Zoom For The Holidays

 

Are people traveling to your house for the holidays during the Covid-19 pandemic? Are you doing medical testing or have a space for quarantining? Do you have another room at the table to safely space everyone out?

The ‘holidays’ are the times when we like to get together with family and friends, over indulge in food and drink, yell and holler and laugh out loud to each other.

Still you don’t want to have to quarantine your grandmother in the garage or make sure little Timmy doesn’t hug too many aunts and uncles. It will also be hard to hold your breathe for a long weekend.

Since we all have become techno-nerds with our online video face time, we could just have a BIG zoom holiday.

First, you don’t have to clean the house. Just what the camera will see. You can still wear your sweats but put that holiday ugly sweater over top.

Second, you don’t have to travel. Traveling is such a pain. Did you remember all the presents and food and change of clothing? Did you remember your toothbrush? Did your remember to put out enough food for Fluffy knowing full well when you get back home there will be many surprises waiting? Did you remember Timmy?

Traffic is always bad and high fuel prices are not going down for the holidays. Plus being cramped in the car for hours with your family can make anyone cranky. Just what everyone wants to open his or her home to: cranky guest.

Third, no matter what you bring or how much time you spend in the kitchen, these people are strangers in a foreign land and you (host and guest) need to adjust. You don’t even have to take a shower because they can’t smell you (or your personal bodily functions) through the screen.

Fourth, if any of your members get out of hand, you can mute them. They can’t throw a dinner roll at you.

Fifth, you can eat whatever you want. You can even sneak off screen and open that other bottle of wine without anyone knowing.

Sixth, there are fewer dishes to wash. You could have been eating delivery pizza and others are just seeing you chew and swallow. Don’t forget to throw away the boxes, they cannot be recycled.

Seventh, when everyone leaves the table you can turn off the screen, log out and retire to the couch for a snooze.

There is nothing under the tree

 

Have you heard there is supply chain constipation?

Parts and pieces that make toys are sitting in cargo containers (yes, the elves build a lot of toys but they don’t build screws or hammers), and once the pieces come ashore they sit on a dock until a truck can come and pick it up and take it to a warehouse (that is also full) for sorting and separating Santa’s order. Then there is that whole snafu of politics with border restrictions. If that wasn’t enough, all the missing parts and pieces need to be loaded on dog sleds for the Iditarod to the North Pole and into Santa’s workshop.

While the elves are waiting for their COVID-19 vaccine shots, they are isolated and quarantined wearing their face diapers and shooting pool and drinking all of Santa’s spiced eggnog.

The big guy is getting bigger eating all those pies and cookies Mrs. Clause has been baking. Rudolph is wondering if they can get the sleigh off the ground?

Maybe it is time to look around and start re-gifting?

If that doesn’t work, it is time to make the kids aware that on December 25, 2021 there won’t be any presents under the tree. Suck it up kids. You got more than you will ever use. See how that rationale works?

Don’t blame it on Santa. He’s just waiting like you for that smiley box to arrive with Uncle Henry’s ugly sweater or Na Na’s extra teeth. Mom and dad have to keep the automobile lasting a little longer because we can’t afford a used car and there are no new cars…even electric. With the high prices we also can’t afford a turkey for Thanksgiving. Those frequent blackouts are happening more and more so learn how to write with a pencil on paper. Just drink out of the facet because we are all suffering. That 12 year-old bottle of scotch that was being shipped from your cousins in England just ain’t going to get here for New Year’s eve celebration.

Blame it on brexit. Blame it on pandemic. Blame it on over shopping. Blame it on the wildfires. Blame it on the hurricanes and floods. Blame it on climate warming and the reduction in the ice cap (don’t tell Santa). Blame it on people who have enough money to spend to fly into space for a few thrill ride minutes instead of using their wealth to save the earth.

Just don’t blame it on Santa.

 

Happy Holidays and New Year and Kwanzaa and Hanukkah and Festivus and Season’s Greetings and all that other stuff…

Introductions and Salutations

 

When we introduce someone to a stranger we preface the name with a ‘Mr.’ or ‘Miss’ or Mrs.’ to indicate marital status or ‘Doctor’ or ‘Captain’ or ‘Secretary’ to declare their occupation.

