Have A Holly Jolly Christmas

Hello World,

Happy, jolly, merry and bright! This has been an eventful week, full of Christmas, Boxing Day and Kwanzaa, which should be plenty for any one week, and to round things out, in another few days will be New Year's Eve. I hope that your holidays were everything that you could have hoped for and more, with all the trimmings and spare no expense, just like those halcyon days of yore and storied traditions of yesteryear. On the other hand, if you decided to opt for a change of scenery and observe the holidays at the casino instead, I hope that you hit it big, and the next we hear of you is a postcard from Hawaii. There's a lot to be said for palm trees and hula girls at this time of year, and the heck with the storied traditions of yesteryear.

Around these parts, the Christmas season officially kicked off with Lessons & Carols at church as always, which did not degenerate into the wholesale disaster that might have been expected. This is in spite of the fact that choir practice was scheduled for the unholy hour of 8:45 on Sunday mornings, when I personally could not sing my way out of a paper bag, no thank you very much not. For those of us requiring even more practice, there was extra rehearsal on Saturday morning, which was very helpful. But I said to Bill, it's a bad sign when your Music Director calls what she refers to as "emergency choir practice" on Thursday night, and rather than a sense of confidence, it does instead seem to inspire feelings of impending doom, like we should have all been wearing our life jackets before the good ship S.S. Holy Trinity steamed into the unsuspecting iceberg. But it didn't end up like that at all, and here scoffers may think what they please, but I still say that we can't rule out the possibility of divine intervention, and welcome to it. Thanks to a new instructor, the Youth Choir and bell ringers were better rehearsed than usual, and acquitted themselves very nicely. The violinist was at the top of her game, and gave the spirit of G. F. Handel no reason to squirm, which should be a nice change of pace for the old maestro. There was a very charming piano duet, which is not as easy as it sounds, considering there was only one piano to work with. The percussion students rattled the rafters with their unorthodox addition to the seasonal repertoire, proving I suppose that the element of surprise can be a double-edged sword, especially in the wrong hands. The soloist did a fine job, although "In the Bleak Midwinter" is scarcely the high-volume tour de force that might have been the more obvious choice for the occasion. Meanwhile, the Senior Choir (I beg your pardon!) limped along as best as possible under the circumstances, comprised as it were, of two first sopranos, two other first sopranos masquerading (badly) as second sopranos, and two altos, of which one was yet another re-allocated first soprano, so you can imagine. We had two choral pieces to ourselves, plus several descants, and otherwise, just sang along with the congregation on the more well-known carols of the season. Where we usually have more choristers (including men) and can tackle choral favorites that require four different parts, this time our signature piece was arranged for women's voices only, so it didn't suffer with just the six of us. There were any number of places where we actually sang the right notes, and words, and at the right times, which would have seemed incredible to anyone who heard us rehearsing the week before. Bill was in the balcony performing his magic with the videotape equipment, and he said that segments of the program were not at all unlisten-able, and he has very high standards. So we were able to put another Lessons & Carols in the books, entirely without resorting to any flotation devices or lifeboats whatsoever.

After that, I was planning to be off from work the week of Christmas, but unfortunately needed to go in to the office on Monday in order to finish up time cards for the weekend staff. I called it quits after lunch, as I still had a couple of last-minute things to do, and a dwindling amount of time to do them in. Since Bill only worked half a day on Christmas Eve, he pitched right in to help out, and by some miracle, everything was ready for the big day, although I didn't actually get to bed until after midnight. Although we have a well-deserved reputation for getting up before dawn to open presents on Christmas, this year we didn't start until the more seemly hour of 7:00, by which time the sun was already out and even normal people would be up. We dove into our stocking presents, with very satisfactory results, as we unwrapped bunches of fun, interesting, practical or peculiar items of all varieties. It was an auspicious beginning to what we hoped would be an extraordinary day, and we were looking forward to the main event with eager anticipation.

Not so fast! We had places to go and people to see, and even rushing through all of our presents, there just wouldn't be enough time. So after finishing with our stockings hung by the chimney with care, we stopped and fed the cats, then packed up the car, and headed to Long Island to join the rest of the family at Mom's house. The Christmas elves had been there before us, and we have pictures of everyone in their holiday finery, although I will admit that shiny red reindeer antlers might not be everybody's idea of holiday finery, which may be considered an acquired taste. Once again, the presents ranged from the staunchly utilitarian to the whimsically impractical, and each one a treasure to be enjoyed long afterward. Usually, once we get started, it turns into an all-day marathon of presents, but this time, we did a good job of sticking to a schedule, so that we could actually have meals and other incidentals like that. We discovered a nearby 24-hour diner, which was handily open in spite of the holiday, and made the most of some unconventional seasonal fare, such as quesadillas and fried onions. Yum! After that, it was more presents, more pictures, and more of those storied traditions of yesteryear than you could shake a holly wreath at, and don't think we didn't try. In fact, we got so worn out shaking holly wreaths that we packed it in about 4:30 and headed back home. It's obvious that whole groups of folks must have been asleep at the switch the whole time, because it was not only a beautiful balmy day, but we didn't run into a stitch of traffic at any point, there or back, and you know that had to have been a major slip-up somewhere.

