Tag: Christmas

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A Chalky Merry Christmas

Our neighborhood is a web of cul-de-sac streets with only one entry into it.  Our particular street has one street coming off of it, is about two blocks long and ends in a cul-de-sac. There are five or six houses around this cul-de-sac that are infested with a swarm of rug rats.  Most of them are elementary school age, a few younger, with a sprinkling of teenagers.  What is cool is that these kids tend to play in the street like we did back in the “good old days.” They are riding bikes, scooters, various new fangled riding contraptions that I am clueless as to their names.  Street hockey and soccer are big in this neighborhood. They seem to stay very busy entertaining themselves and each other, all the while running into and out of each other’s houses.

I was walking Princess Lily aka Tater Tot aka The Wee Dog Christmas Eve evening, and she chose Continue reading “A Chalky Merry Christmas”

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Señora in St. Charles

I had forgotten I had taken this picture of Señora in St. Charles a few years ago.  Obviously it was Christmas time. We were with a group of folks in the historic downtown district of this city sitting on the Missouri River, visiting the various quaint shops that are nestled in among restaurants, bars and monuments and references to Lewis and Clark.

Ain’t she purrrr-ttteeee?

Y’all come back now… hear!

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Hispanic Christmas Tradition – Caganers

I was working online with one of my Spanish teachers, a Venezuelan woman who has fled her country with her husband to Buenos Aires.  We were reviewing and discussing an article that listed various Christmas traditions from around the Hispanic world.

There is a tradition from the Catalonia region of Spain that we glossed over as neither of us really wanted to discuss it.  The tradition struck both of us as a little gross.  The traditional there is to place a defecating – pooping if you will – figurine discreetly?? in one corner of the Christmas Nativity scene that folks commonly put out this time of year.  Typically, this figurine has always been of a peasant in the traditional dress of the region.  And like most of these things it is supposed to bring good luck.

It has since morphed so frequently the figurines are of famous people from around the globe.  This has grown into a big international souvenir business, with the majority of the online sales going to the United States.

Fast Forward

Talking about synchronicity… Looking at the news online this morning there was an article from The Guardian: Christmas caganer figurines of Catalonia Just a warning if your are sensitive to such things, there is a bit of a yuk factor associated with the pictures in the article, but on the whole it was an interesting read, at least for me as I had touched on the subject just a couple days before. It was also amusing to see which public figures they chose to depict.

If you are curious, look up the Spanish verb cagar (the noun caganer is derived from the verb) in an online translator.  When I was young it was a word that was not used in polite company.

Oh we humans… I wonder how far we really are from the bonobos.

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Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5784.276

“Matrimony… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Casamiento Segundo, its until-death-do-us-part mission… to explore a strange new relationship… to seek out a new life and new adventures… to boldly go where no sane couple has gone before.”

Every year Señora and I do the same little dance around Christmas time.  We start asking the other what they want for Christmas/Hanukah.  The thing is at this stage of our life we really do not need much except those things necessary for daily living.  Both of us have the habit of if we “want” something we tend to buy it for ourselves.  Plus we will frequently surprise the other by buying them little presents as the muse hits us, a nice, silly, loving, little gesture to do for the other.

I had been down in the Valley the other day.  When I returned home, wanting to get a jump on the season, I told Señora I saw what she could buy me for Christmas.

“Oh,” she attentively replied.

“Yup,” I answered, “I saw a brand new  Porsche 911 GTS almost the exact same color of my Mazda MX-5 Miata.”

Juanita Rush goes for a ride in Little Blue

The Miata, my mid life crisis automobile that I bought 17 years ago,  is a bright blue the sticker called Winning Blue. The vehicle still looks good, runs good,  and I continue to get compliments on it.

This particular Porsche starts at $186, 250. Add another $4,220 for the specialty color they are calling Shark Blue and you have a starting point of $190, 470 good American dollars.  Gawd only knows where it ends at.

“Well,” she said, “you had better start buying lottery tickets.”

I can still hear her laughter ringing in my ears 30 minutes after she went in pursuit of more fulfilling activities than conversation with her beloved.

But, damn, that was a pretty car…

And so it goes.

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My New Plan to Make My Fortune

Step 1:  Recruit a curvaceous Sweet Young Thing, henceforth  known as curvaceous SYT.

