Through a Glass, Darkly

It’s funny how an episode can cause such different reactions. I’ve done more reading after this week’s episode, more than I usually do, and the responses surprised me. The Christopher camp seems thrilled with him learning more about Stars Hollow. The Despair camp remains firmly entrenched in, well, despair. And I, waving my banner of hope, thought it was great.

I don’t like the word “journey,” and I try to avoid using it if I can. However, I have come to accept that this season of Gilmore Girls is about Luke and Lorelai having parallel journeys. I can no longer deny it. Luke’s is a journey of redemption, to fix what he ruined last season. And Lorelai is finding out what she really wants.

In a discussion earlier this season, someone making a distinction between being good with Lorelai (Christopher, if you like that sort of thing, which I most certainly do not) and being good for Lorelai (Luke). I think that is a lot of what we are seeing, and I honestly think that if Lorelai’s “journey” (bleh) has to do with finding more about herself and what she wants, part of that is going to be realizing that Christopher is a fun guy, they have chemistry, they get along . . . but that’s not enough. She needs somebody who fits, and Christopher honestly doesn’t fit. As much as Luke makes noise about hating the town festivals, he really got that Lorelai loves them. For all that talk of Chris “getting” her earlier in the season, well, that was not apparent this week. I hope that was apparent to you, and that I don’t need to make you a pep talk any more than that. I honestly believe with all of my heart that this is working, that what we are seeing is how Christopher doesn’t work in Lorelai’s life. I don’t believe he’s sticking around, conversations with Jackson notwithstanding. I continue to feel better and better about the show because of that.

So, without further ado, letters to the characters.

Dear Townies,

How much do I love the not-so-welcome wagon that you gave Christopher? SO MUCH. Please continue. Please.

Tolerating Christopher is way more than I do,
Kari

–

Dear Christopher,

Shocking! You used money to try to buy people’s affections yet again! I can hardly believe it! When will you ever learn?

Hoping you never learn and Lorelai gets sick of you,
Kari

P.S. I’m pretty sure that Taylor’s not on the list of people Lorelai wanted you to impress. Nicely done.

–

Dear Luke,

Your speech to Anna was magnificent. Too bad you didn’t say it last year.

Bitterly,
Kari

P.S. Oh, sure, try to win me over with your smiling and your “cutely holding the new baby.” It won’t work. (It already worked.)

–

Dear Marty,

No. Just . . . no. Please don’t do that.

I still love you, but . . . no,
Kari

–

Dear Paris,

Please dance in every episode.

You make everything better,
Kari

–

Dear Rory’s friends,

I know lots of people find you annoying, but I like you. I can’t help it. I even liked your silly theme for your party.

Keep giving Rory stuff to do,
Kari

P.S. Please stay her friends when you find out that she and Marty lied about knowing each other.

–

Dear Lorelai,

Are you really having fun? Is this really what you want?

Waiting for February,
Kari

P.S. I know it’s not what you want. I was just being polite and offering you a chance to explain yourself.

I do very much mind if I am getting nowhere, actually. It weighs on my mind and makes me even more tired than a plate full of tryptophans. But, slowly, slowly, I’ve been learning that heading in a straight line to what I perceive to be the answer may not be an answer at all. No, the answer might require patience, finesse, taking the long way around. And so, in the end, it might be better just to enjoy the process, to see how the “mystery of the curve” might take a little more time, but it also might give me the experience I need to better know what to do. As I circle this issue yet again, I am trying to believe that, if it’s not resolved yet, there’s something else I need to learn from letting this happen. Again. Only this time I’m going to try to let the end result work itself out.

I don’t mind if I am getting nowhere
Circling the seed of light
I’ve been greedy for some destination
I can’t get to where are you
Turning reverie to perfect solids
Bone and shells to hide ourselves
I tried but can’t find refuge in the angle
I’ll walk the mystery of the curve

Five colors blind the eyes
See the world inside
Amazed alone

I have to say that I thought this would be over by now. I know I’ve said that, said it so much that even I am tired of hearing it. And I know I’ve been stressing myself out, holding onto it and rolling it over and over in my mind when there’s more than enough on my plate already. But then I step back for just a minute, and I think about who I am now, and how different I am than when this started. I have made good decisions for myself, I have more confidence, I am stronger. Maybe this situation hasn’t changed, but I certainly have. And that’s not really “getting nowhere.”

And this is the time of year to believe in change. To remember the mystery of a little baby in a manger, and not to put limits on relationships, what I think can happen, what I think should happen. To try, once again, to let go of the things I hold too closely: what others think of me, being understood, and instead to grasp onto things that are healing: friends who prop me up, spending time with family, road trips and concerts and Advent. The baby in the manger reminds me to hope, even when I’m too afraid, too tired to risk it on my own.

Opening my hands
Closing wounds I made myself
Raise the dead and bury all my fears
Listen to the rain
And the bells that ring in my dreams
Turning time to break its line from here
To the small forgotten road
Where we see the concrete world disintegrating

So, for now, what I believe is that “getting nowhere” is getting somewhere after all.

Fabulous lyrics from “Five Colors” by Sam Phillips.

Tonight, when Mike and I went to the store, I devised a new way of celebrating Christmas cheer. For each house that we passed, I gave it a score from 0-10, based on its decorations. The more bright lights, gaudy decorations, and Santas kneeling at the manger that you have on your house and in your yard, the higher your Christmas cheer score. Our house, for example, gets a 1. We have our tree in the window, but it only has white lights. They don’t even flash. We also have a boring old wreath on the front door with no lights. Now, this is exactly what I want for my own house, but it does not exactly score high on the Christmas Cheer-o-meter. It’s like we’re not even trying.

