THE (SEMI) DAILY LIFSOS: 1/3/07

IT WAS THE BEST OF CHRISTMASES, IT WAS THE WORST OF CHRISTMASES . . .

We spent Christmas doing the family thing at my sister's in Portland, State o' Maine. And indeed it was both the best of Christmases and the worst of Christmases.

It was the best because, first and foremost, GF and I took the opportunity to announce to our families that we are now officially engaged. So henceforth I'll cease referring to her as "GF" for girlfriend and start referring to her as "F." for fiancee. With the full stop.

Knowing that F. is willing to put up with LIFSOS indefinitely is the best Christmas present a guy could get.

Although F.'s actual Christmas gift to me--tickets to the upcoming Westminster Kennel Club dog show--was also totally excellent.

Second, I got to spend a full week with my sixteen-going-on-seventeen daughter, with whom I have spent about three hours with, in person, in the last five or so months, owing to the quarantine situation arising from the Bedbug Horror.

Third, I also got to spend time with the rest of my immediate family, including my parents, my sister and sister-in-law, and my niece--none of whom we'd seen since niece's Christening about a year-and-a-half-ago, when she was just six or so months old.

So, why was it the worst?

Well, on the 24th, when we flew to Maine, F. woke up with something that, if it wasn't food poisoning, was an incredible simulation. (The night before we'd tried a new restaurant in the 'hood, and F. speculates that she got some bad spinach.) Somehow, through sheer determination, she held it together through the madhouse that is JFK Airport during the holidays, and the flight, before collapsing at our hotel.

Then, on Christmas Day, I came down with something that, if it wasn't the flu, was an incredible simulation. Fever, chills, aches, cough, the works. So I spent most of the 26th and 27th huddled under a blanket in our hotel room.

F. had barely got over her tummy trouble when she also got a dose of whatever had flattened me. And to cap things off, my poor daughter also came down with fever, cough, etc. the day before we flew back to NYC.

Five days after returning home, F. and I are still not fully recovered.

Anyway, when I look back on Christmas '06, one of the defining moments was an exchange between Mother LIFSOS and myself.

My mother is a sign-reader. Now, I'm not sure whether the term "sign-reader" is in common usage. My friend Jules introduced me to the term some years ago. Google doesn't turn up many instances. But everyone knows a sign-reader. They're the people (usually small children or elderly persons) who, when you're driving along in the car, read aloud every billboard and road sign that passes by. And they generally comment on everything in sight.

For example, F. and myself and my parents were staying in the same hotel, so we shuttled back and forth between the hotel and my sister's house together in their Dodge Caravan minivan.

And on every trip, we'd pass by an office building with one of those time-and-temperature displays. And each time, my mother would note the difference of one or two degrees Fahrenheit between the temperature according to the building's display and the temperature on the minivan's dashboard thermometer display as if it was a matter of huge significance.

Every time.

In the same vein, Mother LIFSOS also has a tendency to state things that are totally obvious to anyone with a functioning pair of eyes.

As for Father LIFSOS, he just doesn't say much, period. But he doesn't have to; Mother LIFSOS says enough for everyone within earshot. My dad has also, like many men of his vintage (mid-seventies), mastered the art of being physically present in a gathering while being in some other realm mentally. I'm not talking about any form of senility here; he just has that classic old-dude ability to sit on the couch with his eyes open when he's actually fast asleep.

So after the traditional LIFSOS-family Christmas dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, I attempted to help my sister-in-law with the dishes, but was deemed too ill and banished to the living room, where the rest of my family was watching my adorable niece watch a DVD of the classic Frosty the Snowman Christmas special from 1969.

After I'd settled down on the couch and watched for a minute or so, my mother leaned forward in her chair and announced, for my benefit, "This is Frosty the Snowman."

At which point I lost it.

"Gee, Mom, thanks!" I said. "I was kinda confused as to what I was watching. I thought maybe it was War and Peace, or Hamlet . . ."

"Or Battleship Potemkin," laughed F., although of course the reference sailed (no pun intended) over Mother LIFSOS's head.

By now I was on a rant: "Thanks so much, Mom. It's not like there's a freakin' huge anthropomorphic snowman on the screen. And it's not like Jimmy Durante is on the soundtrack singing the theme song, which pretty much definitely identifies that huge anthropomorphic snowman as being one Frosty the Snowman . . ."

F., my daughter, and my sister were now convulsed with laughter. Mother LIFSOS reacted as she always does in these situations--by berating me for "being mean to your poor old mother."

At this point my father suddenly snapped into consciousness and asked, "Is this Frosty the Snowman?"

Spit-take time. You can't make this stuff up. Pure comedy gold.

G*d bless us, every one.