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December 2018

In Truth, Freedom

“I’ll bury my grief deep inside me and I’ll make it so secret and obscure that you won’t even have to take the trouble to sympathize with me.” ~ Alexandre Dumas, ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’

It is said that revenge is a dish best served cold. I don’t know what that even means, and I honestly don’t even care. What does strike my interest is the glorious tale of revenge and redemption found within ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ by Alexandre Dumas, and I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a classic to see you through the winter months.

As for what brought the above quote into my mind after all these years, one day I’ll tell the story. I’ll tell all the stories. And the ones that I no longer remember will be carried on by the younger people who were there and who saw what I saw. My faults may be many, but brutal honesty is a virtue. It lies in wait and will not be eradicated. Like the Count himself, it will rise and return from the ashes of distraction and destruction. It will herald its truth and shed the long-held dusty remnants of what was always wrong.

“Moral wounds have this peculiarity – they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.” ~ Alexandre Dumas, ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’

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Fourteen Years to Rise, A Few Seconds to Fall

The journey that brought us to this year’s Christmas tree began about fourteen years ago. We had only been in our home for a short time and the front yard was still a barren wasteland devoid of character or anything other than standard yew and juniper fare. The lawn tumbled rather ungracefully to the street, so the main view one had when surveying things from the front door was an expanse of dark pavement. To break this up, I planted an island of three specimens: a Chinese dogwood, a Chamaecyparis, and a tiny foot-tall blue spruce. Between this and the street I planted a long row of Thuja ‘Steeplechase’ – about a dozen.

I knew the spruce would eventually outgrew the space, but it would take a while – at least a decade – and I couldn’t see that far ahead back then, so in it went. The first few years it stayed relatively small, with only a few new puffs of soft blue-gray needles appearing each spring. It also had enough room to develop a decent coniferous form. When it was about five or six, it was the perfect size for a strand or two of Christmas lights, so I ran an extension cord all the way down the lawn and lit it up.

Eventually though, as all babies and children do, it grew up. The neighboring dogwood had grown too, as had the Chamaecyparis (which I’d had to cut down a few years ago thanks to its size and unruliness). The blue spruce was reaching true Christmas-tree size. Whether utilized as such or not, it would need to be taken out. The dogwood was already bending its beautiful limbs around it, and where it refused to yield the spruce was making motions against its pretty form.

For the last two years, I’ve been promising to cut it down and bring it in for Christmas, but each time something came up. This year my co-worker Heath said he had a chainsaw (gas and oil-powered!) and could make quick work of cutting it down. Since it was about ten feet tall, I pruned off the lower branches, marked off a suitable place to cut, and had Heath over after work to make it all fall down. After planning and picturing it for years, the actual event was woefully anti-climactic. The mighty spruce was felled in a few seconds, and Heath leveled the stump at the ground. It was as if no spruce occupied the space for all those years. The tricks of time. The wonder of nature. The weight of the world.

We propped it up in the garage, where it lowered its boughs gloriously, seeming to expand before our eyes. It would require additional pruning to bring it to a manageable size, but it was, in my eyes, practically perfect. Proud as a parent and a peacock, I remembered how small it was when I planted it in our front yard. I thought of all it had seen – all the summers and springs and winters, all the guests and family and friends who had paraded by, all the games of hide and seek with my niece and nephew. It was a special tree, and it was getting a special send-off.

Draped with lights and decorations, it takes pride-of-place in our living room, scenting the whole house with its gloriously fresh pine fragrance – the perfume that only Christmas can conjure. So much lovelier than dismembering it into a bunch of brown lawn bags come the spring.

(Many thanks to Heath and his chainsaw for making it happen!)

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A Fruitcake. Yes, A Fruitcake.

They were ubiquitous at Christmas and for many months thereafter in my childhood home, so perhaps that’s why I have such a nostalgic longing for a proper Collin Street Bakery fruitcake, Deluxe style. It took me a few years to get into them, and then I was obsessed for a while. I forgot about them until a co-worker from my John Hancock days in Boston said he LOVED fruitcake and if my parents had one he would love it. Their friends had moved on to better things by then, but it got me hankering for one. That craving is back in effect now. Let me know if you need my address.

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A Festive Weekly Recap

The holidays are in full swing here, with gatherings and parties and good cheer. Around this time, the stress tends to get to me, as much as I have planned and plotted, and everything comes so quickly I have to remind myself to stop, honor and enjoy the moment, and remember what really matters. A quick look back then, before we re-enter season of hustle and bustle…

Some office humor, and how to read my e-mails

Holiday retail fun

Rainbows and unicorns. That’s all.

Holiday bros

A rosemary pomegranate cocktail

Christmas greens

The 2018 Holiday Stroll: Part One, Part Two and Part Three

Follow these #TinyThreads to deeper thoughts. 

