Sense of Adventure

Yes, it’s official: Christmas has knocked me on my kiester. I’ve basically felt like a lump of lead all day.

That’s not so surprising: I’ve been pushing pretty hard the last few days: writing, engaging in intense socializing (which always drains me, although I don’t get enough of it) and not sleeping as much as I should. Even after a protracted, if somewhat sporadic, sleep I felt pretty inert.

What did startle me was how much I ached. I felt, as if I told Joe when he called about 2 this afternoon, as if I’d been beaten with big bats.

(He asked me how big and what kind of a cave they came from. I told him those poodle-sized Philippine fruit bats that P. J. O’Rourke once said resembled lieutenant colonels in the rat air force. And they live in trees, not caves.)

One thing I thought might’ve contributed was having to push a car last night up Melinda’s driveway. Which is a quarter mile long and ends in an Alp. Joe said, “Well, as you know, the best way to push a car is to turn around, rest your butt against it, and push with your legs.” Well, talk about overestimating me; no, I told him, I didn’t know that. Although it’s one of those things that’s totally obvious after it’s been pointed out to you.

Christmas was good to me. Rode up to Melinda’s with my friend Chip, who lives but a few blocks away. She lives on a ridgetop. A somewhat narrow, steep-sided ridgetop. It does give her a stupefying view of what seems like about two-thirds of New Mexico.

The dirt road up from the highway, and of course her driveway, was pretty snow-packed. We were a bit concerned about predictions of later snow. Those proved, thankfully, incorrect. Chip’s concerns about getting back out, not so much.

I had a great time. Melinda’s husband Carl (who actually designed the house – which is incredible) was back from his gig overseeing some kind of gigantic building project in downtown Las Vegas. Various other friends were also in attendance: Wanda June and her daughter Rhea, who’s a very skilled artist; the ever-sardonic Ty Franck and his wife Jayné, who looks like Angelina Jolie; and George RR Martin and Parris.

We watched the Black Adder version of A Christmas Carol – of course it was funny: it’s Black Adder. Then we had a fine dinner of prime rib and popovers (gringo sopaipillas!) which Melinda cooked, and salad, and potatoes mashed by Parris.

Afterward we had presents. I had none for anyone because I didn’t really know what to get anyone. Melinda and Carl and George and Parris gave me nifty gifts; I don’t know Ty and Jayné particular well and was pleasantly surprised as well as flattered when they most generously gave me one too. Felt a bit chagrined; next year I must find or figure out suitable presents to give them. In any case, many thanks to them all.

Then we came home. Or tried. As indicated, we didn’t negotiate that last hill with any great success. So we trooped back to the house. Although earlier the wind had been booming and buffeting like something from Where Eagles Dare, it had calmed considerably, which was good. It was pretty crisp out but not really uncomfortable. I was a little dubious about walking on the slick road, especially since the sides are really a bit sheer in a couple of places. In fact, while Chip was backing up trying to get a run at the last slope he got a little perilously close to a pretty substantial drop. I had got out to lighten the load, in case that helped – it didn’t – and waved my arms and shouted at him. I don’t know if he actually noticed, but neither did he back off to oblivion.

“Vic’s burly,” Ty sang out, tongue in bearded check, when we reported our plight. “He should be able to push you.” Well, I explained, we tried that; Vic isn’t burly enough.

As we were rounding up a pushing party (Ty, Carl, and me) Chip vanished. We looked around for him for five minutes – I had been by the door the whole time and was convinced no one had gone out – without success. So we decided he must’ve gone out again anyway, with only his somewhat alarmingly pink sweater by way of overgarment, and set out in pursuit. Carl drove us in his suave Volvo SUV with all-wheel drive. He and Ty discussed the relative merits of Mercedes and Lexus/Toyota. Carl insisted Mercedes was superior; Ty championed Toyota and Lexus. I sat in back wishing I had such problems as having to decide between them.

So we switchbacked our way along the drive. “The car’s right – ” I began.

Then I said, “ – not there.” It wasn’t. It was up the slope and turned to the right. My first alarmed thought was that it had gone in the ditch (still better than off a cliff.) But instead Chip hadn’t just returned to the car, he had successful mastered the slope. “It got sideways,” he explained, “and up it went.”

Carl kindly agreed to follow him back to the pavement. I rode with him and Ty and switched over once we got to the highway. The weather continued fair and we made it home with no further adventure.

Thus Christmas. As I said, I could understand some of today’s aches on the basis of my (inefficient and perilous) car-pushing technique. But not all. Especially since even after sitting on cushions on Melinda’s floor – SF folks get used to sitting on floors; it’s something we do – I found myself a bit stiff. Which is unusual for me.

As I said when I met Joe at Napoli Coffee – which he delights in calling “Vesuvius coffee,” both of us being addicted to giving things humorous (to us, anyway) pet names – “I woke up feeling forty today. And I hate feeling that old!” (I usually feel much younger. And I’m 53, for those who aren’t keeping score.)

After spending some time talking to Joe I felt much better; I suspect I need to do a bit more stretching as well as being more assiduous about doing joint-mobilization exercises. We’ll hit those tomorrow. (And, dang! I just realized I didn’t do my taijiquan Long Form this morning. And I bet that’d have loosened me right up.)

Despite minor if aggravating physical discomfort, I was and am pleasantly surprised I haven’t gotten hit with emotional comedown. In the past after intense, protracted emotional experiences such as an SF cons or Christmas, I crash and burn emotionally. No sign of that this time, thankfully.

A couple hours ago there came a knock at the door and I discovered on my doorstep Duke and Tanley McMullan from ASFS. They said they were out looking at lights and found themselves in the neighborhood, so they wanted to drop off a little gingerbread house they’d made as a gift. Which was very sweet.

They came in briefly to say hi to Emma. She’s met Tanley before when Tanley came over to collect some free books I got sent by accident. But unless Emma knows you and has decided for herself that you’re all right, you’re definitely on the watch-list. She did stop barking at them both and let Tanley scritch her ears a little, but remained vigilant.

Anyway. It was a great Christmas. Hope you had one too. And tomorrow I’ll hit the ground running.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 11:39 pm and is filed under Life, Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.