On Christmas eve my beloved Trix took a nap in her chair and never woke up. It was the perfect death.

She liked to read my blog, and other writing; she was always a favorite subject; she'd laugh and say, "My GOD, you make me look like an idiot, Judy!"
Our family was big on showing affection through teasing and humor. 

Despite the fact that most of my subject matter tends to be completely unsuitable for children and nursing or pregnant mothers, she always thought I should be a children's writer, "like Dr. Suess." I have no idea why she thought this.  I stopped rhyming shit in 7th grade after my epic Poetry Tome entitled, "Ireland- A Savage Beauty" completely ripping off not only Leon Uris but Ireland in general. I'm Scottish/Hillbilly and it was probably the worst collection of poetry ever written.  I was an IRA supporter and a complete social outcast, but Trix claimed that I didn't have friends because the other girls were jealous of my beauty.  Yes.  I had zits the size of dinner plates and teeth that could open cans.

She was, and is, one of my role models. She lived a hard, rough, wild life as a young woman, and a varied and interesting life later, but she never lost her optimism or love of people.  She judged NO ONE.  She was one of the only Christians I've ever known who truly lived up to the term.

I'm just sort of stream of consciousness writing this, so I apologize, I have half an hour at a closing downtown coffee shop. I'll end with a favorite story of mine:

Trix left home at 17 to marry my sister's father, Roscoe.  He was a violent mean drunk and abused her for a few years before she finally left him.  One night towards the end of their marriage he came home drunk and mean; he railed insults and injury upon her, and my sister, a toddler,  for a period of time before passing out, at which time Trix took a hair brush and beat him until he had millions of tiny little bleeding red holes all over his face.  She said she didn't know what came over her and she just sort of did it until she stopped doing it and then was horrified at what she'd done.  She worried the next day about what would happen when he saw his face, but he never figured it out. So then she was glad she did it.   

Trix was not a violent person. I can't remember her losing her temper. She was a loving kind woman.  But she was NOT to be messed with; worse still was messing with her loved ones. You always knew she was tough AND good. It's a rare combination.

I love her and I miss her and I hope I can be more like her every day.

…And Zeke greets the moose

I miss Cienna. Carlos and I are too much alike to be productive. We're a sinister combination, Auld Lang Syne-speaking.

We have all our Christmas shopping to do and instead yesterday Carlos and I drove around, eating candy and joking about what we could buy The Relatives.

“I'm know what I'm going to get Aunt Judy….”

“What?”

“A cornsnake.”

“Why a cornsnake?”

“She can't regift it.”

Every year we see someone else in the family receive what we got the previous year for Judy or her husband, Spence. Last year I got them a calendar. I can hardly wait to see who gets it this year.

Judy and Spence are wealthy beyond common sense, but usually mad at some or all of the rest of the family for some odd infraction.

A couple years ago, they each came to me, separately and apologized for being mad at me, apparently for years.

“I'm sorry I've been so mean to you,” Spence said, trapping me in the kitchen where I was mixing lemon drops for everyone. “I'm not mad at you anymore.”

I do make a mean lemon drop.

“I didn't even notice…” I said, laughing. I truly hadn't. I had no idea what he was talking about. I assumed he was drunk.

“Yes. You did. I was awful to you and now I see how good you are, to your Mom and Chris…how you took care of your Dad…..and I'm sorry.”

“Okay,” I shrugged, “Sure. All is forgiven.”

A little while later, in comes Judy, again, while I'm mixing drinks.

“Katy, I want to put the past behind us. I'm sorry. I've forgiven you and I want you to forgive me.”

“Why are you sorry? I HAVE NO IDEA what you are talking about!”

“Yes you do. I know you do. I don't want to get into it, let's just move on.”

“Judy, seriously, what are you talking about?”

“Katy, let's not rehash it. I know you know, how could you not, only a monster could be so callous…” she stopped to shudder visably, while I studied my reflection in the window behind her. My eyebrows, which I'd attempted to tweeze, were horribly uneven. I'd only finished part of one before getting bored. Maybe I should wax, I considered.

“Anyway,” she continued. “Clean slate! Are we good? Can we move on from the terrible past?”

“Absolutely. Finally I can drink with a clear conscious.”

