The taste of Christmas

Long ago and far away, Christmas was fun. That was a few lifetimes ago, when I was shorter, younger, and not responsible for making it happen.

As a kid, Christmas is done unto you, and that makes it magical. The not knowing, the suspense, the anticipation, it’s enough to keep you up all night on Christmas Eve. Certainly not what your parents want because they still have miles to go before they sleep, and surprises to keep.

Before going to bed on Christmas Eve, I’d check the presents under the tree very carefully, practically photographing their position in my mind. Oh, yes, I had them memorized, including the tags with the names of lucky recipients and the givers – people like Mom and Dad and Aunt Rebecca, Grandfather and Grandmother. None, I noticed, were from Santa.

It was my job to put out a plate of homemade cookies for Santa Claus on the mantelpiece, plus a glass of milk, because everyone knows cookies taste better when dipped in milk.

My mom was partial to making sugar cookies, complete with sugar sprinkled on top, and we were all partial to eating them. It was a sacrifice to leave a few for Santa, but then, with all that getting in and out of the sleigh, he needed the energy, didn’t he?

It never occurred to me to wonder if reindeer ate cookies. I thought of them, naively, as something like camels, always patient, just waiting, chewing their cuds, and wearing a harness, ever ready for the journey, never complaining. Maybe that’s why one of the Wise Men rode a camel on the journey to Bethlehem.

At the age of seven, I was sure my time had come. This would be the Christmas for a bike, a genuine full-size two-wheeled bike. Yes, Santa got my letter, had to be, since it wasn’t returned. I even specified a color, red if you please.

You never know, delivery might occur early and so, I searched the entire house for weeks before Christmas, looking for clues. A bike, after all, is pretty big. If it were there, hiding in a closet, I’d have found it. But no, nothing.

On Christmas Eve, we all went to midnight mass at the naval base in Jacksonville, Florida. It is where my Dad was stationed at the time. We lived on the base. I remember the chapel was full of people, all in coats and it was quite warm. There was the smell of incense and many pots of poinsettias. I felt the emotion, and saw some tears, including to my surprise, my Dad, when the chaplain gave a sermon and talked about all the service men and women overseas who couldn’t be home for Christmas, but how important it was they did their duty. We service people were extended family. The ones not home for Christmas were greatly missed and there was always the underlying fear that someone you love might not come home at all.

Then we were home. One last look at the tree, and the presents under it, before bedtime. No bike. No new presents. I put out the plate with four sugar cookies and a glass of milk next to it. Oh, and I wrote a note telling Santa these were for him. Off to bed.

I fell asleep having bizarre thoughts like maybe Santa was riding my bike instead of taking a sleigh, and he’d knock on the door in the morning. I hoped the bike had a light so he could see at night.

The next morning we tumbled into the living room, barefooted, pajama clad, eager, laughing, and even a little shoving going on.

I looked first at the mantelpiece. The truth lies there. To my amazement, and I was awed by this every year, the glass of milk was empty. Three cookies were gone and a bite taken out of the fourth. Santa had been there!

As double proof, there was one small present on the top of the pile that was addressed to me from Santa. It hadn’t been there the night before. This happened every year, a present from Santa, and it arrived as a surprise on Christmas morning. Years would go by before I realized that the handwriting on the card looked a lot like my Dad’s handwriting. Perhaps he was taking dictation.

We tore through the presents with reckless disregard for recycling wrapping paper or ribbon; something worth doing that didn’t take hold until I was much older. My Mom made a list of who gave what, a list needed for thank you notes. Yep, those were the days when people actually wrote thank you notes.

At one point, my Dad left the room. I was already looking around, but no matter how many times I scanned, the room, no bike in sight. Well, it wasn’t my year. Aunt Rebecca sent a sweater in my favorite shade of turquoise and Mom got paints and brushes for her budding artist daughter. I was grateful, but . . . you know. I started tracing patterns on the rug. I missed the fact that people were nudging each other and giving knowing looks. They knew what was coming.

My Dad came through the door wheeling a full-size genuine bicycle and said “Look what I found outside the front door’.” It was a brilliant shade of blue and even had a basket in the front. One speed, but hey, that was a lot of speed in those days.

I jumped up, screaming, ready to ride, or I should say, ready to try and ride, fall off, try again. My mother wisely made me get out of pajamas and into pedal pushers.

We all went outside our quarters. A long driveway led to the main road. Since it was a naval base, fully enclosed with a fence, there was very little traffic.

