I cannot think of a more stressful situation than doing a yoga class with co-workers in the middle of a work-day.
Nama-stay-away.
I cannot think of a more stressful situation than doing a yoga class with co-workers in the middle of a work-day.
Nama-stay-away.
I passed by the little house with the mermaid on it just as dusk was settling on the Cape. No lights were on – a strange sight, since I hadn’t really seen the house in any other way than populated with people, bright with celebratory gatherings and lights of all sorts: candle, Christmas, and lamps. On this night, in the gloaming of a cold December afternoon, a Christmas tree sat dimly in the window, and my heart broke for my friend JoAnn who was, at that very moment, greeting people who were saying goodbye to her Mom.
Losing a parent is tough at any time of the year, but I would imagine it’s doubly so around the holidays. And losing a second parent at this time of the year must feel especially sorrowful. As I looked upon the empty house disappearing into the darkness, I thought of my friend and what she must be going through. It was a helpless feeling, with no way to line it with any sort of comfort. That’s the grief inherent in losing a loved one. There is no way around it, no way to soften its blow.
Unable to process it, I turned the corner toward JoAnn’s old home, just around the bend and looking over a pond. I paused at the edge of the water. The moon had come out. It still wound its way around the earth, it still reflected the sun’s light. The wind whipped around me and I remembered the parties where her Mom would sit beside me with a cup of tea. It was never cold then, not like it was now. There was warmth in our hearts, even when the fall arrived, and winter afterward. Now there is an emptiness, and I’m not sure it can ever be filled.
Driving back onto Shore Road, I took one last glance at JoAnn’s tree. The moon hovered above the house. The sky was deep blue. The mermaid shifted in shadow. The tears were silent.
Remind me again why everyone loves Christmas?
This ball of ornament hooks is SOLID.
Impenetrable.
Unextractable.
A band of rogue turkeys roams the neighborhood.
I’ve heard stories told of turkeys that terrorize children at school bus stops, and from the size of these birds, they would indeed make for a formidable threat.
Suzie’s had nightmares about turkeys.
At least about thrushing them out.
I forget if the turkeys were what scared her or if it was something else. Maybe a horse? Either way, not all turkey connotations are Thanksgiving and sweetness.
I’ve also heard that turkeys aren’t very bright, which could make them even more dangerous.
Ignorance results in injury.
These birds are best left alone.
Or served on a platter.
A different sort of gobble-gobble.
In the likely event that you haven’t gotten me anything for Christmas yet, here’s a simple post with a single link that will bring you to the only page you need to bookmark for all my gift-wishes to come true. It’s the Tom Ford underwear page, where any of the offerings will go beautifully with me. Of course, I am particularly partial to all things pink and fuchsia and leopard. As these all run extremely big, anything in a size small will work, and if you send them my way I will work them for you. Here’s the page. Let’s get to it.
Here are my Top Nine of 2019, according to Instagram.
Such are the most liked photos I’ve posted for the past year.
Clearly the main theme for popular pics is male nudity.
[Sigh.]
It’s the same thing every year.
It’s not really where I am right now, but I’ll indulge for the numbers.
Bulge and butt, butt and bulge. Here we go round the mulberry bush.
I’ve been stuck in the muck of around 5400 Instagram followers for a good year now, not managing to break through this relatively uninspiring number. Maybe my Twitter feed can teach the Instagram feed a thing or two. {FaceBook is nothing but a bad influence at this point, on every level, in every way.}
Let’s do this. Let’s dance.
And remember, it takes tiles to tango.
Come on, come on, get up, follow me!
And one-two, round, together, and one-two…
Remember, this is butt nine of the salacious summation of shots available on my Instagram account.
There’s only one thing to do.
It all comes down to this.
Booty-shaking, booty-popping, booty-busting beatitude.
When you cross shirtless male celebrities with Christmas, you get a lot of hunky Santa figures taking their shirts off. That’s right up the alley of the blog, where former holiday hunks included the likes of Darren Criss, Austin Drage, Dan Osborne, Stuart Pilkington and Justin Hartley. Today we give you a whole new set of Santa babies to ogle, beginning with the fascinating Nico Tortorella, who has made finer-than-fine appearances here, here and here.
From ChristmasTown to PhilCity, the fit form of Phil Fusco looks even more striking in red briefs against a snowy blue sky, but also intrigues when practically naked as seen here, here and here.
Pietro Boselli has already stripped down to Santa’s skivvies here, but is worth a look in even less here and here.
Ryan Phillippe does winter hunk double-duty in this pair of pics spanning several years. After and before, he’s been naked here already.
Triple-hunky threat Nick Adams knows how to put on a proper holiday show, guns and bulges blazing. Check him out even more of him here, here, or here.
Lastly, a bit of naughty and nice in one XXXmas gift package. Here is Trystan Bull, who was also on display here.
For the most wonderful time of the year, this season is off to a somber start. There’s nothing more to say on it, so let’s look back and then quickly do our best to move forward. It doesn’t get easier.
It began with an unexpectedly-deep Cyber Monday.