We arrived back home to find all of our presents still waiting for us, and we pounced on them with abandon. Santa Claus did his usual fine work of gift selections, with clothes, music CDs, DVDs, books, gadgets and household items in abundance. It came as no surprise that Bill was pleased as punch with his new GPS device, although I admit that I wasn't expecting him to fall in love with the little recorded lady who tells him how far to drive and where to turn. For myself, I finally joined the ranks of the technologically mobile by getting a laptop at long last, and not some scruffy hand-me-down from the Salvation Army Thrift Store, but a pristine full-featured ThinkPad R61i with more bells and whistles, well, than I'll ever know how to play, that's for sure. Santa and his elves can be congratulated for a job well done, and there were no complaints around our Christmas tree.

After all the excitement of a long day, we decided to make some popcorn and enjoy a holiday movie to wrap things up in a festive mood. Probably a better idea would have been to pick a film that we already knew and liked for the season, such as "It's a Wonderful Life" or "White Christmas," or even "The Bishop's Wife," which although its Christmas theme may be slighter than many others, has the advantage of Cary Grant in top form, which is something not to be underestimated. Instead, we chose one of the newer Christmas movies that was unknown to us, and with an uncertain pedigree, which turned out to be a hackneyed and humorless disappointment, rather than the charmingly nostalgic trifle that we anticipated. By golly, it's no wonder that the studios keep churning out remakes of classics like "Miracle on 34th Street" and "A Christmas Carol" all the time, because whenever they try to come up with something different, they just can't pull it off for love or money. Heck, the way things turned out, we would have been better off watching the videotape of Lessons & Carols, which at least had a happy ending.

It might sound captious to say this, but for many of us, the best part about Christmas was having the next day off from work (HOORAY!) to relax and play with our presents, and around here, we made the most of it. While Bill went back to work on Thursday and Friday, I took the rest of the week off (DOUBLE HOORAY!!) which was not only a special treat, but some much-needed mental health time for my poor befuddled brain, which can use all the help it can get, believe me. It had gotten to the point during the week I was off, that about the biggest challenge that I could reasonably handle was deciding whether to do a load of light colors first, or starting instead with the darks, and even that was iffy. I can't say for sure that rest rejuvenates brain cells, but I'm hoping at least that it keeps the few remaining ones from jumping out of my head altogether, because they certainly are not competent to be out on their own, and I ought to know. Of course, it must be said that I may not have enough brain cells left to learn how to use my new laptop, but I'm hoping that the ThinkPad has enough brains for the both of us, without all of the unsettling repercussions so beloved by science fiction fans the world over. And while we can't ignore the possibility that Bill might run away with the little recorded lady in his GPS device, at least we can be sure that they'll never get lost. Anyway, that's about how Christmas shaped up around here, and while it would not have been mistaken for one of those splashy Christmas With The King Family Singers of lore and legend, it was still nothing to ..... Hey, don't you shake that holly wreath at me!

A New Wrinkle

HO HO HO!

In actual point of fact, it must be said that it is not technically Christmas Eve as of yet. (And if that egregious usage no-no doesn't rouse the Grammar Police right out of their visions of sugar-plums, I suppose nothing will, although I'm sure it will get the attention of linguistic sticklers everywhere, and their name is legion, believe me.) However, it is so close to the big day now that if you blink, you might miss the sleighbells in the snow, the candy canes and silver lanes aglow, with boughs of holly and jingle all the way. I'd also caution against chestnuts roasting on an open fire, at least for the next few days, or you could find yourself with a seriously singed Santa on your hands, not to mention, all of his presents burnt to a crisp and up in smoke. That would be a sure way to land yourself on the Naughty List, not only next year, but perhaps permanently, and in North Pole years, permanently can be a very long time indeed. (You can just go right ahead and ask the dinosaurs if you don't believe me, although what they ever did to tick Santa off, they took to the tar pits with them, but it must have been pretty darned naughty.) I figure since it's this close anyway, and I certainly want to make sure I stay on the right side of the jolly old elf himself, my plan is to be not only as nice as possible, but nicer than nice, all the way up to being the nicest of the nice. In fact, I might just go all out and move to Nice, France while I'm at it, so when the Nice List comes out, my name will be right up at the top and no mistake. Speaking of mistakes, here's a little bit of seasonal humor in honor of the upcoming holiday, which certainly adds a whole new "wrinkle" to the old, old story! Please enjoy responsibly, with prose on earth and good grammar to all.

