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After Christmas

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

During the last two days I read most of the grant archive at work.

At lunch time, I received a text from my daughter that she shouldn’t be left home alone. She saved a field mouse from our cats and built it an enclosure.

I suggested she find one of the lids. Well, honestly I told her to put the damn thing outside but… she doesn’t listen.

After work, I met my neighbor at Three Birds Coffee House but I was disappointed the birds were on vacation. The lemon verbena tea was delicious.

And I came home to a house still in the throes of the Christmas Bomb, disaster from one end to the other. I picked up a bit, opened a beer and let my new roomba vacuum the kitchen.

Gayle came for supper and we all shared a candy apple.

Our candy apple review

After dessert, the teen and Gayle colored the giant cardboard submarine.

And then the teen discovered the mouse had escaped.

Never a dull moment.

The Lonely Kitten

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Our house is probably the biggest menagerie in the neighborhood.

Budgies…

Cats…

And dogs that stop by and hang out even when they don’t belong to us, even on Christmas morning.

So a few months ago, this cute gray cat starting hanging out under my neighbor’s porch. My neighbor borrowed a trap, and she and my daughter tried to catch it. They failed.

Though my teen did catch a possum.

The cat seemed to disappear so we hoped it had found a home.

But oh no. Early last week in the bitter cold and snow, three kittens appeared. All dark gray with big brown eyes.

Momma seems to roam the neighborhood and when she’s gone, the kittens wander. So my daughter feeds them and brings them water. But she can’t catch them.

As soon as Momma returns, they all return to under the porch.

But now the shyest of the kittens seems to be the only one left. Have the braver kittens gone with Momma?

He just sits in the bushes and cries.

I want to bring the poor baby home.

The lonely kitten (if we catch it, its name shall be Mistoffelees.)

Christmas Bomb (part 1, at home)

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Good morning and Merry Christmas to those who celebrate.

My teenager asked me to open her presents last night so I allowed it. Why not? She’s a teenager so it spares me waiting for her to get out of bed in the morning.

So I’m enjoying a cup of coffee, after trying to pick up all the wrappings, thinking about my friends far and wide that I miss.

My daughter bought me these lovely winter boots, which are nice and warm and toasty but I am very glad I don’t have to test them in snow today. She also bought me penguin socks and replaced the teapot she destroyed a couple months ago.

She melted a Le Creuset teapot. Really. She did.

Her main Christmas presents included a calligraphy set (she’s always commenting on how she wished she could make fancier letters) and a subscription box from Universal Yums.

Of course, there are some junky fun gifts, some candy and some activity books.

But I didn’t expect the fun that came from these three stocking stuffers:

Christmas Shenanigans

Scaring the Cats

Christmas Eve 2019

Angel Ackerman

I started my Christmas Eve morning trying to make the house presentable for my mother’s Christmas visit, but I also treasured the silence and stillness of the house.

The teen got up early and finished her advent calendar…

The final window

My mom came down around 10, and the teen and I had made Pillsbury cinnamon rolls and some fancy break-and-bake cookies.

We exchanged presents and my mom left after about 45 minutes and took the teen to her father’s apartment. Apparently, he had intended to have my mom over for a tour and despite the fact that we’ve been separated six months she still hasn’t visited.

My day was pretty quiet. I did some laundry and loaded the dishwasher and tried to unclog the bathtub drain. At 2 pm, I realized I hadn’t really eaten so I ordered Dominoes.

I hung out with my three budgies (they do love to fly around my head) and watched two episodes of Jonathan Maberry’s graphic novel, now a series on Netflix: V Wars. I took a writing workshop with Jonathan more than a decade ago when he had just published his first (maybe two) novel(s).

The teenager just read my signed copy of Ghost Road Blues for her independent reading in English. She didn’t enjoy it. She then purchased his later book, Rot and Ruin, and devoured the whole tome in two days.

VWars definitely held my interest for the episodes I watched but I think I need to turn to something more uplifting for holiday viewing.

The teenager is with her dad and paternal grandparents.

