Silent Night

Hello World,

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? I should think not! But we find ourselves just about at the very last weekend in 2006, as incredible as that might seem to believe, and staring down both barrels of 2007, which will arrive amid the usual hoopla and fanfare on Sunday night. A reasonable person might wonder where has the year gone, but everyone knows that I have long since given up trying to use logic in these ridiculous times, as it just wastes my time and irritates the pig. No, wait a minute, that's the punch-line to a different joke altogether, and anyone can tell you that 2006 was no laughing matter, and I ought to know. (If you don't believe me, you can just go right ahead and try to find something funny to say about $3 gasoline in September. Go ahead, I'll wait. Dum-de-dum ... dum-dum-de-dum ... Aha, not so easy, is it?) Be that as it may, time is running down for 2006, and we will soon bid it farewell, if not fondly, and days of auld lang syne.

For people who may be wondering, I can report that Lessons & Carols came and went in the usual way, and I might add, without a hitch. Bill advises that the audio-visual crew in the balcony did not experience any technical difficulties, and for the most part, people involved in the program remembered what they were supposed to say or do at the times they were supposed to say or do them. Due to some unavoidable choir fallout recently, we didn't even torture poor G.F. Handel with "For Unto Us A Child Is Born" as we usually do, and that sound you don't hear is the late composer not spinning in his grave for a change. In fact, the event featured our very own world famous soprano, Awet Andemicael (and please feel free to check her out on the sopranos page at http://guybarzilayartists.com and see - and hear! - for yourself) singing one of his arias so beautifully that he would have been just as happy as two clams, that is, if he wasn't already dead. But the rest of us enjoyed it anyway, and as a harbinger of Christmas, it was roundly applauded by one and all.

One thing that no one applauded, and this was certainly a first for us, was that our Christmas tree fell over in the living room last week. We had picked out a nice large tree, as we always do, and as usual, thought it was too short until we brought it into the house and put in the tree stand, and found it was exactly as high as the ceiling, with just enough room for the angel on top and nothing to spare. Out of its wrapper, it fell into a very nice and robust shape all around (this is important, because it stands in front of the bay window, and you can walk around it on all sides) and it was so full that it just gobbled up lights as fast as Bill could put them on the branches. It seemed to be settling in nicely, and the cats greeted it with their usual glaring disinterest, and we took for granted the fact that, well, we could take it for granted. Not so fast! A few days before Christmas, I went upstairs after working late on my computer, and neglected to turn off the lights, even though I walked right past this ten-foot behemoth aglow with literally hundreds of twinkling lights. We have no explanation for what happened next, because we never heard a thing. (Talk about "Silent Night" and then some!) But in the morning, Bill came downstairs and discovered the tree, still all lit up and blinking, and with the tree stand still firmly attached to the trunk, completely fallen over to one side and propped precariously atop my desk at the top. There were needles everywhere, not to mention, twigs and water all over the carpet in every direction. The invisible cats had that "deer in the headlights" appearance that can't be faked, and they wouldn't go near the living room at gunpoint. Bill, who has the strength of many because his heart is pure, was able to stand the tree back up all by himself (although the truly pure in heart may not have cared for some of the language that he was using at the time) and it has remained prosaically upright since then, which is a reassuringly boring aspect of Christmas trees that we have never fully appreciated until now. So we will probably never know what induced the tree to topple as it did, seemingly without warning or provocation, but at least no one got hurt and the tree looks just as good as ever and none the worse for wear. Although next year, I think we'll check that the gravity isn't too strong in the living room before we set up the Christmas tree, just to be on the safe side.

But what of Christmas, you may be wondering? Well, wonder no more, and rest assured that the little old man in the red suit came across with the goods, and plenty of them, on Christmas morning, at least in our neck of the woods. We pulled the wraps off of clothing and toys, movies and music, gadgets and games, with specialized products showing up in the fields of camping, technology and automotive accessories. It would probably come as a surprise to no one that we ended up with not one, but two, bird bath heaters, but I'll bet it would come as a surprise to everyone, as it did to us, that we also ended up with two portable DVD players. (I can only suppose that I must have been on that list that says, "Does not share well with others.") So we considered that part of Christmas to be a rousing success, at least for me, although Bill perhaps not so much. Well, I did warn everybody about that Naughty List, I can't help it if they don't listen.

