December 9, 2012
Very Good Days Have to Just Be Allowed to Happen
My holiday reading has started, and it’s so nice to be back with books on my own terms, reading solely for pleasure. I’ve read 2.25 books in the last four days, which is sort of lovely, yesterday in particular. And it occurs to me that you can’t really plan a good day. Certainly, you can collect them like they’re postcards (and oh, you should), but no amount of shrewd plotting can make a day truly magic.
I wouldn’t have even thought to request that yesterday’s weather be cold and dreary, or to think that there would be an up-side to Harriet waking up at 6:30 possessed by a demon. We had friends to brunch at 11:00 and we managed delicious and gluten-free, which is kind of amazing. Harriet was terrible, and by the end of the visit she was naked and throwing muffins across the kitchen in a rage. Thankfully I’d had enough rest and our friends had enough of a sense of humour that the whole thing was terribly hilarious. And as soon as they left, we threw Harriet into bed for that nap she was begging for and she stayed that way for three hours. (Harriet has stopped napping, for the most part. And now when naps arrive, they’re like a gift from the heavens.) I went to bed too and spent all afternoon rereading Comfort and Joy by India Knight. When Harriet got up, I still wasn’t finished, so I kept hiding from my family so I could get to the end, which was tricky because we live in a small apartment and the book kept making me laugh out-loud.
We were overjoyed to discover that Harriet’s nap had rendered her a human being again, and also that everyone in our family was equally inclined to not bother leaving the house. Except that we had to buy a Christmas tree, which was to have been the day’s main activity, but it was 6:00 by this point and dark outside. We went to get the tree anyway, carrying it home on our shoulder from the convenience store around the corner. Picked up Thai take-out to have before we hung the decorations up. We brought the tree home and unwrapped it to discover it was gorgeous, and so absolutely enormous that we’re going to be unable to remove it from the house after Christmas without causing major damage, but we’ll worry about that later. The whole house smells coniferous. And we decked our tree, rediscovering the fabulous decorations we’d forgotten we’d owned. And then Harriet was put to bed finally, the last of the pad-Thai eaten. And I settled in for the evening with Isabel Huggan’s You Never Know, which is so very wonderful.
The icing on the cake would have been not having to wake up every three hours all night long to pee, but that is too much for one woman to ask for. So I will content myself instead with the most accidentally perfect day.
