Every day I'm just chipping away at Christmas, until it becomes the perfect little ice sculpture for me to slide into the New Year on. Yesterday I put together a package to send to my cousin and her family in London: While I was wrapping a silver picture frame for her (and internally celebrating the day I bought a box of 14 types of tangled ribbons at a garage sale for $1--good lord that stuff is expensive!), I was watching tv.
The show I was watching was called Fat Pets. It was about English pet owners, who own the highest percentage of obese animals in Europe. Isolated couples who treat their dogs as spoiled children, lonely women who anthropomorphize their animals and believe that not giving them 6 slices of birthday cake is simply rude, sad women who cannot work or date or deal with the world. The lady who fed her dog birthday cake clearly equated a healthy diet with something preposterous that no one in their sane mind would demand of her: When the vet asked if her asthmatic heart-murmuring miserable King Charles Spaniel had been following the diet set for him, she burst out with a fruity laugh and a "No!"
The dog sat wheezing on the metal table, its hip joints literally strained to popping from the pressure of fat between the dog's legs. And its eyes were dim and drooping. Suddenly, with the tape and ribbon in my hand, I thought, "That look on the dog's face is very familiar to me."
It took me a while to place it, but that dog's miserable expression exactly matches that of an English friend of mine, when I saw him last summer. When I first knew him he was full of quiet contentment, with a sly sense of humor and bright eyes. By last summer, he'd gained masses of weight, and just seemed to have the hope sucked out of him. Peculiar to be sitting in nYC, looking at his face in the form of a spaniel in Leeds.
But the expressions were the same. Absolutely burdened, with a sense of no way out.
A while back, when I was still drinking, someone gave me a picture they'd taken of me at a party. I did not like the picture, and nearly tore it up and threw it out. But there was a look in the eyes, in my eyes, that made me tuck it in my bag for later viewing. That night, when I was sitting at home drinking wine and smoking, I pulled the picture out of my handbag.
I looked bloated, and sad, and was unquestionably wearing the wrong color sweater for me (a blazingly bright blue). My jawline was heavy and sullen, my hair tied back messily in a way I thought looked casually cool. I was wrong. But what had prevented me from tearing the ugly picture up, what made me look at it again and again and again over the ensuing months, was that not only did my eyes look vaguely rectangular in shape--they looked absolutely dead. No sparkle, no life or hope or humor or anger or anything.
Just dead.
And slowly, as I kept looking at that picture, I realized that something was very, very wrong with my life. . . I hope my cousin's husband figures his problems out, because he's one of my favorite people on the planet and I would like to see him enjoy his life.
So, in the Christmas countdown, I have:
-put together the packet for London
-bought xmas cards for building employee gifts (must get $$ today).
-bought dvds and books over Amazon, which are being shipped to Chicago.
-created a rapprochement between my sister and law and mother, so that dinner is served earlier (though not as early as the SIL wanted it--we are not farmers). I usually loathe this sit-down dinner on Christmas night, as I hate events with fussy table settings and the bullshit pressure for 'witty' conversation, but hope I can make it pass as quickly as possible.
-printed up a pattern to knit a tea cozy for my aunt. Hope it works out!
I have still, happily, not heard about the mamogram last week. . .I think that no news is good news on this front? I do not have the cojones to call the doctor's office. But if I don't hear anything by the end of today, chances are good that that dreadful visit went well.
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