Usually we find ourselves getting up in the middle of the night to open presents, but this year we didn't start until the more seemly hour of 7AM to get underway, so it was a pretty leisurely way to greet Christmas morning for us. Between all the toys and gadgets, we had plenty to play with, and that made us even more behind schedule, considering that we still had places to go and people to see ahead of us. So we packed everything up and hit the road at noon, going over the river and through the woods, metaphorically speaking, to Mom's house on Long Island. Everyone else was already there, and we enjoyed some snacks and holiday cheer for a while, and don't think that I don't have the pictures to prove it. Then we rounded everyone up, presents and all, and headed to the brand new Hilton Garden Inn Westbury, which had just been opened in the sprawling Merchant's Concourse complex on the site of the former Roosevelt Raceway. (Of course they have a web site! Go ahead and take the tour at http://hiltongardeninn.hilton.com and see for yourself.) The hotel is new and lovely, featuring a luxurious lobby and posh suites with all the trimmings. Some of our elves were planning to stay there overnight as a mini-vacation, and avail themselves of the various amenities, such as the pool and Jacuzzi, not normally associated with the traditional Christmas observances. So we opened our presents and used the kitchenette to prepare a veritable feast of comfort foods that was as welcome as it was tasty. Christmas at a hotel is not everyone's idea of the standard Yuletide of yesteryear, but we found it an interesting change of pace. We left later than we expected, and drove home in pouring rain all the way, but at least there was no traffic to speak of, and we arrived home without incident. We were both off from work on Tuesday, and a good thing, too. After all, these gadgets don't just play with themselves, you know.

So far, my favorite part of the holiday is that I took the week off from work between Christmas and New Year's, and although I had to go in to the office on the 26th to do payroll, the rest of the time it's been blissfully uneventful and relaxing. I won't say that I've gotten a very large amount of things accomplished during this period of recreational inactivity, because that would be so understating the case as to constitute outright lying, and I always say, it's never too early to start being careful about staying off that Naughty List!

In The Chips

HO HO HO!

We find ourselves perched on the very verge of Christmas Eve, with only one last lonely candle to light on our Advent wreaths before all holly breaks loose, fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. For anyone who hasn't already made sure to keep themselves on the Nice List instead of the Naughty List, the jig is pretty much up at this point, and your best bet is to plan to improve for next year and just write off this season as a lost cause. This has also been an eventful week full of other notable days, such as Hanukkah beginning on the 15th, as well as the eagerly anticipated Winter Solstice on the 21st. This is good news for anyone suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, and even those of us who aren't, because from now going forward, all of the days are getting longer and sunnier, and I just can't think of anything better than that. For people who need even more cheering up than that, here's a little something that ties in with the current poker craze that's all over TV and the internet these days, featuring a bit of old-fashioned parlor humor from a master of the genre. Here's hoping that you have a holly, jolly and jingle all the way!

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Ladies’ WildBy Robert Benchley

In the exclusive set (no diphtheria cases allowed) in which I travel, I am known as a heel in the matter of parlor games. I will drink with them, wrassle with them and, now and again, leer at the ladies, but when they bring out the bundles of pencils and the pads of paper and start putting down all the things they can think of beginning with “W,” or enumerating each other’s bad qualities on a scale of 100 (no hard-feeling results, mind you – just life-long enmity), I tip-toe noisily out of the room and say: “The heck with you.”

For this reason, I am not usually included in any little games that may be planned in advance. If they foresee an evening of “Consequences” coming over them, they whisper “Get Benchley out of the house. Get him a horse to ride, or some beads to string – anything to get him out of the way.” For, I forgot to tell you, not only am I a non-participant in parlor games, but I am a militant non-participant. I heckle from the sidelines. I throw stones and spit at the players. Hence the nickname: “Sweet Old Bob,” or sometimes just the initials.

