Christmas in Central Wisconsin

Christmas Eve Day

Personal tragic outfit worn at grocery store and running errands:
Cropped jeans with tan socks, maroon leg warmers, hiking boots, oversized men’s hooded brown sweatshirt, glasses, greasy hair in ponytail and zits.

Public tragic outfits found in grocery stores and restaurants:
Christmas-decorated t-shirts and sweatshirts, ornament or bell (or both) earrings, bracelets and necklaces (all worn at the same time), Reindeer ear headbands, glasses, torn and dirty oversized puffy coats, oversized guts, elastic jeans.

Christmas Eve Night

Chinese Restaurant Buffet:
Father (from Chicago) whispers, “they have onion rings on the buffet. That seems strange?” I whisper back, “Welcome to Central Wisconsin, Dad! Did you also see the deep-fried cheese curds next to the dumplings and sliced cling peaches in thick syrup?”

Movie and Cake at Home:
“March of the Penguins.” Sad, hard life. Wouldn’t evolution take care of this hard life by now? Isn’t this proof enough that there is no god? Why would god let these poor little creatures live like this? Can’t we build them a heated hut and a conveyer belt?

Yule log cake from Lutz Bakery in Chicago – Delicissimosso! Despite the fact that they forgot to add the cute little marzipan mushrooms.

Christmas Day

Present Opening – Breakfast Morning:
Breakfast consisted of leftover snacks from night before and bacon (what?) Mom bought the German a cashmere sweater – way too sophisticated for this guy. She bought me a scarf made from Kimono remnants with beads hanging from the bottom. Scarf – nice. Beads – not. Stinker got Scooby Do treats. Dad got Harry Potter wand (what?). Mom got a bug vacuum that traps them live (what?)

Christmas Dinner
Mom and Dad decided to make two main entrees in case one of us didn’t like one (what?). The menu consisted of a stuffed crown pork roast, beef stroganoff with egg noodles, braised red onions, roasted new potatoes, broccoli casserole, crab stuffed mushrooms, broiled tomatoes, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, green salad and dinner rolls. There were four of us (what?).

Boiling scum off okra

I wonder if newspapers still print “Dear Santa” letters? I remember mine was printed in the Evanston Review back in 1972. I also remember my letter was the only one that was typed in professional letter form, and opened with a very catchy Christmas rhyme - something like “On Dasher, on Prancer, on….” In a perfectly ordered indented list, my “Santa Wishes” included 13 toys (like the Krissy Doll with the retractable ponytail) and one bone for my dog, Max. The closing paragraph included the types of cookies I would leave for Santa, and a wish for his safe and successful trip. My father had typed the letter for me after rejecting the handwritten one I had given him to mail. I’m sure the newspaper editors thought I was the biggest 3rd grade asshole in the world with my fancy-pants typed letter next to all these scribbley handwritten notes. Complete humiliation.

Hair removal: It’s a part time job for me. For anyone who has even the slightest trace of Eastern European blood, you know what I’m talking about. Jesus. I wonder if I’ll still be able to flip my legs behind my head in the bathtub when I’m 60 to get those “hard to reach” places?

Lately I’ve been hanging out once a week with these new cool people, (new meaning in my circle of people), and the discussion turned to “Catch 22.” The conversation turned into a literary analysis, and stuff like the character and agency, notion of self, sexist brilliance, blah blah blah. It was way too sophisticated for me. I mean I like to talk about that stuff on rare occasions, but I’m really more of a superficial kind of gal. People may think I’m deep or sophisticated when they meet me, but I’m as shallow as they come. Surface, baby, surface.

Today, I came across “Bruce’s Manual of the Street” in my 37th attempt to clean my home office (still not working). It was published in 1987 by Bruce Wells, who was a homeless guy in Chicago selling it on the streets. It’s one of the most useful reference books I own, and I frequently make copies and give them as gifts (I gave him an extra $5 for total copyright infringement rights). Here’s the table of contents:

Food, Caution, Economy
Vitamins, Awareness
Living Out
Cigarettes
Hanging Out
Not Getting Kicked Out
Rain, Bags, Rain Gear
Clothes, Mothers
Laundry
Health, A.B.D.
Teeth, Bathing, Toothaches
Horrible Smellness
Tar Bugs, Lice, Piss Pucks
Shelter, Grid Sheet
Bed Rolls
Cold, Layers
Money
Storage
Getting Back In
Picking Junk
Odds and Ends

The book opens with a warning that states, “In some cases, the ideas that are found in this book may be, immoral, injurious, dangerous, impolite, or elsehow unwise. The author does not advocate things illegal or dumb.” There’s an entire illustration of how to wear garbage bag rain gear, and how to not get kicked out of shelters by doing things like flea scratching, smelling bad, psychotic behavior, or getting caught in the dumpster. He even has health advice and suggestions like a “pizza that might kill one person could cure another,” and that “getting rid of air-borne disease in an infested shelter is like trying to boil the scum off okra.” Wherever you are Bruce, I’m sure you’ve saved many lives, and I’m sure you’re still trying to figure out a better way to get rid of okra scum.