Enough Already of 2011, Bring on 2012

I don’t know about you, but now that there are less than a handful of days left in 2011, I’m more than ready to unceremoniously boot this tired and tattered old year to the curb and welcome in the new one with open arms and high hopes.

What last Sunday morning was a magical mishmash of tinsel and trappings, garland and gewgaws, bright greens, reds and golds – by Monday was starting to look more than a tad garish and gaudy. Youthful excitement and anticipation of the coming Christmas festivities had already begun to turn into the familiar adult dread of the coming credit card statements. The tips of the branches on our tree seem to droop a bit more with each passing hour (as does my enthusiasm for hefting all of the containers of decorations back into the attic once again). Our vast collection of treasured Christmas CDs has already been locked away in the family media vault until sometime late next November. To be totally honest, you couldn’t bribe me to play a single song from that play list until then.

I mean no disrespect to anyone for which this year has been all unicorn smiles and rainbow sprinkles – but speaking for myself (with the possible exception of an adventurous late summer attempt to summit Mt. Whitney), 2011 has mostly been one big pain in the proverbial patootie.

I’ve had more than enough of the terrible economy, near-historic unemployment levels, rising international turmoil and, please, from now on let’s stop giving those petulant “occupy”ing lowlifes any more attention.  

I’ve had enough inept, incompetent and inexcusable “leadership” from politicians who are paid too much, enjoy too many perks and aren’t affected nearly enough (if at all) by the terribly oppressive and harmful taxes, regulations and laws that they create and enact. I just read that at 12:01 a.m. on January 1, over 750 new laws will go into effect. That alone should frighten every thinking person straight into the voting booth next November. I for one can hardly wait.

I’ve had enough of the winds, thank you. It’s pure coincidence that our gardener (who really doesn’t actually “garden” in any traditional sense of the word – we affectionately label his services “mow, blow & go”) shows up every Wednesday afternoon, and the past three windstorms have all started on Wednesday night or Thursday morning. But it would really be nice to have a yard that isn’t buried under mountains of pine needles, dead leaves, lethal pinecones, fallen branches and Wicked Witches of the West for more than a few hours after he mows, blows and goes. Oh, and power that stays on is a nice thing, too.

I’ve had enough of mail order catalogs that began their annual holiday/Christmas deluge about two weeks before Halloween. I foolishly hoped for a slight pause between the Christmas surge and the post-Christmas/New Years Sale avalanche. No such luck. Last Friday our mailbox was filled with “Last Minute Gift Ideas!” By Saturday catalogs announcing “Unbelievable End-Of-Year Savings!” began arriving.

Before we yank the plug on 2011, I want to mention the brilliant commentator, Peggy Noonan, who wrote in her Wall Street Journal column last weekend that in the moments just before he disconnected from that great Ethernet in the sky, Apple founder and techno-visionary, Steve Jobs looked for a long time at his sister, then his children, and then his wife. Finally, his gaze lifted above and beyond their shoulders, his eyes widened and he said,  “Oh, wow! Oh, wow! Oh, wow!” Ms. Noonan pegged Jobs’ last words as the best thing said in 2011.

I agree. (iAgree?) Finally, I’d like to express my thanks and gratitude to the faithful readers of this blog (column) and of the CV Weekly newspaper this year. My end-of-year wish for everyone is that 2012 bring fewer events that make us say, “Oh, no …” and many more that make us say, “Oh, wow!” 

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 12.29.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

A Visit from Santa (Anas)

 (With my annual apologies to Clement Clarke Moore and a big, honkin’ “Thank you!” to So Cal Edison employees.)

‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the Valley,

The shoppers were combing the stores, streets and alleys.

Looking for last minute bargains and buys,

Before they collapse with a whimper and sighs. 

Our kids had come home from their colleges far,

They were raiding the fridge and borrowing the car.

And me in my slippers and mom in her robe,

Were finding new patience to match that of Job.

When out in the yard there arose such a clatter,

I burst through my screen door to see what was the matter.

The winds had returned and were blowing quite hard,

There were branches and tree limbs all over our yard.

