How are you ringing in the New Year tonight?
I think we are going to drink a bottle of REALLY good stuff and watch a mystery science theatre episode...old people.
Show us something from the 80's.
Although it looks like I have a big permed mullet, I do not. I have my big permed hair pulled back with combs. I was crazy for the curly hair...
Ahhh, the days of the Go-Go's, B-52's, Devo, Gary Numan and Buzzcocks...
What were your top 5 TV shows of 2006?
my name is earl
the office
dexter
the daily show/colbert report
masters of horror
How did you find out the secret behind Santa Claus?
Submitted by Carinish.
Secret? What secret? Are you implying he is gay?
There’s a joke that goes like this:
One person says to another, “ask me what the key to great comedy is.”
The other person says, “OK, what’s the key to great co--”
“TIMING!” interrupts the first person.
That loses something in print, but when said out loud it is kind of funny and very true. Timing is everything.
Every Christmas it is the same: What do I buy for my mother and father?
My parents are both passed the age of 80 and they have years of “artifacts” cluttering shelves and closets. Each year it gets harder to get them each something special, thoughtful and functional. I say functional because things I might have bought them a few years ago are not an option for me now. Interests and abilities change. My father once tended a garden that covered nearly 1/4 of an acre. His garden dwindled until it was reduced to a few tomato plants and herbs in pots. Last year was the first year in 30 he didn’t plant anything edible. Garden supplies have lost their function.
I have, in the past, resorted to specialty foods and gift cards. My mother loves Barnes and Nobles, Wild Oats and a place called Garden Ridge. Garden Ridge is so expansive and crammed with stuff, when I am in there it makes my head feel like my eyeballs aren’t connected to it.
My dad is partial to a store called Big Lots: a Big building with Lots of crap.
On the food front I always like to try and find German things and good coffee for my mother and soft, easy to gum and swallow items for my dad. My father hasn’t worn a set of dentures in I don’t know how long. He likes those neon jelly candies shaped like fruit slices. He used to love peanut brittle…but peanut brittle has lost its function. Since my mother got new dentures, fancy ones that snap into her jaws, she eats everything. When she takes them out it looks like something from SAW going on in there. I would get her some brittle, but that seems like a cruel joke to play on my father.
One year I bought my dad a chiminea. It was cast iron. I got it because even in brisk weather he likes to sit outside and stare at the space where his garden used to be. I figured it would be nice to have a fire going out there to give him a little warmth. Now that is thoughtful and functional!
A few weeks later I was back at the house and setting in the corner of the living room was the chiminea. My mother snatched it out from under my dad! She put candles in it and called it “her” little fireplace! My dad never even got the chance to burn a log or warm his hands with it. It never even got live up to its function.
This year I came up with what I thought was a special, thoughtful, functional and in many ways a gift to me as well as from me: JOURNALS! I would buy each of my parents a journal. What better way to spend a grey winters day than reminiscing on paper? I imagined my father in his chair at the dining room table with a cup of instant coffee and a pen, the ink a vehicle for the things he never said out loud or admitted to feeling…
It would be fair to say that my father is a very walled up little old man. He never speaks much of his past. He doesn’t express joy, sympathy or empathy. He would rather alienate you forever than get involved with you for 5 minutes. He never really bonded with us in the fictional family sense of the word. Oh, sure, he would take me fishing and to the zoo or the circus, but when I reached the age of boobs and pimples he took a step back and became as hateful and scornful to me as he was to my mother.
What do I know about my dad other than my first-hand experiences? He grew up very poor. As a treat his mother would give him a green onion stem and a glass of milk – the stalk was used as drinking straw. He is one of six. He had a thing for married women and they had a thing for him. His grandmother on his father’s side was blind. He once got arrested for feeding rationed meat to a starving dog during WWII. The things I know about my father seem very random and cold. Having a text written in his very own defined cursive script would be golden.
My mother, on the other hand, likes to tell stories. She grew up in Nazi Germany and she has more than a few stories to tell. She has funny, interesting and frightening tales of her childhood, life during wartime and her introduction to America. With mom, I know details of her life, not just arbitrary sentences. It would be nice to have some of it written down in her hand, though.
I knew I couldn’t force either one of them to cooperate on this, I could only suggest and hope for the best. My mother, always ashamed of her English skills, might be a hard sell. My father would either do it or not. His handwriting is precise and his language skills are strong. He used to write me the most eloquent of sick notes. His only excuse would be contrariness. I hoped that they would both see this as me offering a way to get to know them better - and not a chore.
For my father I picked out a nice masculine book that looked to be covered in worn brown leather. For my mother I chose a nice elegant book that looked to be covered in burgundy leather with some gold embellishments. Both journals had a flap with a magnetic clasp and a built in envelope for flat keepsakes. I included a gift tag with each that read, “WRITE – Your stories are important.” I felt really good about my choices.