Hunks of the Day included Dave Marshall (seen in the featured pics here), Brad PaisleyBaptiste Giabiconi, Kevin HartGonçalo Teixeira and Jarrod Spector.

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Tiny Threads: An Insignificant Series

Are the people who have to write ‘TBH’ generally lying the rest of the time?

#TinyThreads

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Boughs of Evergreen at the Hearth

By the time of this posting, we will have hopefully cut down our own Christmas tree this year (and by “we” I mean my co-worker Heath, who has a chainsaw that runs on gas and oil, as most of them do I’m told). This marks the first time “we” are cutting our own, but the blue spruce I planted about ten years ago is finally outgrowing its space and infringing on the form of a Chinese dogwood, so down it must go. I’d rather use it as our Christmas tree than simply dismember it, distributing its parts among lawn bags come spring.

To prepare for the cutting, I trimmed the lower branches, saving some of the boughs for this hearthside display you see here. Strung with a few holiday lights, it makes a simple yet effective Christmas scene, and brightens up an otherwise dim section of the family room. It works well with the brick, and the new leather couch, while adding that traditional Christmas tree scent that is so evocative of happy childhood memories. Such rustic elements are indicative of the coming winter, when subtle beauty – mostly textures and tints – takes the place of brighter, sunnier components.

 

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The 2018 Holiday Stroll – Part 3

Continuing the madness that is Mercury in retrograde, our intended Red Line stop at Porter Square, from which we had planned on walking to Harvard, was not a stop that was open for this weekend. (The same thing happened last year, thank you fickle Red Line, but this year I was not hopping on transfer buses.) We made a quick recalculation and got off at Central; we would enter Harvard from the other side of Mass Ave. There were a few Tibetan stores on the way in, and much has been done with that area since a guy offered me a swig from his paper bag way back in the 90’s. It was only about 5 o’clock, but it might as well have been midnight, so dark had the sky suddenly turned. Christmas lights and the merriment of some Santa con event gave everything a festive air, and the feeling of the holidays was finally coming through. It had, up until that moment, been strangely elusive. I embraced it, and we slowed our steps. Good friends are in sync that way.

At the first Tibetan store, Kira found a hat just like the one she had recently lost (one that she procured on one of our first Holiday Strolls, so the symmetry of the find was fitting). I perused woolen shoes with pointy toes, countless strings of prayer beads, and elephant-patterned pants. Jewelry in amber and turquoise seduced the eyes, while incense tickled the nose. We find a certain peace when surrounded by all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the colorful silks, and minimalist Tibetan flute music. We browsed a few more precious gift shops (by precious I mean ridiculously expensive silly shit) that have found their way to the area, and soon it was cocktail hour. The warm and cozy bar of Harvest proved a happy spot to convalesce and seek out dining options on OpenTable, even if a single rum drink proved one too many for Kira, who was soon growing giddy and said the room was spinning, so we made our way to the Red House, which we had passed earlier, and had an open slot after 7.

Lead past an open fireplace, we had made the right choice, at least ambience-wise, and a cozy little dinner was enjoyed as we rested from our extensive ambulation. Making our way back from Cambridge, we switched to the Green line and exited at Copley so we could pause at the Lenox Hotel lobby, which was festooned gloriously for the season, and had a roaring fire with two sitting chairs just for us. The remainder of the evening was spent doing one more bucket brigade, and the start of ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’. We never did make it to the penultimate ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ but that’s what next year will be for. That night, the rain arrived – a heavy wide-ranging blanket of it, impossible to escape for the whole of the next day – so when I rose at 7:30 and saw the dismal state of the outside world, I closed the blinds and for the first time in forever we slept in until 11:30.

We’d had the foresight to get some food supplies just for this circumstance, so we lazily took our time, assembling some bagels with gravlax, and a quick egg dish. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying some quality time with a friend at the condo, especially when the rain is tapping at the windows. Eventually it subsided, so we rushed and got ready for one final shopping spurt.

As the light lowered on another day, and our seventh annual Holiday Stroll came to a quiet close, I dropped Kira at the T-station and hit the Mass Pike. We had done a lot – securing most of the items needed for the upcoming Boston Children’s Holiday Hour – and checked off quite a few of the boxes from our respective gift lists. Mostly, though, we simply enjoyed the company at this time of the year. That’s what Christmas should be anyway. The hustle and bustle is bearable when you have a friend to share in the fun. 

