This is Santa Chook

Every year on the 30th of November, in the steaming heat of the tin-roofed garage, Nathan teeters on the top rung of the ladder to retrieve two dusty boxes; one massive box, gaffer taped in a way that suggests the heft of it’s contents, containing that oversized tree, and one smaller one- the decorations.

We know they are the Christmas decorations and the Christmas tree because my Dad wrote “Xmas Decs” and “Xmas Tree” on the sides of the boxes all those years ago, in his distinct, back-slanted script, that I no longer get to see fresh.  Back when those things still mattered to him.  Back when it seemed important to know which box was which.

We heave the boxes down and we puff them up the stairs, and we hold our breath a little as we see what treasures reside inside.

There are thrills of delight, and tinkling of laughter and bells mixing, as we remember things we’d forgotten.  We anchor them again in space and time, as we remember making or buying them.  We throw our mind’s eyes and our memories back to the when, of Christmas past.

Amidst the mirth of recollect this year, there was also melancholy, as it came to pass that Santa Chook was not long for this world.

Santa Chook came into our lives on Coco’s first Christmas.  We went to a work Christmas Party at a time in our lives when things weren’t easy or settled or at all party-like.  Coco was nine months old, and we were far, far from being at peace with her diagnosis.  I felt like life was careening around like a cheap plastic spinning top, the swirly picture on it moving faster and faster, rather than calming down, and I was dizzy with the vertiginous emotions of testings and procedures beyond my sphere of control.  Transfusions were unpredictable and often.  Procedures were unfamiliar and frightening.   Sleep was fractured and elusive, and I grasped the relief of forget that it gave, whenever it deigned grace me.

We took Coco to the party with us- it was that or not go- because it was the only way I could hold onto an atom of that adult I was trying to remember to be.

We played a silly game: The Present Game, whereby you can steal someone else’s present, or take a mystery parcel from the central mother-lode.

Randall unwrapped Santa Chook.  He was jaundice-yellow like my golden child, and his coat and hat glowed red with a sheen that only cheap plush made on foreign shores, with no concern for inhaled particulate matter can produce.  And when Randall The Mighty pressed the “press here” button, it was like the angels spoke to me, and me alone.  Santa Chook crowed his morning doodle-doo and broke into The Chicken Dance.  He was the first of that glut of animated toys, a wonder of 2007, and I knew I must make him mine.

I stole him-legitimately, and within the rules of the game- from Randall The Mighty, and Randall stole him back.  I stole him again, and again Randall stole him back.  And again.  And again.  And again.  Long after the other participants had lost interest, Randall the Mighty stole that Santa Chook, and I stole him back.  Until eventually the yelling and the raucous music woke Coco up.  She was screaming, in the piercing way that only the simple and the very sick are able to do, so I bought her down to the arena, and held her in front of Randall the Mighty.  He “pressed here” and Santa Chook burst into his song.  Coco was transfixed.

Randall The Mighty became Randall The Vanquished, bowed his head, and handed Santa Chook to me.  Randall The Saviour.

All of that long hot Summer of Coco’s first year, Santa Chook distracted her when she was fractious, soothed her for a time, when what she really needed was blood.  The blood-red of his suit substituting, momentarily, for the life-blood.

Eventually, we put Santa Chook back in the box marked “Xmas Decs”, and we moved forward into a new year.  I would often consider getting him down from those dusty rafters, when days were difficult, when my arms ached to put that child down, for just a moment, without that persistent wail.

I never did get him down, most days just the thought of him would bolster me.  Knowing that I had him there, if times got too tough, that there was respite.  A potential.

This year, when we opened that box with all of the ‘xmas decs’ inside, I grabbed out Santa Chook and ‘pressed here’ like I always have, expecting him to herald the start of the season with his crackling warble, only to hear a tiny “crrr”.  Then nothing.

I’ve changed Santa Chook’s batteries twice.  I’ve cleaned out the craw that was half full of battery decline and salty moisture.  I’ve stroked and pushed and heimliched him, but Santa Chook is no more.  Oh Santa Chook, you saved my sanity, little mate.  You were worth every one of those nine hundred and ninety-nine cents that you probably cost.

Vale Santa Chook.

Yes, I know he’s either a chook (no cock-a-doodle-doo) or a rooster (and not a chook), but Santa Rooster sounds wrong.

We have three bottles of sparkling in our fridge.  One is a vintage Moet, a gift, that shall be kept for good.  One is a mid-range bottle that a friend left here almost two years ago.  One is the derro bottle.  We found it one early morning at New Farm Park, just sitting there all by itself, waiting for someone to adopt it.  We looked around, saw no owners and eventually bought it home and made it our own.  And there they sit.  A trio of suppressed revellers.  Chilled.  Waiting.  For a day when things feel special enough for “champagne”.  A day befitting of sparkling.

Last night we finally had a good bit of rain, and today I woke up to a sun that had been washed clean, and crunchy grass flexing and stretching, and tinging to green.

