STAVE I: CHRISTMAS

 Finding things in wrong places - 2020  For months, my daughter’s choir mask* sat on our dining room counter where it was always handy.   That is, until an hour before the concert. That’s when I noticed it was missing.   After a fruitless, hour-long search, involving the whole household, we realized that the choir mask had simply vanished.   Three weeks later, it turned up in my husband’s dresser drawer. It likely fell into a laundry basket and was mistaken for shorts. In the drawer it was wildly out of place.   Another item wildly out of place was my son’s wallet. Nearly a year ago, he was on his way to an airport in New York to catch a plane for a job interview in San Francisco when he realized his wallet was missing.    Somehow, he boarded the plane (using his passport as ID) secured the job and returned home to Brooklyn, walletless.    Over time, he replaced most of what was important.   This week, an envelope came to our house....

  Usually, it’s so cold in the Northern Plains that freezing rain isn’t a problem. States to our south reel from ice storms, and we watch in relief as the north once again escapes.  Even windy, subzero weather is better than unscrapeable windshields, snapping power lines and deadly sidewalks.   If ice follows snow, you can shovel it away with a little effort. But if ice comes first, watch out!    This year, ice came first, starting with sneaky freezing drizzle. It melded with packed snow into one stubborn coating of ice, and though it was quickly followed by warm air, we didn’t take full advantage of that warmth.  Slick patches remain on walkways and surfaces.  I hadn’t realized that a slab of ice lurked under snow along the lift-gate of our minivan -- until I tried to place groceries in the back.    I brushed away the snow, but an ice ridge remained. I tried lifting the hatch to shove the ice away, but the ice was too much for the lift-gate....

 Making Santa’s naughty list   Why does Santa take the time to do all he does at Christmas? Most say it’s because he’s a saint and he does it from the goodness of his heart, and maybe so. But the cynics among us know that if we were Santa, we would do it for the power and pleasure of composing those naughty lists.   Admit it. There is a perverse enjoyment in writing off those people who irritate you, confound you, cause you to pull out your hair. Wouldn’t you love to scribble their name on the naughty list?   My naughty list would include the person who came up with blue toothpaste.    Toothpaste was clean and white, the way you’d like your teeth to be, and then some character came along and turned bathrooms into smeary, gloppy, blue messes.   Even adult toothpastes are not safe. Recently, trying to avoid the blue goo, I chose a toothpaste called Total that stressed mature themes: germ fighting, plaque-busting, gum-protecting benefits. You would e...