Dad adjusted the seat and handlebars. No helmets required then. I still remember the rush of pushing off, standing up, and sitting on the seat. It was a pretty wobbly ride, but I made it down to the end of the driveway without falling off. Brakes were not levers on the front. You simply stopped the pedals, actually moving backwards. It worked.

My Dad made me go up and down the driveway, getting the hang of turning around at the end. Everyone else lost interest and went back inside.

Up until that morning, my world had consisted of the house and the driveway. I had to play within sight of the house. To my total surprise, Dad said I’d passed the bike test, and would I like to ride out on the street? Go ahead, take a spin.

My world got a whole lot bigger. I wheeled up and down the streets with their houses called quarters, then past the barracks, the administration offices. Wow. Freedom. Amazing. Little did I know, until my Mom told me years later, that Dad had already spoken to the guards at the gate and told them two things:
1.I was not allowed to ride the bike off base.
2.If they wouldn’t mind, please keep an eye on his daughter.
What to me seemed like total freedom was actually a very controlled situation where many eyes looked out for me and traffic, of course, was at a very minimul level.

The gift of a bicycle is a life-changing event. Sometimes even today, grown up, ever so adult, riding around on a real blessing, a 21 speed bike with lever brakes, it amazes me the leisurely, lovely pace that riding a bicycle gives you – a world view quite different than that seen when whizzing by in a car at 40 mph.

And the view of Christmas is different too. As an adult, I confess that I miss the fact that Christmas isn’t done unto me any more. The days of being a child are gone, and with it a certain magical anticipation.

For me, with the kids grown and away, and not being in the income bracket to buy the entire world a bicycle, it all comes back to the kitchen. Think about the people who have to work that day – policeman, firemen, emergency workers, 911 employees, hospital personnel, you name it. Think of the people who have no Christmas – the homeless living in cars or the woods, the dispossessed, the men, women and children in transitional housing, those in halfway houses. Look around; you can make a list pretty quick.

A hot meal, cooked with love, served with laughter and respect, is a gift you can give, if not on Christmas, then the day after. For many reasons,including failed expectations, Dec. 26 is a really blue day for a lot of people.

Don’t
forget to take them sugar cookies and milk. Santa would approve.

Lucy Tobias is a freelance writer and artist living in Ocala, Florida. She is currently working on a book entitled “50 Great Walks in Florida”.

Hunger and pumpkin pie

It is lunch hour at Brother’s Keeper Soup kitchen and the line is long. As soon as the “closed” sign is turned around to read “open”, they begin filing in.

Sister Concepta hands out tuna sandwiches to guests. She looks over the heads of people for one particular woman, but doesn’t see her.

Volunteers serving up salad and soup are on the lookout for her too. The woman has dishwater blond, long, stringy hair. She is somewhere in her 30’s or early 40’s. It is hard to say for sure. She’s aged early.

A regular almost every day of the week, you’d never know this woman had anything to eat. The kitchen crew has noticed she keeps getting thinner. Plus, there are bruise marks on her face and arms, signs she is being abused.

The guess is that she’s doing prostitution to get some money and being beaten up by johns. Sister is worried the homeless woman needs more than one meal can do and has set aside extra food for her. Although the crew is on the lookout for a thin, bruised woman, she doesn’t show that day or the next. Everyone starts to worry.

Homelessness, hunger and hurt are ingredients seen every day of the week at the soup kitchen. For those who come to work as kitchenn volunteers just on high holy days, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, the amount of pain each of the guests bring through the door will shock them. So will the amazing dignity and resilience of the human spirit – the person who has nothing but stops on his way out to say thank you and tell you that the crew is a blessing.

This time of year is especially rough on the last, the lost and the least. We’re entering Ho Ho Ho season and the irony of all the hype is not lost on the less fortunate.

Buy Christmas presents? Forget it.Not going to happen.

A decorated Yule tree? Where would they put it, in a parking lot?

Thanksgiving dinner? Only if the Soup Kitchen and Salvation Army are serving.

Home for the holidays? Not a chance.

Go to the store and get ingredients for a pumpkin pie? No money, no stove, no way.

Even without watching television, reading the newspaper or listening to the radio, the pressure of the season reaches those on the rock bottom. They know what time of year it is and many have memories to prove it. Memories of better days when there was a roof over their head and turkey on the table. These are cruel memories to conjure up as they stand in line at the soup kitchen.

A couple more days go by. The really thin woman doesn’t come in. But there are some other women who come dangerously close to fitting that description. One woman always wears a cell phone clipped to the left side of her belt. It never rings. She seldom makes eye contact. Some of the kitchen crew tries to give her an extra salad or sandwich. She refuses. It is as though the thinner you get, the harder it is to eat anything.

