The Simple Joys of a Ripe Avocado...And Other Things I Almost Missed

Warning: Descriptive food language ahead. Stop now if you're related to my husband and that kind of thing grosses you out.

I came home from a hard day's work and allowed myself my newest sinful indulgence.

I grabbed a ripe avocado from the fridge and slowly drew my chef's knife around the fruit all the way to the pit, breaking the fruit into taut hemispheres. I hacked into the pit with one swift thwack of my knife and twisted it out with a practiced turn of my wrist. Then I drew the velvetty meat out of the yielding skin with a large spoon, giving me two perfect pieces to slice up like butter.  I sprinkled some kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper over the blemish-free slices and ate every bite, standing over my kitchen sink, basking in the sheer joy of it. How can something be both creamy and fruity, both rich and refreshing, all in the same bite? It's bliss.

I've been finding myself craving avocados with the kind of intensity usually reserved for Dove dark chocolate, and I don't know why, but there could be worse things I could be doing at 4 every afternoon. Some people shoot Jack Daniels; I devour green fruit. I save the Jack for Saturday night.

I can't eat an avocado without thinking of how, in my naive youth, I used to absolutely despise them, and how very close I came to missing out on this newfound joy.

I can both credit and blame my mom's distant cousin. Faye lived in the apartment below us the year we spent in Knox County; hers was one of two full apartments in the building and actually had its own bathroom, so we were very glad that it was occupied by someone we knew. Faye wasn't like the rest of the kin I met that year; she was worldly and well-travelled. When she had been married, she lived with her husband and son in California. California! It seemed so exotic. When I camped out at her place one morning through a one-hour snow delay, she told me how her son had once been dismissed early from school because of a real-life earthquake that had opened a huge crack in the road outside his school. Sure made my snow and flood days seem like nothing special.

I stayed with Faye quite a bit when Mom had to work late, and on one of these occasions a commercial for salad oil came on TV. A cheerful-looking woman dipped a slice of something vibrantly green into the oil and seemed to really enjoy that first bite.

"Oh, my God," said Faye. "What I wouldn't do for an avocado."

"What's an avocado?"

"It's a green fruit with a big pit that you can't find here in Kentucky. Not good ones, anyway."

"What do they taste like?"

She struggled for a while and told me I would just have to taste one someday myself.

"Put a little salt and pepper on it," she advised. "That's all it needs. But it is something of an acquired taste."

After that she went outside to smoke a cigarette, and I was old enough to know what human activity people usually wanted to smoke after, so I figured these avocado things must be REALLY good.

A year later we were living back in northern Kentucky and my dad had taken me to a new produce market that opened. I was allowed to pick any fruit or vegetable I wanted, even if it was something I'd never tried before. Dad was fresh out of rehab and was trying in vain to get us all to be healthier. I spied some wrinkled green things: avocados! Yay! Never mind that I hadn't the faintest idea what to do with one.

With much work, Mom peeled and pitted the thing  and presented it to me ceremoniously on a salad plate. I picked up a slice; it was so slimy it fell out of my grasp. My mom shuddered. I wanted to like it, so I grinned at her as I was trying to make that first bite actually go down. I was repulsed, but I had been talking about these things for a solid year, and I didn't want to look like a rube.

"You don't like it, do you?"

"Sure I do. It just maybe needs some salad oil."

It went into the garbage. Acquired taste, indeed.

For the next 25 years, I avoided avocadoes and its byproduct, guacamole, like most people avoid liver or brussel sprouts. I gagged at there mere sight of any of that green sh*t next to my nachos, thank you very much. I passed up recipes that called for it and put it firmly on my "I Hate..." list.

Then a funny thing happened. I got a coupon for free chips and guacamole at Chipotle after my very first 5K. I sat on the coupon for a while because, you know, apparently I hate the green stuff. Then I figured if it was there in my purse, I might as well use it for the chips, anyway.

But something compelled me to try it the guac. It was there, after all, and I was still hungry, and it looked quite wonderful. It was nothing like the stuff that used to haunt my late-night nachos at Denny's in Danville.

About a year later I got the nerve to try Faye's favorite fruit in its pure, unadulterated form. For old time's sake. Oh, dear Lord, she was right about them. Why did I ever think they were foul? And they've been a regular in my fridge ever since.

I almost missed out on one of the culinary loves of my life simply because I didn't like them as a kid. I shudder at the thought just the way my mother shuddered when she watched me try to force-feed a slimy avocado to myself at the tender age of 10. What else have I been missing?

There are some things in life you simply have to acquire a taste for. You have to want to like them, and try them enough times that finally, one day, it sticks. The question always is, though, what's worth all that effort? What's worth aquiring a taste for?

