We're Chained To The World, And We All Gotta Pull

I was so tired after work I had a nap. Didn't notice D texting to say dinner is ready. He came upstairs to see how I was doing...and now is asleep himself.

Mom and Dad told me tonight about two friends of my brother's, and one of them's mom who was the school nurse at the time so knows all of us as well as being the mom of his friend, who she's run into lately who told her they always remember Chris at this time of year.

Two of the three apparently said especially that it was twenty years this year, and my mom was surprised that they remembered that specifically. But I have a couple friends about my age who had schoolfriends die when they were in school or soon after, and they certainly remember the person and how long it's been. We are lucky enough to live in an age when child/young person death is rare enough to stand out.

The school nurse mom even told my mom about how her daughter's kids know about him because the daughter has a Christmas ornament with a photo of my brother on it which my parents had made and handed out to people the Christmas after (I got one too, in my terrible flat in West Didsbury, but I never really wanted it and lost it along the way). The kids know about all the ornaments on their tree so they know this one is for "Mom's friend who died a long time ago." I love that.

On a kinda rough day, before two days in London for work that I'm dreading, this was a nice moment.

Their mom and my brother had been friends since kindergarten, when she was one of the girls who called him Kissyfur after a cartoon of that time, and who he used to entertain by doing stuff like pretending not to notice when the girls put snow in his hat and he put it on anyway so they could all laugh.

She sang at his funeral, which is such a gift to be able to offer a peer, when you're only twenty-one.

I ended up stepping in to read out the questions and answers for a Christmas quiz at work today, a colleague made it but then lost her voice so needed someone else to do the talking. She got two someone elses, R and me. We traded off asking the questions, and one of R's was the name of the Wallace & Gromit movie that came out on Christmas Day in 2024.

At which point I quietly muttered "two years ago already, gosh" and R said "Erik, that was last year."

Oh! Yeah! It was! It's only 2025 now!

"It has been a long year," he said kindly, and as he's basically acted as project manager for the reports I've written he knows as well as anyone how long my year has been at work!

You know you had a bad day when the next day angelofthenorth brings you coffee as soon as she gets home, saying "well your blog post from yesterday made me think you'd need it!"

I actually had a much better day at work today: no meetings to speak of and I even started messing around with the slides for the presentation I have to give on Tuesday. Plus, Tuesday turns out to be the London staff's Christmas lunch and I can go to Wahaca (yes, that's how they spell it) with them, they're all excited about Taco Tuesday.

I was able to slip away from work early enough to walk Teddy before D and I went to see Pillion, which was well-acted and horny (even in the audio description!) and had some genuine funny moments but is a little too Fifty Shades of Gay in that its basic message that being a dom makes you a dickhead who is incapable of healthy relationships. But I had fun and I'm glad we had time for a pint in the twinkly outdoors before coming home to delicious homemade stew and dumplings.

And before I'd finished eating, angelofthenorth offered cinnamon tea and when I made interested noises brought me some in the clear glass mug with the flower petals between its two walls which V bought in the Hebridean Tea Store, and then D asked if anyone wants a mince pie, so I had my first mince pie of the season with the perfect tea pairing for it.

Before bed I unloaded the dishwasher so V could load it up again, emptied the food waste bin, locked the doors, turned off the little plant lights, and changed my bedding. How nice to be in such a functional house, doing my little bit to reset, maintain, upkeep.

All this made me think of Kurt Vonnegut saying:

My uncle Alex Vonnegut, a Harvard-educated life insurance salesman taught me something very important.

He said that when things were really going well, we should be sure to NOTICE it. He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories: maybe drinking lemonade on a hot afternoon in the shade, or smelling the aroma of a nearby bakery; or fishing, and not caring if we catch anything or not, or hearing somebody all alone playing a piano really well in the house next door.

Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies: "If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is."

So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is."

A podcast I like just did a Patreon bonus episode about Christmas songs, and listening to it today was a fun way to get into the spirit, now we've gotten past thanksgiving and into December.

They invited us to tell them about other songs than the ones they mentioned at the end, and I compiled such a mental list that I made it into a physical list. Especially because they suggested at the end to let them know about any Christmas songs they might not know, and since it's a baseball podcast and they're from the U.S., and I didn't know about Slade and Wizzard until I left the U.S., I figured they were worth a mention (I do like both songs as well and think even if I ever get back to Minnesota for Christmas, Noddy Holder yelling "It's Christmas!" will have to be part of it.)

Here's my list, in no particular order:

• Last Christmas
  Obviously.

• Coventry Carol
  This is in the medieval/haunting/melancholy vibes category; I've loved it since it was on some Christmas album I had as a little kid

• Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy
  I just love this, contrived as it is. It's like the baton is being handed over from Mr. Traditional Christmas to a new generation. It never fails to give me goosebumps to hear their individual melodies come together at the end.

• Sleigh Ride
  I slightly prefer the original/instrumental, but the Ronettes version on the Phil Specter album is so iconic it's practically its own entry.

• Do You Hear What I Hear
  Another favorite of mine as a kid; my mom is a soprano and would sing along to this which I really loved. I thought this was another centuries-old one, but looking it up to link here I learned it was written in 1962, by a married couple who "wrote it as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis."

• Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Overture
  I love the music from the Nutcracker anyway but I love it this way the best.

• Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody and Wizzard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day