I want to tell you about my trip with Elizabeth to visit the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD, pronounced MY-add), but I just wrote a huge long email to my parents about it, and I don’t feel like typing it out again; so I am going to cut-and-paste (and I will try to shorten it) and edit it a little so it makes sense as a post. Which I don’t usually do, so you may notice my tone seems Off; it’s because I was talking to my parents rather than to you!—but also to you, because as I was writing the email I started thinking I would probably use it as a blog post.

It was, overall, a very good trip.

I will start with the very worst thing, to get it out of the way, and then I will talk about everything else as a palate cleanser. The worst thing was that Elizabeth left her backpack, which contained her laptop, her driver’s license, her debit card, a fair chunk of cash she estimates at $35 so I’m guessing it was at least double that (i.e., I think she would want to downplay how much it was), her earbuds, etc., plus the backpack itself which was a relatively recent (this school year) expensive ($50, and that was on a good sale) purchase, on a bus; and, even though we discovered the loss within an hour, and even though it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that the “leaving behind of backpack” would combine in a single hour on a particular bus with a representative of “the tiny percentage of the population who would steal a backpack rather than turn it in,” we did in fact hit those odds, and her backpack and her possessions are gone. When we arrived at our motel on Friday afternoon, instead of being able to relax into it after a day well spent on successfully figuring out the buses and a successful visit to an art museum and successfully figuring out more buses and successfully figuring out how to get our motel so we could relax and eat candy and watch TV, we instead had JUST discovered the loss of the backpack, and so spent a big chunk of time in high distress, making phone calls and freezing the debit card and making lists of what she could remember was in the backpack and trying to figure out for the bus company which bus we’d been on (we got a time-stamp off a photo we’d taken right before boarding the bus). We still had hope that we would find the backpack the next day, even though that involved a complicated maneuver (the administrative offices were closed for the weekend, so the only way to check was to go in person, by bus, to a particular central administrative bus location) but we felt we could figure that out in heroic necessity—but we did accomplish that complicated figuring-out, and we were not rewarded for our efforts, and the station attendant agreed with us in a VERY Wisconsin/midwestern way that we could count on this meaning the backpack had been stolen.

We are using a lot of Coping Thoughts. My primary Coping Thought is the one about how if a problem can be solved affordably with money, it is not a real problem. That is: no one was hurt, no one died, nothing permanent has happened; and by throwing money in various directions, we can fix most of this. The money is painful, but it is doable. If during our trip to Milwaukee, Elizabeth or I had been hit by a bus and permanently injured, THAT would be a real problem. Instead, we just need to send money and time and effort in the directions of a bank and a backpack company and a laptop company and the DMV and etc., and then it will be basically Fixed. But so far I am still waking up in the wee hours of each morning and thinking “WHY!! didn’t I check around us when we left the bus???” and “WHY!!! didn’t SHE remember her backpack???” and “HOW!!! did we manage to encounter the tiny-percentage-chance of a thief??” and so forth. And I keep thinking “BUT MAYBE we will still find it???” and then realizing no: if it were going to be found unstolen, it would have happened at the end of the bus day when the bus was being cleaned; and that was what we were checking when we went in person to the central bus station the next day. The clerk even went out to the cleaning station for us, just to make sure it hadn’t been put aside by a driver who then forgot to bring it to lost-and-found, and it had not been. The backpack and its contents are GONE. And the lucky, lucky, lucky thing is that Elizabeth had the presence of mind to cancel her debit card immediately, before anything happened with that.

Let’s move on.

We were stymied by the bus system. I had thought it would not be too difficult, but I had not realized we would need either exact change or a bus card or an app, so there was some scrambling. Partly we managed the situation because of the famous midwest attitude: each bus driver we encountered seemed fully prepared to delay the bus for as long as it took to explain to us what we should do. I was reminded of an inexplicable-yet-somehow-still-relatable meme I once saw, which said something along the lines of how people in the northeast/south/whatever were nice but not kind, and people in the midwest were kind but not nice. Each bus driver was non-smiling, direct, kind of short/barky with us—and yet, each one looked at us directly as people, assessed our situation, and genuinely tried to help us to the best of their abilities. One driver told us not to pay her, because she couldn’t give us a transfer if we were paying cash; she then drew our attention to the stop at which we should get off, and tried her best to explain to us how to achieve the next bus (we were unable to manage it, but that was not her fault). Another driver told us we should acquire a certain app on our phones; we had strong doubts, but it turned out that was the absolute best way to do everything. Another driver, when Elizabeth could not get her phone to pull up the ticket we’d paid for, just waved her onto the bus. This level of competence and care is the main of many reasons why, when the relevant bus drivers said the backpack was not on their buses, and when the station attendant left for more than ten minutes to check to make sure the backpack was not in the wash-house, we believed that the backpack was Truly Gone. Each time I am lying awake wondering if we should call back AGAIN, I think of this: if it were on the bus, it would have ended up with a driver, or at the wash-house; it did not end up with a driver or at the wash house; therefore it is GONE. I see I am talking about it again, rather than palate-cleansing. But my assumption is that your minds too will be spinning with possibilities where the backpack might yet be found, or where maybe if we just call one more time….

