I spent this morning outside in the freezing, pouring rain hanging up Christmas greenery around our neighborhood with some of our neighbors. Despite the weather, it was actually pretty fun. The greens smelled wonderful. I was assigned to deck the barn with boughs of holly with L. and K., two of my favorites of the moms from AJ�s playgroup (although neither comes often) due largely to their penchant for irreverence. At one point when we were thoroughly drenched and the wind kicked up as I was balancing on the rim of a wagon wheel (yes, a real one) in an attempt to attach a strand of evergreen garland to the top of the lamp post at the foot of the barn drive, L. just laughed and said, �See what desperate housewives we all are? We�ll do anything to get out of the house.�

�Desperate Housewives� has become a catchphrase of late, thanks to the popular new show. I haven�t yet seen the show, but it seems as if everyone I know is confessing to watching it, including several who are generally vocally disdainful about television as a medium. I did take a stab at a viewing a couple of weeks ago, but frankly it didn�t grab me. Today�s review in the Sunday New York Times, however, piqued my interest by citing one of my favorite John Cheever stories repeatedly (�The Housebreaker of Shady Grove�). From what I�ve heard, the Times� comparison of Desperate Housewives to Cheever seems apt, although Cheever, for the most part, tends to deal with the housewives� masculine counterparts, Defeated, Deceitful, and even Downright Depressing Husbands. Since Desperate Housewives wasn�t on, I folded up my newspaper and slipped The Stories of John Cheever off my shelf instead.

I first discovered Cheever as a sophomore in high school, living in a Cheeveresque �banlieue� that bore a striking resemblance to Shady Hill. Perhaps due to the familiarity of the setting, the unfamiliar mix of humor and tragedy, the tantalizing (if depressing) views to the adult world I had not yet joined, the overwhelming creativity of my English teacher that year, who changed my life, Cheever made me want to be a writer. �The Swimmer� was included in the school-assigned anthology of short stories, where it shuffled for attention alongside Shirley Jackson�s �The Lottery� and Robert Coover�s �The Babysitter,� but I quickly picked up my own copy of the fat red paperback of Cheever�s stories and read all 820 pages from cover to scarlet cover, hunched over the book in the lunchroom and the bathtub alike.

I think it may be joining me for another bath this evening. A few of the pages aren�t quite dog-eared enough.

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I am feeling like I�ve gotten far behind on this diary in the last couple of weeks. I can�t seem to keep up with activities, or find the time for reflection. A brief summary:

On Friday, we rehashed the Thanksgiving dinner of the previous afternoon with my brother-in-law and two of our nieces, who came out to entertain AJ for the day. That evening, we bought chairs for our dining room table, which should be arriving this week. Our house is starting to look like grownups live in it. Perhaps that means it�s time to move. Yesterday was spent collapsed in various poses of exhaustion. My husband chose the sofa in front of assorted football games as his resting place. I curled up in bed with a pile of books. AJ wandered around the house with his eyes glazed over, occasionally stopping to lie down in whatever spot he happened to be when the mood hit them. After naps and hasty housecleaning, a friend of my husband�s came over and did us the service of entertaining us and also of finishing off the Thanksgiving pies. This morning AJ and I went for a walk in the woods, made a gingerbread house and tried not to eat it. After AJ�s nap, we headed downtown where I heard the beginning of the �Lessons and Carols� service for the first Sunday of Advent at Church of the Ascension and ducked out early when AJ was too fractious for my husband to handle. We then proceeded to the Lincoln Park Zoo to look at the lights and watch sea lions swimming in the dark, possibly the only Cheeveresque moment of the day.

And now, in lieu, I suppose, of swimming in other people�s pools, it is time for soaking in steaming bubbles with a good book.

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