Very few men have been announced when they enter a room and everyone stands. They even have an entrance song.

Yet when celebrities are introduced to an audience on late night television, the adjectives describing the person are outstanding.

“And now the fabulous (name here)” or “the world renown (name here)” or “ introducing the magnificent and talented (name here) are just a sample.

We all love the English royalty hierarchy and the proper formal introduce to one another, so why don’t we do that?

 “World traveler, adventurer and knowledgeable historian (name here)” or “Mother, caregiver, and most fabulous chef (name here)” or “Athletic champion, sought after artistic woodworker and cherished teller of tall tales (name here)” are sample or you can create your own.

“Pompous Asshole (name here)” or “Princess Squaw (name here)”  or “Worthless Loser (name here)” could be used. They don’t all have to be sweet.

For Thanksgiving try these or other introductions and salutations. These are people you may see once a year and will be conversation starters. You might want to avoid religious or political references, but that is your decision.

We may sit more proper and maintain civility longer?

Don’t forget to bow or curtsy. 

Mosh Pit

 

I used to attend concerts all the time. I’d buy tickets for the latest stage show or musical traveling through town or the local symphony. To get a close up view of the performance I’d buy the expensive ‘orchestra seats’. Even with acts like ‘The Who’ or ‘Jimi Hendrix Experience’, the audience sat quietly in their assigned seat and applauded at the end of the song.

Then kids who had bought the ‘cheap’ seats in the balcony started running down the aisles and sitting on the floor to get the full impact of the show close up without paying for it. They would be shooed away by the ushers, but it became a habit.

The English Invasion happened and kids just couldn’t sit quietly and listen anymore.

Folk music in small coffee houses was quiet with no speakers as the audience sat a candle lit tables and swayed to the music. Then electric bands plugged in and everyone just used the floor to dance around.

 

Then there came the ‘mosh pit’.

 

Moshing (also known as slam dancing or simply slamming) is a style of dance in which participants push or slam into each other, typically performed to “aggressive” live music. Moshing usually happens in the center of the crowd, generally closer to the stage, in an area called the “pit”. It is intended to be energetic and full of body contact.

The dance style originated in the hardcore punk scenes of California and Washington, D.C. around 1980. Through the 1980s it spread to other branches of punk rock as well as thrash metal and grunge, which exposed it to the mainstream. Since then, moshing has occasionally been performed to energetic music within a wide variety of genres, including alternative rock, EDM and hip hop, while remaining a staple at punk and heavy metal shows.

Variations of moshing exist, including “pogoing”, “circle pits”, and “wall of death”. Dancing can be done alone as well as in groups.

While moshing is seen as a form of positive fan feedback or expression of enjoyment, it has also drawn criticism over dangerous excesses occurring in offshoots. Injuries and deaths have been reported in the crush of mosh pits. 

Concert seating turned into general admission and the appeal to stand for three hours and leaving the smoked filled venue with my ears ringing was lost.  The mosh pit put the period on attending musical acts.

Being on the floor with kids who wanted to run into each other was reserved for football, but they gave themselves helmets. Hand-to-hand combat has a long history but they were at war.

Jabberwocky

 

Some people keep diaries.

Some people keep journals.

Years ago a guy I knew carried a notebook with blank pages. He would write thoughts or song verses or doodle, usually on acid trips. He called his writings “Jabberwocky”.

This year climate change hit and it was too hot to do anything, so I wrote a “Jabberwocky”. I had just gotten some Shaffer fountain pens and was enjoying drawing with them. Then I started writing down thoughts and realized I’d lost my cursive writing skills. When the pens ran out of ink, I shifted to various size Sharpies.

Here are the results:

Jabberwocky

By Lewis Carroll

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

 

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

      The frumious Bandersnatch!”

 

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

      Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

      And stood awhile in thought.

 

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

      And burbled as it came!

 

One, two! One, two! And through and through

      The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

      He went galumphing back.

 

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

      He chortled in his joy.

 

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.