It’s Beginning To Look A lot Like Commerce

 

 

 

 

On Tuesday, November 11, after I stood quietly, respectfully, for two minutes, I stopped at a Dollar Store, and picked up a box of biscuits for the dog.  With my receipt, the clerk handed me a postcard sized form.  If I filled it in and dropped it off soon enough at a downtown office, I might earn a seat in the reviewing stand for the local Santa Claus parade – being held tomorrow, Saturday, Nov. 15^th.

I returned home to hear the son announce that he’d picked up his ticket for his firm’s gala Christmas Party – being held next Saturday, Nov. 22.  Dear Ebenezer Scrooge, it’s not even the American Thanksgiving yet, and we’re already hip deep in Christmas.  Welcome to the Festival of Conspicuous Consumption.  The decorations have been out, and the ‘Christmas Sales’ have been on since Halloween.  Even today’s crossword had 3-down – gift-bearing trio = Magi, and – guide for 3-down = star, although, admittedly, those are a little more Spiritual than the rest.

Canada is a bit ahead of The States.  We held our Thanksgiving last month, well before the behemoth that is the Holiday Season was on its tracks and starting to move.  We’ll still be ahead of them in a few years when the commercial season begins about the 4^th of July, and we celebrate our independence on July 1.

Be sure to give the ‘Good Christians’ lots of room to ignore Ramadan, Rosh Hashanah, Diwali, Kwanzaa and secular atheism, and insist that their single day in the next two months of celebrations, is the only valid reason for The Season.

Allow the more militant among them a little extra swing room for when they U-turn, and insist that no-one should be allowed to have fun, or give presents, or engage in spiritual introspection, without their permission and participation.  Their cold, exclusionary Grinch’s hearts are well attuned to this icy time of year.

Armed with my CDs, I’m ready for the day, just over two weeks away, when the radio begins delivering nothing but all-Christmas songs, all the time.  I got a new keg of Bah Humbug on E-Bay, and will be downing the occasional shot to keep me topped up, as I help the wife assemble and bake Christmas Holiday cake and Christmas Holiday cookies.

Lost In Thought

Comment-provocateur John Erickson recently published a post about how Depression could derail him from his normal social circles, and send him off into extended bouts of abstruse research.  While our so-called minds don’t chase quite the same shiny objects, I appreciate his problem, because much the same can happen to me.

A typical recent day

I opened my stats page.  Someone had mined my archives and accessed my Trips With Mom And Dad post, from Feb. 18/12. I clicked on it to remind myself of the contents and comments.  This was the 14^th post I had published, and was the one where I was given my very first blog-award.  Candice Coghill, for whom I recently published a requiem post, had given me a Versatile Blogger award.

I reread all the comments.  Hers included two links, one to her acceptance-speech post, and the other to the Versatile website. I nostalgically reread her post.  Mine had been the first comment, though, that far back, I didn’t have a good grasp of blog protocol, and hadn’t “liked” it.  Even though it means nothing to anyone but me, I corrected my oversight.

The Versatile logo apparently has worn off my old post, and I went to the site with the vague idea of lifting and re-applying it.  There are almost a hundred comments, over about three years, from people who have received the award.  Some wanted tech help.  Some seemed to think they must declare the receipt of their award.  Others did so with the intent to create some interest and drive readers to their site.

I picked one, not quite at random, a young female who mentioned the “seven facts about me.”  Snoopy is not just Charlie Brown’s dog.  She’s half Filipina, and half Irish-American.  She started out looking like her Dad, but has vitiligo, Michael Jackson’s “drinking bleach” disease, and now is whiter than her Mom.

I “liked” her post, and thought about leaving a long explanatory comment, but didn’t like the idea of an international restraining order.  Finally, the concept of a blog-theme broke through the mental clouds, and I was off to Dictionary.Com to check the meaning of abstruse.  Might as well look up abjure while I’m there – and a couple of others.

Crossword puzzle clue/solution, singer Alma Gluck, turns up fairly regularly, and the name Gluckstein came up recently.  Let’s use the German translation program to get an idea what those names mean.  Gluck could be printed in English as G’luck because, aside from fortune and favor, it means good luck.  Stein means stone, so Gluckstein means good luck stone, a magic amulet, or charm.

I could almost see Google beckoning to me.  Exactly who, what, and when was Alma Gluck??  She was a Romanian-Jew named Rebecca Feinsohn, who came to America around the beginning of the 20^th Century.  She had a beautiful soprano voice and wanted to get into the entertainment business.  Since, at that time, Jews weren’t openly tolerated, she became the German, Alma Gluck.

Feinsohn translates as “fine son”, but “fine” used to mean small or delicate, like fine thread, or fine-grit sandpaper.  Was the progenitor of this surname small and delicate, or was he the A-one son we might think him today?

In the meantime, this Jewess, from a third of the planet away, became well-known for singing American folksongs like Carry Me Back to Old Virginny, and Swanee River with her husband, entertainer Efrem Zimbalist, not Junior, the original.  Now I know, who had no imagination.

I was down and up the stairs a half-dozen times.  I had to, to wear off all the food I stuff in my face.  It’s a good thing you didn’t see the platter of nachos I made myself for lunch.  I made and served lunch in bed to the wife, who’s still getting over her nasal surgery.  I fed and watered and medicated the cats, and let the dog out and in, each time returning to find out more about the German language, and a woman I’ve only met in newspaper crossword puzzles.

Yesterday’s crossword wanted “Kon-Tiki material” in 5.  Since I thought it was constructed of bundles of bulrush-like plants, I put in “reeds.”  I had to back out and work around to “balsa.”  Dictionary.Com has a crossword solver program, so I entered the clue.  Sure enough, there’s balsa, at the top, with a 90% likelihood.  The 6/7 other possibilities, in rapidly descending order are….interesting.  I copy them and put them in a Word file for a later post.

While I’m over at Google, looking up Alma’s skirt, I plug in Kon-Tiki, and, sure enough, there’s a picture of Heyerdahl’s balsa raft.  Or maybe that’s a photo of a couple of political refugees, on their way to Miami, from Cuba.

I finally heaved my bulk out of the computer chair, and headed downstairs to think about preparing supper.  (I fried up some onions and made up some boxed perogies, in case you care.)  Hot Damn!  It’s almost five PM!  I haven’t read anybody’s blog!  I haven’t read or responded to comments on my site!  I haven’t even read today’s paper, and I’m obsessing about composing this post.

I know I told you that I’d respect you, and call you in the morning but, ….if I haven’t shown up at your site for a couple of days, or a couple of weeks, I still love you.  It’s just that I’m lost in thought, since I have no mental GPS.  I’m probably wandering around in a forest of thoughts, that I can’t see for the trees, trying to entice my intellect back to reality with a virtual ice cream cone.  That explains why I also have a fat head.