sleigh bells calling

It's almost too late to say this, since there are only six minutes of Christmas Day left, but, Merry Christmas one and all.

I wanted to say that in the early hours of this morning, as I sat up late unpacking and wrapping presents, and I seemed to hear sleighbells in an icy sky, long ago and far away. But I didn't have any internet, so I just thought it instead.

Then today I watched most of Polar Express, which I thought has many flaws as a film, but is nonetheless magical. Well, if you've seen it, I hoped I would be able to hear the bell, and I hope you can too.

Kisses
E

Luminous

On Tuesday, the communications team had our Christmas meal together. At 4pm, we all cleared out, leaving a sign on the door saying we’d be back on Thursday (Wednesday being a holiday), and shared ourselves between cars to drive to Mike’s house.

There are seventeen or so of us altogether, plus a few family members - wife, a father, some impeccably-behaved children – and Mike’s wife and son and a handful of their friends and neighbours who came and went throughout the evening.

It was, quite simply, lovely. The house twinkled with Christmas lights. Late afternoon sunlight filled the room. There was banter and laughter and a meal was shared – a meal of simple pleasures: fresh bread; slow-cooked meat; creamy potatoes; a milky, cinnamony dessert. I poured red wine badly. I chatted and joked in Spanish. After the meal, Mike’s guitar came out and so did the tequila, and everyone joined in singing old Mexican songs. A few songs later, out came the percussion collection – mostly maracas and those big rattly seed pods – and all around the table people picked their own rhythms and added them with enthusiasm. I danced along in my chair with a seed pod in each hand.

As the time passed, I looked around the table and found each person looking different to normal. Some of my colleagues hardly seemed recognisable, their faces quite different, unfamiliar. They were quite simply transfigured. Everyone was happy, enjoying the moment, relaxed with the year slowing to its close and Christmas on its way, contented in familiar, affectionate company. It seemed to me that this gentle, tranquil contentment eased our muscles, smoothed away our workday expressions. It seemed to me that each face was luminous, open, each person lit from within. A glow not just metaphorical but tangible. A fragile, vulnerable light. It was a rare thing, everything being just right for just a little while. Recalling it, I feel the memory already folded away into the soft parts of my heart. It was extraordinary.

As it worked out, I didn’t sing in front of everyone last Friday. I ended up playing a bit of volleyball, in fact until it was too dusky to see the ball, so by the time I got there the set was coming to an end. The bar was terrifyingly full of people, so I was quite relieved, but at the same time I did, in truth, want to sing. I dropped a hint or two, but I wasn’t brave enough to volunteer straight out, in case I wasn’t much good – I wanted to be asked, and I wasn’t.

On Tuesday, I had a second chance, when Mike forced me (willingly, but I couldn’t admit that) to do a song or two. We started out with Both Sides Now. It took ages to get the key right and even so I bottled the high bits – I couldn’t seem to pitch them, disconcerted by the guitar accompaniment and the attentive audience. These bits were quite awful, with the terrible clarity and time passing both too slowly and too quickly of a fear coming true, but the rest came out, at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, quite beautifully. Then we did Baby Can I Hold You by Tracy Chapman, which has no high bits to trip you up, and the bits of Big Yellow Taxi we could remember, with my lovely officemate Allison joining in too.

I am very glad that I faced my fear and rode it out, because when the song comes out like it should, like honey, it is a wonderful feeling. And everyone was so sweet to me, saying lovely things about my voice. It made me feel like, perhaps, I could be a person who sang in front of people sometimes, and that they might enjoy it. I don’t think I have an extraordinary talent or anything, just that sometimes there might be a guitar and a gathering and a song, and me, happy, for a moment a bird, singing with my eyes closed.

We talked about practising sometime, learning a few more songs. And I felt excited, not terrified at all.

[On the other hand, I will be judging the dancing contest in a little over twelve hours’ time. I’m not sure why I’m doing this, since I believe quite strongly that dancing is and should not be a competitive thing. And I’m still quite terrified about that.]

Why not to become part of the community #2

We are having a bit of a party in the bar tonight. My colleague and interregnum boss, Mike, will be playing some live music, mostly of the rock/blues persuasion, along with a couple of other people.

So far so good.

A few weeks ago they got together to play and a few of us were hanging out in the bar. It got to a point where we were singing along, and I ended up doing a bit of a solo version of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now".

I am always pleasantly surprised when people compliment my singing voice. My mother, and now I come to think of it my father too, always told me I couldn't sing - they told me to shut up, or asked me if I was in pain whenever I opened my mouth to sing (admittedly, in hindsight, loudly and with youthful exuberance). As a result, I do, after a lot of assurances from my lovely friends, think I can sing, a bit, but that's my secret, and I definitely don't feel confident enough to sing in front of other people.

