Daily Blague

Here's hoping that, if you're living in the Western world, in what used to be called "Christendom," you're having a warm and loving Christmas Eve. If this is just another Saturday night, then for heaven's sake, turn off the computer and get out for some fresh air. If you're in New Zealand or Australia, you may be just getting up on Christmas morning - time to head for the beach.

Kathleen and I have had a festive afternoon, reorganizing the linen closet mostly. That's how it ended up. Ironing was involved, as was the 1754 version of Handel's Messiah. In a little while, I'm going to make hamburgers. M le Neveu was to come for Christmas Eve, but he asked if he could come on Christmas instead, and that worked very well for us - allowing us extra time for organizing the linen closet as it did. I made a velouté de champignons for tomorrow's dinner; the main course will be Beef Strogranoff, using a wonderful recipe from Saveur that tops the dish with, of all things, frites! I've made it before, and if it comes out as well tomorrow, I'll publish the recipe. Dessert will be a bûche de Noël from Agata & Valentina; we will shed tears for Madame Dumas, who was last heard of in Queens.

In addition to fending off a cold that can't make up its mind what to do next, I've suffered a pre-holiday depression, wishing that I would magically wake up a few days before New Year's Eve - an uncomplicated holiday involving champagne, caviar, and shouting from the balcony at midnight. And Radio Days; we always watch Woody Allen's Radio Days on New Year's Eve. Christmas I was not enthusiastic about. Would I do the tree thing or not? That's really what Christmas is about, logistically. Either you buy a tree and move the furniture around, or you don't buy a tree and feel embarrassed in the privacy of your own home. Here's how I came to buy a tree.

On Monday, I think it was, I was changing lightbulbs in a ceiling fixture. This is not something that I ought to be doing, because I can't really see what I'm doing, and I took note too late that a small brass collar had unscrewed itself along with one of the lightbulbs. Don't ask me why, but this led to the dreadful pop of a short circuit. Kathleen and I were both traumatized; I'm sure she thought that I was going to drop from the stepstool. On Wednesday, I bought a replacement dimmer switch. By Friday, I'd convinced myself that the whole thing was going to be more complicated than just replacing the switch, but I hung around waiting for a handyman to come and repair a fixture and a dimmer switch that are definitely not building-issued. I should note that the fixture in question illuminates the corridor in which a lot of CDs and DVDs are shelved. Trying to read the spines of CDs and DVDs by flashlight is not recommended: all you get is reflected glare.

So.

The handyman came, and he was one of the methodical Africans, francophone I think, who have joined the building staff in recent years and who prove over and over that plumbing and electricity are universal languages. Which is not the feeling that you get from the very cross and impatient Croatian guy with the shaved head who reminds me of Prime Suspect 6. I was fiddling with something in the bedroom - I never try to read when a handyman is on the premises, but I tie up lots of little loose ends; I must have made seven trips to the garbage chute - when I was summoned. Did I have some glue? The handyman was about to screw on the switchplate, but a painted chip of plaster had come off during the repair process, and if we glued it back on everything would look better. It was as a sidelight that he told me that the fixture was working.

That's when I decided to spend the rest of the day on a tree.

Living where I do, I didn't have to go far to buy one; 86th Street and Second Avenue is an arboreal node at this time of year. I had my fir in minutes. All I had to do - beside moving furniture and so on - was to change the group listing on the auxiliary CD carousel beneath the sofa. I've only programmed two groups: one of jazz copies and one that slots every Christmas CD that we own. Shuffle Play - it's the only way! I was in the Christmas spirit in no time.

But that was yesterday, when I wasn't thinking about the linen closet.

Merry!