CANDLE SAFETY

A snowstorm or two ago I pulled a bonehead move: I left a candle burning while I went outside to shovel off my car.

I'm pretty cautious about candles. They have to be self-contained, in glass or metal tins, and they're rarely taller than votives or tea lights. Nothing happened -- no harm; no foul; nothing burned except my ego. However, it scared me enough to put a kibosh on candles unless I am certain that I will be right there watching them. Certainly certain.

I am also slightly nervous about the smoke from the candles setting off the alarms and then the waterworks. I mean, the darn detectors are so sensitive that who knows what might set them off. My neighbors certainly set off their alarms often enough, and I doubt their cooking is truly that horrible since they are all still robustly alive.

I finally decide to invest in some battery-operated candles to see how I like them. It turns out that I like them a lot.

I have some votive ones already, so I get a few pillar candles and some tea lights. Score! I thought they'd look cheap and just aggravate me with their crappy pretend-light. But, it turns out that these bad boys are pretty realistic when put inside candle holders and tins. Best of all, they can be put onto timer mode.

Next holiday season I am going to invest in battery-operated Advent candles, too, so I don't have to panic about too much smoke on Christmas Eve when all of the candles are burning. No worries about setting the table linens on fire! Oh, I still have the lovely-smelling real wax candles, too, the ones that have the aromas of balsam and cinnamon and cookies. I'll burn those under strict supervision (which will be me, since I live alone).

At least from now on if I leave candles burning when I go to shovel out my snowed-in car, I won't be so worried about coming home to wax, smoke, or flames. Now the only bonehead move will probably be dropping a pillar candle on my toe, or some other such idiocy. Either way, I'll only need stitches instead of the burn unit. 

 

OFF WITH HER HEAD

My sister and I enjoy playing cards. It's has been this way since we were young, and sometimes these card games involved the whole extended family -- our grandmother openly cheating, and our grandfather pretending he didn't understand "shooting the moon" in Hearts while lying through his teeth.

I'll play Cribbage with my sister because once in a great while I might even win. If you don't know the game, the play starts in motion by the flipping of one card after each player has been dealt a hand (and given two cards to the "crib"). In addition to winning the game, a major objective is not to get skunked, or, heaven help us all, double-skunked. It is predominantly a two-person game: one person against the other.

A few months ago, we had identical hands of the same five cards (opposite suits). Anyone who plays Cribbage knows that this is very rare. In all the years we have played, the thousands upon thousands of times we've dealt out cards and discarded into the crib, my sister and I have never, ever had identical hands. 

It's creepy yet kind of cool.

This visit, though, Cribbage is still being weird to us because we keep flipping the exact same card: Queen of Hearts. Doesn't matter which of us is the dealer or the card flipper, that starting card continues to be Queen of Hearts.

I start wondering: What the heck does this mean?

I used to have a fascination with Tarot cards. I still have a couple of decks of them, and I've even gone so far as to study what the Major and Minor Arcana cards mean and how the suits interplay and how the meanings change upon being reversed or next to certain other cards. Something as subtle as a card being flipped from one edge rather than the other makes a shift in the cards' meanings and presentation. As a matter of fact, you can often tell an amateur by the way he or she may lay out and turn the cards, or just by the number of cards they use depending on the "reading" being done.

Of course, my sister and I aren't at a tarot reading; we are engaged in a heated Cribbage match. What is the meaning of the constant appearance of the Queen of Hearts? Could she be tied to something deeper than fifteen points or thirty-one points or a double run of eight?

Here are some of the old-school and newer-school interpretations of our frequent visitor to the game:

• She is a good friend and will help in any situation
• Maternal, home-loving, and fond of animals
• She represents deep emotional intelligence and intuition
• Creative
• She can also be manipulative, self-absorbed, insecure, and not always trustworthy
• However, she is the card for advice and strength to overcome obstacles
• She is one of the most powerful of the Minor Arcana cards

Queen of Hearts sounds a little bit like my sister and like me -- especially while we play Cribbage: Oh, nice hand, well played, good job, fine score ... yah filthy booger ... We feel outwardly sorry when the other gets skunked (but inwardly joyous that the other gets skunked). 

Lewis Carroll depicted Wonderland's Queen of Hearts as blind fury personified, handing out death sentences over the smallest offenses. Put that way, I suppose she is the perfect card for a friendly yet highly competitive game amongst siblings. After all, with whom but your own flesh and blood can you speak out of both sides of your mouth and not pay dearly for it!

That being said, queue up the cards, Dear Heart, and let's play another round. I'm quite certain my sister understands that I might wish her bonne chance, but what I truly mean, according to the cards, anyway, is off with her head (in the kindest, most familial of ways).

SKATING AND HUMILITY

 Ice skating: Skill that does not return after decades away without humiliating and injuring you.

My siblings and I were active children. We rode bikes all the time, we swam, we roller-skated (on the old ones with four wheels in opposite corners), we skied downhill recklessly through tree-laden woods that even cross-country skiers wouldn't attempt, and we ice skated. We would trek miles and miles just to get to the local pond when we became bored with our own small swampy semi-frozen ice rink.

