New Year Notes to Self

It’s popular this time of year to make profound personal pledges – more commonly known as resolutions – to self and significant others as a way to set a corrective course for the upcoming 12 months. Whatever. I’ve learned through first-hand from experience that the sad majority of these resolutions are all too often ignored, diluted, broken or otherwise abandoned by the time the Martin Luther King holiday rolls around in mid-January, if not sooner.

 
While I wouldn’t call what follows resolutions, per se, it still seemed like a good idea to start out the New Year with a few – well, let’s just call them “notes” to myself. For example:

Next year, I’ll take official power outage notices from Edison with a grain of salt. In the two weeks before Christmas, we were notified on at least four separate occasions (via robocalls, through the mail or with notices left on our door) that we would be without power on a specific upcoming day any time between 8 am and 7 pm. As someone who works from a home office bristling with computers, fax machines, scanners, printers, wireless routers and other technology, it takes a whole lot of planning and inconvenience to prepare to continue working without power or an internet connection. And so, four different days I made the many necessary, time-consuming arrangements, notified clients that I may be difficult to reach and have limited access to emails, etc. – only to have the entire day pass without even a flicker of our lights. Frustrating.

Speaking of lights, next year, I need to remind myself to shop for new Christmas lights and decorations in September. If I haven’t done it by Halloween, it’ll be too late.

Also, I really should play my guitars more. A lot more. And write songs. And sing. That said, this New Year I want the gift of music play a much, much bigger role in my everyday life. Hold me to that one, okay?

On the subject of music, singing and songwriting, next year I really need to write a song that becomes the soundtrack for every other TV commercial like “Home” by Phillip Phillips has been this year. So, yeah ... let’s make that happen. 

Then again – I’d have more time for music if I didn’t watch the first hour of NBC’s Today show on weekday mornings. The morning yak-fest is worse for my blood pressure than an entire 12-cup pot of dark roast. I’d love to have a word with the NBC execs who think it’s hip to have a minimum of five or more people on camera at once with each one clamoring to talk louder than the other until no story can be enjoyed, much less understood. And can we please put an end to this silly fad of having the show’s talent stand next to a big touch screen monitor and swiping images during a story?

Looking ahead to next December, I’m going to try not to walk around singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” I recently paid attention to the actual lyrics and it seriously creeped me out. The writer, Frank Loesser, didn’t include a reference to roofies in any of the lyrics, but he could have. He did, in fact, list the male singer as “wolf” and the female part as “mouse” on the original sheet music for this 1944 ditty, thus raising the creep-factor even higher.

Over the next 12 months I will try my best to Tweet on at least a somewhat-regular basis. Because Lord knows I need to spend more of every day staring down at a glowing screen.

He also knows I need to get back to memorizing scripture – one verse a week – something I did religiously (sorry, just too easy) the first half of last year, but somehow stopped as life got busier.

And finally, I hope that – this year more than ever – I’ll see you ‘round town.

A Post-Christmas Poem (Please, don’t try this at home!)

(With my annual apologies to both Clement Clarke Moore and the good Dr. Seuss, of course.)

‘Twas the day after Christmas and all through the Valley,
The kids were wiped out, every Jeong, Anoosh and Sally;
The gift cards were stacked and the best sales scoped out,
The mall rats were scurrying and hurrying about.

Returns were returned and exchanges exchanged,
The markdowns were posted, loss leaders arranged;
The retailers hoped they could salvage their season,
And entice burned out buyers with price as the reason.

But all the non-shoppers were home in seclusion,
So glad to be done with the noise and confusion;
Yesterday’s paper and ribbons and bows,
Were stuffed into trashcans ‘til they overflowed.

The last of the cookies and candy and fudge
Were quickly consumed, we’re all too stuffed to budge;
With Christmas feasts eaten and appetites sated,
Diets were planned, best intentions were stated

The weather warmed up as it too often does,
Away went the scarves and the sweaters and gloves;
Out came the flip flops and t-shirts and sunscreen,
A white Christmas here is depressingly green.

A tired old St. Nick was now back at the pole,
Another tough season had taken its toll;
With more aches and pains than at this time last year,
He needed a rest and hot toddy or beer.

