It was December 1984. I was an eight-year old third grader dealing with a serious issue, and I needed some answers right away. Some of the kids in my class had started fairly somber discussions about the fact that Santa Claus may not actually be real. I joined in with a couple of the other believers, arguing the fact that Santa Claus did indeed exist and offering proof in the form of munched-on cookies that I had left for him last year and a pink bicycle under the tree that I was certain my single mother could not afford. This debate going down right in the middle of Mrs. Green’s class was a heated one, so much so, that I turned to my mother for some adult wisdom. I knew she would be straight with me.
However, instead of being straight with me when I asked her outright if there was a Santa, she pulled off a skilled move. “Do you think there’s a Santa?” she asked me in the way she had of always talking to children as if they were grown ups.
I thought about it a lot. What did I think? Was it possible that I had been a victim of a cruel prank each year for my entire life? Was my mom really the one putting the gifts under the tree each year like the kids were saying at school? It seemed totally plausible and absolutely impossible at the same time. That is when a genuine stroke of genius hit my tiny eight-year old brain.
The holiday season of 1984 went down in history as the year of the Cabbage Patch Kid. There were stories all over the news every evening about how the illusive dolls were impossible to find. Mothers and fathers were fighting and pushing and yelling in order to get their hands on one of the ugly things for their precious children. There were brawls in the aisles of K-Marts across the country, and footage on CBS of grownups playing angry games of tug-o-war with the innocent, dimpled cloth children. It was mayhem, and my little sister and I watched enrapt, totally impressed that a toy for kids our age could garner so much adult attention. The news stories were all saying the same thing: it was completely impossible to get a Cabbage Patch Kid.
I’d only seen one of them in person once. A girl in my class had one and brought in to show it off. It had blonde yarn hair with wide blue eyes and a blue and white checked dress reminiscent of Dorothy’s in the Wizard of Oz. I asked if I could hold the doll, and the girl was actually a real bitch about it, so I let it go. Some people’s kids. Either way, I knew we were kind of poor, so I understood that this was probably going to be as close to a real live Cabbage Patch Kid as I ever got. Until, of course, the aforementioned stroke of genius.
I told my mother right then, about two weeks before Christmas, that I would know there was a Santa Claus if I had a Cabbage Path Kid waiting under the tree for me that year. I even added on that my Cabbage Patch Kid would have green eyes like me, just to make sure that Santa, whoever he or she may be, knew that I meant business.
Had I been old enough to notice such things, I’m sure there was an obvious twinkle in my mother’s eye as I said this. I know the twinkle well from my older years, but as a kid, I just wasn’t as attuned to those nuances.
Sometime during the previous July, my mom had been out shopping while my sisters and I were at my dad’s for the weekend. She had picked up a couple of strange looking dolls on sale thinking that they might make cute Christmas gifts for me and my little sister. She stuck them up on the top shelf of her closet with a few other gifts that she had purchased throughout the year and there they sat. Those poor little Cabbage Patch Kids sat in the dark closet for the next six months, never realizing how popular they had become out in the real world. My mom just sat back and watched all the crazies with what could have only been a slightly smug look on her face.
On Christmas morning 1984, my sister and I ran down to the Christmas tree the way that small children are wont to do. We tore into our stockings and the piles of fabulous gifts under the tree. Among many other things, there were Cabbage Patch tee shirts and cassette tapes for each of us, and while I appreciated these items, I was still vocal about the fact that they did not count. Just as I was about to throw in the towel and write off Santa Claus for good, my mom pointed out two larger wrapped boxes, side-by-side, tucked at the very back of the tree against the wall. Bingo. I knew the shape of the box by heart. I grabbed my sister by the sleeve of her nightgown, “Courtney, look!”
Hungrily, we ripped the paper from our respective boxes. Two Cabbage Patch Kids with green eyes. Mine was a pigtailed redhead named Lee-Ann Lottie (scarily, this is what my real children may actually look like if I hang on to Mike). Courtney’s was a brunette who actually bore a striking resemblance to her. They had been delivered to us straight from Santa Claus, and we were basically the luckiest kids in the world at that very moment. It was a Christmas miracle right there in our little townhouse. Just for that last bit of proof, I pulled Lee-Ann from her box and yanked down her tiny pants. Sure enough, right across her right buttock was the signature. Xavier Roberts. It might as well have been signed by Santa himself; I was officially a believer again.