We really did feel TRIUMPHANT, figuring out the buses on this trip. At first it felt insurmountable—and it was SO COLD there, and WINDY, and we were STRANDED right off the bat, dropped off in the middle of Milwaukee by one bus and unable to figure out how to find our next bus. But we used Google Maps and we DID find the Milwaukee Art Museum, and it was about half a mile away from where we were, so we just walked. We were nearly numb by the time we go there, but we DID get there. And then we got to the point of Emergency Hunger/Thirst while there, and so we spent I am not kidding $35 on two servings of mac-and-cheese and a coffee at the museum cafe we had trouble finding and had to ask TWICE in order to find it, but we DID do that and it WAS the only right thing to do, because then we had to retrace our steps more than half a mile in the freezing cold and find our bus stop to the motel, which we DID DO, and which we COULD NOT HAVE DONE if not fortified. I consider the $35 to have been a co-pay for a medical treatment. (We don’t travel much, and I have made a mental note: we need to eat BEFORE we are hungry, because once we are hungry we can’t figure it out and can’t cope. I can Coping Thought one “medical co-pay” meal, but not more than that.)

It was when we got back to our motel that we realized we were missing the backpack, and I will just skip over those hours of stress and phone calls and so on.

The next day was by all measures a resounding success. We started at the wrong bus stop; we eventually realized that, and used the app to find the correct bus stop. We then realized we were half an hour early, and would die of exposure before the bus arrived. We went back to our motel room and warmed up. We set out again, for the correct bus stop at the correct time. We felt grateful for my anxiously over-abundant time-padding: we got on the correct bus at the correct time, and even with our false-start delays we still got to MIAD with plenty of time to spare. We browsed around the college neighborhood until our extremities were in danger. We went in, and signed in at a table with multiple sign-in people—and, when Elizabeth said her name, someone at the other end of the table overheard and called out “Elizabeth!! Hi!!! I’m your admissions counselor!! Come talk to me afterward if you have any questions!”

After checking in, we went downstairs and there was a nice muffins-and-coffee breakfast, which we consumed gratefully: being cold and figuring out buses apparently burns a lot of energy. Then there was the session, and we learned a lot about the school, and it all sounded good to me: there was lots of emphasis on preparing art students for Actual Paying Jobs, and I felt I was becoming sold on the idea of an art school, or at least THIS art school. Then there was a tour that turned out to be self-guided, which was disappointing to hear, since we have learned from experience that self-guided tours are almost worthless. But this one turned out to be fine, because the entire college (exclusive of dorms) is in one large building, and we were allowed to go pretty much everywhere—unlike other self-guided tours where we have looked at the outsides of buildings. I let Elizabeth lead the way through the place, and she seemed to me to be rather intense/researchy about it. We spent HOURS there. I played a lot of Pokemon Go, caught so many pokemon, spun so many pokestops.

The college is small, and it is art-only. Those are two things Elizabeth said she did not want. After the info session and tour, and then our afternoon intensive bus tour of Milwaukee (not yet described), I thought she must be reconsidering. But no: this visit confirmed for her that she wants a university-that-includes-an-art-college, NOT just-an-art-college. She says if she later changes her mind and wants an only-art school, she would want MIAD, and she can definitely see living in Milwaukee.

Happily, MIAD fed us lunch before we left, because then we had to figure out how to get a bus from MIAD to the bus station that had the weekend lost-and-found, and then figure out how to get from there back to our motel. We accomplished both of those things. The bus station attendant was the same non-smiling, kind-of-abrupt type, who then turned out to be someone who went allllll the extra miles to try to find the backpack, and seemed genuinely and still-not-smiling-ly invested in finding it, and genuinely sorry not to have found it. She also looked basically exactly like the entire Wisconsin branch of my family: stout and shortish, fair and rosy, short hair, glasses, no make-up. When I asked if in her experience there was any hope after this point of the backpack turning up, she made exactly the face that means no it was stolen, with exactly the words that don’t say no but mean no, which I can’t exactly remember, but were clear at the time, accompanied by an obvious display of sympathy and regret and wishing the world were not the way that it is.