Nicer Nice the Nicest, of Nice

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THE CHRISTMAS PAGEANT

My husband and I had been happily Married (most of the time)For five yearsBut hadn't been blessed with a baby.

I decided to do some seriousPraying and promised GodThat if he would give us a child,I would be a perfect mother, Love it with all my heartAnd raise it with His wordAs my guide.

God answered my prayersAnd blessed us with a son.

The next year God blessed usWith another son.

The following year,He blessed us with Yet another son.

The year after that weWere blessed with a daughter.

My husband thought we'dBeen blessed right into poverty.We now had four children,And the oldest was onlyFour years old.

I learned never to ask GodFor anything unless I meant it.As a minister once told me,'If you pray for rain,Make sure you carry an umbrella.'

I began reading a few versesOf the Bible to the children Each day as they lay in their cribs.

I was off to a good start.God had entrusted meWith four children andI didn't want to disappoint Him.

I tried to be patient the dayThe children smashed Two dozen eggs onThe kitchen floor searchingFor baby chicks.

I tried to be understanding...

When they started a hotel forHomeless frogs in the spare bedroom, although it took me

Nearly two hoursTo catch all twenty-three frogs .

When my daughter pouredKetchup all over herself and Rolled up in a blanket to seeHow it felt to be a hot dog, I tried to see the humorRather than the mess.

In spite of changing overTwenty-five thousand diapers,Never eating a hot meal And never sleeping for moreThan thirty minutes at a time,I still thank God daily for my children.

While I couldn't keep my promiseTo be a perfect mother -I didn't even come close...I did keep my promiseTo raise them in the Word of God.

I knew I was missing the markJust a little when I told My daughter we were goingTo church to worship God,And she wanted to bringA bar of soap along to'wash up' Jesus, too.

Something was lostIn the translation whenI explained thatGod gave us everlasting life,And my son thought it wasGenerous of God to giveUs his 'last wife.'

My proudest moment cameDuring the children'sChristmas pageant.

My daughter was playing Mary, Two of my sons were shepherdsAnd my youngest son was a wise man.This was their moment to shine.

My five-year-old shepherdHad practiced his line,'We found the babe wrappedIn swaddling clothes.'

But he was nervous and said,'The baby was wrappedIn wrinkled clothes.'

My four-year-old 'Mary' said,'That's not 'wrinkled clothes,' silly.

That's dirty, rotten clothes.'

A wrestling match broke outBetween Mary and the shepherdAnd was stopped by an angel,Who bent her halo and lost Her left wing.

I slouched a little lowerIn my seat when MaryDropped the doll representingBaby Jesus, and it bouncedDown the aisle crying, 'Mama-mama.'

Mary grabbed the doll,Wrapped it back upAnd held it tightly asThe wise men arrived.

My other son stepped forwardWearing a bathrobe And a paper crown,Knelt at the manger And announced,'We are the three wise men,And we are bringing giftsOf gold, Common sense And fur.'

The congregationDissolved into laughter,And the pageantGot a standing ovation.

'I've never enjoyed a Christmas Program as much as this one,'Laughed the pastor, Wiping tears from his eyes.

'For the rest of my life,I'll never hear theChristmas story withoutThinking of Gold, Common sense And fur.'

'My children are my pride And my joy and my greatestBlessing,' I said as I dugThrough my purse for an aspirin.

It's A Stretch

Hello World,

Not to be an alarmist or anything, but I feel it's only fair to point out that this Sunday, we'll be lighting the third candle on our Advent wreaths, and anybody could see where this was leading, and I don't know about you, but I can't say that I care for the looks of it all that much. Of course, everyone knows how I aim to be helpful, so for those of you like myself, who are woefully unprepared for the upcoming festivities on the 25th, I'd like to pass along some last-minute suggestions. Obviously, the first would be to hurry up and change your religion, and pick something else that doesn't celebrate Christmas. I'm sure the Druids would be happy to hear from you. Then there's the ever-popular Federal Witness Protection Program, where they change your identity and sock you away some place that no one could ever find you. I hear The Maldives are lovely this time of year. When all else fails, your only other option is to track down your favorite neighborhood super hero, and have him (or her, as the case may be) use their super-powers to spin the Earth in the opposite direction, to go backwards in time to a point at which you would have enough time to get ready for the holidays, let's say somewhere around July perhaps. I know that would work for me. I hope these suggestions have given you some ideas, so that you can face the holidays with cheerfulness and serenity. No, please don't thank me, the joys of the season are all the thanks I need.

