Another memorable weekend.

By Posted in Natural beauty, Nostalgia, Seasons Tagged , 8 Comments
Delicate fairy punchbowls?
Laurel in dense woods.
Dainty cousin to Rhodos.

Mountain Laurel was in full bloom — exquisite!

Decoration Day, as designated in 1868, was the original name of what we now call Memorial Day. The original date, unchanged for 103 years, was May 30. In 1971, the National Holiday Act moved the date to the last Monday in May to ensure a three-day Federal holiday. I’ve groused about it ever since.

I remember the days when I swooped high in my rope swing over the bed of purple “flags” — iris — mom grew at the bottom of our back yard. The days when the marching band pounded up Main Street, while bicycles fluttered by, cards attached to their spokes with clothespins. Days when dad fried “hamburgs,” as he called them, on the old river stone fireplace in the back yard, and when Great Aunt Daisy entertained us when she tried to eat corn-on-the-cob with her loose dentures.

This year’s Memorial Day was memorable, too.

I confess, I didn’t think of the significance of the actual date until we arrived home that evening. This year, the last Monday fell on May 25, precisely forty-one years after the Memorial Day of our very first date, Peter’s and mine.

We spent that day in the woods, too, at the north end of the Shenandoah Valley, hiking unaware towards a flock of wild turkeys who scared us into the next county. This year we were in the woods too, but on the southeast side of the Blue Ridge, at daughter Leslie and son-in-law Martin’s little cabin.

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Lettuce awaits the salad bowl.

The weather was absolute perfection. Dense thickets of Mountain Laurel filled the woods, Fire Pink lurked amongst the ferns, while Spiderwort and Dames Rocket purpled the undergrowth. We helped weed the vegetable garden, ate the first of the lettuce and the last of the rhubarb. Even weeding is fun when soft warm breezes brush by.

We sat on the deck in the glow of a sunset, on the front porch to swing in the early mornings, and on the screened porch to eat our meals and listen to the river below.

The very best part of the weekend came when we arrived home. “Thank you,” Peter said.

I looked at him, surprised. “What for?” I asked.

“For driving me there — wish I could still drive. But it was a nice weekend. Couldn’t have asked for better weather,” he said.

Wow.

Fire Pink peeks through ferns, while toad shelters under a trillium leaf.
Woodpile ready for winter.
Pallet is great herb garden.
Down the hill to the river.
Vivid colors of late summer glow.
Smith River.
Evening primrose midday.
Lady bugs adorn birdhouse..
Evening primrose at dusk
Gallery

Can you keep a secret?

This gallery contains 11 photos.

You don’t have to go far afield to see beautiful scenery in our little corner of Virginia. The Blue Ridge Mountains edge the eastern side of our valley, the Appalachians, the west. Gentle hills, rollicking streams, and the impressive New River all inspire photographers. The first week of May was absolutely glorious in these parts. Mother Nature showed […]

Turn the other cheek.

By Posted in Ain't broke, don't fix it, I'm not techno-savvy Tagged , 6 Comments

Electronic devices with beeps and blinking lights and cables baffle me.Screen shot 2015-04-28 at 11.41.38 AM Lead me to a cave. I’ll carve my messages on rocks.

Take my new smart phone, for instance. True, my ancient fliptop was beyond help, but did I really need a so-called “phone” that reports on the stock market, takes my pulse, lets me send texts, emails, and question an otherworldly woman who doesn’t know the answers either? I can take photos with this “phone,” read a book or a map, listen to music, play games, get a weather report and watch a movie. The “phone” part of the phone seems incidental.

No one calls me.

My technical advisors — family — insisted it was time. So I bought a phone that seldom rings, and when it does I’m not sure how to answer it. Son-in-law Martin called a few days ago. “Hello,” I said to no one there. Three more calls and we finally connected. Martin thought something was wrong since I never call him and I’d rung so many times. I said I was returning his calls.

He laughed. “Oh, must’ve been ‘butt dialing.'”

Ack, really‽

That same evening, our blank t.v. screen advised that our service was down. I’d figured that out because the screen was…um…blank. I called help and after intense questioning to identify myself and our equipment — think CIA interrogation — the young woman instructed, “Unplug the cable box from the power source.”