Today I opened my eyes and looked around at my world and saw a flat, flat, blue sea, fine yellowish-white sand, plump red tomatoes and sweet emerald basil.  I saw the the lime green of my office, the silver of my sign; the freshness of my work.

I saw the many hues of my patients, all shimmering and glimmering and reflecting their own unique shades.

I saw the white rendered walls of our house, filled mostly with laughter and love.

And when I looked in our fridge at the end of my day, I saw three bottles of celebration, primed golden bubbles, subdued by a cork.

Today was a sparkling kind of day.

Cheers

I hope your day sparkled too.

“Come quickly, I am tasting the stars!”
–Dom Perignon

Do you drink champi on a school-night?

What defines a celebration in your house? 

I mentioned here yesterday that I have a problem with loss.

So in the interests of full disclosure, I think I should also reveal I have a problem with shoes. Not in in losing shoes, mind, in finding them.  It appears from the straw poll I performed this morning regarding how many shoes other people actually own, I may* have a problem.  Not a massive problem, just a little one.  Or, not so much little, as errr… Well you be the judge.

Here are my shoes:

42 pairs, give or take.. Mainly give, as I found four more pairs after this photo-shoot, and I remembered I left another pair at a mates house in Melbourne last time I was there…

In my defence, I live in Queensland, and it is quite hot, so I require lots of thong-sandal-flimsy kind of shoes. It does however cool down in the Autumn, so I do require a few shoes for that change of season. In addition I am likely to go to Melbourne at least once a year, so I require black things and warm things to do that.  Plus, there is the fact that I like to give the impression of being kind of casual-sporty, so I have no choice but to have a pair or several of Cons. (You may notice there is one pair of actual running shoes. I wore those in 2011, and I will say they were very comfortable that day.)

So there you have it.  This is what the shoe situation is like for a person with many and varied tastes.  I would also like to remind you, before you mock my abundance, that I wear every single pair of these shoes, except the white wedding shoes, but I will wear those this Friday.  These shoes are my friends and allies.  I have The Menopause, so sometimes it is impossible to find anything to wear that makes a girl feel good. My feet are never fat, and my shoes never fail me.

I am writing this blog through tears.

Tears of happysadsurprisejoy.  I’m just so touched.

As you have probably gathered by now, I live a fair bit of my life in my own head, and by extension, on the internet.  Being a blog subscriber, twitter follower, instagram poster and facebook friend suits someone like me.  I like to have opinions, and then force gently express those ideas to others.  So commenting on posts, and then eventually writing a blog is a natural fit for me.  I can rant and rave, wail and keen, judge and laugh, and then press “publish”.  Much cheaper than therapy, and easier than alienating everyone I know IRL with my nonsense.

So you probably heard my mate died four weeks ago.  Those weeks are a bit of a blur.  I know I carried on a fair bit, on this, my little home on the interwebs, and probably a lot more on the other Soc’s.

Three weeks ago, a wonderful chick I follow, BabyMacBeth posted a pic on Insta of a teapot, with the caption “KirstiMelville this is for you x”.   It was the day of Hayley’s funeral.

Hayley loved teapots and, as she would say, “cutesy” things.  Hayley also loved BabyMac.  We would often talk about  BabyMac’s recipes, and her warm and comfy blog, where it’s all: sit down, put up your feet, pour yourself a cuppa and lets have a chat.  We loved BabyMac’s blog, and we thought that maybe we would do some blogging together, Hayls and I.  She could do the recipes and the food styling, and I could write some stuff.  I dunno what, being a culinary bogan and all, but I thought I could knock something together.

So when Beth posted the pic, of a teapot that is a bit similar to a teapot I once bought Hayls, I got right on and hijacked the photo that was meant for Kirsti.  I said “My friend Hayley who loved you Beth and collected teapots would have adored that pic.  It’s her funeral today.  I’m looking at that with tears and thinking of all the cuppas we shared, and all the ones we now won’t.”

Beth and Kirsti and FauxFushsia were gracious and caring and said they would raise their teacups to Hayls that day.  I’m a bit embarrassed that I did that now, butted in and put my own grief onto a post that was meant for someone else.  To be honest I hardly even remember doing it, such was the cottonwool of my brain that day.

Then today something unexpected arrived in the post for me.

I can hardly believe it.

If I was BabyMac, I would say: Have you EVER?

A teapot.  With a cosy.   And a touching note from Beth.  A person I have never met, in real life.  My heart doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and my eyes are saying, “do both, do both”.  My brain is overcome with the happy-sadness of a lost friend and the kindness of a stranger.  Someone who doesn’t know me, but who I feel I know.

This teapot is a teapot for one.  I will drink from it tonight, and think of my one.  The one that I could say my things to, plan my bits with, think out loud with, and laugh until I feared I might let out a little bit of wee with.  I miss you Hayls.  And BabyMac?  Words just can’t explain.  That teapot has broken and mended my heart.

So cutesy.