We are decorating our Christmas tree. There’s me, contributing by sitting at the table typing this. There’s my daughter, contributing by showing her friend her Instagram picture of my terrible ornament placement two nights ago [see previous blog post]. And there’s her friend, who just sampled our candy canes, confirming that when candy canes are three years old they have zero crunch left, but are completely chewy. Who knew? People who put the same candy canes on their tree three years running, I guess.
Decorating the Christmas tree, as I may have mentioned, is a skill best left to the teens. Apparently, once you pass 50 you are no longer to be trusted with a holiday ornament. So they are on duty, and I’m...well...off-duty. Happily typing this.
There is a phenomenon that occurs when your teen’s friend arrives. Where you might have had reasonable or semi-reasonable answers to their questions before the friend’s arrival, once the friend arrives, your answers are suddenly completely wrong and unhelpful. But the friend’s answers? Even if they are the same ones you were giving, they are correct. This is not a discovery by me, it has been noted by parents throughout the ages. You have to just roll with it.
Naomi brought with her an impressively huge handwritten spreadsheet of every detail about every college she wants to apply to. The three of us gaze at it, spread out on our shag rug. Jessie and I are in awe. We tried to do a spreadsheet for her college applications, but gave up after two colleges. Tedious! I ask Naomi what college she would most like to attend, you know, in a perfect world? Mom, says Jessie sternly, that’s not helpful.
Why is that not helpful? Actually, I’m not even trying to be helpful. I’m just interested. Naomi mentions a couple of colleges and I go back to the kitchen table, where I have a chance of being less unhelpful. Plus the spreadsheet is making me dizzy.
So I’m there writing Christmas cards while the girls make our tree look fabulous with the artful hanging of the decorations. It is the first time I have written Christmas cards in three years. I bravely tried a few the first year after the divorce, but writing “love Sara & Jessie” just did me in, and I couldn’t write ‘The Tolchins’ on the envelope because there are only two of us now and somehow a mom and her daughter don’t seem like a family, so I just gave up. Last year I couldn’t even contemplate trying. Actually, if memory serves, I just wanted Christmas to go away. This year, I was enthusiastic about buying cards and find to my surprise I can write “Love Sara & Jessie” just fine. Progress.
I cook dinner for the teens. It’s weird, but it seems every time Naomi comes over, I have cooked a meal. This may not seem weird to people who cook dinner every night, but as I do not belong to that club, it’s pretty remarkable that the three last times Naomi came to our house there was a tasty nutritious homecooked meal on the table. I’m not the only one surprised by this phenomenon. As I keep producing more dishes (this is a kale/apple/feta salad, this is a butter lettuce/avocado salad, oh, and here are the roasted carrots and garlic bread from the oven) my daughter exclaims mom! You cooked a meal!
I fear a lot has been made in previous blog posts about my impoverished cooking skills. I just don’t want you to think I was exaggerating. When Jessie’s not home, I generally dine on a cheese sandwich. Occasionally I forget to eat dinner altogether. Anyway, Naomi’s happy. She still remembers the day I met her on our road on my way to work. She was coming to visit Jessie, but Jessie wasn’t home. Never mind, I told her, if you’re hungry, there’s a crockpot meal cooked, just let yourself in and help yourself. She did exactly that. When I got home later, I found a note beside the crockpot: Just what I needed! Thanks Sara, delicious! Naomi probably thought I cook tasty crockpot meals every other day. That was the first one. There have been no others. One can live in hope.
Now, however, she’s under no illusions. Although she insists that every time she comes to my house I’ve cooked, Jessie strives to impress upon her what a series of weird coincidences that is. I can see that Naomi is unsure, so I weigh in. Really, I almost never cook. You’ve just been lucky. She looks a bit confused, but finally accepts the general weirdness of the situation. We finish dinner and pile the dishes in the sink. Who will wash them? I will leave you to guess at that one. It may take three days, but finally I will cave. Because I am a bad parent with no boundaries. And because I will have run out of dishes.
The teens repair to the bedroom and I continue writing Christmas cards and try to imagine what it would be like if there were any dessert in our house. Eventually, my fertile imagination proves too strong for the realities of the situation and I walk around to the 7-11 for ice-cream and chocolate. On the walk home, I look in the lighted windows along my road and wonder how many households sat down to a nutritious home-cooked meal tonight. Probably all of them. It’s not really all that exotic outside of our house. When I get home I deliver the ice-cream to the teen bedroom (the chocolate did not quite make it home). Now Naomi thinks that as well as cooking dinner, I provide tasty desserts. Well, let the poor girl think that. Who knows, the next time she comes over, she might just hit the jackpot again. As long as it’s not for a few months
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