Holiday Fatigue

Thank God that's over with.

At least that's what I thought.

It seems as if we've been under Holiday Assault for like... ever.  Which isn't half wrong - I remember seeing the first Halloween crap go up in early August.  Followed by a small wave of Thanksgiving, which was quickly consumed by a fucking Tsunami of Christmas.  The Christmas music started the day after Halloween and if I hear Burl Ives singing "A Holly Jolly Christmas" one more time I'm going to punch out my own eardrums.  With a candy cane.

Now, with New Year's over with, I was expecting a respite.

But I was wrong.

Walking to the market yesterday, I couldn't help but notice the entire shopping center is awash in the pink and red of... Valentine's Day!!!!

It's January Fucking 2?  Really?  No break?

Oy vey.  At this rate I should expect to start seeing St. Patrick's Day by the weekend.

...In With The New

The one enduring mystery of 2012 has been... Why is it so hard to keep this blog up to date?

I never had this problem with my last blog, the diary of our time in exile.  I posted on that religiously, sometimes more than once a day.  What was it about that blog that made it so easy to write?

Oh right.... white-hot, blinding rage.

Turns out seething anger and contempt are great motivators for writing.  Which makes a certain amount of sense - nasty reviews are always the most entertaining.

The previous blog was powered by the boiling anger about the collapse of our life as we had known it (and where fate had landed us).  It made the writing more therapeutic and cathartic.  And plentiful.

So... something to work on.  It isn't that there aren't just as many frustrating and bizarre subjects to write about here, I'm just going to have to find some other motivator other than howling at the moon.

So that's my New Year's resolution... more writing.  Along with the perennials - losing weight and quitting smoking.  The writing will be the easier of the three, one would think.

Happy New Year

Ghosts of Christmas Past

This Christmas was going to be different.

The past four Christmases have been brutal and bleak.  Shortly before Christmas 2008, I lost my job.  A month later, the boyfriend did too.  By Christmas 2009, we had lost the house and were living in exile, shellshocked.  The next two Christmases were barren as well.  We decorated, of course, if for no other reason than to try and cheer ourselves up, but there was nothing under the tree.

But this Christmas was going to be different.  We were going to be able to celebrate the way God intended, with an orgy of overspending on needless gifts.  When all was said and done it looked like there was about $1000 in the bank just waiting to be gifted.  Of course, there wouldn't be a tree to put it under - this house isn't big enough for a tree, not even a pygmy one.  But tree or no, there would be gifts.

Then came the unexpected car repairs.

Followed by the unexpected trip to the vet.

Final bill?  $1100.

Oh well.  Better luck next year.

Actually, it's OK.  If nothing else the past four years have made us appreciate the season the way it was originally intended to be, or so one would assume.  Our dire financial straits had already stripped it of all the commercialism and consumerism and forced us to just focus on the joy and good will, since it was all we could afford.  And being far from home really made us appreciate the bonds of family, no matter how dysfunctional and infuriating they can be at times.

So tomorrow morning we'll pack up the dogs and pick up my folks and head on down to my sister's house to spend it with her and her extended family and enjoy the day.  Plus, we'll get to watch my sister be hectored by her mother-in-law about how she doesn't know how to cook, which is always fun.  Ah, the Christmas traditions, they never get old.

Merry Christmas.

End of Days

I'd almost forgotten about the Mayans.

On the news this morning they reminded us that, according to the Mayans, the world ends next Friday.

Honestly, I never really got all the fuss.  Yes, the Mayan calendar ends next week.  Guess what?  Our calendar runs out too, about a week and a half later.  Happens every year.  And you know what we do? We buy a new calendar.  For next year.

The Mayan calendar runs over 5,000 years.  When your calendar runs for five millennia, I'm guessing there's no great rush to start working on the next one.  The Mayans probably figured they'd take some well deserved time off (like, 1,000 years) before jumping on the next one.  And then the Spanish showed up.  Shit happens.

At any rate, I think it's best to get all that Christmas shopping done beforehand because I'm guessing a lot of morons are going to wake up on the 22nd and suddenly realize they need to buy gifts after all.

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.

The Glorious Fourth

The 4th of July proved to be an amazing day.  We packed up the dogs and schlepped over to my folks house to spend the day.  Years ago my hometown banned "safe & sane" fireworks after one too many houses burned to the ground, but to make up for the loss they started putting on a huge fireworks display at my old high school stadium and according to my mother, we would have a perfect view from the backyard.

We went over early in the morning and my mother and boyfriend spent the day cooking.  He really is the daughter she wished she had and while they were busy in the kitchen I hung out with my father.  Later in the afternoon, the day took a turn for the worse with arrival of my Wingnut sister and her husband.

There really is no punch bowl they won't piss in.  It doesn't matter what the topic of conversation is it's only a matter of time before one of them twists it into a rant about "socialism" and "tyranny".  I swear my sister has Republican Tourettes.  Small talk about baking suddenly veered right and she started sputtering about "Obamacare".  Some conspiracy theory about "the fine print" which according to her was going to enslave us all and make the Baby Jesus cry.  Or something.  I left the room.

Later, her husband decided to share the collected wisdom of Glenn Beck with me.

"Did you know" he said, "that America has the longest continual form of government in the history of mankind?"

Huh?

What about the British monarchy? I asked.

That didn't count, he said, because there were a lot of different kings and queens so it wasn't technically "continuous".  WTF?  Unless we are unknowingly being governed by the desiccated corpse of George Washington, the same could be said of us.  Of course, that would be applying logic and in their alternate Wingnut reality, logic is a liberal conspiracy.

What about the Roman Empire?  The Ming Dynasty?  The Pharaohs?  He dismissed them all with the wave of his hand.  "They don't count."

So... by moving the goalposts and excluding every civilization OTHER than America, America WINS!!!  USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!

They left at dusk, and not a moment too soon.  They must have had a Tea Party rally to attend.  Or maybe there's a curfew at the insane asylum.

The boyfriend and I settled into the Adirondack chairs in the backyard as darkness fell, waiting for the fireworks to begin.  As sort of a pre-show the lawless neighbors on the next block shot off some illegal, yet beautiful aerials.  Someone had obviously been shopping in Mexico.

Around 9:00 we saw the fringes of some fireworks on the horizon, just over the fence.  My heart sank... this was it?  Not much more than a vague glow in the sky?  I went inside where my parents were doing the dishes, seemingly unconcerned about the fireworks.

"We can see something on the horizon, but it isn't much.  I thought you said you could see fireworks from the backyard?" I said.

"Just wait" said my mother.

I went back outside and joined the boyfriend.  There were more bursts of color in the distance but nothing to write home about.  I turned to the boyfriend and said "This sucks.  Maybe we should just head home."  He kind of nodded and we started making the moves to leave when my parents walked out.

"I told you just to wait" said my mom and as if on cue and enormous firework burst overhead, followed by a BOOM that set off every car alarm in the neighborhood.  Then another and another and another.  They were so big it seemed like they were directly overhead.  For twenty minutes we were treated to one of the best fireworks shows I've ever seen.  The dogs weren't too happy.  We had placed them inside to protect their ears but still they howled in a panic.  But I loved every minute of it.  It was the perfect end to a nearly perfect day.

And as usual, mom was right.  "Just wait."