We actually had even more snow this week, no thanks to the pastor of my church. I have to say that those Druids are looking pretty good to me right about now. In all the excitement, somehow Chanukah slipped right past us, coming in early this year at the beginning of December, a couple of days after the first Sunday in Advent. I'd like to send a note to whoever is in charge of these movable feasts, that if they're going to move, so we can't keep track of them, the least they could do is move them later than we expect them, rather than sooner than we expect them, so they wouldn't sneak up on us unawares. Even something as long and drawn-out as Chanukah can be half over before the rest of us even realize it's started, and that includes those of us with a crack research team at their disposal to keep on top of these things. That reminds me of a song that I was listening to recently that said, "You're just killing time, and it will kill you right back." Don't I know it.

Speaking of time, and where does it go indeed, I just found out, thanks to some alert readers, that there's more to December than meets the eye, and here I thought I had met plenty of eyes in my day. It started with this note from someone who ought to know:

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December 7th is also the day Delaware became the first state by ratifying the Constitution in 1787.
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Well, that certainly has enough historical significance to make any list of December dates, and I'm happy to set the record straight. (Thanks, Deb!) This next entry has its own historical significance, but in a completely different sort of way:

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You can now add an additional event to Dec. 7th. The 6th annual "It's a Wonderful Life Weekend at Seneca Falls" ( http://www.therealbedfordfalls.com/ ) took place there this past weekend, and we were pleased as punch to be part of it! .. A Wonderful time was had by all, as the entire town joins in the festivities. complete with a parade, tree lighting, caroling, Christmas train ride, dinner & dancing in the gym - by the light of the silvery moon. The highlight was the attendance by ZuZu (Karolyn Grimes) at all the events, with autographs, pictures & small talk. She was really nice & very accessible.
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Personally, I don't know how much more excitement one day can stand, before we'd have to call in the burly guys with their "day stretcher" to make it all fit. We can only imagine what that would do to poor Comrade Sergei and his infernal date machine, trying to keep everything straight, with this one day bent all out of shape. On the other hand, it might have been in that same song I was listening to that it said, "You've got nothing to prove and even less to lose." Or perhaps I'm thinking of, "It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry," which I'm pretty sure was Frank Capra's first choice for the title of what has become a holiday classic, and that's not just a lot of Wabash Cannonball. And then of course, there was Vivian Stanshall who asked the musical question, "Can blue men sing the whites?"

Alert readers may remember when I mentioned a TV show that we enjoyed on one of our cable stations:

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Bill and I like to watch a program on The History Channel called "Modern Marvels," and it usually spotlights some interesting mechanical wonder, like massive tunnel diggers, nuclear submarines or spy satellites. Often, even when it's an object that we wouldn't find interesting in and of itself, the show is so well done that we enjoy seeing it in spite of the subject. Thanks to the program grid in the TV listings of our local newspaper, there isn't enough room to identify more than the title of the show and perhaps one other word. This occasionally has the effect of creating some inadvertent comedy when, instead of listing a program about ice breakers or snow plows, it simply reads, "Modern Marvels: Ice" or "Modern Marvels: Snow" and leaving people to shake their heads and wonder. I said to Bill that there's very little that's less modern than ice and snow, and while they may well be marvels, they are practically the definition of ancient. Yesterday, the listings outdid themselves with this classic of the genre, which promised "Modern Marvels: Water." Well, apart from dirt, I don't think you can get any more elemental than water, and if that's the newspaper's idea of a modern marvel, then I can tell you that the dinosaurs and I would be very surprised indeed.
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And they finally got to that point last week, when the TV listings for Friday has this attention-grabbing item -- [[ Modern Marvels: Rocks. ]] Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I will say that the dinosaurs and I had a good laugh over that one. Rocks, indeed.

Meanwhile, what may be happening in the wonderful wide world of food service you may be wondering, and well may you wonder. Last month, our local newspaper provided an advertising supplement called "Experience Arthur Avenue," with elaborate descriptions of all there was to see and do (and eat!) in the Little Italy section of the Bronx. This included a full-page ad from Biancardi's, who have been "Serving the Arthur Avenue Community for 3 generations," and they assure me that they are "specializing in all types of quality meats." I hate to be the one to break it to our friends at Biancardi's, but you can't "specialize" in "all types" of anything, because that's the exact opposite of specializing. You can do whatever you like with all types of quality meats, but you can't say that you're specializing, unless you single one of them out and specialize in it, which is why they came up with that word in the first place. I would call them and complain, but I have the feeling the next ad from them would say, "We Specialize in Everything."