From there we managed to get back to our motel, and by this time we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves for ticking every task off our list, and also on the verge of utter collapse. We sat in our motel, eating candy and watching TV and recharging. After a couple of hours, at about 4:00, Elizabeth said she wished we had something else to do. I said yes but that there was nothing I could think of, especially with the sun going down soon. Then I said well…we still had our day-passes for the bus, and we could…just ride the bus. She said yes and stood up and got her coat. So we rode the bus, continuing to feel pretty pleased with ourselves for learning even as much as we had learned. Elizabeth was looking intently out the window at Milwaukee, really seeming to evaluate it, as she had on previous bus rides.

Milwaukee made a very good impression on both of us. It was similar to the big city near us, sort of, but all the manageable/good parts, none of the bad/oppressive parts. During the MIAD info session, they mentioned something about Milwaukee having the DENSITY of Chicago, but SMALLER, and that seems just about right. We heard ONE siren the entire time we were there, as opposed to our nearby city’s constant wails. There was no barf on the sidewalks, unlike our nearby city. There was a drunk guy at a bus stop, but he was benevolent. There were a lot of charming buildings. There was public transportation that seemed like it would be really good if you lived there instead of just being a dim visitor who didn’t know east from west. It felt like a city, but a MANAGEABLE/LIVABLE city. And there was a LOT of art: murals and sculptures and studios and etc.

At some point the bus was feeling kind of crowded and the sun was going down, and Elizabeth said we should get off and head back the other way, so we did—except first, right at the place we got off was a Penzeys Spices store, the spices of the revolution, which I started ordering online from in, oh, 2016 or 2017. So we went in and I bought a bunch of spices. THEN we headed back. We got back after dark, which I’d said I wanted to avoid—except the bus stop was right at our motel’s parking lot, so that was okay; and meanwhile we got to see Milwaukee At Night, and a very pretty sunset.

Back comfy and safe in our motel, we ordered delivery pizza/dessert and watched soothing programs on TV: the one where the guy deals with dog problems that are always owner problems; the one where a realtor and a designer compete to get a couple to either stay in their existing home or move to a new home; the one where some guy? is just inexplicably living on a big property? with a bunch of rescue animals? and, like, taking off his shirt pretty often?

Anyway, good trip. We are still waiting for the backpack stress to fade, but I feel that it will, and already it is less.

We went grocery shopping this morning, and when we returned with the groceries there was half an inch of water in the mudroom, steam on all the windows, and the mysterious sound of rushing/spraying water—like the sound when the washing machine is filling. A hot water pipe in a closet had burst; and really, if a pipe were going to burst, it almost couldn’t have done so more conveniently: in the mud room, which has a literal DRAIN in the floor (there was a carpet over the drain, which is why the water had built up to half an inch or so, but as soon as I moved the carpet it all went swirling down); it happened while we were gone, yes, but we came back very soon after it started, apparently, and if we’d NOT left home I don’t know how long it would have taken us to go out to the mud room and see that something was wrong; and, like, NOT in the middle of the night when it could have done FAR more damage and wasted FAR more water before being discovered. Very, very considerate.

Paul first tried to, like, fix it while it was spraying? And then I wondered aloud about wasn’t there some sort of water shut-off, so he went flying into the house to shut that off, and he didn’t wipe his feet (AS USUAL) and karma chose that delicate moment to give him a little instruction about foot-wiping, so down he went, very dramatic but unhurt, and then up again and turned off the water. Elizabeth was in the shower, it turned out, because about five minutes later she appeared in our midst saying that the water had “suddenly disappeared.” Meanwhile Paul had done whatever it was he did to separate that pipe from the others, and had turned the water back on, so she went back up and finished showering. An invigorating start to the day for all involved!

Elizabeth has been accepted into the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, so we are planning a little field trip out there, even though it is exactly what she said she didn’t want: small, and art-only. But she is interested. I would be interested in hearing anything anyone knows about it. And I do mean anything: if you know it to be, say, an overpriced and low-quality school that accepts literally anyone, then don’t worry about hurting my parental feelings, just go right ahead and spill. I have seen plenty of things about how some art schools are great and some art schools are for people who can’t get into real college, so I will not be shocked by anything you say. Well, let’s not speak too soon. But I DOUBT I will be shocked by anything you say.

