We live in an age of forgetting.
holiday
Merry Christmas
Dec 25th
Merry Christmas, everyone who believes in Baby Jesus. Here is a short list of Groups That Get Most Excited During Christmas:
1. Kids.
2. Cats.
My sister’s cat, George, had an awesome Christmas. A Christmas tree with dozens of ornaments dangling within paw’s reach is essentially a giant cat toy. I found this out after George knocked down the Christmas tree (it was a miniature tree, he’s not Hercu-cat) and later decided to mark his domain by laying on top of the presents.
The process of unwrapping a gift transmutes a human present to a cat present. From a cat’s perspective, crumpled paper, ribbons, and bows are popping into existence and raining from the heavens for minutes. It is a torrential downpour of cat toys, an embarrassment of riches. It was almost cruel to clean up.
In the background right now is “Pets TV”, the only program that can show a pug in a pink vest standing on a pedestal and have an announcer say “We’re going to show you the latest in doggie fashion!” while being completely and utterly not ironic. If you want to start a revolution, invite a crowd of homeless and really poor people to a stadium, and show them Pets TV’s story on upscale dog resorts on the Jumbotron. “They have BUTLERS?! And get MASSAGES?!” Cities will burn.
The gifts I got for my family aren’t coming until Monday. I miscalculated the shipping time, and it ends up I could have either ordered next-day air and got them in time for Christmas, or ordered regular shipping and got them on Saturday, but instead they are arriving on Monday because UPS doesn’t deliver air-shipped packages on the weekend.
Oh, well. It has been a super Christmas so far. We got to chat with Michele and Evan on Skype, Tina is making some awesome food, and I got kicked out of the kitchen and forced to sit on the couch and watch TV. I wish I knew what I did to get kicked out of the kitchen so I can do it again.
If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you are having a wonderful one.
Christmas Cards
Dec 20th
We got a Christmas card a few days ago. From the Shipley’s. It was addressed to one of the former occupants of the house we rent, someone who moved out three years ago.
I rarely send Christmas cards. And when I do, it’s to a very select group of people. A mere handful. One criteria for being one of these elite recipients, the first and perhaps most important pole to be vaulted over, is that I know you live in the house I’m mailing the card to.
Not on the Shipley’s checklist. “People you haven’t talked to in over three years” is a go. They also addressed it to “Jessica and Scott.” How do they even know she’s still going out with Scott if they don’t know where she lives? Addressing a Christmas card to a couple you don’t know well when they’re not married or engaged is a high-risk maneuver. Things change. People grow. They move out and don’t tell you.
These Shipley’s are playing with fire. I’m guessing they’re sending out hundreds of Christmas cards a year, slamming down shots of eggnog and giggling as they send out cards to acquaintances, third-cousins, and random people in the phone book. They are mad with power, holiday fat cats showing off their gold-leaf stamps and hooked on the bliss of sending out cards.
This ends now, Shipleys! I’m writing “I broke up with Scott” on the envelope and Returning to Sender. Maybe the reality that your friends aren’t who you think they are will pierce through your joy-induced delirium and bring you back to reality. It’s time to edit your list. Pare down the hangers-on. Drop the doorman of your SoHo building that you lived in for a summer in ’95. No one has the energy to sustain every tangential connection we make with people. Also, put down the pen and pick up the baby. Okay, I don’t know if you have a baby, but if you do, it’s probably crying right now. “Waah! Where’s Mommy and Daddy? I haven’t seen then since they started writing Christmas cards two weeks ago!”
Shipleys, you sick, child-abusing bastards, how could you do that to your baby?
Can’t wait for that sentence to be indexed by Google. Merry Christmas, Shipleys!
Holiday Fun for The Grinch
Dec 17th
1. Buy a Zhu Zhu hamster, preferably one with a name like “Mr. Squiggles” or “Num Nums.”
2. Smear it with peanut butter.
3. Give it to a dog to tear up. Record the results.
4. Email the video to the child of your choice.
Optional: Title the video, “Why You’re Not Getting a Zhu Zhu hamster this Christmas.”