While we're on the subject of specialization, I happened to find myself drawn inexorably to the web site of our friends at Koenig Tower Cranes, and please feel free to check it out at http://www.koenigcranes.com/ and see for yourself. The marketing people at Koenig believe that they can convince me that their products are just what I've been looking for, by describing them as "self-erecting cranes." Gee, I certainly hope not! That actually gives me a very uneasy sense of diabolical machinery run amok, like HAL in "2001," and you would think that people would have learned something from that, for heaven's sake. I can just imagine these dastardly rogue cranes starting themselves up in the middle of the night, and then go out self-erecting themselves wherever they feel like it, probably peeking in house windows and toying with low-flying planes out in the hustings. I don't need a film critic to know that no good can come of this, and why the Koenig people consider a "self-erecting crane" to be a selling point, is a mystery to me. By golly, if I'm going to have a crane, you can be sure that I want one that will do nothing on its own, and that goes double for erecting itself. I already have enough trouble with my computer doing things by itself, much less, heavy equipment, and don't even get me started on the cats. In fact, it was just last week when I went to use the scanner, which is located handily on the computer cart below the keyboard, so that it's near at hand whenever it's needed. That is, unless you have nefarious cats like we do, in which case, when you go to use the scanner, it's been knocked down sideways onto the floor and come unplugged, so when you open the program and try to use it, it gives you a dialogue box that says, "Scanner? What scanner?" And thanks so very much not! After that, you have to crawl on the floor behind the computer cart to find all of the cords that have come detached, and figure out what goes where, and set it all back up again right from the beginning. I honestly don't know what people without cats do for entertainment, but I have the feeling that they have a lot more time on their hands than the feline-challenged among us. Say, where are those burly guys with their day stretcher anyway?

Mini Me

Hello World,

Happy December! Of course, everyone realizes that it's only by virtue of a visit from our retired co-worker that I'm able to report with certainty that today is not only the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, but also the day the 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865 and the death of Captain Bligh in 1817. The month has dozens of other notable events, such as the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936, the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the Boston Tea Party in 1773, the opening of the Lincoln Tunnel in 1937, the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth in 1620, the death of George Washington in 1799, the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, the sinking of the USS Monitor in 1862, and the opening of Radio City Music Hall in 1932. Yes, the locally famous Joseph J. Cusimano has come up with the poop, the whole poop, and nothing but the poop, for what everyone should know that happened in December, from St. Nicholas Day in 343AD, all the way up to the NYC subway strike in 2005, and everything in between. Please feel free to drop by my web log at http://graphicmagicmailbags.blogspot.com and check out all of the newsworthy dates at your leisure. In fact, leisurely would be better, since I haven't technically posted the list there yet.

Speaking of notable dates, for all of you non-math-challenged people out there, who wondered about how Bill and I met 25 years ago in November 1983, and well may you wonder, because that was supposed to say 1982 instead. I suspect that our crack proof-reading staff had gotten a little bit of a head-start on the holiday eggnog, and so was not up to our usual standards of pinpoint accuracy that we strive for around here. I'm sure the numerologists would have had a field day with that one, and it certainly would have blown our bio-rhythm charts all to blazes and back. Not to mention, thrown Comrade Sergei and his infernal date machine for a loop, da?

While I can't speak for everyone, I can say that many of us in the local area were surprised to see snow, not once but several times, over the past week or so. This has become uncommon enough in early December as to provoke comment, as well as making people scoff at the very idea. In fact, this is why it's so easy for me to assign blame for the snow, right where it belongs, on the pastor of my church. The week before at our annual budget meeting, we noted that our janitor had put in extra hours during the year, for special needs like shoveling snow or painting. As a cost-saving measure, the pastor said he would tell the janitor not to work any extra hours in December, and his exact words were, "After all, it's not going snow between now and the end of the year." Oh, thanks so very much not! I guess Comrade Mischka had some different ideas about that, nyet?

In addition to snow, we were not expecting frigid temperatures in the 20s and worse, this early in the season, and high winds that made the wind chill factor no laughing matter. And here, I can safely state that I for one am not to blame, since I put both bird bath heaters in a couple of weeks ago, when it was much warmer, and it's only a wonder that it didn't usher in a whole new era of record high temperatures all over the region. Usually both bird baths freeze solid before I ever get around to the heaters, and I have to break through the ice with a hammer (and one year, took the cement tail off one of the unfortunate bird decorations on the side of the fountain) so for me to be ahead of the weather for a change is extraordinary. Because it's been so cold, it's easy to tell that both heaters are working, and I can't remember the last time that happened, if ever. So I guess I should be glad that at least the pastor didn't say anything like, "After all, we're not going to lose our electricity between now and the end of the year," or I'd have frozen bird baths to thank him for besides.

