people’s songs, a little girl in wranglers, hat and a shirt buttoned up to the very top. A very serious, nervous, unwavering steadfast, not quite cute, more like nerdy, young, folk singer.

Cue photo montage for evidence…

I came by it honestly...

...being groomed with performances at family holiday gatherings...

...and at church, where I learned that the higher the hair, the closer you are to God. A motto I continue to live by...

...and in the summer festival sun. You can tell it's summer by the fruit on my shirt. I like to dress for the seasons...

...yes, my wardrobe tells so much about me, like "I like horses, and vests, 'cause I have horses on my vest"...

And between my performances I was in my room writing bad poetry and teaching myself to play the guitar–because I had a vision of myself as a songwriter. And I was serious about it. Yeah, I was goofy and free in other parts of my life, (like my dance performances, love for pet reptiles and wardrobe choices) but when it came to songwriting I was steadfast.

I kept my songs on a shelf in my room and the voice that was singing them between the four walls. I made sure the chords that I strummed from my guitar did not leave the doors of our little house in the countryside. I was determined to keep everything I created wrapped up tight until…well I didn’t know when. I wasn’t sure. I guess until I was ready…but I was unsure I would ever be ready.

Until one day my pops came into my room while I was strumming and singing my heart out to no one but myself, safe from the judgment of a world that existed down the pink road and at the end of the blacktop. He came into my room and told me we had a gig.

In Medora.

Oh this was big time for me. Because Medora was my humble state’s big tourist destination. They boast a music and dance production in a big outdoor amphitheater in the badlands every summer night. People visited Medora to have a taste of the western North Dakota ranching life, to learn about Teddy Roosevelt, to hike the hills and buy cowboy hats and eat hamburgers and, most of all, be entertained.

And they wanted us.

Yup. We had a gig.

In Medora.

And pops thought it was time for me to play my own guitar.

And sing my own songs.

Oh Lord.

Because here’s the thing. If you’ve ever been a writer, or have ever written a love letter or a poem or paper for a class. If you have ever taken something from your head and heart that you have thought out, suffered over it, and proceeded to put down on paper, making it a permanent fixture in this world. Something that has the potential to expose the inner most workings of you and your philosophies and then thrust it out there in a world that is so full of cruelty and scrutiny, you can understand why, in the basement of the very restaurant in which I played last weekend, in the middle of a tourist town in the heart of the badlands, I, at 13 or 14 years old, I had a complete and utter mental breakdown.

A complete and utter breakdown regarding the reasons my mother allowed me to dress in leotards and tights until I was six years old, and why I had to be born with curly hair, and why I was the middle child and why my parents lied to me about my pet lizard’s death when I was away at bible camp and why God invented zits and why I ever sang my first notes in the first place.

And why had I agreed to this gig, because I was surely going to die out there.

But not before they all laugh at me.

And my outfit.

...convinced I still looked like this...

But the show must go on, so I wiped away tears, walked up the steps and out into the front of a quiet little restaurant lit with candles and filled with the scents of garlic and the fireplace and the dull roar of conversations of people ready to enjoy a lovely evening with this awkward adolescent with frizzy hair, a guitar and her dad.

I picked up my new green guitar, stood nervously by the man who told me I had a voice and sang the first line of the first song I ever wrote…

“I ride wild ponies through pastures I have walked before, every day of my life….”

I thought I might throw up. I thought my legs might just collapse from underneath my body and send me flying into the plate of prime rib and mashed potatoes in the table in front of me. I wished for the roof to open up and aliens to choose me to abduct and use for their experiments.

My voice wavered as I sang the second line….

“Today I feel stronger on the sleek white back of fire, why won’t my ponies ever tire…”

Knives were scraping against plates, people were laughing amongst themselves, glasses were clinking, the aroma of the soup of the evening filled my nostrils…

..the chorus…

“Do they talk when I’m away? I must know so I must stay…”

The laughing quieted down, a few heads turned toward me, chewing slowed.

I took another breath and finished my first song.

And the diners put down their forks and clapped.

