Holidaze

I had heard of the annual Brooks party, about the 100-year anniversary and the drinkz & the girls in pretty dresses and since have wanted to go, to watch the way each one speaks and what small or large talk each might make, to see runners dance, to dance. This year I got to be LB's date. Readying ourselves in her home off Aurora over glasses of white & eyelashes. Met up at her friends and co-workers' loft-space nearer the party. Wine in plastic cups and bowls of bread, soft christmas in the background; to the Foundry in the Industrial District. Running across the dark street towards the entrance with LB trailing like a lover in big city stories, and how comfortable it was to run in suede gray pointed heels, and how good it felt to get a little flushed in the cold before walking up and into this copper and steel manufacturing box; navigating faces I've grown familiar with through media. We headed to the drink line, full bar, three red tickets in hand. A goblet of red, outfit all white, we took photos in the photo-maker, got to reconnect with old WWU teammates over small plates of thin bread sticks, cheese and macaroons. Talking OT. Introducing myself for the severalth time to the man who sends me rejection letters & dancing in these somehow still so comfortable gray suedes. The red wine splashes down the faux fur front. LB & I couldn't stop making eyes at the Mackey's. I don't even know what we were doing. It wasn't a form of obsession, of some sort of societal interest or intrigue of Fast, rather, like they're really really cute together and there's something in each of their eyes that seems more authentic than others. We're tired & out as we grow older; navigated an Uber; making the driver laugh felt good. Cold pizza, hard sleep, a sobering morning run & Red swooped in for party no. 2.

A housewarming in the over-abundant fancy box-homed hills of Issaquah, his native land. In hand, a poinsettia of full festive force, and that good wine. The house had a poinsettia farm & felt like a treehouse overlooking the green mossy arches of brambles, held up there on the hill. The outside lit up in laser lights so far unstolen, the banisters and columns wrapped in ribbon. The kitchen with tiered serving dishes, separated sandwich makings, swedish meatballs, wings, a man with slightly swelling biceps always pouring and wiping and pouring & I'm sitting there hungover from people-watching at the Brooks party, that I don't even have a glass of black bubbles until 8 pm. The housewarming was for Red's brother, a kind-eyed, good gambler & the one I celebrated a 40th with in Vegas just a year ago. The good brother set us up in a hotel in Issy; Red showed me the bars he used to work at, the ever-still patrons of them; those places still cherishing his dimpled smile and what must have been quite a joyful skill, as we were gifted good glasses of red for simply sitting.

Back at home we had an early holiday get-together with my mother's side of the family, sitting at a big round at the golf club because Uncle Bill wanted to treat his family in the land of ballz and strokes. Steaks, wings, salmon, baskets of bread, a couple bottles of wine, espresso poured over ice cream & we're rolling out the door. Picked up the motorhome, that long schlong of a 90's mobile, and got it packed for Olalla-land. Christmas lights along the hallway, a wreath hung in the bedroom, no food, just wine, and a last minute decision to leave Whisker Biscuit at home, because just say No to provoking cat's to stress-pee in your grandparent's possession. We drop gifts off at friends' homes who work in healthcare through the night, sleep the day like cats, find we are gifted with a lush New Orleans cookbook and two tickets to a show. Then we are grazing tree branches with the height of the motorhome, parking at Red's parent's compound. The home warm, long dining table, red cloth, back deck adorned in beer & cookie platters & kiddie drinks. We always found the living room or the center island in the kitchen. Hunched shoulders, asking questions. A-look-me-in-the eye kind of love. Family in from Ohio, a family I love for their sense of humor, alcoholic intake, and because the woman is a reminder of a woman I love and miss, Mrs. Mitchell in Longmont, CO, which I've only now just realized. Wrapping presents with all the women on the heated floor of the bathroom. The christmas tree had two rounds. Imagine a world where reward follows reward! Some kind of twisted prolonged gasm of gifting. All this flavorful meat, hand-sawed from the patriarch, Paul Hobbs poured, board games, pies & cookies.

The 26th was the brother's birthday, and tradition follows that mama McKinnon makes the best oil and parmesan saturated Jimboy's mimicked tacos, and taco party's are tradition. So all these canadians show up somehow & we're watching the purple team over tacos that taste like creamin'. The canadians are drinking canadian beer and being very canadian, and the cake is really fudgey, and we laze about until we rally to the town's bar for beer, 7&7's, greasy nachos & one slow dance to a live band. Everyone is slippery and squeezing each other with that cupping grasping needy love & we're asleep in the mobile, and I'm asleep in the mobile as he drives us back home to the cat, who has angrily pooped in the closet on his clothes, which somehow means, I-love-you-too-much.