Step 2: Dress up my newly recruited curvaceous SYT in a sexy, see-through, next-to-nothing nightgown that does nothing but accentuate her God given charms.

Step 3:  Hide her behind the Christmas tree.

Step 4: When Santa comes down the chimney she will step from behind the Christmas tree giving Santa her best come hither smile, all the while shaking her money makers.  This causes all the blood in Santa’s head to rush precipitously to his candy cane…stripped or otherwise. Santa faints from lack of oxygen in his brain.

Step 5: While the curvaceous SYT is ascertaining whether Santa needs CPR… or other services, I rapidly scale a previously situated ladder.  Jumping in the sled, grabbing the reins, I pilot Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet,  Cupid, Dunder, Blixem and Rudolph to a secret location strong enough to retain nine angry reindeer. I hear Rudolph has such a mouth…

Step 6:  Fence the nine reindeer.  I can only imagine what a team of freaking, flying reindeer that can fly around the world in one night must be worth. I am sure Rudolph with that nose so bright will bring twice what the others fetch.  And that endless bag of toys, there is no putting a price on such a thing.

Step 7: Hire Elon Musk to clean my 42 bathrooms.

And so it ho, ho, ho goes.

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A New Wrinkle on Christmas Decorations

Four or five  blocks from our home here in Chesterfield, MO is an area where several young Indian professionals have homes closes to each other.  This is a neighborhood big on decorating the outside their homes for Christmas.  Many of the Indians have decided to join in on the fun.  I have not talked to them to know for sure, but I imagine it reminds them a bit of Diwali, or the festival of lights in India.

One of these Indian homes in particular caught my attention.  Besides the standard, outside, secular Christmas decorations there was this:

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I have no idea.  Maybe it is an Easter, Halloween and Christmas mashup.  Maybe it has something to do with the homeland.  However, it is 100% creepy.

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Slip and Slide Christmas

Time frame was the early 90s. My daughter Keely had been out of the home for 3 or 4 years. It was Christmas time. Now my ex-wife has lots of fine traits, but Christmas is skidding-pass-plusnot one of them. For her Christmas IS the time of year. I always said after she had completed her decorations (which seem to compound year by year) that the house looked like a bordello. She started buying Christmas presents sometime around August 1. For her Christmas is all about friends and family, giving, feasting and enjoying each others company.

I, on the other hand… Do you remember Ebenezer Scrooge’s famous line, “Bah Humbug”? In certain circles it is a well known secret that he actually stole the phrase from me in one of my previous reincarnations. Christmas IS not my favorite time of year. If I am in a really jolly mood in any one year, I just try to maintain and make it through.

At that time we live in Alma, AR. To help you locate Alma it is just outside of Fort Smith. Fort Smith is on the Oklahoma border Continue reading “Slip and Slide Christmas”

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The Mind, A Terrible Thing to Waste

My sadistic girlfriend gave to me for Christmas, The Mensa Puzzle Calendar. It has one brain teasing puzzle for every day of the year.  That is three hundred and sixty five chances to feel stupid.

A recent puzzle, titled Language Barrier, asked this:

Remove one letter from each word below the rearrange the remaining letters to form the name of a language.

1.      pliant

2.      wheels

3.      hiding

4.      whereby

5.      helpings

6.      sideshow

The calendar is at work and sometimes I have an opportunity to work the puzzles and sometimes I just casually look at them.  That day, a Friday was the latter. Continue reading “The Mind, A Terrible Thing to Waste”

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Bah…Humbug…

Folks around here have started decorating for Christmas. I, being who I am, have hung pictures of Scrooge and the Grinch on the outside wall of my cube.  I’ve also added a picture of a Santa Claus hat with a big diagonal slash through it.

This morning I added a stuffed Santa Claus that makes Scrooge like comments when he is squeezed.  He has a Christmas tree with a slash through it as part of his outfit.  Some anonymous person hung this on my cube wall last year.

My boss got a call at home last night complaining about my decorations.  My boss declined to identify the caller.  The caller told my boss, “You know that David is not of our belief.”

“What belief is that?”

“Well… he does not believe in Santa Claus” Continue reading “Bah…Humbug…”