All In A Day's Work

Hello World, Happy December! And it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, I don't mind saying, as they put it in the classic song, "glistening once again, with candy canes and silver lanes aglow." We have a completely different spin on it this time around, because we have new neighbors on our immediate left, and although we've met them, we don't really know them, and had no idea what to expect on the holiday front from them. All of our previous neighbors on that side were particularly low-key on the decoration scale, and at most, would hang a wreath on the front door and leave it at that. Not these new people, that's for sure, and not by a long shot, I can tell you that. They took the giant granite slabs that march relentlessly up to the house (former neighbors installed these hideous eyesores, eerily reminiscent of Machu Picchu without the charm, but we always assumed were some sort of aircraft landing system, to guide the alien spaceship back, and return them to their home planet) and covered them with scads of multi-colored lights of all descriptions, plus enough snowmen, reindeer, angels, stars, candy canes, and elves, to make The Grinch positively sputter with apoplexy, I shouldn't wonder. It certainly adds a whole new sparkle to the neighborhood, and after all, not that it's a bad thing. I call it "Christmas at Machu Picchu." Speaking of holiday cheer, anyone active on social media over the last few weeks may have seen pictures from Thanksgiving at the cabin, full of happy smiling faces on people having fun. So alert readers already know that we have Bill to thank for the following, which is the description of his snazzy new pea coat from Amazon: ============================================== - Made in USA or imported - Chest button design, contracted and the atmosphere, make the whole more administrative levels feels - Unique collar design, highlight urban elite's directness, tall and straight collar type classics - Back adopt streamline design, fashion and easy, all show man elegant charm ================================================ I love the first part, taking the trouble to explain that it's either made here or abroad, as if that narrows anything down at all. And of course, Bill needs no help to all show man elegant charm or highlight urban elite's directness, but I told him I was afraid he was not quite equal to the task of making the whole more administrative levels feels. But he's nothing if not game, and has been wearing it ever since, contracted and the atmosphere be hanged. In other news, of course, the world bid farewell to Fidel Castro at long last, finally shuffling off this mortal coil at 90, probably scaring the wits out of everybody at The Pearly Gates, or wherever it is that godless Communists wind up after they kick that proverbial bucket. It certainly marks the end of an era, there's no way around that, and good or bad depends on which side of the ideological fence a person happens to be on. If you watched television at all, you couldn't help but notice that for mobs of Cuban defectors, it was one continuous pull-out-all-the-stops party, like they all just won the Powerball lottery, or something even better. More diplomatically, messages came in from heads of government around the world, praising the former revolutionary leader as everything from "a brilliant strategist" to "a visionary." My personal favorite hits a little closer to the mark, I think, which I copied verbatim off the screen when I saw it in our hotel room in Kingston. According to the ticker at CNN, "Vladimir Putin hails Castro as 'a symbol of an era in recent world history'." Now seriously, what does that even mean??? It's like one of those horoscope sentences you see in the newspaper, where all of the words are in English, but once they put them all together, the resulting comment makes no sense at all. Go back and read that again, and you'll see what I mean. It would be like saying, "I'm honoring poison ivy as representing an example of biology in the contemporary environment." It's true that Putin didn't say anything bad about Castro, but he certainly didn't say anything good, or more specifically, anything at all, and I certainly wouldn't refer to it as "hailing" the deceased under any definition of the term whatsoever. It's a good thing that Fidel wasn't wearing Bill's new pea coat at the time, or Putin probably would have said, "Castro, contracted and the atmosphere, make the whole more administrative levels feels, and I am unanimous in that." What's new on the local scene amounts to an early Christmas present that was as welcome as it was unexpected, and that is, a new temporary job for yours truly, and you can believe me when I say, not a moment too soon. In an interesting turn of events, it's with the contractors from the real estate management office where I was working in Yonkers, so I had a good long while to get to know them during my time there. In fact, I was so impressed with their work that we hired them to patch some of our derelict ceilings at church, before they came crashing down on some unsuspecting parishioners, probably while snoozing during the Pastor's sermon, alas. The real estate office and I had come to a parting of the ways in July, and I'm not casting any aspersions, but I think it would be fair to say that both sides were ready to call it quits at that point. It turns out the relocated construction office is around the corner from the real estate office (so that was convenient for me, in the sense that I already knew how to get there) and since they knew I was between assignments from the temp agency, they asked if I would pitch in on a per-diem basis to help get things organized, and wrangle the runaway stacks of papers into some semblance of order. Anyone who knows me can tell you that organization is my middle name, so I was glad to help out - if only to feel needed again and stop being a drain on the economy around here. I mean, I like having spare time as much as the next fellow, but I admit that I was looking forward to being a productive member of society once again - and that's not just a lot of making the whole more administrative levels feels, believe me. In any case, the construction office is tiny, cramped, and encumbered with so many tottering piles of detritus that you very quickly realize that gravity is not your friend, and you carefully scope out any safe high places to clamber up to, when it all begins its implacable plummet earthward. (That credenza has my name on it, and I pity the fool who tries to horn in on it, by golly.) When I first started working there, I had to write the date on something, and since it was all too easy to lose track of the time when I was unemployed, I had no idea what day it was. I noticed there was one of those handy calendar desk pads under the keyboard, so I figured I would check that first. Mind you, this is not my first time at the rodeo, as they say, and I also didn't just fall off the turnip truck, whatever that means, so I did realize that many people continue to use these calendar desk pads after their actual expiration, just as a blotter to keep on their desk, regardless of being out of date. So I was prepared for the idea that it probably wasn't a calendar for this December, and I might have to skip ahead a month or two before getting to the right page for the current month. Even taking that into account, I admit that I was somewhat taken aback when I noticed the month on the desk pad was July, but the real punch line to the story is that it was July 2012 - did I laugh! Anyway, as the saying goes, "I calls 'em as I sees 'em," so this is my report from - Christmas at Machu Picchu