Well, beer, for one. Would I be healthier if I'd never tasted an ice-cold beer on a hot summer day and all of a sudden started loving it when as a young adult I thought it was even nastier than avocadoes? Maybe, maybe not. A drink a day is good for you, you know. But would I be happier without that particular acquisition? No. Absolutely not. A good beer is a work of art.

I've also acquired a taste for salmon, which I used to think was the devil's own creation. But it's very good for you, so they say, and on practically every decent restaurant menu, so I am glad I kept trying that one until I discovered the one way that I actually enjoy eating it (marinated and grilled to a char.)

It's not just food; the first time I read both The Great Gatsby and Great Expectations, I hated them. I didn't understand why either of those was considered good literature. But in college, under the instruction of a pair of great teachers, I grew to love them. Dicken in general may be an acquired taste.

I haven't made a New Year's resolution yet, but maybe it should be to give another shot to some things I think I hate. Just to make sure there aren't any more avocadoes out there. Maybe I'll start with Nickleback or Two And a Half Men. (Give me strength.)

Have you ever given something a second chance and realized that actually you kind of love it? Is there anything you'd like to give a second chance? Sound off below.

Shallow Thoughts

My old friend Insomnia has been back in town; I suspect the stream of snow days we've had is to blame. She likes to show up at my door any time that I get to sleep late on random Wednesdays.

Whenever I spend a few hours with Insomnia, she and I like to talk. Here's a sample of what went rolling through my brain last night:

1. Mom has me worried because she said Scout's been binging and purging. I am not sure if a cat can be bulimic, but it certainly would explain why Scout's been looking lean and svelte. I know it's nice to look good in your skinny jeans, but at what price, Scout? At what price?

2. I've got to print out that picture of Agnes for Mom. Mom had me worried about her, too, when she called less than an hour after picking up Ainsley for some Mamaw-and-me time to say the following:

"Yeah, can you get me a picture of Agnes?"

Ummm...who the f^&* is this Agnes, and how could you have gone senile so quickly? You were making sense an hour ago! How worried should I be that my kid is with this crazy person?

"Uhhh, Mom...what are you talking about?"

"You know, Agnes. She looks just like Ainsley did when she was little."

Fab. Now she's seeing little girls named Agnes running around...oh, wait! Agnes!

"Are you all watching Despicable Me, by chance?"

"Of course we are. Have Jason pull a picture off the Internet for me. Bye!"

I love my mom.

3. "He's climbing in your windows, he's snatchin' your people up, trying to rape 'em so y'all need to hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your kids, hide your wife..." Great. How did THAT get into my head? Again? Thanks, Insomnia. That was helpful.

4. I also can't quit thinking about that "Tiger Mom" book. I was condemning the author pretty hard until Jason told me I can sometimes push Ainsley too hard academically, and now I don't know if I have any business bad-mouthing this woman. But I proudly display Ainsley's last report card even though she got a B in math, and would a true Tiger Mom do that? Probably not. I push Ainsley in some subjects because I know she can get good grades. She is an excellent reader and writer and I will never be able to accept bad grades in those subjects. I don't push too hard; I am nurturing her talent. So that she can write a brilliant and scathing memoir about her relationship with her mother someday. I'm not a Tiger Mom; I'm more of a house-cat mom. I'm all fine and good until you ruffle my fur the wrong way and then I might give you a little hiss and bat you with my paw to let you know I mean business.

5. House cats...Scout...Blurg. Here we go again.

Sleep did come. But this morning in the shower, I still couldn't get Antoine Dodson out of my brain. Such is the life of those who entertain thoughts when they should be entertaining sleep.

Gone Country

Everything is cyclical.

Pants legs have gone from wide to narrow to wide again and now people are inexplicably wearing skinny jeans that only look good on underweight 15-year-olds (and don't even get me started on denim leggings.) The school day has gone from a 6-period day to block scheduling and back to 6 periods, and reading instruction has gone from phonics to whole language and back to phonics again.

If you live long enough, everything old will be new again.

In the mid- to late-nineties, I went through a country stage. Fed up with the boy bands and watered-down R & B I was hearing on pop radio, I started listening to my mom's favorite radio stations. And I liked what I heard.

Garth Brooks. George Strait. Trisha Yearwood. Tim McGraw. Martina McBride. Deana Carter. The Dixie Chicks. Early Kenny Chesney (the DJ at our wedding played "Me and You" after my matron of honor's teary-eyed and touching toast, and Jason and I have had a soft spot for that song ever since.) Yes, even Shania Twain, much as I hate to admit it. I liked that most of the people I was listening to were talented singers with big voices (Martina!), or good songwriters, or seemed like plain good folks who would be fun to talk to over a plate of fried chicken and an ice-cold Bud. In May of 1998 I bought a box set collection of Garth Brooks CDs after I saw him in concert in Lexington; I feel justified telling you that because, looking at the pop charts for that month, there wasn't too much quality pop music for sale. Backstreet Boys and Savage Garden, anyone?

