The Past Year V: Late Winter

There aren't a lot of days of winter as the year runs out, less than two weeks before the next year starts.  The more lengthy period of winter of course starts a long time before, in January lasting into March as we fled, happily, from 2020.  It gradually but steadily became apparent that the promise of 2021--a sane president, a competent vaccination rollout, more social intermingling, a strong sane stock market, everybody getting vaccinated so we reach herd immunity, an end of the pandemic?--was a chimera and 2021 turned out to be worse, lots worse than 2020, if that was possible.  (Walking to pickle ball on the footpaths I discovered between houses mid block as I found convenient street parking spaces a few blocks from the crowded courts, which used up nearby parking.)

But the last few days of 2021 had certain pleasures in and of themselves.  I enjoyed the physicality of playing pickle ball four times a week, a couple of hours each time, if not the result because I'm not on the level with my fellow seniors who have been playing for a couple of years or more and these players are not shy about crushing anyone.  Pickle ball is a four-player game, at least at my age, and I am death, due to my inexperience, to any partner who has to cycle through playing with me as I am on the losing end 90% of the time and it is very frustrating.  But December was an extraordinarily temperate month, right up to the end, so I "enjoyed" my punishment right to the end of the year.  (The Christmas season is a time for giving as well as receiving so I donated double red blood cells on Christmas Eve, my fifth blood donation last year.) 

Christmas was a pleasure this year as I didn't spend it frozen on my porch exchanging presents as in 2020, instead I spent it luxuriously and quietly with a friend as we trimmed the tree I brought over, had bloody marys, enjoyed omelets for brunch, and gave special presents to each other (she gave me a real pickle ball paddle to replace my starter plywood $10 introductory model and I gave her a zip-up fleece jacket which she seemed to like).  Will we be able to stroll down a crowded aisle in a crowded store next Christmas season albeit with masks?  We'll see.  Get vaccinated and boosted you selfish, unpatriotic unvaccinated ignoramuses out there and maybe we'll get there.  (A pleasurable day.)

On the first day of winter in December I went on an enjoyable holiday lights perambulation around the District.  It's always a pleasure to see the festive decorations and gayly trimmed and lit trees even though this year certain outstanding venues were closed to tourists like the Library of Congress, the Botanical Gardens and the Trump International Hotel.  It is still holiday season with the MLK holiday coming up on Monday so Happy Holidays to all and maybe I'll see some or all of my children at the Lost Dog at noon on that day for lunch.  Wink wink, boys.  (The beautiful tree at the Willard Hotel.  I was getting the stink eye from the concierge behind me as the way I was dressed, I obviously wasn't a guest.)

The Christmas Lights

(The Union Station tree.)  Every year I venture to the District to perambulate about to see the beautiful Christmas Trees there. I used to sometimes do it at night, running, sometimes leading a group of runners from the Ellipse ( the National Christmas Tree) to Capitol Hill (the Congressional Tree) and many of the points in between. Indoors, outdoors, most are beautiful. Those years when I was injured I used a Capital Bikeshare bike to get about to see whatever trees I could find, as I did this year in two trips to the District earlier this month.  (My tree.)

The Great Pandemic made it hard these last two years, many of the indoor venues were closed up tight, especially last year, and many outdoor sites were scaled back.  But I continued the tradition and here are some of the pictures from this year.  (The Peace Officers Tree.  Each ornament represents a local fallen police officer over the years.)

The most beautiful tree was the tree inside the Willard Hotel.  I really wanted to see the Library of Congress tree, which I saw in 2019 and considered then to be the most beautiful tree I had ever seen in the District, but it was closed on the Monday when I went this year and I was denied entry on the Wednesday when I went when it was supposed to be open.  I was told on that day it was "Reservations Only" although there was absolutely no line and they hadn't made that qualification apparent on the Monday when I had talked to them about when I could come back.  Too bad!  (The inside Willard Hotel tree.)

A great tree every year is on the outdoor plaza at the Canadian Embassy where it overlooks Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Capitol.  It's across the street from the FTC, where I worked for a quarter century.  (O Canada!)

The Congressional Tree on the lawn on the west side of the Capitol is always a great tree.  The Capitol backdropping it had a fresh coat of whitewash around its lower level, due to the murderous Maggot Mob that desecrated the People's House earlier this year as they tried to usurp our government as they pushed the Big Lie to invalidate a majority of the presidential votes cast last year.  (A wreath-like holiday decoration on the facing of the Smithsonian Textile Museum.)

