Hoard For The Holidays

Saturday we witnessed the rarest of things, a success story on "Hoarders".

Or maybe it was "Hoarding: Buried Alive".  Either or.

Now, I love me some "Hoarders" (who doesn't) but I have to admit it had gotten increasingly difficult to watch because there were never any winners.  Each episode seemed to end exactly where it started and over time the whole enterprise was becoming depressing and dispiriting.  Oh sure, occasionally they'd make a house kinda sorta livable, but when they'd return for a visit weeks later, more often than not it was even worse than before.  Usually, after days of shoveling, the best you could hope for was maybe a glimpse of a long unseen floor or forgotten bathroom.  Just once I wanted to see someone overcome the compulsion, to kick the habit, to break free of that monkey on their back.  The crocheted monkey cozy they'd found at a garage sale.

And Saturday was the day!  I can't remember his name...  George?  They always seem to be named George.  Or Debbie.  At the start, George seemed to be a particularly hopeless case.  His home was so full of crap that the back rooms had been sealed off for years and the the only way you could traverse the rest of it was by crawling on your belly atop six feet of God-knows-what with your ass scraping the ceiling.  I almost turned it off.  Almost.

But damned if George didn't do it!  It took three massive trucks to haul away his shit, but by the end of the episode his house looked great.  OK, maybe not "great", but still.  There were still a lot of boxes but  now you could at least make out discernible rooms.

We went to commercial break and when we returned the words "TWO MONTHS LATER" flashed on the screen and I thought to myself "This too shall end in tears..." but miracle of miracles, the house looked even better than before.  All the boxes were now gone and it seems our George has quite the knack for interior decorating.  One man's garbage is another man's ironically hip collectable.

Originally I watched "Hoarders" strictly for the entertainment value, but since we moved here I also watch to try and get some insight into my neighbors.  This condo complex is a huge nest of Hoarders.  They should rename it "Rancho de Firetrap".  Almost everyone parks on the street because all of their garages are filled to the rafters with junk.

Our original next door neighbor was a kindly older lady who grew considerably less kindly when the owner of the unit she rented sold it out from under her. She had so much crap it took her weeks to move it all out, and even then she appears to have just thrown in the towel and left a ton of junk in her open garage and on her patio.  The other residents swooped in like a swarm of locusts and picked it clean in minutes, ferreting it all back to their own little hidey holes.

Our lease is up in a few months.  Here's to hoping we can make it out before this place burns to the ground.  It's just a matter of time.

We Gather Together

Well, we made it through the family Thanksgiving relatively unscathed.  A minor miracle, seeing as how the holiday fell so soon after the election.

You see, my sister and brother-in-law are Wingnuts.

That wasn't always the case.  They've always been Republican, but they used to be the thoughtful, intelligent sort, the ones formally referred to as Rockefeller Republicans, the liberal on social issues, fiscally conservative kind.  Somewhere during the Bush years, probably shortly after 9/11, they took a hard right turn into Crazytown.  That's when I remember the Glenn Beck stickers start showing up on their car.

My parents, by contrast, started out as good solid Midwestern Republicans but over time have shifted to being even more liberal than me and the boyfriend.  I think it was because of Nixon.  I remember a family trip back to the East Coast during the summer of 1973 where my mother insisted we stay at the Watergate hotel and tour all the highlights of the then ongoing Watergate investigation.  My folks even bought me a wanted poster featuring photos of all the Nixon staff.  Good times.  They've been solid Democrats ever since.

But back to Thanksgiving.  Family get-togethers had already grown tense, but the election of Obama sent my sister and brother-in-law clear 'round the bend.  Innocuous small talk would veer violently into talk of Death Panels and Re-education camps and secret U.N. agendas.  My brother-in-law would rail on and on about gun rights and grow enraged when I pointed out the fact he didn't actually own any, you know, guns.  An innocent comment about the weather would launch a full scale attack on "so-called" climate change.  Each holiday seemed to grow increasing worse and we finally reached our nadir a couple of years ago at an Easter Brunch with my sister chasing after me in the parking lot screaming "Socialist!  Socialist!  Socialist!"

So, we, banned any mention of politics from that point on.

The question remained whether the truce would hold, what with the re-election of the Kenyan Anti-colonialist Usurper.

And, for the most part, it did.

My sister briefly went off on an anti union tirade, but her heart didn't really seem to be in it and it fizzled pretty quickly.  I've never quite understood her beef with the unions, especially considering... she's in one.  And not just any union, mind you.  She's a member of the much hated Teacher's Union, scourge of Republicans everywhere.  Thanks to the union, she makes close to six figures and, with tenure, can never be fired.  Without it, she'd be lucky to be making $30K, if she hadn't already been downsized.  I guess cognitive dissonance is just one of those things you learn to live with on the Right.

She gained a little more traction with her main bugaboo.... the "War on Christmas".

As a music teacher, she's on the front lines of the heathen assault to strip the CHRIST out of CHRISTmas.

"They insist on calling it a 'Holiday Concert' or a 'Winter Concert', but I just throw it back in their faces.... it's a 'CHRISTMAS Concert'".

She says parents have complained.

"Mostly it's the Asian or Muslim ones."

Gee, couldn't see that coming.

She's most upset with the kids.

"None of them even know the words to most of the Christmas Carols."  

And really, why would they, being all Buddhist and Muslim and shit?

Evidently the whole thing recently lead to a confrontation with the principal.

"What is he going to do, fire me?  I have tenure."  She said, cluelessly.

At that point, I just walked away.  I find that works best.

Christmas is at their house this year.  Should prove to be a hoot.

Long Time, No See

Yes, I know.  It's been awhile.

One of my friends asked "So, have you abandoned the blog?"

No exactly.

I mistakenly assumed once I had been relieved of my duties with my former employer that there would be scads of time to blog.  It has proved to be just the opposite.  Forced to scramble for work like a cheap Vegas hooker, I haven't had a break in the action in over a month.  Which is a good thing.  If I know one thing about my business, it's that everything will grind to a screeching halt this week for the rest of the year.  Had to bank as much as possible to make it through the lean holiday period and into 2013.

And screech to a halt, it has.  I have one remaining job, a vanity project for a high powered agency executive in LA.  She's been less than diligent about providing feedback and notes.  I had hoped to have it wrapped up by today, but she just informed me I should have everything I need "first thing in the morning".  On Thanksgiving.  Before she jets out of town to Aspen.

"Ill be checking e-mail between runs, so hopefully I can see something first thing Friday."

Riiiiiight.  I'll just blow off my family Thanksgiving for your little puff piece.  What do you think this is, Walmart?

"I'll be back from Aspen sometime Monday."

OK Honey, break a leg.  No really... break a leg.

The upside of all of this is that it would appear, knock wood, that there will be nothing but time to blog in the coming weeks.

So my apologies for the absence.  I'll make it up to you.  I promise.