Some of the regulars have their own routine.

One man brings a battered pickup truck to the soup kitchen and takes away things like leftover donuts and soup to feed his pigs. Although he doesn’t say it, the kitchen crew knows some people are being fed too. They always try to have something extra for the pig man.

Another man comes pushing a shopping cart. He only has one leg and uses the cart for balance. He refuses to come inside and sit down, so a tray is fixed for him. He eats standing outside at the cart. The crew started giving him softer things to eat when someone noticed that he has no teeth.

For those who have three meals a day and access to more, this is the time of year non-profits are asking for donations to their pantries for Thanksgiving and Christmas bags of food.

Oxfam goes one step further and asks you to skip a meal the Thursday before Thanksgiving as part of Fast for a World Harvest. That’s come and gone but you can fast for one meal anytime. Take the money that meal would have cost and contribute it to Oxfam or your local soup kitchen pantry.

Skipping a meal has an added bonus. You’ll have more empathy for the homeless who skip meals not as an option but because there is no other alternative.

On the Oxfam Web site, www.oxfamamerica.org/fast play the banquet game. It is a group of people sitting around a table. Click on one and learn their story. Then try to decide what they should do to put food on the table. Like the small coffee farmer who sees joining a co-op would mean more money for his coffee, but the co-op members are being threatened with violence by the government. What choices would you make?

Hunger is real. More than 850 million people around the world go to bed hungry. And some of them, maybe more than you know, live near you.

The soup kitchen crew is still looking for the thin woman with the bruises. And the line out the door of men, women and children waiting to come in for a meal, gets longer every day. What would you do to end hunger where you live?

Disaster strikes pets and people

Warning: What you are about to read is a true story. It is tough to read.
A co-worker has lots of family that lived in New Orleans, including a husband and wife who both worked in a hospital.
As Hurricane Katrina approached, staff was told they could bring family and pets to the hospital. This couple brought a cat and a small dog.
Conditions deteriorated after Katrina passed by. Water rose to the second floor, forcing evacuation of patients to higher levels. The generators quit. Patients were carried on stretchers to the rooftop and evacuated by helicopters. You know similar stories from watching CNN and other news outlets.
But perhaps you haven’t heard everything. Looters entered this hospital and stole jewelry off of patients lying in their beds. Everyone was afraid. The staff, of course, was unarmed.
Finally, days later, pontoon boats arrived to take away the staff and their families. But, no pets were allowed in the boats.
Hospital staff were making the choice of putting their pets to sleep rather than leaving them in the hospital alone, without food or water, at the mercy of looters. They did this final act with tears, often hysteria.
The husband and wife held back, unwilling to sacrifice their pets, saying “no” to every rescue boat that arrived. Finally the last boat arrived to take the last people out of the hospital. Rescue teams by that time were beginning to understand that pets mattered. They had seen the trauma of leaving pets behind.
Waiting worked. The couple were allowed to leave with their pets. She held the cat in a pillowcase, holding it cross-armed against her chest. He held the dog the same way against his chest. Once on dry land, they were crammed like sardines with some 40 other people into a U.S. Army truck. Fortunately, they were not taken to the Convention Center, but to the airport. Here they knew an employee who gave them an office to sleep in for the night. The next day the couple and their pets ended up in a friend’s home.
A happy ending to a grim tale. Between this story and everything said on television about people all along the Gulf Coast ripped from their pets, you must be thinking about your situation, even if you are sitting on high ground and dry at the moment.
Now is the time to talk about this with your family. If disaster strikes, are you staying with your pets? Is there a relative or friend who would take you and your pets? What are your options? What are your priorities?
Katrina showed the world what many pet owners have known for a long time. Pets are not property. They are family. They are not possessions. Pets are a commitment to “have and to hold”. Would you leave your child behind? No, didn’t think so.
We don’t learn very fast. Katrina went away. Hurricane Rita arrived. People were told to leave their pets and flee. A photo from the Dallas Morning News shows Christopher Thomas, age 11, with his arms wrapped around his dog Harley. Christopher is crying. Residents are pleading with him and his mom to leave the dog and evacuate the Lake Charles, Louisiana area. He doesn’t want to go.
I’m with Christopher.
My family matters to me, both the two-legged ones and the four-legged little dears. They are my top priority. Everything else is background noise.
Yet, come the next disaster, people like you and me will still be asked to choose between leaving and staying with pets. It is a terrible decision that no one should have to make.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Marion County, Florida has a mobile pet unit, ready to be set up in times of disasters, in a compound right next to a human shelter. Cats and dogs are in labeled cages. Owners, next door in the shelter, come to feed them. It works. That is one solution. Can you come up with others?
If your community doesn’t have a Pet Disaster Preparedness Plan, you be the hero, you make it happen, bend ears. Set up a disaster plan for pets. Remind your commissioners that pet owners vote. Then go hug your pets, and consider adopting one of the pets abandoned in the recent hurricanes.