Then something happened. As quickly as I fell in love with country music, I fell out of it. I think the exact moment might have been the first time I heard Toby Keith threaten to put a boot up someone's ass because it's the American way. I began to find country a little too corn-pone, a little too smugly redneck. When we bought our first new car in the fall of 2001, I didn't program a single country station into the radio's presets.

I still bought CDs from the Dixie Chicks and Alison Krauss with Union Station, but since they didn't get much airplay on my local country stations, I am not even sure they count as "pure" country. Every summer I put a Carrie Underwood barn-burner on my summer mix CD for going-to-the-pool listening, because Carrie's songs are so cute when they're angry. But other than that, I've not given country much love.

Then, out of the blue clear sky, I fell in love with a video and a song that was on CMT while I was working out on the elliptical. It caught my eye on one of the gym screens while I was watching Paula Deen add a stick of butter to something, and I changed my tuner and, just maybe, my musical life. Behold! People with talent! It's like the Anti-Ke$ha!

And I went right home and spent the rest of my night browsing for videos and songs by the Zac Brown Band.

Some of you are more musically knowledgeable and hip than I am and may already know of these guys with the tight bluegrass-y harmonies and stunning virtuosity on their respective instruments. They're new to me, though, and I think I love them. I felt the first twinges when I watched a video of them just sitting around on their tour bus doing one of my favorite traditional bluegrass songs, "Fox On the Run." Then when I found video of them at the CMAs covering "Devil Went Down to Georgia"--mercy. And the following fun fact helped me earn some cred with Jason--they opened for Dave Matthews Band a couple of times this summer.

So I may be back to country now. I have found that I kinda like Dierks Bentley, and The Band Perry, and Jason Aldean. I like them better than Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, and the like, anyway.

Sometimes I don't like to speak of my country roots among the more musically hip of my friends. I hide my John Anderson greatest hits CD or pretend like I don't know every word of "Strawberry Wine."

But it just might be time to dust off my sawed-off cowboy boot-shoes and brush up on my line dancing. I've gone country. Again. And it's all Zac Brown's fault.

Apocalypse Now...or Maybe Later

When I was a young girl, there were a few things I was absolutely, positively sure of.

I believed the evangelical televangelists my mom watched when they said the Rapture and the Tribulation were coming, and that right soon. I believed that aliens had visited our planet, probably on multiple occasions, and that someday they would make their presence known in a spectacular, possibly violent, manner. I fervently believed in ghosts, and that angels walked among us, and that each of us has a soul that either goes to heaven or gets stuck here on earth in a kind of purgatory when we die. Finally, I believed in a myriad of government cover-ups and conspiracies including, but not limited to, the JFK assassination. No way, I thought at 17, did Lee Harvey Oswald take down a president of these United States all by himself.

I am older and, for the most part, wiser now. I am more of a skeptic about almost everything; thirty-six years on this planet have taught me an awful lot about people, science, and faith. A fantastic professor in college (the first Jewish person I'd ever known, and perhaps ironically, the most knowledgeable scholar of the New Testament I've ever had the pleasure of listening to) taught us that the book of Revelations is not meant to be read literally, but was written in code to provide hope and comfort to struggling Christians in the years following Jesus' death. I've learned about just how special and possibly unique the conditions on our own earth are and how, even if we're not alone, the intelligent life forms elsewhere in the universe may be so different from us and so far away that any kind of clear contact could be impossible. I've had some hair-raising encounters with mediums, psychics, and ghost talkers and had some experiences that I choose to interpret with my heart, but that could easily be explained away with science and a hefty helping of bereavement psychology. And even though my 12th-grade government teacher would be appalled to hear me say this, after an entire grading period of persuasion (I mean instruction), I do think it's possible for one man, even a man of questionable skill, to kill a president. Little men can kill great men, even though it doesn't seem remotely right or fair for the world to work that way.

But inside the skepticism is still that little girl who, like Fox Mulder, wants to believe. I don't keep a flying saucer poster hanging in our family room in imitation of Mulder's "I Want to Believe" wall decoration for nothing. I do want to believe, and I can't really decide whether I am a skeptic or a true believer. It kinda depends on the day, as ridiculous and wishy-washy as that sounds.

And now that birds are falling out of the skies, and fish are dying, and hundreds of little quakes have happened in a little Arkansas town without a fault line near, and the frickin' Lost numbers showed up in the Mega Millions jackpot, for crying out loud, the skeptic's shrewd eyes have failed and I am utterly, completely convinced that apocalypse is nigh.

I've been jokingly sending texts and emails to my friends since all this freaky stuff started hitting the airwaves. "The end is here! Party at my house! Hurry, before it's too late and all the Unibroue is gone!" "Beware the imminent alien invasion! Stock up on water and baseball bats!" (That's for you, Signs fans.) "Stay the eff out of western Kentucky! The New Madrid fault is gonna bloooooooow..." (Well, that one almost makes sense, scientifically speaking. We're due for The Big One, and animals often freak out before Big Ones, right?) But I'm not really sure that I'm joking.