Luckily, when Mike got over the fact that I was being really annoying, yelling numbers at houses as we passed them (and giving him a zero in cheer every time he disagreed with me), he took me down a side street that was a thing of beauty and a joy to behold. I was already giving extra points for crazy inflatable things in yards, giving the house with the creepy polar bear in a witch hat a 5 when it might ordinarily just be a 3 or 4 without it, so you can imagine my excitement at seeing a house in our neighborhood that had lights and figurines and this inflatable Santa carousel. (I’ll wait here while you click that link. No, seriously. Click the link. You need to see this.) You guys. An inflatable Santa carousel. That house was a solid 8, and it’s still early. Who knows what other crazy stuff they can put in their yard before Christmas? Will we be able to see the grass? Will they have to park their cars in the street? Will there be spotlights and fireworks? Santa passing out candy canes? Will the Cheer-o-meter have to go to 11 just to accomodate the new and unprecedented levels of cheer? Tune in next week to find out!

I encourage you to bring the Cheer-o-meter to your own neighborhoods. I was really crabby tonight on the way to the store, but harshly judging people’s homes cheered me right up.

Now get to decorating. I’ll be watching.

Our compromise on holidays has generally been to spend Thanksgiving with Mike’s sister and Christmas with my family. We did this for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it’s honestly the most convenient thing. I had been known to pay lip service to the fact that Thanksgiving is more important in Mike’s family than it is in mine, but it wasn’t until last year that I really started to get that. Last year, for some reason, we didn’t go see Mike’s sister, so we spent the holiday with my family. That means going to my grandma’s house for potluck, which may or may not include all of Mike’s required dishes. And then, on Friday, we made our own turkey, Mike’s family’s stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc. Just for the two of us. Just so Mike could eat leftovers for the rest of the week, since that’s part of the whole Thanksgiving experience.

Even that didn’t really make me get it, though. It wasn’t until this year, when, again, Mike spent all day Friday working on a turkey so that we could have leftovers this week. This year I helped with the stuffing (and, as mentioned before, made another sweet potato casserole, which definitely should make me Mike’s favorite wife ever).

It’s interesting to me that it took me so long to realize how important this holiday is to him. I mean, I knew it, but I didn’t get it. Since it’s . . . a holiday I enjoy but not one that’s hugely important to me, I didn’t get it. My memories of Thanksgiving center around my grandma’s house, all of us being together, lots of food. My mom has three brothers and one sister who live in North Carolina, and I think almost all of them do another Thanksgiving elsewhere, so it’s not really necessary for us to have a fancy turkey dinner. We usually do have a turkey breast and dressing (not stuffing), but . . . it’s not the same as being at Mike’s sister’s house, with all the hustle and bustle.

Mike’s childhood Thanksgivings were apparently a big affair, with a huge turkey, starting the stuffing earlier in the week, enormous side dishes (so there were plenty of leftovers), appetizers, desserts . . . much more traditional than my family’s experience. When my other grandmother was alive, I think we did the more traditional dinner with her, but she got very sick and we didn’t see her on holidays after I was nine or ten, so I don’t really remember that very well. What I’m saying is that the sheer volume of food at Mike’s sister’s house was pretty shocking to me that first year we spent Thanskgiving with her. I think I brought cheesy potatoes (frozen shredded potatoes layered with onions and cheese (and salt and pepper), with heavy cream poured over them. mmmmmm) and Mike was like, “That’s fine, but people will probably just eat mashed potatoes.” Oh. (He was right.)

So we keep trying to move forward, to make the holidays special as well as making them our own, and this year, again, that meant making our own turkey as we put up our Christmas decorations, which I was happy to help with. It’s funny how I’m still learning these things.

People have been very kind this year about Thanksgiving and the holiday season. I thought about that a lot on Saturday, when we went to see a matinee of Stranger Than Fiction. Going to see Stranger Than Fiction was a big deal for us, though, because earlier this year, we realized that neither of us had ever seen a Will Ferrell movie in the theater. Seeing this movie meant breaking that streak, which was kind of a big deal, since we were pretty proud of the fact that we’d never seen one of his movies in the theater. I even told Mike, right when the movie started, that we still had time to walk out. But we elected to stay.

I had been wanting to see it, mostly because of how much I love Emma Thompson, and I think I liked it better than it actually deserved. It’s another one of those movies that struck a chord with me, that hit me at the right time so that the way I feel about the movie has a little bit more to do with my own current emotional state than how good the movie itself was. (See also: Elizabethtown.) It’s not that I thought it was bad, though, not by any means. I enjoyed the story and the characters, but even more than that, I liked what it said about life and gratitude and . . . those things made it the perfect movie for Thanksgiving weekend. At the end, Emma Thompson has a voiceover about being thankful for small things in life, things like cookies and noseplugs and the hand of someone you love, which was a good reminder for me.

Sweet potato casseroles made by me: 2

Sweet potato casseroles made by me prior to this weekend: 0

Compliments on my sweet potato casseroles: 2,847

How much I like sweet potato casserole, on a scale of 1-10: 0

Points I should get for making a dish I don’t like so that my husband and brother will be sure to have it: hundreds of thousands

Friends Thanksgiving episodes watched on Wednesday night (while making sweet potato casserole): 9 (Did you know that there’s not a Thanksgiving episode in season 2? Just the Mockolate episode, where Monica tries to create recipes using Mockolate. We didn’t realize the lack of Thanksgiving love in season 2 until Wednesday, when we got our DVD sets out to watch all ten Thanksgiving episodes and were denied.)

States I forgot in the game inspired by the season 7 Thanksgiving episode of Friends: 8 (I am so ashamed. Joey got 56!)