Everyone knows that if it's December, it must be time to start getting ready for Lessons & Carols, and not a moment too soon. I was specifically invited to participate this year, unlike usually when I have to chase after them to let me in, although it didn't seem quite so wonderful when we were asked to be at church on Sunday morning at the ungodly hour of 8:45 for choir practice. Honestly, who could possibly sing at that time of day, I ask you. (As a matter of fact, I saw my reflection later after church, and realized that I had entirely forgotten to comb my hair before I left home, and no wonder.) Even worse, I was assigned to sing 2nd soprano, which I'm looking at as a vote of confidence to shore up that tremulous section, but if I've ever had any talent at singing harmony, I can assure you that it has never manifested itself up to now. And at that hour of the day, I can't guarantee that I can tell you my own name, much less harmonizing on anything, so this whole thing might very well be an idea whose time has not yet come, and in spades. I've heard that we're taking a break from torturing the memory of the dearly departed George Frideric Handel, but whoever we end up doing, I can't say that I care for their chances all that much, with me dragging the rest of the 2nd soprano section down with me. The one thing we can count on, while I may not sing the right notes, you can be sure I'll be singing them at full volume, so if we go down, we'll be going down loud. Hallelujah!

After church, even though it was Sunday, I went to work, and did absolutely no work whatsoever. What I did instead was set up the Christmas tree in the hallway, because I knew I would never have time to do it during the week, when I was already so behind. Because the building was so hot, and I was going to be climbing up and down on a little step-stool over and over, I took off my skirt, so it wouldn't be in my way and might also be just a little bit cooler. So there I was in my slip and hanging ornaments, when I looked up and saw the bookkeeper down the hall, and I don't know which of us was more surprised. She at least was wearing actual clothes, and while her good manners prevented her from saying anything about my slip, I'm sure she must have wondered. I said, "I hope you went to church already, before coming in to work on a Sunday to cook the books." She laughed.

Even though it seemed that Thanksgiving was impossibly early, and we had a whole extra week to get ready for it, I suppose it would come as a surprise to no one that not all of us were prepared for the first Sunday in Advent on December 2nd. It's true that our Advent wreath is always close at hand, because putting it away is just too much of a nuisance. but it didn't have any candles in it, and the Advent prep team had failed to select the candle-lighting hymns that needed to go along with it. You can believe that I am not just talking through my hat when I say that you can't get good help these days, and I ought to know. The candles did make it into the holders, at least tenuously, but the hymn selection process proved to be too much for the poor addled brain of the prep team, in spite of their good intentions. As a result, we have perhaps invented a whole new observance called Advent Monday, which had all the necessary elements and went off without a hitch, compared to the fiasco on Sunday. This may not gain wide popularity, but I can highly recommend it, and I don't mind saying, the Advent prep team around here thinks it's the best idea they've heard in a month of Sundays. (Get it?) In fact, my thesaurus describes perfection as "a whole team and the dog under the wagon," which I personally feel is an expression whose time has not come, and in fact, may never come.

Meanwhile at work, we recently needed to order some orthopedic supplies for a patient having surgery, and when I asked the Unit Clerk for the name of the patient, what she said was Mini Cooper. I told her I wasn't interested in the car the patient was driving, I needed to know the person's name, so she spelled it for me, and sure enough, it was Minnie Cooper. I thought that was so funny. Of course, it's only really funny now, when all of these adorable Mini Cooper cars are so popular, and you see them everywhere you go in every different color, including stripes and everything else. Probably way back in the day, when our little Minnie was casting about for a husband, and along comes Mr. Cooper to pop the question, I'm sure she didn't say, "Don't be silly! I can't marry you, why, in the next century they're going to have funny-looking cars named after me, and I'll be the laughing-stock of the neighborhood." At the time, she probably thought he was quite a catch, and a big improvement over her other suitors, like the Rev. DeMoocher or Dr. Mauss, especially in the laughing-stock department. And it's taken all this time for her name to catch up with her, so I guess ol' Coop wasn't such a bad choice after all. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it, or my name isn't -

