In the middle of the chaos this afternoon, with the wrapping paper flying and the cat investigating gift bags and the kids opening everything at once so I couldn’t see what all they got, I picked up a small box with all three of our names on it, but not who it was from.

I asked if it was from Grandma, and she said, “Not this Grandma,” which I found a little odd, as the other one’s been gone for almost ten years. And it wasn’t, it was from my mom, who is in fact the Grandma to my kids.

But when I got to a package for me, and stuck my hand in the gift bag and pulled out a piece of silver, I began to suspect something was up. It’s not like my mom to give me random silver, although I do like it. All of my silver is family heirloom stuff, and it all means a lot to me, and she knows it. Something newly bought would just be a little odd and out of place.

But I kept opening, and with the silver lid was a little silver teapot, obviously well-loved. It was my other Grandma’s, and my Dad says he remembers her using it a lot. I’m not the most emotionally demonstrative person in the world, but this was so unexpected that it just rattled me and made me cry. It was like having my Grandma there with us, even before I hauled out some of her dishes to use for our family dinner, and it meant a lot to me.

 Hell, it’s making me sniffle right now. It’s got a place of honor on the cluttered china hutch, which needs to be cleaned, but it does belong with my treasures.

The other highlight of the day was Seamus’ gift. He’s been in the 4-H shooting club this year, and going hunting with me, and doing very well at it. He enjoys it and I’d like to encourage him in my sport. He’d asked for a gun for himself, but I could tell that he didn’t really expect to get one. After all, all of the guns are mine, even the pellet rifles.

But I did want to get him one, a nice single-shot that he could learn on. I found something better than that though; a youth gun with three different barrels, in .22LR, .243, and 20 gauge shotgun, all single-shot. He can learn a lot of different things on this one, and I can take him hunting with it. When he outgrows it, there will be kids behind him who can also learn with it, and maybe we can pass this love down through the generations with this tool.

 The look on his face when he opened it was priceless. I wasn’t quite quick enough with the camera, but it was the best and most surprised face I’ve ever seen on him, once he realized that it was a real gun.

 When things simmered down a little, we ran over the rules again, and he listened carefully, I showed him how to handle it safely and how to change the barrels. Neither of us can wait until we get out to the range to try it out. It needs a little cleaning first, but that’s easy enough to take care of. And a secret hidden bonus to this is that I now have a built-in birthday present for him, as the deer rifle barrel needs a scope still. Easy shopping!

All in all, a great Christmas. John promises not to run this new iPod through the laundry, I got to spend time with my family and my man, and burning the Brussels Sprouts wasn’t a big deal at all. Worth it, for the looks on their faces.

I seem to have accumulated an awful lot of blessings lately, if I believed in that sort of thing, but it’s as good a word to use as any.

So many of them have revolved around finding Junior, and this fantastic relationship we’ve begun, but there are more.

I stood in line for half an hour to get pie this morning, but it’s pie that is so worth it, and they gave me a coupon for my next pie.

I came home to drop off the pies, and Junior had installed my new thermostat. Yay for heat in the back of the house!

I got my big bear mount back on Friday, and while it’s not perfect, it is fixable, and we hung it on the wall last night. It startles me every time I walk in the house, followed closely by pleasing me. It will please me even more when his lips are fixed; bears’ lips are not tan.

Junior met the kids yesterday. John was his usual surly self, but I expected that. Seamus had met him before, and asked specifically for him to come to his shooting club with us, which he did. Seamus then brought out his A game of showing off, but not too bad, as he’s growing up. They seem to like each other, and that pleases me.

I finished my proposal for essentially my life and income for the next three years. I’m happy with it; it looks professional and I really hope it’s still the low bid. I’m sort of counting on no one bidding against me. Today, I turn it in early, just to get it out of my hands for the holidays so I can mentally let it rest. Now, it’s all up to them.

