Partly it was because I fractured my back again. I wrote about the fracture last November, but then it happened again in January and again in February and I was just too depressed and in too much pain to blog about it and the longer I didn't blog, the easier it was not too.
Lots of interesting (to me) and funny (to me) things happened last year and I thought about blogging about them, but...just didn't. Well, that's me for you. High ideals and sloppy habits. And I wonder why I don't have more readers. How many people want to read non-committal, half-hazard, inconsistent blog posts written by a wine-drinking under-achiever whose highest aspiration is to live in a trailer?
Not many, I think.
Ah well...I'm forging ahead anyway. Christmas Crackers. So. One of the many things I didn't blog about last year was the fact that we short-sold our great big house (translation: too big to clean) and are now renting a cozy little place where my husband can hear me talking to him when he's in the bedroom and I'm in the kitchen. At least, when his T.V. isn't on.
So we're in this new neighborhood, and we're settling into our little house and I think I did a pretty good job of decorating the place. The inside was already painted this plum-y color and this plum-y brown color and who knew those colors would look so great with all my red stuff. Really, it's quite charming, if I do say so myself.
Plus, we have this great backyard patio. It runs the length of the house, so there's a little sitting area, and an eating area, and a potting area. Not the kind you smoke, the kind you grow things in. Although when my daughter stayed with us between her Hawaii adventure and her India adventure, it actually was the other kind of potting area a couple of times.
Anyhoo, the patio is just a great space to sit with a glass of wine and watch the sunset under the twinkly lights. Did I mention I made my husband put up twinkly lights? I love them. They make everything beautiful. You could string them up in a swamp and it would be suddenly beautiful.
In case you're not getting my drift...I really love our cozy little house. I had this vision of being friends with our neighbors and having them over and us all sitting on my patio, drinking wine and swapping stories - like the girls did in Desperate Housewives, only without the arson, murders, and adultery.
So in an effort to make friends with our neighbors (so I could have some other neighborhood winos to pal around with) I decided we should give them a little holiday neighborly gift. We had met a few of them when we first moved in at a community yard sale, so a few introductions had already been made which broke the ice a bit.
I decided to make these seasoned crackers. A friend from work made them for me last year and they are melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Addicting, really. Just talking about them now made me get up, go to the kitchen and get some, and can I just say - even 3 weeks old, they are still delish. Oh, and they go great with wine! Not that I'm drinking...yet.
So I put some in a pretty container, printed the recipe on holiday paper, and one Sunday afternoon before Christmas, the hubby and I went around to a few of our neighbors to deliver them.
And this is when I realized my fantasy of a neighborhood wine tasting on my patio was not gonna happen.
It's not that anyone was unfriendly, (well, there was the one guy, which I'll get to in a minute), but I got the feeling they thought we were a bother. And a little strange. Like they probably rolled their eyes a little after they closed the door.
And I was most disappointed that the one person for whom I had the highest hopes of becoming a wine-drinking patio buddy, wasn't home. She was very friendly at the aformentioned yard sale and as she walked away I said, "Let's get together for a glass of wine sometime," and she said, "Yeah, that sounds good." That's practically a commitment, right?
So I left her crackers on her front porch, which in hindsight (and I just made myself giggle because I typoed "hindshit"), would have been the best move for all of the neighbors. We maybe could have avoided the eyerolls.
Then there was the guy next door. We're going to call him Mr. Wilson. He wasn't home during our first cracker delivery round, so we decided to watch for his truck in the driveway and catch him when he was home. Lucky him.
But you see, we had another reason for wanting to talk to Mr. Wilson, which was that his home alarm had gone off a few days earlier, when he wasn't home. A cop had come to our door asking if we knew him or if we had heard the alarm or seen anything. I hadn't heard a thing. But we had an incident at our old house (which is a topic for another post) which made us realize how important it is for neighbors to look out for each other. So we thought it would be nice to exchange phone numbers with Mr. Wilson so if either of us sees any funny business at the other's house, we can let each other know.
So one evening, I see his truck is there, so I tell my hubby to go over with the crackers and let him know about the alarm incident.
When hubby comes back, he says, "Well that went reasonably well," in a tone that told me it didn't go very well at all. First off, when someone answers the door with, "What do you need?" that doesn't exactly kick the visit off with a friendly start.
Apparently, it went downhill from there. Hubby started telling Mr. Wilson about his home alarm going off, then launched into the story of what happened to us at our old house, and the whole time Mr. Wilson is like, "Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh," which translates to, "Fast forward and get the hell off my porch."
When hubby suggested we exchange phone numbers, Mr. Wilson's response was, "I don't answer my cell phone at work."
Ok then. Happy Holidays to you.
I pictured my hubby like
And Mr. Wilson like
In retrospect, maybe crackers was just a weird thing to give at Christmas. The more the hubby and I thought about it, the weirder it sounded. Who gives Christmas crackers? Here's some crackers from a couple of crazy crackers. It would be even funnier if any of these neighbors were African American.
Oh c'mon, lighten up. My sister-in-law is black and she would die laughing at that.
Anyhoo, we will probably henceforth be known as The Neighborhood Crazy Crackers and I will be drinking alone on my patio.
Happy New Year!