— चार हजार आठ सौ चौहत्तर —

I've got another memory about my mom to share today. I shared this on Facebook today, and I actually try to avoid doing this when I can, but I'm going to paste it in here because the content is just too long, and sort of complicated in terms of sharing a "Facebook Memory," to include in tomorrow's daily Twitter digest in its entirety, so I am going to paste it here.

First, the initial post, which I shared on Facebook on December 9, 2013—seven years ago to the day, and long enough ago that it was even before Mom's first stroke in the summer of 2014:

When I was a very young teenager, in the early nineties, I filled a 90-minute cassette tape with favorite tracks from all of my mom's vinyl Christmas records. Mom had four or five Burl Ives Christmas records, so the collection is largely dominated by him, but there are multiples by other artists, like Bing Crosby, Barbra Streisand, and a bunch of others I'll never know because I never wrote them down.

I did create a homemade inlay card for the cassette, as I did with all my recorded tapes growing up, and I gave the collection a name: "Christmas the Way It Was Meant to Be Heard". I listened to it multiple times every Christmas all through the years growing up, and I still do.

I got an iPod and started using iTunes in 2006. It wasn't long after that, I figured out how to connect a tape recorder to my computer and transferred the songs directly from the tape, converting them into digital files. I now can listen to the collection on my iPod.

If I wanted, I could seek out all of those songs and purchase the tracks in their original, remastered form, free of all the vinyl record surface noise and occasional skips. But I have listened to those imperfections for so long that I long ago grew to love them; on some songs, when I sing along, I know to skip certain words when a skip occurs. I would never want to part with those Christmas songs as they existed when I first recorded them. To this day they remind me of Christmas in my childhood when I listen to them.

. . . And, now, today, being I believe the third time I have re-shared that post as a "Facebook Memory," but with a pretty lengthy added note of new content from this year's perspective:

I first shared this post about childhood memories of Christmas music, and the preserved surface noise and occasional skips on the original recordings from vinyl onto cassette, and later transferred to my iPod, in 2013. I have reshared it several times over the years since, but this year marks the first time the perennial memory is bittersweet, thanks to the passing of my mother earlier this year.

It was the first time, ever, that putting on Christmas music for the first time of the holiday season kind of made me sad. But don't worry! I quickly got over it, my universal love of Christmas music quickly overpowering any bitter part of the new bittersweetness of these memories. I'm still listening to Christmas music, and loving it, as much as ever.

A few detail updates from that original post, now seven years old:

*As I noted in my reshare last year, the playlist may have moved from cassette to iPod in probably 2007, but then it fit with my entire music library onto my iPhone in early 2019, allowing me to connect it via BlueTooth to a smart speaker at Mom's house during my last-ever visit with her just last December. Another fitting detail to my last-ever time spent in her company.

*I noted in the original post that many of the artists represented by the tracks had been lost to time because I never wrote them down. But! I have used Shazam to identify most of them with certainty, but without replacing the vinyl surface noise that is now such a big part of my nostalgic love for them: 12 tracks by Burl Ives; 3 by Barbra Streisand; 2 by Bing Crosby; 5 by a group called The Mistletoe Singers; 2 by a group called the Cranberry Singers; and other individual tracks by a random assortment of artists including Glen Campbell, Johnny Mathis, Roger Wagner Chorale, The Peter Pan Carolers, Nick St. Rudolph & His Jolly Organ [is he wearing a trenchcoat?], Robert Mason & Bethlehem Choir, and John Davidson, among a few others not even Shazam could identify.

*One last random memory associated with these tracks: Barbra Streisand's rendition of "My Favorite Things." Each year when I hear that track for the first time in a year, I think of that time I had this cassette playing on the stereo in our living room in Spokane, Streisand croons "Giiirls in white dresseeeees!" and I got a funny look from Mom as I belted out a largely incomprehensible "GIIIRRRHH II WHIIIII DREHHHHEEEEHHH!!" through a huge mouthful of tomato soup and crackers.

— चार हजार आठ सौ चौहत्तर —

— चार हजार आठ सौ चौहत्तर —

As for today's DLU [Daily Lunch Update] otherwise, the updates are thus: As soon as I finished my work day yesterday, Shobhit and I drove to the Central Library downtown so he could pick up the first two novels in the His Dark Materials trilogy, his interest piqued by the current second season on HBO, and he returned a CD I had checked out in the process. We then drove on to the PCC office so I could swap out paperwork, which I managed in good time at barely more than ten minutes. Shobhit then decided he wanted chaat takeout for dinner, so we ordered via the phone on our way back to Capitol Hill and then picked up some pretty tasty food from an Indian place we had never gone to before, to bring home for dinner.