Ford Escort

Follow That Bird

Hello World,

It doesn't seem possible, with Thanksgiving being so early, that we could have put the whole long holiday weekend behind us, including Black Friday and everything, and right now be staring December straight in the face, but here we are indeed. Flying in on the heels of the Great Turkey Dance, here's the After Bird Report for anyone who wasn't there with us. Of course, everyone knows how I hate those short weeks at work, and the last one was a doozy, being only three days, with the holiday on Thursday and a day off on Friday. It certainly turned into exactly everything I hate about short weeks, in textbook fashion, with nothing to recommend it. In fact, as a contestant, it not only wouldn't have won the beauty pageant, but also would not have been chosen as Miss Popularity or Miss Congeniality, and most likely, the other contestants would have thrown its sorry butt right out a window and considered that an improvement. But then Thursday dawned bright with promise, and a lovely day it was too, as anyone who watched the venerable Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV could tell you. It was sunny and warm, and all that modern pilgrims could hope for, as in their travels over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house they go. Bill and I have no grandmothers to go to, but we wouldn't miss a chance to visit my Mom, so off we went. Our plan was to have brunch at the diner and then make an early day of it, since it was shaping up to be a busy weekend for us with lots of places to go. It will come as a surprise to no one that our original timetable went by the boards, and while the notion of brunch at 2PM is a concept that I reject out of hand, we still had a very nice meal in spite of the hour. After that, we ran some errands, since in the new spirit of rampant consumerism, all of the stores are open all day on Thanksgiving, and didn't get home until after 4:00, just ahead of the burgeoning traffic. Some people may remember that Bill and I met on Thanksgiving, in fact it was in 1982, making this our 25th Thanksgiving together, and we celebrated with presents, which is an innovation that hasn't much caught on with this holiday, but one which I can heartily recommend. From that point, we hunkered down to some serious packing, and turned in early.

I would say that we were the first people up early on Friday morning, except for all of those crazy people who camped out at stores overnight, where they opened at 4AM and selling ridiculous things at ridiculous prices to ridiculous people. We were on the road by 8AM and worried about traffic backups around popular retail outlets that we might be passing on our way upstate, so we kept to the outskirts and managed to avoid the worst of it. We had been invited to my sister Linda's log cabin for breakfast, and we weren't going to miss it. There was a tantalizing spread of bagels, muffins, crumb cake, waffles, cinnamon buns, grapefruit, hot apple cider, chocolate turkeys and more, not to mention, left-over pies from the day before. It would be unseemly to say that we pounced on it like a couple of homeless people who had never seen food before, but we certainly did justice to it and had seconds, as well as wrapping up some left-overs to take with us. That was a special treat, and we were glad to enjoy a nice meal together, without all the headaches of traveling on a holiday. We were back on the road after lunch, this time for our friends outside of Albany, where we usually stay over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Not so fast! Due to some unexpected family circumstances, our friends were not as prepared to accommodate us as they usually are, so instead we reserved a suite at the nearby Comfort Inn & Suites of East Greenbush, which is fairly new and has a lot to recommend it. It's not only close to where our friends live in Valatie, but they were having a "Home for the Holidays" special, with their regular rooms at $79 and suites at only $99 per night. We snapped it up and were glad we did. It turned out to be a lovely place, full of charming architectural details throughout, plus a variety of amenities like an indoor pool, Jacuzzi, fitness center, banquet rooms, complimentary breakfast, business center, vending machines and a Dunkin' Donuts just steps away from the front door. Besides the TV, the room included a refrigerator, microwave, coffee-maker, hair dryer, ironing board and iron, plus Internet access, even in the bathroom. We had what was described as a "one room suite," and the different areas of the room were separated by a decorative archway with two columns, which I found delightfully unusual. There were two beds plus a convertible sofa, which would be plenty of room for anybody. It was easily one of the nicest places we've ever stayed, for the price, although Bill felt they accomplished that at the expense of the TV service, which left a lot to be desired. But it was new and convenient, and not at all some cheesy flea-bag joint on the highway. In fact, the lobby was so sumptuous that when we walked in the door, I whispered to Bill, "We can't afford this place!" Luckily there was a back door where we could smuggle in our tattered luggage unseen, so as not to spoil the effect for the other guests.

Once we got settled in, we called our friends and invited them to come on over and sample the opulence for themselves, which they did, and pronounced it all that we had claimed. However, we found that they have no dining facilities at the hotel (apart from a breakfast buffet that is included in the room rate) and it was getting to be about that time, so we all headed down the block to the East Greenbush Diner. We had a wonderful meal, and I can personally vouch for the fried ravioli, which is a treat that I never tire of. Although the diner is spacious enough, the staff must have taken one look at the six of us, and decided to squeeze us all the way in the very back of the back room, wedged into a corner next to a table with the most appalling man, who was so loud and obnoxious that the people on the other side of the building could hardly hear us. He was there before us, and he was still there when we left, which is the first time in memory that our antics have not chased everyone out a room within shouting distance from us. Either we've lost our edge, or this fellow was so tuned into the "ME" channel that even we couldn't break through, and believe me, that's saying a lot. It's not easy to ignore six people doing their impressions of Scooby-Doo reciting the Gettysburg Address, or so I've been told.

