Picking out a Christmas tr-eee! eee! eee!

When it comes to Christmas, the Mosimans are more Norman Bates than Norman Rockwell. Never more so then when you give us a reason to wield sharp objects such as axes and saws. We do not skip merrily through the magical Christmas tree forest, singing cheerful holiday songs. More than likely, we are huffing and puffing, cursing and complaining as we stomp through the snow. My husband is the exception to the rule. He loves tradition, even if he has to drag us kicking and screaming through the frickin' forest.

Fortunately for us, we had, long ago, found the equivalent to the Island of Misfit Toys simply by turning left at the Wooded Glade of Eccentric Evergreens. We have NEVER, in thirty years of diligent searching (Brad searching...the girls and I complaining), found anything comparable to a normal tree. Just scraggly, Seuss-y samples that suited us perfectly. 

So here we were, just Brad and I, in the middle of our Christmas tree forest, having our yearly argument, listing LOUDLY, the pros and cons of blue spruce. "It cuts me to ribbons," I complained, "They should have named it a porcu-pine." "It holds its needles a long time," Brad battled back. "Needle retention isn't nearly as important as determining which tree causes the least amount of blood-letting," I snapped. 

The phone suddenly rang. Somewhere, on the opposite coast, my eldest daughter had felt an unexpected chill and was compelled to call. "What are you doing?" she asked suspiciously as I stormed away from Brad's choice. "Your father is trying to get me stabbed," I told her. "Are you Christmas tree hunting?" she deduced, demanding "Let's Facetime!" 

I had thought it couldn't get any worse. 

I was obviously wrong.

Savannah, joined by our darling friend, Lisa, peered out from the safety of my climate-controlled screen and began directing our route. "Left," they shouted in delight, "Oooo...look at that one!" We had to inspect each of their choices from all angles until they finally...Did you read that carefully, dearest Reader?... THEY finally settled on the perfect choice. A blue spruce. 

"There's a giant gap in it," I complained as I began sawing away at this giant pincushion of a pine. Yeah...I sawed it. I made a GIANT mistake by firmly declaring that I don't saw trees rather than faking a debilitating hand injury like I usually do. So, in the name of equality, I Paul-Bunyan-ed that bastard down.

Then there was the usual stuffing of the too-big tree into the too-small bed of my truck. What is it with my normally super-safety-conscious husband who will suddenly lose his mind when it comes to transporting large items?  "Looks good," he'll shrug and next thing you know, there are a dozen church tables dealt out like a hand of Texas Hold'em on Main Street in Warsaw, or a bathtub/shower combo unit flying down a two-lane highway or my tree doing a tuck-and-roll dive onto a country road. 

Somehow, we made it home, more or less intact. We wrestled it into the living room, to the dachshund's delight. Drinking from the water stand really appeals to her inner wiener-wolf. Brad and I took in our tree that was currently taking up the room. Literally...TAKING UP THE ROOM. Our two genius phone consultants obviously did not factor in width. Entering and exiting my living room was like pushing through a not-so-amusing amusement park turnstile. A turnstile that stabs you as you maneuver through it. Stupid blue spruce.

"Maybe you could do something about that," Brad said casually as he slid out the door to address the battery problem in our car...more on THAT later...I eyed up the murderous monument in my living room and went to work. I bonsai-ed the ever-loving daylights out of that tree. Edward Scissorhands had nothing on me. There could be only one victor here...and clearly, that would be me.

From his vantage point in the driveway, Brad could make out the shadowy outline of what looked to be a Christmas tree through our darkened living room window. With fear in his heart, he slowly walked into the house, not sure what he would find. Among the carnage of needles and boughs littering the floor, he spotted his wife, covered in sap, hacking at his holiday tree. "Stop it, you psycho," he said, carefully removing the shears from her shaking hand. "Don't worry," he said to calm her, "At Christmas, we all go a little mad sometimes."