She should be home soon. She wore her new dogs and cats in Christmas hats sweatshirt, complete with blinking lights. We opened that gift on Saturday when my friend and very talented nail tech Beth came over to see my tree and have some wine and cookies.

The teen’s ugly Christmas sweater

Holidays often bring a lot of anxiety for me, and this year has had its moments. But sometimes you just have to remember to be kind to yourself and do what seems right for you and your family.

My last push toward Christmas

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Today I made my final attempts to flood my heart with holiday spirit.

My daughter visited my office on my lunch break and played some impromptu carols with my office mate, George, and I really think they should rehearse and take the show on the road, at least to local nursing homes.

Euphonium meets Accordion… Silent Night

Then the teen even had a little accordion lesson thanks to George’s good naturedness.

Accordion lesson

Later we picked up the teen’s boyfriend and went to the Winter Lights Spectacular at Lehigh Valley Zoo. We gambled for candy (and lost).

We played a giant game of chess.

And we exchanged some small presents. (All of which have been eaten.)

Presents under the lights

Then we stopped at Sonic, another source of nostalgia for the teen and came home.

She never was very good at standing still.

Opening night of Cats

Angel Ackerman

My daughter has a big love for the musical Cats. I was fortunate enough to see it as a kid with my extended family. I bought the movie of the Broadway play for my daughter when she was small.

She loves Cats. I have a feeling the musician in her loves Andrew Lloyd Webber. Can you be a latent Andrew Lloyd Webber fan? As a musician, my daughter loves musicals and is constantly searching for “beautiful harmonies.”

My backstory with Musicals

My connection with musicals started in middle school. The school offered a field trip every year to New York City to see a musical. My first was The Sound of Music. The show that made the biggest impact on me was Miss Saigon. I still remember that helicopter and my amazement as it came out on stage.

Videos of that helicopter don’t do it justice. The scale and the shock of a helicopter in the theater, especially as a fairly new and young theatre-goer… the impressions still linger in my memory.

I found this video on YouTube about making the helicopter, apparently its designers were overwhelmed too.

The Building of the Miss Saigon helicopter

So I’ve seen a fair number of Broadway shows, though none really of my own choosing. Our middle school music teacher, Mr. Birgenstock, had us listen to a lot of musics oh records in the music room and he gave us the lyric sheets to follow along.

My musical ear is tin, but I still have a large soft spot for musicals. Let me see if I can list the musicals we studied in middle school in the late 1980s:

  • Jesus Christ Superstar
  • Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat
  • Chess (still my all-time favorite)
  • Tommy

Nope, can’t remember them. Darn.

Opening night of Cats

So, back to Cats. We had a rough week in this household and our holiday plans keep shifting.

Our evening at the holiday light display at the local zoo fell through and I worked late so I asked the teenager if she wanted to go see Cats. Now she’s made it a point to bring up every possible opportunity to go see Cats for the last week.

I didn’t have to ask. I knew she wanted to see Cats.

We skipped dinner and went straight to the 7:10 show.

They did an amazing job. I didn’t look at the cast before I went so I had a lot of fun asking, “is that Judi Dench?” (She’s one of my favorite actresses. I had my hair cut like hers once. Modeled after M. I think in Casino Royale.) Is that Ian McKellan? (And my daughter: “That’s the girl from Pitch Perfect.”)

The costumes were amazing. The dancers lithe and incredibly feline. The pacing was way better than the Broadway show. And they even added some plot to give it more of a linear story line.

The set was delightful, full of detail and fun cat puns. I felt like I wanted to frolic on those sets. Seeing people scaled down to cat size was a visual treat.

And the music pleased my daughter.

I had to keep shushing her to keep her from belting the songs out with the actors.

Bottom line, if someone you love wants to see Cats and you are hesitant because you’re not a fan, it shouldn’t be a painful experience for you. They did a nice job. It’s also fairly short.

Dinner at Rocco’s

It was about 9:15 when we left the theatre so I stopped at Rocco’s Pizza on the way home.