Turkey dinners eaten: 2

How much I hope we are not having turkey with Mike’s sister tomorrow, on a scale of 1-10: 9.5

Conversations about One Tree Hill: 1

Conversations I participated in about One Tree Hill: 0

Conversations I tried to start about Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars: 1

How long those conversations lasted, approximately: 30 seconds

Conversations about Clay Aiken and Kelly Ripa: 2

Conversations I participated in about Clay Aiken and Kelly Ripa: 2

Cookbooks obtained by me: 1

Cute ornaments exchanged by me and Mike: 2

Christmas trees decorated: 1

Number of pictures taken of the Christmas tree decorating: over 70 (we decided to document every ornament we have and write down the year we got it and why it’s significant, so we’ll be able to remember all that later on. Decorating the tree took . . . longer than usual.)

Disagreements about the Christmas decorations: 4 or 5

Years I think it will take us to finally agree 100% on the Christmas decorations: 1,000,000

Crèches displayed in our house: 2

Crèches featuring super-tiny-happy Baby Jesus: 1

Christmas songs listened to now that they are fair game: approximately 300 (that’s at least four times through our mix, which includes 75 songs . . . and that’s just today)

Number of people waiting in line at the best Wal-Mart in the world: 0 (no I will not tell you where the best Wal-Mart in the world is, because then you’d crowd in and there’d be lines)

Number of items we were assigned to bring to my grandma’s house: 2

Number of items we actually took to my grandma’s house after Mike did his usual “holiday overdoing it” bit: 5

Trouble I thought we might get in for bringing two unannounced desserts: not measurable

Trouble we actually got in: 0

Different desserts eaten by me: 6

Total possible number of desserts I could have tried: 9 (such restraint on my part!)

Cute babies at my grandma’s house: 1

Comments made to me about “getting one of those”: only 1, surprisingly

Podcasts of Wait, Wait listened to: 2

Podcasts of Wait, Wait listened to that featured an awesome phone call by Barack Obama: 1

Episodes of Ugly Betty I would have missed if not for TiVo: 1 (the Thanksgiving episode was last week! I thought this week was going to be preempted!)

How many thanks I send to TiVo: 10,000

Weight gained (see also desserts eaten): not gonna talk about it

Times I went running: 0 (there’s always tomorrow)

Thankfulness for my family and their food, kindness, and conversation: 100%

KARI: Sweeps.

MIKE: *works on computer*

KARI: February sweeps.

MIKE: *works on computer*

KARI: Valentine’s Day, February sweeps.

MIKE: *smiles* Is that when it’s gonna happen?

KARI: That’s when it’s gonna happen. Luke and Lorelai, back together.

I’m flabbergasted to think that anyone could take last night’s episode as a positive sign for Lorelai and Christopher. Which, of course, means I liked it. tee hee hee.

I’ve actually been liking Rory a lot more this season. I think part of that is because her storyline isn’t just about her relationship with Logan, but also about her senior year meltdown and finding new friends. As well as some good Lorelai/Rory scenes. That’s a lot more satisfying, I think, than Felon!Rory and all Logan’s friends. And, can I say, I get why some people hate Rory’s new friends, but I like them. I can’t help it. I think they are funny, and they genuinely want to be good friends to Rory, which I like. Other than Lane, we haven’t really seen that. And a lot of Lane’s screentime was about her relationship with her mother and her band, so the scenes of Lane and Rory just hanging out have gotten fewer and fewer over the years. I like Rory just hanging out with her girlfriends.

I also liked that Logan called her on her attitude. I think that Rory’s been needing someone to say that stuff to her for a while, at least since the beginning of season 5, when she was dating Dean and got dumped by him because she was drunk with Logan at her grandparents’ house. Rory needs to realize that she does have a lot of advantages, and the point is to be responsible with them. She wasn’t being responsible when she stole a boat, dropped out of Yale, and lived in the poolhouse. Logan wasn’t being responsible when he partied his way through college. But now I think there’s hope for both of them. And I’m glad they actually had that conversation.

I’ll keep on stalling. How much do I love Luke and April scenes? SO MUCH. The only thing that could possibly have been better than him freaking out about it being a kissing party would have been him trying to give her the sex talk. I like how all Luke’s best qualities come out in those scenes – his compassion, his goofiness when he doesn’t exactly know what to do but he wants to do the right thing, his devotion to his family. I like how he calls her “sweetie.” I can’t help it.

You know, one of the things I read this season about the show was talking about April, and the author put forth the theory that April was the one who pulled Luke and Lorelai apart, so she’s the one who has to bring them back together (on Valentine’s Day, during February sweeps). I kind of like that theory, and that would be a good explanation for why we’re getting so much Luke-and-April time right now. I just thought I’d toss that out there.

Anyway, that brings me to Lorelai and Christopher. I think that, yet again, the story is that Christopher doesn’t fit in Lorelai and Rory’s life. Lorelai has never lived with a man (it seemed like Luke was moving in, but then the Palladinos backtracked on that), and it’s a big adjustment to her very independent life. Does Christopher try to make that easier? No, the day after they get back he’s trying to banish Rory’s stuff to the garage. And I know the stuff at the beginning with the waterfall and the TV was a joke, but I think that it’s telling just the same, that Christopher comes in to Lorelai’s house, her house! and tries to change things right away. Dude, if this “marriage” is going to last, you’ve got plenty of time to make it more your home, too, while also being patient and sensitive to what your “wife” and daughter need to adjust. Why the big rush? Supposedly, you have the rest of your lives together.

Except, you know. Not really.

It’s telling, I think, that Lorelai kept talking about doing instead of planning and acting instead of waiting. That has more to do with Luke and what happened there than it does Christopher. I am firm in my conviction that if Rory could have talked Lorelai out of the wedding, it isn’t going to last.

