Life on the DL

You learn a thing or two when you’re on the DL. For one, you discover just how appealing a diet of water and bagel chips can be. You also learn what color the hair on your beard is these days (for me, a mixture of brown, red and – gulp – gray). On a more serious note, you’re reminded of just how important it is to have health care.

My trip to the disabled list was prompted by a delightful sinus infection/influenza cocktail. It kept me out of work for a week, landed me in the Hynes Sick Room, and left me with little to do except hold my forehead, pull the covers close, and, drink my fluids.

So many of us look around our homes and say, “If I just had a few more days off, I could get so much done around here.” Sick days grant us that extra time, but of course the irony is that we have no energy at all to get anything done except refill the humidifier and take our medicine. We’re left, instead, to accept the reality that life’s gotta slow down when you’re on the DL.

So, when the fever has dipped closer to normal, we turn on the TV and absorb whatever our senses can take in. I remember seeing a lot of Weather Channel reporters in Washington, D.C., standing knee-deep in snow with rulers in hand. I recall hearing the play-by-play from some dismal basketball games featuring the New York Knicks and New Jersey Nets. I watched some of the soap opera now known as “The Damons of Our Lives,” as MLB Network commentators tried to determine just which team Johnny Damon will play left field for this year. (Please, Johnny, enough is enough!)

I learned that Henry Louis Gates Jr. is teaching us some cool lessons about our ancestries on PBS by researching the family trees of celebrities. I found out that Bob Dylan, Jennifer Hudson and Smokey Robinson can actually team up for a pretty cool concert, especially if that concert is held in the White House. And I even learned that there is a television station devoted to showing music videos of songs from movie soundtracks. And you thought Kenny Loggins’ career was over!

There comes a point where you feel your body turning a corner, and you’re ready for something more than channel surfing. So you pick up a newspaper or a magazine. You try and figure out just what’s happening in Iran right now, and you learn about the courage so many Iranian journalists have shown in recent months. You read about some of the creative ways that people are raising money for Haiti. You finally get to Gary Smith’s Sports Illustrated article about a South African man and his journey from living in a semi-pro team’s clubhouse to playing minor-league ball for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

You have time to read that Times Magazine story about the Obamas’ marriage. You take a few minutes to learn the back story of Lady Gaga. You steel yourself for Nicholas Kristof’s sobering columns about the war in Congo. You absorb some Winter Olympics preview stories, and learn what you need to know about Shani Davis and Lindsey Vonn.

When you’re feeling well enough to lengthen your attention span, you start reading Luckiest Man, a biography of Lou Gehrig. You learn about the extreme poverty in the childhood of this man who would become one of baseball’s greatest players. You find yourself reading not so much the story of a ballplayer, but a tale of the immense obstacles and extreme determination present in the lives of American immigrants 100 years ago.

The bagel chips get old eventually, and you’re ready for a bowl of cereal, maybe even a glass of orange juice. The bones stop aching so much, and the head pounds a little less. You’re working your way off the DL. The doctor says to avoid rushing back to full speed.

You get back to work, and that feels good after so many days in bed. You didn’t get anything done around the house – in fact, the place is messier now than it was before. But in pulling back from business as usual, you had the chance to nourish your mind with stories it wouldn’t have had time for otherwise. And if knowledge equals power, then you’re feeling rather strong indeed.

Very Merry

We head out for a drive, and my wife pops in the new Bob Dylan Christmas CD. It’s Amy’s latest attempt at persuading me to listen to holiday music earlier in the season: Buy an album by one of my favorites, and dare me to turn it off. Smart move, of course. The music begins, and it’s a stunning sensory experience – the ol’ man’s craggy voice, playfully croaking out “Here Comes Santa Claus.”

This CD has been widely praised by music critics, but none of the reviews I read were written by a 7-year-old. Katie listens quietly for a moment, then offers her own critique: “Mommy, he sounds like he has to cough.”

Leave it to the babes to put it all in perspective. They are, after all, front and center this time of year. Whether it’s the holiday decorations, the letters to Santa, or – get this – the “Elf on the Shelf” who hops from one perch to another each night in our house, ‘tis the season for bringin’ out the wonder. (And spoiling them to the core as well, but that’s kind of a lost cause, especially when even Bob Dylan’s on board the sleigh.)

We try to let the merriment win out over the stress, but that can be hard when you’ve got an elf on your shelf. When Santa delivered this, it was designed in part to help an older sister who has been struggling in recent years to hold onto the magic. Katie’s had her doubts about the man in red, yet has also expressed a deep desire to believe. So when a little red elf appears on the entertainment center, with an accompanying book explaining that Santa has sent him to keep an eye out, the kid is fascinated at first. Until, of course, she lies down in the dark of her bedroom and sees the little guy’s big, brown eyes staring at her. She panics, and begins to cry.

“Why do we do this to her?” I ask Santa. “Don’t worry,” she says. The next day, Katie has rebounded nicely, naming the elf “Freddie,” declaring that he is a she, and asking us to buy a dress for the thing. Merry, indeed.

The joy of giving has long won out over the joy of receiving for Amy and me, and our favorite moments during this season always involve hosting friends, or shopping for others, or giving gifts. We’ve developed a little tradition in recent years of going out on Black Friday, at about 10 in the morning, to see if we can find a few deals. Shopping on the day after Thanksgiving is a lot like baseball’s free agent market at this time of year – there are a ton of potential purchases out there, some of them at really good prices. But still, you wonder, is it worth the money even if it’s 50 percent off?

We decide that the new Wii “Winter Sports” game, with two motion sensor devices thrown in, is worth $50, and so Amy now knows one of the gifts in her stocking. I tell her that the new Pearl Jam CD for $6.50 is a great deal, so there goes a drop in my stocking. We decide that three dispensers of Bath & Body Works antibacterial soap are not worth standing in a line 25 deep, even with the $10 sales price, especially considering the Centers for Disease Control’s advice against overusing antibacterial products in the home.

They are merry all right in Bath & Body Works – at least a hundred Black Friday shoppers, most of them women, smelling body wash and trying out hand-held massagers. Their voices, when jumbled together, sound something like Charlie Brown’s mother in the old Charles Schulz animated specials: “Whaaa … whaaa .. whaaa.” I take in the bustle for a moment, then begin to feel something akin to Katie’s feelings about Freddie, and bolt for the door.

It’s quieter in the car a day later, as we drive home from a Thanksgiving visit to Amy’s parents. The girls are watching a movie on the DVD player, while I pay attention to brake lights, speed limits and asphalt. As the movie ends, the girls watch the two principal characters kiss. Katie lets out a big ol’ second grade “Ewwwww.” Her 4-year-old sister, on the other hand, has a different take. “Katie, you know, someday we’ll be doing that too,” she says.

I manage, just barely, to keep the car on the road.

And so the holidays begin, with Dylan in need of some Ricola, Freddie popping up all around our house, the gifts piling up in the closet, and Chelsea talking with her sister about making out. She’s been chosen to play Mary for the preschool’s Christmas program, and the charming young boy who’s playing Joseph has been Chelsea’s “boyfriend” now for more than a year. She claimed him right away, and will no sooner give him up than she’ll relinquish the blanket she carries with her each day.

Should we worry about lovebirds in the stable? No, not yet. As she practiced her entrance into the church today, Chelsea happily skipped through the sanctuary, up to the manger. The preschool director asked: Chelsea, isn’t Mary supposed to be pregnant at this point? Chelsea nodded. True enough. Maybe a soft gallop next time.

It’s just so hard to hold back the merriment.