A thousand birds dying of massive blunt-force trauma on New Year's Eve? Okay, I can buy that maybe possibly a scare from fireworks was responsible. But then further reports came out of dead birds in Louisiana, and western Kentucky, and then a bunch of fish died, and then I read from a blogger that close to that same area in Arkansas there had been all these freaky little earthquakes all fall, and so on, and so on. Something is up here, kids. It could be God. It could be aliens. It could be geography, biology, or seismology. It could be an X-File. But don't tell me it's nothing.

It's waaaay too much fun to pretend it's something.

I didn't realize how much I needed a good paranormal-ish mystery (not in my backyard, though, thank God... or whatever) to unfurl my long-missing crazy conspiracy "Spooky Librarian" flag. Rational explanations can be so boring sometimes. Occam's razor cuts too neat a line. I want to talk about some freaky, paranormal weirdness for a change.

And hope (and maybe pray) that despite all this fun, science is right. Because I like this planet too much to have to leave it just yet. I like the idea of an alien invasion in theory, but in practice, it would just make modern life so darned inconvenient. The aliens might not like Modern Family as much as we do, and then where would we be?

Before Christmas, and before all this explained-but-not-explained stuff happened, I had an interesting conversation with one of Jason's brothers about some of these favorite subjects of mine from my naive youth. He's a fan of Ancient Aliens and had me look up the "alien" cave paintings profiled in one of the episodes. Yep, those look like aliens on those walls, alright.Then we started talking about JFK's autopsy, the Magic Bullet, smoke on the grassy knoll, and the Zapruder film ("Back, and to the left....Back, and to the left..." I can still hear my government teacher say.) It was enough to make me a hard-core believer again until the next morning when the Kentucky bourbon had worn off and the reality of life in the 21st century kicked in. Is it possible to be an alien and conspiracy agnostic?

I suppose that's as possible as masses of birds dying from trauma that's merely the result of sudden, startled flying. Fireworks, you say. Sure.

Whatever the final, science-sanctioned word ends up being, there will be those who see government conspiracy, cover-up, little green men, or the hand of God. Provided we're still here to talk about all this (there is an evangelical group who has used the Bible to calculate the end of time and we might only have until May, so live it up), even the last word will not be the last word. This is way too interesting and juicy a tale for me to accept a simple explanation for.

The truth is out there. But it's not nearly as interesting as speculation.

Are you a conspiracy nut? Are there alien bodies recovered from Roswell frozen in a secret hangar at Wright Patterson? Are the end times coming? Or are you just going to use all this apocalypse talk as an excuse to eat, drink, and be merry (for tomorrow we die)?

1999

"Hi, honey. Would you like a glass of wine?"

Kathie is offering me a glass of wine as if this is the most natural thing in the world. As if this is just a completely normal December 23rd. I take the offered glass, even though the current situation is so far away from normal that normal would need a street map and a really good set of directions to find us.

Two hours ago, things were, indeed, normal. Jason and I were in our apartment in Lexington, trying to get our heart rates down after a nail-biter of a UK game. Today was my first day of Christmas vacation from my job as an education librarian at EKU; we were happy, just talking and laughing, gearing up to travel to Erlanger and Fort Mitchell tomorrow morning to spend Christmas with our families.

The phone rang; Jason just knew it was one of his brothers. After particularly stressful basketball games, one or the other always calls.

"Helllooooo! What did you think of that game?"

The look in Jason's eyes changed when he heard the voice on the other end of the phone. I don't know how to describe it; they were just blank. He stood unblinking, and the only clue I could gather as to what could possibly be going on on the other end of that phone was this, which he kept saying over and over and over:

"Mother, are you sure? Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?"

The call ended and he looked at me.

"Mother says Steve's dead. They're waiting on the ambulance to get there."

My response echoed Jason's:

"Are you sure? Jason, are you sure?"

I should have gone to him. But I found myself frozen. The back of my nose and throat began to burn and ache as if I'd been hit in the face and the little part of my brain that was still rational piped up and told me to take a deep breath and focus because this is what shock feels like.

Another phone call, and this time Jason spoke to one of his brothers. Jason is the type of person who, whenever me or his mom or anyone else he knows looks up and screams, "The sky is falling!", takes off his hat, glances stoically at the sky, tests the wind direction with a wet finger, and sends up a hot air balloon.

When he talked to his brother, I could tell he was sending up his hot air balloons.

I don't do that; when someone around me yells, "The sky is falling!", I go grab some umbrellas. Just in case.

So I threw some random crap in an overnight bag and got the car keys and called my sister, who I knew would help sound the emergency alarms to my mom and dad.

