Home for the Holidays

FEATURED POSTS

December 30, 2022

So Christmas came and Christmas went, but we stayed home, cuddled with our dog Henry, sprawled on the couch, slouched in chairs, laying together in bed, wrapped in blankets, and sick for the Holidays.

Carmela had a sore throat, a raspy cough, headaches, and total lack of energy. I was listless and fatigued, and even Henry was ailing – especially when he had to go out in the drizzle to pee or poop.

We cancelled get-togethers with friends and family. Carmela had been scheduled for a new holiday do at the beauty parlor. We had been planning a special lunch with a dear friend and our niece and her husband. We had been looking forward to Christmas dinner at a fancy restaurant in Los Angeles with our sister-in-law Susan and her husband Jeff. Everything was cancelled.

But, I’m not complaining. It was Christmas with just the three of us, locked inside, coughing, sniffling, and snuggling while the rain came down outside and other people gathered to celebrate the season. It was an intimate and caring time, and it brought its own Christmas joy.

Our grand niece Everly Pearl had come to visit a few days before we had gotten sick, and she and Carmela had set up the creche in the corner with Mary and Joseph, the little shepherd boy, three wise men, their camels, a lamb, a donkey, and of course the baby Jesus. It took more than an hour as Everly placed the figures in their proper places, then moved them all to other places, and moved them once again. The baby Jesus was in his Mary’s arms, then moved to the manger, then back to his mother’s arms, while an angel looked on from above.

Then Carmela and Evie decorated the rest of the house, hanging sparkling decorations and ornaments from knobs and hooks all over the living room and kitchen. Later, after Evie had gone home with her mother and brother, her sweet, bossy, little girl presence remained behind along with her handiwork.

And so, we count our blessings. We weren’t stranded in the snow in upstate New York or sleeping on the floor of an airport terminal halfway to somewhere with no way there or back. We weren’t stuck in a frozen place ravaged by war and hatred.

We were safe in our home, we had a warm place to sleep, we had food to eat, and most of all, we had each other.

– George Lee Cunningham

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News

April 17, 2024

Minor Character

Sometimes I feel like a minor character in one of those really long James Michener historic novels. I’m one of the guys they check in on a couple of times during the course of the book and one more time when he finally kicks the bucket. In truth, that suits me just fine. I don’t want to be one of the major players – those guys who lie, cheat, sleep around, make a lot of money, kill a lot of people, and then then suffer a tragic death on Christmas Eve. I just want to be me – plugging along, having some fun, loving the same woman for years, and then quietly passing away.

March 25, 2024

Cereal Killer

I have almost given up on cereal. As a younger man, I loved a sugary treat. As an old man, who has to watch his diet, I find myself checking labels on everything. Sugar is the enemy. For instance, Cap’n Crunch – a former favorite of my wife – contains: Corn Flour, Sugar, Oat Flour, Brown Sugar, Palm and/or Coconut Oil, Salt, Reduced Iron, Yellow 5, Niacinamide, Yellow 6, BHT, Thiamin, Mononitrate, Pridoxined Hydrochloride, Rioflavin, and Folic Acid. My choice: plain old Shredded Wheat. Ingredients: wheat and BHT (a harmless preservative). Not a taste treat, but at least I’ll live to tell about it

Highway Memorials

Driving across country nowadays, we notice a growing number of roadside displays – flowers, crosses, and ribbons – marking the sites where people apparently died in traffic accidents. I do understand mourning the passing of somebody you love, but I’m not sure I see the point of putting a display at the place along the road where they died. Even sadder is the fact that flowers wilt and highway trash piles up around the displays, making them just another sad reminder of life cut short.

December 5, 2023

Love Motives

I often tell my wife I love and adore her, mainly because I do and also because women like to hear the man in their life actually say the words. But during one conversation I had to confess that some times when I say it – especially when she is irked and giving me the deadly silent treatment – I am also reminding myself of that fact so I don’t start yelling and slamming doors. Is that so wrong?

Being Mortal

I am officially an old man. Sometimes I forget, then I look in the mirror and there it is. The truth is that life has its limits, and that is how it should be. There are new generations coming up, ready to step up and take our place. They are welcome to it. If you have reached old age, you have made some blunders in you life. If you think otherwise, then you are indeed a fool. You can warn the new generations about the mistakes you made, but they are oblivious. This too is as it should be. It’s their world, and it’s on them to screw it up for the generations to follow, just as we did for them.

Good Deeds

There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It’s mostly – but not always – true. The problem with good deeds is that most people who do them expect to be appreciated. In actuality, good-deed recipients are more often resentful about it, rather than grateful. Nobody likes being the person who has to rely on the good will of others. So do good deeds for your own sake – because it makes you feel better, not because you want to be feel appreciated.

Recreational Bitching

Did you ever notice that some people – maybe more people than not – like to complain about everything? In the summertime, it’s too hot. In the wintertime it’s too cold. Health care is too expensive. Young people are too rude. Old people move too slowly. There ought to be a law against anything and everything that might make one unhappy. It’s recreational bitching, and we all do it to greater or lesser extent. Maybe once in a while, it might make sense to listen to how we talk and how we think. Most of us are just doing the best that we can.