To make matter worse the elves wanted a raise,
And health care and pensions and 401(k)s;
But the last thing he needed when push came to shove,
Was trying to navigate Healthcare.gov.

Yet in spite of exhaustion he still had to smile,
And he hummed and he chuckled in Santa Claus style;
What caused him to shout “Yippee!” “Woo hoo!” and “Zowie!”?
He had reservations for two at a condo in Maui.

So he loaded his sleigh up with he and the Mrs.
And waved to the elves and blew all of them kisses;
Then away they did soar toward the warm South Pacific
For a week’s R&R that would be so terrific.

He longed to forget the past year’s toils and troubles,
Political scandals and real estate bubbles;
The daily bombardment of glamour and glitter,
Of YouTube and Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

The Affordable Care Act and government shutdowns,
Twerking, Black Friday and Internet putdowns;
Posting and texting and selfies and tweeting,
It felt like his psyche had taken a beating;

But for now he was one of the jolliest fellas,
Daydreaming of drinks with those silly umbrellas;
And warm sandy beaches and air oh so tropic,
Mrs. Claus in a two-piece, now that would be epic!

When the lights of the islands appeared in the distance,
He banked to the south to escape wind resistance
Then I heard him exclaim as he nosed his sleigh down,
“Happy New Year to all and I’ll see you ‘round town!”

Barking Up The Christmas Tree

It’s official: my dogs think I’m crazy. Since we brought the two of them home as newly weaned pups last February, it’s been a constant battle to keep them from dragging all sorts of branches, pine cones, sticks, bark, twigs, pine bows, palm fronds, potted plants, roots and assorted other foliage into the house through their dog door. After ten months of this daily activity, we have learned how to tell instantly when they are trying to sneak some of this yard debris through their personal portal into our kitchen. If the stick in question is small enough, they will actually turn their doggy faces away from wherever we happen to be in the room so we don’t see what they have.

Getting past us, they will run straight for a less visible area of our dining room, living room or family room where they proceed to chew their prize to pieces and spread it all over our carpet like so much mulch. At times, the two chocolate colored pooches (aka: the brown clowns) will try to drag a two or three-foot long branch through an 18-inch wide door. That particular trick usually has us laughing more than scolding.

This all-too-often shredding of tree parts inside the house doesn’t exactly make my wife happy and, needless to say, the dogs have gotten used to our sometimes strident and often stressful vocal reactions to their shenanigans.

It doesn’t help that they appear to be slow learners. I say that because, even as they both approach their first birthday, one or both of them still bring in something from the yard a couple of times a day to shred. In spite of our best efforts, they manage to sneak by us undetected and wind up creating a nice debris field of wood chips and dirt on our carpet. Such a lovely thing to discover with bare feet. 

So, with this as the backstory, you can imagine the looks on their furry faces when last Saturday, I threw open our front door and proceeded to drag in my own green, branchy, pine-needley, seven-foot tall tree into the house and set it up smack dab in the most prominent corner of our living room. I could almost see their doggy thoughts as they went back and forth between ... “What the heck? He tells US not to bring green stuff into the house and now he’s bringing a whole tree inside?” to “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! Jackpot! Chew-a-palooza time!”

As I write this, our Christmas tree has been up and decorated for several days and, so far at least, the pups have yet to chomp on it. But that’s not the only danger they pose to the tannenbaum.

Did I mention that one of our two large, rambunctious, still-puppy-like dogs is a male? And as canines of the male persuasion are prone to do, he sometimes lifts his legs on things – certainly not a recommended activity with electric wiring circling the tree at leg-level and below.

Thankfully, he’s completely house broken. Then again, he’s also never had a real tree inside the house to tempt fate. Hopefully, we won’t see any extra holiday lighting effects this year from electricity meeting liquid.

I also hope we don’t have to create an ornament-free zone around the bottom several feet of the tree like we did quite a few Christmas seasons when our kids were toddlers and the low-hanging, shiny and oh-so-fragile things would wind up smashed on our tile hearth, stepped on or flushed down the toilet. Ah, precious Christmas memories.

At least with our two toothy tree terrorists in residence, I won’t need to cut up our tree when we’re ready dispose of it in early January. I’ll just haul it into the backyard and let the four-legged wood chippers have their way with it.