Elizabeth and Edward both got into one of the safety schools they both applied to, and that is a huge relief: now, no matter what other colleges they do or don’t get into, they CAN go to a perfectly acceptable, relatively-reasonably-priced college.

I am trying to take the long view. I am trying very hard to take the long view. I remember this from the last two times: the decision feels SO IMPORTANT, and it IS so important—but it is impossible to know in what ways it is important. Perhaps their SOUL MATES (and potentially THE OTHER PARENTS OF MY GRANDCHILDREN) are at certain ones of these schools!! Yes, and there is no way to know which ones. Perhaps their DREAM JOBS will come from certain ones of these schools!! Yes, and there is no way to know which ones. Perhaps their LIFELONG FRIENDS are at certain ones of these schools!! Yes, and there is no way to know which ones. And so ALL of those things have to be scratched out of the equation. What matters for each twin’s choice is that the school is a perfectly acceptable school, and that we can pay for it within reason. Everything else is extra, and the luck of the draw.

One of my co-workers graduated from this same safety school the twins have both been accepted to. She went there in not-at-all-ideal circumstances: she got into her dream school, and had to transfer after freshman year because of a dramatic change in family situation/finances. She was bitter and resentful and says she was prepared to hate everything and everyone—and then she ended up loving the new school MUCH more than she’d loved her initial choice. Her daughter now goes to the same safety school under different but similarly resentful circumstances: she missed the GPA cut-off for her dream school by a tiny amount, and the school wouldn’t bend on it. Her intention was to go to the safety school for one year to bring her grades up and then transfer—but then she ended up loving the safety school so much, she stopped wanting to transfer.

Both twins find this safety school very, very boring, but I am feeling happy.

I have an update on the tattoo progress. I have achieved an appointment with the tattoo artist I wanted, for March!! In the immortal words of TMBG, everyone’s excited and confused.

As I was trying to fill out the appointment-request form under intense time pressure, I realized I SIMPLY COULD NOT choose an upper-arm tattoo from among the many appealing candidates: an upper-arm tattoo was my first choice, but that first choice was not yet Ready, EVEN INCORPORATING the realization that I have TWO upper arms. I could, however, choose with confidence a tulip tattoo on my calf. So I filled out the form for tulip tattoo on my calf, and my appointment request was accepted.

Of course immediately after celebrating I began having fretful follow-up feelings. First fretful follow-up feeling: I think I said TOO SMALL a tattoo. The form required a size, and I said approximately six inches. But I think I probably meant eight. Or ten? I don’t want a WEE MINIATURE. On the other hand, my summer “shorts” are a source of affectionate teasing in my household: the claim is that my summer shorts are about three inches shorter than my winter jeans. And it’s true they are RATHER MODEST, as shorts go, and they do descend BELOW THE KNEES. And I do not want my tulip tattoo to be visible in shorts as only STEM!

The ONLY THING I would need to do to alleviate/justify this fret is go put on my summer shorts and measure how much calf is visible, but somehow I am not doing this and am instead just doing the fretting part.

Second fretful follow-up feeling: the tulip is a pleasing choice to me because I like tulips and think they are pretty, and they are one of my favorite flowers, and I find them psychologically supportive in winter (the comforting anticipation of them coming up in spring, but also they are available from my grocery store in January/February so I buy them weekly) and I think they are fun as calf tattoos. But ALSO, I’m half Dutch, so there is a pleasing little ancestral reference there. SO WHY DIDN’T I THINK EARLIER OF HAVING MY BIRTH SURNAME INCORPORATED INTO THE TATTOO?? Well, I still can! I hope! And if not: I can go back for another appointment and get it added then.

Let’s say your child has a new friend, and your child has told you that this friend’s name is Cameron and that Cameron uses they/them pronouns. Then let’s say that Cameron’s mother drops Cameron off at your house and says to you, “Oh, so Chloe is getting picked up by her dad at 4:00—but if that falls through, I can come get her, but not until 6:00, is that okay?”

Here was the response I wanted to communicate to the mother: That’s fine; or, and probably this is what you’re asking: yes, we can absolutely give the child a ride home.