One night last summer, I detected, from the general stir among the ladies and more effete gents, that I was being eased out of the house. This meant that the gaming was about to begin. But instead of the usual clatter of pencils among the croupiers, I saw someone sneaking in with a tray of poker chips. They almost had me out the door when I discovered what was up.

“Well, so long, Bob,” they said. “Good bowling to you.”

“What’s this?” I came back into the room. “Are those poker chips?”

“Sure, they’re poker chips. It’s all right to play poker, isn’t it? The reform administration’s gone out.”

I assumed a hurt air. In fact, I didn’t have to assume it. I was hurt.

“I don’t suppose I’m good enough to play poker with you,” I said. “All I’m good enough for is to furnish the liquor and the dancing girls.”

“Why, we thought you didn’t like games. You always act like such a gol-darned heel whenever a game is suggested.”

“My dear people,” I said, trying to be calm, “there are games and games. ‘Twenty Questions’is one game, if you will, but poker – why, poker is a man’s game. It’s my dish. I’m an old newspaperman, you know. Poker is the breath of life to a newspaperman.” (As a matter of fact, I never played poker once when I was on a newspaper, and was never allowed to do more than kibitz at the Thanatopsis games of Broun, Adams, Kaufman, and that bunch, but poker is still my favorite game in a small way, or at least it was.)

Then there was a great scrambling to get me a chair, and sell me chips. “Old Bob’s going to play!” was the cry. “Old Bob likes poker!” People came in from the next room to see what the commotion was, and one woman said that, if I was going to play, she had a headache. (I had ruined a game of “Who Am I?” for her once by blowing out a fuse from the coat-closet.)

As for me, I acted the part to the hilt. I took off my coat, unbuttoned my vest so that just the watch-chain connected it, lighted my pipe, and kept my hat on the back of my head.

“This is the real poker costume,” I said. “The way we used to play it down on the old Trib. There ought to be a City News ticker over in the corner to make it seem like home.”

“I’m afraid he’s going to be too good for us,” said one of the more timid ladies. “We play for very small stakes, you know.”

“The money doesn’t matter,” I laughed. “It’s the game. And anyway,” I said modestly, “I haven’t played for a long time. You’ll probably take me good.” (I wish now that I had made book on that prediction.)

It was to be Dealer’s Choice, which should have given me a tip-off right there, with three women at the table, one the dealer.

“This,” she announced, looking up into space as if for inspiration, “is going to be ‘Hay Fever’.”

“I beg pardon,” I said, leaning forward.

“‘Hay Fever’,” explained one of the men. “The girls like it. One card up, two down, the last two up. One-eyed Jacks, sevens, and nines wild. High-low.”

“I thought this was going to be poker,” I said.

“From then on, you play it just like regular poker,” said the dealer.

From then on! My God! Just like regular poker!

Having established myself as an old poker-fan, I didn’t want to break down and cry at the very start, so I played the hand through. I say I “played” it. I sat looking at my cards, peeking now and then just to throw a bluff that I knew what I was doing. One-eyed Jacks, sevens, and nines wild, I kept saying that to myself, and pulling very hard at my pipe. After a minute of owlish deliberation, I folded.

The next hand was to be “Whistle Up Your Windpipe,” another one which the girls had introduced into the group and which the men, weak-kneed sissies that they were, had allowed to become regulation. This was seven-card stud, first and last cards up, deuces, treys, and red-haired Queens wild, high-low-and-medium. I figured out that I had a very nice straight, bet it as I would have bet a straight in the old days, and was beaten to eleven dollars and sixty cents by a royal straight flush. Amid general laughter, I was told that an ordinary straight in these games is worth no more than a pair of sixes in regular poker. A royal straight flush usually wins. Well, it usually won in the old days, too.