What’s so frickin’ sad is that . . . Lorelai desperately wants to be happy right now. I think all the doing and acting is about just getting somewhere, being happy. And I think she’s kinda convinced herself that she is happy. Except, I don’t think it’s working. I think the cracks are showing too much. And, if anything, the problem I see with the show right now is that the fans don’t know what they’re supposed to think. Everything in the show was pointing to the fact that Lorelai is now in way over her head, except some of the stuff with Rory made it sound like this is what she really wants. I just . . . I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think it’s true because we’re focusing so much on, “Oh, twenty years in the making,” etc. And I don’t think Lorelai feels regret about not being married to Christopher when she was sixteen. I don’t think she has ever said that’s what she wanted. So I don’t buy the “long time coming” theory at all. I think that, if anything, the “long time coming” and “I’m so happy” bits lead me further down the path of believing that Lorelai has lost who she is in the midst of all of this. Emily (not Gilmore) and I were talking earlier about the difficulty of watching the show with Christopher fans (I must confess that every time it looks like Lorelai and Christopher are going to embrace, I don’t watch the screen. Is that weird?), and I’ve read some Christopher fans over on the TWoP boards and on other fansites, but . . . I honestly can’t believe that Christopher fans could possibly feel good about the way their guy is being portrayed. It seems so obvious to me that his pushy, insensitive, money-throwing ways mean . . . he’s not Mr. Right.

How about that scene at the hospital? I made Mike rewind it, just to see the look on Luke’s face again. Poor guy. I wish he hadn’t had to find out that way. And I’ve never seen The Philadelphia Story, but the wedding that was “originally and most beautifully planned?” That’s Luke and Lorelai’s. You can count on it. I felt like that was a bit of a promise, a shout-out to the fans. When people talk about the show, they talk about the language being that of the movies from the 40s. I felt like it was a bit of a promise that things on the show are . . . going to be normal again. Maybe that’s a stretch, but that’s what it made me think of, right away.

(Question. I thought there was another room upstairs in Lorelai and Rory’s house. A small one, not Lorelai’s room. A room that could be Gigi’s, or where Rory’s stuff could be so she still has a room when she comes home. Is that not true? Did the renovations change all that? Was it ever that way? Am I going to have to bust out my season 1 DVDs to try and figure it out?)

I hated every day of high school
It’s funny, I guess you did too. -Patty Griffin

When we were at the Patty Griffin concert last year, she played “Tony,” and after the above line, there were so many cheers that I was taken aback (although, looking at the crowd, it’s not such a stretch to think that they’d feel that way). And when I saw 13 Going on 30, it wasn’t a huge surprise to me that, of all the people watching it, I was the least popular of any of us in high school. I feel like the cool thing is to say, “Yeah, man, I did hate every day of high school. My life was so full of angst and pain. No one understood me, man.” And as much as I (still) want to sit at that cool table, it’s just not true. I wasn’t popular in high school, but I wasn’t that miserable person who got crapped on all the time, either. I remember those guys every time I hear “Tony,” but my high school years weren’t that hard. I just didn’t have a place, or friends that I hung out with outside of school. There were things I enjoyed, like the Nerd Club and Quiz Bowl. It definitely wasn’t the best time of my life, and I was lonely a lot, but it would be a lie to say that I hated every single day. I had people to eat lunch with, and if I didn’t spend my Friday and Saturday nights cruising the town like everyone else did, well, it honestly doesn’t matter anymore.

I’ve been thinking about high school recently for two reasons. The first is that a local high school recently burned down. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the school was completely destroyed and the kids had to be divided up for this school year. The kids seemed to bond together, saying things like, “We just want to be together,” and, “The school is my home away from home,” and, “We’re like one big family.” Some people seemed to find this inspiring. I, on the other hand, could not stop rolling my eyes. “You all hate each other,” I said when I would see that in the paper or on television. “Admit it.” And while it’s probably true that all the kids did probably hate each other, I wondered at the time why my response has been one of skepticism and scorn. Why does it matter if the kids want to remember everything with rose-colored glasses?

I think I feel a little bit like it matters to the people who were like me, the ones who were lonely and didn’t have friends. If my school had burned down, I would have rolled my eyes at the popular kids who said things like, “We’re all one big family,” when there’s no way they would have let me hang out with them at lunch or after school. I would have been glad for the break, thankful for a few days not to navigate the social scene, not to be so unsure of myself. I would have used the time to write a kick-butt college application essay about the experience (starting sentence: “It was a day like any other day”) and read books and helped my parents and mowed the grass . . . I wouldn’t have been meeting up with people to cry about losing a building that didn’t have all that many positive associations for me. I offer as proof: It’s not like I’ve been back.

I think things like, “We’re all one big family,” contribute to an overly romanticized version of high school that’s just not attainable. And I hate to see kids who were more like me feeling like they are doing something wrong because they aren’t experiencing that. “No,” I want to tell them, “the big family thing isn’t normal. And if you don’t have friends now, don’t worry about it. You’ll get out of there and find places where there are people who think and act more like you. You just have to put in your time like the rest of us did before you can find that.” At the same time, I think, “I hated every day of high school,” is a bit romanticized as well. Most of us actually fell somewhere in between, feeling lost and unsure of ourselves, but not deathly miserable.

The other thing that’s got me thinking about high school is the book I read yesterday: A Home on the Field by Paul Cuadros. It’s about the high school that I attended and the challenges some of the Hispanic members of the community faced as they tried to start a soccer team there, in more of a high school football kind of town. The Hispanic population in the town was just starting to grow when I graduated, and it’s grown exponentially since then. Obviously, that’s caused all kinds of problems – logistical problems (the schools weren’t really prepared for so many non-English speaking students), legal problems (since many are illegal), and social problems (when a town changes so suddenly, it causes resentment). When I was at the school, they didn’t even have a soccer team, but now, not only do they have a team, but they won the state championship in 2004. As I read the book, it was interesting to see my hometown from an outsider’s perspective. I read things and I think, “Oh, it’s true, but did you have to tell them that?” The struggles that the influx of Hispanics has caused, the racism that’s evident there, the people who were fighting for the town to do the right thing. I recognize many of the people in the book, including my (passive) former principal who never stood up for anything, many of the teachers both good and bad who are mentioned, the white families who are pulling their kids out of the schools in order to “protect” them . . . it’s all true. I could picture the halls of the school and the streets of the town as I read it, which made it that much harder to read, and even though my life has been much much easier than the Hispanic youth who were featured in the book, I related a bit to their “outsider” status, which made the book even more personal. I should say that there are a lot of good, decent people in my hometown who worked hard to do the right thing, and I think that comes through in the book. It’s just that there are always adjustments to make when change comes so quickly. The book does end on a hopeful note, and I, too, have hope that things are going to improve there and at the school.