The moon on the wreck of my neighbor’s wood fence

Let me know -- from the wind -- we would have no defense.

Our gardener had come only hours before,

He had mowed and had blowed ‘til he couldn’t do more.

Then from inside the house my dear wife, she did shout,

“Oh crud, not again … our dang power is out!

The lights have gone dark and the heater just quit,

My blow dryer’s dead, I’m so mad I could spit!”

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a big snorkel truck that was loaded with gear.

With a no-nonsense driver, all frazzled and furry,

I said to myself, “This old guy’s in a hurry!”

More rapid than eagles, up our driveway he came,

He went right to work, never saying his name.

Checking our breakers and wiring and power,

That old guy was good, it was his finest hour.

A big coil of wire he had flung on his back,

And he looked like an angel with hope in his pack.

He was dressed all in denim and flannel and hardhat,

He worked fast with his tools, not once stopping to chat.

The end of a line he held tight in his teeth,

Transformer smoke encircled his head like a wreath.

His face it was weathered, his hands very calloused,

They worked wire cutters with such nimble prowess.

Then throwing a switch at the top of the pole,

He quickly climbed down and commenced to extol.

“That’s it, I’m all done, you can wipe off that frown,

You’ve got power again and the wind’s dying down.”

My wife was ecstatic, our fridge was back on!

We could once more leave lights on from dusk until dawn.

The meat in our freezer would not be thrown out,

The veggies and bread loaves and “fresh” frozen trout.

But who was our hero, I wanted to know?

This electrical wizard now packing to go.

I wanted to thank him with great gratitude,

To just let him leave would be terribly rude!

But when I walked over to give him our best,

He got back in his truck like an unwanted guest.

He started the engine and put it in gear,

Didn’t want any thanks, that was perfectly clear.

With a wave of his hand he bid us goodbye,

Drove away down our street with his headlights on high.

But I heard him exclaim with his window rolled down,

“Merry Christmas to all, and I’ll see you ‘round town!”

Note: This is a post of my column published yesterday, 12.22.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Getting the LED Out At Christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like … uh, Vegas? Am I the only one who cringes at the glaring, glowing sight of all the new LED-type Christmas lights on houses throughout the neighborhood? They may be more energy efficient (or to put it in the mantra of the moment, “green”), but they certainly aren’t as cozy and Christmas-like as the old school incandescent ‘C-9’ lamps.

For my tastes, LED (which stands for “light emitting diode” in case you care and please don’t ask me where diodes come from) Christmas lights are as warm and cheery as the rotating blue beacon on top of a police cruiser. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that if you look at LED lights long enough they’ll blow out every rod and cone in your eyeballs.

Now, I’ve heard the arguments promoting LED lights as being longer lasting, energy-saving alternatives to the old, glass-blown, incandescent bulbs. I’ve read that the glary LEDs use only 15% of the energy of a standard bulb and put out more light, there’s no filament or glass to break, they don’t get dangerously hot and blah-de-blah, blah, blah. Or rather, bah humbug. You might as well remake A Christmas Carol with Ebenezer Scrooge played by Justin Bieber instead of George C. Scott. Puh-lease.

It’s Christmas time, people. A sacred time of excess and extravagance. I want to see my electric meter spin like a Frisbee on crack when I flip the switch on my outside lights. I want Edison shareholders to send me a handwritten, tear-stained note of thanks at the end of their fiscal year.  

Sorry, but I insist that my Christmas lights be a warm and cheery red, blue, orange, white, green – not environmentally sanctioned, Sierra Club-approved “green.” I want mine made from glass so they shatter when I drop them on the ground or step on them on the lawn as I’m trying to figure out how a string that was carefully and neatly stored away in January mysteriously became a tangled Gordian knot of green wire and broken glass while sitting undisturbed in a storage container in my attic for eleven months.

