MAGGI PICAYUNE

I apologize (or not, you may be relieved) for taking a two-day break. Somara went to the grocery store on Monday and wanted to try out a new recipe for dinner. Therefore, I went straight home, ate and proceeded to fall into the expected carb coma. Tuesday night was the Crunch v. Stars game, sadly, they lost in the shootout. We gained a point but their first-place lead in the division continues to get whittled away by three teams clawing their way up.

Without anymore delay, I think I can bang out a couple days of this series. They came from rather uneventful, unpleasant and best forgotten years.

Back to the Six Days of Christmas III…

When I left for university, Christmas Break began a trend of sucking. Each year it progressed in awfulness. Not over gifts, food or the weather. Namely the prolonged boredom only to be broken up with bouts of arguing. I was usually ready to go back by the 27th since I had my fill of everybody by then. My mother succeeded in finding a way to ruin San Diego the year before so I thought it couldn’t get any worse. I should’ve been careful on what I wished for in 1989.

As December rolled around, all the signs pointed toward 1989 ending well or at worse, mediocre. Even mediocre was an improvement over 1986-88 combined. Here’s how 1989 was closing to lull me into a rope-a-dope that carried well into 1990:

• I had a pretty cool relationship with Carrie, my girlfriend since Summer.
• Stardate offered me another semester as an intern in 1990.
• I had an apartment so I didn’t have to go anywhere else to be a prisoner for several weeks until school started up. Namely, I had the opportunity to actually celebrate New Year’s Eve.

These seemed to point toward a great Christmas Break; I would be more in control of my “destiny” during those four weeks. One good omen was the rare snow day Marquette declared during Finals Week. Again, I didn’t have an exam the day it happened (1987 repeating itself) but I took advantage of it. I was already stranded at Carrie’s place and work was cancelled for her so it was a day of kicking back, playing Nintendo, watching TV and eating to pass the time until Milwaukee was dug out by evening.

A week later, Finals ended so I killed the hours with a part-time PE job I quit a couple days later due to its dull nature. This led to me vegging out at my apartment during the day listening to the stereo, lying around reading comic books and drinking hot tea. By evening Carrie would come over or vice versa. We’d have dinner, watch TV and call it a day.

When Christmas drew closer, Carrie headed to Antioch, IL to spend time with her mother and sister. I jumped through the hoops to catch the sequence of buses down to Bloomington to put in what I considered obligatory time with my grandparents. Brian was going to be there too. My parents remained in San Diego. There must’ve been some kind of standoff going on and both called it a draw. I don’t know why Brian didn’t get to go to California. He may have had other plans with his fraternity or college friends.

Before we set out to see our families, I planned for the worst. Much to Carrie’s irritation that evening, we transported my CD player and music collection to her apartment. It would’ve been easier if we had a car, taking Milwaukee’s buses were a hassle for this. I could’ve moved the rest of my decent equipment too but I didn’t want to press my luck with her, especially when she made the mule comment. Thus, I hid my tape deck and turntable in the pantry. The tuner and speakers remained in the living room because I didn’t have any hiding spaces remaining. Meanwhile, Carrie had four roommates and one of them was staying around for Christmas which gave me peace of mind with the most valuable part of my set up.

I have little recollection on how matters went at Grandma’s house. I’m confident Brian and I got along; some gifts were exchanged; there was a big meal. All of it got overshadowed by a phone call on Christmas Day from the apartment manager…my place got broken into. He and his incompetent co-manager were busy sweeping up the glass the burglars smashed to get the door open. This gave me the excuse to cut my visit short yet now I was filled with dread, anxiousness and anger.

It got worse from there.

The ever competent Milwaukee Police gave me grief over not calling in the burglary sooner. I explained it was discovered by Tweedle Dum and Dumber the management team next door. The cop said it should’ve been reported by them first, then I could amend the report to tell them what was taken. As if I was getting my stuff back, it was already converted to crack money hours ago.