Here’s what I could not figure out in the surprise and confusion of the moment: How to say that in a way that was correct AND safe, when I didn’t know what the situation was and had just discovered it wasn’t what I’d thought it was. Was Cameron not out to their parents? Was Cameron out to their parents, but the parents weren’t cooperating? Was there some other arrangement, like that Cameron told their parents this was still in the experimental stage and not yet locked-down, and that they (the parents) should continue using Chloe/she/her for now? (Paul wondered if maybe Cameron might be out to their parents AND Cameron’s parents might be respectful of that, but that Cameron’s mom might not know if Cameron is out to US. But…in that situation, Cameron’s mother could easily ASK Cameron ahead of time in the car; and if she’d realized on the spot that she’d forgotten to do that, she would be more careful / less blatant, so I don’t think of that as a real possible scenario.)

In the moment, what I did was I said “Oh, sure, that’s fine, or we can absolutely give her a ride home.” Then Cameron’s mom said “Bye, Chloe!!” and Cameron said “Bye, Mom,” and I closed the door and called out “Henry! Cameron is here!” Partial marks; please see teacher after class.

I am not practiced with this; I am working on improving. Most of my work involves thinking AFTERWARD of what I SHOULD HAVE said in a situation where it turned out I was ill-prepared, and then rehearsing it again and again in my mind so it’ll be readily available to my mouth next time. In this case, what I should have said to Cameron’s mom was something more like “Oh, sure—and WE can give a ride home if needed.” No need to use any pronoun for Cameron, let alone the wrong one. This is the early stages of the process, so I’m hoping I come up with something better to practice, but at least I have SOMETHING. (And then next time it’ll be something ELSE, and I’ll add THAT new modification to my repertoire, and perhaps by the time I die I will be getting some of these right the first time!)

I bought some earrings on clearance. I very nearly did NOT buy them, because they were the only thing I’d found on a trip to TJMaxx, and for whatever reason I dislike buying Just One Thing, especially when I’m still pushing around the entire optimistic-and-now-ridiculous shopping cart. But I was persevering in overcoming that feeling (Coping Thought: the cashier COULD NOT CARE LESS that I am buying just one thing) (okay: Elizabeth, who is a part-time cashier, has notified me that she DOES notice if someone is pushing a cart and buying just one thing, and she DOES wonder What Happened There); but then it was my turn and, at that pivotal moment, one of the two cashiers left and the other one busied herself with something time-consuming, so that I stood there minute after minute, feeling more and more self-conscious and more and more as if I did NOT need to spend eight dollars, even if it WERE a nice clearance, on YET ANOTHER pair of—oh, she’s calling me up, it’s my turn, okay I guess I’m doing it.

And I wore them today and I love them so much more than I was expecting to, and I got SEVERAL comments when normally my earrings elicit NO comments! Do you know what is difficult? Taking a picture of one’s own ear with an earring in it. Here are my two attempts:

Earring blurry and at a non-ideal angle.

Earring a little better but still not right, and now ear looks warped.

ANYWAY the gist is that they’re sort of a safety-pin style, but with a heart. All day I kept noticing them and enjoying them.

I wanted to see if I could find more earrings of a similar type, so I started by searching “safety pin earrings” and found a whole lot of safety pin earrings that looked like safety pins BUT ALSO I found two more pairs by the same brand as mine (Lucky) in gold-tone and in silver-tone. In case you think you might like to buy yourself your own little Valentine’s Day present. I am going to buy one of the two, when I can decide which one I’d prefer.

And HERE are my exact earrings currently unavailable on the Lucky website:

(image from LuckyBrand.com)

I used to actively dislike/avoid heart-shaped jewelry, and I’m not sure what changed but now I am surprising myself by starting to like it. I also have some little red-enamel-heart dangles like the ones in the middle of the top row here, and I am looking forward to wearing them especially in February, and in fact I am thinking of buying the six-pack to have more options:

(image from Amazon.com)

I said above that I’m not sure what changed, but actually I am pretty sure I know exactly what changed, and it was when I stopped thinking of Valentine’s Day as a disappointing day with a boyfriend/husband, and started thinking of it as a fun day of red/pink/hearts/candy with friends and kids and co-workers. I bought heart-shaped plastic plates to serve dinner on, and I bought heart-patterned matching mugs for my friend group, and I buy myself a heart-shaped box of See’s, and I buy giant Hershey Kisses and valentine Little Debbie cakes for the kids, and I send a pop-up valentine to my niece and nephew, and I wear a heart t-shirt to work, and I buy classroom-style valentines for my co-workers just to be silly (this year I’m doing Fun Dip!), and now apparently I also buy heart-shaped earrings.

