'Tis The Season. . .

Merry Christmas!



Portate Bien. . .



BE SAFE!

For Better or For Worse

I had a conversation with a girlfriend about the drama associated with weddings and funerals. Here are some of my pet peeves of the events up to and including the service(s):

I don't like the little dance steps that bridesmaids/groomsmen do coming down the aisle. Just walk, dammit. It's distracting.

I don't approve of tiny children (circa 2-3) being flower children/ring bearers. The poor little chaps have prolly been up all day and virtually all night getting all fru-frood up for the wedding, then having to endure the coos, oohs, and aahs, of the guests as they sashay down the plank that must be a mile long to them. Dog gone near amounts to quasi-torture for the littles.

The only thing that should be large in a wedding is the dowry. Not the wedding party. I could do without the junior bridesmaides, the double ring bearers, maid of honors, etc.

Wedding planners who look more flustered than the wedding party. Aren't you supposed to be the voice of reason, the sound of calm, and the leveler. I would prefer that you not walk around in your house shoes looking ragged.

The "I didn't plan my speech very well and now I am liquored up and so I've talked too much" bridesmaid. Get to the point.

The bouquet/garter ceremony: I never participate in this. You have here a bevy of beauties that are languishing in front of the bride, jockeying for position so that you can claim the title of "I Got Next", yet when the garter ceremony comes along, the floor is scattered wider than a pack of marbles, the men few and far between.

That dayum "new" electric slide. I can't stand it. The one that has the 'cha cha' in it. It drives me absolutely nuts. And you have to focus too hard on what you're doing and the words, Give me the old one, to the tune of "Candy' - a la "The Best Man" which is more fluid and thought-less, and that's good enough for me.

Why is everyone so intent upon watching the family mourn? Everyone wants to see how "his momma, sister, wife, daughter" is going to 'take it'. (I must say, I have participated in this macabre scenario).

Family members arguing about who gets to ride in the family car, what the deceased is going to wear, who is reading the obituary, and who put in on the flowers - and who didn't.

Something about that "Sunrise/Sunset"on the obituary drives me nuts. It's not cute to me. I don't know where it originated but it's annoying.

It bothers me when people say that the deceased is doing what they normally do in the afterlife. "I bet Tim is playing the great football game with Moses", or "You know Mama Jeanne must be cooking up her famous spaghetti for everybody to enjoy". Um, probably NOT.

Little screaming children running around like banshees during the service, and the parent sitting there like the child doesn't even BELONG to them (add that to the weddings as well).

Why does everybody hug, kiss, talk, etc., and say "It shouldn't take a funeral for us to get together/see each other. Let's keep in touch". THEN. . . you don't see hide nor hare of the mofo until the NEXT funeral.

The prodigal son/daughter, who clings/wails/falls out-or any combination thereof, when they view the body, knowing good and well they raised more hell than heaven to the parent when they were alive.

Those are my pet peeves. . . (Thanks, Nicole, for help with the post)

All I Want For Christmas is Christmas

Why is Erry-boddy so scurred and are so interested in being politically correct? People are breaking their necks, bending over backwards trying to find substitutions for the word Christmas, when in fact, nobody has really made a stink over it. Now the 'N' word, and 'Gay Marriage' - people ARE making a fuss over.

Oh how I long for the days of old where Linus from Charlie Brown mulled over the fact that Christmas was so commercialized, versus the actual holiday in itself it getting dizzolved into a maze of Season's Greetings, and Happy Holidays. All these ads, which are obviously targeting Christmas shoppers, are actually so PC they are bringing a hoard of attention to the fact that the word is being skipped over altogether. After all, stockings are not hung by the Chimney on New Year's Day, nor are visions of sugarplums dancing in your head on Thanksgiving. Cranberry sauce, yes, but sugarplums, no.

Christmas is a holiday, in which 95 of the Americans celebrate. So, why is erry-boddy's panties in a bunch over this particular day? I could go into my own philiosophicizin on THAT but that's not advancing the story. I mean, do you think that telling someone "Merry Christmas" is going to get them so worked up they are going to get the ACLU involved? Hell if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I could go on and on, but I will just summate here (thanks to a very special person who helped me with all of this - now this I knew but I didn't have many of the holidays straight):

Most holidays are result of a compromise that the Catholic Church (I am not Catholic I am trying to get to a point here) made with the pagans in order to spread the gospel. Christmas is a combination of the pagan festival of lights and the Catholic Christ-Mass and later combined with his birth. Easter was the pagan festival of harvest. . .Thus the connection of eggs and the bunny. St. Valentine was a pagan who worshipped cupid and cupid was a warrior and it is not have anything to do associated with love. Halloweeen was the day of the dead to honor spirits and keep them happy to they don't haunt you. . .Hence the connection of scary people dressed up coming to your house, and you giving them an offering for them to go away.