Lucy Tobias is a freelance writer in Ocala, Florida. She has two dogs and four cats.
Column note: for those who read about Emily, the deaf cat and the subject of an earlier column, her mouth tumor got worse very rapidly and finally she could not eat. Emily was put to sleep on Monday, Oct. 3. She spent the last few hours of her life curled up on my lap, her favorite place, before we took her to the vets. Emily is sorely missed.

My People Left Me Next to a Dumpster

My people left me next to a dumpster. Why? I don’t know. It was scary. Did I do something wrong? I’d never been outside before. I missed my mom, my human people, the familiar rooms, and meals.

Food for the eight to ten weeks of my life had come from nursing my mom or a bowl. There were no bowls near the dumpster. I was afraid all the time, especially at night.

Then I saw someone carrying boxes to the dumpster. My people threw boxes away when they left me. I got hopeful and followed the box lady. She turned around, saw me and picked me up. I was put in an empty apartment and given some food. It wasn’t my home but it was better than the dumpster.

Turns out I lived in an apartment complex. My people probably moved out and abandoned me. The lady who found me was in the process of moving out of the complex. She overheard the landlord saying, “there are too many cats” and he was going to get a trap. That meant I’d be history. That’s why she picked me up.

The house where she was going to, as a temporary roommate, already had two cats. She asked if I could be adopted by this new home. The answer was “yes”.

And so I arrived at Lucy’s house. After a good night’s sleep, I missed the breakfast call. Didn’t hear it. My new mom, Lucy, looked at me in a thoughtful way and then took me to the vet to confirm what she already suspected.

It was the first time he’d ever seen a tortoiseshell cat that was deaf. No wonder it was so quiet all the time. Sure, I hear huge sounds like lightning or a fire engine, but those are vibrations so big they ripple through the floorboards. It is every day talk that I don’t hear. The vet said I can never go outside or I’d be dead within 30 minutes, never hearing what came up behind me.

Being deaf, I don’t twitch my ears like cats do listening to sounds. Instead I use my eyes. In fact, I stare a lot.

I soon learned that if I saw a procession of cats and dogs going down the hall towards the kitchen, just follow them and breakfast would be served.

For a long time, Mom went to work every day. I had a problem with that from day one. I’d pace up and down the counter and cry (well, in my case, I just open my mouth, very little sound comes out). You see, I’d been abandoned once. I was terrified it was going to happen again.

Mom would say something to me before she left each day. I didn’t hear a word of it.

Then Little Bit, another cat who lives here, started speaking to me in cat familiar, which is street talk with a feline twist.
“Yo, big eyes,” Little Bit said. “ You eat slow, I eat fast, and I make moves on your food. You do nothing about it. You catch my drift?”
Yeah, I got it. But I still ate slowly. That’s just how I am. Mom came to my rescue. She now stands by me so no one, including Little Bit, gets to make moves on my food.

One day I asked Little Bit what Mom was saying as she walked out the door every morning.

“She always says the same thing ‘I’ll be back’,” Little Bit, replied. “It is some famous line from a movie.”

“Does she mean it?” I asked.

Little Bit seemed surprised.
“Sure, Mom always comes back.”

That very day, I stopped pacing on the counter.

Mom is home a lot more these days. Wherever Mom goes in the house, I follow her. She sits down; I curl up in her lap and that is the perfect place to be.

On sunny days, we get to go out on the screened porch. I like to sit in a pot that used to have a spider plant, but it got a bit squashed because I use it as a bed.

All that eating slow must be catching up with me. I’m 11 years old now and losing weight. Mom took me to the vet last week because I had a big lump on my cheek and I was thinner.

Whatever the vet said, something about a tumor, it made Mom sit down real sudden and it looked like she was crying. The vet hugged her.

Now I have medicine to take and that is no fun at all. Mom even wakes me up from naps to give me food and more food. I don’t have a whole lot of teeth. It is slow going. But it is nice to have salmon.
Little Bit is really bent out of shape. She says Mom is saying I can have anything I want and Little Bit is jealous.