Shirtless male celebrities did their best to lighten the mood.
More than a few people thought I did a TJ Maxx commercial.
For inspiration.
Christmas by the Beekman Boys.
The easiest pecan praline recipe ever.
The Holiday Card of 2019 was one big hot mess.
Weathering the storm with Andy.
Hunks of the Day included Mark McGrath, Alejandro Speitzer, Scott Disick, Gus Caleb Sfmyrnios, and Josh Dela Cruz.
Andy took the first shot. Before the snow even began he blasted the driveway with a healthy heaping of salt rocks, lowering its freezing temperature if and when the wet stuff began to fall. And fall it did, for what felt like forever. In the fourth largest single-snowfall on record for Albany, we got about two feet of the wet and white stuff in a little over a day. The state of New York directed all its non-essential employees to stay home (the vast majority of us).
Our winter plow guy had to make numerous passes to keep up with what was in our driveway, but just as he was finishing up the final clean-up, I had to pull out to go to work, so one corner of snow remained for when I got home from work. Just as Andy was about to go out to take care of it, I put on a hat and coat and beat him to it, because the only thing that’s going to get us through this winter – and any winter – is teamwork. He took the first watch, and I took the second.
By the way, shoveling is excellent exercise, if it doesn’t kill you.
As of this moment, I’m still here.
And it’s almost pretty enough to be worth it.
Almost.
It was the perfect summer day, and they were, in my eyes, the perfect family. A long table was set up in basic but pretty style, and the children, all grown and in their 20’s and 30’s, gathered round as we pulled into the driveway. JoAnn, Kim and Kira had just spent the weekend with me in upstate New York, lounging by the pool and I had just driven them back to Cape Cod, where JoAnn’s family was gathering outside for dinner. We tumbled out of the car, stretched, and were immediately taken in by the family.
The matriarch, Barbara, flitted to and fro, welcoming us in friendly and embracing, if no-nonsense, fashion, and I instantly adored her. Mother-figure to all, she moved economically through the yard. I watched her keenly, trying to decipher which parts of her went to JoAnn, and which parts came from JoAnn’s father. They seemed like such an idyllic family, but maybe everyone’s family seems that way to everyone not in it.
On this magnificent summer afternoon, as the sun slanted down and the breeze of the Cape roamed peacefully over the yard, I felt like I was part of something, even if on the outskirts, and it felt good to belong, however peripherally. It was something only Mrs. MacKinnon could create, and as we sat there talking with her children, she looked content and happy with the job she had completed. They were a good bunch of people. There’s something very telling in that, something very wonderful to witness. It was something I would forever seek out in all my friendships and relationships, and it’s something that she taught me starting on that sunny summer day. Love was what mattered. Hard, tough, consuming, painful, difficult, impossibly-won love. It showed in the lines already etched in her smile, in the beautiful crinkled skin around her mischievous eyes. They twinkled and sparkled when she got to the end of a story or the delicious punch-line of a joke. They implored and challenged when she taught a lesson. They were soft and watery when she was holding it all in. If the eyes are a window to the soul, hers revealed a woman of remarkable resilience, a woman who had been through some hellish times, and a woman who earned the right to ease into a chair and survey her family buzzing happily around her.
I would see her periodically when I would visit JoAnn, and she was a joy to behold every time. My eternal quest for mother figures led me back to her side whenever we found ourselves at a party together. We would end up sitting in a pair of chairs or on a couch, sipping tea and chatting about the past and the present, and over the years I’d remember key stories that she would hasten to bring out in fuller and richer detail. I loved listening to her talk. I would sit there for long stretches, rapt and searching for all the wisdom she had to offer.
She loved and understood JoAnn in a way that was both tender and tough. She protected her when she needed it, and made her fend for herself when she needed it more. It always made JoAnn better, and stronger, and the love between them was a testament to how good families stuck together. It was the same with all her children, and they each in turn loved her. She was the heart of the family when they lost their father.
Somehow she remained strong, relying on her faith to see her through, and it always did. There was something magnificent and almost Zen-like in her spiritual beliefs. They were bound to the religion in which she was raised, but she transcended such strictness with a resigned air as if she knew all the secrets of the world and there was nothing left to surprise her. I admired such surety. I implored her to teach me to be so calm, to be so certain, to be so at peace, and to trust that everything would unfold exactly as it should. Both JoAnn and I had too many doubts, we had too many worries, and she was sometimes at odds with her Mom, but never in an angry way, never in a way that threatened the love between mother and daughter.
I remember visiting JoAnn when she had moved back home for a bit. She stayed over the garage and gave me one of the kids’ bedrooms in the main house while her Mom slept downstairs where she had moved her bedroom. JoAnn and I stayed out late and when we returned to the house I crept quietly up to my room, awakening early the next day to make it back home for something. I quietly padded downstairs and at the kitchen table was a cup of tea, hot and already steeping, along with a biscuit and a photocopy of a story from the scripture. While I sipped the tea and crunched in the biscuit, I really wanted no part of a bible story, especially at 6 in the morning. As I sat there, she came in and said she thought I might like to read it. She wasn’t forceful or even mildly coercive, so in deference to her home and her hosting, I read the story and we had a good talk about it. I like to think that it meant something to her, to listen to her and talk about something that was important to her, but really it meant more to me. I learned a lot in that little morning, a lesson I would take with me for life, and I think back often to that brief time at her kitchen table, when the rest of the world was still asleep.