But somehow, I did end up singing, in front of a few people, and it was actually a great feeling. And Mike paid me a tremendous compliment, saying he'd like to have his guitar behind my voice, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy, and I must've been enthusiastic about doing it again...

Because now Mike is insisting I sing a couple of songs tonight. In front of a lot more people. Not all my friends. I am, to put it mildly, nervous.

Black humour

I was looking up the word for "to put down" in Spanish earlier, because I thought "the vet killed my hamster" was a bit too ambiguous.

It is "sacrificar". I found this immensely funny, that I would basically say "the vet sacrificed my hamster". Visions of black candles and white robes and so on.

Furthermore, sacrificar means (1) to sacrifice, (2) to slaughter, and (3) to put down - all the purposes for which you might choose to kill an animal, in fact - which amused me even further. "The vet slaughtered my hamster", anyone?

That's cleared up the ambiguity nicely.

Also today, we received the following email: "All staff is invited to attend a mass to celebrate the day of Virgin of Guadalupe on Wednesday 12 December, at the car repair shop, at 10:00 a.m.". It made me laugh out loud. Because, you know, a mass in a mechanic's workshop, it's funny.

My officemate thought I was really weird.

[PS, it's the lexical ambiguity I found funny about "sacrificar", obviously, not the fact of it. That's still sad, and not funny. I was afraid this post might make be sound callous, but I just have a rather strange, sometimes black, sense of humour. I am, after all, the girl who once laughed 'til she cried at a diagram of some moss.]

Judging, or, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Today, as the working day was winding down, one of the secretaries from upstairs came into my office and asked me if I would be one of the judges of the annual Christmas dance competition, the others being the director general and last years' winners.

Gosh.

I've never judged anything before. I'm quite terrified by the prospect.

The whole thing is quite a big deal. It is held at the staff Christmas meal/party, so there will be 400-odd people watching. There is a live band. As I remember, the couples have to dance four or five different styles - and again in the second round, if they make it that far. Last year, the prizes were two swish new mobile phones, and at least some of the fifteen or so couples were taking it really quite seriously - as were the judges, swooping around the edge of the dancefloor and watching intently.

Fuck me, who on Earth thought I'd have any idea what I was doing? I mean, judging - other people - mostly older than myself - my friend and colleagues - dancing! But the thing is, I'm not a bad dancer and I can't think of many other people who'd do a better job of it, at least who wouldn't be dead set on entering themselves.

I haven't said a definite yes yet. I have a feeling of foreboding that this judging lark will not win me any friends. I also have a feeling of foreboding that I'm going to end up doing it anyway.

This is what you get for being part of the blasted community!

Sometimes, I don't feel very integrated at all - I do not have that gift of easy, graceful friendliness that gets some people known and loved in a new place inside a month, and I don't feel like I have strong, meaningful relationships with many people at all.

But, I do do quite a lot for the community in which I work. Somehow I ended up being the social events organiser for the centre, which means making sure the bar is opened every couple of weeks or so, beer and food are sold, music is played, snacks are available, publicity goes out in advance, special occasions are celebrated with appropriate decorations and festivities, and so on. Up until the nights got so dark, I was organising weekly volleyball sessions. I have taken on twice-weekly advanced English classes for some of the secretaries. I bake things for bake sales. I turn up to things.

All of which means most people seem to know who I am, although I don't know that they necessarily like me - providing music for people to dance to, for example, is an extremely thankless and stressful task, though it does mean I now have quite a music collection! This notoriety is awkward enough on occasion given my terrible memory for names and identities, but now, it seems, it has landed me in the role of judge.

My life seems very surprising and peculiar to me sometimes - could it really be mine?

In nine days' time I probably be judging some of my colleagues doing rock'n'roll dancing. I have no idea what constitutes good rock'n'roll dancing.

Gosh.

It curls in agony big as itself and the star goes out in its eye

I had to take one of my hamsters to the vet to be put down today.

I could leave it at that, but I feel I would reap sympathy that I do not deserve, because I am in fact deeply ashamed of myself.

When I first got my hamsters, I spent quite a lot of time petting them and socialising them, letting them climb on me and occasionally losing them in the innards of the sofa. It soon became obvious to me that, though I had optimistically thought I would be, I'm not really a hamster person; the pets that, for me, are worth having are the ones that can be companions and don't need to live in a cage - cats, dogs, certain parrots, and so on. But, I wanted to enjoy them for what they were, and they were super-cute and fluffy. One, Hermione, was sweet-tempered and friendly, but Lucita tended to bite, and it was harder to motivate myself to handle her.

Then, a few months ago, I was really busy for a while, and I went away, and somehow got out of the habit of handling them every day. As they got less used to being handled, both of them got more likely to bite, and I got less keen to handle them, to the point where I developed an absurd and irrational terror of being bitten by them (irrational because, really, it does hurt, but it's no big deal).