They actually clapped for this girl, scared shitless behind her green guitar singing words about her ponies. They clapped and smiled and laughed and talked amongst themselves.

So I sang another song, and then another and when it was I was all out of music and my fingers were sore, they asked me when I was playing again and where they could get my songs and when I would be back.

So I came back. I came back to sing on patios, and in the amphitheater on the stage in front of big names, in the community center to belt out Christmas songs in my belt buckle and cowboy pants pulled up to my chin.

Cue another photo montage:

I came back again and again to sing in front of people who had heard me sing the words I wrote for the very first time.

Yes, I came back and with each summer I had a few more songs, I grew a little taller, a little more confident, my voice a little stronger, until one day I packed up my guitar and my books filled with words and moved on to college and to new venues in new cities that made my heart pound and had me questioning my wardrobe choice and song selection over and over again…

…and wondering why I ever sang my first note, wrote my first word…and why my mother let me wear leotards and tights until I was six…

Why? Wwwwhhhhhyyyyy?

I meandered, taking singing jobs all over the country, recording my music, selling my music, changing my words to fit my life, my clothes to fit in, and taking it on the road. And it was exciting and nerve wracking and challenging. And I took it just far enough to be exhausted at the thought of it all….

And then last weekend I found myself behind my guitar, in my favorite boots, beside my father in his hat and harmonica holder, singing the melody to his harmony, singing words about cowboys and horses and sleeping under the stars—songs about Christmas and a life I lead as a woman who is not so scared of herself anymore to a crowd in a small restaurant, in a small town, in the middle of a landscape that has held me close and gave me something to sing about.

And through the familiar sound of glasses clinking and knives cutting steaks, the small crowd clapped and moved their heads with the beat of our guitars as the heat of the fireplace made the air between their conversations warmer. They laughed as I told stories about getting the pickup stuck and falling off of the backs of horses and crashing sleds down the hills at the ranch. They nodded their heads as I told of the lessons I learned growing up on the ranch about feeding the animals first on Christmastime, before any gifts were open, before breakfast was served.

They sipped their wine and tasted their chowder as I sang, with my dad, “Silent Night” the same way we have always sung it, to the crowd, to the stars, to the Christmas fireworks making sparks in the winter sky, to our family, to each other and out the door and off of the snowy buttes, the way our music was meant.

And the world spun a little slower, our guitars sounded a little sweeter, our voices more pure as we strummed into the night, our music absorbed by the walls of the historic building, our voices getting through to the people who came there that evening from small towns, from ranches deep in the hills, from cities and from down the street to hear a girl and her dad play music, not for the money, not for their supper, not for a record label or to win fans from all over the world, but to play for the sake of playing. To sing because there is nowhere else they’d rather be.

Nothing else we’d rather be doing.

Nowhere else we’d rather be.

Right in the middle of my pretty damn good life.

Right back where I started from.

Thanks Medora!

See ya again this weekend.

Extreme Makeover – Winter Edition

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Ok, so winter has settled in, leaving in its trail a thick blanket of sparkly snow that I am pretty sure is going to stay for a while. And now that it is December, this snow is perfectly acceptable to most people around here. So on winter mornings, eyes on the thermostat I mill around the house in my ugly slippers, working on various projects and looking out the window all too frequently to see if I can spot those three blue jays that have been hanging around.

Do you see them? They are in that tree, all three. And they won't let me get any closer than this, no matter how slowly and quietly I sneak.

Oh, this weather makes me feel pretty damn cozy, and apparently turns me into a bird watcher…

Last night and this morning a fog settled in and it has created the most beautiful and interesting glaze on anything it can cling to: tree branches, fences and the backs of beasts milling around the landscape, pawing at the frozen earth looking for another bite. The sneaky frost makes you see things you haven’t seen before, like this horsehair on the barbed wire fence I noticed when I came home from work last night:

Isn’t it spectacular?

Anyway, so here I am, 30 miles from the nearest town, alone with my thoughts in this cozy house with no milk and a freezer full of frozen apple pies (husband got a hold of the Schwan’s man …I guess there was a special).