There were some small factual errors that I noticed, but nothing major. (Do you know how disconcerting it is to be close enough to a story to be able to recognize small factual errors in a book? I didn’t. Until yesterday.) If you are interested in knowing a little more about the town I grew up in, or how the unforeseen growth of the Hispanic population has changed one small town in the South, this is a great book to check out. As I told my coworkers, it’s not balanced . . . but it’s accurate.

It’s easy to take potshots at my high school and my hometown, but then I remember the way that people in the community responded to my family when my dad was sick and after his death: an outpouring of food and love and concern. It was a little bit refining to see that, to be pulled out of my tendency to see everything in black or white. To be reminded of the kindness of the people who live there, despite the problems the community has faced and despite the fact that I never felt quite at home there. I have to admit that, even though it wasn’t easy for me, it wasn’t a bad place to grow up.

There are a lot of food-associated memories at my grandma’s house: eating fresh strawberries from her garden sprinkled with sugar, snapping beans in the living room while watching TV, “helping” with biscuits and getting covered in flour. And some of my favorite comfort foods: lima beans with butter, homemade beefaroni, her special chicken pie. Lately, though, Grandma has been hooking me up with dessert, and the one dessert I want from my grandma is her caramel cake, with its thick fudgy caramel icing. (It’s best with a glass of milk, in case you were wondering.)

I have two cousins who grew up in Albuquerque instead of here in North Carolina like the rest of us, and every now and then I realize how different our experiences - specifically our family experiences – are. The week that my dad died, I asked Grandma to make me a caramel cake because I knew she wanted to do something for me, and . . . well, I know we shouldn’t try to drown our pain in food, but . . . I wanted Grandma’s caramel cake. Surely I can be excused for that in this situation. One of my Albuquerque cousins said, “Have I ever had caramel cake before?” and I felt very sorry for him. (But not sorry enough to share. Again, surely I can be excused in this situation. Normally I am a much more generous person. But it was caramel cake made just for me. Grandma herself said I didn’t have to share.) Grandma’s caramel cake is well known by those of us who live here. I look forward to its presence at holiday gatherings and always think of it as a special treat. Other family members know how to make it, but it’s definitely Grandma’s recipe in my mind.

I ate most of the caramel cake (I did share it with my cousin who flew in from New York, but he understands the greatness of the caramel cake, and he flew in to see me even though he missed the service. Just because he wanted to be there for me . . . the least I could do was give him a piece of caramel cake) and I froze slices of it. When some family came over for Mom’s birthday, I offered it to people who didn’t want the coconut pie my brother made (which I hear was excellent, but I am not a big coconut eater, personally). And so, most of our cake was eaten and shared by those who love it. Last week, my mom told Grandma about that . . . and she promptly made me another cake. Which I have been enjoying this week. (Also, please note my generosity: I let Melissa have some of this new cake. But only because, you know, she just had a baby and she guilted me into it.)

Sometimes people joke about the food that appears out of the woodwork when someone passes away, but, maybe because of my grandma and my mom (and many other women in my life), the way they cooked, I do see food as a very loving kind of thing, and I felt very blessed and loved by the food that came to our house in the weeks after my dad died. Grandma always tries to fix our favorite things if we’re going to be over for dinner – for me, chicken pie. For one of my cousins, rice. And if she knew how much Mike loves (LOVES) her sweet potato casserole, she’d probably make it for him next week. (Instead, I’m going to try for the first time to make it. I don’t really care for sweet potato casserole, myself, so I hope that it turns out okay. And can I just say, remember that big fuss Mike made about sweet potatoes last year? He didn’t even eat sweet potatoes before he was with me! He didn’t grow up eating them! Tradition, my foot! hehe.) Or those green beans that are really bad for you with bacon in them – he loves those, too. I appreciate that she cares enough to remember what we like, that food can be a healthy way to show love. And I know I will never eat caramel cake again without picturing my grandma in her kitchen making one out of love for me.

Mike likes caramel cake, but not like I like it. When I had a piece earlier, he admitted that, and said, “To you it tastes like Grandma’s house.” Yes. To me it tastes like love.

Gilmore Girls spoilers for this week’s episode below. Beware!

TV Guide dated October 30-November 5, 2006.

Seriously. TV Guide. What the heck? That was two weeks ago, and . . . SPOILER. You are so on my bad list.

I was going to say bad things about this episode, but then . . . Marty was in the previouslys. And I kid you not, I got up and jumped around like a crazy woman. For at least a minute. That is not an exaggeration. Two episodes ago, even before I found out about the plotline that must not be named, I said to Mike, “I am not sure I want to watch the show much more. The Return of Marty is probably the only thing that could keep me watching.” I thought I was chasing a pipe dream, but NO! MARTY IS BACK! I am so happy. I spent the whole episode waiting for him to appear, but Mike figured out he was Boyfriend before I did. Nice. I don’t care HOW Marty returns . . . I am just glad to have him back.

Also, I love Mrs. Kim and I missed her. So much. When she congratulated Lane and Zach, I actually got a little teary.

