Daily grudge

Resolutions versus the pleasures of resentment

by Sally Cragin

With the holiday lights extinguished, and the Christmas tree firmly planted in the mulch pile, Tritown gets on with the business of being Tritown. In January, when there's nothing to look forward to but the excruciatingly slow lengthening of days, Tritown has plenty of time to brood and fume. And there's plenty of cause -- drivers who don't know how to drive in snow, frozen door locks, boots that leak at the seams, friendships that have fallen on hard times.

Sure, it's a new year, and some Tritownies have actually made a list of resolutions. Hollis the Mountain Man grumbles about this, but invariably succumbs. Over the years, he's learned how to set what Delia Ellis Bell the Partial Yankee (there was a questionable great-great grandmother) calls "manageable goals" for himself. Occasionally he sticks to one. This year, his list of resolutions include the following: 1) to catalogue his tires by manufacturer, age, and condition; 2) to install that 8-track he pulled out of his 1975 Dodge; 3) to sort the contents of the box labeled "String: Too Short To Use" 4) to care more about what people think of him. He is debating a fifth resolution ("to either remove or repair the porch floor"), when Delia comes tootling up the drive. She is in high spirits -- past the worst of her winter cold, with just four weeks to go before a mid-winter stop in the tropics. This is the kind of scheme she is constantly urging upon her friends, most of whom are content to spend the winter in Tritown "like imperfectly sealed Tupperware at the back of the fridge," grouses Delia good-naturedly.

Hollis fires up the stove-top espresso maker, and asks her: "Whaddya expect? Who can afford to go away?" Delia unwinds a four-foot-long scarf (a Christmas present crocheted by a devoted aunt), and shucks her down jacket. "Who can afford not to go somewhere? Tritown is the pits in winter unless you skate, ski, snowshoe, or drink."

"Hey!" snaps Hollis defensively. "I don't ski! And I have a grudge against people who do."

"Well, the New Year has begun with a bang," she says. "We're only a week into 1998, but here come the grudges!"

Hollis purses his thin lips together and scowled at the stove. Fine for her to talk about going away, when there is so much to be done. "I have a dandy time in the winter," he insists, reaching for the coffeepot. He pours a tot of brandy in his mug, and offered the bottle to Delia.

"No thanks," she says. "I'm driving."

Hollis fills both mugs and brings them to the table. "Well, no need to be smug, Miss Tropical Holiday."

Delia snickers, and blows on her coffee. "Got any of your aunt Winnie's Christmas cookies left in the tin?" she asks.

"Just some bits and pieces," he says, lifting the lid.

Delia looks inside and sees a couple of antlerless reindeer and headless Santa Claus sugar cookies amid a pile of crumbs. She selects a cookie and munches contemplatively. Time for a truce. "What really gets to me," she begins, "are running into old friends -- not you -- and finding that I'm reduced to the age I was when I first knew them."

"Whaddya mean?" asks Hollis.

Delia wipes her mouth and takes a sip of coffee. "Well, like Whitey Leblanc," she says. "Right after Christmas, I was skating on the pond, and all of a sudden he comes barreling out there waving his hockey stick and sending a bunch of ice shards at my skates! It was like we were 10 years old again!"

"Whadda doofuss," Hollis remarks. "He'll never change." He lifts his cup and inhales his concoction. "Unlike me, for example. I've learned to improve the childish things I always liked." He takes a satisfied swig and reaches for a reindeer, which he dips in his brew. Winnie always baked the best cookies -- still edible well past Twelfth Night.

"That's true," says Delia. "You liked coffee even when we were teenagers! I always thought it was weird, but now it's like `going to the coffeehouse' is this big event for the local youth."

"'Cause they can't drink and drive," says Hollis. "Of course, if they stayed home and drank, there wouldn't be a problem." He downs the last of his brew and settles in his chair, agreeably warmed. "Maybe the local youth have a grudge against all the drunk driving laws that keep them alive to graduation day."

"Ha!" snorts Delia. "Unlike our generation, who viewed drinking and driving as just another dare. Yeah, I could see how they'd feel bad about missing out on the good times." She holds out her cup, and Hollis refills it, topping off his own.

Delia finds another cookie fragment, a snowman's top hat, which she chews with satisfaction. So peaceful up here -- nothing out the window but snow and trees, unlike her own recently spoiled kitchen view (the neighbor decided winter was a fine time to re-tarmac the driveway, and the bucket of tar and tools have been sitting out there for weeks). She looks around the Mountain Lair cabin, and her eyes rest on Trick and Treat, Hollis's black and orange Mountain cats. They are curled in discreet balls in front of the wood-burning stove, with a fair amount of distance between them (these cats enjoy their mutual grudge).

"Hey," says Delia. "You've got the wood stove going. What happened to the coal burner?"

Hollis smirks. "I'm trying something different."

Delia rises from her seat and goes to the stove. "Jeez, Hollis," she says. "You ought to just move the whole operation in here -- it's about 15 degrees warmer."

Hollis shifts in his seat. He's wearing a down vest over his boiled-wool Christmas sweater over a flannel shirt with frayed cuffs over a thermal underwear top that once was cream and now is gray. "Why?" he asks. "You cold?"

"Not at all," Delia says sarcastically, bending to stroke the Mountain cats. They're just regular tabbies, but in cold weather their coats thicken, giving them a more feral appearance.

"How great to be a cat," she says as she sits cross-legged on the rug. Trick, the black cat, wakes from his nap and bends his head for Delia to get at his flea-bites. Hollis watches for a few moments and then joins her at the stove. "Yeah, it would be okay -- I could learn to eat out of cans and crap in a sandbox." Then he pauses significantly. "Wouldn't be that much of a change from my routine."

Sally Cragin sends a tip o' the stocking cap to Clif Garboden and Melissa Houston for help on this week's column. Now, isn't that beginning the year in a positive way?!

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