I followed the cable to the power strip. Done!

“Now, what is the bar code number on the back of the box?”

I couldn’t see a bar code. “Where would it be?” I asked.

“Upper right,” she said.

“Nope, nothing there.” I recited all the numbers I saw, but none was right.

I should say here, that the floor behind our t.v is a nest of cables that coil around each other in an incestuous stranglehold.  As I studied the entwined mess I realized I had not only unplugged the wrong box, but I was looking for numbers on the wrong box too.

I explained what I’d done. “Sorry,” I said, “but you should see what I’m dealing with here!” My laugh was hysteria-tinged because now I was wedged between wall and t.v., sitting in a nest of dust bunnies. Getting out would not be pretty.

She giggled. “No problem,” she said. “Let me know when you’ve found the bar code number.”

“Bingo,” I yelled.

“Now tell me what you see on your screen.,” she said.

“Hang on while I crawl around to the front.”

She explained the next steps as patiently as I hope she would explain to her own grandmother — service reconnecting, channels reloading, etc. “Wait fifteen minutes before trying to select a channel,” she reminded, then bid me good night.

Next day, Bill, my husband’s companion, arrived to take Peter and Nobby to their weekly therapy dog, nursing home visit. Bill and I chatted while we waited for Peter. Repetitive beeps came from behind Bill, but he wasn’t “pocket dialing,” no,  he was leaning against the stove’s set-timer button.

A while later — I knew it was only mid-afternoon — when I looked at the stove’s clock it read 6:15. Apparently Bill had “turned the other cheek” when he moved to the left, and in the doing had set the clock several hours ahead. This without a phone in his pocket! What a guy.

Screen shot 2015-04-27 at 4.20.27 PM

© Johnson 6/12, UFS, Inc

 

 

 

 

Wow, really‽ Who knew‽

By Posted in Write & read Tagged , , , 6 Comments

1957 | Third period Senior English | Mount Vernon High School | Marguerite Mann

Miss Mann was a stickler for every dash, period, comma, bracket, dangling participle and misplaced adverb. She hated run-on sentences, misuses of tense, wordiness, excessive use of exclamation points, prepositions at sentence-end, and misplaced quotation marks.

“One exclamation point or question mark is quite enough, class,” she’d say through clenched teeth, her trademark glare pronounced. “In formal writing we never use more than one mark.” Her shoulders arched toward her ears like tectonic plates and her shudder could have been the first rumblings of an earthquake. She viewed multiples of exclamation points and question marks, or worst of all, a question mark and an exclamation point together, as only slightly less awful than sticking an apostrophe in i-t-s — it’s — in a misguided attempt to show possessive.

When she recommended that we college-bound seniors buy our textbook, McGraw-Hill Handbook of English, we did . Mine is beside me right now. It went to college with me and to all the desks I worked at over the years. I’ve been retired long since, but my tattered textbook is still on the job.

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Five years after the class of ’57 graduated and ten years before Miss Mann’s passing, advertising executive Martin Speckter invented a new punctuation mark — the interrabang. It has a lot of different looks depending on the typeface it is associated with …ahem…with which it is associated.

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Selection of interrabangs.

The interrabang (also interobang) is the brilliant, blended marriage of exclamation point and question mark. Had I known such a thing existed I could have used an interrabang many times, despite what Miss Mann might holler from her grave.

Speckter headed his own Madison Avenue agency. Frustrated with the growing tendency of his copywriters to pair exclamation mark and question mark to punch-up a surprised or rhetorical question — “Who would punctuate a sentence like that?!” — Speckter saw a need for a single punctuation mark to replace the annoying !? construction. He wrote:

To this day, we don’t know exactly what Columbus had in mind when he shouted ‘Land, ho.’ Most historians insist…he cried, ‘Land, ho!’ but…others…claim it was really ‘Land ho?’ Chances are [Columbus] was both excited and doubtful, but…at that time [there was no punctuation to] … combine and meld interrogation with exclamation.

Art director Jack Lipton did a set of speculative designs, below, for his boss. Speckter called the offspring exclamaquests or interrobangs.