I was trying to choose a page-a-day calendar, and I ended up buying one that wasn’t even on the list: Effin’ Birds page-a-day calendar. And it turns out I don’t really like it. I’d seen Effin’ Birds images as memes around the internet and had found them funny, but in a page-a-day desk calendar it’s bringing me down. Like, this weekend’s message was “could you shut the f*** up before i die,” which seems less snappy/irreverent and more depressed/mean. Today’s is better (“feel free to leave me out of your bullsh*t”), but I am still shopping for a new calendar. Bright side: most of them are 50% off now! And the longer I dither, the cheaper they get!

Rob’s birthday is very close to Christmas, and this was the first one since his birth that he’s been away from us. The day I was going to be shipping his birthday box (I was waiting for one last-second item that was due to arrive mid-day), I was at the grocery store and I impulsively bought a cake. I had previously considered various cake options, but they all seemed unworkable: I could bake a cake, but there was no way I could successfully package or ship it, and anyway I doubted it would be much good to eat a few days after baking; I could have a cake delivered to him, but the prices for that were astonishing; I could send him a cake mix and a can of frosting, but I didn’t know if he had oil and eggs and cake pans—and it seemed like a collection of Can’t Make It Into Cake elements would be worse than No Cake At All.

But then on the way to the produce section my eye fell on the Entenmann’s display. Those cakes are made to be hold up to a fair amount of slinging-around before they’re sold, and they appeared to be approximately the size of the medium flat-rate box I was planning to use. And they were marked “Best by January 17th,” so Entenmann’s expected them to still taste good TWO WEEKS after the day I would be buying/shipping it. And they were about $7, so I figured even if I shipped one and it was a failure, it was still worth trying for the fun experiment of it and for the symbolic intent of it. And I even got a little test-run of my idea, because the cake fell out of a tipped-over shopping bag on the way home, and it landed upside-down, and there was no consequence: the cake did not come out of its pan, the frosting did not stick to the lid, etc.

And it was apparently a success! Rob said it was particularly amusing to open a box and start taking out presents and find an unexpected CAKE underneath; and also he said he’d just been talking with a friend earlier that day, and had mentioned that he hadn’t thought about a birthday cake until it was too late, so he’d been planning to make do with banana bread. Which is AT LEAST as grim as any bashed-up icing-stuck-to-lid cake I could have sent! (No no—banana bread isn’t grim, it’s DELICIOUS. But as an alternative to birthday cake, on a person’s first independent grown-up birthday away from their parents, chosen ONLY because the person didn’t realize in time that they would need to figure out their own birthday cake—well then it’s grim.)

The one thing I wished I’d thought to include: CANDLES. That would have been so easy, and not expensive! Well, but does he have matches? Probably not. I have a bunch of those cute wee little boxes of matches, but I am NOT AT ALL SURE about sending those through the mail, and my guess is that the answer to any such question posed to the post office would be a gigantic panicked hands-waving-wildly NO. Plus, WOULD he put the candles into the cake, light them, and blow them out, all alone? I am guessing also no. And in fact I feel a little dismal, thinking of it, so now I am glad/relieved I didn’t send the candles. Whew! Close call!

I have one resolution this year, and it’s to get a tattoo. I’ve waffled long enough.

Some progress I’ve already made over the past few years is to find the tattoo artist I want. This was no small task. Any time I saw anyone with a tattoo I liked, I’d ask where they’d gotten it done, and I kept a list. I have a preference for a non-male artist, though I was willing to be flexible on that; but also I want flowers, and a lot of times I’d be looking through an artist’s portfolio and it would be all, like, skulls and snakes and SpongeBob. It’s hard to tell from that how they’d do with the nice pretty flowers I wanted.

Then one of my co-workers came in with some new flower tattoos of exactly the sort I was looking for, and it turns out the artist SPECIALIZES in the realistic flower tattoos I like. And also she is so booked up, she is not even adding to her waiting list anymore. If, however, you are on her email list, she will email when she has cancellations; I don’t know how likely it is to get one of those appointments because I haven’t yet tried, because I’m not yet ready. I am still dithering. I am dithering about LOCATION and I am dithering about ART. I wonder if you would want to discuss this.

For LOCATION I am considering:
• side of calf
• upper arm / shoulder cap

For ART I am considering:
• rose
• peony
• tulip

The main issue for location is this: if I love having a tattoo and I want MORE of them, what I would want would be an entire bouquet on my upper arm and up/over/around the shoulder. But I don’t want to START with that, because that’s wildly ambitious and time-consuming and expensive for something I don’t even know if I’ll like. If I started with one single flower on my upper arm / shoulder cap, it would have to be with the ability to expand it into a bouquet, and that means compromising the design, both of the flower and of the bouquet.