 

In a fowl mood at the Turkey Trot

My husband was understandably confused when I told him I'd signed us up for the Thanksgiving morning "Turkey Trot" this year. The adrenaline high that I'd experienced after I'd hit "submit" for the on-line form several weeks ago had significantly waned as Race Day approached. 

Brad and I went to pick up our pre-race package the day before. "This may be the only time you see me," I warned my friend Carrie as she handed me my bag of goodies. Sensing my trepidation, Carrie began listing all of the short-cuts on the race route while I rummaged through the bag, looking for alcohol. "Is this a lottery number?" I asked, holding up dramatically large-fonted digits on a flimsy piece of paper. Carrie sighed and handed me four safety pins. "What are these for?" I asked. "Good luck tomorrow," my friend said, waving me out the door.

Thanksgiving morn dawned much too early. "Is it raining?" I asked hopefully. Nope. "Snowing?" Nope. "Is there some aberration of nature that will prevent me from attending this event?" Nope. So...instead of being thankful, I spent the morning cursing.

"I didn't know there was a dress code," I whispered to Brad, feeling self-conscious in my jeans among the slew of sweatpants, leggings, and compression socks. I wished I'd worn a disguise as my athletic "friends" kept excitedly greeting me.  "How am I gonna cheat if all these people, who I clearly have NOTHING in common with, see me?" I whispered to Brad who was trying to wrestle me into my lottery numbers. "No lottery is worth all this," I told him. 

The race was on. I glanced back at my parked vehicle and considered sprinting to it but instead allowed myself to be swept into the river of racers. "This isn't so bad," I admitted as Brad and I easily walked the familiar route to the school...one that we'd walked countless times together as children. "You're speeding up?" my husband said, surprised as we suddenly made an unprecedented pass around a happy group of chatty-Cathys. "I need some advice," one of them had announced, "about hard-boiled eggs." When the advice about hard-boiled eggs exceeded a reasonable two minutes, I decided Brad and I needed a change of pace.

My spirits soared as we turned the corner leading to the finish. "This wasn't bad at all!" I said cheerfully as we enjoyed gravity's pull down Main Street. Brad was silent, allowing me to absorb my surroundings. "Why aren't they turning?" I asked, watching the flow of humanity stretch straight, PAST Maple Street, "Oh, no-no-no," I cried, my legs beginning to wobble. "I thought it would be better if you found out on your own," my husband said as my eyes scanned our surroundings, seeking escape. Maybe I could slip unobtrusively past the mom with an infant strapped to her chest pushing two toddlers in a double stroller. "Let's make a run for it while everyone is distracted by that group of hookers on the corner," I suggested before realizing that several of the daytime prostitutes were, in fact, mothers of my students and were enthusiastically cheering me on. I was not in the mood.

It was the final stretch. "What is that truck doing?" I asked as it lumbered along behind us. "They pick up the traffic cones at the end of a race," Brad explained. "Well...that's insulting," I huffed, "The least they could do is wait until we've crossed the finish line. This is like a waitress taking your plate before you've eaten the whole meal." They reminded me of the little sweeper guy who followed the parade on The Mister Peabody cartoon. "Do you think they'd give us a ride?" I asked Brad.

"Look! You finished in under an hour!" Brad pointed out as we crossed the finish line. "This took a whole hour?!?" I said indignantly. My husband gently guided me to the van. Strapped in and sipping water with the remnants of the race in my rear view, I began to calm down from my Turkey Trot trauma. "So...would you want to do it again?" he asked carefully. "Exercising is not my favorite way to spend Thanksgiving," I admitted, "but I guess it's not what you're doing...it's who you're doing it with."  He grinned at this weak attempt to make the best out of this situation. "I yam so thank to be with you," I told him. "Stuffing better than this," he agreed. Happy Thanksgiving!
 

Team 4 turns itself around

 

Team 4, in the midst of a professional development conference, began questioning the posted vocabulary example of a "steer" as a male cow. 

"Wait a second," I protested, completely missing the big picture of whatever it was I was supposed to be learning (as usual), "A bull is a male cow." 