Screen shot 2015-02-15 at 2.51.58 PM

Courtesy Penny Speckter

The clever coupling of the two into a single character solves many punctuation issues. What’s not to love? Sadly, the mark never really caught on, but if you’d like to use one and if you use Microsoft Word, select the Wingdings 2 font and type the right bracket, ]. There you go — ‽

And, if you’re a WordPress blogger, type & # 8 2 5 3 ; (no spaces) and, voila, an interrabang  for your post.

‽

Don’t go where I’ve been!

By Posted in Angst, Diagnosis STRESS, I'm not techno-savvy, Sleepless Tagged , , 5 Comments
Screen shot 2015-03-28 at 1.59.57 PM

‘The Scream’ detail. Edvard Munch, 1853.

Paint March ominous gray pierced with crimson lightning. Color me lost: In March I lost my peace of mind, my self-confidence and, I feared, my identity. Gone, too, are convenient passwords, bank and credit card accounts, computer back-up, and any hope of nightmare-less sleep.

But I gained even more faith in family, friends, and technical helpers, all of whom pushed, prodded and guided me patiently out of the scam I fell for. Trite sayings flitted across my short-circuited brain: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” for instance.

Had I become complacent believing Apple products are inherently safe from nefarious scum who prey on gullible folk? Yes, I panicked when the Apple-looking warning appeared after I’d Googled “punctuation.” Something so innocent as quotation marks, for heavens sakes, and bam I was sucked in.

I won’t glorify with too much detail here in case the evil-doers are lurking in the closet or behind one of the icons on my desktop. But please, do not call even if the number appears to be your computer company’s; do not listen to barely intelligible techno-babble and let them convince you that your computer has fallen victim to a virus; do not permit them take over your computer to get rid of the gremlins; and do not sign up for lifetime service for any device you buy for the rest of your life no matter how good it sounds.

The dastardly deed was so easily done and so frustratingly difficult to undo. Leslie and Martin had my back, literally and figuratively, within an hour of learning what I’d allowed to happen. Carolynn propped me up long-distance, and Joanne listened to me rant, as did Jean, halfway around the world. Peter even doled out hugs and cups of tea although he couldn’t grasp what had happened to my computer, nor can he even turn on his own laptop anymore.

It took two weeks to change accounts, passwords and IDs, and many nail-biting nights trying to think what else I should change, protect, close, delete.

I spent days on the phone with a very patient senior technician at Apple. I bought a new router and modem. And then, when my ancient cell phone finally fizzled, I gave in and bought a smart phone, yet another technical gadget to outsmart me daily.

With the back-up restored I was home free, wasn’t I? But when the auxiliary devices were replaced the computer could no longer talk to them, and  I hadn’t a clue how to fix that. Gone were iTunes, iDVD, Netflix, Pages, Keynote, even my printer.  Martin to the rescue. Again.

Now, shrieking threats from the #*!≠¡ scammers interrupt our evenings, and I could write a Thesaurus entry with the list of names I’ve called myself…and them. Find me under “bird-brained.”

This whole techno-upset was about the worst thing that has ever happened to me, or maybe I’ve forgotten all the other bad stuff. I’m sure my age exacerbated my frustration and embarrassment.

Oh, we had other problems this month too — another sewer clog, frozen pipes twice — but although those still aren’t resolved, they are nothing compared to being scammed. This was a month I won’t forget and one I don’t want to remember.

March madness redefined.

 

Unstuffed and mix’n’match? Good grief!

By Posted in Nostalgia, Shopping, Sleep alarm Tagged , 6 Comments

In my day — admittedly that was a day long ago — mothers nagged their sons to tuck their shirts in, while their daughters wouldn’t be caught dead in a blouse that wasn’t pulled down so tight that she couldn’t raise her hand in class. In fact, the garment that used to be a blouse, is now a shirt. Have you tried to buy a “blouse” recently? I don’t go shopping very often, but from the catalogs I look at, if a blouse shirt is part of the oufit, it’s slightly untucked from the slacks pants or jeans.

Screen shot 2015-02-21 at 8.47.38 AMTrendy young men have been wearing unstuffed shirts, or shirts that hang out all the way around, for quite a few years. Young women not so much. That is, until this “half-stuffed” look arrived. One doesn’t see women of a certain age untucked, unless they  need a face lift.  (Frankly, a little nip hereScreen shot 2015-02-21 at 10.06.42 AM and tuck there wouldn’t go amiss for many of us, but I take the stance that I’ve earned every chin, every wrinkle I’ve got, thank you very much! They are who I am now.)

