HOLIDAY HEART STRINGS

The holiday race is on and the finish line is in sight. Chanukah is first up and in no time at all Christmas will be coming down the chimney. Being one of those households that swings both ways we have to remember twice as many dates as most. Yup, when the sun goes down, first we light the menorah, and then we flip the switch on the Christmas lights.

Things have changed a lot over the years, as I am sure they have for many of you. The older I get the more one factor in the universe becomes clear and that is that the only thing that remains the same is change. As much as I would like to fight it and did throughout my youth, you just can’t stop it.

For me, the holidays have always been the hardest when it comes to change. I like knowing what is going on ahead of time. After I married my wife, Stacey, and Chanukah was introduced into my life, I knew exactly what to expect. Well, with the exception of the date that is, which changes every year, usually in the second half of December.

It was a lot like Christmas, but without as many decorations and with different food. We would always go to my in-laws, Arnold and Marsha’s house. First we would open presents, where Marsha would have the opportunity to spoil and dote over her children and more importantly her grandchildren.

After present opening, I could always count on a meal that included one of my favorites, latkes also known as potato pancakes for those of you unfamiliar with Jewish cuisine. Combine those tasty little tidbits with beef brisket, matzo ball soup, and noodle kugel, and you would be stuffed for the rest of the day.

Sadly, when Marsha, or as the grandkids called her “Bubbie”, passed away almost five years ago, the Chanukah as we knew it passed with her. She was the matriarch and the soul behind the celebration. Since we celebrate Christmas every year we just went with the change and now we make our special nod to Bubbie by lighting the menorah every year. It also reminds the kids of an important part of their heritage.

While that change was hard on my wife and kids, I was laboring under the misguided assumption that Christmas at my parents’ house would never change. During my life it was always the one constant that I could depend on. I knew that no matter what may change in my life, that come December 25th, I knew where I was going to be on that morning. With the exception of one year in my life I knew that this was a constant.

I knew that I would begin the morning with one of my dad’s trademark Tom & Jerry’s, followed by the opening of presents to the background soundtrack of Christmas carols. There would be my sister Sue regulating the opening of presents in her attempts to make the morning last as long as possible, never wanting Christmas to end.

But of course the presents would have to run out and when they did came my favorite part of the morning, well my favorite part since becoming an adult, breakfast. My mom’s table settings were always legendary and Christmas was always the pinnacle.

We would feast on eggs, sautéed chicken livers, fruit, and homemade breads. No matter how much I tried to control myself I always ate too much. Combine all that food with a few Tom & Jerry’s which, by the way, have a shot of some secret liquor mixed in them, and my afternoon plans were pre-determined. Read an extended nap.

Then the other shoe dropped when my parents decided to sell their house and divide their time between the High Sierras and Baja Mexico, becoming nomads with homes. So with sadness in my heart I resigned myself to the fact that those days were gone along with Bubbie’s latkes.

Last year we began anew, it was just my immediate family, as my parents began their new Christmas traditions in Mexico. We didn’t really have any time to adopt any new traditions, but we had one another and that was good enough for us. Although I have to admit I missed the chicken livers and Tom & Jerry’s.

But this year the nomads have returned to the San Gabriel Valley and are staying through Christmas. So this year will be the shades of the old traditions, as they and my Aunt Barbara will be joining us for Christmas morning. While it won’t have the same feel as the days at my parents’ house on Loma Avenue, we will all be together and that is what really counts.

Even though the venue has changed, the other thing I have figured out with age is this, nothing else matters but family.

Especially your immediate family. You never know what tomorrow will bring so you have to make sure that when the time comes for things to change you don’t have any regrets. Sure, you will always have some, but if you take the time now to let the people in your life know how much they mean to you, you won’t be beating yourself up when they are gone.

My family was never that big to begin with having a mother that was an only child and a father that has only one sister who never had any children. Now that the family has dwindled down in numbers, either by death or geography, you want to cling to the ones that you can, and spend time with them when the occasion arises.

Fortunately, this holiday season that occasion is here once again and I am looking forward to it. Who knows what next year will bring, but I will deal with that when it comes.

This year I will be thanking Santa for bringing me some Tom & Jerry’s.

TAVISH AND THE DUCK SITUATION

It was that time of year again when my family and I pack it up and make the trek up Interstate 395 to the paradise I refer to as my “Nirvana To The North”. Every year it seems to be a little bit different. Whether it is the kids’ changing school schedules and personal dynamics, or our ever-morphing world, each year has a new little slant to deal with.

The route there was the same as every year, but the gas prices sure weren’t. The further north we traveled the altitude wasn’t the only thing that was rising. At every stop to refuel I felt like I needed oxygen to keep me from passing out from sticker shock.

Even though we didn’t gas up when we went through the town of Lee Vining at the eastern entrance to Yosemite National Park, the prices topped $4.00 a gallon for regular gas. Be prepared fellow motorists. These prices could be headed south in the near future with the way things have been going during the last year.

We got there, a little poorer, but we got there. I had to sell one of the kids in Lone Pine, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Just kidding of course. I did notice a lot of cattle on the way up this year and I am sure the farmers could use some help. Maybe I could get a good price for one of them next year if their teenage attitudes don’t improve.

This year’s group was a tad different, our son, Alex, brought his friend Nick Montenegro as usual, and we had our daughter, Rachel, back with us after losing her to the land down under last year. What made this year a little different was that instead of bringing a girlfriend she brought her boyfriend, Andrew Viotti, as her guest.