So I could instead do one flower on the side of my calf. I don’t have any grand plans for the calf. And I have seen some cute tattoos where there’s, say, a tulip that starts at the ankle, like it’s growing out of your sock; I don’t know that I want that much whimsy, but it’s an option. Or I like the idea of a big rose or peony there, NOT seeming to grow out of the sock. And so the calf seems like the perfect solution—except that when I think of it, I feel some disappointment that it’s not my upper arm / shoulder cap.

I have to tell you that it only just now occurred to me as I was writing this that I have TWO shoulders/upper-arms. I could get a tattoo on ONE of them now, and then if I love it do the big grand project on the OTHER one. This changes everything: TWO arms! I have TWO!!

The main issue for the art is this: it’s hard to decide, when I love all the options. The rose is so classic it’s cliché, but that’s one of the things I like about it: it’s a TATTOO-tattoo. Plus, roses are the kind of thing where conceptually I roll my eyes, but then I see a real rose and you guys have you LOOKED AT A ROSE THEY ARE SO BEAUTIFUL. Peonies are also gorgeous, and have a similar vibe to a rose while not being a rose, and if I want whimsy I can add a darling round little peony bud. And I love tulips, and I’m predominantly Dutch so that’s pleasing too. A tulip is not as great as a bouquet-starter, but would be perfect for the side of the calf, especially with that nice stem; and I could do TWO tulips, which I think makes it a little less whimsical than just one straight tulip growing right up the calf.

Based on how I feel when I imagine deciding on each flower in turn, I think the most likely is peony on upper arm (ONE of my upper arms!) and second most likely is tulip(s) on calf. I would be very interested to hear YOUR tattoo thoughts—for my tattoos, of course, but even more for your own if you are planning one.

I am not panicking, but today I went to the grocery store, and I was first alerted to The Egg Issue because the entire egg section was filled exclusively with the cheapest store-brand white-shelled eggs. We usually buy the ones where the government has certified that the chickens are kissed on the forehead each night before being sung to sleep in their roomy apartments, so I admit I had a moment where I thought it would be nice to have the excuse to buy the cheap eggs: the petted-chicken eggs used to be $3.29/dozen but recently have been more like $4.39/dozen. But then I noticed that NO, the cheap store-brand eggs were $5.99/dozen!! I thought I must be mistaken—looking at the wrong tag or something. I WAS NOT MISTAKEN. The cheap, large, store-brand eggs were $5.99; the jumbo size were $7.99.

On the way home I heard that the avian flu is a big huge deal right now. I had not bought any eggs, because I was hoping the price was a brief weird thing, but this might not be a brief weird thing. For a moment I wished we had gotten chickens as we have a few times considered doing, but then the news story went on to talk about how chicken-owners need to take precautions and be prepared to have their flocks put down, and I was grateful I only needed to think about the price of eggs.

As long as I am talking about bad news, I have some sad-but-expected cat news: we had to make The Decision about Elizabeth’s Dear Sad-Boy Cat, the one with recurring kidney stones, IBS, and cat laryngitis that turned out to be likely lung cancer. In November I wrote he seemed to have unexpectedly rallied, but then later that month he started losing weight again. He started sometimes missing his footing on a jump, which was alarming. He had a regular annual check-up already scheduled with the vet, so I took him to that, but said to the tech who was doing his little intake interview that I doubted we would be doing his usual senior bloodwork and so forth, but would instead be having The Talk.

And that was indeed the case. The weird pupils, which had turned into weird pupils plus a strange-but-not-gross brownish patch on his iris, turned out to be evidence of the cancer having metastasized to his brain. The missing-his-footing-on-a-jump could be weakness from not eating much, or could be the tumor messing with his brain, or could be the tumor messing with his eyesight, or could be a combination of those things. The vet said if we were emotionally ready she could put him down that very day, or she could buy him maybe a week or two. We asked if he was suffering, and she said she believed he was not—and that if she HAD thought he was suffering, she would not have offered to buy him more time. I consulted with Elizabeth, and we opted to buy him maybe a week or two. This involved first a sort of barrage of treatments to see if we could make him feel well enough to eat better: subcutaneous fluids with vitamins; an anti-nauseant; an appetite stimulant; and an increase in the dose of the steroids he already takes. The vet also said that at this stage it didn’t matter WHAT he ate, as much as it mattered THAT he ate, so we were to give him what he wanted; so I went to the store and bought pretty much one each of every single product marketed to owners of fluffy white cats eating out of crystal dishes.