My wife and I love to walk various neighborhoods in the early evening and enjoy seeing how individual homes are decorated for the various holidays. One La Canada neighborhood that we frequent is a microcosm of trends – both old and new – in lighting technology, with many homes decked in tasteful rows of cozy and inviting traditional C9 lights and their next-door or across-the-street neighbors’ homes bedazzled with newer LED laser-like light shows. (I’ve considered donning my Maui Jim’s as I pass by these homes.)  

For me, it’s the difference between listening to White Christmas or Let It Snow sung by Nat King Cole, Lou Rawls or Burl Ives as opposed to hearing these venerable classics “interpreted” by Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne or Ceelo Green. It’s just not the same experience, if you get my (snow) drift.

Maybe I have this thing about old school lights because they nearly killed me in my youth while stringing lights at my parent’s house. Turning on the lights to see if any needed replacing, I unscrewed one that wasn’t working, saw that the metal contact at the bottom of the socket was not touching the base of the bulb, and – forgetting that the power was still on – stuck my index finger into the socket to bend the contact up. Dear holy mother of Donder and Blizten. I had no idea I could fly. When I came to I was laying on the lawn about 15 feet from the ladder with the smell of singed hair in the air. I’ve felt this odd, tingly connection with Christmas lights ever since.

Anyway, now that I’ve thoroughly positioned myself as a lighting snob, I’ll shut up -- for this week at least. Besides, I have to find a ladder and go replace some burned out bulbs on my roof. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published Thursday, 12.15.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Unplugged & Unhinged

That’s it. I’ve officially changed the lyrics of the classic Christmas song, “Let It Snow” to “Let It Blow!” I’m mean, chill out, Mutha Nature. That Santa Ana event our county weathered last week was nothing short of epic. In my many years here in Southern California, we’ve  made the national news several times due to spectacular wildfires that make for riveting video footage. But never (at least to my knowledge) have we received network coverage for our windstorms. Until last week.

Listening to the winds as they ripped through the trees around our home last Wednesday night, I kept looking at the clock on my nightstand so I’d know when we lost power. In the backyard, I could hear pine cones dropping like heavy mortar-fire onto our lawn from a neighbor’s pine tree that towers over our back fence. With nervous laughter, our family has always called these football-sized pinecones “widowmakers” because of their wicked, talon-sharp scales and impressive weight. The thuds as the cones hit the turf made me thankful our dog was sleeping fitfully alongside our bed and not outside in the line of fire. Thankfully, no animals or small children were lost in the pinecone barrage.

We eventually lost our power sometime early Thursday morning and didn’t get it back until Saturday. Which meant, of course, that we also lost a significant amount of food from our kitchen fridge and the separate freezer in which we store all those great Costco buys out in the garage. Sigh. As frustrating as it was having to throw food away, I have to admit to feeling a sense of adventure as I dusted off our ancient Coleman gas lantern (and had to remember how to replace the fragile cloth mantles) and hung it from the ceiling fan in our den to read by. Without Facebook, email or TV (among other e-distractions), I read more in the few days we were powerless than I’ve been able to read in months. In fact, I almost finished author Stephen King’s latest cinder block-sized novel (all 800-plus pages of the beast) released only a few weeks ago. I was sure the book would last me well into the New Year.

Yes, it was cold in our house, but we bundled up and made the best of it. And to be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to resetting all of the digital clocks in our house when the power returned. For me, however, the worst part of the power outage was witnessing how dangerously ignorant (or willfully reckless) many of our fellow Crescenta Valley drivers were in blasting through busy intersections where the signals weren’t in operation (which means almost every intersection along Foothill). Did the DMV change the law about treating an intersection as a four-way stop when traffic lights aren’t working? I lost track of how many times I waited at an intersection – watching the dance of the drivers try to figure out whose turn it was to creep out into the no-man’s land – only to have some clueless chucklehead blast through it without so much as tapping their brakes. How there weren’t more head-ons or destruction derby-like collisions is a mystery. Note to the DMV: make it more difficult to pass the driver’s test from now on, please.