By the time the deal came around to me, my pipe had gone out and I had taken my hat off. Between clenched teeth I announced: “And this, my friends, is going to be something you may not have heard of. This is going to be old-fashioned draw poker, with nothing wild.” The women had to have it explained to them, and remarked that they didn’t see much fun in that. However, the hand was played. Nobody had anything (in comparison to what they had been having in the boom days) and nobody bet. The hand was over in a minute and a half, amid terrific silence.

That was the chief horror of this epidemic of “Whistle Up Your Windpipe,” “Beezy-Weezy,” and “Mice Afloat.” It made old-fashioned stud seem tame, even to me. Every time it came to me, I elected the old game, just out of spite, but nobody’s heart was in it. I became the spoil-sport of the party again, and once or twice I caught them trying to slip the deal past me, as if by mistake. Even a round of jack-pots netted nothing in the way of excitement, and even when I won one on a full house, there was no savour to the victory, as I had to explain to the women what a full house was. They thought that I was making up my own rules. Nothing as small as a full house had ever been seen in the game.

The Big Newspaper Man was taken for exactly sixty-one dollars and eight cents when the game broke up at four A.M. Two of the women were the big winners. They had finally got it down to a game where everything was wild but the black nines, and everyone was trying for “low.”

From now on I not only walk out on “Twenty Questions” and “Who Am I?” but, when there are ladies present (God bless them!) I walk out on poker. And a fine state of affairs it is when an old newspaperman has to walk out on poker!