And, finally, the plotline that must not be named . . . I think Lorelai’s face at the end was a very good sign of what’s to come. (Also, need I mention that, yet again this season, Christopher plowed right on through with his own agenda without listening to her or considering her feelings? I don’t need to mention that, right? You noticed it yourself.)

All in all, I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I was going to, given that I knew they were eloping (although I told Mike that if I rolled my eyes any more they were going to roll out of my head). I like Rory’s friends even though they are slightly ditzy. It’s nice to see her cutting loose and having fun without it being all drunken parties, which is what it was when Logan was around. I related to her senior year crisis (hello, that’s how I ended up in grad school) and it was nice to see her doing things that weren’t paper-related. I liked Lane and Zach’s scenes. I liked Luke being sweet and also slightly afraid of Lane. And the look on Lorelai’s face at the end . . . makes me want to know what’s going to happen next. (Hey, remember when Luke got drunk and got married on vacation? But it ended up not being an obstacle to him and Lorelai getting together? Yeah, me, too. I don’t even care if we’ve done it before, if it gets rid of Christopher.)

When I was growing up, my parents’ church had this picnic and chili cookoff . . . I don’t know if they did it every year, but they did it fairly regularly for a while, in the fall, I think, because it was cold a couple of times. And we would go, and my dad would say to my mom, “Why don’t you enter your chili? I like it better than any of these.” And every year my mom declined to enter hers.

My workplace sponsors a chili cookoff every year as a fundraiser. They sell the chili and the money goes to charity and the winner gets a cash prize. I use the same recipe my mom does, and I thought about entering last year, but I was still kind of dragging from having my wisdom teeth out, so I decided against it. This year, though, I thought about my dad, and I decided to enter, hopefully to prove him right. He encouraged the taking of risks, and cooking for a competition is definitely a risk for me. Heck, I can’t even beat Mike in a cookie bakeoff. But I wanted to be brave and to try something new, and so yesterday I spent the afternoon in the kitchen, perfecting the spices, tasting and retasting and making Mike do the same. This morning I got up early so I could heat the pot and transfer it to my crockpot. I carefully transported it over to the place where the cookoff was being held. I nervously waited all morning for lunchtime, when I’d find out the results. Two of my coworkers and I drove over there together, and I entered the room to find . . . (insert dramatic pause here) . . .

Now, in a perfect world, the chili that my dad loved would win, just because that’s a heartwarming story. But this isn’t a perfect world. I didn’t win. I didn’t really expect to, since my chili’s not anything fancy, but I had to try. It’s what my dad would have wanted me to do.

This one’s for you, Daddy. I hope that even just entering made you proud. I know you liked it the best, and that’s what really matters. (I miss you.)

Publisher’s Weekly has posted their 100 Best Books of the Year. Of which I have read one: the lovely My Life with the Saints by James Martin (I wrote about it earlier this year). I started another from the list just this morning, though - The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, which won the Booker Prize this year (which is why I checked it out a few weeks ago).

I heard the Cormac McCarthy was good, and I always read Philip Yancey’s books. I want to read Cross X by Joe Miller, definitely. I also read some great reviews on The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Anything you’ve read that you want to comment on?

The only real surprise to me is that Lee Smith’s new book isn’t on there. Very interesting.

(This is a somewhat condensed version of a discussion I had last night about GG.)

When I go to places that serve fancy coffee beverages, my drink of choice is usually cafe au lait. You can imagine how I feel now that I know that Christopher likes it. Who wants to help me find a new favorite coffee beverage?

I liked this week a little better, but it still felt off. This New York Times article (worth the registration, and . . . why don’t you have a registration to the NY Times anyway? It’s free!) kind of sums up what I’ve been starting to think about the show. Something really is off. It’s not just me. So . . . that’s good, I guess. It’s helpful to realize I just have to approach the show differently. It’s a softer sort of show, one that teaches the main characters lessons through its secondary characters. One that passes the joke up for a sweeter line. Sometimes I wished that Lorelai could be softer, more genuine, just for a second, but . . . not like this. That’s not to say I hated it, because I didn’t. I really did like this episode better than the last one.

The good stuff: Luke’s scenes with April, Luke having a storyline, April’s scenes with Lane. I’m still so conflicted about April. I want to hate her, and yet . . . she is so cute. And Luke is so cute with her. I can’t hate her. (I still hate Anna, though, never fear. And how long is April staying with Luke, anyway? This is so weird.)

The bad stuff was pretty much any scene with Christopher. I mean . . . it doesn’t make sense! Who is this woman who is dating Christopher? Even last year, when Lorelai was not acting like herself, I could see why she was not acting like herself. She wanted to do whatever she had to do to keep the man she loved. But this? Why is she acting like this? I feel like, whenever she’s around Christopher, she acts in this way that she thinks is cute. Cutesy. It’s very much reverting to being a teenager. And I don’t find it cute at all.

Part of the problem is that Lorelai makes weird remarks like telling Christopher it’s no big deal that he wasn’t there for . . . most of Rory’s life. It’s good that he feels remorse. It’s good that he wants to make it up to Rory. It’s not so good that he expresses that to Rory by . . . spending money and trying to buy his way into her affections. It’s not good that he doesn’t talk to Rory about it. And it’s out of character for Lorelai to brush it under the rug and then sweetly say that they can parent together now. Where’s sharp, sassy Lorelai who would have said, “Yeah, it sucked that you weren’t there!” Isn’t that exactly the kind of inappropriate place that Lorelai would have made a joke? That’s the “softening” the NY Times article is talking about, and I am pretty sure I don’t like it.

Additionally, the other big thing that bugged me was that Christopher and Lorelai were joking at the end about him being able to be around when Rory went crazy for her quarter-life crisis. Didn’t we already have Rory going crazy? Wasn’t there, like, half a season devoted to it? Where Christopher wasn’t even around? And Lorelai was completely devastated? So how is that funny?