What did they take? The tuner and speakers obviously, those were out in the open as I mentioned earlier. My worthless alarm-clock radio I had since 1981. All my laundry money, around ten bucks in quarters. Lastly, my laundry bag. What else were they going to transport my stuff with? Of all the items they stole, it was the one thing I was most irked over. They were going to take my TV but in their rush, they dropped it. Based upon where I found it in the kitchen, they plugged it in to test to make sure it didn’t work. No need carrying dead weight if the cops chased them.

The most damaging thing they did was destroy my sense of security at my apartment. Now every time I left, I felt paranoid about returning to a cleaned out pad. It makes one want to put on a cape and cowl a la Batman to get revenge. Controlled entry was a huge consideration for my next apartment when I moved the following Summer.

Carrie came to the rescue for which I’ve been eternally grateful about. She bought me a new alarm-clock radio. It didn’t cost much but the thought was what I appreciated.

Too bad I didn’t reciprocate very well and ruined New Year’s Eve for the both of us. Milwaukee was abuzz that cold, blustery night. The Eighties were ending and everyone wanted to celebrate the arrival of 1990. Carried dressed up, prepared to hit the clubs. I on the other hand, didn’t bother. (I have since improved my wardrobe and shed my aversion to looking stylish when needed.) I figured, if the joint had a peeve against blue jeans, they didn’t warrant my money. I was half right.

New Year’s Day got rung in at one of our apartments with a chaser of grief from Carrie. I deserved it. She got over it quickly but reminded me how much I owed her if there was a next year.

The break-in continued to leave me in a funk for days though. It carried over into reminding me about how I wasn’t going to graduate in the Spring. I had known since early 1989 I was short by 15 hours at my current pace. To remedy this, I stupidly decided to take 18 hours at registration. If I succeeded, I would only need 12 and I could knock out three or six over Summer, leaving me six to nine in the Fall, I’d graduate by Christmas 1990. I called Stardate to tell them I had to decline my renewal because school had to come first. This proved to be a wise move. Stardate was acquired by a rival promoter thanks to Gloria Estefan’s bus accident tanking the business.

I then had to step up my hours working for ORL to compensate for what I lost with Stardate. How the bad judgment continued there. I took three graveyard shifts at the new Humphrey Hall because there was a night differential. From 3 AM to 7 AM, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I worked the front desk. It wasn’t a complete loss. Several valuable lessons were learned from the experience before I quit in a huff around April.

• Never count on fellow college students to EVER be on time to relieve you at 7 AM.
• Never listen to a Smooth Jazz station during a graveyard station unless you’re hopped up on Meth or a caffeine IV.
• I cannot take a nap whenever there’s a deadline.

The Eighties ended on such a rotten note, especially when 1989 had been a rocking year.

The lousiness sadly continued for several more months but I remembered one class I took had a silver lining which then pulled 1990 out of the tailspin this rotten Break started. I’ll get to it later because it deserves its own entry and dovetails into my current career.

This reminiscing story seems like such a downer at first yet I don’t agree. 1989 became a cautionary tale and barometer to measure future Breaks against.

This was my first Christmas with snow in two years. Snow mind you, Houston somehow managed to get the cold element down pat thanks to Arctic fronts pushing across the whole nation. Oddly, it didn’t bother me as much as it would now. I think my blood is irreversibly too thin to visit my family in Chicago for longer than a week!

What I do recall was an uncharacteristic feeling of calm and cautious optimism going into the two-week break. My grandparents were coming to our house for the third year in a row. After all the karma I had to use to get out of working Thanksgiving weekend with my part-time job at Farrell’s, I was grateful Mom and Dad cajoled the obstinate elders, otherwise I probably would’ve been fired. It wasn’t out of loyalty or a good work ethic, I just liked earning my own money.