Robert BenchleyFrom “After 1903 – What?”Harper & Brothers Publishers

The Egg And I

Hello World,
Crunch! Everyone knows that if they're supposed to be ready for the arrival of the jolly old elf in the red suit, and they're not, then this is what is called "crunch time" and they'd better get cracking and quick. Around here, we've already lit two candles on our Advent wreath, and are coming up hard and fast on the third one, so that tells you right away that there's not much time left for all of you stragglers out there. Although I don't mind saying, there are years when I would welcome the invention of the "wreath stretcher" that would add in at least a couple of extra candles and give us all a little bit more time to get ready for the big day. But I always say, Christmas comes on the 25th whether everyone is ready for it or not, so there's nothing to do but grin and bear it. Garcon, more eggnog, if you please!
One thing we're not hearing a lot of complaints about around here is the weather, which continues to be unseasonably warm for this late in the year, with temperatures in the 50s and 60s day after day. (You would think this was a sure indication that my bird bath heater is working, but I'm sure that's not the case.) In fact, at CVS tonight after dinner, I found myself in the antacids aisle with a young lady wearing flip-flops, which I admit I don't expect to see in December. Of course, everyone knows that I always say when people do their Christmas shopping in shorts and shirtsleeves, we can count on blizzards in April, because that's just the perverse nature of weather these days. Speaking of perverse weather, it reminds me of when we were at the Cousins Hootenanny in September, and the meteorologist on the local radio station described the current conditions in the area as "sunny with dense fog." I'm telling you, you just can't make this stuff up.
Last week, I was enjoying a small package of cookies at work, and noticed for the first time the greeting on the back of the package from the friendly folks at Kraft and their fine family of foods. As Dave Barry would say, "I'm not making this up," and you're welcome to pick up a bunch and turn them over and see for yourself. It actually says: "Indulge in the great one-of-a-kind taste that's uniquely Chips Ahoy!" Now I have to say, this is where Kraft and I part company when it comes to defining our terms. I can think of very few foods that have less of a unique, one-of-a-kind taste than chocolate chip cookies, especially the sort you get in a supermarket in small foil packages. How they could claim in good conscience, and with a straight face (and one supposes, without irony) that Chips Ahoy has anything unique or one-of-a-kind about it is entirely beyond my comprehension, and believe me, I've got plenty. I understand that they want to print something on their package to encourage people to buy and enjoy their snacks, but for heaven's sake, you can't just go overboard and run away with yourself, using words like unique and one-of-a-kind indiscriminately. This is sort of like the VitaSoy people inviting us to enjoy their Holly Nog, which they claim has the traditional good taste of holiday eggnog, while being more healthy and organic. Well, you could consider this traditional except for the part about having no eggs, no milk, no cream and being completely dairy-free, lactose-free and gluten-free. To my way of thinking, once you've gone that far afield, you no longer have the right to use the term "traditional" in any sense, and that's not just the eggnog talking, either.
Anyone who knows me can tell you that I am woefully out of touch, and I realized how much last week, when I found that the only news I get is from the spam filler they use on the junk email we get at work. The message starts out looking like an opportunity for investment advice or herbal supplements, but then shows its true colors by turning into nothing but paragraphs of gobbledygook and mis-matched content all squashed together randomly. Farther down, it wraps up with some snippets from the AP news service, and if you're out of touch like me, you find yourself paraphrasing NBC and saying, "It's news to me." So I found out some things I didn't know about the Supreme Court ruling on a tobacco lawsuit, a fire at a group home in Missouri, Kofi Annan's comments about Iraq at the United Nations, a truck driver attempting unsuccessfully to smuggle illegal aliens across the border, a neighborhood brouhaha over a controversial Christmas wreath in Denver, and a Justice Department investigation into the government's warrantless surveillance program. My favorite was this entry, as it appeared in its entirety:
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WEST HEBRON, New York (AP) --
From the broad porch of his 200-year-old farmhouse, author Jon Katz gazed over an idyllic scene of hills and valley, one border collie lolling at his feet and two others pacing restlessly nearby.
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Well, if the AP considers that news, I have to say, I'm all for it. Speaking of our computers at work, have the system messages gotten any less illiterate lately? Let's take a look, shall we?
==========================================
attention all user:
please sign offyour terminales
any jobs still activw will br terminated immeidately
we will b econducting our daily saves
users still on the system will beterminated
the save willtake approxiamately 30 minutes
Please donot try to sign back on.
Thank You for your CO-Operation.
attention all usres:
Please sign off oyur terminalsby 6:15pm.
wew ill bw performing ourdaily backups at that time
Our Backups are about to begin at that time.
THANK YOU FOP YOUR COOPERATION
any users still active will be terminated immedately.
please all users sign off your terminlas
anyjobs still acive will be immeditly terminated
PLEASE SIGN OF YOUR TERMINALS
we will be preforming our dayly backups
any user still active will be terniated immeidately
you MUST sign off your terminals for this job to run succesfully
the scheduled downtimeis 20 minutes
ALL JOBS ATILL ACTIVE BY THIS TIME WILL BE TERMINATED
ALL JOBS THAT ARE STILL BY THIS TIME WILL BE TERMINATED
can you please sign off your termials immiedtaly
we will be peforming our daily backups
YOR JOBS WILL BE TERNINATED
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COPERATION
==========================================
Well, as they say in Hollywood, "Don't give up your day job." Although personally, I appreciate being thanked for my "coperation," which I suppose is some new psycho-babble jargon that describes a person "coping with desperation," or some other such New Age paradigm. And you know me, when it comes to New Age, I'll take two tickets to paradigm, if you please. Plus a chaser of eggnog, and away we go!

The Jet Set

Hello World,

Well, as the old saying goes, everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it, and it's probably just as well. Last week, when it was about 70 degrees around here, and people were out Christmas shopping in their shorts and shirtsleeves, Bill said that we were expecting some sort of "cold blast" from Canada that would bring temperatures into the twenties, with wind chills in single digits. Naturally, I said that would be impossible, because I plugged in the bird bath heater, and it would only freeze around here if the heater was not working. Sure enough, on the first cold day, I stepped outside and rapped on the frozen surface of the erstwhile bird bath (for "bird bath," please read "skating rink" throughout) so that told me all I needed to know about the bird bath heater right there and then some. You would think after all this time, that getting the bird bath heater to work every year would not turn into a monumental undertaking of epic proportions like the invasion of Normandy or putting a man on the moon. In fact, if there are plans afoot to put another man on the moon, at the top of my short list is the man who invented the bird bath heater, and it goes without saying, on a one-way ticket.