It did buy him nearly two weeks, though toward the end I was wondering every day if we might have to make an expensive and traumatic trip to the emergency vet. I would have opted to put him down the Friday a week and a half after his The Talk appointment, but Elizabeth asked for the following Monday so she could have the weekend with him, and I double-checked with the vet who said that was not unreasonable (but also gave us a list of local agencies that would do emergency euthanasia). And he did make it to Monday. Elizabeth and I brought him in. It was very sad, but also a relief to have things ending peacefully and before he was suffering, and without an emergency.

Now we are down to two cats. One of them, a smart bossy mean orange-and-white queen, does not seem to notice that we are missing a cat—or if she does notice, she’s glad (she didn’t like that cat). The other of them, a classic sweet-‘n’-dippy orange male, has been wandering the house meowing and acting weird, and being snuggly; the girl cat has finally relented and allowed him to snuggle with her sometimes on the couch, which seems to be helping somewhat.

This year I felt like I took on board two absolutely obvious Christmas lessons that apparently I have to keep learning again and again:

1. Christmas doesn’t always have to be the same. What seems DELIGHTFUL and IMPORTANT one year can be totally different than what seems delightful and important the next year.

2. It’s a good idea to have a few little good-for-anyone gifts around.

I kept feeling like Something Was Wrong because we weren’t watching as many Christmas movies, or because this year I couldn’t find A Book for Each Stocking the way I have in the past—but we don’t have to do it the same every year, and in fact if the past few years have taught me anything it’s that FLEXIBILITY IS VALUABLE: if it isn’t a set-in-stone tradition that we absolutely must have chocolate oranges every year, then it is not so upsetting if chocolate oranges are not available. And just in general: there is no reason to waste time and effort and money on things we don’t even want, just because we used to want them, or think we ought to want them.

You can do new-Christmas-pajamas-on-Christmas-Eve OCCASIONALLY if you want: it doesn’t have to be EVERY SINGLE YEAR until every bureau drawer in the house is filled with nothing but Christmas pajamas. You can do an expensive and work-intensive customized advent calendar ONCE if you want, or ONLY when you have the time/inspiration, and do $2 cheap-chocolate-a-day calendars on other years. You can set up a card table and put out a Christmas puzzle just on the years when you feel like it. You can buy books only for the kids who like books, without having to make everyone’s presents match, or make everyone’s presents fit a little rhyme. You can buy tickets for an expensive Christmas performance ONCE, without having to do it every single year. Etc.

And you can do it this way EVEN IF other people in your household express disappointment that you are not putting in all the time and money and effort to make these things happen for them every single year! You can say merrily “Oh, yes, wasn’t that fun, the year we did that? Maybe we’ll do that again another year!” Or, if you are speaking to another adult in your household, you can say merrily “Oh, yes, wasn’t that fun? It’s not on my to-do list for this year, but you can go ahead if you think it would be fun to do again!”

As for the supply of little general-purpose gifties, this wasn’t something I would have done in our poorer years, because I think it only works if you’re fine with having some of the things unused. But this year by accident I overbought and/or overreceived a few things that happened to be perfect for this: a box of chocolate-covered mint marshmallows from Trader Joe’s; a bag of Lindt truffles; extra candy and extra individual Milano cookie packets from the stockings. I had put those things aside in a bag to Figure Out What To Do With Later. Also into the Figure Out Later bag I’d dropped some miscellaneous things: the too-pretty-to-throw-out-OR-ARE-THEY? golden net bags the Trader Joe’s chocolate coins came in; some pretty tissue paper from received gift bags; etc.

So then when I was putting out the gift card for the mail carrier, my eye fell upon the Figure Out Later bag and I added one of the little pretty golden net bags filled with a packet of Milano cookies and some of the Lindt truffles and extra stocking candy. And when I was putting together the gift bag for my workplace Secret Santa assignment, I added a handful of Lindt truffles just for flair. It didn’t feel NECESSARY in any way, so it’s not something I’d recommend if money is tight; but it did feel FESTIVE and FUN. (And, if money IS tight, I’ll mention that about half of my Figure Out Later bag was made up of things I was given / couldn’t use, and things-that-came-free-with-other-things like the Trader Joe’s coin bags, and things that were extra after I divided things up for stockings.)