An hour and a half later we crunched through a crust of fresh snow into the drive of the house with the pink neon star on the roof. There's a lot more neon now, too, as Steve adds a new piece every year. Candles. A huge Santa. A wreath. Carolers.

Added. Steve added new pieces every year.

By the time we had hit Georgetown, we knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Steve had died. My sister drove over there and arrived just after the ambulance left to check on everyone and let them know that we were on our way. She called us on our emergency cell phone to tell us; he was gone. It wasn't a hilarious misunderstanding we would all talk about every Christmas hereafter; it was real.

We would get the full story later. Steve had come home from work and wasn't feeling well; he went to bed. Out in the living room, the family had gathered to watch the UK game and, later, do the annual Christmas wrapping frenzy (I usually partook in this; in a family that big, it's all-hands-on-deck to get all the presents wrapped.)

When Kathie went into their bedroom to get wrapping paper and presents hidden in the closet, she could tell even by the weak light coming into the bedroom that he was dead. She said she knew immediately. I put myself in her place and I cannot imagine the horror.

The paramedics suspected a sudden massive heart attack. He just...died.

Kathie hands me a glass of wine and I look around. The house is full; several of her sisters have come out, as well as some of Steve's many, many siblings and in-laws. If you didn't know any better, you'd think this was the annual Christmas Eve party. Wine is flowing, voices are raised, plans are being made. My mind can't wrap itself around it. Jason's brothers and sisters are there, and we all sit there wondering the same damn thing:

How? How could this happen?

We're there for hours, giving and taking what comfort we can. We learn that Kathie is still planning on having all of Steve's family over for Christmas Eve since it was her year to host; she says Steve would have wanted it that way.

"Christmas has to go on," someone says.

It feels that nothing can possibly go on right now. It feels like the world should stop spinning. How can we think about Christmas at a time like this?

But we do.

The crowd clears and I realize it's so late that it's early: it's now Christmas Eve. I leave Jason; he's going with his mother tomorrow morning to the funeral home to make the arrangements. More snow has fallen and I am conscious of the slipping and sliding under my tires and of the uneartly quiet the snow has made, muffling everything but the thoughts in my own head.

My sister has filled my mom in (she was on the phone when we were still in Lexington, and since she's the last person on the planet who doesn't have call waiting my sister had to go tell her in person) so she's waiting up for me.

I talk about it as much as I can and Mom makes up my old bed for me with fresh sheets and tells me I should try to sleep. I haven't brought anything to sleep in; my quick and dirty packing left a lot to be desired. Mom finds an old nightgown from back when I was in high school; it's snug and I try so very hard to quiet my mind and rest. Sleep eludes me tonight and, an eternity later, the sun is up and I hear Dad shuffling around the kitchen.

He's been working overtime and got home even later than I did. I can hardly believe he's back up.

He offers me a weak smile.

"Hey, kiddo."

"Hey."

"Are you and Joanie leaving for Lexington?"

And now I know why he's up; Mom has filled him in, and he knows Joanie is picking me up to drive me down to do a better job packing for what will now be a lengthy stay, and he feels the need to do or say something to me. Suddenly I am touched by his concern and feel like crying all over again. But I am not sure anything is left.

"Yeah. I didn't even pack a change of clothes. She should be here in a few minutes."

"Well, you know your sister..."

I manage to laugh. Joanie hasn't show up on time for anything since roughly 1983.

He reaches into his wallet and unfolds some bills.

"Here, take this. You all need money for gas, and stop and get yourself and your sister something to eat. You need to eat even if you don't feel like it."

"Oh, Dad. I don't need your money."

"Yes, you do."

His eyes meet mine, and I know Mom has told him everything. About how our finances are hanging on threads and we couldn't even get each other anything for Christmas this year. About how my new job is barely making ends meets while Jason is still a full-time student, and about how until Jason's student loan check comes in we can't even afford to buy ourselves a carton of Cokes.

I take his money and think about how much he's changed. Yes, he still falls off the wagon every so often in such a spectacular fashion that it defies everything we've ever learned about alcoholics. Once or twice a year, he slips, and from the first drink he takes to the day he's admitted to the hospital he doesn't draw a single sober breath. He's getting older now, and his body can't take that for long, so that old familiar cycle of sobriety to drunkenness to rehabiliation only lasts a few weeks. He has been near-death in an ICU more times that you would think possible. But when he's sober, he is this surprising, wonderful person who I have finally gotten to know. A man who can be devilishly funny, and smart, and hard-working, and loving. The man who looks at me now from across the kitchen table is not the same one who made my childhood a living hell.

We thought we were going to lose him for good last spring. He was diagnosed with stage I lung cancer from years of smoking. It was caught early; it was operable; he was told with intensive surgery and radiation, he could be one of those rare souls to beat it.