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The 2018 Holiday Stroll – Part 2

Saturday opened with a burst of happy sunlight, which unabashedly illuminated the undrained kitchen sink. Our time was too precious to be bothered with a five-hour window for a plumber, so Kira came up with the idea of transferring the dish water to the bathroom for draining. She took a plastic container and scooped the water into a pot. Once it was full, I ran it into the bathroom and poured it down the toilet. Our bucket brigade hummed along for several trips until the sink was mostly drained. Such is the making of a meal in the midst of Mercury in retrograde madness. We had a fast breakfast of panettone and tea, then began the stroll in earnest.

We began with a route from an earlier stroll, turning right onto Columbus and stopping at the Luke Adams gift shop, which was still closed. Apparently we were just a bit too early for its 10:30 opening, so we walked on and headed up Mass Ave. Kira loves Dorothy’s Boutique, so we paused in the costume store where she found a cozy winter hat in the style of Elmer Fudd. I told her not to do it, but when you’ve known me for twenty years you know enough not to listen.

As we crossed Boylston, the wind picked up. In spite of the sun, December’s chill was in full effect. We ducked into Muji for a moment of sweetly-scented calm, before braving the frenzy of Forever 21. (Where else can one find a unicorn headdress for a Rainbow Unicorn Holiday Party that we’re hosting in a few weeks?) Kira found a top (to make up for some items she forgot to bring) at Uniqlo, where we walked the rainbow staircase and realized it would soon be time for a proper meal. After browsing a few more stores, we took our lunch at Cafeteria. Like Sonsie’s, Cafeteria has become one of those Newbury mainstays that I have largely avoided, for no real reason other than I assume there will be time to visit in the future. On this day, we tried it out for the first time. The drinks were good, but the bacon was soggy and flabby, so hit and miss, and it’s now on the record books. We meandered along the rest of Newbury, turned back on Boylston, then headed to the condo for a very quick break before heading into Cambridge.

These little breaks, of rest or rejuvenation, are usually the favored corners of memory, where a few choice relics occupy stately yet subtle space in some cherished cabinet of curios. The sun streamed in through the bedroom bay window, and it was my favorite time of the day to be home there. It was due to rain that night and all the next day, so we stopped and took notice of the light. Always make time to bask in the glory when it’s good enough to present itself.

I tried on my outfit for the Boston Children’s Holiday Hour, glittering in the ample sunlight, while Kira lounged on the couch, resting tired feet and sipping tea. It was the perfect little siesta, and without reservations for dinner, or any concrete plans at all for that matter, we didn’t need to rush. Still, there were dangers and wastes involved in getting too cozy and comfy, so we rounded up a second wind, changed into evening attire, and headed back out, where the sun was already well on its way down.

{To be continued…}

 

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The 2018 Holiday Stroll – Part 1

Kira and I tried to figure out how long we have been doing these Boston Holiday Strolls, and the nearest we could guess was that this marked our seventh year. As such, we tried to change things up a bit which left us feeling slightly off-kilter. Mercury still being in retrograde didn’t help matters much either, as we had to contend with a kitchen sink that didn’t drain, key forgotten wardrobe items (I’m told that when you’re wearing a sheer shirt and no bra, some other sort of undershirt is required), and some uncharacteristic indecision on my part. (See, I’m so much better with an itinerary.)

It began on Friday afternoon, when I did some shopping for the upcoming Children’s Holiday Hour (which now has a planned nine children in attendance, and their various parents). I stopped at the market to pick up the ingredients for a quick pasta dish for Kira, then returned to the condo to finish the holiday decorating and making of a meal.

The candles were lit, and I was hoping to be too. I tried concocting a gin/Campari/grapefruit/rosemary cocktail that was largely a failure, but it looked pretty enough for a holiday picture. Taste-wise, it was a big fat no, thank you Mercury. As the kitchen sink filled with the incidental water from filling pasta pots, washing hands, and rinsing various utensils, dinner came together and by the time Kira arrived we were almost ready to eat. After a quick gift exchange and toast, we sat down to dine and decompress.

Some of the best moments of our Holiday Stroll weekend are the ones in which we are not strolling or roaming around Boston. Catching up with an old friend over dinner, as candles flicker and Christmas music plays softly in the background, will always be one of my favorite holiday escapades. As will our annual viewing of ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner’. Before the latter, we hunkered down in our holiday pajamas, popped a pair of sweet potatoes in the oven for our mid-point movie break (they pause for ‘Hot Sweets’ during the skating scene) and prepared for the show. Sleep came, as it usually does, before we finished the whole thing, but upon waking we saw the happy final scenes, at which point the strolling portion of our weekend finally began.

{To be continued…}

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Tiny Threads: An Insignificant Series

How is it that I can type a perfectly-spelled and perfectly-punctuated text message 200 characters long with my thumb on a screen the size of a walnut, but cannot fit one of these things back in the shelf unit in less than five tries? 

