Almost Christmas

Four more days.... and each day flies by more quickly than the day before.  We had horribly cold weather after our Christmas party last weekend. Temperatures in the 30s and 40s are not normal for this part of the state, and when it gets that cold, people get cranky. Especially me.  I don't like to be cold, and I have to wonder how I managed the winter weather all those years up north. Today the sun is shining and the temperatures should be around 70 degrees or so. Much nicer. Much warmer. Much more civilized.                                                                                                                                    

We took Savannah for a walk up the road this morning and she was positively smiling when she looked at us. She does that at times... looks at us while she's walking to make sure we're still there. We took Savannah to the vet yesterday to have her nails clipped... they took her into one of the back rooms and left us in the waiting room. I imagine that without us in the room with her, she didn't fidget as much. They also weighed her... 73 pounds. The vet suggested that she could eat less to lose a few pounds. Actually, I already feed Savannah less food than she's supposed to get because she doesn't walk much. Those long walks up and down the road don't happen every day with Savannah. I walk her around the backyard, in order to stay away from the road and the dippity-do neighbor across the road whose latest dog wanders off her property almost daily. And whatever loud noises that occur around here are most likely from that neighbor's property.... trucks and off-the-road vehicles and gun shots... you name it, those people are likely to be the cause... so I try and keep Savannah away from idiots and stupid people. But it's almost Christmas. I will try and be charitable. Maybe they're not idiots over there on the other side of the road. But they certainly are disrespectful and discourteous. Sorry, Santa... but it's hard for me to give those people a break.

Savannah is still very much aware of her 'lost' days, in my opinion. When she heard those gun shots from across the road last week, she ran to me and plopped herself down practically on top of my feet. When the shots didn't quit, she started to shake so I put the 'Thunder-Jacket' on her and that seemed to settle her down some. I wish I could sound-proof the house (the world!) for this poor dog, but that's impossible. The best thing we can do is just be here for her, and I always hope that nothing stupid happens across the road when we're not at home.

I've been reading Facebook stories about lost, abandoned and neglected dogs... very sad, to think that people can treat their pets as if they're pieces of furniture or yard-art, devoid of feelings and needs. And those are the pet-owners who don't spay/neuter their pets and before long there are more pets in need of homes and people who will love them. I look at the sad faces of homeless dogs and cats and I just want to save them all. An impossible task, to say the least. I really need to just stop looking at the photographs of dogs and cats who need to find their "fur-ever" homes.

I have watched "It's a Wonderful Life" and, for the thousandth time, cried over the ending of that movie. The first time I saw that movie, I was about 8 or 9 and watching it on The Late Show with my Aunt Dolly... it was always one of her favorite Christmas movies... she loves Jimmy Stewart. Aunt Dolly is 103 now and I'm wondering if she's still watching all the old movies. My aunt's health is fine, but her hearing isn't quite as good as it could be... very hard to talk to her over the phone because she can barely hear, and sometimes her answers don't quite match up to the questions I've asked her. It's best just to let it go and not ask her the same question again... she knows that her hearing is bad and there's no sense in calling undue attention to it.

Christmas. Almost Christmas. There was a Christmas Eve decades ago when I was in the first or second grade... my dad had gotten a Santa suit and I saw him walking out of our front door and going up the street towards the neighbors. I knew it was my dad... he had a distinctive walk, and after all, he was walking on the sidewalk and there wasn't a sleigh or reindeer in sight. He was carrying an old school bell in his hand and ringing that bell as he walked along our street. I don't know if I was excited to see Santa walking down our street or maybe I was excited because I believed that my dad was Santa!  At that age, I would have truly believed that my dad could be the real Santa. My bedroom in that big old house so many years ago had a balcony... I sat there by the door waiting for 'Santa' to come home, but I fell asleep on the floor and when my dad picked me up to put me back into the bed I told him that Santa had walked down the block ringing a bell.

"Are you sure it was Santa? I didn't see any reindeer in the yard," my dad said.
I told daddy that I didn't see a sleigh, either... that Santa was walking.
"Well, maybe Santa was going up to Atlantic Avenue to catch the bus," said my father.

I laugh at that now... and it also makes me sad. My dad was a bus driver for NYC... he drove a bus for nearly 35 years. At Christmas time, he had a set of small bells... and he'd ring those bells and say "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" to the passengers as they got off the bus. Daddy had 'regular' passengers who would wait for his bus every day, by-passing other buses because they'd rather ride with my father.

My dad died in 2008. I miss him. I miss his voice. I miss hearing him sing old Italian songs, and Disney's "When You Wish Upon A Star." I miss talking to him on the phone. I miss that time when I was a little kid and thought my dad was Santa. It seems like yesterday. It seems like two minutes ago. It seems like a life-time...