There was a creche on the Ellipse, along with the National Tree and a small tree for each state or territory, and not much else. No Menorah or Santa's Shop or electric train running around the National Tree.  It used to be so much better.  (Meh.)

There were indoor trees at Union Station (no Norwegian mountain village this year), the Navy Memorial, the Hotel Monaco, the Smithsonian Castle and nice holly decorations around the enclosed central courtyard of the National Portrait Gallery.  New this year was a wreath-like decoration fronting one of the Smithsonian museums.  (The Smithsonian Castle Tree.)

There were stacks of coal heaped outside the Trump International Hotel where a sign warned away anyone entering who wasn't a guest or a gust of a guest.  This hotel inside the Postal Pavillon is leased from the federal government and is in effect public property and in years past has had a pretty tree, just as it probably has this year.  (The Congressional Tree.)

Meanwhile, I can't wait for this year to end.  The Boulder County wildfire spawned by 100 MPH winds even as I write this is burning up the very area where my rental investment property is.  I'll have to wait and see how that comes out.  One last kick in the ass by 2021 as it goes out?  (The interior courtyard space at the National Portrait Gallery.)

Nobody Came

 Well, nobody came to the Lost Dog during the noon hour on Veteran's Day that I recognized so I enjoyed my libation and Dog Collars in solitude. Strange men those three sons of mine, or rather, they're bizarre human beings now that they are fully mature, at least physically. I deny any input in the formation of their adult characters, who blindly shut out family members in unthinking allegiance to an overpowering figure, in this case their mother who is, in my opinion, a covert narcissist. Maybe they're all Trumpites, in mindless idolatry to that destructive egomaniacal person as well.

But life goes on. We lost a friend of mine last week, and an inspiration, Father Michael Hinson, an associate priest at my church who helped me immeasurably in my grief at the loss of my children. He was a man of God, who effortlessly spread wisdom, consideration and succor, and I send my condolences to his grief-stricken family for the sudden and premature passing of this wise, thoughtful and compassionate man. At the April 11th service dealing with Doubting Thomas he gave the sermon and I jotted down in my diary "proof of God." This prompts me to remember Michael pointing out that proof of God is evident all around us, from that beautiful April Morn gracing our outdoor service to the ineffable joys that occur in our lives. 

This week I got my booster shot, a Pfizer dose, as it had been over seven months since I received my second Moderna vaccination. Being a patriotic American who cares about my fellow beings, I am keeping myself protected against the Covid scourge in order to ameliorate my potential impact upon our health care system should I get infected and additionally I am protecting all those around me because I am unlikely to fall victim now to the infection. Plus I wear a mask when I am around strangers, especially indoors.

Any American not vaccinated by now without a valid reason is a dangerous ignoramus who should be wearing a bearskin for clothes and live in a cave warmed by fire, with a chipped stone spearpoint bound onto a roughhewn branch with dried animal gut strips holding it in place as his or her most cherished possession, granted full protection by the Second Amendment. (Father Hinson, in the white robe, conducting an outdoor service in March at the Falls Church.)

November 11th

 Tomorrow is Veteran's Day, a midweek holiday this year to honor all veterans everywhere. A time for somber reflection to consider all the heroic sacrifices of our troops, soldiers in the Revolution who seized all those airport tarmacs, the Union troops in the Civil War who fought far from home to Make America Great by giving a version of freedom to all Americans, those who went Over There in a chimeric bid to End All Wars, the resolute warriors of our Greatest Generation who beat back fascism abroad, the stalwarts who stopped Communist aggression in Korea, and the brave men and women who fought in the waste of war in Vietnam and are fighting in the error of the War on Terror.

Grandad went, aboard a destroyer in the North Sea in World War I.

So did Uncle Harry, commanding a marine gun battery aboard the USS Vincennes in the Pacific against the Japanese.  Also Uncle Bill humping the hills in the Philippines and Uncle Bob high above the Mediterranean flying a B-26 Widowmaker.

And Dad, storming the beaches of and surviving six months of close-in combat on the hellish infernos of Peleliu and Okinawa.

And Jack who manned the line against terror in 1983.  Brave, resolute men all.

Hey JJ&D.  It being a holiday tomorrow, I'll be at the Lost Dog at noon; come along with your crew and I'll share my pizza with you and start filling you all in on the strong, wonderful family that you don't know Jacks*it about.

