The polls are now closed.
Thanks for your 3,234 tour city suggestions!! I love that you guys are excited! (However, I'm a tad less excited about counting and tabulating said results. I suddenly wish I hadn't been too lazy to fill out the DePaul University paperwork last spring, as this is a job with UNPAID INTERN RECEIVING CLASS CREDIT written all over it.)
Anyway, this time of year is normally what I like to call The Holiday Drinking Season. Generally I'm done with all my new-book work by Thanksgiving and I have until January to do a whole lot of nothing. But for some reason this year I'm still busy writing and editing. I have two more projects to complete before I can exhale, relax, and post a proper blog; I'm hoping to be done before Christmas. Until then, I'll make due with another holiday staple - leftovers.
Following you'll find a whole bunch of unrelated topics that I haven't had time to develop. There's no theme to tie them together. Plus, I don't have any kind of big finale, so chances are high I'll just end the post abruptly.
Point?
I'm going to stick all these thoughts in a big stuffing, mashed potato, and green bean casserole sandwich and call it lunch.
Maybe it's not a real meal, but if you're hungry, it'll do.
* * *
A LOT OF SAP
We have a couple of big windows in the front of the house in a bumped-out section of the living room. This spot's pretty much the perfect place to put a Christmas tree. We didn't set it up there last year because I couldn't figure out how (read: was too lazy) to rearrange the furniture to accommodate one. Plus, after spending so many years in apartments where trees wouldn't fit, we erred on the side of caution and bought one too small to properly fill out that space. We ended up putting it next to the stairs, which was fine.
Little did I know that Fletch spent the entire year imagining how magnificent a larger tree would look in that spot. So, when we went to Home Depot on Saturday, he pulled an "I insist" and dragged me over to where they kept The Big Trees. (The "I insist" card is an immediate and irrevocable debate-ender and can only be played by either party once per quarter.) (This is my gift to you this holiday season. When employed judiciously, the "I insist" will increase your marital happiness ten-fold.)
After slicing open a dozen webbed behemoths and deeming them too sparse or too dry or too lopsided, Fletch spotted a quiet giant standing outside of the fray. Fletch snapped closed his jack-knife, regarded the looming Frasier fir, and stated, "I have a good feeling about this one."
We paid for our purchase and overtipped a couple of kids in Carhart jackets to help Fletch hurl and secure it onto the roof of the car. That's when we got our first real clue as to the tree's true size. "This thing must weight 150 pounds," Fletch said.
When we got home, we (read: Fletch) somehow managed to take it off the roof and wrestle it up the front stairs. The second Fletch got to the living room, he dropped the beast onto the rug, thus causing the entire house to shake. This was our second clue as to what might be looming beneath the festive green webbing.
Then it was up to me to figure out new furniture placement. (Turns out to have been easier than anticipated.) After everything was moved, Fletch fought the tree into the stand and then slashed open the thin threads holding in all the branches.
Remember when you were a kid and they had those little dinosaur sponges that would instantaneously swell up ten times their original size when you got them wet?
Yes?
Then you've got an accurate picture of what happened once the tree was released from its plastic prison. With a resounding WHOOMP, branches flew out in all directions and I suddenly found myself in the middle of a Chevy Chase movie. Sticky green limbs boinged into the ceiling, knocked the spring-bar-loaded sheers out of the window frames, and smashed into the glass.
Fortunately, whomever designed this house understood the Christmas Vacation vibe the bump-out would inspire and installed in reinforced panes.
However, I'm not taking Pella off speed-dial because of the assholes also known as my kittens. Do you have any idea how goddamned exciting it is for a pack of feral cats to suddenly find an eleven foot tree in the middle of their habitat?
I could practically hear the thoughts rattling around their tiny brains as they assessed Treezilla.
Chuck: "DIS BELONGS TO CHUCK NORRIS!"
Odin: "IS OUTDOORS INDOORS NAO! MUST MAKE PEES!"
Angus: "OH, NOES IS MONSTER, ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK!"
They've now spent the last five days hanging out under the tree, climbing the tree, doing their best to knock the tree through what I imagine are very expensive windows, and generally beating the stuffing out of the lower branches. I've yet to decorate it because I fear exactly how batshit-crazy they'll go once it's covered in shiny round objects.
Also, did I mention how each of the kittens is coated in a healthy dose of sap?
The only upside is each time the kittens walk across my computer desk, they smell like gin and tonic. From an olfactory perspective, it's almost like I'm participating in The Holiday Drinking Season. Which is nice.
* * *
CARDED
For yet another year in a row, I'm too disorganized to send out Christmas cards. My intentions are always good and ideas rock-solid (everyone wants a photo of a pit bull in a Santa hat and beard, yes?) but it's been a perpetual FAIL in terms of execution.
However, with all the press the Copenhagen summit has received, I'm explaining my lack of holiday greetings as an attempt to be "green."
Am kind of a hero, really.
(Unless you count driving a 14 MPG car against me?)
* * *
COLORIZED, INDEED
I've been working my way through a list of classic, must-see films. This weekend, Fletch and I were feeling particularly festive after buying Treezilla, so we bought the colorized DVD of Holiday Inn. If you're unfamiliar, it's a classic film starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire and it's full of famous Irving Berlin music.
We'd never seen it before, thus were completely shocked at how casually racist a few scenes were. I mean, maybe those were different times and that kind of stuff was common back then, but sweet baby Jesus, was it ever culturally appropriate to perform an ode to Abraham Lincoln in blackface? Fletch was all, "Is it just me, or is this incredibly offensive?"
No, honey, it's not just you.
And by the way,"White Christmas" has an entirely new meaning for me after seeing that movie.
Thanks a lot, Irving Berlin.
* * *
Hey, wait, this whole thing had kind of a theme afterall.
But I can still end abruptly.