So, here’s the thing. I didn’t watch the preview this week, but I did see the cover of TV Guide. So I know what’s happening (SOMEONE SHOULD SPEAK TO TV GUIDE ABOUT PUTTING SPOILERS ON THEIR COVER. I WAS SIMPLY WALKING THROUGH THE MAGAZINE SECTION AT WORK AND I WAS ACCOSTED BY SPOILERS. Sorry, just had to get that out of my system). I . . . am not sure what to think, and I don’t want to spoil anyone myself. Regardless of that, Mike and I were talking tonight, and he reminded me that the show wouldn’t be focusing so much on Luke, giving him storylines, making him appealing . . . if it wasn’t going to go somewhere. What we got this week was A Tale of Two Dads: Luke, who goes about quietly being a good dad to April (like he did for Rory as she was growing up) and Christopher, who doesn’t know the first thing about actually being a good dad, who (as Susan pointed out in the discussion) only knows how to appear to be a good dad by throwing around money on expensive dinners and trying to impress people.

I still think that, no matter what happens, Chris isn’t the long-term option. I don’t think the show really wants us to think he is. I’m not even sure that Lorelai thinks he is. I don’t think she’s really thinking about anything at all.

There is a bit of Gilmore talk at the bottom of this post, so those of you who want my take should check there.

I am not feeling like myself these days. I’m not saying I’m not keeping my head above water, because I am. I completely am. I’m just . . . there are some areas where I’d grown where I’m just not doing as well. I try to be okay and joke around . . . but maybe that means that people don’t get that I am really sad. Really sad. And tired. I’m not operating on all cylinders. I need a little extra grace. We’ve been busy being out of town and in town with guests and plans and . . . this weekend we actually had to write on our calendar, “NO PLANS.” That way we couldn’t schedule anything. And that’s a situation I find really draining in general, to be busy all the time. But busy on top of emotionally fatigued? That’s a bad situation.

I don’t want to just have a big pity party for myself all the time, but it’s hard. Everyone else’s lives have gone on and mine hasn’t. I am not the same person I was before. I need time to catch up with all of this.

We’ve had some good things going on, though. The good thing about being busy is being distracted. So we had the football game and Mom’s birthday and Rhonda and Katie came to town . . . I’ve been baking a lot (a veritable cornucopia of pumpkin treats) and getting back on top of housework.. I can run a whole mile without stopping. We’re surviving.

One of the best things that’s happened lately is that we got a new mattress. I didn’t even know we NEEDED a new mattress. But, you guys, this is not a joke. Our new mattress is like sleeping in a hammock of clouds held up by angels. (I think it was Katie who said, “Did you just say, ‘A hammock of clouds held up by angels?’” Yes, yes I did.) It is so fantastic that you just can’t imagine. I hadn’t been sleeping well, but it’s been helping a lot. Hammock. Clouds. Angels. Seriously.

Last night I started a book called Words in a French Life, about a woman who moved to France and is learning the language. Each chapter is sort of like a blog entry, where she takes a word and talks about a little scene or a story that helps her understand the word. It’s cute. I like how it moves from English to French and I can still keep up using context clues and, you know, the little French that I do know. It’s a cute idea that made me think about what my own word would be, one that keeps coming up. I feel like I say this a lot, but a constant theme lately in my life has been courage. One of my favorite quotes is one that Anne Lamott stole from (I think) Dorothy Bernard: “Courage is just fear that’s said its prayers.” I feel, most of the time, like I am too small to be brave, too small to stand up and face life. I feel small and afraid, tossed around by circumstances, and that I’m always just . . . recovering. Cowering in the corner. I worry too much about what people think, how they see me, how I should respond.

We’re doing a sermon series on women from the Old Testament, and what has struck me about each of them is that they were brave in different ways. Esther, Ruth, Tamar, Shiphrah and Puah . . . the over-arching theme has been that it’s about being brave in the small things. Even though some of them were brave in very large ways, it was really just about taking the next step, doing the right thing, one day at a time.

There’s a sign in my kitchen that simply says (in funky lowercase letters): “courage.” I bought it when I was in the middle of a hard time, to remind myself that I had made it that far. I’d like to say that I look at it in the mornings or when I am trying an especially difficult recipe, but the truth is that it mostly goes unnoticed. From time to time, though, it does catch my eye, and I try to remember to keep going. And that’s enough courage for a difficult rainy day.

So, I didn’t watch Gilmore Girls last night. I had an awful day, I was extra-cranky, and . . . I didn’t feel like watching The Further Adventures of Lorelai and Christopher when I knew they’d just make me more cranky. So I went to bed just after 9:00. (I did want to stay up and watch Veronica Mars, but I was too tired to do so.) It got me thinking, this morning, though - some of the GG boards I read have (Christopher) fans who like to say, “If you are just watching for one storyline, you’re not a real fan of the show.” I . . . disagree. Remember when I talked about how people enter books through different ways - characters, place, story, language . . . none of those are right and none of them are wrong. People just like different things about different books. I, for example, tend to focus on characters and character growth. I think this plays out in my TV watching, as well - I love watching the relationships and seeing the characters learn from their mistakes. I think you can see where I’m going with this. Seeing Lorelai and Christopher give it yet another try is, to my mind, not really the kind of show I like to see. I don’t feel like the characters have gotten anywhere, and that’s just not fun to me.