Working was a decent distraction for two weeks too. I made a couple new friends at Bishop Chatard (aka the S***yard) yet I didn’t have anyone to hang out with, thus nothing to distract me from making money ($3.35/hour in 1984, let the good times roll courtesy of the Reagan recovery). Brian didn’t fare any better. He may have friends but he was a freshman…no wheels. Pulling a weekday, daytime shift was pretty cool too. I got to open, start up the dishwasher, bus tables for the lunch hour rush, have lunch at half price and play some videogames at the Aladdin’s Castle next door before walking home in the snow. By then I was a competent busboy/dishwasher as well, how the shifts peacefully transpired. When I started in August, I never thought I’d ever get the hang of it.

In the gift department, I’m confident Brian and I managed to score things to give our family. How I wish I could remember what. I do know I gave Brian a cassette of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s debut album. In exchange, I received Berlin’s Love Life which remains their best album (an easy choice for a band that only made two and a half, Terri Nunn’s current incarnation doesn’t count). Mom and Dad gave me four records I recall clearly: Eliminator by ZZ Top, Sports by Huey Lewis & the News, Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen and No Tellin’ Lies by Zebra. Yeah, the last one is a head-scratching obscurity for most people other than me and my friend Jeff.

I did manage to catch couple movies I wanted see because I read both novels that Spring: 2010 and Dune. The former was almost an entirely different film when compared to Kubrick’s prequel. Clarke’s book was the same though, it lacked any kind of creepiness or enigma beyond the monoliths. The latter was a bigger disappointment. Back in high school, I could go through a paperback a week due to the lack of anything interesting on TV. Dune took me five weeks to complete thanks to Herbert’s clunky writing style and frequent need to check the glossary in the back. David Lynch’s directing didn’t do it any favors either. Dune worked much better as a miniseries.

New Year’s was rather uneventful. I stayed home, probably watched TV and went to bed after midnight. Work the day after was a bust since it was so dead, I got sent home early while the other employees with hangovers had to complete their shifts.

Overall, it was a decent time. Had I known we’d be in for more moving upheaval that would make the previous one seem tame, I could’ve spent more time living it up.

Yesterday, I spent the bulk of the day relaxing. I think most of it was sleeping, something I don’t get to much lately. By late afternoon, Somara and I headed to Georgetown to spend the evening exchanging gifts with her family. A low-key thing as always. I just don’t get so worked up over this holiday, New Year’s has been my thing since college but it won’t be very eventful either, not until the new car situation is figured out.

I feel we did pretty well this season, mainly in finding nice gifts for our friends and family. We worked a bit harder on it since the economy took a dump on some we know; we wanted to share our good fortune because it’s the compassionate thing to do which brands me as a Neo-Communist by some. I guess I am since I treated myself to a humorous shirt of a Communist icon.

This year definitely made me reflect a lot more heavily about the sacrifice my parents undertook to give me one of the greatest gifts I ever wanted and received…the first version of Kenner’s Millennium Falcon. They gave me many other cool things before and after 1979 but this is the one which has always been the most memorable, especially in light of the events leading up to it.

The year was off to an inauspicious ending at every level for my family. As soon as we had settled in Springfield, nothing went well for America. The Iranian hostage situation started; gas prices nearly doubled from 60 cents/gallon to over a dollar in my part of America ($1.76 to $2.93 in 2008 money, so the $2.49 I’m paying is a bargain); inflation continued to menace the non-rich; and the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan (I think they claimed to be “invited” by certain government elements). At home, the Recession of the late Seventies-early Eighties came to roost. I can’t remember when but Dad got laid off from the new job that brought us to Springfield. Being a self-absorbed kid with my own “problems,” it took a while for me to notice something had to be wrong, namely him not at work before and after school. The situation wasn’t a complete disaster, Dad landed a new job by the time I had to courage to pry. This explained the afternoon he met Brian and me at St. Agnes; he had an interview at the state-government building across the street. His new position didn’t start until the last quarter of 1979 so I guess he was brushing up on his computer science skills after selling the equipment for the last several years.

