pedestrian saga

[Caveat lector: This post contains dangerously high levels of sap. Now if only I could tap all this sap and boil it into some fine maple syrup. Mmm, maple syrup...]

Ah, yes, it’s Oscar season again, a fact I might have easily overlooked if it weren’t for the infectious enthusiasm and prolific musings of the great Dennis, TV text guru and cinephile par excellence. The Oscars are not the point of my post, however. Instead I intend to deliver a long overdue thank-you to all the impossibly wonderful people whose splendid company completed my 2004 in a manner quite complementary to its singularly marvelous beginning. January has nearly passed, and it’s about time I let gush these pent-up Frank Capra/Chuck Dickens sentiments! It was Dennis’s eloquent thanksgiving, I might add, that was one of several beautiful missives to move me to sloppy tears in late November and so prime my emotions for the winter holidays.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Angela, for having me over for Thanksgiving dinner and giving me the opportunity to serve my first pumpkin pie to your dad.

Thanks to Stephen, Matt, Jim, Michael, Andy, Aaron and Scott, the strapping young gentlemen who indulged me in long afternoons of Ping-Pong, valiantly braving my down and dirty trash talk and graciously whomping my (bad)ass.

Thank you, Dad, for making me a fire in the fireplace, and Kara, for giving me the chance to pick up my brothers from high school and to take Grandma shopping down Main Street on a frigid winter day.

Thank you, Grandma, for baking homemade apricot-filled coffee cake at the age of 92. You are simply amazing. I love you and want to be like you when I grow up.

Thank you, Connie, for presiding over another delightfully eccentric dinner party and going to the trouble of baking lentil-loaf just for me.

Thank you, Mum, for taking care of me even as I feebly attempted to take care of you in your fragile state of post-op facial puffiness. Thank you for giving me errands to walk in town and for letting me shovel your sidewalk (on that glorious morning I’ll never, ever forget). Thank you for your unbounded and unconditional love; I tremble to think where I’d be without it.

Thank you, Lady Claudia, for hosting another in a series of exquisite gatherings that are peaks in the landscape of my experience. I wish I could find words lofty enough to express appropriate appreciation of your soups and sweets, your Christmas tree, your garden in winter… You are a goddess. Thank you, lovely Lela, for insisting that we play hide-and-seek and inflate the plastic alien together. I hope you never outgrow your willingness to meet me on the floor beneath your family’s dining table.

Thank you, Claudia, Kelly, Natasha and Geneva, for taking me to the Taj Mahal to feast on matar paneer like there would be no tomorrow and for repeatedly depriving yourselves of sleep in the middle of the workweek for my supreme benefit.

Thank you, Michelle, for your fine company on New Year’s Day and for your unbearably sweet gifts of Rose Parade swag! (I mean, you show up in Glendale with an extravagant flower arrangement and a bottle of red wine and let me whisk you away for margaritas and plantain empanadas at the Border Grill and a delightful stroll down the Santa Monica pier? Can I totally keep you? Will you be my boyfriend?)

Thank you, Kelly, for always being up for an adventure, like driving north from Fort Wayne in the middle of the night through a blinding snowstorm in a station wagon running on naught but gasoline fumes, for example. Thank you for traveling 3,000 miles to bicycle the Nacimientos tour with me only to see it rained out! Thank you for holding my hand as I stepped gingerly into the great wide open of 2005.

Thank you, Scott, for sharing fine teas and fresh hazelnuts and snow angels, for your wonderful solstice storytelling, for tracking fantastical creatures through the winter woods with me, for inviting me out on a limb, all slippery and blanketed with snow, and ever encouraging me to keep my balance. Thank you for dissipating the melancholy of that Tom Waits line "I never saw my hometown until I stayed away too long" with a mere flick of your wizard’s wand and for otherwise helping me maintain that vital sense of awe.

Thank you, Sam, for the spontaneous and warm conversation about adventure and heartbreak and for the Shel Silverstein fix.

Thank you, Sue, for letting me tag along as you walked your dogs. Thanks to Lucy, PD, Oscar, Otis and Kohl for being such gorgeous snuggle-pups when I was missing Gordon and Maddy.

Thank you, Grammie and Grandpa, for providing me food, clothing, shelter and company when my luggage left to return home to Los Angeles without me. Thank you, Grammie, for your dinner of greatest hits (homemade mac and cheese, peas, biscuits and apple pie), and Grandpa for your dinner of chips and guacamole. Thank you, Grammie, for taking me out to the library for an Internet fix and for whomping me (yet again) at Scrabble. Thank you, Grandpa, for the chance to bond over Heifer International, and Audubon.

Thank you, Jim and Jen, for being everywhere with everyone, but especially for waking well before dawn to meet my arrival. Dear brother, thank you for wondering aloud (with deep sincerity and impeccable timing) just as Faramir was Eowyn in his tender embrace (the moment in the extended edition of The Return of the King I was anticipating most feverishly), "Isn’t that his sister?" Thank you for sharing your gentle, loving and inspiring wisdom the morning we drove through a bright and dreamy mist along that familiar stretch of I-69– the road to Grammie’s house traveled a thousand times but never before experienced quite like that.

Thank you, Em, for the chance to belt out blissfully tone-deaf duets to the music of Queen, Led Zeppelin, Simon/Garfunkel and Janis Joplin and to giggle our way through a matinee of The Incredibles. Thank you for taking such good care of Mum at the hospital (and of all of us not able to be there). You are the most stunningly radiant social butterfly (to borrow dear Charlie’s term), and I’m the luckiest girl in the world to be your sister.

Thanks to everyone who gave me the hugs I was so desperately craving.

[*Sniffle, snort*... Wipes away tears, blows kisses] I love you all! Thank you! Good night!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 30th, 2005 at 12:00 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.