Merry Christmas! And I’ll see you ‘round town.

Making It A Choice Christmas

It often seems as if Christmas time is all about making choices. See? I just made one right there; choosing to use the traditional name of the holiday instead of the secularly sanitized euphemism, “Holiday season.” But this column is not an update from that battlefront.

 
The Christmas choices I’m thinking about involve much less weighty decisions. Like whether or not I should put up every string of outdoor lights that we have accumulated in our warehouse of decorations? Do the lights have to follow every inch of roofline and wrap hundreds of times around each tree trunk and porch pillar? Does every exterior window really need to be framed with twinkling lights? Wouldn’t a simple line of lights along the eaves suffice this year?

While I’m making lighting choices, should this be the year I finally acquiesce to my wife’s annual “suggestion” that we try all-white lights instead of our customary, time-honored, it’s-how-our-kids-were-raised, passed-down-from-generation-to-generation, the-axis-of-the-earth-will-shift-if-we-break-with-tradition use of multi-colored bulbs? That’s easy. Not a chance.

We had to make another crucial choice last week; whether or not our annual Christmas card will include a photo of our youngest son who, technically at least, is still living here. I say technically, because, while he does still have a bedroom here at home, for all intents and purposes he has lived on campus at his school in San Diego for probably 98% of the past year. Last summer he worked full time and lived on campus and only was home for a week or two at most.

Even so, we couldn’t help but wonder if he’d feel left out if we didn’t include him in this year’s card? Even worse, what if the photo of my wife and I did include our two new dogs – no kids (at least of the human kind), just dogs. Would our son’s feelings be hurt? Would he feel displaced by the new hounds in our home? We’ll soon find out, as the card we chose after much deliberation and handwringing does indeed show just my wife and I and both dogs. Gulp.

In our defense, however, our youngest son simply hasn’t been home enough this year even for me to get a photo of the three of us together. So there.

Debating over our Christmas cards brought up yet another choice that had to be made. Namely, should we include a dreaded “Christmas letter” with our cards this year, or do we give everyone on our list a break? The often-maligned practice of writing these things would make a good subject for an entire column, but again, not today.

Spoiler alert: If you’re on our Christmas card list this will ruin the surprise, but we did finally decide to send a letter along with our photo card this year – in part because so much has happened with our family since last Christmas and even more will be happening in the coming year.

We also chose to include a letter because it solves the problem of not including our kids in the photo on the card itself. The letter that will soon be mailed with our cards has interesting updates (hopefully) about each of four of our adult kids and their respective spouses, families and/or significant others – complete with photos of everyone involved, even the dogs. Problem solved.

Now that that choice has been made, our decision-making is by no means over. We still need to come to an agreement as to how many of our legendary Chase family Christmas cookies will be cut out, baked and overly-decorated this season. My wife would be happy with a single batch of approximately three dozen cookies. I’m leaning more towards two or three times that amount. After all, our kids may not live under our roof any longer, but that doesn’t mean they don’t come back to eat everything in sight.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Trudging Through A Turkey Coma

So how are you feeling? Guys, can you button your pants yet? Ladies, are you still defaulting to sweat pants whenever possible? Is that Ziplock bag of turkey still in your family’s fridge?

If so, it’s likely that most of your family members jet out the front door at the suggestion of yet another warmed-over, pick n’ choose meal of dried out turkey, congealed gravy and rock-hard mashed potatoes. Even our dogs turn up their big noses at turkey now.

I don’t know if I buy into the urban mythology of the so-called ‘turkey effect’. This phenomenon is supposed to be caused by an amino acid called tryptophan which encourages the body to produce serotonin, a brain chemical that is said to create a feeling of well-being and relaxation. In other words, a food coma.

Then again, I’ve also read that it’s not the turkey, per se, that creates this legendary sedative effect, but the plentiful platters of carbohydrates typically consumed along with the bird.

I first learned about the supposed sleep-inducing effects of eating turkey while shooting several TV commercials on location in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. It was the start of a long nighttime shoot, outdoors, and the production company caterer had just begun to serve the forty or so cast and crew members a feast of roasted turkey under the evening stars before filming began.
Hard to believe it’s already been a week since Thanksgiving. But judging from how people are behaving on the road and in stores all over town this week, I have a gut feeling (pun intended) that many of us are still coping with the logy, bloated, semi-conscious after-effects of stuffing too much turkey into our thankful faces.