Children & Disappointments

 My dad used to joke that children are an expensive and gut wrenching form of constant entertainment.  As for me, I paid for child support for my three children for more than a decade at a rate that far exceeded my ability to pay given my liquidity and astounding legal bills at the time and expressed my love for them by physically presenting myself at their mother's curb for my court-ordered visitation every other Friday and every holiday only to suffer the humiliation of being met with an unanswered cell phone call during those moments and the regret that my covert narcissist (in my opinion) ex-wife was teaching them as juveniles to be as consumist scofflaws as herself in adhering to judges' orders and the societal norms of humanity in the four of them's disdain and contempt for mandated visitation.

However, love persists.  I had hoped that one or more of the three of them would have showed up to begin the first day of the rest of our lives after all these years of silence and unjustifiable estrangement for lunch today on this Presidents Day holiday, but being under the domineering and destructive thrall, still, of their deeply flawed mother is still too great for these three strapping men in their thirties to have exercised any decency yet towards their other parent and his family.

It was a nice day for being a February day in Virginia in the midst of an historic pandemic and I parked by the front door of the Lost Dog Cafe and at noon entered the premises, looked around but didn't recognize anybody there and ordered an Italian Pie and returned to my vehicle to await its preparation, watching the ingress and egress into and out of the restaurant the whole time.  Around 12:35 the establishment called to report that the pizza was ready and I picked it up, brought it to my car and enjoyed a lunch of a slice of pizza while I listened to the radio and watched the door.

The meal was delicious, marinara sauce and cheese slathered over sliced onion, pepperoni, ham and salami, and at the end of the hour I left three uneaten slices in the box as a talisman for Better Luck Next Time and drove away, disappointed a hundred or more times over.  Two of my boys have birthdays in the upcoming weeks and I'll be there then, again.

MLK, Jr. day

 Two holidays and a birthday in January; two birthdays and a holiday in February.  No luck in January but I'll keep trying at least through next month.

Yesterday on the MLK, Jr. holiday I went at noon to the Lost Dog Cafe in Westover where I parked right in front of the door to the gourmet pizzeria, went in and ordered a Greek Pizza to go and when it was ready, took it out to my car to enjoy it in it as I listened to a rock station on Sirius radio.  It is the pandemic after all and I didn't want to eat inside the restaurant, although it offers limited indoor dining.

I ate a slice of the pie, a delicious mixture of fresh tomato slices, marinara sauce, feta cheese, onions and olives, a vegetarian's delight, as I watched the people going in and out of the eatery for the hour I was there.  I didn't see anyone I recognized, although since I haven't seen any of my three children since they were minors (they're all in their thirties now) I might be hard-pressed to know them if I saw them, but they surely could recognize me and in any case no likely candidates age-wise passed through the door of the restaurant.

Leaving some uneaten as a talisman for their hoped for appearance at one of the holiday/birthday dates next month, I drove away wondering at the compassion/humanity traits these three boys-turned-men might possess or rather, not possess.  That's not how I was raised by my family.

The current year

 It's Christmas time, a time to see family, normally at least.  Except in times of pandemic.  And in cases of Parental Alienation System.  (Yesterday.)

Hope springs eternal for changing these anomalies.  A vaccine, even though available doses are way less, for now, than promised, will ameliorate the unchecked nature of the raging deadly coronavirus and when the next administration institutes new measures such as mask wearing and contact tracing, the pandemic might finally start to be subdued after a ten-month false or non-start.  I have hoped to see my three children, now all in their 30s, ever since the last time I saw or spoke to any of them around mid-decade after the turn of the century.  Every holiday or birthday when I am in town, continuing on to the present, I have lunch at the gourmet pizzeria near where they grew up, detailing my intentions, and describing the lunch afterwards, in my former blog dcspinster, but not one has ever showed up. (End of February.)

This year I was at the Lost Dog Cafe pizzeria on their three birthdays and most holidays--the restaurant wasn't available for inside seating most holidays after mid-March until recently, but I won't eat inside a restaurant during these times of infection and sickness, so I order a pizza to go from the parking lot, receive it a quarter hour later, and remain for a time afterward to see if anyone who could conceivably be one or more of my sons shows or even my daughter-in-law shows up, but no one did so far as I know.  Que sera sera.  The restaurant is closed on Christmas so it won't happen tomorrow.  Or maybe ever but that's all right; although I love each of them as any father would love his children, I have come to know their characters through their unbelievable and unjustified actions in casting out their father and his family based upon brainwashing by their mother and her paid coterie of family wreckers as adolescents. (Mid February.)

I want to wish a Merry Christmas to JJ&D, and Laura too, wherever she may be, and the grandkids.  Next year will be better.  (First week of January.)