Although Thanksgiving was lovely and almost balmy, after that it really cooled off in a hurry, and by the next day and hundreds of miles north, the cold was no joke. That's why it probably came as a surprise to the Engineering staff at the hotel, when we got back to our room, and Bill thinking he would adjust the thermostat so the fan would provide some white noise, instead turned on the air conditioner, which gamely chugged along all night, giving our room a bracing ambiance that was not for the faint-hearted. In the morning, we went and gathered up some goodies from the breakfast terrace at the end of the hall, which is a lovely and airy expanse that looks over the lobby and couldn't be more charming. They seem to have every kind of coffee, tea and juice to drink, plus fruit, yogurt, waffles and hot or cold cereal. The buffet includes a wide-ranging variety of bagels, muffins, Danish, donuts, French toast, rolls, cookies and cupcakes. There were even hard-boiled eggs, already peeled, and you can believe they didn't have to ask me twice. Considering the breakfast was included in the reservation, it was certainly more of a treat than we might have expected.

Our friends invited us to lunch at their house in Latham, just north of Albany, and if you're ever in the area, I can recommend their grilled cheese sandwiches and cranberry walnut bread. Tell them Scooby-Doo sent you. The nearby Shaker Museum was having their annual Holiday Craft Fair, so we hurried over there, and it was well worth the trip, as we snapped up some unique hand-crafted items from amid the amazing welter of products on display. Next, we were off to the Saratoga Automobile Museum, where they have some lovingly restored classic cars in what used to be the bottling plant at Saratoga Springs, and these vintage beauties would make a strong man weep, especially if he arrived in one of those little silver doorstops that they make people drive nowadays. No doorstops at this museum, not by a long shot, and each meticulously detailed vehicle was more astounding than the next, and a sight to behold. Ah, those were indeed the days, my friend, and all that hard work by the cavemen to invent the wheel was not in vain.

As it was getting late, I insisted that we have dinner at Denny's, since we have none at all around us, and is one of our special treats of traveling, but the one nearby that our GPS device directed us to had been closed and changed into something different. I find this an alarming trend in our travels, since they also closed the Denny's in Fishkill, where we used to stop on our way home, and I don't mind saying, I don't care for the direction this is going. But we found another one and had an excellent meal, and even though they squeezed us all the way in the very back of the back room, our hijinks had the usual effect of clearing everyone else out, although I thought that the people who jumped out the window were taking it just a little bit too far.

Having cracked the secret code of the hotel thermostat, we did not have the same alpine experience in our room as the night before, which probably made the Engineering folks happy as well. Going to the breakfast area earlier, I found an even wider variety of edible options, which the early birds polish off before the late arrivals even get there, and I certainly enjoyed every morsel. After we checked out, we joined our friends at Cracker Barrel to browse their distinctive merchandise, which is always fun and different. Unfortunately, everyone on the eastern seaboard apparently had the same idea, and the place was mobbed like they were giving away CARE packages at a refugee camp, with a line just to get in the door. It was so crowded inside that in order to move, you had no choice but to attach yourself to the sea of humanity as it churned through the store, and go wherever it was going, stop when it stopped, and hope that you could see what you wanted to see along the way. Some of us managed to get souvenirs in spite of the obstacles, but it was not our most optimal trip to Cracker Barrel of all time. Although there's a Denny's right next door, we thought that might be just too much wonderfulness, even for us, so we opted instead for lunch at Friendly's down the street, which turned out to be so tiny that they basically had to seat us at six different tables to fit us all in. We had another nice meal that included some of their newest menu choices, although our system of sharing our food by throwing it between the different tables was about as unpopular with the other patrons as you might expect it to be. Honestly, you'd think people way out in the boondocks wouldn't be so uptight.

All too soon, it was time to bid our fond farewells and hit the highway for home, being Sunday of a long holiday weekend, when the traffic is notorious enough to make even seasoned travelers quail at the prospect. Luckily, our trip home was uneventful, and even the cats seemed to have noticed our absence after a few days, although whether they regarded our return with a happy anticipation of food, or as an unwelcome interruption of their diabolical schemes, it would be difficult to ascertain. And while I'm sure that there's a perfectly logical explanation for that home-made pipe bomb we found in with their toys, we took it away from them anyway, just to be on the safe side. After all, the holidays are dangerous enough without taking chances, heaven knows, or in the immortal words of Scooby-Doo, "R-r-r-r-righty r-r-r-r-right!"