Yeah, yeah, I know some of you are saying, “Are you crazy? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.” Well if I hadn’t known her boyfriend since he was born and his father since I was five you can bet that any other significant other would not be making the trip. Not only that, we made sure that they were properly separated at night, and accounted for at all other times. As my parents’ friend, John Nagy, is fond of saying, “ It was all good”.

The differences on this year’s trip continued once we arrived. My wife, Stacey, is notorious for doing certain things when we are on vacation or preparing for it. Number one is making lists, which is a good thing when packing up when you are getting ready to leave. It is even a better thing when you actually use the list, which is a hard thing to do when your husband doesn’t bring the list to the kitchen where it belongs when you are packing and it’s 5:00 in the morning. Leave it safe to say that when we went to prepare some of our meals, critical ingredients were missing. Little things like the pasta for the spaghetti dinner for one example. I know, I’m a dope.

While this can be infuriating when in the middle of preparing a meal, but if the missing ingredients are noticed prior to starting the meal it is the perfect excuse to go out for dinner or lunch. Everyone in the group, especially mom, embraces this proposition with open arms. At these moments I am completely forgiven for my misplacement of the packing list. In fact it is applauded and probably will be encouraged next year.

The one problem is the number of restaurants in the immediate area. As I have mentioned in the past there are many excellent eateries in the Eastern Sierras, unfortunately the majority are clumped together 30 minutes away in the big city of Mammoth Lakes. So the spontaneous dinner plans are limited to a few locations.

The best of course is the Whoa Nellie Deli, but it closes earlier than most and is the furthest away. Being the late eaters that we are, we sometimes couldn’t make it there by their closing time. The others are all hit and miss propositions as far as quality goes which leaves you with only one sure bet, “The Tiger Bar & Cafe” in June Lake.

“The Tiger” has been around since 1932 and is quite a legendary little place. It has had, like most restaurants in the Sierras, it’s ups and downs, but I must say that in the last 5 years it has been very consistent both in quality and service. Every year there is a stand out among the servers and this year it was a young Scotsman named Tavish. He was worth the price of admission just in himself, whether he was taking our order with his quick wit and humorous banter, or flirting with every woman in the place or they flirting with him.

The Tiger’s clientele runs the gambit. Fishermen, bikers, families of campers, and the colorful local gentry. Those who are there for breakfast, lunch, or dinner are treated to the ongoing entertainment at the bar since there is no division between the two areas. And yes, Tavish played both sides of the room.

Tavish, as entertaining as he was, is only one reason we go there, the biggest being the food. While we all have developed our favorites over the years, the true stand out on their menu is the Mexican food. You can’t go wrong with anything under the “Mexican Specialties” section on their menu.

But back to my wife, and her second obsession while on vacation in “Nirvana”. That would be the abundant wildlife that surrounds you and her need to photograph it all. She has her camera at the ready at all times for the next feathered or furry face to expose itself. I thank god every day for the invention of the digital camera. Kodak and Fuji held a day of mourning when my wife switched to digital photography.

While she is always on the look out for bear and deer, her true fans while we are there are the members of the duck community. And if you are a duck with any kind of malady, you will be feed excessively and become her favorite for the duration of our trip. A couple of years ago it was a duck with a damaged wing that she named “Twitcher”. This year was one that had a massive growth on the side of its head that we referred to as either “Tumor Boy” or “The Elephant Duck”. Trust me, just like “Twitcher” before him “Elephant Duck” was the best-fed duck on the lake.

It is as though the ducks know when Stacey arrives. My mom who was there before we arrived said that there were very few ducks the entire time she was there. The first time Stacey walked on to the dock it was as though there was some kind of announcement on the duck news. They started coming out of nowhere heading straight for the dock as if they recognized her.

This turned out to be a double-edged sword especially after a couple of days of non-stop feeding frenzies, especially for those of us who like to fish off the dock. For some reason this year’s batch of ducks had become more aggressive than those in past years. As a matter of fact some of them were just plain crazy.

Case in point, “The Nick Situation”. We should have seen it coming on the days leading up to the ill fated “Situation”. As we would cast our lines with bubbles and flies off of the dock, the Duck Armadas flocked toward us looking for Stacey to feed them. Normally this would not be a problem as the ducks usually stick close to shore, but not this year.

This year, instead of coming straight to shore, they started thinking that our bubbles and flies might be something good to eat. They couldn’t have been more wrong, as Nick was soon to find out.

As Nick made his cast a group from the armada charged at full speed at his line. Nick panicked and started reeling in at full speed so they wouldn’t get tangled up in his line or worse get his fly hooked in a duck’s beak. Well both happened, and now it was the duck’s turn to panic and we on the dock were faced with a dilemma. We could have cut Nick’s line and hope that the duck would be OK or reel him in and assess the situation.

We opted for the latter based on the fact that this completely freaked out duck was thrashing around like a hooked great white shark, getting more tangled up with each manic movement. Nick did his best deep-sea fisherman impersonation reeling in the frantic foul close enough for us to net him.

Once in the net we discovered that reeling him in was the best thing. The hungry little bugger, in his attempt to eat the fly, had pierced his bill through both sides in effect suturing his bill closed. Plus, in his valiant tries to get free, he had wound himself up in 4 pound test fishing line.

After subduing him, I got the pleasure of playing doctor and carefully removed the hook. In order to remove the line we had to loosen the net. I was able to get the better part of the line off of him, but as soon as I did, and with the net not completely closed, the duck was through with my amateur veterinary skills and made a break for it.

The word must have spread because from that day forward attempts to go after the fishing lines declined as did the numbers of ducks that flocked toward the dock looking for food. I guess they were pissed off and were punishing us for what happened to their feathered friend.

In the scheme of things in life by the lake, that’s better than having the bears mad at you.