merry christmas.

Does it feel like Christmas? I’m not sure I know what Christmas feels like. It changes by the year. This year I live in my own house with my own tree and my own nativity. It feels strange. Mark, Sidney and I are in Pittsburgh this year for Christmas, which is something I have never done, been away from the five Fickers and a golden retriever on Christmas morning. It is all very different, but it is Christmas. It is December twenty-fourth. I think maybe the hard part of growing up is figuring out where you fit.

But I have been pondering this “feeling of Christmas,” and it’s coming together.

In college, when I studied abroad, we backpacked in France, Switzerland and Austria. I wore flip flops—leather Rainbows—the whole time. This idiocy resulted in a stress fracture in the lower bone of my second toe on the right foot. It still hurts, especially in the winter. And the toe that I broke kicking the foot of my bed last year also hurts. They flare up in the winter when it’s cold. Our new house is the perfect house. It is old, though, and the floors are this beautiful railway station wood with staple marks. The floors are so cold that my feet are usually white by bed time. Well Mark and I celebrated Christmas with one gift apiece, our dog, and some Christmas music in the background the other night at the foot of our tree. And you know what he did? He got me these unbelievable Eskimo slippers from L.L. Bean. The suede moccasin type, with fur spilling out on the sides and through the stitching at the toe. For the first time, my toes don’t ache in the cold, because they’re warm and the faux fir cushions them. I forget about the little slivers in the bones when I’m wearing the slippers. I think this is the spirit of Christmas.



And we got this dog--as, if you read 2 posts ago, you know was a small step for humanity and a GIANT leap for Ginny--who has surprised me by being perhaps the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. I didn't realize how much I would love the never being alone, even when I'm writing at home in the afternoon and it is so quiet in the house because the heat is resting. Before, I would become so isolated in being alone in the silence of writing that I would have this unbelievable urge to SCREAM. Seriously, I would just want to yell to hear a sound in the house. Ever since Sidney came home, I don't have that because I talk to her periodically. I run ideas by her, tell her about my word choices for dialogue and narrative. She usually looks at me and sort of tilts her little head. She is an active listener and I am never alone now. I think this is the spirit of Christmas.



My iPod got stolen out of my car in October, which is obviously terrible, but my mom loaned me hers so I could listen to Christmas music all December. We had a dinner party on Monday and there was a leftover bottle of Cabernet. My sister got to go see Amy Grant in concert, singing the songs we grew up listening to all our lives for the entire month of December. We got a gorgeous 9-foot Fraser Fir from Food Lion for $29.99. Gift cards to restaurants in Winston-Salem so we can go out to eat! The recent remission of my awful case of post-novel writers block and the return of my muse, who is a small Irish man in my head. Three inches tall--material for another post another day. These are all the spirit of Christmas.

And Immanuel, God with us. That, chiefly, is the spirit of Christmas. Merry Christmas, and may the increase of His peace be with you this Christmas.

i thought i would never see these grades again...

I am terrible at math. TERRIBLE. And science. And anything left brain oriented, really. Math and science teachers in high school liked me because I was polite, but were generally irritated by my inability to understand concepts. Pre-Calculus was a nightmare and even Nutrition Science, a blow-off Senior year elective, required lab experiments and reports that effected more academic stress than Advanced Placement English Literature with T.B.

It is exam week at the school where I tutor and teach, and last week I tried to help one of my students study for her Pre-Calculus mid-term. She had this big packet with graphs, equations, logarithms, strange runes and cuneiform I swear I have never seen before. We sort of plodded through, consulting Google for help several times, all the while me spouting out fragments of apologies for my great inability to be any help AT ALL.

"Do you have to take math in college?" she asked me suddenly. She wants to be a writer. That's my girl.

I frowned. "Yes. Well, I did. One course. I took Elementary Statistics with S.G. It was a requirement to take one Math course, and Elem. Stat. was reported to be the easiest."

I continued to tell her how I not only took this course, but I came darn close to failing. I used to drag my butt out of bed freshman year, when I still thought I should major in Communications (BAH! That's a laugh) to traipse up the hill by the lake and over to the math building, where I would stop at the vending machine for strawberry pop tarts and then rest my head in my hands, elbows on the desk, and LITERALLY hold my eyelids open with my fingers. Shamelessly.

It is a gift of grace that I passed that course, and in relating this story to C. I decided to e-mail S.G., five years later.

Here is the e-mail I sent:


Dear Mr. G., (Insert: I obviously started out wrong by not referring to him as "Professor Extrordinaire")

You won't remember me, but I took your 8 am Tuesday/Thursday Elementary Statistics course my sophomore year at JMU, in 2005. I struggled MASSIVELY in that course, recieved test scores of 27% and 48% or something awful like that. I was an English Literature major with a concentration in Creative Writing and it was such a struggle for me to understand math.