I sent them a note before the journals arrived explaining I didn’t care what they wrote in the books; memories, dreams, favorite recipes, notions, things they did 50 years ago or things they did 5 hours ago, just as long as they wrote something.
I got a call from my mother around 7:00 pm last night. The package had been delivered Monday.
She said she LOVED the Il Divo cd I got her and that dad opened the Jim Reeves cd and listened to it right away. He put it in his car. We talked a little about Il Divo. She was surprised that she had never ever heard of them. We talked about the No Knead bread recipe I had emailed my sister, who in turn printed it out and sent it to her. She joked that she was going to make a loaf of the bread and give it to dad for Christmas. That’s all, a loaf of bread. I told her I had made a loaf of it just that day and that I used spelt flour in the mix and we talked about spelt. We talked about flax. Then we talked about what she was going to cook for Christmas. She said that dad had been feeling a little sick last week and that he had gone to the VA hospital where they fitted him with a heart monitor, but there was nothing to worry about. Then, in a very serious voice she said, “Mona, about those journals…”
I was ready to hear, “…your father thinks it’s a stupid idea and I can’t write English good enough so you can have them back…”
But what she said was, “…your father and I talked about your idea and we decided to start writing after Christmas. He said he wanted to wait until the New Year.”
I wanted to say, “don’t wait…just write” but all that came out was, “great.”
She wanted to know if we received the snack basket dad had sent and I told her we had. She mentioned how much they liked the music again. She thanked me for the journals again, promising one more time that they would use them, and with that the conversation ended. I felt very light and relieved and hopeful.
I got a call from my mother around 7:30 am this morning. She asked if I was awake. I asked her what was wrong and she told me my father had passed away in his sleep sometime before daybreak.
Timing.
Do you have a nervous habit?
Submitted by Herding Cats.
Everything I do is a nervous habit.
My life is a nervous habit.
But when I am especially keyed up I frett. I pace. I tug at my eyebrows. I don't pull them out, I just tug at them. I sit on my hands. I'm surprised they aren't flattened out like toilet lids by now.
I eat.
I have a scan of a photo of my grandmother as a baby in the arms of her mother. The original is printed on a cardboard like paper.
My great grandmother on my father's side was rather...handsome.
I also found a photo of my grandmother Vivian when she was around the age of 18.
I find the resemblance between us eerie. The very eerie thing is that I can also see a shocking resemblance between my grandmother and my niece, Shannon.
My father was a very handsome fellow and he knew it. He grew up very poor. He was one of six and his mother died very young.
His father abandoned the family and moved to Louisiana to start a new life. My father was just a toddler.
My mother was pretty, I always thought. She never felt that she was good looking enough for my dad, though. She somehow felt really lucky to have landed my Errol Flynnesque father, even though his looks did not match his personality. I think she may have married him for his looks. I have no idea why he married her. My oldest sister might be a good reason...
Oddly enough, she was abandoned by her mother.
More than once she was left somewhere wrapped in a blanket. One time - under a bridge. Mom said that her mother favored her male children and didn't really care about the girls.
Her father tried to raise her, but he was busy. There was a lot going on in Germany at the time...
She lived in an orphanage for awhile. Opa Martin married a woman in hopes that baby Margaret would be taken care of while he was away on business trips. The woman turned out to be an abusive horror. Coming home early from a trip, he found marks on Margaret's butt. The woman was thrown out.
I never met any of my grandparents. The ones on my father's side died before I was born. The ones on my mother's side lived in Germany and we weren't the types to travel. I spoke to my Opa Martin once on the phone in the 70's.
My mother had me sort of late in life. She was in her late 30's. Risky business back then. She was often referred to as my grandmother by people who didn't know us.
"Your grandma is here."
"Ask your grandmother if..."
"She's not your grandmother? Is she your mom?"
Yes, that old lady is my MOM!
What's on your holiday wish list?
I wish my hair would stop falling out. Bald doesn't look good on me.
What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?
Submitted by sami711.
Watching Santa Claus is Coming to Town...The one with Burgermeister Meisterburger. Brilliant
Watching A Christmas Story. I love Darren McGavin.
Listening to the Mexicali Brass Christmas record while making cookies and drinking rum and coke. I used to dance with my mom to these tunes. Wish I had a copy for myself. I found a place called Rhapsody (I think that's where it was) where you can download it, but I can't even listen to the clips because I'm in Canada. Stupid!
Having salami and bread and mustard and pickles and the like for Christmas Eve Dinner. Growing up, we always opened presents on Christmas Eve. The husband likes the American Traditional of opening them on Christmas Morning. Phhhrt.
Blue cabbage, potato dumplings.
Did I mention that my mother is German?