And he has. But not before pulling a spectacular drunk right smack in the middle of his month of radiation. The day of his last treatment, he got carted off to the Care Unit. We could have killed him for taking such a stupid risk if he didn't seem to be doing such a dandy job of killing himself.

Jason lost a father yesterday, and the emotions I feel looking at mine, who somehow is still here, well up and I have to look away. If I cry, he will be uncomfortable, and this little moment we're having will pass. I saw last night that when we have those moments with someone we love, we should appreciate them for the little miracles they are. You never know when that person will be gone from your life for good. It could happen, quite literally, in the blink of an eye.

We aren't huggers in my family, so we sit in silence until Joanie comes. We make the drive to Lexington and into an apartment where you can tell life suddenly stopped in its tracks: the ornament I was cross-stitching for Mom sits on the arm of the sofa with the needle just dangling from a thread; my water glass is half- full (half-empty?) on the coffee table and the TV is still on. I pack for both of us, and pick up the pieces we've left behind, and lock up. And before I step back out into the cold I say a little prayer:

Lord, give me strength to get through this Christmas.

Be with Jason, and his brothers and sisters, and give them comfort.

Be with Kathie and give her the guidance she needs.

And Lord, please, please do not take my parents away from me for a long, long time.

I thought losing a parent was something that happened to people a lot older than us, and I thought you got a lot more advanced warning. I am shaken to my very core to know that our parents are, after all, mortal. And they can go in an instant.

There was a time when I thought the best thing that could happen to me was to be far, far away from my father.

Now I am so grateful that when I go back home today, he will be waiting for me in the kitchen, saying,

"Hey, kiddo."

1996

"I hate men!"

I yell this from the closet in my dormroom where I have retreated after fighting with Jason during his fraternity Christmas party. My anger wasn't even directed at him, really; I was really mad at some jackhole in his fraternity who stole our champagne.

I've been a very good girl in college; funny how having a raging alcoholic parent at home will temper that whole getting-drunk-every-weekend thing that so many people I've been away at Centre with have done. But this Christmas I am 21, I finish up my student teaching on Wednesday, and I deserved every drop of that champagne. Damnit.

"Mom, what was that red champagne you and Dad used to buy at Christmas?" I asked my mom. This would be the first time in my life I could just waltz into a liquor store and buy some champagne; I wanted to get something good, and I figure I can probably afford the stuff that Mom and Dad had around at even our poorest Christmases.

"Cold Duck?" she laughs, and I can practically hear her shudder on the other end of the phone. "You can probably find something better than that. That stuff was awful. We only bought it because we didn't know any better."

Awful or not, Cold Duck (I can't believe that's really what it's called) makes me think of childhood Christmases good, bad, and ugly, so that's what I buy on a beer run up to Lexington one night. I planned on spliting the bottle with Jason and maybe not being the responsible, reliable, sensible English-major-seeking-secondary-certification person I so usually am at fraternity Christmas parties.

But nooooo. Jason and I had just had one glass (from a souvenir champagne glass we get every year, which we usually drink a "mocktail" out of of) of the stuff when he went to the friend's refrigerator where we were hiding our bright red stash and found it had been raided. Not only had someone drunk all but about one shot of the Cold Duck, someone had also taken the Keystone Amber Light he had in case the Cold Duck didn't go down as well as we were hoping. We aren't exactly made of money and barely scrounge enough extra for the occasional pizza or Whopper; that someone raided our booze has made me livid.

"Aren't you going to do something? Find out who did it? It's bright red; it shouldn't be hard to see who has it."

"Just let it go. It's not a big deal."

"It is a big deal! This is our last Centre Christmas party. I wanted to drink Cold Duck. Someone ruined that!"

"Let it go."

If there's one thing I'm not good at, it's letting it go.

So I grabbed my coat, didn't say goodbye, and left for my dorm room, where I knew my beloved roommate was having some girls over to watch Star Wars.

And now here I am, in one of our freakishly-huge-for-a-dorm-room closets, taking off my cocktail dress and getting into my sweats, cursing men in general and fraternity brothers in particular.

Karen pauses the movie and asks me if I'm okay.

"I will be." I come out of the closet, so to speak, and pour myself a drink from the bottle of Jameson (came with its own glasses!) Karen bought me for Christmas. Karen's love of all things Ireland has rubbed off on me and the whisky goes down smooth. I bought her a bottle of Bailey's so she can Irish up her hot chocolate this winter; neither of us are lushes, so we know we can handle the good stuff.

The one drink makes my head buzz pleasantly and I try to salvage what's left of my evening.

Before long I'm settled in watching Luke try to take down the Empire just like those pesky womp rats back home, laughing with some of my closest friends, gazing occasionally at the lights Karen has so beautifully strung around the room. I'm totally sucked in to this movie as if I don't know how it's going to end and I wonder why in the world I didn't just do this tonight in the first place.