Two of my siblings have already tested me multiple times on grown-up bicycle skills. In my defense, I am short, and the bikes available to me did not allow my feet to touch the ground if I were tilting into a spill. These vehicles were simply too tall for me, but I toughed it out each and every time, and I will continue to do so if challenged. (Unless I actually invest in a bike my own size, which would probably be the brighter idea.)

But, skating? That was always my jam. I've been privy enough to have entire hockey rinks to myself. I don't twirl or jump or spin; I fly. I've always flown. I do hockey stops on my figure skates, and quick spins on my hockey skates. Long story short: I. Can. Skate.

Or, rather, I could. 

I can blame major foot surgery and nerve damage, but I suspect it's more a combination of old age and no practice along with failed muscle memory.

My freshly-sharpened skates accompany me to the outdoor Waterhouse Center in Maine. It's early, right after the town opens the rink up to the public, and it's a weekday morning. In other words, there aren't too many people here. The last time I tried this, a few years ago, I used my figure skates, but I missed the cutting of the ice afforded by hockey blades. This time, I have three pairs of skates with me: the old figure skates, as needed, and two pairs of hockey skates. 

I start with hockey skates #1, the ones I suspect will be the best. I step onto the ice and promptly ... grab the freaking siderail like my life depends upon it.

What in the name of Bobby Orr is going on here?! I mean, I have my own hockey stick, for chrissakes.

It takes about five minutes before I can skate without one hand on the railing. After ten minutes, I give up on this first pair of skates (which I will donate or sell) and go for pair number two. These skates feel a little better and I am steadier, but it could be that I am past my initial idiocy. After fifteen minutes, I am able to move around the ice at a semi-reasonable pace, somewhat low with my center of gravity because my thighs are screaming and because I want a shorter fall in case I break a hip. After all, I do have to drive back to Massachusetts at the end of the day.

When we're done skating, I have been mildly successful. I never do put on the figure skates, which is fine. As I leave the rink, I wave to the few guys who were whipping past me on the ice. As one gent calls out, "Happy New Year," I reply, "You, too, and bless you for not laughing. I really do know how to skate!" My humiliation may be complete and nothing is bruised too soundly except my ego, but I will openly confess that I had a wonderful (if wobbly) time.

MOVING INTO THE NEW YEAR

It strikes on Christmas night around midnight. Technically, I guess that makes it Boxing Day. I mean, whatever and whenever, it still hits me. I am suddenly overtaken with the urge to move furniture around.

For those who know me, especially siblings, this is nothing new. I used to rearrange my bedroom all the time growing up. It became almost a game. At school, I am notorious for rearranging the student desks (and my own desk placement, which moved three times during school last year) to the point of driving the custodial staff to madness.

Unable to let my Christmas night thoughts rest, I sneak into the living room and very quietly move the chaise part of the couch. When I wake up, I'll look at it in daylight and decide whether or not I like it. (Case in point, the couch, which is relatively new, has changed sides of the room before now, and the chaise portion has been moved five times back and forth to opposite ends.) When I awaken, I discover that I do like it.

Then, I wonder, as I often do, why I place my couch against the wall. It was fine when the couch was a big futon, but now the couch has a straight fabric back. I don't need to hide any moveable parts against the wall. So, I hitch the couch forward and decide if it cuts into my apartment-sized living room too severely. I let it be for a few hours, looking at it, walking around it, and sitting on the couch to see if I feel too close to the television. 

This new placement leaves the wall open, so I start moving bookcases. Yes, even though I sent seven bags of books to the Used Book Super Store last summer, I still have books, books, and more books. This means unloading all of the books that I own. I let the bookcases sit empty for twenty-four hours.  After all, now that I've emptied the bookcases, wherever they end up, even if back where they started, books need to be sorted and redisplayed on the shelves. 

This arrangement is a go, so I start putting the books onto the shelves. For anyone who has ever tried to reorganize books and shelves, just know that this is an arduous, all-day undertaking. It becomes even more convoluted when shelves need to be readjusted and when the shelf braces snap off. I smartened up the last time I moved bookshelves, so I have plenty of replacement braces, but it still requires pliers to get some of the little plastic tabs out, and a hammer to beat them into the new hole placements.

Finally, the bookshelves are done, so I start moving bedroom furniture around. My bed has to remain along on particular wall because of my neighbors. There is only one wall that doesn't leave me visible to the parking lot and opposite apartment buildings -- not that anyone would be looking into my apartment windows, but I probably am not the most graceful of sleepers. I often awaken completely wound up in the sheets as if there had been an attempted mummification in my private chambers. As the expression goes, ain't nobody need to see that.

Once the furniture is rearranged, including moving my work station back out to the living room area (from whence it came already as it has been moved four times in the last few years), I start on storage benches, which leads to closets, which leads to laundry room shelves, which leads to plants and lamps and knickknacks and pictures and . . .

It's like watching dominoes fall and trying to beat them to the finish line. Actually, it's more than that. It's more like a game of Mousetrap because so many things seem to be happening at once while the wrecking ball moves through the maze. I think I'm at the "plastic man jumps off diving board into empty plastic tub" point of this re-do. I just hope I can pull this place together before I have to go back to work on Monday.