 

Screen shot 2015-02-20 at 5.12.42 PM

Pajama tops and bottoms were matchy-matchy in my day. My mom made mine from this very pattern.

Here’s another thing. Who decided that pajama tops didn’t need to match pajama bottoms anymore? Eddie Bauer? JJill? Victoria you-know-who? Who started the trend to separates? When I get ready for bed, I want comfort. I don’t want to search for pajama parts. Give me a matched set of flannel pj’s, and I’m happy.

Back in the day, slumber parties were the thing. A gaggle of giggly girls gathered at one girl’s house to eat potato chips and brownies and drink Cokes all night long. Often, the boys would hear about the goings-on and try to crash the party, but a vigilant dad with a growly voice and fierce look dispatched them in short order.

Nowdays — did you know? — boys and girls have slumber parties together. All very above board, so I’m told, and well-chaperoned, but still. I have to wonder what fun it is to sit and gossip when there’s a bunch of boys present? They do sit and gossip, don’t they?

Pajamas-as-street-wear is another unfortunate trend. In our little college town the fad seems to be outlandishly patterned flannel bottoms, say black with purple and fluorescent green, with a sweatshirt, usually maroon and orange, up top.

A few years ago I learned that our grandson Miah wanted footie pajamas for his birthday. Darned if I didn’t find some to fit a very tall sixteen-year-old — bright turquoise emblazoned with green, yellow, and orange frogs! He was thrilled, but when I heard that he’d worn them to a movie at the mall, I was…well, let’s say…grandma was not so thrilled. Good grief! 

I don’t even like passers-by to see me, in my robe, picking up the paper from the curb!

Screen shot 2015-02-21 at 11.27.40 AM

Allegro Izzy cotton flannel.

 

Candlelight, remotely.

By Posted in Age-old, Nostalgia Tagged 4 Comments
Screen shot 2015-01-28 at 5.00.23 PM

Jack jumps over a candlestick.

Screen shot 2015-01-27 at 11.28.01 AM

Pillar candle, remote not shown.

Years ago, I stumbled across an electric fork. I thought it was the funniest gimic I’d ever seen. Yesterday, I opened a new gadget-filled catalog and saw something that beats a hot fork, tines down — a remote-controlled candle.

Instead of a flickering flame, it has a flickering LED. I’ve seen votive-sized ones and, I admit, they are quite realistic. Flameless candles do offer certain advantages: wax doesn’t melt all over the edge of the bathtub and there’s no fire danger. But these newer LED candle versions come with a wireless remote that requires three AAA batteries. There is  something wrong with that. The batteries will have to be replaced periodically just to be able to “light”the candles remotely, matchlessly.

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On the other hand, an old-fashioned wicked candle needs only a match, a much cheaper alternative to batteries. Isn’t part of the magic of candlelight the gentle process of striking a match and watching the flame burst and grow? And putting candles out with a snuffer provides added romance.

Trade the fascination of real candles aglow? Tsk tsk.
Screen shot 2015-01-28 at 4.22.50 PM

Now, fair dues, in the same catalog, I saw something that would make my breakfasts and late night snacks perfect — a  divided bowl! Cereal goes in one half, milk in the other. A spoonful from each side and, voila, no more sodden cereal. A brilliant solution to a soggy problem!

Except! didn’t someone come up with a similar idea years and years ago? Baby Screen shot 2015-01-27 at 12.07.19 PMdishes — a section for peas, one for applesauce, another for creamed corn. Different application, but the same idea. Somehow, an ugly, modern plastic dish doesn’t hold a candle to a pretty little baby dish for my Cheerios and milk. Maybe sliced bananas in the third spot?

 

 

 

Confucius say what?!

By Posted in Write & read Tagged , , , 3 Comments

Screen shot 2015-01-08 at 2.36.56 PMFor more than twenty years I believed that our dear English friend Louie came up with the phrase “Wherever you go, there you are.” I’ve learned that not only did Confucius say it, but dozens of writers use it as titles on their blogs, and mindfulness guru Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote a book with Confucius’ words as the title. It has been centuries since Confucius (551-479 BCE) made that astute observation, so plagarism isn’t an issue.