Yup. And I actually thought I had a chance of getting out of the yard today, until I actually tried. After about five solid straight hours of snowfall I quickly realized that nobody needs milk THIS bad. I’ll drink diet coke thanks very much. That’s just fine with me, really.

A similar thing happened on Tuesday. Tuesday I was stuck here with the apple pies because my car would not make it up the hill and around the curve where the snow had drifted in over a nice layer of ice –precisely the location where I slipped and acquired a big purple bruise on my right knee the other day. And unless I strapped on the snowshoes I do not own (yet) and took the trek on foot, home is where I would remain.

But thank goodness for tractors and people that know how to use them, cause as soon as the sun went down, I was dug out. Free! Just in time to make some soup and go to bed.

And I didn’t mind at all.

Because as much as I could curse the snow and all of the annoying inconveniences it brings with it, like hat head and the necessity of ice scrapers, I love it.

I love it because it looks like this in the morning…

…and this in the evening…

…and this when the sun shines….

…and this on my snowsuit….

I love it. And I don’t even own a snowmobile. Or skis. Or snowshoes! I do have a sled however, but I think I already told you that…

Yup, I said it. I love it despite my very limited collection of snow toys.

Anyway, maybe you have to have been born where the palm trees don’t grow to understand, but I have always been captivated by winter’s form of precipitation. I have been charmed by the way it falls so gracefully and quietly from the sky and gives the entire world an extreme makeover. It’s really good at makeovers, turning everything a different shade of gray and white and black and creating such drama, casting long shadows that catch us off guard in the middle of the day.

On the ground where cactus and thorns once grew, the topography is now transformed, soft, radiant and inviting, covering up our summer paths so we must begin again creating a landscape where we are never lost and can’t get away with anything because every move leaves a trail, evidence of where we have been.

And I love it when the flakes pile up and, with the help of the wind, they morph themselves into sculpted masterpieces, drifts resembling ocean waves…

…or small mountain peaks

…then mini-avalanches…

And when the sun shines, out comes the glitter and our houses look like they’re covered in sugar with frosting settled on our roofs and in our windowsills and the delicious, sugary icicles hanging from the eaves makes us want to stick out our tongues, or flop down on the ground, or jump and scream just to shatter something, to move something, to break the spooky silence the frost creates.

It sends us bright blue hats and fluffy sweaters and turns our skin from pale to bright red and back again. It makes us hungry for spices and warm liquids and dishes that boil and simmer and slide down our throats.

It makes us turn on the oven and make things from scratch that smell like cinnamon and butter. (Well, maybe some people do this…I think I’ll just take out one of those pies…)

So we move in close and then the season surprises us with its sudden darkness and reminds us that we don’t have control. And if we were thinking we were prepared, we most certainly are not.

Because no winter has been the same. No winter has created the same drifts, the same shadows, the same snowflakes and banks.

And no winter will be the same again.

So we close our eyes, snuggle down tight and our memories of a landscape so green and bright and baking, when we were rowdy and brown and sweaty and half-naked remind us of a foreign land, so far away.

Then we wake to find, socked in from the storm, our bodies softer, slower, more fair and crisp and realize that we too have been transformed. So we slide on our boots and pull our caps over our ears and go out to discover an entirely different world—showing off in his brand new, fabulous outfit.

And because I, like most girls, am a big fan of makeovers, I present to you North Dakota’s winter makeover–before and after:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Maybe not a Ty Pennington improvement, but beautiful in a completely different way.

Like me in my ski mask.

Enjoy your frost covered weekend!

This season remember yourself (at 5 years old)

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Ok. Newsflash. The holiday season is upon us.

I know this because someone dressed me in suspenders, a bow tie and patent leather shoes and stuck me by this Christmas tree.

Now let me take a guess at what you’re doing in any of the spare time you may be lucky to possess.

You are making lists. Lists in your head about gifts to give. Lists on napkins about food to bake. Grocery lists stuck to the side of the refrigerator that you forget to grab on your way out into the blizzard to get to the store. Lists on the back of your hand reminding you to add crazy uncle Bob to your Christmas card list.