If/when I do get it, I’ll be set financially. I’ve got a lot of hard work to do to earn it, but it’s work that I’ve proven over the last five months that I can handle, and that I like. In my short-term plans is the purchase of a service truck; in my long-term plans, a house. I’m moving up in the world, and I enjoy the hell out of the job.

Still, it all pales to having found love, when I least expected it. Thank you, baby.

Every year around this time, when hunting season is over, I find myself at major loose ends. I get used to going up to the mountains every other weekend, and my world revolves around that for at least three months. If I’m not actually there, I’m getting ready to go, or dealing with the aftermath, or scrambling to get my household chores done in half the time that I usually have. (I may become a little messier than normal during Fall. Shhhh, don’t tell.)

This year was different. On this weekend, the first non-hunting free weekend since September, I didn’t feel lost at all. I was way too busy to miss it.

Junior and I went out to Todd and Fran’s house on Saturday morning to pick up a bear hide he’d given us for a friend of mine. We admired their beautiful new house, and I particularly drooled over Fran’s acre-sized garden. Fran feeds a lot of people during the summer. It’s a little odd to see people that you know from one setting in another. They’re just as nice there as they are in the mountains, of course. I think an awful lot of them and I’d like to spend more time together during the year.

Then one of Junior’s buddies dropped a last-minute invite on us to go to a BBQ/birthday party/wagon ride, and would I like to do that instead of what we’d been planning? Hell yes, I would! His friend’s grandfather has a tradition of hitching up his draft mule team and giving wagon rides on the local Christmas Tree Lane, and Junior’s helped him out in previous years. That’s something that I’ve always been interested in, in the abstract, and I jumped at the chance to get to see it up close and personal.

 

Not to mention getting to meet some of his friends. I’m afraid I might have been a little too overwhelmed, walking into a party where everyone knew everyone else. I’m not yet so outgoing that I’m very good at that, and I think I was too quiet and may have made some of them nervous. I really liked his friends though, and I look forward to seeing more of them. They’re my sort of people and I’ll get to know them better if we all go camping together. Since we were on a friend-meeting roll, we also went out to see some more friends he’s talked about. I liked them too, and found them really easy to get along with.

Junior had a trapshooting event to go to on Sunday morning, and I’ve been wanting to see how that’s done. It sounded interesting on its own, but it’s even more since it’s so important to him. His folks do it too, so we all went to breakfast and spent the day out there, and I really liked it.

 

This particular event wasn’t a regular league shoot, with the teams all competing as a unit like they usually do. It was more of a fundraiser/fun event. You paid your money and signed up to shoot . Eight people shot per event. The winner got to pick out a frozen turkey or a ham. I was pretty surprised to be hauling home meat that night, but my Christmas turkey is taken care of. I could see trying this myself one of these days, as if I needed another expensive new hobby. As it is, I have something new to photograph, and men doing what they love has always been my favorite subject.

I liked the trapshooting community too. They reminded me very much of ropers; everyone more or less getting along, helping each other out, and with all sorts of skill levels having fun together. I met what had to be forty-leven more of his friends, and was privileged to meet his Grandma too, when she came out to see him. She used to shoot trap herself, and generally appears to be the sort of kick-ass woman that I’d like to be when I grow up. I see that I’ve got a high standard to aim for there. Or to point at; I guess they don’t so much aim with a shotgun as point it.

 

I feel so comfortable around him, but it’s not just him. His family makes me feel like I fit in too, and so do his friends. I know some of them would have been glad to see him happy with any old whoever that made him smile once in a while, and I feel lucky that it’s me. I sure must have done something right.

M and Ernie had their annual holiday party this weekend, and it was generally a ton of fun. Most of the people there were their friends from the football league; I’d met some but not others, but hit it off with all of them. I’d have liked to bring Junior, but he had his kids too, and that would be kind of an overwhelming setting for us all to meet each other in. We’re taking that part slowly, at least.