I spent most of my newspaper career in downtown Phillipsburg so when I saw Rocco’s light on, I knew we had to stop. The teen said it looked kind of creepy on the outside, but she knew to trust me.

I haven’t had much of a social or professional life in the last ten years, so when I told Mike, the owner, that we hadn’t seen each other in a decade he needed some convincing.

He had three slices left and heated them up and we ate them in the car.

Mike, if this makes it to you via the internet or Facebook or Phillipsburg word-of-mouth, you made my daughter very happy.

“I haven’t had real pizza in ages. This isn’t even greasy,” she said.

“Mom, this pizza is the sh*t.”

Tree Trimming Party

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Once we got our tree together we had a small gaggle or friends over to decorate.

We ended up with three trees: the real tree, the mini tree of the teenager’s special ornament selection, and the “Who” tree, our artificial tree decorated like a tree from Whoville.

The wines I reviewed earlier:

Wines from the Tree Trimming Party

We even invited some neighborhood dogs, Buddy and Sobaka.

Highlights:

  • The teen’s childhood Christmas compilations including the ones where she sings are still adorable.
  • We lost some of the tree lights and couldn’t find them until the tree was lit.
  • Dark chocolate hummus is very tasty on raspberries.
  • My big dumb cat Oz is always a party favorite.
  • It’s fun to have mismatched wine glasses
  • One second you have plenty of brownies and macaroons and the next they are gone.

And no Christmas tree is complete without a spectacle of putting up the star:

The Debut of the Disco Star

O Tannenbaum

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

It’s a few days overdue but I finally have a moment to share our adventures with getting a tree.

I wish I could remember how it came up at home but I realized we’d never had a real tree at home in my adult life.

I also realized I had a teenager very adept with a saw.

So why not? Why not get a real tree?

The teenager thought it was a fabulous idea.

And then my friend Gayle suggested we somehow tie the tree to the roof of my 2015 Jetta. Now my Jetta May be a used car, but she’s my baby and I’ve had her less than 13 months.

I am not shoving a tree in her.

But my dad came through and on a rainy 50-degree December day we headed to the tree farm. I believe it was AJ’s Landscaping.

My daughter and my stepmom perused the samples.

They opted for a Frasier Fir and into the field we went. In the rain.

We find what seems to be the perfect size, width, height, shape for us and the teenager asks, “how do I cut it?”

“You get down on the ground and cut,” I tell her.

Cutting it Down

She does a magnificent job. We pay the cashier $37.10 for this 5′ tree.

And they bail it. This excites her.

The Joy of Bailing

We take it home. And set it up… part 2 to come.

The joys so easy to miss

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

If you’ve read some of this blog, you probably know that I have a relatively new job in a brand new field that is giving me tremendous potential to grow as an individual and a professional. It’s challenging and rewarding and it allows me to do some good in the world.

But in any new job there comes a learning curve and change can be exhausting. On top of my career change, my husband and I separated six months ago.

So that’s another part of my life in flux.

Last night, I went to the podiatrist as my toe has been bothering me. It’s the same toe on which I dropped a 15-pound dumbbell almost 2 years ago. I also broke that ankle 4 years ago now.

I was fairly certain I just had a blister in a weird spot that went a little wrong but with my cerebral palsy I didn’t want to take chances.

When I got to the doctor, after waiting a week to get the appointment, I realized I forgot my wallet. Luckily I had ways to pay them and my daughter texted me the information in my wallet but that stressed me.

And then the doctor trimmed my toe nails and removed all the pretty nail polish from my recent pedicure. Now I know that is something he needed to do, but it made me very very sad.

Then he prescribed me an antibiotic because it looked like the toe did have a blister, got infected, and maybe it was going to be fine but why take the chance.

So I had to go home, get my wallet, and go to CVS.

My daughter came with my and as we waited, read this joke book to me:

I laughed at a few, despite my best attempts not to.

When they built the Great Wall of China where did they go for supplies?

Wall-Mart

And then she begged for the book, and the cashier pointed out I had a 30% off coupon on my CVS card so now we own a $3 joke book.

And she’s been reading me jokes ever since.