More and less

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and a kickass New Year. For my part in 2006 I hope to be more healthy, more positive and more content. But now the holidays are over and since I feel like we’ve been on the move for the last six weeks and I’m looking forward to the January/February doldrums. And some new damn TV. LOST – why have you forsaken me?

Yesterday we went to “see the tree.” Mark’s Dad has this thing where we both have to host each other at least once during the season under the pretense that we see each other’s tree. They came to our place for Christmas Eve but we hadn’t yet been to their apartment. With as much of a whirlwind as the last month and a half have been I was kind of dreading making the trip. I’m tired and in dire need of spending a few days chained to our house. But as I told Mark, we’ve been spending a lot of time with my family and I didn’t want him to think that I didn’t value spending time with his family – so we packed it on up and got our tired asses into the car to trek the hour and a half to central Jersey yesterday. And the TREE! Words could not describe the glory, artistry and splendor of Martin and Sylvia’s tree! Of course, I’m lying. It was your run of the mill tree. BUT we saw it. In fact, we photographed it. But more importantly we spent time with our family and that’s what it is really all about.

Last night when flipping channels I ran across the TLC special brilliantly entitled “Woman with half a body.” It was on right before “Face eating tumor.” Who the hell comes up with these titles? At any rate, I was glued to the tube watching the story of Rose, a woman whose lower body was amputated when she was a child. Oddly enough the miraculous thing was not just her ability to overcome “bewildering obstacles” to become a mechanic, race cars, get married and have a child – it was her attitude in spite of it all. In addition to her other issues, when her beloved mother died of cancer she had to move her husband and son in with her father who has Alzheimer’s disease and emphysema and her brother who is mentally disabled and often violent. Rose’s plate is beyond full of reasons for her to feel heartbroken and defeated. Nevertheless her positive attitude was dumbfounding. It was yet another wakeup call to me to count my blessings and disregard my petty worries. I really value those.