Ask me anything, I've probably read about it.

I finally finished my New Yorker-thon that I started a few weeks ago, in time to start my reading challenge for 2013.  Covering all of 2011 and 2012, I read about:

• Tina Fey's recollections of writing for SNL,
• The science of "crowd crush," 
• The long-term health effects of childhood trauma, 
• The return of harbor seals to New York City, 
• Modernist "sous vide" cuisine, 
• Political assassinations in Guatemala, 
• The neurology of time perception,
• A midwestern blogger with pretensions of living the pioneer life,
• Death penalty mitigation,
• The development of Mac computers, 
• PepsiCo and the obesity epidemic, 
• Technological intricacies of animation at Pixar,
• The hype behind acai,
• The problem of insight with mental illness,
• Public resistance to vaccines, 
• Whether college is for everyone,
• A father's account of his daughter's death from a rare brain cancer, 
• Harriet Beecher Stowe's role in beginning the civil war, 
• Online dating sites,
• David Sedaris' take on learning foreign languages, 
• The devaluation of friendship by social networking sites, 
• Edible insect proponents, 
• Paleogenetics,
• Secularism as lack of God v. secularism as affirmation of the here and now, 
• Bullet-proof fashion,
• The life of the lone druggist in a former Utopian town,
• Shoplifting, 
• Norton Juster & Jules Feiffer's Phantom Tollbooth as a celebration of the liberal arts education, 
• The pros and cons of decriminalization of drug use in Portugal,
• The future of Planned Parenthood and the war on women's rights,
• When the double jeopardy rules get broken in a murder trial,
• A profile of the rapper Drake,
• The placebo effect in medical research,
• Guinnessport (the undertaking of world records), 
• The worlds oldest temple in Turkey and how it affects our view of religion,
• The psychology behind layaway purchases,
• Profiles of the creators of Portlandia,
• The ethics of teens being tried as adults and serving life without parole,
• The invisibility of the old, 
• Saving rare tortoises from extinction, 
• The brainstorming myth,
• Cyber bullying,
• Surgical face transplants,
• Training police dogs,
• Influenza pandemics,
• The case against having kids,
• Stimulating t-cells to fight cancer,
• Couch surfing as a way of travel,
• Internet dating in China,
• Working as a suspect in police lineups,
• Forensic linguistics,
• The violence of German fairytales,
• Cheating in marathons,
• Efficiency in Big Medicine,
• The reckless use of young informants by the police, 
• The negative effects of antibiotic use on the human micro biome,
• Profile of a personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman,
• Retirement coaches, aaaaaand
• Psychochemical warfare.

Whew.  I'm ready for a nice, easy novel.

A snapshot of my life:

Me: "Oh my God!  That's so funny! Did you see that church sign?"
Friend: "The Baptist church?"
Me: "I don't know.  It said FWB Church."
Friend: "Free Will Baptist."
Me: "Oh. I thought Friends With Benefits."
Friend: (turning to look at me) "Friends With Benefits?! That would never have occurred to me."
Me: "Well, Free Will Baptist would never have occurred to me."
Friend: "That's because you're going to hell, Sugar."

This year, I'm focusing on what blessings life throws me.

I have my kids back, finally, and we are trying an Italian Christmas Even tradition, Festa dei Sette Pesci (Feast of the Seven Fishes). But we're not Italian and there are only three of us, so instead of seven different seafood dishes, I made one with seven kinds of seafood. Because who's gonna stop me? I went with pasta with a tomato-based sauce that included shrimp, bay scallops, sea scallops, calamari, crab, salmon, and clams. And settling in to watch that feel-good 1926 silent movie Christmas classic, "Metropolis." Oh, okay, we make it up as we go along.

Wishing you all a season of peace.

Starting Winter.

I celebrated the world not ending by going with a friend for a soak in Hot Springs. Different tub than I usually get, but still right on the creek. The naturally warm water, piped up from underground, is heavenly on a cold morning.

A pair of pileated woodpeckers flew around the trees around the tub.

A fat squirrel appeared almost immediately. Apparently I'm not the only one who brings food to share. At first, he only took the peanuts I tossed to him.

After a while, though, he figured out how to open the plastic bag and help himself. He seemed to be taking the peanuts away to stash.

We drove around a bit up over the river.

And then a short walk before lunch.

Up in the mountains it had snowed overnight.

It was a gorgeous day, cool but sunny.

We tried to walk this trail, but ran into a little snag.  We found another trail farther along that wasn't flooded out.

Not a bad day.

Buying Christmas.

I saw this plastic container of bland plastic Christmas ornaments and was struck by the label. If Christmas tree ornaments have no meaning for you, why have them? In fact, isn't that true of anything you own? Why have anything in your life that doesn't serve a purpose or bring you joy?

Around here, people will say things like, "I have to wait for my check before I can buy Christmas," or "We aren't even going to be able to buy Christmas this year." Well. I'm not even a theist, but I know one thing - Christmas is not about the gifts. A patient was telling me that her middle schooler presented her with a list that included an iPhone, an iPad, a laptop and a big screen television. She was agonizing because this kid still believed in Santa (or claimed to, anyway), and she didn't want to spoil the magic. However, they are behind on their mortgage and other bills. In my gentle, indirect way I said, "I think it's high time you introduced your daughter to reality."