When our producer arrived on scene, she took one look at the platters of turkey and went ballistic in a way that echoed off the rock cliffs a half mile away. The pretty, petite blonde advanced on the head caterer like an angry Arizona dust storm, smacking turkey-laden forks out of crew members’ hands as she passed them by. The entire distance from her SUV to the stunned chef, she was screaming variations of, “Are you out of your #&@%#*!!! mind, serving a hot turkey meal before a nighttime shoot?!? We’re all gonna be asleep before we roll ten feet of film!”

I felt horrible for the terrified caterer, but grateful it wasn’t me who had to face the wrath of our furious producer.

Not surprisingly, our delicious hot turkey meal was soon winging its way to a homeless shelter an hour or so away in Phoenix. The cast and crew all wound up eating cold ham sandwiches and store-bought macaroni salad that very long, very frigid night in the middle of the Arizona desert. At least everyone stayed awake (and shivering) all night. Ah, the glamour of the film business.

That said, I know some folks who could’ve used a heapin’ helping of tryptophan themselves last week. I mean, what goes through the minds of all those crazy “Black Friday” shoppers shown on the news, storming the doors of department stores in order to save a few dollars on another flat screen TV, video game console or iWhatever electronic device? From full scale brawls to shoppers using pepper spray and stun guns – the bargain-induced mayhem was hard to watch. It’s sad to think that the turkey leftovers were still warm and the football games undecided when many thousands of bargain-hunting bozos cued up to spend, spend, spend.

And yet, in spite of the unprecedented decision made by so many stores to open on the actual Thanksgiving holiday itself, the week-after numbers show a dismal drop of nearly three percent in total combined retail sales from the same shopping period last year.

Gee, maybe the biggest turkey at the table these days is our national economy. Or the administration responsible for it.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

A Face Full of Thankfulness

A trend on Facebook is to post something you’re thankful for every day throughout November. There’s another November Facebook phenomenon alternately called “No Shave November” or “MowVember,” in which male participants pledge not to shave for the entire month.

Having sported a mustache, goatee or full frontal beard since the summer after I graduated from high school, “No Shave November” is a non-event for me. On the other hand (cheek?), I do like the idea of deliberately being thankful for something thing every day.

 
While there isn’t room here to give all 30 thanks, I would like to note a few, as follows:

I’m thankful for my kids – who are now adults, each one pursuing their own unique dream, living (or planning to live) in places distant from their Crescenta Valley roots. Would their mom and I love to have them closer? Absolutely. Would we ever want them to stay local for our sake? Absolutely not.

I’m thankful for five healthy, happy grandkids – each one a beautiful blessing beyond measure.

I’m thankful that tomorrow I can “legally” open up our vault of Christmas music and start the annual tacky-music-athon.

As I face the annual “hanging of the lights” ritual (also known as ‘Dad loses it on a ladder’), I’m thankful that I still have hundreds of spare incandescent Christmas light bulbs on hand. So, hopefully, I won’t have to switch over to strings of those hideously garish, green-no-matter-what-color-they-are, LED abominations for years to come.

I’m thankful for dogs. Big dogs. Manly dogs. My kids call me a “dog dude” which I’m pretty sure is the equivalent of “cat lady.” I’m okay with that.

I’m thankful that – finally – the high profile, disgraced, disgusting and dishonest national politician most in the news this month is not from Washington, DC, but rather, Toronto, Canada. Whew. It’s nice to know that the U.S. doesn’t have a monopoly on stupid.

I’m thankful for love and marriage. Our two unmarried sons are both engaged to wonderful women who make each of them better men in so many ways. One son will be married next May, the other next September. 2014 is going to be amazing. Expensive, but amazing.

I’m thankful for the small group of Christian couples my wife and I have been meeting, studying and praying with on Thursday evenings this year. It’s a blessing to grow through life with you all!

I’m thankful for the new mercies I see, morning by morning.

I’m thankful whenever a heat wave breaks and an infrequent low-pressure system gives us a glimpse of what real seasons must be like.