I learned all this in the most roundabout way. I requested permission to quote from Kevin O’Keefe’s “Real Lawyers Have Blogs” post, “Blog to people, not at people.”  His words about blogging resonated: “I was taught to blog as if it were a conversation. … At times I have thought of blogging as letter writing. The kind we did by hand from college forty years ago. At other times, I have thought of blogging as being the late night DJ talking to a radio audience of one. … Blogging is about getting to know each other. Developing trust. Developing relationships. Developing reputations. This requires a conversation. Writing to people, not at people.”

O’Keefe referred me to author and business consultant Euan Semple, “The Obvious,” who approved my request to use his thoughts about good writing: “Good writing is more like letter writing. It is written to you not at you. It draws you closer, is offered to you deferentially, like two people who know and trust each other having a conversation, taking turns, listening as much as talking. It is our natural way of writing. …”

Semple referred me to John Kabat-Zinn  I didn’t know — duh-h — until I Googled the mindfulness guru about the book he’d written in 1994, “Wherever you go, there you are.” It’s still in print and I’ll have a copy for myself before another sunset. Here’s one of many memorable quotes: “Wherever you go, there you are. Whatever you wind up doing, that’s what you’ve wound up doing. Whatever you are thinking right now, that’s what’s on your mind, Whatever has happened to you, it has already happened. The important question is, how are you going to handle it?”

Kabat-Zinn, the father of modern-day mindfulness, further defines the practice like this: “Paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.” He also says, “Writing can be an incredible mindfulness practice.”

Ooo, I like that!

Old Confucius offered another twist on the words so many of us use: “Wherever you go, go with all of your heart.”

Like that, too. Maybe it explains my absolute obsession love affair with blogging.Screen shot 2015-01-13 at 2.11.12 PM

Post postscript:
No sooner did I decide I’d polished this post enough,
than I got a surprise.
At our recent writers’ group meeting,
writer/friend John handed me a book.
“Look what I found!” he said.
It was a copy of Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever you go, there you are.
My friend didn’t know I’d been planning this post
nor that I wanted a copy of the book.
Serendipitous!

Hostess gets the ‘ho ho’s’

By Posted in Ain't broke, don't fix it, I'm not techno-savvy Tagged , 6 Comments

There’s a first time for everything. Ah yes, I remember the days when, if you wanted a table in a busy restaurant, the hostess would write your name on a pad, tell you how many minutes you’d have to wait, and point you towards a comfortable sitting area.

Screen shot 2015-01-11 at 11.32.06 AMThen along came those annoying buzzer things to hold or stick in your pocket. They resemble something from “Star Wars.” Scare the bejesus out of you when they buzz.

Now there’s a newer twist. The technology that arrived with iPhones and iPads usurped buzzers. Where have I been you’ll ask? Hm, well, locked in my own little world still using a landline, and neither twittering, tweeting, nor texting. I do have a cellphone, but it’s only for emergencies, my emergencies. My immediate family and one or two friends have the number. Phone’s seldom turned on though.

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Even if an iPhone cost $3.50, I wouldn’t want one.

Recently we went to a new restaurant within walking distance from home. I gave the hostess our name, told her there would be four of us. She asked for my phone number. I considered lying since it was obviously a marketing ploy — get our number and hound us with phone calls. But I gave it to her and prepared to wait. Not minutes, mind you, but an hour — an hour until we were seated, and forty minutes until we got the pizza we’d ordered the instant we sat down. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So, when Leslie and Martin arrived I mentioned I’d had to give our phone number. Leslie burst out laughing. “You gave them your home number, didn’t you, Mom?” Her laugh bounced off the high ceilings.

“Well, she asked for my phone number” I huffed. “I don’t give my cell number to just anyone, you know.”

My daughter knew without asking that I didn’t even have my cell phone with me. She explained restaurants nowadays want your cell number to alert you, especially when there are a lot of people waiting to be seated. By this time there were at least twenty-five people standing around, and as many more walked out when they heard how long the wait time would be.