I’m right aren’t I? But hopefully you’re not feeling the pressure just yet, as we have a good 24 days until Christmas. Oh, and by the way, thanks for taking the time to stop in, you know, between all of that baking and list making.

So while I have you here with me, I want to give you a little gift.

Close your eyes.

Put your head on your desk, or in your hands, or on the shoulder of your sweetie sitting next to you…

…and think about the season. Go ahead. I give you permission. Think about it the way you want to think about it. Love it. Loathe it. Tolerate it.

Now picture yourself when you were 5 or 6 or 7.

Shut up, neon was in. And so were earmuffs.

In the middle of December.

Picture your snowsuit. Think about the thrill of Santa’s impending visit, the pride you felt wrapping up that macaroni pencil holder for your gramma, the excitement of the first snow fall, the taste of your momma’s fresh cookies and your pops’ caramel corn. The quiet thankfulness you had for Jesus as you decorated the Christmas tree in preparation for his birthday.

Think of yourself, adorable I’m sure with hair wildly flinging out from your favorite beanie, breath heavy as you drug your neon sled, or wood sled, or cardboard box up to the top of the nearest hill and flung yourself down for the first time.

Remember how you couldn’t even feel your frozen cheeks as you closed your eyes tight against the wind whizzing by. You didn’t care about the weather or the windchill or the travel warnings or the buns you left in the oven. Because you didn’t leave buns in the oven. Because you were five or six or seven and no one let you use the oven.

Maybe your little sister was sitting behind you in the sled. Maybe your big brother was giving you a huge push. Remember the sound you used to make when you were thrilled? Remember how hard you laughed as you came to a crashing halt at the bottom–snow in your boots, snow in your hair, snow down your pants.

Yup, earmuffs, so fashionable, versatile anyone can pull off the look.

But you jumped up, brushed yourself off and just as soon as you yelled, “let’s do it again!’ your mom and dad came out from the house to call you for dinner and to your surprise, instead of making you come inside, they decided to take a run at the hill themselves.

So they climbed to the top with you, huffing and puffing into thier wool scarves, your dad holding your mother’s hand partly out of affection, but mostly to tug her along.

And just like that they were no longer adults. Just like that they were no longer parents who made you eat your vegetables, stop hitting your sister and clean your room. They were kings and queens of the mountain just like you. Their cheeks were rosy, their eyelashes coated in frost, their hearts pounding in anticipation as your mom wrapped her arms around your father’s waist and squealed– a sound so familiar somehow, although you swore you never heard it from her lips–as he launched the both of them, scarves trailing behind, like white lightning down the mountain.

And you held your breath and hoped your eyes did not deceive you. You clasped your hands together and bent your knees as they approached the little jump you and your brother had constructed. You closed your eyes as they caught air and seperated from the ground…and then from the sled…

You remained silent as they landed, with a puff, in a pile of legs and down and snot and wool and mittens, at the bottom.

You remained silent knowing surely that this accident, this launch, would transform them back into the people you knew only moments before. That a trip home right this instant was inevitable. Oh, the fun was surely over now.

And just as you were about to release your knees, slowly from their bent position, you launched into that jump after all as you heard, echoing off of the buttes and through the trees, laughter.

Laughter like you’ve never heard come out of these people you called parents before.

And you laughed too as you watched them lay there in a pile, their bellies rising and falling underneath the layers of coats and sweaters as they took in the next big breath only to release it again and again as huge chuckles, squeals, gasps. Pure joy.

So as soon as gravity returned you to earth your boots carried you, arms flailing, down the hill and to a sliding halt right into the middle of these new found friends. Then your brother or sister plopped right on the top and another wave of hilarity ensued.

And you were all there. You were all a part of it. A great big pile of happy and love and family.

A great big pile of friends.

Are you smiling?

Good.

Now the only thing I ask in return is this: if you forget anything this season–the cookie salad, your third cousin’s new last name, what your youngest daughter wants for Christmas, or uncle Bob at the airport–please, please do not forget yourself…

… at 5 or 6 or 7…