Team 4 was off and running. We discussed horns. Long horns. Short horns. Unicorn horns. And trumpets. We made the distinction of cow as a general category with heifers as the female counterpart. 

"John Wayne would herd steers to market across Texas. You're telling me that was a herd of all male cows?" I argued authoritatively.  The Cowboys was one of my favorite John Wayne movies after all. 

Finally, we looked it up. 

A steer is a castrated male cow. 

What? That's crazy! 

"Know what's even crazier," Rachel interjected. "A male castrated turkey is called a hokey." Team 4 was silent for a moment as we stared at her, dumbfounded. "Why would you even know that?"  I asked ("Why would anyone ever castrate a turkey?" my husband asked later, wincing.). 

Kelly suddenly began giggling. "It's actually pretty easy to remember," she said. "The hokey doesn't have a pokey." 

We always learn so much during professional development sessions.

Mystery Solved: The Case of the Haunted Hallway

My fellow 4th grade team member, Geri, typically a laid-back and level-headed woman, came careening into my classroom. "Did you see what just went by?" she asked, motioning me frantically to get out of my chair. My mind raced as I sorted through all of the potentially terrifying scenarios that might be waiting for me on the opposite side of my closed classroom door. "The hallway zamboni is unmanned!" Geri shouted, grabbing my arm and pulling me into pursuit. 

The school was like a ghost-town. The corridors were vacuous tunnels; echoing, empty shafts devoid of life. We could hear the haunting drone of the maniacal mechanism as it stalked a side hallway. Like Scooby Doo and the gang, Geri and I sprinted around the corner, our legs pinwheeling without purchase on the smooth, shiny floors.

We caught a glimpse of blue. "There it goes!" we shouted, Paul Revere-ing our way around the wing,
trying to ruffle our clueless colleagues closeted in their own classrooms.  We suddenly came face-to-face with the object of our alarm. We stared in shock at the demon-possessed appliance. We approached it with the comical caution of rodeo clowns. At this point, I began to question our well-intended, developing-along-the-way, plans of intervention. Were we going to leap aboard and rustle this rogue critter into submission? Open the corral doors and herd it outside?  Geri, at one point, appeared ready to throw herself bodily in front of this raging bull. 

Fortunately, her sacrifice was not required as we rounded another 90 degree turn to encounter a team of our highly-trained, imminently-skilled cleaning and maintenance staff who were over-seeing the maiden voyage of the world's biggest Roomba. So, yeah. We felt a little stupid. "Send a girl a memo," I suggested defensively as the ghost groomer continued down the hall, leaving clean floors and lost jobs in its wake. 

Geri and I trekked back to our rooms, our heroic exploits ignored (or, even worse, mocked and maligned). Change is inevitable, I know. But it can sometimes be scary and even a little sad. The new-fangled floor mop trundled past me mockingly, its empty saddle a sorrowful signal of another employee losing their seat. Particularly sad because, in our school, manning the helm of the hallway zamboni is the most envied position of all.
 

Benched

"Do you want to go and build a bench with me?" Brad asked. I blinked at him and sighed. Now I know how Elsa felt. "Sure, I'm willing to build a bench with you," I answered. Brad frowned. "That's not what I asked," my husband persisted. I closed out the Youtube video I was watching to address this situation head-on. "When, in our over-thirty years of marriage," I pointed out, "have I EVER wanted to build a bench? I am willing to build a bench." Apparently, my not immediately turning somersaults and breaking out into cheerful song with cartoon animal accompaniment caused my husband to doubt my passionate desire to spend hours whittling wood into workable furniture. 

When Saturday arrived, I summoned the necessary enthusiasm to demand that he take me with him to build a bench. Describing the project to me, he used a lot of familiar vocabulary that I have grown to view as trigger words. "We'll just pop this together,"  "This should be pretty easy," and "Zip-zip" are three phrases that warn me that I should have packed snacks, a book, alcohol, and a sleeping bag and have a marriage counselor's number on speed-dial. 