Some of these folks, I felt like I already knew. I’ve sure heard about them enough, and M and I have similar taste in friends, so I knew I’d get along with them. I’ve been friends with Danielle for a year or two, but hadn’t met her husband or sons; they were there and she wasn’t, so that was funny. A couple of my and M’s mutual friends were invited too, and I was looking forward to seeing them. Lisa was bringing her new beau, who’d flown down from Washington to see her this weekend.

And therein lay the problem. When they walked in, I was all prepared to like him, because she is so into him. But he was really creepy from the get-go, very obviously either drunk or otherwise chemically addled. And they were all over each other all night, which made the rest of us, all of whom were parents with our kids present, very uncomfortable. Add in to that mix the fact that he was kind of weird around the kids at first, and got worse as the night went on, and I was very relieved when one of the other guests let me know that I wasn’t the only one, that the whole party hated him. And they kept drinking and kept sucking on each other’s faces.

It got worse later. The kids were playing upstairs, and those two went upstairs too. M’s son had to come down a couple of times to complain that they were in his room with the door shut, at which point the hosts had to begin treating them like delinquent teenagers, and require them to stay in the public areas of the house.

Then one of the other nine-year-olds came up to me with a disturbing conversation.

He said that he’d told drunk guy that he was addicted to video games, in that way children have of making conversation.

And drunk guy told this boy that he himself was addicted to sex. When the boy relayed that to me, never mind that he wasn’t my kid, flames immediately shot out my ears.

I intercepted Ernie, who happened to not only be the host and a fairly large guy, but is also a cop, and told him what had been relayed to me. He and I went upstairs to barely see any heads poking out over the back of the couch, and he sent me back down for M. I quickly brought her up to speed, and we three went to deal with it. M pulled Lisa off the guy and took her into another room for a talking-to. I was fuming, and I stood at the foot of that couch and threatened to beat the hell out of that guy if he so much as dared to talk to any of the children. I wasn’t sure if he even comprehended.

After we went back downstairs and filled the rest of the parents in on what was going on, here come them two, slinking down the stairs like they were leaving. Now, that’s a problem too, as they were neither in any condition to drive, and our host can’t exactly let them leave the house and kill someone. Besides, with the unstable way this guy was acting, we were a little worried about leaving Lisa alone with him. Eventually, the four men ganged up on him while he shouted at them and I herded the kids back upstairs to keep them out of it (and wow, did they all mind me very well when it was important!)

An hour or so later, when I’d cooled off enough, I took my kids and got them out of that situation, even though they were having a ball. I hadn’t intended to stay there, so I was sober and wanted my own bed. I felt pretty bad about having a part in that situation and then leaving, but it was the best thing I cold do for my kids, and that’s my priority. I gather from M that he got worse again though, and the other parents took them to a sleazeball motel to get them away from everyone else.

M is inclined to give Lisa the benefit of the doubt, and think that it might all have been drunk guy’s fault. I’m much less forgiving though, and from my point of view, she’s as guilty as he was. She doesn’t have kids herself, and talks a big game about how she loves children and likes to do family-oriented things, but this showed me that she’s all talk. The rest of us were behaving appropriately for our children; drinking and having fun, yes, but we sure as hell didn’t bring any shady characters around them, make inappropriate comments to young boys, or climb into each other’s pants while the kids were right there.

Were she as responsible as she likes to think she is, I can see any number of places where she could have defused the situation before it got to that point. Say, how about not bringing an already-loaded guy into a party full of kids? Or not drinking herself so she could take him home if he got out of hand? Or possibly refusing to act like a horny teenager in front of everyone?

I’ve been burned before by someone childless who acted like this, and in fact, Lisa reminded me of her so strongly when I met her that I was very slow to warm up to her. Looks like I was right, and I’m disappointed to be so. It would have been nice to have more women friends, but I just don’t see keeping a strong friendship with this one. I’m not terribly forgiving, and as far as I’m concerned, she’s shown her true colors. I’ll be able to interact with her somewhat on my own, but I don’t believe that woman will ever be around my kids again. I may be unforgiving and hard, but I make no apologies for that.