Alert readers may be wondering whatever became of the mythical locality of Moldova from the GeoQuiz web page. Well, wonder no more, because we have our friends at www.wikipedia.org to thank for this historical tidbit about the imaginary region:

==============================
MOLDOVA
For other uses of "Moldova" and "Moldavia", see Moldova (disambiguation).
The Republic of Moldova (Republica Moldova) is a small landlocked country in eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the east and south. Historically part of the Principality of Moldavia, it was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1812 and reunited with other Romanian lands in Romania in 1918. After changing hands during World War II and ultimately being annexed by the Soviet Union, it was known as the Moldavian SSR between 1945 and 1991 and finally declared its independence on 27 August 1991.
The Republic of Moldova is a member state of the United Nations, WMO, UNICEF, GUAM, CIS, BSEC and other international organizations.
Moldova is a parliamentary democracy with a President as its head of state and a Prime Minister as its head of government.
==============================

They also provide a wealth of other pertinent information, such as the size and population, language, capital city, anthem ("Limba Noastra" - gosh, now I'll be singing that all week!) plus pictures of their flag and coat of arms. For me, the most poignant part was the section that said simply: "Motto - none." By golly, that's waving the proverbial red flag in front of the charging bull, and don't think that I intend to take that lying down! No motto! What kind of a cockamamie whackadoo tin-plated outfit are they running here, anyway? How do they expect anyone at the WMO, CIS or BSEC to take them seriously, when they don't even have a motto to call their own? I would think that would be the first thing you would come up with, if you were going to strike out on your own, and toss off the Russian yoke (in fact, "Toss the Russkies!" wouldn't be such a bad motto, under the circumstances) and yet, here they are all lounging around on their Moldovan backsides, as if their motto is just going to drop out of the sky and fall into their laps one of these fine days.

Well, I for one will not stand for it. I say we come up with a motto for these Moldovan laggards, before they become the laughingstock of the international community and motto-loving individuals the world over. Back in the day that the dinosaurs and I were roaming the vast unformed land masses, there was a service station nearby with its slogan above the door on an outside wall in letters attached to the building. Unfortunately, time and gravity had taken their toll, so that the world passing by was left to wonder why the building seemed to be announcing to one and all --

ERVICE IS UR MOTT

As a matter of fact, it made me wonder if service really was their motto, why the first order of business wasn't getting up there on a ladder to fix their own slogan. In any event, in the absence of anything more appropriate, I nominate "Ervice Is Ur Mott" for the official motto of the Republic of Moldova, and they are welcome to it. No, don't thank me, the bright, shining faces of happy Moldovans are all the gratitude that I need.

Speaking of my old home town, I can't pass up an opportunity to let everyone know that the football team at my alma mater, the East Meadow High School Jets, recently beat the Freeport team on the field of Hofstra University to become Nassau County champions for this year. Go Jets! What I found most amazing about it was that Bill and I actually found all of this out by watching the game on cable television, where it was actually broadcast as part of MSG Network's High School Game of the Week program. I don't know about other towns (technically, East Meadow is a village) but I certainly don't expect to see my high school football team on cable TV, especially on the same network that ordinarily shows the Knicks or Rangers and other powerhouse professional franchises. So that was a really special treat for all of us alumni, and I don't mind saying, the dinosaurs were totally stoked.

Meanwhile in local religious news, once again attempting to eradicate Lessons & Carols from the holiday schedule at church, and once again bowing to the inevitable pressure from outraged parishioners, the on-again off-again service of seasonal music and scripture readings may be once again ducking the limelight on the 17th of this month. You can be sure that I'll be there in full voice, because we never know at what point, when they pull the rug out from under this service, that it's going to be for the last time. And I might be going down with it, but by golly, I'll be going down singing.

