Where Are You Christmas?

I'd like to say I haven't been writing in a while for some cool reason; like I'm really Santa Claus and needed to take a couple of weeks off to settle a union contract dispute with the elves, that will probably bankrupt Christmas in five years. Unfortunately, as most of you probably know, I'm not Santa Claus. In reality though, the scum bag unions will bankrupt our country in another five years.
I digress.
This is not a union rant, I'd need start a whole other, “unskilled workers blog” for that. As is, I have a long backup of regular blogs from the past few weeks. This current blog is about my Christmas. Though not currently affiliated with any particular god (still looking for sponsors), my mom and my kids are Catholic, so we do Christmas.

Now for my background. As a child I was raised Catholic, went to Parochial school and had a Jewish step family. We celebrated a lot of holidays. Christmas has always been my least favorite. It's not just the commercialism. It's not 'good' Christians, killing their neighbors for the last widget 3000 at the mega mall or racing out of the church parking lot like they were running from God-zilla. It's the phony-ism of it all. Christmas has gotten to the point that it is not even a Christian holiday.

December 25th is an arbitrary day, well not really arbitrary (Actually believed to be Saturnalia in Roman times.), just not historically correct.
There are all the stupid reindeer, snowman and snowflake decorations. Like these people aren't cursing their beloved snow when it comes and they're shoveling out their car.
The insane traffic consisting of “Kangaroos”, women with an SUV or minivan pouch filled with screaming sugar induced brats while talking on the cellphone to a like person about the blah blah that she got at blah for only blah blah blah over her credit limit.
The 400th rap remix of, 'The Drummer Boy'.
Answering the advanced physics questions posed about Santa Claus by your 5 year old concerning flight trajectory, time space continuums and waist to chimney ratios. This is the five year who can't even count past ten yet.
Everything about Santa Claus (except the movie, 'Bad Santa').
The four hundred charities that find your phone number for the three weeks before Christmas and treat it like a child playing with a new toy regardless of your answer.
Cutting trees down for the purpose of utter embarrassment; Slowly cooking them with 1000 low watt, 'ultra white' bulbs, dressing them in more colors than a $5 whore during a $1000 gang bang and showing them, through the largest window of the house to their outside tree friends, who are laughing at them.

The only thing that makes Christmas special is the look on a child's face on Christmas morn. It makes you forget the rest of the bad things, for about as long as it takes said child to toss the first gift and ask for the next one.

Happy Holidays!

Just Breathe

Tonight was the annual Christmas pageant at the girl's school. The church was filled to the brim. I watched as each grade went and sung their carols. Lizzy being in the younger class came on before Emily. As Lizzy got on the stage, I could see that she was nervous. Her grade sang quite well. Lizzy sang her heart out, but the butterflies in her stomach seemed to be flying around her face. As a parent it is tough seeing your children in those positions, the learning positions that prepare them for later on in life. In a smile of irony, I remembered the anxiety and fear that I used to have speaking and performing in front of people. I saw my face in hers and remembered looking out upon the crowd of parents, staring, laughing and whispering in screams.

I wanted to scream out to her “BREATHE”, she looked as if she had forgotten how to do that. I know I did, when in boys cloths, on that stage, so long ago.  Lizzy is a lot like me when I was younger. She can be painfully shy. Seeing through her eyes, I remember the fear and anguish, but also the relief of getting through it. Part of me laughs when seeing her nervousness, knowing that the butterflies will die in time and with practice.

After several more groups, it was Emily's grade's turn. As much as Lizzy is like young me, Emily is like older me. She fortunately was smarter though and didn't have quite as long of a learning curve. Emily's performance could be summed up in two words, “Bored confidence.”. She looked as if she had done the songs all her life and the routine was wearing on her. She didn't smile much except for a few times during the Christmas sock song.

This would be her last pageant, her last year in grade school. To her I wanted to scream out, “Cherish these times Emily, these memories will be buried under makeup, study, friends and boys.”. How bittersweet, our young moments often get lost, only to emerge in our older minds; time capsule filled memories dug up when least expected. Then I thought to myself, “Wait, Emily and boys? Just breathe, Reed, just breathe.”.

Two-Bit Blog in a 3-Bit World.

Color is one of those things that differentiates the sexes. Men basically see in eight colors. Something is blue or green or red. Never when we were younger did we ever hear the word midnight used before the word red, it was a time, actually it was precisely 12:00a.m.. We as men, see things very clearly and never have issues describing things. I bring this up because I was wearing a new green sweater that I purchased. A woman I was talking to complimented me on it and commented on what a nice heather forest it was. Heather forest? Flower forest? The lady three doors down forest? No, just a suffix that women use to describe a material that has flecks of color in it with the word forest appended to the end.

When I was younger I learned the colors of the rainbow as Roy G. Biv. (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet). These colors make up the clear light spectrum. I didn't see the girls learning another acronym like, Flortentino H. Floggendoggencollinsworth III, so I assume they too at one point only saw the original eight colors. At what age do people decided that colors should be described by items? It's always some strange, nice or exotic item. You never hear colors like transmission fluid, midnight fart or heather dung. Now when I buy clothes, the colors include Turkish Java, Shark, Midnight Rose, Grey Heather. I don't want to eat or smell my clothes, just wear them.