Come on, do you really believe that most of the people that celebrate Christmas the way Christmas is celebrated in it's fullest in our Western society (Black Friday, Christmas Eve, After Christmas Sales), are truly worried about anything that has to do with gold, frankincense, and myrrh?

If you really want to get specific and PC on all the holidays, then let's not stop there:

Change MLK to: "Happy Assassinate a World Leader"Day

Change Independence Day to: "British People Take the Land from the Native Americans, call it their own, and then have a Group of British People Claim it as their own By a Declaration" Day.

Change Thanksgiving to: "Happy Slaughter the Indians and Contaminate them with Diseases" Day

Change Kwanzaa To: "Happy Black People's version of Hanukkah" Day.

Change New Year's to: "Happy Another 365 days worth of Bull Sh**" Day.

I could go on and on but you get the point.

Most people KNOW how I celebrate Christmas and what it means to me from a personal perspective. I take stock in that, let people do what they do, and concentrate on me and mines.

My personal belief: No, the Messiah was not born on 12/25, he was born closer to the summer. Had to be said, enough said. . . but I DO celebrate Christmas, in the general sense of the world, and what value the day has FOR ME.

So, Bah, Humbug to anybody that sells Holiday Trees, Holiday Presents, and Holiday Egg Nog.

Merry Christmas!

The Big Move

Three years.

Three years with two wonderful supervisors who:

- Cared About Their Employees
- Made sure that Christmas and Thanksgiving parties were a blast
- Randomly bought lunch and/or dinner in for the crew
- Could go to them and get a loan for any reason, interest free, taken out of your paycheck in convenient bi-weekly deductions.

Laid back. Jeans atmosphere. Most of us shared the same spiritual background, beliefs and principles.

All was well in the world, and a good time had by all.

Until the Big Move.

We moved into a building that was twice the size of our former building, complete with a state of the art breakroom, (really - I mean leather couches, mounted televisions, the whole nine). All the principles had their 8 ball in the corner pocket offices. Life was good. But the mortgage was not. It had doubled.

Sidebar: I did not participate in the weekend company move, because I, too was in the process of moving from one location to the other, the same weekend, so I was given a free pass.

So, when I came back from the move, I attributed the fact that I wasn't able to locate my desk to fatigue from my own move.

Perhaps I didn't look hard enough. Perhaps, in the disarray of the move, some of the desks were not assembled yet. I chalked it up to that.

Until I went into the receptionist area. In the lobby. With all of the phones.

And there were my boxes. And my nameplate.

((INSERT BLANK STARE))

WTF? Click on this link to view the EXACT desk, company, and location (I was on the right hand side).

According to the principles, I was to answer the phone for the receptionist if it went over three rings (the receptionist by the way was a lazy son of a *&$#% who never came to work on time, and totally took her time answering the phones)

So:

I was supposed to do the marketing for the company (I designed the silver sign you see), put out the company newsletter, plan special events, pull data queries and reports, analyze data, AND answer the phone saying "Welcome to Nelson & Associates, your source for PVC Pipes" on the third emma effen ring? AND sit with my back to all the Mr. Charlie's that come in the office. Um, Hell no. Strike One.

Second incident: I am nodding in the breakroom (Not laying out on the couch, feet up like Rick James on a Dave Chappelle Episode), but just sitting down on the couch, with my elbow on the arm of the couch. One of the principles came in here and said "No sleeping in the break room" I was like "On the couch?" He was like "No, in the breakroom".

He might as well told me No Parking on the Dance Floor. Strike Two.

Final Call: I was at my desk, helping the file clerk (who reported to me, who sat in the left chair) do something mundane, and in the process of it all, I was trying to take some adhesive off the back of a magnet. The principle passed by me, saw me picking at something and then called me in his office.

He asked me was I filing my nails.

At that point I could care less. I actually moved around to the side of his desk, and told him "You thought I was filing my nails? You thought I was filing my NAILS? I have worked here three years, never call out sick, always on time, and you are harassing me like I'm on parole. Why would you say something like that to me. AND anyway, I have acrylics, I don't have to file my nails." :P

He turned beet red. Strike Three.

But he wasn't mad as me. We moved in there in April, 2000. By August, I made the big move my own self; with 10K more to boot. I myself was raising the bar. I attributed the fact that their mortgage doubled could have attributed to the stress and/or weird behavior, but I don't have to partake in that.

Have you moved on, or are looking to make that big move? And tell us why!

December Old Skool Joint

I know every word - And I know YOU.DO.TOO!