Bill would never forgive me if I didn't take the time to toss this brickbat at Home Goods, which is a new retail establishment that has recently opened its doors on the outskirts of New Rochelle, better known perhaps as the Gateway to Larchmont. It seems that a large-ish family manufacturing business along the train tracks was moving to greener pastures, and there being no practical purpose for this mis-shapen parcel, naturally the local civic leaders decided to find some developers who would turn it into stores. For months on end, the construction made a nightmare of the only street that serves the location, and the design of the parking garage entrance was so dangerous that policemen were posted there to keep the traffic accidents down to a dull roar. Rather than attracting any desirable tenants, what we ended up with instead was Home Goods, Marshall's and Annie Sez, which to my way of thinking is only a slight improvement over a family business that fabricates fasteners for industry, but there you have it. Now that it's been open for a few months, Bill and I decided to take a whack at it, and check out their seasonal offerings at this holly, jolly time of year. We discovered that Marshall's and Home Goods were in the same store, with no distinction between them, except that presumably Marshall's was selling clothing and Home Goods was selling everything else in the place. We puttered around for a bit and found it singularly unenticing (and believe me, you have to go a long way to find me a store where I won't buy something) and the mis-matched, slap-dash jumble of shopworn merchandise reminded me of nothing so much as the ordinary Salvation Army Thrift Shop. Except for the prices, that is, which were often expensive to an offensive degree, especially on the furniture, that had nothing to recommend it. So here's a big fat mercantile raspberry for our dull-witted civic leaders, the equally addle-pated developers, and the hapless management at Home Goods, for a shopping experience that falls far short of the mark. I've added your names to the top of my short list, along with the inventor of the bird bath heater, and I hope you'll all be very happy up there on the moon. I hear the skating's fine.

Go Left, Young Man

Hello World,

Happy December! All over the country, the turkey trot has come and gone, along with its storied folklore, immutable traditions and paraphernalia. Not to mention, those left-over turkey sandwiches, left-over turkey soup, left-over turkey hash and plain old left-over left-overs. I hope there was plenty of gobble, gobble in your long holiday weekend, and not too much wobble, wobble afterwards. Anyone who watched the revered Thanksgiving Day Parade on television knows what kind of weather we had in this area, with drenching rain all day and gusty winds. I was surprised that they even let the balloons into the parade in those conditions, but the wranglers kept them tightly tethered and low to the ground to avoid any mishaps. After all, if they break one of those, they'd be stuck with weeks worth of left-over vinyl sandwiches, and I'm sure nobody wants that.

Thanksgiving around here was anything but the same old song and dance, and no one could say they were tired of the trite and shopworn trappings of yesteryear, because there weren't any. In fact, no one knew from one moment to the next what was going to happen, and if nothing else, at least no one could claim to be bored. It started out a few weeks ago where any number of people in our small clan found that they had a variety of other plans for the holiday, and we were looking at a very tiny and subdued get-together as a result. And then, oddly enough, as it got closer and closer to the actual turkey day, one by one their plans changed, so that by the time Thursday rolled around, the whole crowd showed up on Mom's doorstep, and looking every inch like wayfaring Pilgrims, or at least, every other inch. It was even more fun for being unexpected, and the weather could not put a damper on our spirits.

In the original "tiny-and-subdued" scenario, the plan was to order food from the diner and send a hardy Pilgrim out to pick it up and bring it back for the others. When we arrived with our snacks of cheese, crackers, fruit and apple cider, that had changed to the Pilgrims actually going to the diner to eat. A bit later, some of the Pilgrims announced that since they couldn't stay long, there was no point in eating at all, and we could just enjoy some home-made pies for dessert and call it a day. That's how things ended up, and while I must say that the pies scaled new heights of scrumptiousness, especially with the addition of Cool Whip cheering them on, having a Thanksgiving with no food was certainly a wholly new and unorthodox approach to a holiday that is traditionally a bastion of culinary excess. And don't even get me started about left-overs!

There were also some late or early birthday presents for certain Pilgrims, notably Bill, because at the time of his birthday earlier in the month, some of us were too pooped to party. So Thanksgiving stood in as sort of a substitute birthday, which is kind of like a substitute teacher in school, except without all of the eraser fights and spit-balls. After that, we headed home and although it was still raining, the trip was blissfully uneventful and no traffic besides.