Yes, I know very well that this is marketing, but I think that we should put in effect some form of self control when giving items color descriptions. Maybe limit the colors used to those in the original 64 Crayola Crayon boxes, you know the ones that had flesh color as some eerie orange and pink mixture. Yes, I do think that it was racially insensitive. The people who complained about this color were racially insensitive to associate it with Caucasians. Do other races actual believe that caucasian skin color looks like a Pinky ball mated with an orange peel?

Anyway ladies, as most of you know, men are very simple creatures. Please refrain from telling us about your passion fruit blouse and red sunset skirt, just tell us the pink blouse and pink skirt and we'll figure out the rest.

Tuesday Tip For Living Alone #4 - Repair Victories

When you live with other people, you fix something and move on, when you are alone, every repair is a celebration.

I'm not sure whether it is because, when you are alone, you don't have the constant nagging and complaining and need to rely on your own motivation or whether it is the ability to celebrate the little things without fear of someone seeing you look outwardly silly.

I've owned two houses and did the majority of the work on both of them, even fully automated my first house without even a high five.

So where is this going?

My toilet began running several weeks ago. I decided that rather than have a huge water bill, I would fix it. I quickly deduced it was a faulty flapper valve. It's a real simple repair. I ran down to the local Lowe's to pick a new one up. Lowe's actually sells them in 5 packs. Who has five toilets that's flapper valves all go at the same time?  I had a toilet that needed the flapper valve replaced once a year at my last house and it still wouldn't warrant buying a five pack to save a nickel a piece.

Well, after about thirty seconds of repair work, the toilet was back in commission. I was so happy, I did a happy dance and flushed the toilet over and over. I went downstairs, got a beer, went back up and toasted my toilet with several more flushes. By my celebratory nature you would have thought I had repaired the Sistine Chapel.

I'm sure when I get my water bill, the celebration will be a sour memory.

The tip for the day, celebrating life's little victories is fine, just think before you flush.

Tuesday Tips For Living Alone - Overcoming Partial Procrastination.

One thing that seemed to happen to me when I started living alone was that I began to procrastinate. Not so much put things off as start them and then realize there was something else to do, partial procrastination.
The conversation with myself went something like this.
“Wow, I really need to, fill meaningless task in here.”. I'd start it and then inevitably, “ You know what, I think I'll pay my bills and do it tomorrow.”.
The next day would come and I'd be like,”You know, I could, fill meaningless task in here or I could read that new book I got. 'War and Peace' here I come.”.
This progressed until day five, when it became, “I could fill meaningless task in here, or I could continue to read 'War and Peace' or I could finish paying my bills or I could watch 'Two and a Half Men'.  That Charlie Sheen sure is funny.”

I'm not saying that I didn't procrastinate before, just that the level of alone procrastination has the ability to neutralize time itself, “Hey I need to take down those Halloween decorations, it's the day after Halloween. Wow, is it Christmas Eve already, why are my Halloween decorations still out?” It's almost Halloween, great, I don't have as much to decorate this year.”.

There are several ways to deal with this problem.
1. Write down tasks that you need to do in a dated list. This usually fails epically as you wipe your cheek off with a napkin that has, “Buy a notebook!”, scribbled on it.
2. Use your phone or computers calendar function to keep the items that need to get done in it. This also fails in a big way. Substitute, in the above sentences, fill meaningless task in here with look at phone or computer calendar.
3. Begin to do things as you think of them. This is the winner. As you think of doing the bills, sit down and do them. Need to go shopping? Get up and do it. Light needs replacing?, run out to Home Depot and buy a new one.
You'll be amazed at how much gets completely accomplished and how much free time you'll have left over. This will not guarantee that larger tasks will get done in one sitting, just that they will get done. Well, it's almost Wednesday, I think I'll write my Tuesday Tips For Living Alone blog and post it.

The Best Seafood In The World

Last night I went to dinner with my partners to the Oriental Garden Seafood Restaurant in NYC. I've always referred to this place as the Chinese Seafood Palace. I don't know how that name got into my head, but it did and it stuck. I know I've been doing a lot of rants lately, but this is going to be a rave. If you want a rant go to the last posting that mentioned this place, here, Peanut Butter on an English Muffin vs. The Best Seafood in the World.

There is no place in the world that does seafood as great as this place. The fish is all kept live in tanks up to the moment they cook it, just minutes before it hits your plate. The shrimp is cooked with the head still on, though a turn off to some, no need for alarm; you can pop the head off, just like the tail, with a good pinch. The flavor of the shrimp is indescribable, so I'll just say, heaven is a place where you could eat them all day. The scallops are visually stunning, served on the shell with an amazing sauce and noodles.  I've eaten many different dishes there and can sum up every one of them by saying, spectacular.

I wish my kids liked seafood and as soon as they show interest, I am going to take them to the garden. It may ruin any other seafood for them, but at least they will be able to say that they have had the best seafood in the world.

Besides the amazing culinary skill of the chef, the scale of these fish (pardon the pun), is not to be believed. Crabs that have better than 3ft claw spans. Hardy shrimp, Horror movie sized lobsters, Oysters that could be a meal each. I wouldn't be surprised if I saw the giant nautilus from the original Doctor Dolittle, cleaned, cooked, plated and on it's way out of the kitchen.

If you are a seafood lover or want to be one, you have to go to the Oriental Garden Seafood Restaurant. It is located in Chinatown across from the police station on Elizabeth Street. You'll see the fish tanks in the window. Tell them Reed sent you, they'll have no idea who your talking about, but I've always wanted to say that, so tell them anyway.

Creative Thursday - Guess Where I Was Tonight?