A few months later, because she felt it was time and because I was obviously a little too dense to figure it out on my own like all the other third graders, my mother explained to me how the whole Santa thing really worked. I took it sort of hard, but told her that I understood. She then asked me not to tell my sister, who was only six and was still young enough to believe. I promised not to…
…and then went directly upstairs to find Courtney. I found her in the bathroom sitting on the toilet with a Berenstein Bears book in her lap. “Corky, we have to talk,” I told her, trying to portray the seriousness of the situation on my face. I went on to explain to her everything my mom had asked me not to. She got upset and went running to my mom who had no choice but to confirm the bad news. I had done what I felt I had to. It was only fair that we should both be given the option of grieving the loss of Santa at the same time. My mom told me a few years ago that she got a call from Courtney’s teacher not long after my spilling of the beans. Apparently some of the other first-graders’ parents were upset that Courtney was explaining the Santa concept to their children prematurely. I’m sure my mom wanted to strangle me at that point.
A couple of months after we lost our mom in 2006, I randomly opened one of her boxes of stuff right before Christmas. I am not sure what I was looking for, and I had been pretty reluctant to open any of it until that point. But for some reason I opened a box that was full of random paperwork and photographs that had been haphazardly tucked away. I sat on the floor of my little office ,which had been converted into a storage room for my mother’s things until I could figure out what to do with them, and I went through that single box. There were a few old bills, a 1950’s picture of my great grandfather and his dog back in Ireland, some random photographs of my sisters and I as little kids. I pulled out my mom’s nursing license and her citizenship papers, probably two of the most important papers that she had in her lifetime, and right beneath them were the two most important papers that she had left behind. Two ornate birth certificates from the summer of 1984 for two very special dolls, signed by Xavier Roberts. Right then, right when I was so broken, so devoid of holiday spirit, and so desperately craving something, anything at all to believe in, I got all the evidence of Santa Claus that I will ever need, and I will never doubt again.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
The Furniture Row
Mike and I belong together, this much I know. What is baffling to both of us, and to many of our family members is how we figured out that we belong together without killing each other. The writer and the engineer, the creative and the math-nerd, the seat-of-the-pants flyer and the extensive analyzer.
We somehow managed to get through the first year and a half of our relationship by cracking each other up while enjoying many of the same outdoor activities. I think all of the skiing and hiking and wrestling with my dog and laughing like crazy was enough to keep our minds off of the fact that we are fundamentally and absolutely complete opposites to our cores. We drank a lot, too, so that probably didn’t hurt either.
After that first year or so, he stuck by my side, no questions asked, while I went through the hardest thing that has ever happened to me and the subsequent grief-stricken personality 180 that accompanied it. Strangely, though, even with a personality 180, we still remained opposites, and while I won't attempt to explain how this is possible, I'm sure Mike could provide you with some analysis of the situation if you really need to understand. Anyway, this led to us moving in together two years ago where it quickly became clear that we were going to have to work really hard to overcome our giant personality differences. We have worked at it, and so far no on has gotten hurt, at least not irreparably so. We remained in love and happy and meant for each other. Until this week, after almost two years of living-in-sin bliss we decided to make our first large purchase together.
We need new furniture. In a very bad way. We needed new furniture two years ago, but it kind of got away from us, and so we have spent the last two years attempting to make my ten-year old, first-apartment, American Furniture Warehouse clearance special look clean in lieu of the fact that it has survived Blue's puppyhood along with several out-of-hand red wine nights with the girls back in my old apartment. The dog hair is permanently woven into every inch of the fabric of this couch; no amount of vacuuming or brushing can remove it. The arms of the once-trendy and decorative chair were destroyed during a particularly traumatic time in my cat's life. The once silvery-grey color is now a musty brownish-green, and the pillows are so misshapen that they resemble musty, brownish-green sacks of trash. This is not the furniture for classy grown ups to have in their cute little Park Hill bungalow. This stuff is at the end of its life, and even desperate college students would have put it out of its misery months ago. Off we went on our mission forgetting momentarily how horribly we shop together.
I knew there was trouble when Mike and I first moved in together. I asked him to go grab some dish soap at the store while I wandered in search of mascara. After getting my preferred brand of mascara, and then poking around with some of the fancier lotions that Target has to offer for a few minutes, I went in search of Mike leaving a scented trail of green tea and freesia in my wake. I rounded the corner into the household aisle and stopped short. There was my boyfriend at the end of the aisle reading the labels of two large bottles of dish soap. His forehead was creased in concentration and his lips were moving, reading the words on the back of each bottle. Then he stopped reading and actually started to think. He was thinking about soap. Really hard.
“Hi,” I said, although I was reluctant to break his concentration. He looked up at me, his eyes still glassy from his soap coma. “Come on, just get the one that’s on sale” I grabbed the bottle from his left hand.
