Holiday Surprises

Things aren't going that great around  here. We began having the kitchen painted the Monday after Thanksgiving and as of this past Tuesday all the kitchen stuff was still in the dining room. Holiday decorating!My little guys came over a week ago and put all the fake-dripping-wax 1980s-era candles in the windows but the rest of the project stalled.I didn’t even buy the tree 'til last Sunday, in the pouring rain and dark, and failed to notice at the time that it has a kind of giant goiter of branches on one side only. Hence it falls over.Twice it careened onto the ground and once, when we turned it goiter side in, it fell into the wall behind it , which made the front half of its base life right up off the floorLast night just before dinner was the last time it fell. We heard that telltale whoosh and then a sort of muffled thud as of a heavy person sitting down on the floor. We hurried into the living room and there it was.There it is I should say. It's there as I write.Another complicating factor in my week was my last-minute opportunity to go with all the ABC scholars I love, and their Resident Academic Coordinator Mario Paredes, into the Boston State House to meet with the Honorable Deval Patrick , Governor of the Commonwealth.What a lovely man he is, who made these eight feel how much he has in common with them , having himself left home at 14 to be an ABC student at Milton Academy.I was too shy to ask for a picture of me alone with him but everyone else got to do that as the official photographer snapped away.This picture is one Mario took as we first sat down together at the table in that jewel of an office in the old Bulfinch building.  Look at these happy faces! How glad I am that Mario arranged this and the Governor agreed to give us 30 minutes!It's a lesson to me: nobody cares what the table looks like at most gathering, as long as everyone can find a seat at it.And we'll get there on the house preparations. Today we're lashing the tree with wire to hardware on the two windows that flank it. The show must go on!  :-)

Here's the tree after its third and most recent  fainting spell. ( Sigh.)  At least there aren't any lights or ornaments on it yet.