Which reminds me, I’m thankful that I sweated it out and didn’t turn on our air conditioner during our recent So Cal “nineties in November” heat wave. Not sure I could’ve handled the depression I’d feel from using A/C so close to Thanksgiving.

I’m thankful our family never started the “Elf on the shelf” tradition at Christmastime. Sorry, that little squatter just creeps me out.

I’m thankful that I replaced our old mailbox just in time for the annual dumpage of catalogs. The poor thing is already experiencing metal fatigue.

I’m thankful that the Winter Olympics begin in only two months. I’m not a sports junkie until either the Tour de France or the Olympics begin. Then you can’t pry me away from the daily coverage.

I’m thankful I don’t feel any compulsion to join the mobs of mall (maul?) shoppers during Black Friday tomorrow. I can’t promise that I won’t be shopping online, however.

Finally, I’m thankful for my wife of nearly 28 years, an impossibly patient and grace-filled woman who somehow tolerates a husband for whom every month is No-Shave-November. Love me, love my fur.

And with that, I wish you and yours a tender turkey, creamy mashed potatoes, good drink and conversation, a warm home and even warmer relationships.

Happy Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you ‘round town!

A Wonder-Fall Season

Everywhere I go lately, more people (myself included) are commenting on how fast time seems to be going by – this year more than any other. For example, how could it already be almost six months since I “wondered” in this space? Better fix that right now. Ready?

I wonder ... how many irate letters were written to Capital One about their new Quicksilver credit card commercial where celebrity endorser, Samuel L. Jackson, looked straight at the camera and used a swear word. It only took about a week before they felt the wrath of viewers and replaced the offensive spot with a tamer, more civilized version I’m sure they had in the can just for that purpose. Mr. Jackson now says, “ ... every single day.”

I wonder ... how long it will be until nobody notices such language from primetime network advertisers?

I wonder … how many times I’ll be suckered into buying the latest Paul McCartney album? Let the 71-year-old man retire, for crying out loud. He only transformed the world of music and pop culture for multiple generations and will forever be remembered as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. But seriously, if anyone other than Sir Paul had produced such boring, repetitive albums as his last couple of dozen, they would be insignificant bottom-dwellers of the iTunes sales charts.

I wonder … if advertisers are really using more sound effects of door bells in their commercials? Or am I’m just noticing because I have a hyper-active, 90-pound maniac of a Labradoodle puppy in the house who will knock down chairs, leap over couches and move his four furry legs faster than Fred Flintstone at quitting time in the quarry every time he mistakenly thinks there’s somebody at our door. The other morning I counted no less than 8 different commercials using a door bell sound effect in the span of two hours. My poor dog.

I wonder ... if women will ever participate in the national “No-Shave November” event like more and more men do each year? I mean, if our longsuffering lady folk have to put up with our bristly, scratchy faces, it’s only fair that we should have to do the same with their legs, right?

I wonder … if anyone in management at LAX realizes the instant negative reaction their airport receives wherever one travels around the world? This past summer I took one of those shared airport shuttle vans to Dallas-Fort Worth airport from my hotel about 40 minutes away. Two of the passengers crowded into our van began comparing airport horror stories and nominating which one they would least want to travel through. The other travelers soon joined in and eventually, there was a consensus that either Pittsburg or Sao Paula were the absolute worst – until I mentioned LAX. Immediately, there was a unanimous groan of acknowledgement that LAX was the place no one wanted to see on their itinerary due to a combination of rude, unhelpful employees and overused, poorly designed facilities. Other than that, we got it goin’ on, Angelinos!

I wonder … why more entrepreneurs for whom English is a second language don’t have their business signage looked at by someone a little more familiar with the mother tongue before hang it up for all to see? Along Foothill Blvd alone, there are many storefront signs that are, to say the least, confusing. For example, what does “Building your healthy place” mean for a pizza parlor? Beats me. At one time (it’s closed now) there was a Chinese restaurant on Foothill in Tujunga with a deliciously terrible name, the “Poo Ping Palace.” Not surpisingly, I could never get up the nerve to try their food.

I wonder ... if we’ll all be wearing coats or cut-offs for this year’s Montrose Christmas parade? Only the Doppler Nine Thousand Mega Radar Dookickey knows for sure.

I’ll see you ‘round town.