#TinyThreads 

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Pomegranate, Rosemary, Gin and Fizz

A relatively simple cocktail makes its holiday debut, and it’s a little glass of rosemary-tinged juniper glory. At its heart is the blood red fruit of the pomegranate, married to the juniper of gin. Taking the edge off, and imbuing the whole thing with some sparkle is a topping-off of seltzer. The secret ingredient, and the potent punch of this glass is a bit of simple rosemary syrup, made from equal parts water and brown sugar, heated to boiling then imbued with a few fresh sprigs of rosemary for about ten to fifteen minutes. That brown sugar lends it more depth, and rich color, than the usual simple syrup which utilizes plain white sugar. 

The original recipe was found at the Riegl Palate, courtesy of Nicole. I followed it pretty faithfully, choosing a returning Malacca Tanqueray that was said to have notes of cloves, peppercorns and rose. That spicy background works wonders here with the pomegranate juice and rosemary syrup. I might try adding a little Carpano Antica Formula Sweet Vermouth on the next go-round to give it one more layer. The holidays demand a dose of decadence. Topped with some seltzer for fizz, it’s a bright and bubbly jewel of a cocktail, with a surprisingly rich undercurrent that becomes more than the sum of its parts. 

This is one of those cocktails that seems designed to show off its garnish: a sprig of fresh rosemary and a dozen pomegranate seeds which, depending on how much seltzer you add, will rise and fall in a festively mesmerizing dance. 

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Tiny Threads: An Insignificant Series

Remember when your cassettes encountered something magnetic and the next time you played them you were a DJ bringing the volume up and down like the real thing?

#TinyThreads

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Bros Amid the Ho-Ho-Hos

My brother and I will bring the twins to select my parents’ Christmas tree next week. It’s a holiday tradition that goes back to an impromptu trip to Bob’s Tree Farm when I was home from college in the mid-90’s. Somehow, we’ve managed to preserve this rare moment of brotherly bonding, as we wind along the curving roads of Galway in the dark of an almost-winter night. The holidays, at their best, bring out the better sides of brotherhood, and this is one ritual to which I always look forward.

This blog is littered with little recaps and references to our previous tree-seeking trips and the dinners that often follow. One day I’ll do a comprehensive list of links to that; for now, let these scattered highlighted portions offer a few portals to the past.

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Holiday Structure

Every once in a while I’ll miss the carefree days of my retail career, when I first started working at the Faneuil Hall Structure (before it became Express Men or whatever it is these days), and the thrill of earning my own paycheck while doing something I loved was novel and inspiring. By the time the holiday season rolled around, I had made a name for myself in my home store, and the crew we had working then was a good group. I genuinely liked them all, to a person, and they accepted and liked me in return. It took a retail job to finally feel like I belonged somewhere, and that sort of realization cannot and should not be undervalued. It changed my life. But this post will not be going that deep – holidays bring back enough of those memories. No, this post is just a light-hearted memory of what it was like to work in retail during these hectic shopping weeks.

It started on black Friday – and the first time I worked it I stood by the entrance door eagerly awaiting the crush of people. One of the first customers through the door was Nancy Kerrigan. Starstruck (this was only one year after the whole Tonya Harding ordeal), I asked her if she needed help looking for anything. She gave me major stink-eye and attitude, causing me to wonder whether I was Team Tonya after all. I left her alone after that.

There was no mad rush then, not at the start of the day. It came in waves, slowly building until a line snaked through the store and we were just frantically ringing sales instead of trying to sell anything on the floor. For break time, I would go downstairs and into Quincy Market and the long double row of food vendors that was crowded even in non-holiday times. The crush now was even more maddening, but my Structure name badge, indicating that I was working, seemed to give me extra berth. Or maybe it was the annoyed-to-the-point-of-breaking countenance I wore as soon as I exited the sales floor. Whatever the case, I navigated my way through the sea of tourists, picked up a bread bowl of clam chowder, and somehow found a seat in the center atrium section.

The decorations blinked and sparkled, hanging above us and lending light to the darkened reaches of the room. I sat there, alone in a sea of people, perfectly content and happy to be taking it all in from a distance, and this was a change from my usually-anxious appearance. I watched as parents herded their children ahead of them, and husbands wearily followed their wives or vice versa. I listened to their worries and their laughter and their insignificant stories – the stuff we say to those who mean the most to us but who have already heard all the important things. In the maelstrom of this holiday madness, I sat happily dipping into my bread bowl and witnessing the scene around me. It was finally ok. They didn’t bother or annoy me with their holiday sweaters, they didn’t agitate or irk with their petty disagreements – it was all all right because I belonged somewhere, even if it was on the sixth floor of the Limited Building shelling out ties and khakis, and three pairs of socks for ten dollars. That’s the thing about feeling like you belonged somewhere: suddenly you belonged everywhere.

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