I don't think of myself as being sentimental about animals, but I do feel strongly that if you make yourself responsible for another creature's life you should do your best to treat it well. So I have never neglected my beasts' material needs... but I haven't exactly loved them either.

On Sunday night, I came home to find Hermione looking extremely sick - eyes half-closed, chin wet, sort of trembling and rocking. I looked on the internet to see if I could figure out what was wrong with her, but nothing seemed to fit, and she was so ill that I was sure she would be dead by the morning.

She wasn't. I didn't really think about taking her to the vet, because I have the impression that vets here have very little experience with small animals as most Mexicans simply wouldn't bother treating them, and because I remained convinced that she was at death's door.

This morning, she still wasn't dead. Her eyes were closed, her breathing was laboured, and she was in a kind of pathetic heap in a way a healthy hamster simply wouldn't rest. I realised I had to at least try to help her, even if there didn't seem to be much I could do. I thought I'd try to figure out if she had impacted food stuck in her cheek pouches - the only thing, other than a stroke or something like that, that even vaguely matched her symptoms. And then when I picked her up I saw a huge tumour growing under her belly.

Up until Sunday, I don't believe it was affecting her behaviour - she was feeding and moving quite normally. And I think it would have grown fairly quickly. I also don't think it would have made any practical difference if I had known it was there - she had a smaller tumour on her paw and the vet recommended leaving it unless it began to affect her, and I know that internal tumours in tiny rodents are even more difficult to operate on, even if you know what you're doing. Nonetheless, I feel enormously guilty and ashamed that I didn't even notice it.

Clearly, she was going to die. I cried and watched her try to breath and tried to work out if there was a humane way to kill her. I almost broke her neck, I had my hands in place, only I couldn't work out how to do it and be certain of getting it right - it sounded easier written down. And then I cried some more that I couldn't even do that for her.

Over in my office, I had a bit more clarity - clearly, I should take her to a vet as soon as possible to put an end to her suffering. They might not be very experienced in saving small animals, but there can't be that much room for failure in killing them. So I went back to the guy who had trimmed her claws and looked at the tumour on her paw, and he was incredibly kind. He waited for me and did it in his lunch hour. After the first injection had knocked her out, he lifted her gently and brushed away the sawdust from her fur. He stroked her while she was dying. I just wish there were people I could recommend him to, because he is simply lovely.

He suggested I step outside but I watched him giving her the lethal injection, not feeling like I deserved to be spared. Only a minute or so afterwards, she already felt cold. When I got her home, I trimmed her too-long-again claws, because I am in truth pathetically mawkish and sentimental, and I stroked her beautiful soft fur, and I made myself look at the tumour. This evening, I buried her.

I am fully aware that she was only a hamster and I am not, by any means, devastated. Yet, I've lost relatives - and not relatives I hated or anything - and not shed a tear, but today the tears keep coming back. She was only a hamster, but I took her life into my hands - she did not choose to be mine - and I failed her.

Tomorrow, I am going to buy some thick gloves and start handling Lucita. She doesn't deserve to be abandoned.

And when I find myself neglecting the responsibilities I choose for myself, I'll think of Hermione.

The eating of time by photographs

At the current rate of progress I'll still be sorting out my Mexico photos when I draw my first pension, partly because there are always other things to be doing, and partly because of the black hole that is playing with Photoshop. I try not to get drawn in, but then I think how a photo might look so much better cropped, or with a little bit of fiddling to correct the colour or lighting... and before you know it I'm doing altogether ridiculous but fun things with the saturation and contrast that I'm pretty sure are painfully passe and dismissed by the knowledgable as overprocessing - and I've spent an hour prodding a single photo.

But, I do rather enjoy myself.

I discovered a delicious shop at the weekend full of achingly hip and beautiful Mexican kitsch, including some rather lovely cards using the effect where most of a photo is in black and white, or almost so, with some part(s) of it picked out in bright colour. Nothing I hadn't seen before, but very nicely done, and I was gripped with the desire to have a go myself.

This is my second attempt, using a fairly mediocre photo of some farmers sitting in a row at an event at a small-town maize festival; I am quite pleased with the transformation. There'll be more to come, I suspect!

Snapshot

I haven't posted any photos in a while. I am hopelessly overwhelmed by all my photos and the need to sort them out, but, meanwhile, this is one I like: tiny piñatas hanging up at a fruit and veg stall in a market in a town I was passing through. I feel too embarrassed to take pictures in the market where I live, but I don't mind so much when I know I won't be back!

How to draw a circle

Struggle with that most celestial of geometries? Always find yourself making excuses when your friends require a representation of the round? This could be exactly what you've been waiting for:


(I just came across this on my desktop; it makes me smile. Unfortunately I have no idea where in the tangle of the interweb I found it, but I'd guess the copyright belongs to the late Col. Stoopnagle.)