Pumpkin Duel Update
Dec 16th
First, thank you unsecured “NETGEAR” router in my neighborhood. You let me use the Internet when my regular connection is down, which is often.
Pumpkin Duel update. When we last checked in with our competitors, Pumpkin 1 was slightly behind was poised to make a move. And it did, although time has not been kind to either competitor.
This was taken five days ago, and about a week after the first photo. Although I think Pumpkin 1 (left) is clearly in the lead at this point, if you saw what I did when I left my house this morning, you would know it’s a Pyrrhic victory. Both competitors are hanging on by their last few strands of cellulose. (I don’t know if pumpkins have cellulose, but let’s be honest, you’re not going to look it up for the same reason I didn’t.) The face of Biggie Smalls (Pumpkin 2) almost seems to be trying to push through the skin, as if it were infused with the spirit of Biggie and is trying to escape to Representin’ Heaven before being unwittingly dragged down to Pumpkin Hell (which is probably my porch in warmer weather).
If I post another update, there’s going to be a parental warning before the photo. At this point, these two pumpkins are turning into fetid mounds of sadness seed.
Race for the Future
Dec 9th
Post Halloween, our pumpkins made their way to our back porch. They are still there. They are having a race.
After a month of the most varied weather our nation’s capitol has to offer–60 degree days, rainstorms, snow, and frost–The Race to Rot is still a neck and neck competition. Like the champions that they are, both pumpkins are refusing to give up, demonstrating a remarkable will to win unseen since 1995, when a glass of milk escaped my college roommate’s clutches and evaded detection for a month, hiding in the shadows and making a mockery of the air freshener industry until its location was finally pinpointed by a highly-trained search-and-destroy team, namely me sitting on the couch and thinking, “Hey, what’s that off-white glass doing in the corner?”
Here is the current status of the contestants.
Contestant 1, a pumpkin with a carving of Biggie Smalls, has excellent top stability but is perilously close to collapsing at its base. This weakness may be deceiving, as its top fell through its rotting core, serendipitously shoring up its mushy base.
I forget the carving on Contestant 2. My roommate made it, and she likes cats, so let’s say it was a carving of a cat.
Contestant 2 has a lot of surface scaring but is more structurally sound. An unbeatable advantage? Not so fast. Like an Orange Country house wife, Contestant 2 looks a lot better on the outside than inside.
While at this moment I’m giving the edge to Contestant 2, if Contestant 1 can last another next week or two, I think its superior internals will then come into play and be the deciding factor. But whatever happens, we can all agree that to last this long, both pumpkins have outperformed everyone’s expectations and are truly a testament to the pumpkin spirit that resides in all of us who are pumpkins.
Halloweenie
Nov 3rd
I’m a Halloweenie. I haven’t dressed up for Halloween in years. On the day, I see the carved pumpkins and the costumed revelers and answer a vague longing to take part by making a mental note to do so next year.
I loved Halloween as a kid. I usually made my own costume with help from my parents. I was a Whatchamacallit, a Pumpkin Warrior, and Count Bozo, a vampire with a Bozo the Clown smock underneath my cape. I was disappointed that none of the grown-ups laughed at my Count Bozo costume. Not to blame the audience, but my neighborhood was kind of slow. (Yes, I am still bitter.)
When I was too young to protest, my Mom dressed me and my sister Michele as Raggedy Ann and Andy. I have no memory of the event, and was surprised the first time I saw the photo. It was in a local newspaper. Details that may not be true: we won second place and Michele was crying in the photo. Michele had good sense even back then. We’re half-Iranian and wearing red wigs. That stuff is confusing.
My issue today is that I still have the creativity of a child and the work ethic of a child. I spend a few hours before Halloween thinking of good ideas that take almost no effort to execute. I usually fail. The closest I have gotten recently was ROBO-T. ROBO-T was a cardboard box with two straps on it and holes cut out for my arms and head. I meant to write “ROBOT” on the front, but I wrote the “ROBO” too big and had to put the T on the next line. I may have put some tin foil on my shoulders. My memory circuits are fuzzy.
