Holiday Spirit

I'm not particularly into the holidays. I think it's because most of my Christmasses for the past decade or so have been spent in tropical splendor (or at least in Maputo, or on a plane on my way to tropical splendor). Being from New Mexico, I associate Christmas with cold weather, snow, luminarias, bizcochitos, fireplaces with piñon wood, posole, tamales, real Christmas trees and presents on Christmas morning. It seems that without those triggers, the holidays didn't feel "real".

I remember the first time I spent the holidays in the Southern Hemisphere. It was 1997 and I was living in Maringá, Paraná in Brasil. My host family had taken me to the beach in Santa Catarina state, and we celebrated with the traditional midnight dinner on December 24th (in this case, on the roof of the resort town's tallest apartment building), lots of drinking, card playing and samba dancing. There wasn't really a gift exchange, which made me feel a bit like the odd one out since I'd prepared a little something for each member of the family. Most of Christmas Day was spent sleeping, then when the effects of the previous night's festivities had worn off, we all went to the beach. It was so incredibly un-Christmaslike that I was actually quite sad.

At some point over the last 12 years, I got over it.

I suppose I spent so many Christmasses on a plane by myself (always the cheapest day to travel over winter break, and every year from 1997 - 2002 I went back to Brasil for the end of the year) that the absence of a holiday tradition ceased to matter. Holidays were in my head, were easily celebrated on off-days whenever family was together, and many times simply involved a phone call or small dinner celebration. I wasn't sad anymore at the absence of a traditional New Mexico Christmas, but I also ceased to get into the spirit that much.

Now that Rico and I are in Casa Cali, back in the "cold" weather and the land of the Christmas-obsessed, we've tried to resurrect some of the holiday excitement. We had grand plans to buy a Christmas tree - a live one with a root ball, of course, to be kept on the deck semi-undecorated until planting time thanks to our cats (they'd be up in the tree and knocking off all of my precious family ornaments in no time were it left indoors as a "present" to them) - but that just didn't happen. We had other priorities, I suppose, and got busy with things like work and driving a van full of furniture back from New Mexico. So no tree this year...

However we did manage to muster up a bit of Christmas festiveness: we bough red chile lights, and fully plan to put them somewhere visible before the actual holiday has passed. That, and I plan to bake a bazillion Christmas cookies to give as default gifts to our extended family and neighbors.

The big Christmas present, however, was one that Rico and I agreed would be our one and only gift to each other (we're not really into exchanging presents à la US tradition). We purchased a Sonos, a fabulous music system for Casa Cali that allows us to listen to whatever we want in different rooms. Music was definitely one of the things missing in our life (we sold our iPods and speakers prior to leaving Maputo), and we couldn't be happier now that we have a soundtrack available for working, cooking and entertaining. Amazingly, I actually listened to holiday music the other day: a Baroque Christmas, unearthed from my huge collection of classical cd's. Baby steps to full holiday spirit, I suppose. Baby steps...

Moving Forward

It seems like an entire year has gone by since Parceiro died last Tuesday. We commemorated the week anniversary of his passing, and I felt mostly disbelief, not the sadness and raw emotion that marked the first days after he decided to go. I thought I'd have a transition from crying my way through the day, to feeling more-or-less sad, to bittersweetly remembering Parceiro. What has happened, however, was an abrupt jump from being devastated to feeling distant, removed, and almost numb. I recognize that I am sad, and that I am probably in the depression stage of grief, but it almost seems like the whole thing with Parceiro never even happened.

Meh. I'm trying to "snap out of it", but it's hard...I imagine that a proper ceremony to put him to rest will help, but his body was sent for cremation to some state-run institution (the Veterinary School?), and we've yet to receive his ashes. The vet seems hopeful that they will come, but I am quite cynical about the possibility that it will all work out as planned. Who knows...

This week has been a long one in other ways as well. Work was slightly stressful, with a quarterly program report and an extension proposal to prepare. It is hard depending on other people for the inputs you need to do your own job properly, especially when you feel like some of them have it out for you. In general I really like my colleagues at the new job, but there is one guy in particular who has a personality and general attitude towards work (and/or towards me) that I find exasperating. I know it's part of an office job that you have to learn how to work with difficult coworkers and bosses, but it's been quite a while since I've worked at a real, honest-to-God, full-time job. I forgot what drama can occur.

It's been raining a lot in Maputo lately, realy dreary weather. It's common this time of year, at the beginning of the rainy/monsoon season. Still, the gray-blah outside doesn't really help my mood. It's been good for the farmers, though. They were expecting a drought in Southern Mozambique this year, and I heard many people say the rains would't come until January (they're meant to arrive in October). They were a bit late, and I'm not sure how total rainfall for the year measures up, but at least there is some moisture for the crops. The rain is not good news, however, for my struggling veranda garden. My pots are soaked through from the sideways rain that makes its way in, and I'm worried I will lose the chocolate mint, hibiscus and basil I just planted last week, despite the fact that they are water-loving plants.

Rico and I continue to do home improvements. We had our kitchen and bathroom painted this week. For the kitchen, I chose a pale green (creatively called "Pastel Green" by the manufacturer). We have gray-toned tiles and marble countertops, and the room tends to be hot, so I knew I needed a cool color. I've never had a green kitchen before. I rather like how it turned out. It has a retro feel that is going to be fun to work with. For the bathroom, I chose a tan-ish pinky beige color called "Pale Mushroom" (they were more inspired with this name). It transformed what was a grotty, dirty-looking, 70's-leftover bathroom into one that is almost spa-inspired. Now my next project is to bleach our nice heavyweight cotton shower curtain so that I get rid of the blue and purple print. I think I can do it, though my last experience trying to bleach something tured out disastrously, with a stained red Banana Republic shirt disintegrating instead of just fading to white. I may have to experiment a bit until I get the right proportion of bleach:water.

Tonight Rico and I are going to a braai with friends. I'm not feeling particularly social, but I know once we are there I will enjoy myself. I also plan on making a lot of jewelry, as the year-end demand for pieces is picking up faster than I can keep up!

Hope you all are well...