twenty

20 years today, 12/21/1988 arrived at JFK to 41 deg weather. I thought I was going to freeze to death, totally foreign concept to me at the time. now I roll with the sweatshirts in that kind of weather. when we were in Alaska, the old man insisted we keep our jackets on since there was snow. outside. so we sweated in our jackets and sweaters and Ma bought us kids ice cream. the woman looking at her children had pity in her eyes, I had sweat in mine. the old man freaked naturally, like we'll catch our death by eating ice cream in the presence of snow. btw, artificial heat is a STRANGE concept for people who grew up in a perpetually warm environment. did not even think it was possible. lol
grapegum said she was bitter about Ma not making it to our 20th year. the old man just said it was a shame, so close. I wonder how we would've celebrated today had she still been alive.
did you know my mother had made a tinsel Christmas tree when we were younger? she put the tree together by hand, with tinsel. how? painstakingly. she even made all the ornaments, by hand also. pity we had to leave it behind when we moved here. back then, I thought we were going on vacation considering it was going to be holiday break for school. little did I know we weren't coming back and 20 years later I'm trying to figure out how I had breathed in that humid tropical air.
the tree is still fake and the tinsel is scattered throughout. the ornaments are not handmade but they're shiny, glittery balls and tiny wrapped presents. there's also a whole Nativity set hanging somewhere in there and a too big yellow submarine. there's multicolored lights and presents stocked at the foot in different wrapping papers. the fridges are stocked with food too, for Christmas morning. I think I'm still within Christmas budget. forgot what it was like to keep track of money, the anal kind of way.
hmm...need a haircut. it's down to the small of my back again. took only 6 months this time. shoot.

*fight 'em til you can't* or happy holidays ;-)
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