Because I wanted one last Christmas party before all the uncertainty--that's why.

Who knows where next year will find us. Both Jason and I want to be teachers, and we both want to work in northern Kentucky so we can go back home. But who knows what will happen? Jason wants to be a high-school choir director, and those jobs aren't easy to come by. We're going to apply all over the state and just see what happens. Oh, Lord, I am so not good at just seeing what happens.

This time next year, Jason and I could be on different sides of the state. I'd like to think that since we've been together for almost 7 years that we're in it for life at this point, but as I love to point out when I'm trying to plant a seed, I'm not wearing a ring yet.

My roommate will be in Georgia, and so many of my other friends are spread out, too. Louisville, Lexington, northern Kentucky, Massachusetts, Alabama. This is the last holiday I'll be spending with this crazy new family I've made.

My last four Christmases have had a predictable pattern, and I don't need a therapist to tell me I thrive on predictability (though one did tell me that when I went a little crazy my sophomore year.) I dress up and go to a big party on campus; then on Christmas Eve I go to Jason's family party; Christmas morning is presents and dinner with my family; Christmas night we go to my friend Matt's grandma's house for cut-throat games of Rook or euchre. (Some may think it's odd that we hang out with Matt's grandma, but everyone young or old who's ever met her falls in love with her because she's that awesome.) During this 4-year period my Dad has stayed sober during Christmas though he hasn't at other times of the year. It's been nothing short of a miracle. I am not ready for all this to end.

Not knowing where I might be living this time next year has me seriously rattled. It seems like the whole fiber of who I am and what I know about myself is about ready to change.

Next week I finish up student teaching and my friends start their final exams for this semester. Then Jason and I have to stick around a few extra days performing in the madrigal dinner ("Wassail wassail, all over the town...") and then we go home. And that's it. Half of our senior year over and done. Five months until real life.

I could start to really flip out over this, but Luke is flying his X-Wing into the Death Star canyons and I've regained enough clarity to appreciate this evening for what it is.

Families are crazy and imperfect. Sometimes they're loud, sometimes they're obnoxious, sometimes they steal your Cold Duck.

Even when they make you insane, you love them. Because you never know which Christmas is the last one where you're all together.Tonight, I do know that this is the last one where this little family is all together. I slip out of the room for some water and to call Jason and apologize. I will spend the rest of the night with my hallmates, then go to Jason's on-campus apartment the next night for a bologna sandwich, Grippos, and Keystone Amber Light (he didn't take it ALL with him to the Christmas party). My favorites of his fraternity brothers will be there, and it will be the best fraternity Christmas party I've ever been to.

 It's bittersweet that I know it will be my last, but it's the sweet that I remember.

1990

I'll say this: Jason's family sure knows how to throw a party.

I will also say that I am more than a little overwhelmed. There are just so many of them. I can't even tell you the name of the person whose house we're at right now. I know it's one of Kathie's sisters, but she has quite a few, and I can't keep them all straight.

"Just wait until someday when you go to a party with all the Wartmans," Jason says. "I can't even keep them straight."

Okay, first of all--he's making plans for me to be at future Christmas and family parties with him, and the thought makes my stomach drop. In a good way. The way you feel when you love someone very much and you know he loves you back and you realize that just might be the person you're going to marry someday.

Secondly, I secretly can't wait to meet Steve's family. I love Jason's mom; she's funny and warm and has made me feel like a member of the family. But Steve is one of the most interesting people I've ever met and I imagine his dozen-plus brothers and sisters (!) will be just as fun. Steve is like no one I've ever known; he works insanely hard as a neon artist (! again) but when he plays, he plays hard, too. I can't imagine being from a family as huge as his and want to see how that all works.

I can't imagine being from a family as big as Jason's mom's, either, but I am almost getting used to the noise and craziness and learning everyone's names.

Almost.

"So, we're at which sister's house?"

"Holly's."

"And who's that?" I asked, pointing out a woman who looks enough like Kathie that I know it has to be one of her sisters.

"Donna."

"Got it. Donna. Holly. Only a few more to learn."

It turns out Holly had my name in the big gift exchange, and she got me a bottle of Poison cologne. Well, not the real thing, but she sells cologne that is supposed to smell just like the big designer brands, just for less money. It's a pretty great gift to get from someone who is basically a complete stranger. Now I can smell just like one of the popular girls at school.

I know that I drew one of Jason's cousins, but I have no idea what I got her because I didn't actually get her anything. Kathie said she would take care of it, and before I know it this cousin (who, like so many of Jason's cousins, is tall and sexy and beautiful and makes me feel like a skinny shrimp) is gushing over my good taste and asking me how I knew to get that skirt and shirt for her in just the right size.

I look over at Kathie, who is really the one with the good taste.

