Here's to you, Tandy Leather Factory.

Well, December escaped without a single post from this alleged blogger, but I have an Excellent Excuse for my silence, at least for the first half of the month: I was working on a major re-vamp of my poetry manuscript, which has now gone through several incarnations over the last few years without impressing any editor or potential publisher. Encouraged by members of my long-time poetry group (one of whom has had a terrific success this year with her second book, How to Live on Bread and Music) I decided just to focus on putting together a collection that presents me exactly as I am Today, from the poetry standpoint. Over the years of tinkering with my manuscript, I have found it hard to return again and again to the challenging task of deciding, do I keep this poem in the mix or substitute that one? shall I ditch that old piece ("old" meaning work from the late 80s, early 90s, when I was first taking myself semi-seriously as a poet) or should it stay in?

But perseverance was definitely my watchword this time: I had somewhat arbitrarily selected a contest from among the oodles listed in Poets & Writers, and decided I was by golly going to have my manuscript ready to go by the deadline, which was December 15. I took a few days off from work and holed up at a VERY wonderful little bed and breakfast in the Point Reyes area, vowing, semi-seriously, that I simply Would Not Leave until I had put together something I could send out for this contest. I had taken with me my "old" manuscript (last sent out onto the rough seas of poetry-manuscript contests in 2007) together with a largish sheaf of other work that hadn't been included in my last attempt, either because I was uncertain about it or, in some instances, because the poems hadn't been written yet. Thank goodness my room at the Osprey Peak was pretty large: I spread the poems ALL over the floor, plus a small annex of poems on the bed, and I walked (or crawled) around and around among the poems, arranging and rearranging them ... until I had something.

So. I made that deadline, I'm glad to say ... but that doesn't account for the remaining two weeks of December, does it? Actually, again I can point my finger accusingly at the written word: for years I used to send out a year-end letter, following the tradition established by my late parents when they were first married and trying to stay in communication with a sizable collection of people, war-time friends and extended family, scattered over a couple of continents and a number of states in the U.S. At the turn of the year from 2008 to 2009, because of the (self-inflicted) upheaval in my life, I didn't manage to send out these letters -- which are customarily accompanied by a holiday card with a more personal note -- but I heard back, rather plaintively, from a number of these correspondents, saying, Annie, where's the letter? This year I felt able and willing to cobble together something to send out, and that's pretty much what happened to the last half of December.

But perhaps you are wondering where the heck Tandy Leather Factory enters into all of this? Ah ... I can explain! Once upon a time, during the early (or Pleistocene) era of Stenzel gift-giving, members of my family were heavy consumers of nifty little kits from the Tandy Leather Factory, which came with instructions for how to decorate them and piece them together. There was a period in the early Sixties when no Stenzel could escape being the recipient, one Christmas or another, of a handy-dandy tooled-leather key-case, or belt, or bill-fold, or (on one notable occasion) a VERY elaborate bag in which my mother carried her papers to and from school -- my brother Julius tooled the design on one side and I, rather less competently, did the other, and we took turns with stitching the whole thing together. These were serious gifts, and we were justifiably proud of ourselves for our efforts in "making" presents for one another.

I found myself wondering, this year, whether Tandy Leather Company was still in existence and -- I'm happy to say -- it appears to be thriving ... same old bill-folds, same old belts and handbags, which I guess means other families put there are still making sure everyone is equipped with a personalized comb-case. But this was a very different year for me, in terms of gift-giving, and so one of my favorite gifts was the present my brother and I gave to each other: we spent time together up at Inverness the day after Christmas; had lots of good conversation in the car driving up and back, spent some splendid time in kayaks out on the Bay, and had a lovely meal together at a Thai restaurant. A great gift -- nothing to wrap, a perfect fit, and exactly what we both needed.