I still have no idea what either of them was talking about. Neither does my Mother or anyone else in the family. I don't know what I did or what I was forgiven for. I never noticed anyone being unkind to me.

That year I got martini glasses and the little polish pottery dish I'd given them two years previous. To forgive is divine, alright.

Occasionally Carlos and I would pull into a parking lot, leave the engine running, and sigh.

“Too crowded,” I'd pronounce. “I don't want to go here.”

“Me either. Let's go down town. Let's drive to Kellogg or something. Stop and get me another Mountain Dew….”

This is the sort of behavior Cienna would never allow. She would insist that we go into shops and make purchases. We'd get the shopping done and have plenty of time for other holiday-themed things. Cienna would also know why someone had forgiven her. This is our first Christmas without her. We'll end up doing something wildly inappropriate at the last minute.

“I'm getting everyone nametags.” I decide. I pull in to Office Depot. There are pictures of red and green Hello! My Name is:  tags.  Santa and Rudolph are written in gold script. 

“That say 'Judy'?” Carlos asks. “You should! I'd wear one!”

I buy one of those gold pens, too.

At least next year I'll know who I pissed off and why. I like the clarity of this decision.

“What about you?" I ask Carlos, "What will you give everyone?”

“Forgiveness….and a baby shark for Aunt Judy.”

We laugh and laugh. All the way to Kellogg.

I told the Trix that Eric was getting me a boob job for Christmas. I didn't actually MEAN to, but that's what she heard and I decided to go with it. My mother loves Eric. In her eyes he can do no wrong. His job is the most dangerous, he is the nicest and the hardest working….He's a walking superlative. At the moment, he was out shoveling paths in her yard for the dogs. I was eating my 5^th cookie, which she'd made for Eric. She often thinks I should cook more. She brings up the time, over 20 years ago, when she visited my house and had to rake the carpet, because I didn't own a vacuum cleaner. Or a broom. (I was poor. Too poor to afford beer AND clean floors).

When she asked what I was getting Eric for Christmas, I said I didn't know yet. Which is true. I haven't done ANY SHOPPING. I'm a lazy bad wife procrastinator.

She then wondered aloud what he was getting me, I told her,

“Ooohhhh, a new mop…”

“What? A BOOB job? He wouldn't….”

We could both see Eric out the front window, shoveling her sidewalk, and the neighbors. Nine degrees and snowing, he had been out there for over an hour. When he came in the house, eventually, he would tell her he enjoyed hard work. Fucker.

“Yup. A boob job. I don't really want a boob job, but he said my boobs aren't just about me, they reflect on him, too, and his success. My flat wilty chest makes him look like a proletariat. He said he might as well be driving a Kia or some sort of Dodge sedan.”

“ERIC SAID THAT?”

“Oh yes. You'd be surprised,” I said, watching Eric gently dust the snow off my mother's bird houses.

“Well, I'm shocked. I guess you never know…” Trix said, “Don't get a boob job. To hell with that. Do you want another cookie, dear?”

“It's the last one, Mom,” I said sadly, taking it anyway. I'll tell her I was kidding later.

A little while ago I took Zeke and Scout for a walk down the street to Tubb's Hill. Dogs are so easy to make happy. Scout didn't like the moose statue at the trail head, and she disapproved of all the activity downtown, but then so did I…. She loved the snow. She enjoyed waylaying Zeke.

Zeke loved every minute of our walk. Zeke is a joy-filled dog. He woo-woo'd all the way to the hill, and he and Scout chased each other and played. He circled and twirled and bowed at my feet all the way home.

Tomorrow we will drive 400 miles through snow and ice to spend Christmas with my family.  We're bringing probably only 3 of our 4 dogs, which is ALMOST more traumatic for me than the prospect of hearing more stories about my mother's sexuality. (I shit you not.  The Trix somehow feels the need to unload, so to speak. It's positively gruesome.)  I was sure this morning and this afternoon and part of this evening that I would without a doubt be leaving Scout with Dianne, for the good of All.  Now, I'm not so certain.  I'm stressing.
What if I get trapped up there? SNOWED IN??? My dogs calm me.  They get me out of my mother's house to run. Alone.  Scout barks at my brother. Or will if I click and treat her into it.