Being Brad Mosiman's right-hand helper isn't all that hard but it can be tricky. Timing and intuition are a must. He mumbles to himself so you can mostly tune out BUT you must be subliminally aware of numbers. "What was that measurement again?" he'll suddenly say. I'll admit it. I've made up figures with the desperate flair of an Atlantic City Strip magician. "Is this your card? What about this? Is it, at least, the right suit?" My brain about exploded when he asked me what half of 3 3/8 was. 

Brad thoughtfully explained each step of the process to me but the combination of my utter disinterest along with my inability to visualize what he was actually talking about had me foolishly hoping that each step that we were on might be "the last step." Amy Mosiman...you naive ninny. 

I watched my husband sit on an imaginary bench with the clinical detachment of a bank teller watching a client approach with a jug filled with nickels and pennies. What was happening in front of my very eyes was part of my job but it was not going to be especially fun. 

My main duties consisted around keeping track of my husband's constantly disappearing pencil, standing where Brad wanted me to stand ("Here?" "No. There."), lifting things wrong ("Is that good?" It never was. It was either higher or lower), dodging metal as it rocketed from Brad's sparking blade as he cut off a wooden ledge ridden with nails, miscalculating every figure he gave me, handing him nails the wrong way, and telling him that everything looked good only to have him pull it apart and do it again. I was, obviously, essential to this project.

My self-imposed duty was Morale Officer. "Whaa-aa-aaahh-a!" I sang cheerfully. Crammed under the bench, drilling boards together (My job was to sit on them...finally...a position that showcases my talent!), my husband ignored me. Undeterred, I continued to sing accompaniment. "Whaa-aa-aaahh-a!" After approximately twenty unrelenting choruses, Brad interrupted his work to pleasantly and politely ask me what the heck I was doing. "I'm trying to remember the Led Zeppelin song intro that your drill keeps playing," I told him. He frowned before saying, "It's Immigrant Song," before ducking under to resume his task. "Whaa-aa-aaahh-a!"

Six hours later, it was done. "Worth every minute," I said loudly, so as to be heard over the growling of my stomach. "It seems pretty high," Brad remarked glumly. I looked at him in alarm. Glum was NOT good for me. We sat on his bench, our little legs swinging like a pair of toddlers in highchairs. In a rare moment of self-restraint, I refrained from reminding Brad of the SNL sketch featuring Lily Tomlin as little Edith Ann in her big chair. I suppressed an immature giggle to reassure my husband who was now  muttering something about how "If Ben wanted a carpenter, he should have hired Jesus." "It's the perfect height for a filet station," I said, trying to distract my husband by reminding him of his love of fishing. "People could park a chair in front of it and use it as a desk!" I went on, describing the multi-functionality of Brad's unique creation. "We could drop a knotted rope from the ceiling so that children could easily access your bench. They'd love it! What an adventure!" Brad had stopped talking by this time. We were in trouble. Frantic, I Google-researched bench heights. "Standard bench heights range between 18 and 20 inches high. "We're pretty close. Besides, who wants to be considered standard?"

One sleepless night later (Not me...I slept like a baby in an over-sized crib), we were back on the road to "Pop these off...and zip-zip...we'll be outta there. Should be pretty easy. Hey, have you seen my pencil?" Although not athletic by nature, I feel a sports analogy to be a pretty apt ending to this little lesson of woe. When it comes to woodworking projects with my husband, I would rather ride the pines than build the bench.

 

When did "fudge" become a bad word?

They say you have to choose your battles. Determine the hill that you are willing to die on. Not surprisingly, my hill is made up of vanilla ice cream peaked with rivers of hot fudge. 

Mere hours ago, Brad and I were in the drive-thru of our (formerly) favorite, frequently-visited, fast food place. As I juggled our purchases, quickly inventorying the bag (We'd been burned before), I didn't notice the state of our sundae cups fast enough. 