“That one is more expensive per ounce,” he informed me, “this one is a better deal, but it could be drying to our hands”
This very important four-dollar decision took about 20 minutes and a couple of math equations. Furniture costs a thousand times that. That is 20 thousand minutes of analysis according to my math. I didn’t think we were going to make it through this. But alas, we did.
Tuesday night we headed into Sofa Mart after I got done swimming at the gym. This is when we discovered that shopping for sofas after a day at work followed by a strenuous workout is very similar to grocery shopping when starving. Every couch I threw myself down upon suddenly became the most comfortable couch I had ever encountered. I was just so happy to be off of my feet. As the only customers in the giant store on a weeknight during a recession, we quickly became the salesman's favorite people in the world. Especially once I began lying down and dramatically stating, "We'll take it" or "Sold" over and over on every single couch with Mike turning narrowed eyes on me each time. I sat on every leather couch in the place, found one that was attractive, fit into our budget, and seemed to me like it would fit into our living room, and told Mike that we should get it. The salesman perked up from his spot on my future recliner and moved to get the paperwork. "We'll sleep on it", Mike said, causing the poor guy to slump back into the chair.
On the way home, Mike explained to me that we still had several stores to check out, many more couches on which to sit, and numerous additional sales people who were all dying to be bothered by us. I was confused. I had done my furniture shopping, had made my decision, and was eagerly awaiting the date of delivery so that my living room would look gorgeous and modern. Mike had other plans entirely.
And these plans involved graph paper and rulers and some advanced schematic design.
He put himself to work, one eye on the Nuggets game, one eye on his project. He measured and drew a to-scale rendering of our living room, and then cut out mini-versions of the furniture I had chosen based on the specs the salesman had given him. He then proceeded to move the little paper cutouts around in circles on the page until he declared that the furniture I had so painstakingly decided on based on amenities such as “brownness” and “proximity to the entrance of the store” would simply not fit in our living room. “Ummm, ok,” I said, eager to be helpful, “we just won’t get the ottoman.”
Mike shook his head and went back to his nerds’ version of paper-dolls while I stared at my laptop pretending to write while trying to think of ways to get out of going to look at more furniture even though I did actually care about what we ended up with. With electronics, it is much easier. I feign stupidity and tell him that he can decide, and I will chip in for whatever he gets as long as I am not forced to go and look at seven-point-three million HD, LCD, flat screen, super-duper, crystal vision, sports-monster televisions. The TV that I bought at the same time I bought the godforsaken furniture was 100 dollars at Target, and it is a Daewoo. I’m not kidding. Daewoo. And guess what. Ten years later, the picture is still great, and we can even play RockBand on it. Who needs a 1500-dollar Samsung?
After four days of shopping in seven furniture stores, three trips to Macy’s, and only one argument, we will have our new furniture in just a couple of weeks. And we even both learned something. I learned that not every single decision can be made on a whim (although I stick to my guns that this method has served me well for my life thus far.) Mike learned that, at some point, it becomes time to simply decide, even if not every single sofa in the 48 contiguous states has had his ass in its seats. And as usual, we both remembered that our differences are what keep our relationship so fun and interesting and stimulating, and yes, sometimes frustrating, but usually in a good way. We love each other and are capable of making large and important decisions together despite our differences, which is a skill that will serve us well in our long, healthy future together.
Speaking of which, what in the hell is taking him so long with that ring?
We somehow managed to get through the first year and a half of our relationship by cracking each other up while enjoying many of the same outdoor activities. I think all of the skiing and hiking and wrestling with my dog and laughing like crazy was enough to keep our minds off of the fact that we are fundamentally and absolutely complete opposites to our cores. We drank a lot, too, so that probably didn’t hurt either.
After that first year or so, he stuck by my side, no questions asked, while I went through the hardest thing that has ever happened to me and the subsequent grief-stricken personality 180 that accompanied it. Strangely, though, even with a personality 180, we still remained opposites, and while I won't attempt to explain how this is possible, I'm sure Mike could provide you with some analysis of the situation if you really need to understand. Anyway, this led to us moving in together two years ago where it quickly became clear that we were going to have to work really hard to overcome our giant personality differences. We have worked at it, and so far no on has gotten hurt, at least not irreparably so. We remained in love and happy and meant for each other. Until this week, after almost two years of living-in-sin bliss we decided to make our first large purchase together.
