White (ish) Christmas

Here it is, my Christmas miracle:




That's right, it's snow! In Portland! On Christmas Day! Thanks, Santa.

I'm a bit late, but I wanted to post my top 10 non-traditional Christmas/holiday songs (random order):

1. Christians and Pagans by Dar Williams

2. I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas by Gayla Peevey

3. 25th December by Everything but the Girl

4. Christmas Song by Dave Matthews Band

5. Christmas Dragnet by Stan Freburg and Daws Butler

6. The Peace Carol by John Denver and the Muppets

7. Happy Xmas (War is Over) by John Lennon

8. River by Joni Mitchell (lots of other fab version of this song, including Indigo Girls and Sarah McLachlan)

9. Christmastime (Oh Yeah) by Barenaked Ladies

10. Song for a Winter's Night by Sarah McLachlan

11. Donna & Blitzen by Badly Drawn Boy

Okay, so it's a top 11. I was just listening to the last song and it's pretty great, so I added it on a whim. Number two is cheesy and annoying, but it's about hippos, so there you go.

If you're looking for a whole album of festive fabulousness (maybe for next year?) might I recommend Christmas Caravan, Barenaked for the Holidays, Wintersong, and of course, A Charlie Brown Christmas.

I hope everybody has had/is having a super holiday season!

Spring Cleaning

Hmmm...it smells like fresh cut grass, the world is puddle-wonderful, I think spring is here at last!

With the first week of really nice, spring-like weather I have been feeling a strong compulsion, verging on physical panic, to organize my house (and by extension, my life). Last weekend, for example, when I should have been outside frolicking, I was rearranging my closets. It started out innocently enough, with me trying to find a box of sandals and other summer-y shoes. Then, naturally, I had to unpack the summer clothes, and then find my daughter's warm-weather stuff as well. Before I knew it, I was in full-on spring cleaning mode.

This cleaning jag feels similar, though not so intense, to the "nesting" instinct I experienced during pregnancy. It culminated the day before my daughter was born, when I could not sit still for a second because of all the imagined tasks I had to complete before the birth. I remember pleading with my husband to help me hang some ceramic hippos above the window in the nursery, so our baby would have something interesting to look at (keep in mind that newborns can only focus on things about 12 inches away from them, and it takes months for their eyesight to fully mature). Finally, I dragged out a stool to do it myself. My husband talked me down from the brink of madness (because lumbering my 9-month pregnant body onto a stool would have been madness indeed), the next day I gave birth, and the hippos were forgotten. In fact, they remain unhung to this day.

It's interesting how the change in seasons still brings back those primal "nesting" urges, even though as humans we don't necessary have our babies in the springtime.

(the painting is Spring by Alphons Mucha)

"I have lost to February"

February always seems to arrive just at the point when I can't take any more winter. Regardless of what the groundhog sees, February always teases me with some lovely, spring-like weather: just enough so I get excited about unpacking my sandals and summer clothes. Then February laughs and turns back into winter. Curse you, February!

I'm trying to make this blog more about my own thoughts and less about linking to other people, but often I find that someone else has said what I'm trying to say so perfectly that it would be a loss not to mention it. Today, I am thinking about a haunting Dar Williams song about two lovers whose relationship can't withstand the winter. It's called, appropriately, February:

And February was so long that it lasted into March
And found us walking a path alone together.
You stopped and pointed and you said, "That's a crocus,"
And I said, "What's a crocus?" and you said, "It's a flower,"
And I tried to remember, but I said, "What's a flower?"

On a day like today, when it is so gray and cold and it feels like it will never stop raining, it's hard to remember the meaning behind words like "spring" and "sunshine" and "joy."


(Melancholy by Edvard Munch)