I have a library DVD that was officially due back yesterday, but I still hadn’t watched it and so we watched it last night: Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 film Rebecca. I really wanted to see this after being rather disappointed by the remake that was released to Netflix a couple of months ago. I gave it a C+, and read that the Hitchcock original was far better. And interestingly, that proved absolutely true, even though the story was nearly identical—except with the run time shortened a bit for the remake, excising scenes that I think would have improved it by being included. Most critically though, especially after seeing the original, I think the remake's biggest problem was casting the far-too-likable Armie Hammer as Maxim de Winter. I like Armie Hammer a lot, but he has a sort of charm I guess he can't quite control, which made him incredibly wrong for this part. I have not seen a lot of Laurence Olivier movies, but him at 33 in the 1940 film was perfect for the part.

Now, some of the ridiculously obtrusive score in Hitchcock's version was corny as hell, and a lot of the dialogue was delivered unnaturally fast, but these are just byproducts of film norms of the time. In the context of 1940, the film was indeed very good, and it was sure as shit better than the remake. Why does anyone even bother remaking a Hitchcock film? It's never really worth anyone's while. I don't get it.

— चार हजार आठ सौ चौहत्तर —

Just one last thing today: I got a message from one of my nieces over Facebook, thanking me for the calendar—which she received in the mail yesterday, so, so much for worries about delivery delays, I guess? It took a whopping one day to reach her! Granted, mailing it as a package direct from the post office with a cost of nearly $9 probably helped. I bet a regular letter still would have taken at minimum another day. That said, I'm guessing the others will arrive today or tomorrow at the latest now, reaching to Spokane and Idaho; the timing of the package to South Australia still remains a crapshoot.

Anyway she liked it very much. She opened it already! Sheesh. I told her just don't post about it and ruin the surprise for other people.

There's something more about this Messenger exchange I wanted to mention, however. I suddenly remembered that, last year, I was able to hand deliver the calendar to her and her husband because we met them for dinner. Normally we might have done the same thing this year, but thanks to this stupid pandemic that was not possible. Next year then! Then, she sent this rather interesting tidbit:

Yes for sure! And no I understand we stay home besides only when necessary to make sure [my mother-in-law] doesn't get sick. She is allergic to something in all cold/cough medicines so she can't take anything and being high risk from having a stroke

I was somewhat playful in my reply to this, saying, Yikes, glad to hear you're being careful (and not being stupid anti-science dumbasses 🙂)

It was her next response that I then found a little dispiriting:

Yeah I mean opinions are like assholes everyone has one and some of them stink 🙄 people just need to think about everyone not just themselves and suffer through this like everyone else so it will stop not continuing to get worse. I personally do not want the vaccinations because I don't get they flu shot due to always getting horribly sick afterwards but I do understand if people choose to.

For like, two thirds of that, she's acting completely sensible. And then? She goes off the rails. What is this shit about not getting the vaccine? She just wrote about her mother-in-law being higher risk, for fuck's sake!

So, I replied, Well, I would argue the stakes are much higher in this case and this vaccination is not at all the same as a flu vaccination, but I'll just get that out and not mention it again

You can bet I'll be mentioning it again on social media where I know she'll see it, however. She just replied to that with, I understand that. But does she?

I texted two different friends about my frustration with this, saying, "Not sure what else to tell her?" One reply was, You can't. That said, someone she knows will get sick, and hopefully she'll flip. Side note: I'm sure the word "flip" here was meant "change her position" as opposed to "freak out." It could easily be read either way, but I know how it was intended. Either way, I'll actually be surprised if she changes her position even if someone she knows gets sick. Which is honestly the saddest part of all.

It's looking more and more like the best I can hope for is vaccinating myself and waiting for the most vulnerable people in my life to do the same, before I can start inching back toward life as it previously was. And all the while, plenty of people will continue to get sick, and probably also die, needlessly because of this position my niece has taken. I don't think she's even an "anti-vaxxer," and she's hardly particularly conservative either. She's just takin a selfish position because she's convinced, without any real evidence, that it will make her sick.

🤦‍♂‍

— चार हजार आठ सौ चौहत्तर —

[posted 12:52 pm]