Additionally, I am at a place in my life where I watch TV to escape. I have had a hard year, and I don’t want to watch sad or difficult things on TV. I have, in recent years, tended more toward comedies anyway - I stopped watching ER and started watching lighter fare like The Office and Friends and Gilmore Girls (or even Veronica Mars) and reality shows like Survivor and The Amazing Race and even American Idol. Shows where the people are generally happy (at least compared to ER, because, dang, that is an unhappy show) and comedic or interesting things happen. I want to escape to Stars Hollow to see Lorelai arguing with Michel and Rory going toe-to-toe with Paris and Babbette calling everybody “sugah” and Kirk working 42 jobs and Luke being grumpy and pouring coffee. All this long lost daughter/broken engagement/one night stand stuff is, honestly, not my cup of tea. Especially when Christopher is involved. I don’t think that makes me “not a real fan of the show,” I think it means that there are things about the show I used to enjoy that . . . simply aren’t around anymore. At least right now. I don’t find The Further Adventures of Lorelai and Christopher to be endearing in the least, mostly because I don’t find him endearing in the least.

That’s not to say that I’m giving up on the show. I’m just saying that . . . I may not watch it on Tuesday nights for a while. I’ll still watch it, but it might not be appointment television. I still want to know what’s going to happen, but . . . I’m not in a place right now where I want to sit down specially to watch people I don’t like make decisions I don’t agree with. And I am not going to apologize for that. So, I thought this was a good time to let you know - I’ll keep watching and writing my responses, but they might be later in the week than they have been. Deal?

Yesterday we went to the N.C. State/Georgia Tech football game with Jeff and Adriene, Adriene’s parents, and my mom. We knew it was going to be cold - reports were saying scary numbers like “29.” (That’s a scary number to me, so I don’t want to hear anything about how it’s already snowed up north. That’s why I don’t live up north where crazy things like that happen.) And so, we bundled up with longjohns and layers (I personally wore a tank top, a long-sleeved shirt, a wool sweater, a fleece, and my winter coat . . . I also had on longjohns and two pairs of socks. Really the only thing that got cold was my toes. And my nose, I guess. But I’m getting ahead of myself) and bravely tailgated.

At the game, Mike, my mom, and I were seated behind a Tech fan who explained to us that number 21 is, in fact, a god, and that Reggie Ball is an idiot. Apparently this is all we really needed to know about Georgia Tech (we later had it confirmed by Jeff and Adriene, so we had the authentic Tech fan experience). Also, he kept telling Mike all this stuff about how N.C. State could be good if only . . . well, I don’t really know what he said, because I wasn’t listening. We’re not big college football people, and we’re not actually N.C. State fans (at least not primarily), but we didn’t really have the heart to tell him that. So we just pretended to represent N.C. State fans everywhere. I did this by ignoring him, Mike did it by smiling and nodding. At least now he thinks State fans are polite. If he remembers anything at all, that is.

My personal favorite thing that this guy said was when he pointed out two female Tech students who were yelling about something Reggie Ball had done and said, “See? Even the girls know Reggie Ball is an idiot!” Later on, they were cheering something Calvin Johnson did and he said, again, “Even the girls know! Twenty-one!” I turned to Mike and asked whether the guy really just said, “Even the girls know,” because, you know, girls can know about football, too, believe it or not. (I don’t speak from much personal experience here, but I’m getting better. And I was defending the honor of Adriene and Carla Jean. I care, ladies.) Mike said, “A guy who calls a player on his own team named Mohammed ‘a terrorist’ isn’t really focused on . . . equality.” Point taken.

So, back to the temperature. I didn’t have a good hat to wear (my toboggan being light blue and all), so I borrowed a hat from my brother. It was navy blue. Mike borrowed one from my brother that was . . . well, basically, it was awesome. It was fur lined and had ear flaps and was generally very warm. While we were tailgating, I convinced Mike that I should wear it instead, and let me tell you, my head did not get cold. Like I said, really only my toes (and my nose) were cold. I need warmer wool socks. The hat, though, did its job and it did it with an exotic flair. Unfortunately, crazy Russian hats are not exactly a common sight around North Carolina, the land of humidity and mild winters. I got a lot of strange looks and people pointing. Even laughing (those were mostly the drunk people). Let them laugh, I said. I was secure in the knowledge that my hat, though crazy, was secretly awesome. And warm.

And so, I post this picture so that you, too, can enjoy what Jeff called “Comrade Kari.” hee.

I read the first chapter of Alisa’s copy of Savannah from Savannah by Denise Hildreth, and I checked it out of the library to see if it was any good.

You guys. It was not good.

For one thing, the first chapter set up a conflict with her mother that . . . never really happened. The way she talked about her mother and the way her mother acted were not completely in line, so Savannah came off as a big whiner. The newspaper job that Savannah got, well, I’m no newspaper expert, but would she really get a job and then be expected to turn in a story the very next day? That seemed off to me, like it was pure plot contrivance. (Maybe Carla Jean can tell us if newspaper work is really like that.) Additionally, the book was too long. It took way too long to get to the point (and the point was . . . not so much). And that’s not even mentioning the way Savannah used “Southern” phrases, acted like she wanted to be all on her own and then borrowed Daddy’s credit card for a flight, and just generally was . . . unlikeable.

But, you know, none of that was what made me emotionally give up on the book (I was too far in to quit, but I was only reading to finish). On the back of the book, it says that Denise Hildreth is married to (Christian) recording artist Jonathan Pierce. About a third of the way through the book (maybe a little earlier), our main character, Savannah, was running and listening to Jonathan Pierce’s CD. Haha, very funny. I rolled my eyes a little bit. And then she did it again:

I used the twenty-five-minute drive from the Savannah airport to listen to my Jonathan Pierce CD. He was a cutie, that one. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was married. But a guy like that wouldn’t want a newspaper writer from Savannah who was doing her first story on a rigged beauty pageant.

Seriously? Seriously? That? Is lame. Who let that happen? Who thought that was cute? It wasn’t cute. At all. If I wrote a book and was like, “Woo, that hot teacher Mike!” you guys would think that was ridiculous, not cute.

Unfortunately, I found this book to be a disappointment. I give it a thumbs down. (But I probably wouldn’t have written about it except for the Jonathan Pierce thing. Seriously? A cutie? *sigh*)

(Sorry Alisa.)