I buy my kids Christmas gifts, of course, but not extravagant ones. I have a small budget for gifts and I wouldn't even consider going into debt for them. They told me this week that their favorite thing was the stockings I fill. And trust me, there's nothing expensive in them. Our focus is on the time we get to spend together during the holidays. My sons were telling me that they have classmates who routinely get pricey electronics and large amounts of cash ($1000 sometimes!) from their parents at Christmas. I said, "Wow. Well, I'm afraid that's just not possible for me." My older son replied, "Yeah, but their parents aren't paying for them to go to college." I thought back to my patient who was inclined to cave into the demands of her child and yet would not be able to send her children to college. Buy Christmas? Not in this house.

(A song composed of angry tweets from disappointed kids last Christmas.)

A little musical rant for the holidays.

Woo hoo, I won a couple of Christmas CD's over at Lilly's Blog, and they arrived today! Adding them now into the rotation now. I don't remember how I found her blog, but I've been reading regularly since I did. And that was even before she gave me presents. Many thanks, Lilly!

And this brings us neatly to my topic: Christmas music I hate. You heard me. I'm not really a Grinch, but there are songs that get played this time each year that I just loathe. Tonight, I took my kids to a restaurant to save me having to cook (have I mentioned how this is a crazy time of year in my business?) and that awful song with the dogs barking to the tune of "Jingle Bells" came on.  It was new to my older son, and he immediately started laughing. He said, "Can you imagine the poor musician?  His boss calls him and says, 'Hey, I want you to make a remix of Jingle Bells using... (mimics inhaling on a joint)... dogs.'"  Later he started absent-mindedly singing to himself, "Bark, bark, bark... Oh my God! Worst. Earworm. Ever!"

In fact, I don't like any "funny" Christmas songs, and I don't reserve my ire for songs sung by dogs and chipmunks. "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" isn't funny. It's stupid. I don't know if it's mocking Southerners or just a redneck version of comedy, but I don't like it.

There is the entire class of songs that merge Christmas with sex that make me want to puncture my own eardrums. I like Christmas. And I love sex. But there is nothing sexy about Santa Claus. Nothing. I am actually personally repulsed by Santa Claus and I'd lay money on him being a pedophile. Creepy old guy inviting children to sit on his lap. So "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and "Santa Baby" make me physically ill.

Rock and roll Christmas songs, too. Ugh. "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"? No. Springsteen's version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"? Oh hell no. And "Jingle Bell Rock"? No, please, please, please no. And curse you, Billy Idol, for making a cover of this song and ruining your bedroom voice for me. I want "White Wedding" back, untarnished by the image of you looking smarmy as you sing this awful song.

Sappy Christmas songs. Wham's "Last Christmas," a whiny little song about being hurt in love. Oh, who hasn't been? Don't sing about it to me at Christmas, I'm having a hard enough time as it is. Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmas Time." I don't even know why I don't like it, I just don't. Or what about "Do They Know It's Christmas?" Look, it's great to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. I'm all for that. But I've got news for the Band-Aid folks - a third of that country's people are Muslim and there are a number of other religions (Judaism and Ba'hai, for instance) represented. So should they even know it's Christmas? How about we just help out and not push religion into it?

There is probably a special level of hell reserved for me just for saying this, but at the top of my list are songs by children. Don't get me wrong - if I go to a school program where kids are singing, I get as teary-eyed as the next person. But for the love of all that is holy, don't put them on the radio. And especially don't put them on the radio singing maudlin songs. "Christmas Shoes." Holy God. This one, if you've not had the misfortune of hearing it, is about a poor kid who doesn't have enough money to buy his bedridden dying mother shoes to wear when she meets Jesus. Because apparently Jesus would snub her if she wasn't wearing pretty shoes at the moment of her death. In bed. Honestly, what kind of Savior would that be?

So, you're asking yourself, what's her problem and doesn't she like any Christmas music at all? Well, yes, yes I do. Classics, for instance. I like Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole. Sue me. And I like instrumentals.  What's wrong with a nice acoustic guitar? And I like modern versions of classics that make them interesting. Like this cover, which sounds like it could have been recorded in Appalachia:
And old songs that you don't often hear, like this story of the shepherds responding to the call to go to the manger. (It's on the Kingston Trio's "Last Month of the Year" album, music that for me means all that is good about my family.)
And this understated, mildly jazzy version of "Greensleeves." If I ran a radio station at Christmas time, you can bet there would be fewer sappy/silly/icky songs and more of the sort that fill your soul.

I've spent the weekend reveling in having my older son home for Christmas break.

My younger son and I had picked out a white pine and put it up two weeks ago, and I put the lights on it, and then kept it watered and waiting until we were all here. I have the sort of household where an impromptu concert might break out at any moment. My younger son bought himself a violin and is teaching himself the Irish ballads he loves. My older son in turn bought a banjo, which he was instantly able to play as he is already proficient on guitar, bass and ukelele (and piano and saxophone, but those are a little different). I am convinced his brains are in his fingertips.

A moment of tree-decorating silliness, when they gave the star balls and insisted on a photo before I had them move the ornaments to other parts of the tree.  Incidentally, the are only an inch different in height, but my younger son was bare-footed and his brother had on boots. Today, my older son was telling me that if he could strike one fruit from the earth, it would be tomatoes. I asked about cantaloupes, a food he loathes. He said, "They  aren't fruit." "What do you mean they aren't fruit?" I asked.  He said, "They are Satan's testicles."  "What?!?" Straight-faced, he insisted, "Cantaloupes are manifestations of Satanic testicular spheritude."

Still, I'm glad to have the kid home. It warms my heart to hear the boys talking and laughing together, and makes me happy to have him sitting here in the den with me, playing whatever instrument is at hand.