Things You Can Count On, Issues A-F

Things you can count on; issue a) Christmas Day:

1) Santa will come.

2) Santa will leave behind a giant mess.

3) Because you were woken at 6am (aka: the middle of the night), your eyes will be working at fifty percent their normal power and therefore you will not see said mess until you return to it many days later. 

4) Your husband's family has never heard the words "plan" or "ahead" in the same sentence and even though you use those words together all the time (apparently to deaf ears), it will still be you who gets the evil eye. 

5) You will try very hard to be the bigger better person.

6) You will make a thousand promises to never do this Christmas day road show ever again.

7) Two out of three of your children will fall asleep in the car -- ten minutes before you arrive at your next destination.

8) Your mother will pour champagne for you and clink your glass and you will feel loved and happy and cozy and you will not care that your children are feasting on nothing but warm buttered rolls.

Things you can count on; issue b) Holiday Weekend Away:

1) You will ski. You will sing while you ski, but you will wonder why "Dream a Little Dream" is the song you sing and you will remember that the first cassette tape you ever bought was the Mamas and the Papas. You will love skiing.

2) You will play cards. For hours. You will lose and win and lose and cheat and you will initiate a teenage nephew into the cult. It is part of your plan, part of your legacy building plan.

3) You will help your mother cook and wonder why you don't do it more.

4) Your children will bowl and hike and play and hug you unexpectedly.

5) Your cousin who is like your sister will need a shoulder to bitch on and you will give it.

Things you can count on; issue c) Returning Home:

1) Even though you called it first as you were rolling into the driveway after your four hour drive, someone will get to the bathroom before you. You will do the peepee dance in your living room like a four year old.

2) Children can NOT make anything tidy out of brand new toys. 

3) Threats do not work. 

4) The couch feels better, the bed feels comfier, the empty fridge seems emptier when you get home. Exhausted.

5) Your husband will consider a vacation at home to be a vacation. 

6) You will not consider it that way so much. 

7) The Christmas bomb that went off the morning you left has sneaky time-release bombs attached to it: they will go off at intervals until you go officially crazy.

Things you can count on; issue d) New Years Eve:

1) It will snow. Hard.

2) Your husband will decide it is a good day to take the car in for a tune-up.

3) You will add the hours of sleep your children have missed and you will sigh, knowing that tonight is not the night to "catch up."

4) You will answer this question -- "when are we leaving?" -- about ten thousand million times. 

5) You will do so while trying desperately to get a draft done of the thing you are calling "the book." While your husband is at the car dealership. While the snow is burying every good intention you had of wearing something cute to the party.

6) You will show off your homemade manicure by white-knuckling it down a highway to another state in a snowstorm.

7) You will laugh and get drunk and fight for control of the Ipod with your oldest friends like you have done for the last 15 years. 

8) You will dance with your daughter at midnight. And your best friend's daughter. 

9) You will get drunker. 

10) You will think you are an excellent dancer. And wikkid smaht. And the funniest person ever.

Things you can count on; issue, e: 2009:

1) You will drink coffee on couches with your oldest friends and you will laugh and fight for control of US Weekly like you have for fifteen years.

2) You will talk about delicious foods that might taste delicious RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE but you will not have or eat any of them. 

3) In your jammies at noon snuggled in under blankets, you will love your life and these friends and your family and even his family. 

4) You will resolve not to make any resolutions. 

5) You have too many to make. 

6) You get depressed about that for a minute, but you let it go. You decide that deciding to be happy might be better than any drugs or any vitamins or any shrink, and you decide that deciding to be happy is what you will do from this.moment.on.

7) But quitting smoking once and for all would be good.

8) Still, deciding to be happy and completely cup half-full and silver linings and counting blessings is now once and for all gonna be your new way to be.

9) You fall asleep with a smile on your face, despite the fact that your dad gave you red feety pajamas for Christmas.

Things you can count on, issue f: Afterwards:

1) You will remember you have a blog.

2) You will write on it -- to it? because of it? 

3) You will write something down.

4) You will write something down. 

5) You will write something down.

6) You. Will. Write. Something.

(Not Mama Cass but Zooey, 'cause I love her, and not just because she is Bones' sister...)