You passed me in that course with a "C," a grade that I probably (or most definitely) did not deserve. I wanted to say THANK YOU for having grace on me. I am a writer now, working on my second fictional novel, and I most certainly NEVER use math. I also work at a high school teaching and tutoring mostly English and Writing, but occasionally a student will ask for help studying for a Pre-Calc test or something, and I tell them about you and your class and how I bawled when I got that 27%.

It's all in the past, but I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciated you, what a great teacher you are in spite of my idiocy, and that I'll never forget you-

Have a great holiday,

Ginny Evans. (used to be Ginny Ficker)




Later, I recieved this reply:




Hi Ginny,
Thanks for your kind message. Using ecampus I was able to find your photo, although this service for showing photos was not available back in 2004. I almost vaguely recognize you, after seeing your photo. I retrieved your old grades, and your final score was a 72.2%. You had only one absence (9/23/2004), and I slightly bumped your grade up to a 72.5%, which rounds to a 73%, a "C"! Below are your grades, which may remind you of "auto-grade," which I still use in addition to "auto-attendance" and (my new one) "auto-cell-phone" (for keeping records of students who brandish a cell phone during class).


HW1 Ex1 HW2 Ex2 HW3 HW4 Ex3 HW5 HW6 FEx
Maximum 10 100 10 100 10 10 100 10 10 100
Ficker Ginny 7 80 9 80 10 9 46 10 10 69


I looks as though your one bad grade was a 46, but I've seen much worse, and I'm sure you have too. It was good hearing from you, and I hope everything is going well for you.


Best wishes,
S.G.

It made my day. First of all, the fact that he found my entire profile in his gradebook catacombs is historic. Furthermore, the fact that he RECOGNIZED the fuzzy picture is even more hilarious. Yes, probably because I was the kook holding my eyes open. (Sorry, S.G.) Then, add on this sweet, encouraging word. Made me want to e-mail every teacher I have ever known and tell them to follow my blog! Look me up on facebook! LET'S BE FRIENDS NOW THAT I'M AN "ADULT!"


If you have a similar story, I recommend e-mailing. You never know what you're gonna get....

i wouldn't say i'm a 'dog person.'

Historically, Mark is the most difficult person to shop for at birthdays and Christmastime because he doesn't want anything. I've tried suggesting things, new clothes, new technology, new music. He is always polite, sort of shrugs and smiles and says, "That's fine." I think maybe the only thing he has ever actually asked for specifically, besides a new pair of football cleats, is a dog. So you can imagine my frustration, being someone who thought I might get away with a dog-free existence when I moved out of my parents' house. I am EASY to shop for and Mark has given me incredible gifts--trips, jewelry, devices and clothes to keep me warm in winter most commonly--so I wanted to be able to do the same.

But I did not want a dog.

Fast forward a year and a half. And meet Sidney.









It had become an issue as much of my not wanting the inconvenience/mess/no sleep effect/DOG HAIR/massive warm body in the little house that could weigh as much as me (God forbid), as an issue of resistance. I realize this now. How juvenile. About three months ago, as I sat on the white rocker on the front porch with my feet tucked up under me, drinking coffee and reading my Bible, it occurred to me that Mark doesn't just want a dog. He needs a dog. A pal to train and take care of, to own and love. He needs a friend to come home to who wants to play, throw a ball, run around the house. This will NEVER be me, thus, the dog. Furthermore, it occurred to me how my introverted husband would be blessed to be loved unconditionally by one who wouldn't ask him details of his day, what he's thinking when he isn't talking, or if he would mind deep cleaning the bathroom, pretty please. The dog doesn't care if there is toothpaste splatter on the mirror.

I wanted an English Golden. He wanted a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog. We went with the Swissy, considering all of the above. The dog would be for him. I specifically remember saying to someone, "I'm sure the dog will hate me and love Mark. I'll probably be so hard on her."

Well, well, well. Not so. I submit to the fact that I was wrong. I have fallen in love.



Wouldn't you? I mean, OH.MY.GOSH. look at that dog. Little Sidney Evans is this incredible, tiny, floppy, clumsy, easy-going foot heater with massive paws that makes me laugh just by looking at her, and I've transformed into a gushy care bear of a human when I'm around her. I promise that I will not become a person who discusses her pet as if she is a child prodigy, nor will my blog become a platform for Sidney worship, but let me take this post to say

THIS DOG MAKES ME SIMPLY BLISSFUL.

(except when she pees on my favorite rug.)