Here’s my favorite holiday commercial of all time, from the year I was born. I may have posted this in previous years. If so, please enjoy again.
And now today’s ornament, one from my 20s.
In college I had a roommate who gave me a pink lawn flamingo for my room (we shared a two-room suite). She also gave me a T-shirt with a flamingo on it. I wore it around my parents’ house on my winter break and ever since then, I’ve had a thing for flamingos. If you know me from the old days of Diaryland—did I really open my first online journal there 25 years ago?—you might remember my flamingo template.
I fell off from collecting them, but I still have one my parents gave me 30 years or so ago, currently residing in my home office.
It’s about three feet tall and paper mache, if you can believe that. It’s cracking in a few places and has suffered a few bumps to its toes throughout all of my moves over the years, but I’m not planning on moving any time soon, so there this majestic one stays, looking over my shoulder as I write.
If you celebrate Christmas, I wish you a peaceful Christmas Eve. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, I wish you a peaceful evening. If only we could have peace in the world.
My Feat of Strength was lugging home about 25 pounds of groceries and then doing a half-hour of circuit training. My limbs are noodles right now.
I don’t even want to get into the Airing of Grievances because I’ll be here all night talking about the handbasket in which the USA is going to hell. At least it’s not this cute little one on my tree:
This is an older ornament, so old the little holly bulbs next to the birdie are a bit chewed up, likely from a dog we had, a Shepherd Husky mix. Beautiful dog, and super intelligent, but she had a knack for chewing up Christmas decorations. She was a bit of a racist about it, too: She only chewed the head off the Black king in our manger scene. My father replaced it with another Black king and she did it again, and this time she ate the Baby Jesus too. So my parents got a completely new manger scene and you guessed it: She chewed the head off the Black king again. At that point my father just got another White king and she left that one alone.
That’s all I have time for tonight, folks. Some of us DO have to work this week, ya know. Full day tomorrow, off Christmas Day, full day Thursday, half-day Friday, then I’m off until January 6, whoo-hoo!
Sunday Stealing is still on vacation, so here’s an old one.
A – Ambition: To actually be able to retire. That’s not looking likely. And lemme tellya, if Trumpty-Dumpty and Apartheid Clyde try to do anything to Social Security and Medicare, I will join whatever class-action suit needs to be rendered against them.
B – Birthday: October 21
C – Computer: PC, always. Currently a Dell that is 5 years old. I really should buy a new one before any tariffs kick in. Maybe after Christmas but before the coronation.
D – Dream: I love the one I have of Marko Saaresto (front man of Poets of the Fall) in which we’re standing in a famous D.C. bookstore called Kramer’s and he asks me to help him pick out a book for a child relative back in Finland. I pull out my tablet and type in a line from one of his songs–“I’m secretly grateful you’re sharing this moment with me” from “No End, No Beginning”–and he says “thank you” and we pick out a book and then have lunch and people-watch. Now pardon me if I cry for a second because I was supposed to be at this concert and one in Manchester with my friend Tracy while on vacation in England for a week, but my heart attack said otherwise.
E – Exercise: Cardiokickboxing, interval training, interval treadmill, and The Firm because I’m old school like that.
F – Favorite Food: Today it’s grapes. Tomorrow it might be something else.
G – Garden: Would love to have one. Wouldn’t love to work on it.
H – Hobby: Coloring. And I still have not finished that stupid snowflake!
I – Idol: Joaquin Phoenix. His compassion for animals humbles me.
J – Job: Health writer. Oh, excuse me, I write for clinicians so they’re calling people like me medical journalists now.
K – Kids: Too gamey.
L – Location: Virginia
M – Military: Should only be deployed as a last resort.
N – Name or Nickname: T-bird
O – Optimist or Pessimist: Cynical optimist. Yes, there is such a thing. Ever hear of “plan for the worst but hope for the best?”
P – Pets: I miss mine.
Q – Quote: I hate writing. I love having written. — Dorothy Parker
R – Reads: Mystery, horror, historical.
S – School: Gee Dubya, Class of ’88.
T – Travel: Yes, please.
U – Unfulfilled ambition: One day I will get some fiction published. Or poetry. Or something other than journalism.
V – Vacation spot: I used to love ski resorts. No idea now. I haven’t had a real vacation where I go somewhere far away for at least week in years. Many years. Might have been my honeymoon in 2001. I can’t remember. See: crying, above.
W – Wardrobe: Mostly athletic wear for hiking and the gym.
X – X-tra facts about me: White people say my eyes are brown. People of color say my eyes are hazel. People of color are correct.
Y – Years online: 25
Z – Zodiac sign: Libra sun, Aquarius moon, Sagittarius rising.
Well, that was fun!
A few entries ago, I wrote of my mother’s mistaken belief that Emperor Penguins were six feet tall. Speaking of huge penguins…
I wonder if Pesto will ski, like today’s ornament, one of my new ones from this year.
zenzalei 