new year

well hello there friends.  greetings from brooklyn.  i hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break, though i suspect most had more festivity than i did!  so christmas came quietly this year for me.  no complaints other than the snow forecast changed and stood me up.  and chase had some health problems which strangely always seem to happen around the holidays.  so other than two trips to the doggie emergency room, i had a quiet stress free christmas.  but it didn't feel like christmas.  is that the catch i wonder?  is christmas supposed to be stressful?  full of mess and chaos and worry about finding the right christmas gifts, and shredded wrapping paper and drama and overeating and bloating?  hmmm, i wonder.  cause this year i had a pleasant, non holiday.  yep.  hmmm.  its like it never happened.

so anyway i had a nice drive to the little house in pennsylvania.  got that little tree.  put it up in ten minutes flat.

baked two dozen cookies and a gingerbread bundt cake, and yes did have christmas eve at the local chinese restaurant.  nice.  odd.

and then there was chase.  poor little guy.  he was having breathing problems and then started dragging his back legs around, so off we went to the doggie emergency clinic.  we came back seven hours later with lots of drugs, and a much more comfortable boy.  but he is 13 and a half, but i guess i just can't bring myself to call him an old man!  so my boy has a collapsing trachea and possibly esophageal paralysis, and most likely had a vascular episode or a stroke, but i am told he worked it out.  a very confusing diagnosis, and i am researching these issues as we speak, but he sure doesn't act his age.  or frail for that matter.   next night he felt so good, we ventured outside at bedtime, and as i stood out there in the backyard in my red plaid flannel pajamas, enjoying my glass of wine, sans coat i might add, because the weather was unfortunately waaaayyy too balmy and springlike for my christmas tastes, he started to grumble and rumble and snort back behind the trees and bushes.  long story short, i was in that shadowey blackened treeline shouting and kicking and thrashing and saving my baby from a raccoon or a possum or stray cat.  who knows what it was, cause i couldn't see it, but i kicked its behind thats for sure.  to the soundtrack of wind and far off trains and tinkling wind chimes.  anyway chase trotted out of the hedges with a red bloodied snout and i was shaking like a leaf and so i wrapped my baby up tight in a towel and headed off once more to the emergency clinic.  yet again.  they cleaned him up, and he got a rabies booster shot , and he is just fine.  a miracle i didn't get a dui for speeding under the influence of red wine, so that was about it for the drama portion of my christmas.

my birthday is on the 30th, and it was a non event as usual.  i drove to target to get some things pretending to hold my daughters hand.  yep.  it worked.  close your eyes and visualize the person you are grieving and remember the feel of their hug or their hand.  then i drove back to the city, with a car full of treats and necessities from target and treated myself to a birthday cake pop at a truck stop starbucks on the turnpike.

i wandered to my favorite store in the afternoon of new years eve, and wandered out with two dresses, one blouse, a skirt and a pair of purple mary janes.  then i wandered across broome street to the gourmet garage for cheese and bread and pelligrino and chocolate.

enjoying all of my anna sui gorgeousness 

 it was new years eve and all, then i jumped on the a train and made my way back for a rainy quiet new years eve at home. 

 i hung out at home and listened to lucinda williams and nirvana and then crawled into bed before midnight, and caught up with several friends via text.  

you know its funny.  i am grateful for the nice things i have in my life.  my newfound health after a couple years of strain.  my dog. etc.  but i really think the word "grateful" is so over used.  i think people throw it out there as a bargaining chip these days.  as if saying it will temper any bad forces in life.  like a plea for a cosmic life raft.  or eating an avocado.  sometimes life stinks.  period.  and no amount of saying you are grateful will turn it around.  sometimes you just have to face facts, and put your head down, and snarl at your life and your tragedies and face them straight on.  last year i was not grateful.  nope.  it was horrible.  and confusing, and you never heard me fake gratitude here on the perfect life brooklyn .  no.  never.  i had moments of peace.  i had lots of introspection.  i always had a sweet puppy who loved me and sustained me and slept glued to my side at night.  but last year was one for the books.  and now i am honestly truly grateful that it is over.  i survived it.  i learned.  i grew.  this year is already better.  i gathered up my courage and am venturing back to a career i had many years ago.  i moved.  i have my sweet baby chase.  i have my health and my dignity intact and am pretty sure this year is already a good one.  no.  its already a great one.

wishing everyone a wonderful beautiful bright and shiny new year.   here is to a wonderful 2019!

love,  cynthia  xoxo