In terms of weather, Friday was the day that everyone hoped for Thanksgiving, being gloriously clear, dry and unseasonably warm. It began with presents, which is always my favorite kind of day, because a holiday without presents just doesn't cut the mustard in my book, or any other mixed metaphors for that matter. (You know the honeymoon is over when you get a step-ladder as a present, but around here, that falls into the category of "be careful what you wish for.") Then we packed up and hit the highway for the drive north, where we were off to stay with friends over the long weekend. We timed it so that we could enjoy the decadent treats of Cinnabon for brunch at the first rest stop we came to, and even though we checked our handy Thruway Toll Plaza Directory to find which ones had Cinnabons, we were still disappointed when we arrived to find the entire toll plaza system being revamped, and not a Cinnabon in sight. We carried on without them, but it was not the same. But our friends were happy to see us, and even their devil cat, who is one of Satan's minions, was not as upset as usual at being ousted from the guest room for our visit.

Unlike the Martin Luther King, Jr., weekend, when we also stay with our friends upstate, the Thanksgiving weekend has no specific plans, and it's nice to have some unstructured spare time to just go where the day takes you. We found our friends had left up their Halloween decorations for us to enjoy, with a train set running around a spooky village complete with skeletons, ghosts, witches and trick-or-treaters of all descriptions, under a Ficus decked out in orange and purple lights for the occasion. We got back on the road to join our other friends even further north, making sure not to miss the delectable fried ravioli at the local diner, so we could be amazed by their new big screen HDTV. We found they had already put up their Christmas decorations, with the tree and all the trimmings, plus a new train set running around the village full of skaters, carolers and snowmen at every turn. So if you're counting, we somehow managed to pass through 3 holiday zones in 2 days, and I don't mind saying, the whiplash is killing me.

With no specific plans or time-tables to adhere to, we ended up doing a lot of window-shopping in a variety of retail establishments in the area, such as Target, Wal*Mart, Dollar General, Panera's Bakery, Hewitt's Garden Centers and even Goodwill. We also made a trip to Peddler's Wagon, a thrift shop we've been to on other occasions, but which had been so re-arranged from our previous visits, that we found it unrecognizable. It didn't deter us from buying stuff (nothing seems to deter us from that, somehow) which should make the President's economic advisers happy, if nothing else. After lunch at another local diner, and even more fried ravioli, we finally had to pack up and get going, with only our memories and bundles full of booty to console us.

Anyone can tell you that Sunday night of a long weekend is no time to be on the highway, as everyone comes back from wherever they were, and this was no different. The traffic was so bad that we were afraid we might run out of gas just standing still, so we pulled into the first rest area that we came to, and found that we had to wait on line just to get gas. If this was a throwback to 1975, I have to say that we didn't care for it all that much, and that's putting it mildly. We decided that we had seen enough of the tail lights on the Thruway, and we crossed over the river at the first bridge that we came to, which brought us into the small and scenic town of Rhinebeck, where the holiday lights were all aglow in the town square and looking very festive. We stopped at Denny's for dinner, which is always a special treat, and thus refreshed, we were prepared to re-join the throngs of holiday travelers already on the roads. But for some unaccountable reason, the traffic was better at that point, and we soon arrived home without incident.

Because it gets dark so early now, it seemed much later than it really was, and after a long weekend of traipsing about hither and yon, and back again, about all we wanted to see in our futures was the inside of our eyelids, and that's it. On the plus side, one of our newest cats, RaggMopp, who is not used to being left alone, greeted our return with an enthusiasm that was as gratifying as it was unique among our feline residents. Monday morning found us trudging back to work, tired and broke, but happy nonetheless, as if we had just celebrated the most orthodox Thanksgiving since those halcyon days of Currier & Ives, bless their little lithograph hearts. So that was about how the weekend shaped up around here, and I hope that yours was a veritable cavalcade of food, folks and fun, if not necessarily in that order. Although I do have to warn everyone that if you're out there searching for a last longing taste of the holiday, don't bother to come looking for me, because all I have is some left-over Cool Whip.