Thursday, December 29, 2011

Santa's Little Helpers

Tiffany's dad Gary, a pilot, had a layover in San Francisco on Christmas Eve. On the Eve of Christmas Eve, Tiffany came to me, giddy with excitement as I was changing for dinner.

"I forgot to tell you!" she yelled. "We're going to be elves!"

"Huh?"

"Elves! We're going to dress up like elves when we pick up my dad at the airport!"

So that's what we did. On our way home from dinner, we stopped at Walgreens and picked up poster board and crayons. The next morning, a few hours before his flight arrived, we lay on our stomachs on the carpet and colored.

"HO HO HO! MERRY CHRISTMAS!" my poster said.

Tiffany's said:

"WELCOME TO SF, CAPTAIN DAD!"

With just an hour before Elf-ing, we changed into our outfits. Strangely, we both own pairs of green pants bought many St. Patrick's Days ago and never worn since. We put on red shirts and looked at ourselves in the mirror.

"Okay," Tiffany said. "So all we need are Santa hats, jingle bells and elf shoes."

"Do you think we really need elf shoes?" I said. "I mean, look at us."

"We don't wear the shoes," she said, drawing out her words like I was an idiot. "We kneel on them, like this."

Here, she took a pair of slip-ons from our closet and knelt on them, holding her poster down low so that the toes of the shoes peeked out from underneath. I stood back, examining the effect. She did, in fact, look miniature, Elf-ish.

Apparently, there were a lot of other Elves and Santas running around San Francisco on Christmas Eve because we had to hit up four different drug stores before we found Santa Hats.

At the airport, we got lots of strange looks. One woman refused to take our picture, backing away from us and shaking her head.

"Elf-hater," I whispered.

When Gary came out, he almost didn't see us we were so far below eye level. But when he did, he grinned. Then, he reached behind him to his carry-on and pulled out his own Santa hat and a red sack filled with our presents.

"Dear God," I said to Tiffany. "It's so clear to me now where you come from."

Friday, December 23, 2011

Upgrades All Around

Never upgrade your technology. That's what I've learned. The minute you upgrade one item, you have to upgrade everything that goes with it.

Tiffany and I put off buying a new television for years. Our old TV was fine, we told ourselves. Why spend the money to replace something that's not broken?

But, after some of Tiffany's family members came to visit and saw what we were working with, they teamed up and got us a very big flat screen HD TV for Christmas.

We were worried about pretty much every aspect of how to get the new TV functioning. Cords and cables intimidate us--me especially. We picked up the gigantic box from FedEx and left it sitting in our living room for two weeks before we opened it up. When we finally did, I had snacks and drinks handy to fortify us for the work ahead.

But it turns out new TVs are pretty easy to set up. There were a few screws involved to get the screen on its stand, but mostly Tiffany plugged in colored cords to their corresponding colored holes. The hardest part of the process was getting the battery cover off the remote. I scurried into our bathroom for a fingernail file and pried it open.

"Ta-Da!" we said together as the cover flew across the room.

When the TV came on, we felt empowered. But none of our channels looked any clearer than they had before. Everyone had promised us our picture would look "so real... almost too real." But our picture looked exactly as it did on the enormous old TV which we had just carried down to the car of an ill-prepared craigslist shopper. She came to our place with a grocery dolly that would have been crushed under the weight of her purchase. She apparently is less tech-savvy than we are:

"Oh, I didn't realize it would be so new!" she said as we pointed to the monstrosity in our hallway.

I raised my eyebrows at Tiffany.

Anyway, when our new TV's picture looked exactly like our old TV's picture, I called my brother.

"You got a new TV?" he shouted. "Thank God!"

"But it doesn't work," I protested. "How do we make our channels come in HD?"

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"You're not going to like this," Brandon said.

"What?"

"You have to pay for HD channels."*

Friday, December 16, 2011

Winning Hearts and Minds

Because Tiffany and I live very far away from our best friends, we have to make a serious effort to carve out a place in their children's hearts.

We've exhausted ourselves trying to squeeze in visits between family events, and we're not above sending pictures so the parents can point to us every so often on the refrigerator and say:

"And these are our VERY best friends, Tiffany and Rebecca. They love you very much, and you love them more than any other aunties."

Tiffany and I want to be the best aunties, ever. But, between us, I want to be most best.

When we finally saw Lily, the daughter of our friends Meg and John, we didn't have time to stop and get gifts, so we offered what we had. Much to my disappointment, she had no interest whatsoever in my flip phone, sunglasses or wallet and instead played with Tiffany's iPhone in delight.

Point, Tiffany.

Last weekend, we made a quick trip to New York to see some family and friends. Because of our work schedules, we arrived at different times. Tiffany got in Thursday; I landed Saturday morning. This meant Tiffany had extra time with Julia and Peter, the daughter and son of our friends Teresa and Bobby. But--because Tiffany packs way more clothes than I do, plus a hair straightener and dryer--only I had room for the Christmas presents.

On Saturday, Tiffany--who was spending time with her friends from high school--called bright and early:

"Did you give them their presents?" she asked, panic rising in her voice.

"No!" I said. "Without you? I would never!"

I almost did, actually. But I decided against cheating to curry favor. This did not stop me from gloating and sending a picture via text when Peter held my hand just an hour or so after I arrived. Apparently, he hadn't made eye contact with Tiffany until the end of her first day.

Point, me.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Division of Labor

I was picking feathers off our heirloom turkey when Tiffany and I got
mad at each other on Thanksgiving. It was 7 a.m. Because her aunt was
sleeping on the couch in our living room, we had to be angry quietly.

The fight snuck up on us. All week we'd been happily preparing our
apartment and planning the meal
. We borrowed a table to put adjacent
to ours so we had room for Tiffany's aunt, sister, cousin and mom,
Patty. We didn't borrow a sixth chair--Patty sat on our exercise ball.
On the Saturday and Sunday before, we made our pie crusts and dressing
and packed them into the freezer for safekeeping. Then, on Thursday
morning, just after I removed the giblets from our turkey's cavity,
Tiffany let out a big sigh and said:

"I guess I'll do the kale."

"Lucky you," I said, angry that she hadn't volunteered to do the bird.

"But only because I'm letting you do all the fun jobs," she hissed, raising
the bunch of kale up in the air in her fist.

I stared at her, feather in hand.

"What? I only started the turkey because I thought you didn't want to!"

"Can you turn on the water?" she asked, ignoring me.

I narrowed my eyes and shook my head, holding up my turkey-slathered
hands. I had a sudden image of taking our turkey by its legs and
putting Tiffany's head where the giblets had been--you know, like that
scene from "Friends."

Glancing at the couch, we scurried behind our open refrigerator door to bicker.

"I wanted to do the turkey!"

"I had no idea! I'd much rather do the mashed potatoes! They don't
have feathers! Or legs! Or necks!"

We stared at each other. Slowly, she lowered her kale, and I widened
my eyes into a more pleasant expression. When we were sure that we
both were going to capitulate, we broke into grins.

Mutually-agreed upon divisions of labor... something to be thankful
for. Arranging them before both halves of a couple burn up with
resentment... even better.