I want every day to be a day at home, where I feel safe and loved. I want to take a sunbath, curl up in Mom’s lap and eat salmon. But then, like Mom says, I march to a different drummer, a drummer only I can hear.

An Apple for Me and the Bambino

Welcome to Pike Place Market, Seattle, where the word “merge” takes on whole new levels. The Market, and the surrounding area, is like a mini-United Nations, a common ground where cultures congregate and do commerce.

Homeless people and low-income families jostle with urbanites fresh out of their SUVs and with their morning workouts behind them. Street musicians play guitars and harmonicas, leaving their instrument cases open on the ground for tips.

Farmers hawk their wares in many languages, enticing walkers with free samples – a slice of a peach or piece of apple.

Flower vendors set out breathtaking bouquets. All the shutterbugs go for the flowers, going for free visual samples.

Two women vendors look at each other, speaking in what sounds like Japanese. Maybe it translates like this: “if we charged to take pictures we’d be rich.”

Pike Place Market started on August 17, 1907, as a revolt against the cost of onions. Between 1906 and 1907 onion prices went up ten fold. It was a big stink. One city councilman wanted a public market where the farmer would connect directly with customers – cut out the price-enlarging middlemen.

Eight farmers showed up that August day and sold produce out of the back of their wagons. By 11 a.m. The wagons were empty and many customers went home empty-handed – an estimated 10,000 shoppers showed up. By the end of 1907, Pike Place Market officially opened with every space filled.

Today, just as in 1907, the day use concept still works. Farmers, crafts people, flower vendors show up, you are assigned a stall. Never mind that you and your family has been in the same stall for years, you still have to show up and get your day use permit.

The Market has become bigger than life, not only a place to buy vegetables but also a place to learn life lessons.

On August 4, 2005, the day I visited the Market, a group of men and women wearing white jackets are clustered around one end of a produce stall. Their jackets have mandarin collars and the words “Culinary Institute” stitched on the left side where a pocket would go.

An instructor is explaining the finer points of making mushroom soup, and how to pick mushrooms. Today they’re taking class al fresco. Tomorrow the would-be chefs will be market customers, to the farmer’s delight.

The booth where the students get their mushroom lesson has long memories for me. Years ago, Seattle was home. Pregnant with my second child, the Market was my favorite food-shopping destination.

An older gentleman who used to run that stall had an amazing trick – he could break an apple cleanly in two on his knee. He’d see me coming, pick up an apple and break it on his knee, then offer me first one half, then the other.

“Here, one for you and one for the bambino,” he’d say, nodding to my tummy.

About that time, the Market was in danger of being bulldozed over to make waterfront condominiums. Locals, including your columnist, worked long and hard to save it. Salvation happened and now it is a landmark, a tourist destination, and the hub of a local community that includes apartments for low-income elderly right alongside high-priced apartments with pricey views of Elliott Bay.

As always, people make the Market. Like the staff at Pike Place Fish Company that are famous for throwing fish. By 11 a.m. every morning there’s a large crowd of tourists. Some lean against Rachael, the metal sculpture pig that is the most photographed item next to the flowers.

“Hey, one salmon going to Missouri,” shouts a fish worker, throwing a salmon to the back to be wrapped. He’s already asked the customer where he’s from. The crowd roars.
A delightful business survival manual called “Fish” was written about these fish guys who came up with a simple four-point philosophy – be there, make someone’s day, choose your attitude and oh yes, play. That’s where throwing the fish comes in.
It works.

As the fish hawkers make someone’s day, down the block street drifters stretch out to sun themselves in the Victor Steinbrueck Park. A ferry cuts through Puget Sound, heading for the terminal. It is flanked by Coast Guard cutters carrying machine guns, a sign of the terrorist times.

Late risers get a latte, grab a seat in a bakery or coffee shop and read the morning paper- who’s in, who’s out, who’s not applying for a job. The Supervisor of Elections job in Seattle was posted. No one applied. People think it could be a career breaker after last year’s election where the numbers for the tight governor’s race kept changing depending on who was counting.

Drive-by photographers go slowly and snap the original Starbucks sign outside the first Starbucks coffee shop that opened in 1971. The logo features a mermaid designed on the racy side. She was changed to be more politically correct, and that made the original logo famous.

I walk along, breathing in the vibrancy, the color, the sights, the sounds, the people, and the memories. Pike Place Market is as wonderful now as it was years ago when a vendor cracked an apple in two for the bambino and me.