Unfortunately, Dad’s new career paid less (some things never change for government employees) yet we kids didn’t really notice much. Our parents were already skilled at the art of telling us “no” which made us accustomed to being “deprived” of la dolce vita our classmates had. You know, going to the movies every weekend or whatever 11-year-olds thought was cool in 1979. Never mind getting to participate in a Saturday-morning bowling league or the other occasions our parents indulged us. My point is, Mom and Dad didn’t go nuts every day or set unrealistic expectations on luxuries. Brian and I were usually satisfied getting to play outside with the new friends we made, riding our bikes to Washington Park or watching cartoons. We were far from being perfect children though. We were like all Americans, more crap was better! So when those Christmas catalogs from Sears, JC Penney’s and K’s Merchandise Mart arrived in August, the last 50 pages containing the toys were pretty worn by Thanksgiving.

The one thing I fixated on was the Millennium Falcon toy in all those catalogs. I already had an X-Wing Fighter and a small army of the action figures but my life wasn’t “complete” without this. I probably bored my parents to tears going on and on about it too. (I have no idea what its equivalent would be today, I should ask my brother, his son is 11 now.) Well, I think they knew it was pretty important so they ponied up the $20-25 to buy it (around $75 today while the toy has been improved and goes for $250 at Target) when the money could’ve been put toward something more practical.

When I officially received it on Christmas Day, I was beside myself with joy. Officially? Thanks to my brother’s infamous snooping skills, I had been tipped about it by Halloween. I think I even saw the box. However, I blocked it from my mind because it was too important to me then. I also figured that my parents would send it back to the store it came from as a punishment if I even thought I had the Falcon in the bag. To this day, I hope Brian’s two kids didn’t inherit his ability to find their gifts ahead of time.

Years later, my friends Lee and Eiko gave me the 1995 version for Christmas. All those feelings came rushing back to me over the next several weeks and made me realize the efforts my parents made to give me what was the kick-ass toy of 1979 against some pretty oddly odds. I’ve never really forgotten it either. My only wish since then is to help some other children with such a quest. Lately it seems relatively easy, they tend to want iPods or video games (because they already own the console).

Beyond getting the toy of 1979, the rest of the Break is a blur. It was our first Christmas in Springfield. The first one at our house I really remember. Staying up late to watch Dick Clark on New Year’s Eve to welcome the Eighties. Playing basketball for St. Agnes and getting eliminated in the first round of the Fifth-Sixth Grade Christmas Tournament. Watching the movie Whoopee! on HBO multiple times and seeing both Star Trek the Motion(less) Picture and the Black Hole at White Oaks Mall.

After Sonia, there was another friend I made in Austin and without her, I probably wouldn’t have earned an A in French II. I feel pretty never mentioning Patricia much on my site. We lost touch pretty quickly due to the language barrier, apathy, my need to support myself becoming more urgent as 1994 was rapidly turning into 1995 (saving that for the upcoming Twelve Days of Christmas III) and probably a tad of misperception over what my interest in her was.

We met through my first Austin French teacher, the amazing polyglot Khier Dekar. I learned quickly during a post-class gathering at Les Amis that he was also a part-time matchmaker. One night he told me to go sit next to a female classmate around my age. “She likes you! I know these things. I’m a teacher!” It’s still comical because his French-Algerian accent reminded me of Pepe Le Pew, another incurable romantic.

Undeterred, I continued to attend the informal gatherings at Les Amis after the class since Khier invited other French-speaking guests to help us out and in exchange these people were looking for assistance with their English. I thought it was a great deal. I was already doing this at my private dorm job but most of those residents were from Latin America, South Korea or Japan. Not many from Europe. On one such Les Amis evening, Khier introduced me to Patricia. In numerous ways she was a perfect tutor because she had a similar background in France. Patricia’s father was in the French army so her family had moved around every couple hours as he was stationed at various bases. Oddly, they never went abroad which continues to puzzle me. France withdrew from NATO in 1960 yet I know they must have bases in the South Pacific, Caribbean and South America. Didn’t matter then, I thought it was cool to meet a French equivalent and this also meant Patricia was more familiar with the various accents of her native country. I figured I had a good grasp on America and Canada’s having resided in the Midwest, East, Great Plains and Texas.