“I’m standing right here. If she calls our name, I’ll hear her…” Leslie started to interrupt, with a comment about my hearing I was sure, so I amended my words to, “…I’ll read her lips.”

“What if you decide to go shopping down the street?”

“If I wanted to go shopping, I’d go shopping. I wouldn’t be standing in line here…” I spluttered. “And, no, I don’t want a smart phone so a hostess can call me to say my table is ready when I’m standing two feet away!” Oh yes, I was on a toot.

“Other people like the convenience,” my daughter argued.

“‘Convenience’ would be getting seated in a restaurant in a reasonable amount of time, without benefit of a phone call,” I grumbled.

“Sorry, Mom, but you’re out of touch.”

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At least I’m not as out of touch as my grandparents who refused to have a telephone at all. “If someone wants to talk to me,” Granddad said, “they can come to the door. We’ll set on the porch and we’ll talk.” 

My mother was as frustrated with her parents as my daughter is with me.

2014: a backward glance.

By Posted in I'm not techno-savvy, Write & read Tagged , , Leave a comment

Compared to other bloggers, my piddly fifty-seven posts in eighteen months don’t amount to much. Some bloggers post five to ten times a day! 

Of my thirty-five posts last year, “We may or may not remember” (May 9) had the images-3most views. And on the busiest single day, February 6, sixty-nine people viewed “Elephants and lions, oh my.” The post most commented upon was “What new car smell?” (April 14). I learned these and other statistics thanks to the WordPress 2014 Annual Report. Who knew statistics…numbers…would be a barometer for my writing?

There are various ways to find any blog, and my readers found me primarily via Facebook, MailYahoo, and webmailComcast. One connection thrilled me beyond measure — humorwriters.org, the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop site. Editor Terry Rivzi published the eight posts I submitted from October 2013-14. Each time, I happy-danced around the house, hooting and hollering as if I were at a Virginia Tech football game, score tied, two seconds on the clock, inches-to-goal, VT’s ball.

A month before I published my very first post, September 13, 2013, I submitted three draft ideas to the writers’ critique group I belong to. Their enthusiasm encouraged me. I floated out of the meeting with Andrea who had two successful blogs running already.  She asked what my goal was —recognition, readership, awards, writing for the sake of writing? Easy answer — to write regularly and to be published. I knew that putting myself out there would keep me writing. And it has. I’m obsessed!

My most active commenters last year — CJ, Carolynn, Leslie, Linda, Andrea, and Joanne — brightened my days with their remarks, as did the others who took the time to read, write, and follow.

I’m still feeling my way along this blogging road that, for me, has been a lot like a logging road…bump bump bumpity. Sometimes the bumps are so jarring they bring tears to my eyes and curses to my lips.

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For those who don’t know, WordPress (WP) is a free blog web-hosting service provider owned by Automattic. Their statistics are beyond amazing! For instance, there are nearly 60 million WP sites that receive more than 100 million pageviews per day. This tells you how insignificant my two blogs are in the grand scheme. But I’ve achieved my goals. I’m happy.

Additional WP statistics from 2014 blew my mind: every second, nearly six new posts are published on WP blogs. That averages out to 342 posts per minute, more than 20 thousand per day, some 7.49 million annually. What those figures mean to me is, in a few minutes I’ll click “publish” on this post and I will join five other bloggers that very second, 341 bloggers that minute, to say nothing of the 20 thousand bloggers this day!Screen shot 2015-01-03 at 4.44.54 PM

Even a numbers-hater like me appreciates those kinds of figures!

 

 

Become! Believe!

By Posted in Nostalgia, Seasons, Snow Tagged , , , Leave a comment

This is a post from last year when I was laden with humbuggedness. Scrooge, actually moved over!
But then I discovered the movie “Becoming Santa” and my spirit was renewed.
Mother Nature isn’t promising snow for southwest Virginia again this holiday season, 
and the weather, to my mind, is frightful — rainy, gray, almost balmy.
So it’s time to watch my new favorite Christmas movie again…tonight!

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As I sat down to try to write a jolly Christmas post yesterday, there was a huge swath of snow and blustery weather swooping across the middle of the country and up into Canada. That stretch of North America has looked a lot like Christmas for several weeks already.