We need new furniture. In a very bad way. We needed new furniture two years ago, but it kind of got away from us, and so we have spent the last two years attempting to make my ten-year old, first-apartment, American Furniture Warehouse clearance special look clean in lieu of the fact that it has survived Blue's puppyhood along with several out-of-hand red wine nights with the girls back in my old apartment. The dog hair is permanently woven into every inch of the fabric of this couch; no amount of vacuuming or brushing can remove it. The arms of the once-trendy and decorative chair were destroyed during a particularly traumatic time in my cat's life. The once silvery-grey color is now a musty brownish-green, and the pillows are so misshapen that they resemble musty, brownish-green sacks of trash. This is not the furniture for classy grown ups to have in their cute little Park Hill bungalow. This stuff is at the end of its life, and even desperate college students would have put it out of its misery months ago. Off we went on our mission forgetting momentarily how horribly we shop together.
I knew there was trouble when Mike and I first moved in together. I asked him to go grab some dish soap at the store while I wandered in search of mascara. After getting my preferred brand of mascara, and then poking around with some of the fancier lotions that Target has to offer for a few minutes, I went in search of Mike leaving a scented trail of green tea and freesia in my wake. I rounded the corner into the household aisle and stopped short. There was my boyfriend at the end of the aisle reading the labels of two large bottles of dish soap. His forehead was creased in concentration and his lips were moving, reading the words on the back of each bottle. Then he stopped reading and actually started to think. He was thinking about soap. Really hard.
“Hi,” I said, although I was reluctant to break his concentration. He looked up at me, his eyes still glassy from his soap coma. “Come on, just get the one that’s on sale” I grabbed the bottle from his left hand.
“That one is more expensive per ounce,” he informed me, “this one is a better deal, but it could be drying to our hands”
This very important four-dollar decision took about 20 minutes and a couple of math equations. Furniture costs a thousand times that. That is 20 thousand minutes of analysis according to my math. I didn’t think we were going to make it through this. But alas, we did.
Tuesday night we headed into Sofa Mart after I got done swimming at the gym. This is when we discovered that shopping for sofas after a day at work followed by a strenuous workout is very similar to grocery shopping when starving. Every couch I threw myself down upon suddenly became the most comfortable couch I had ever encountered. I was just so happy to be off of my feet. As the only customers in the giant store on a weeknight during a recession, we quickly became the salesman's favorite people in the world. Especially once I began lying down and dramatically stating, "We'll take it" or "Sold" over and over on every single couch with Mike turning narrowed eyes on me each time. I sat on every leather couch in the place, found one that was attractive, fit into our budget, and seemed to me like it would fit into our living room, and told Mike that we should get it. The salesman perked up from his spot on my future recliner and moved to get the paperwork. "We'll sleep on it", Mike said, causing the poor guy to slump back into the chair.
On the way home, Mike explained to me that we still had several stores to check out, many more couches on which to sit, and numerous additional sales people who were all dying to be bothered by us. I was confused. I had done my furniture shopping, had made my decision, and was eagerly awaiting the date of delivery so that my living room would look gorgeous and modern. Mike had other plans entirely.
And these plans involved graph paper and rulers and some advanced schematic design.
He put himself to work, one eye on the Nuggets game, one eye on his project. He measured and drew a to-scale rendering of our living room, and then cut out mini-versions of the furniture I had chosen based on the specs the salesman had given him. He then proceeded to move the little paper cutouts around in circles on the page until he declared that the furniture I had so painstakingly decided on based on amenities such as “brownness” and “proximity to the entrance of the store” would simply not fit in our living room. “Ummm, ok,” I said, eager to be helpful, “we just won’t get the ottoman.”
Mike shook his head and went back to his nerds’ version of paper-dolls while I stared at my laptop pretending to write while trying to think of ways to get out of going to look at more furniture even though I did actually care about what we ended up with. With electronics, it is much easier. I feign stupidity and tell him that he can decide, and I will chip in for whatever he gets as long as I am not forced to go and look at seven-point-three million HD, LCD, flat screen, super-duper, crystal vision, sports-monster televisions. The TV that I bought at the same time I bought the godforsaken furniture was 100 dollars at Target, and it is a Daewoo. I’m not kidding. Daewoo. And guess what. Ten years later, the picture is still great, and we can even play RockBand on it. Who needs a 1500-dollar Samsung?
After four days of shopping in seven furniture stores, three trips to Macy’s, and only one argument, we will have our new furniture in just a couple of weeks. And we even both learned something. I learned that not every single decision can be made on a whim (although I stick to my guns that this method has served me well for my life thus far.) Mike learned that, at some point, it becomes time to simply decide, even if not every single sofa in the 48 contiguous states has had his ass in its seats. And as usual, we both remembered that our differences are what keep our relationship so fun and interesting and stimulating, and yes, sometimes frustrating, but usually in a good way. We love each other and are capable of making large and important decisions together despite our differences, which is a skill that will serve us well in our long, healthy future together.
Speaking of which, what in the hell is taking him so long with that ring?
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