It was at her son Wally’s wedding when Andy met her for the first time. She whispered some witty Irish remark as she shook his hand in the receiving line, and he was smitten from that moment onward. She had a similar spunk to his own beloved mother, the same life-worn well-earned prudence. At the wedding she was beaming with joy, as much as her New England mettle would allow. It was good to see her celebrate, surrounded again by family old and new.
The last time I saw her was at one of JoAnn’s fall parties. It had rained all day but was clearing just in time for the festivities. Tressie brought her over and we sat beside each other on the couch in JoAnn’s living room as the guests began to assemble. Never one for a big crowd, I was much happier sitting there and sharing a cup of tea, listening to old and new stories, sussing out lessons and other words for wisdom, still seeking out that mother figure, still needing that bit of nurturing that came so naturally to some.
We still need that. And we will miss it. It’s an emptiness that will never be filled, but in the memories and love she provided, something lives on. She would not be sad or upset to have transitioned into the next phase of wherever she may be headed. She embraced the end of her time as much as she embraced all of us lucky enough to come under her care.
For the moment, though, there is only the sadness of loss, the sense that this world glows a little dimmer now that such a light has gone out. JoAnn has a long winter ahead of her and we will do our best to be there for her when everything settles down, when the long dark days of the icy season threaten to overwhelm with that sense of barrenness. Yet her mother would not want us to dwell in such sorrow, she would want JoAnn to keep going, to walk on and enjoy the life she helped to make – the life she taught JoAnn to cherish and love, even when it gets lonely and feels so desolate. We will carry her memories with us, every time we see a sunset or the vibrance of those Cape Cod hydrangeas. Somewhere she is back with her husband, urging us to keep going like she did, no matter how hard. She carved out a bit of grace in a world that’s not always kind. We’re going to miss her.
One winter I lived north, alone
and effortless, dreaming myself
into the past. Perhaps, I thought,
words could replenish privacy.
Outside, a red bicycle froze
into form, made the world falser
in its white austerity. So much
happens after harvest: the moon
performing novelty: slaughter,
snow. One hour the same
as the next, I held my hands
or held the snow. I was like sculpture,
forgetting or, perhaps, remembering
everything. Red wings in the snow,
red thoughts ablaze in the war
I was having with myself again.
Everything I hate about the world
I hate about myself, even now
writing as if this were a law
of nature. Say there were deer
fleet in the snow, walking out
the cold, and more gingkoes
bare in the beggar’s grove. Say
I was not the only one who saw
or heard the trees, their diffidence
greater than my noise. Perhaps
the future is a tiny flame
I’ll nick from a candle. First, I’m burning.
Then, numb. Why must every winter
grow colder, and more sure?
We are still in the first flush of holiday fun, too early to be too tired, too soon to be too exhausted. All is new and fresh and hopeful. This pretty shrub of lemon cypress is vibrant of hue and scent, and the perfect embodiment of how the holiday season begins. Like the chartreuse leaves of spring, it sings the spirit of all that is reborn. Delicately perfumed with a lemony lightness, even its fragrance is fresh and clean.
I look to this little cypress to teach me the way.
Show me how to retain such freshness throughout this whole season.
It’s too early to fall apart. Too soon to give up.
Teach me how to sustain the hopefulness that seems in such abundance now, but that will be gone before we know it. It is but a short journey to Christmas, then the New Year will be at hand, and then the gruesome stalled trudge of winter.
Help me hang onto the newness.
Until it comes again…
Some years are low-key Holiday Card years, such as this one. For a number of reasons, my heart wasn’t in it, but like Celine Dion says, the heart must go on, or some such bullshit, so here we go. Inspired by a love for baking that doesn’t always translate to successful kitchen endeavors, this card is not that far off from reality. I’ve had my share of kitchen disasters, a few of which have resulted in fires and burns and the like, so here’s to making those episodes into something worthy of the season, like a goddamned Christmas card.
If you want a more comprehensive look into Holiday Cards of the past, please visit the first part of a Holiday Card Recollection and of course its accompanying second part. Then check out last year’s Holiday Card here. And if you want a video version of this year’s card, follow me on Instagram here.
Every now and then a blog post needs an exclamation point. This is one of this now and then moments. Well, I guess it’s more now than then. So take it and eat it. Here’s a Japanese hot-pot hodgepodge I put together on a slow Sunday that kept us snowbound. It’s the perfect sort of recipe for such a day. Simple and relatively quick, but with a hearty and ample yield. It’s hardy too, taking all sorts of battering and variations (for instance, I didn’t have the mirin for this, nor did I have any clue as to what might be a comparable substitute, so I tried some rice wine vinegar and it turned out just fine).
‘Tis the season for soups and stews and Japanese hot-pots.