Here? Well, I had the windows open and my fa lala was more off key than ever.  But, within the hour daugher Carolynn and  husband Bill arrived from the little village in upstate New York where we’d lived for seventeen years, me ever glorying in the deep, cold, snowy white winters, husband Peter, not so much.

In the previous post, “Deck my halls, please,” I groaned and humbugged about my severely diminished, ghostly spirit this year.  But more than an hour past my bedtime on the shortest day of the year, if I could have gotten onto our rooftop I would have shouted, “I FOUND IT!  IT’S BA-A-ACK!”

We’d all just watched a wonderful Christmas movie.  Believe me when I say it’s better than any version of Dicken’s “Christmas carol,” “It’s a wonderful life,” “Love, actually,” “Christmas Story,” “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer” or any other holiday movie you can name.

“Becoming Santa” (2011), is destined to become a classic, mark my words.  I found it buried deep in the “Documentary” heading on Netflix, but a quick search on-line showed that it’s available on iTunes and Amazon as well.  Treat yourself, stop what you’re doing, watch it now!

Writer/actor/star, Jack Sanderson, is a young man — mid-forties is young to me — who lost his Christmas spirit after his mother died a few years ago.  She was an enthusiastic Christmas-lover, so her death, followed not long after by his father’s passing, threw Jack into a tailspin. Then, he was inspired by a photo he’d never seen of his father playing Santa for neighborhood children.

He decides to become a Santa too, to give back, in other words.  He has his hair and beard professionally bleached and styled, gets fitted for a suit and goes to Santa school,  a film crew in tow to record the experience.

This movie has everything — laughs, sweet tears, adorable children, inspiration, dedication, hope.  What “Becoming Santa” does not have is violence, mayhem, war or foul language,  I could’ve watched it right through again, it was that good.

Jack seems determined to become Santa, but occasionally he expresses doubts.  He goes to Santa school to learn the basics — always say “children” instead of “kids,” for instance, and always “Ho, ho, ho,” never just one “ho” nor more than three.

You wonder as he wanders, musing, reflecting. Will he last, or won’t he?

There’s a lot more to the film than Jack’s own quest — Santa experts, historians, professional Santas weigh in as well. Two common threads tie it into a beautiful package: a genuine love for children and an understanding of how important Santa is to them. The “sneak and peak” segment near the end is tear-inducing, but in a good way.

This morning I’m revitalized, imbued with spirit and holiday glee.  All I need now is seasonal — make that North Pole-like — weather.

Carolynn hadn’t packed a snowball in the large cooler Bill lugged inside yesterday, but it was filled with all-important special ham and Polish sausages.  She did bring a big carton containing dozens of special cookies, and the astounding surprise of homemade peppermint marshmallows her friend Robin sent along for us.

Believe, believe!

 

The shortest day.

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It’s that time of year when even the faintest skiff of snowflakes causes visions of sleds and snowmen to dance in my head. Haul out the snow shovels, check the windshield wiper fluid, find the mittens and mate them. Baby, it’s cold outside.

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Christmas is just five days away, and the weatherman has hinted there’s a slight chance we’ll have a white one. Is that Bing Crosby crooning? Do you hear what I hear?

As always, I can hear my dad saying, “Shortest day of the year. Won’t be long until time to cut the grass.” He said that for as long as I can remember. Maybe he was onto something. Now that I’m certified elderly, the days fly by so quickly that it really won’t be long to cut the grass. Heck, son-in-law Martin just mowed his for the last time this year a week ago!

In June, Dad always remarked on the summer solstice too. He was nothing if not set in his ways.

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In my email this morning came a reminder of another sort — one close to my mind and heart — about solstices.

Today is the winter solstice — the shortest day of the year. But we’re already looking ahead to the summer solstice and The Longest Day®, an event on June 21, 2015, to raise funds and awareness for the Alzheimer’s Association.”

The message goes on to say, It will be “a day of sunrise-to-sunset activity to symbolize he challenging journey of those facing Alzheimer’s disease.” 

This is brand new information to me, but I’m thinking ahead, just as my dad always did, to June 21 and what I might be able to do on The Longest Day®. You can read more about it here.

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A sunrise mimics the Alzheimer’s Association purples.