We hung out a couple more times over the Summer of 1994 and for a while I didn’t see Patricia much until I landed my apartment in August. I guess her host family (more like captors) kept  her busy raising their ubermensch or she wanted to make sure I wasn’t dangerous. Then after the Fall semester kicked off at ACC, Patricia was a frequent guest on Friday nights and Sundays: picnics, movies and watching cable. She was quite voracious over learning our slang which is more colorful than French argot. One of her favorite shows was Beavis and Butt-head because she wanted to master their frequent expression, “this sucks.” Watching a French woman imitate Butt-head’s laugh is a sight to marvel too. I’m sure Patricia is relieved that YouTube didn’t exist for another decade, preventing this ability of hers to be immortalized for the world.

Being around her improved my French enormously. One time, we were buying picnic food at Central Market and as we went through the checkout, the clerk complimented me on my English. This brought chuckles as I had to explain, “Well I hope it is. I’m from Illinois.” Pronunciation and French’s “weird” word order (grammar) continued to plague me but Patricia could understand the gist of what I was trying to communicate. It’s like having a secret language only a friend understands! Her patience and tutoring was invaluable toward me earning an A in French II under Mr. Prevost; he even said it was noticeable in my work.

Sadly, Patricia’s time in America came to end on this day. Back in the Nineties, the US only issued three-month work visas to the French (and the French reciprocate) but she had been in Austin for almost a year through this shadowy nanny arrangement (borderline enslavement with a lawyer couple who knew they were violating immigration law). She calculated that the INS wouldn’t let her back into the States for a couple years as punishment because her violation wasn’t serious. I only hope Patricia gambled wisely since America’s visitation and travel policies were amended by idiots: how safe I feel every time I have to take my shoes at the airport.

During our final week of hanging out, Patricia introduced me to her successor Isabelle; The host family wised up with Isabelle by recruiting her through agency which covered all the immigration legalities. Going to dinner with the two of them resulted in my greatest French-speaking faux pas. Thanks to it being mid-December, they contracted colds from the shift in the weather. Therefore, Isabelle had little appetite at Trudy’s. Since she was initially shy and didn’t speak much English (yet), I tried to impress her with my French by asking, “Est-ce que tu es pleine?” which is English for “Are you full?” This resulted in an odd stare from Isabelle and Patricia gagging. I thought, “Oh crap!” Patricia smiled and said the question should be “Are you not hungry?” or “Est-ce que tu as faim?” I asked why but received no explanation beyond, you just do.

Bewildered, I quizzed Mr. Prevost. He chuckled and said I asked Isabelle if she was pregnant. Indignant, I replied, “No way, pregnant is enceinte.” It is for humans, he retorted, plein(e) is for animals. Smooth move on my part. At least I gave Patricia a great anecdote to tell her fellow Parisians when she returned!

So today, 15 years ago, Patricia came by my apartment to say goodbye. Her flight was leaving for Houston in a couple hours followed by a connecting flight to Paris. We cried a bit but we exchanged addresses and I got the phone number to her parents’ house in Provence. I remember the voice message she left on my home phone for Christmas. It really cheered me up because matters really went to Hell shortly after she left. Again, those matters are reserved for later.

Isabelle and I went to a couple movies post-Patricia but she didn’t like me very much so I lost my French assistance. I wasn’t distraught, I felt she was rather snobby and I probably came off like the American stereotype to her: pushy, loud and boorish. Other problems in my life came to the forefront to keep me from pondering it much yet I always missed Patricia, she was more willing to check out what Americans normally do.

If only Internet access were 5-10 years ahead of what it was then, I have a feeling I could’ve stayed in touch with Patricia better. With my friend Bryant’s assistance and mastery of French, letters and gifts to her would’ve made more grammatical sense.

I still think about her and hope everything has worked out well these past 15 years. One day I would like to reconnect with Patricia but I have a feeling that paying a French detective is cost-prohibitive. France is almost as big as Texas.