December 25, 2002

•      It is mid-afternoon. I have spent several hours last night & today visiting my SIR list, catching up a bit on my reading & leaving my version of an e-card.

  
  

       I was as neglectful by not sending out paper cards this year as I have in several years (depressive apathy). The obligation of doing so has often caused me to feel guilty about my neglect. But when I look at what I receive from family & friends, I probably still do more during the holidays than I receive. I DO make phone calls, which I have to cover in my budget later.

  
  

       This year’s phone calls met with either answering machines, or no answer at all. On the answering machines, I left my Christmas wishes, along with my phone number & that I’d love to hear back from them (my brothers). There was no answer at my sister’s, which means she either forgot to turn on the answering machine, or was outside & didn’t hear the phone. Se la ger…

  
  

       Do I hear from them on this special day? No… they don’t take the time to give me a call. Rarely have. I did receive a Christmas card from my brother who lives here & works at one of the telescopes atop Mauna Kea. He included a $20 bill for my son, carefully instructing me to make sure my son gets it to use as he chooses. Sad, that he believes I would take money meant for my son. There’s never anything for me.

  
  

       The other Christmas card I received (yes, you are correct… I only got 2 Christmas cards!) came from my financial benefactor. I have already called her with my thanks. When I get around to it, I will write a letter to her about how I used the money & how grateful I am for it. I should also include gift certificates for McDonald’s (her recommendation in the past), or Wal-Mart, if they have one nearby.

  
  

       My son came into the living room, trying to hide a plastic bag behind him. I pretended I didn’t hear it crinkling. He said it wasn’t much (I guess the amount I’ve spent on his desires is beginning to sink in) & apologized for not wrapping the items as he sat on the arm of the loveseat & handed me a white plastic bag, the handles tied in my perception of a make-shift bow. I didn’t care that they weren’t wrapped. That isn’t important.

  
  

       When I opened the bag, I noticed a cardboard box, the lettering indicating that it was something he bought from a vendor at the Farmers Market. The vendor who originally sold those items is a fellow DAV Puna Chapter 9 member & neighbor within this subdivision; a Korean War Veteran, who is suffering with laryngeal cancer, given only 7 months to live about 3 months ago without surgery, chemo & radiation, which he has refused. He doesn’t want 2 years of poor quality life from the treatments versus 7 months of relatively good time. I had recently learned that he turned all his stock over to another neighbor who has helped him with this business for some time now.

  
  

       Inside of the box, in a styrofoam nest, was an acrylic replica of a glass figurine of mother & child dolphins, jumping with ocean waves. It is so pretty! I told him thank you & kept turning it around & around in my hands, letting light glimmer through it.

  
  

       I thought the figurine was all he had given, but messed with the bag again, only to find another bag inside! My son apologized again, saying the vendor didn’t have a box for that one. Inside, I found a wooden base & a bone-china figurine. This one was of a humming bird, feeding off an orange hibiscus! He pointed out the hibiscus, presumably because it is Hawaii’s State Flower. Again I told him thank you & how pretty it was.

  
  

       Until I can find a safe place to put the bone china figurine (I have kitties who do not figure any place in this house is sacred), I secured it back in the bag. The acrylic dolphins now sit atop my computer monitor, catching the winter’s southern light from the window!

  
  

       I have a smoked pork shoulder (ham) baking in the toaster-oven. A pot of rice is cooking in the rice steamer. When it is close to time to eat, I will fix the frozen (Normandy) veggies, adding onion powder, alaea salt (Hawaiian rock sea salt baked with red clay from Kauai, believed to have healing capabilities) as well as butter (REAL butter!). Not the feast one might find in the home of someone who loves to cook for the holidays, but foods we both enjoy.

  
  

        While stuff is cooking & I am writing here, I am enjoying a newly discovered alcoholic beverage. I have no refrigerator right now (since unplugging the one I had that the compressor quit on so many months ago & new is way to expensive for my budget!), so no eggnog, because it won’t keep at room-temp & I won’t drink it all at once, or right away when I buy it. I do have a small chest-type deep freeze though. When I picked up groceries at the beginning of the month, I splurged by buying myself a case (12) of Starbuck’s Mocha Frappuccino. I am NOT a coffee drinker, but do LOVE their mocha or vanilla frappuccino! I also picked up a couple (one bottle meant to be sent to my sis in Texas) bottles of Keoki’s Coffee Liqueur (another coffee thing I enjoy, as I do coffee hard candies & mocha chocolates!), which were on sale. This Kona coffee liqueur, though having a Hawaiian name & using Hawaiian coffee beans, is made in California. Go figure!

  
  

       I decided to try out the liqueur in the frappuccino a couple weeks ago. Wonderful! Because of how expensive Starbuck’s Frappuccino is, along with the liqueur, I have been seriously limiting myself on the intake… I wanted my supply to last the month, especially so I could have a couple today & for New Year’s. I had to hide the frappuccino from my son, since he loves this beverage even more than I do (he loves coffee too… must take after his father & grandparents). I put single bottles of frappuccino in the deep freeze so they would be cold when I wanted one. I right now have 2 waiting in the freezer… one for my next (& last) for today & one for my son (minus the liqueur, of course!). It will be our ‘desert’ for Christmas dinner.

  • 9:56 pm
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