My brother, Cienna and I are training for a 30K run that happens in Oregon in March.  My brother, Chris, has been training, anyway.  Every time he calls me, he asks, "So, you're running, right?" and usually I have to finish chewing something before I can take a swig of beer and clear my mouth enough to answer unconvincingly,

"Uh-huh….Yup….  Hey, so what else is new? Have you ever tried cheese on poptarts? It's gross at first, but after a few chews the cheese and the frosting sort of compliment each other…"

I got Chris into running two years ago, as an alternative to divorce and living in his car. LIke most everything my brother has ever done, he is good at it. He's fast and he's piling up the miles.  The last time I ran with him, a few months ago, I had to lie to get him to stop occasionally so that I could breathe. 

"My shoes untied."

"What sort of PLANT is this?"

"My uterus fell out."

He's lost 20 pounds. I have food stains on all my running stuff.  I used to be the healthy one. 

A few years ago Chris decided to quit drinking, which was a good thing.  The last time we'd seen him he'd taken me and our older brother, Matt, to a skanky north Idaho shithole called something clever like "The Shack" because that's what it was, and nearly got us all beat up when we had to physically peel him off an aged lot lizard. (It's not a judgment, that's what her stained t-shirt said.) 

Chris was hitting on this woman, who was old enough to be our mother, not probably QUITE chronologically, but certainly mileage-wise.  (Her crusty old odometer was stuck on 9999999)  She had a tattoo of a snake with dice for eyes.  She spoke thru a perpetually clenched cigarette, her lips moving like a muppet's.  Chris was entranced; wouldn't leave her alone.  She was sitting at the bar on an end stool, and he just kept orbiting her and whispering in her ear, buying her drinks….She laughed periodically, low and guttural, ending in a long coughing fit. 

At home, Mary, Chris' wife, was decorating for flag day. Ironing table clothes and setting the children's clothes out for school. She is perfect.  She would never have imagined this scene.

I'd sort of seen it before, Chris wasn't happy, a new phase of unhappiness; over-40-and-I'm-not-what-I-thought-I'd-be-unhappy.  I have always thought of him as successful. He's the funniest person I know. The quickest.  There isn't anything he can't do; he'd almost got a democrat elected to office in North Idaho.  I think we looked at that 'almost' differently.

I'd gone to bars with him on a number of occasions.  That last year, instead of just joking and/or bitching about our lives, having a *few* drinks, Chris would reach an intoxication level where he'd just become someone else. Someone mean, or crazy.  It was clear that he had a problem.  He was not the rotary club catholic family man who did everything right that some of the rest of the family was used to. 

Our oldest brother, Matt, sitting on a broken stool near the unisex "shitter" at The Shack just wasn't processing the New Chris. 

"What is he doing?" he kept asking me. "This can't be happening…Not Chris…I don't get this…"

Matt just kept sipping his one Bud Lite and sadly watching his younger brother, the Family Hopeful, nibble the wattle of his boozy beloved.

If one would have taken bets on which one of us kids would grow up to frequent beer shantys on "the old highway" and get sloppy drunk and make out with the mother figure from someone else's bad childhood…I think I can say all the smart money would have been on me.  

The night wore on and Matt finally insisted we were going.  Chris didn't want to leave. We're leaving, Matt said. I did a lot of nodding. No matter who was talking. I'm like that. Neutral in a pinch.

"Fine. Go. I'm staying here with Charlotte." Chris said, his sudden hand on her shoulder releasing a new coughing fit. We waited for her to finish.

"My name is Helen," the woman snapped.

"Whatever," Chris said. "Doesn't matter."

It went down hill from there. Helen, turned out, was a mean drunk.  That snake meant something. The other patrons sided with her.   In North Idaho, when push comes to shove, literally, you can't win wearing a rayon shirt and tasseled loafers, in any bar that features Hamm's art and has a dog turd under the pool table.   It was a low point for Chris having to face that turd up close.  Helen's orthopedic shoes marking up his tan dockers.  She didn't even spill her drink.

So bottom line is that now Chris doesn't drink and runs every day. He's back to being perfect and respectable. 

"Bring your shoes!" he called tonight to remind me. 

Yipe yipe yipe. All this to say I just don't think I can leave Scout.