Kathie looks gorgeous tonight, and it's clear that she and Steve love each other very much. From everything I've heard, Steve is a vast improvement over Jason's dad, who is (and I think I'm being generous here) a complete cad. Steve would have never walked off and left her with six kids to take care of and refuse to pay a dime in child support. Jason's told some stories, and from what I've heard, he's had some Christmases that make even my poorest Christmas look like a rich man's feast.

I look at Jason, this guy who has been in my world since I was in sixth grade but who now is my world, and it hits me: as long as I have him, no Christmas can ever be that bad again. Even if Dad drinks, even if we're poor, as long as I have him (and his crazy-fun family), I can get through it. My long streak of sitting at home alone on Christmas Eve thinking about how fundamentally sad Christmas is (our Savior was born in a barn, for crying out loud, and no matter how warm and blessed and holy it was that doesn't erase the fact that no one could be bothered to find better accomodations for a woman in labor) just might be over.

After the big party for all of Jason's extended family, we go to his house (decorated for Christmas with a pink neon star on the roof) for a smaller (but still big for me) party with just his siblings. He has six of them, so it's still bigger than any gathering I've ever had with my little family. I learn that they open all the non-Santa presents on Christmas Eve; this is what I've been trying to get my mom and dad to do for years now, ever since we started going to my sister's and brother-in-law's house on Christmas morning to watch my nephew open presents. My esteem for my new extended family goes up a notch for doing Christmas the way I've always wanted to.

Steve drinks Crown Royal while he watches Kathie open the beautiful gifts he got her (Jason tells me that his mom cries over at least one present every year, and this year she cries over a diamond ring Steve surprised her with) and it's nice to see someone drink on Christmas Eve without ruining the holiday for everybody. The younger kids squeal at all the toys their older siblings got for them, and the older kids get tremendous hauls of clothing and what-nots from Kathie. Jason says she goes overboard at Christmas; seeing how happy her family and their joy makes her, I say she's doing it exactly right.

I unwrap a beautiful watch from Jason. I know it took a lot of his Kroger bagging money to buy it for me, and the sweater I got him pales in comparison. Kathie spoils me, too, with a beautiful red silk blouse that looks exactly like me. I will wear it (with my new almost-Poison cologne) to my family Christmas tomorrow morning.

One of Jason's older brothers drives me home with Jason going along for the ride and he looks the other way while I kiss Jason goodnight.

I am so happy I could burst. But I am already dreading tomorrow.

"Did you have a good time?" Mom asks.

"Yes," I say, and I tell her all about Kathie's sisters and the food and the laughter and the presents.

"Is he..." I start after I've finished my stories.

"I don't know," Mom says. "I still can't tell. You know how he is; if I accuse him of drinking now, he'll use that as an excuse to pull a good one tomorrow and not show up at your sister's. Don't say anything to him and maybe we'll get through Christmas without a fight."

We've suspected that Dad has been drinking a little since Thanksgiving, but we don't know for sure. Sometimes he comes home from working second shift and his eyes are a little too bright and his walk a little too uncertain, but we know from experience to just let it go.

Tomorrow, I imagine, we'll find out for sure. It has happened before on various holidays; Mom and I go to Joanie's early and Dad says he'll join us after he's gotten some sleep from working the night before. We'll get "dinner" (hillbilly for lunch) just about on the table and when Mom tries to call Dad to find out where he is, he either won't answer or he'll answer with slurred words that he's not coming. We'll later find out, after hateful words are exchanged, that he spent Christmas morning watching planes land and take off out on Airport Drive while sipping from a bottle of Seagram's 7 that he always keeps under the seat of the car. When I was little, I thought those bottles came with every new car because the very first time Dad took me out for a drive in his new Ford Fairmont he kept sipping from that bottle and it was in every car we ever had after that.

No matter what, I am going to make the best of it. I start to feel some of my old familiar sadness creep in, but I've seen how Christmas should be and I am not going to let anyone ruin it for me. I am going to wear my new blouse to my sister's and watch my toddling nephew Kyle open his many Santa presents. When my brother-in-law takes me to go pick Jason up for dinner, I will put on a smile and act like everything at my house is normal even if it's not, even if Dad doesn't show up.

As I get ready for bed, I can see the red light on top of the radio tower at the police station, the one I used to pretend was Rudolph's nose on Christmas Eve. Even long after I knew better, I loved to think that that was Santa on his way to give me a good Christmas. I am sixteen years old now and way past such things, but I close my eyes and hope that Santa will bring me a peaceful Christmas morning, one where I don't wonder where Dad is and whether or not he's drinking.

I drift off to sleep with Mousie under my arm (I will never outgrow him) and smile; even if things are a mess tomorrow, I have a second family now who have made this Christmas one I'll remember for good things, not bad. As long as I have Jason, and his crazy, wonderful family, I can see many happy Christmases to come.