 

 

      

It was such a good party, other than that, that I’m doubly annoyed that she tainted it. I’d like to spend more time with the rest of these people, and I will.

We went to camp expecting to find our usual fun. I’m extremely lucky in that his idea of “usual fun” matches mine just about perfectly, and will expand on mine where it doesn’t match. We thought we’d get in some hunting with the boys, maybe cook up that mess of fish he brought, and be social and relax with people that we really like.

 

The bears had other ideas though, and had just about all called it a night and wandered off to bed to sleep it off for the winter. We sat tight while Don and Todd hunted all Saturday morning, and when nobody got so much as a nibble, they were ready to head home. It’s been a very good year for hunting, with lots of people getting a whole lot of enjoyment out of those dogs, but even the most fun can wear you out after three or four months. 

Junior did fix up that fish before everyone left, and the other guys in camp had brought some steaks, so we had a real nice potluck lunch before camp completely cleaned out. I didn’t want to leave; I only get to be up there every other weekend, so I may not be as burned out as they were, and I just wasn’t ready for it to be over. I didn’t specifically say I was staying, but I’ve done that before on my own, so it must not have surprised anyone when I stayed with my boyfriend there too. No one even said a word.

We kicked up the campfire and shut off the generator and and just sat and enjoyed each other’s company for a long time, talking or not, and playing human rotisseries to keep our backsides warm by the fire. I enjoy that man’s company so much; getting to have him to myself for a while, up there in my favorite place, was a gift.

We took a drive the next morning, just to be together and to share some of our favorite places with each other. I like to get down to the trestle every year and I hadn’t been yet, so he took me. We sat in the sun and soaked up the warmth and took some photos.

 

Things that would normally have stressed me out alone, like the good front tire deciding not to believe in air any more, or the grey tank freezing and breaking pipes, or especially the trailer brake controller trying to catch fire in the cab of the truck, and shorting out the running lights in the process, just don’t get to me when he’s around. We’ll just stop and take care of it, and I don’t have to deal with something weird alone. I don’t want to lay that responsibility on him, especially in my rig (even though he’s very good at that sort of thing and seems to take it) but just knowing I have backup right there makes me deal with things better. 

 

All these years, when I’ve been hitting the backroads by myself in the winter for a little sanity, and I never knew that getting out like that and just looking and thinking is ten times better with someone who cares about you. I am so fortunate to have found someone to share all of this with; someone who gets why it’s special without me having to explain, because it is to him too. I don’t think that I could have picked a better man for me if I’d put him together out of a man-catalog, and the more I get to know him, the stronger that feeling is. 

 

Our joys are compatible; he’s got some passions for things that I’ve never experienced, but I understand the concept of passions really well in the abstract, and these sound like things that I could get into as well, or at least support him in. I do some things that he’s not really into, like the photography (although I can see that the camera is going to be in both of our hands a lot in the future) and this page. He knows about this page, by the way, although I was really nervous about telling him. He thinks it’s cool. 

 

Our flaws seem compatible too. There’s no such thing as a person without flaws; the trick is in finding someone with whose faults you can live, and who can live with yours. I haven’t seen anything in him to make me run screaming into the night, and I hope he hasn’t in me either. He’s so far into the positive on my balance sheet that it’s not even funny. 

I never knew that I had it in me again. For years, I thought that I was just broken, that I was too scarred and that I’d never be able to love, and why would I want to inflict that dysfunction on an innocent bystander, especially one I liked enough to consider loving? I was resigning myself to being alone for the rest of my life. I must have healed something significant while I wasn’t looking though, because here I go, and without doubting myself. I know that I have it in me, for this man.

I really feel that I’m falling into the rest of my life here, and I both want to savor the feeling and to charge ahead and get on with it. Rushing hasn’t worked for me very well in the past, so savor it is, but there are some rates that I just don’t have any control over. Like falling for him; I couldn’t regulate that if I tried. I’m already there.