Happy New Year

This post will be a hodge-podge. The two boys and my mother have been here through the holidays, and that means it has been a busy holiday season.

Jake, in particular, has so many projects going in the workshop that it’s hard to keep up with him. Just for the hell of it, the first thing he did when he got here was make an air cannon out of an old LP tank. It has a four foot barrel and will shoot golf balls several hundred yards. He and Mike swivel mounted it on a stump beside the house. It looks like a 30 mm anti-aircraft gun. The UPS delivery people probably think we’re a bunch of right wing extremists or an offshoot of the Branch Davidians.

Having the air cannon/anti-aircraft gun mounted beside the house makes me feel like I’m going to Outpost Delta Zulu on the DMZ in Korea when I walk to the workshop on a frosty morning. I must look the part. I’m usually wearing a Russian fur hat with ear flaps and an old and tattered Army fatigue coat. I look like I’ve just survived the Battle of Stalingrad.

Obviously, there is no good reason to have that thing besides the house. But know this: If the lousy Chicoms try to attack across my fence line, they will be met with a withering fire of old golf balls.

We had a special guest share Christmas with us. Mike invited a high school friend by the name of Nick to spend Christmas. Nick just completed Marine Corps boot camp at Camp LeJeune, S.C. Meredith and I were happy to have him. I have never seen one human being eat so much in a few days. Apparently all he’s had to eat in the last few months are MREs (military acronym for Meals, Ready to Eat). Between him and our two boys, there were no left-overs while he was here. I’d go to the refrigerator at night to grab a snack, and looked like a North Korean pantry—empty. Nick went into the service a boy and came out a lean, mean, food-destroying machine.

Our Christmas traditions are a bit different. For Christmas dinner we have handmade ravioli and braciola. It takes two days to make, and everyone gets involved in the process. The guys’ main assistance is to roll the ravioli dough using a hand cranked pasta machine. That usually happens around noon on Christmas day, by which time everyone has had a few rum-laced eggnogs. The usual formula is a mug full of rum, a dash of eggnog, and a sprinkling of nutmeg, shaken, not stirred.

Our pasta machine can make a 4-inch wide noodle. It takes multiple passes through the machine to get the dough thin enough for the ravioli. Depending on how big a dough ball you start with, the ribbon of dough can get seven or eight feet long. At times it can be like wrestling an anaconda. Imagine four tipsy men unskilled in the culinary arts cranking out the ravioli dough with Meredith and my mother in the background constantly telling us to quit fooling around, and you’ll get the picture. I felt like I was in a scene out of The Godfather. I’m pretty sure Nick has never experienced anything like it.

All the work is worth it. The ravioli and braciola are like nothing you have ever tasted. My mother’s tomato sauce, which has simmered for two days, is the stuff of legend. The men stuff themselves, washing the food down with glasses of strong red wine.

A rich meal like that tends to produce a little heartburn. Actually, I’m minimizing the degree of heartburn. After a meal like that your pyloric valve gives up and takes the rest of the day off. People are scrambling through the medicine cabinet frantically looking for the Alka-Seltzer and Pepto-Bismol. The bathroom looks like the entrance to a Wal-Mart when the doors open on Black Friday. It is not considered a successful Christmas dinner unless there are one or two people laying on the floor being triaged for digestive injuries.

Most of the major gifts exchanged this year were practical and related to life in the country. Among other things, I received a nice froe (used for splitting wood—look it up) and a 42-inch crosscut saw. When you walk around with that crosscut saw over your shoulder (which I do a lot for no reason other than I like the look) you are the very definition of a manly man. I look like I should be on the cover of a can of hearty soup. Show me a woman who doesn’t get turned on by a man with a 42-inch crosscut saw, and the odds are that she only dates metrosexuals. In the interest of fair disclosure, I need to admit that I have no frigging clue what a metrosexual is, and I’m almost afraid to ask. All I know is that I’m not a metrosexual. I’m a countrysexual.

As much as I love Christmas, I hate wrapping presents. To say that I’m no good at it is an understatement. When I finish wrapping a Christmas gift, it always seems like I’ve used more scotch tape than wrapping paper. And I’m talking about wrapping square stuff, like boxes. I wrapped a gift card the size of a credit card, and by the time I was done I had gone through two square yards of wrapping paper and most of a dispenser of scotch tape. After working her way through multiple layers of paper and tape, Meredith was disappointed to find that that the package only contained a gift card. She thought it held an attaché case.

It’s worse when I have to wrap an odd shaped gift like a colander or a ladle. The end product can best be described as an abomination. Gifts I wrap always get placed out of sight in back of the Christmas tree.

I suspect that most real men—men who chew tobacco, have heavy beards, and shit with the bear in the woods—share my clumsiness at wrapping gifts. Show me a man who can neatly wrap a Christmas gift complete with a bow, and I’ll show you a man who knows all the words to “Macho Man” by the Village People, owns Celine Dion’s greatest hits, and makes quiche for breakfast.

This Christmas season will go down in the annals of the Yacavone family. We had squirrel stew. The day after Christmas the kids went prowling in the woods with their shotguns and returned with four fat squirrels. My mother, who grew up in the country during the depression, volunteered to make squirrel stew. The kids and I were all over that. Meredith, the trooper, gamely went along, though with a little less enthusiasm. The stew was actually quite good. The squirrel meat was not gamey. Everyone went back for seconds. Our young Marine friend scarfed it down with no problem.

It has been cold here. I’ve started wearing long underwear under my bib overalls. In a prior post I commented on how difficult it is to pee when you’re wearing overalls. It’s almost impossible when you’re wearing long underwear under your overalls. It’s like that part of my anatomy has gone into the witness protection program.

It goes without saying that 2013 has been an eventful year for me. I have a new life in a new place with new challenges. The bottom line is that I feel like I jumped in whole hog with no safety net and have landed on my feet so far. Any time you can say that about the past year, you’re doing well. I’m looking forward to what 2014 will bring. On that note, I wish you a sincere happy new year. Thanks for following my trials and tribulations on this blog, and thanks for your support and good wishes.