"Uh...Brad," I said, holding up the cup for his inspection. He nodded. "Kinda skimpy on the hot fudge," he noted, PREPARING TO DRIVE AWAY. Obviously, my husband had clearly failed to recognize a crisis when he saw one. "There is...like...a nickel-sized dollop of hot fudge on my ice cream," I reported angrily. "Do you want to go in?" he asked rhetorically. He was talking to a woman that hides in bagged mulch forts outside grocery stores, cries in front of spaghetti sauce selections, and has abandoned shopping carts when she couldn't decide on a new couch cushion. He was NOT prepared for my level of righteous indignation. 

"Yes," I stated flatly, "I'm going in."

This is what I expected:

    Amy enters her restaurant, Old Reliable, clutching her fiasco of an order. Employee spots this regrettable error and immediately apologizes before offering to top off Amy's dessert with copious amounts of thick, rich, deliciously hot chocolate fudge. Amy thanks employee and skips away happily.

This is what ACTUALLY happened:

    Amy enters her restaurant, Old Reliable, clutching her fiasco of an order. Manager notices Amy and, frowning, clearly thinks this customer is being ridiculous. Obviously, there are bigger problems in the world~~Manager does not realize that Amy already knows this. Amy cannot unload all those backed-up cargo ships in California. Amy cannot wave a wand and make Covid go away. Amy cannot eradicate world hunger, cure cancer, or spay/neuter the global population of domesticated pets. But Amy CAN request that she receive what she ordered and paid for from her formally favorite fast food restaurant. 

Frowning, Manager outlines three viable options to solve Amy's problem.

    1.  Manager can fill a cup with additional hot fudge as, with Covid protocols, Manager cannot handle the order once it had changed hands ("They had no problem handling our Covid-encrusted cash," Brad said later.) I pictured myself clumsily trying to pour my cup of hot fudge onto my sundae and decided that Option 1 was not for me. This wasn't "Build-a-Bear," after all. If I wanted to make my own sundae, I'd have had Brad make me one at home.

    2.  Manager can make me two new sundaes...Yay! Sign me up! EXCEPT...I would have to throw away my current order. I...I...I...would have to throw away my current order because, due to Covid protocols, Manager cannot handle the original order once it had changed hands (Brad's quote again inserted here). Let's return to the part where Amy can't eradicate world hunger but I certainly don't want to contribute to the problem by blatantly wasting perfectly good food. Forget Option 2.

    3. I forget Option 3 because by now I was so upset that I wasn't thinking clearly. I imagine that Option 3 maybe had something to do with a refund or planting a tree in Israel in my name.

What do I do? Fortunately, my friend Donna was in line placing an order (Let us pause in supplicative prayer that poor Donna had better luck than I did). "What should I do?" I asked her. She eyed my poor excuse for a sundae and encouraged continuing quest. I then spotted another friend seated behind me, enjoying lunch with her grandkids WHO WERE DESSERT-LESS! A-ha!

"I know there isn't much hot fudge on it," I said apologetically (The first apology uttered in this establishment thus far) to her, "but would the kids enjoy the ice cream?" She assured me that they would. Happily, I returned to the counter to retrieve my new order, generously topped with hot fudge (AS I HAD ORIGINALLY ORDERED). I shared with Manager how I had solved the problem and requested two spoons for the kids. 

Frowning even more (if that were even possible), Manager than tells me that I MUST throw out those "sundaes." Obviously, I disagreed. If she wanted them thrown away, then she should have done it but, since, due to Covid protocol, I am given that responsibility, well then...

Apologizing...NOT for the screwed up order...that she must follow Covid protocol due to health regulations, Manager begins to skulk toward the children...oh no, NOT THE CHILDREN!!! 

(Que "She's a Mean One, Mr. Grinch")

I rush ahead of her to toss the lack-luster products away myself, immediately replacing them with my new ones before storming out of the building (after blowing kisses to the kids and embracing my friend Donna).

Brad was understandably confused when I returned empty-handed and furious. I filled him in in between filling my mouth with fries. Disgusted, I spat one out. "What's wrong now?" he asked. "They're rubbery," I wailed. He laughed. "Wanna take 'em back in?"