The year of ROBO-T, my friend Sean and I went to a robot costume party. The idea of a robot costume party is so weird that it sticks in my brain like a shard of glass in an apple. We both suited up and went on the Metro.
At the party, the MC announced a contest for “Worst Robot Costume.” This is how bad my costume was: the second the MC made the announcement, everyone around me started yelling at me to get up on stage. It was positive yelling, almost encouraging. I refused to go up because I would have had to say my name, and I was too scared to stutter in a microphone in front of a large crowd. Also, I was wearing a cardboard box with a lopsided oval hole for the head and two arm holes at different heights from each other. Cardboard is a poor protector from feelings.
This was another no costume year. I did buy some candy to pass out, but I couldn’t stick around to hand it out, so I left it in a bowl on the doorstep with this note:
“Hey Urchins!
It’s the Magical Bowl of Candy!*
Take 2-3.
*Note: Bowl is not really magical.”
We don’t have an outdoor light, the bowl was hard to see, and we haven’t handed out candy in years. I must have known this subconsciously when I bought candy that I like to eat in the unfortunate event that we had some left. One of my roommates and his girlfriend dressed up though and handed it out while I was gone. Mad Scientist and Freddy Krueger get props for that.
Thansgiving Fun
Nov 23rd
* While making Thanksgiving dinner, I asked my Mom what was in this bowl of sweet-smelling herbs. “Guess. You can test your smell.” Two seconds later, as I’m still in the process of bending over to smell then, she blurts out “Sage!”
ME: “Why did you tell me before I could guess?”
MOM: “I like to cheat.”
* “Sous Chef” is a fancy name for “chump who is unable or not trusted to cook.” I am always the Sous Chef on Thanksgiving.
* Mom has a hand-painted serving platter that she got from France. She loves this platter. I didn’t realize how much she loved it until she handed it to me to put on the dining table. “Jason. if you drop this, I will kill you. [laughter] I am serious. I will show no mercy.” After we stop laughing, she took the Death Platter back from me and put it on the table herself.
* I bought myself a hand blender for my birthday next week. Mom reimbursed me, and then Michele said she wanted to pay for the gift.
MOM: “Okay. You owe me $40.”
MICHELE: “$40? Jason told me it was $20.”
TINA: [looking to me] “I thought you said it was $30.”
ME: “It is $30. They are trying to one-up each other.”
Finally, a Holiday We Can All Get Behind
Sep 19th
I don’t know if this episode aired yet, but apparantly a pirate family appeared on ABC’s Wife Swap.
Halloween, 2
Nov 1st
Damn kids. I bought $8 of candy, and not a single kid knocked on our door for Halloween. I even left the outdoor light on this year. And removed the guard dog. Well, it was a garden gnome, but kids are very sensitive, and I’m a compassionate being.
Damn kids.
Halloween, 1
Oct 31st
I used to come up with great ideas for Halloween costumes. As a kid, I was Count Bozo (a vampire clown), a Whatchamacallit, and the Pumpkin Warrior. This year, the best I could think of was Larry McPantsHead, the guy with pants on his head.
What did you go as?
New Rules for Holidays
Nov 11th
We need stricter criteria for judging who gets to celebrate holidays. For Veteran’s Day, the only people who should get off are veterans. Or at least rename the holiday, “Veterans, Government Workers, Some Private Businesses, Groggy and Not Wanting To Come Into Work So I’ll Call In Sick Cough Cough Day.”
And Columbus Day is a joke. If you haven’t subjugated at least one Native American in the past five years, get off the gravy train and go to work.
For Father’s Day, your children need to have been planned. No more getting presents from accidents.
For the Fourth of July, almost everybody gets to stay home. The exception: Rush Limbaugh listeners and other chickenhawks, who get a two-week tour of duty in
I Need To Start Going To Church More Often
Apr 9th
Actors Whip Easter Bunny at Church Show
Melissa Salzmann, who brought her 4-year-old son J.T., said the program was inappropriate for young children. “He was crying and asking me why the bunny was being whipped,” Salzmann said.
Because, J.T., that’s what happens to people who don’t eat their eggs. So perhaps you don’t want to scream at Mommy tomorrow during breakfast.
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