Thankfully, the winds seemed to shut off just in time for the annual Montrose Christmas parade to go off without a hitch – or at least without spectators and participants alike having to be tied down like so many warmly dressed balloons. I hope everyone who made it out to the parade route had as much fun as all of us on the CV Weekly float did waving to you all. Oh, and thanks for all the much appreciated shout outs of support as we passed by. We love you too.

With my LED flashlight and a boatload of AA-cells close at hand these days, I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my edited column first published Thursday, 12.8.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Winter Wonders

Thanksgiving is over and I can “legally” play and sing Christmas music. However, I have to fess up and admit to singing one of my favorites, “I Wonder As I Wander”, no matter what season the calendar says it is. In addition to loving the beautiful melody of this classic carol, I probably like this particular song because I do, in fact, wonder oddly disconnected thoughts every waking hour of every day. Like these for example:

I wonder … if anyone else sees the irony in our usual post-Thanksgiving SoCal heat wave occurring last weekend, the very weekend so many of us put up outdoor Christmas lights and decorate for what’s supposed to be a wonderfully wintery season? It was actually painful for me to drive along Foothill this past Saturday and see live Christmas trees for sale, withering in our mid-80-degree temps. Now, I realize many people love our climate more than ever this time of year because of this very kind of summer-like warmth. All I can say is, bless your heat-loving hearts. Maybe I can interest you in buying our house when we load up the moving van and head for the Yukon. Bleh.

I wonder … if we’ll ever see an actual bike parked at one of those new racks all along Foothill Blvd. So far, a not one. 

I wonder … if anyone else is as creeped out as I am by that LensCrafters commercial with the guy on the bus who is reading over the shoulder of the lady several rows ahead of him and laughing out loud like a recently escaped patient from the Happy Home? Stop the bus, please. I really want to get off. 

I wonder … (speaking of commercials) if other people respond as negatively as I do to that whacked out lady in red who stars in the onslaught of Target commercials airing lately. How do those spots make me feel? Well, imagine taking a big bite out of an old, moldy lemon hours after the Novocain from your oral surgery wears off – then finding half a worm inside the lemon. It’s kinda like that – only worse.

I wonder … how lazy does someone have to be to actually think electric salt and pepper grinders are a good idea? I saw them for sale last week at an upscale cooking store in Pasadena. Really? Have we become that lethargic? What’s next, a remote control TP dispenser?

I wonder … if I’ll ever be in decent enough shape to wear a cycling jersey and pants without looking and feeling like a large, brightly colored kielbasa link on wheels? Why do the makers of bike clothing assume every cyclist is a recovering anorexic or native of Munchkin-land?

I wonder … if anyone else out there is repulsed by the shopping mania that overwhelmed the Thanksgiving season this year? To watch TV news or read the newspaper last weekend, you’d think that scoring a smokin’ hot deal on a humongous, flat-screen TV or video game console was the only thing many Americans live for. Sadly, maybe it is.

I wonder … who knows the identity of the “electric elf” who every year magically makes Christmas lights appear along the footbridge that connects the west end of Two-Strike Park with Henrietta Ave. I know, but there’s no way I’m spilling Santa’s little secret!

I wonder … if anyone else thinks the title of the new blockbuster in the werewolves vs. vampire movie franchise should have been “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Wind”? (Sorry, that was just too easy to pass up.) 

I wonder … speaking of wind – if Southern California has ever had a windstorm like the one we’ve been experiencing since this past Wednesday? Trees down everywhere. Power out for days at a time (which is why this post is late). Roofs blown off. Houses and cars crushed. Traffic accidents up the wazoo because drivers don’t know enough to stop before blowing (sorry) through intersections where the signals are dark. Stores closed during the busiest shopping season of the year because cash registers won’t work. Fun times.

I wonder … if you’ll see me waving as I ride along with the rest of the CV Weekly crew in the annual Montrose Christmas Parade this weekend? Please come out and enjoy this wonderfully small town tradition and give us a wave and a yell.

And if I don’t see you along Honolulu Avenue Saturday night (or we all get blown away in the process!), I’ll see you ‘round town.  

Note: This is a post of my edited column first published Thursday, 12.1.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.