Young At Heart

Hello World, While everyone knows that I hate to be an alarmist, I feel it's only fair to point out to an unsuspecting public that it's already more than half-way past the middle of November (as in, YIKES!) and [here I should warn everyone to please sit down and hold onto their hats] Thanksgiving is next week already (as in, DOUBLE YIKES!!) believe it or not, because the month started on a Thursday, and so this is the earliest that Thanksgiving can be. So anyone who is not already prepared for the annual turkey trot with all the trimmings, well, they'd better step lively, or find the cornucopia caravan passing them by in a cloud of sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie, by golly. Of course, after that will be Black Friday, which historically ushers in the holiday shopping season in earnest. Not so fast! This year, desperate retailers chasing after The Almighty Dollar are introducing a new shopping experiment, and starting their annual sales extravaganza right on the holiday itself ("Brown Thursday?") rather than waiting until the day after, as before. So everyone without something better to do, will be out at the stores, either working or shopping, at midnight on Wednesday, and clear through the whole weekend, without giving ol' Tom Turkey so much as a second thought. By the time Cyber Monday rolls around the following week, people won't even remember that there was a holiday in there to begin with, because nowadays when it comes to Thanksgiving, we can say for sure that "Commerce is the Reason for the Season." I'm guessing that sound that we can all hear must be the unquiet spirits of the poor aggrieved Pilgrims, and not to mention, the late and lamented Norman Rockwell is probably spinning at warp speed by now, and I can't say that I blame him. And while we're on the subject of holiday shopping, a person can't help but notice that in the local area, it's been weeks already that the supermarkets are awash with Christmas decorations and wrapping paper of every description, and not a cardboard Pilgrim or turkey napkin in sight. (I realize that the mighty Indian is often referred to as The Vanishing American, but I wouldn't expect them to take the Pilgrims and pumpkins right along with them, and that's not just a lot of Jimmy Crack Corn, believe me.) These days, it's easy to tell it's Christmas wrapping paper, even from a distance, because the display is inevitably a veritable sea of blue - which is apparently the new politically-correct yuletide color, after the traditional red and green of yore must have been considered too old-fashioned or controversial. Next they'll have a Project Runway Santa Make-Over where he's all decked out in purple (another big color for Christmas nowadays) with a shiny black sleigh, and the reindeers tricked out in hot pink and lime green, with torrents of navy blue garland festooned everywhere. (Anyone can tell you that when it comes to corporate holiday greeting cards, black, purple, pink, lime, tan and navy blue are all the rage, and you couldn't buy one in red and green if your life depended on it.) Of course, it does no good to complain, as the dinosaurs and I can surely attest, but frankly, I'm not willing to just slide down that wanton slippery-slope to a Blue Christmas, and that's not just the pink and purple candy canes talking, by holly. Speaking of the holiday season, I was coming home from work last Monday, when it was suddenly dark at 5:30 because of the switch back to Standard Time over the weekend, and I was met by a myriad of merry twinkling Christmas lights all along Main Street, that the city puts up for decorative purposes every year. Personally, I thought this was just a wee bit too early for this type of illuminated spectacle, since it was only November 5th at the time, and with Thanksgiving being so early, the first Sunday in Advent isn't even until December 2nd, a good long ways away yet, even as the reindeer flies. But on the other hand, it was only a week after the calamitous Hurricane Sandy barreled through the region, and countless thousands of residents were still without power, heat, telephones or gasoline, and subsisting in a post-apocalyptic environment of deprivation, where all the conveniences of modern life had been wrenched away, and every long cold day was another miserable, uncomfortable hardship to be endured, with no guarantees that tomorrow would be any better. So it occurred to me that maybe the city planners figured under the circumstances, people were probably so starved for some good news for a change - and what better way to cheer folks up, but Christmas lights and plenty of them, shining from pole to pole, with their implicit promise of better days ahead, and not a moment too soon, that's for sure. For beleaguered locals, this might have been just what the doctor ordered. Or at least, Dr. Santa Claus, that is. In other good news, the World Series champagne was barely flat in San Francisco when it was already time for the baseball awards to be given out, and the voters had their say on league MVPs, Manager of the Year, Sportsmanship, Congeniality, Neatness, Punctuality, Penmanship, Cleanliness, Trustworthiness, Swimsuits and Evening Gowns - or whatever else they give away awards for nowadays. In an otherwise appalling season for the hapless Mets, their one bright spot was 20-game winner R.A. Dickey, who capped a career year by winning the Cy Young Award for pitching excellence. While Tampa Bay's David Price squeaked by in the AL voting with a scant 4 points over last year's winner Justin Verlander, there was no such ambiguity in the NL voting, as Dickey blew away his nearest competition with well over twice as many points. So I guess this was another holiday story after all, with an early Christmas present for the junior franchise in New York, and all of their long-suffering fans, and I ought to know. Because when it comes to being just what the doctor ordered, this would be hard to beat, or in the immortal words of Dr. Santa Claus: "HO HO HO!" And finally wrapping up with the best news of all, at least for us, and as early Christmas presents go, I can assure you that this one was a whopper, maybe even better than the Cy Young. In spite of hurricanes and nor'easters, power failures, fallen trees, gas rationing, snow, floods, fires, riots and plagues of locusts (I may have just imagined that last one) they finally delivered our brand new television, and you can believe me when I say that it is everything we could have hoped for and then some. It's a Sony Bravia XBR model with all the bells and whistles, just packed to the rafters with features upon features, many of which we don't even understand. (They claim it has what they describe as "Intelligent Peak LED," so I'm thinking we may not actually be smart enough to own this TV.) Of course, it has full HD and 3-D for our viewing pleasure, plus WiFi, which comes in handy for the included Internet apps like Netflix, YouTube, Facebook and more, plus access to all the games, photos and music that anyone could ever want. Its measurements from side-to-side and top-to-bottom are impressive, but what surprises me is how they cram all of that into a flat screen that is a mere 2" front-to-back, and is a mystery to me, I'm sure. The picture is spectacular, with a clarity that is astonishing, whether up close, at a distance, or even from the side. Now, you don't have to watch it from the side, obviously, because it pivots easily on its stand, and though large in dimensions, it weighs in at only 25 pounds, so it's a simple matter to turn it wherever you like. It has certainly launched us from the steam-powered past into the 21st century at a stroke, and light-years away from our technology-challenged contraptions of yesteryear. Heck, I'll bet even ol' Cy Young himself couldn't do that, evening gown or not. Elle