A bit of cheer

As you may recall, I had a bit of trouble finding the Christmas spirit within this year. It came in little bursts over the last couple of weeks, but yesterday, Christmas Eve morning as I was wrapping the last of the gifts, I needed to really feel it, so I turned to the master: Bing Crosby. For me, watching a Bing Crosby movie is like mainlining a candy cane. There is no quicker delivery system for the Christmas spirit.

There are the more understated Bing Crosby movies, those in which he just happens to sing a song every now and then (Going My Way is my favorite. If you are not undone by wee ancient Barry Fitzgerald longing to see his mother in Ireland, then you have a heart of stone and I'm afraid there is no hope for you.) and then there are the big, technicolor full-fledged musicals. And that was what the situation demanded.

In my house, if Frank Sinatra was dinner music, then musicals were general entertainment. When she was a child, my mother used to practice smiling under water just in case she ever became the next Esther Williams. Musicals were her era. We saw a LOT of them. And I hereby proclaim to the ironic new century: I love them. Among the most dazzling moments of my childhood was being taken twice into the big city to the Castro Theatre (which I still find quite magnificent, but 9-year-old me found almost unbelievable) to see musical double features. One was West Side Story and Gypsy and the other was An American in Paris and Gigi.  Sure, one of those is about a stripper and another is about a courtesan, but the nature of the 1950s technicolor, sound-stage extravaganza is that a 9-year-old can sit through the whole thing and emerge completely unsullied. For every famous one(Oh, Funny Face, how I love you.  Reluctant model Audrey Hepburn sweeping down the Louvre stairway as fashion photographer Fred Astaire calls "Stop! Stop!" "I don't want to stop," she says, "Take the picture, take the picture!")

there are about ten million lesser-known musicals that involve some man in love with some showgirl where Complications Ensue before the ultimate proposal of marriage. They meet in Chicago, say, and it's swell until she thinks he's making a play for her roommate because she walks in when his cuff link was caught in the roommate's hair or something and it looked Very Compromising. Then her act might get booked in Miami and he's gotta find a way to get down there so as not to Lose Her Forever and once he does, they will probably have to sort out a quarrel while tap dancing. And here's the thing. I love those too.

Now, in White Christmas, when the song and dance fellas decide to head to Vermont along with the song and dance dames, and one of them says (and not for the first time, I might add) "It should be beautiful this time of year" and another says (also not for the first time. FORESHADOWING!  ALERT!), "All that snow," prompting them to lean toward each other over the table and sing the word "snow" one at a time and then in four-part harmony, it is quite obviously absurd. And when one of the lyrics in the snow song proves to be "I want to wash my hands, my face and hair with snow" it is not to say that I didn't chortle. It might actually be the worst song I've ever heard. But.

I get all the old movies at http://bit.ly/moviefilm straight onto my pc.

But.

When Bing sings a reassuring song suggesting that if you can't sleep, you ought to count your blessings instead of sheep, my eyes go all blurry. And then, when they get the whole Army company back together to show their WWII general that he still has value in the post-war world, the tears are flowing. Is it ludicrous that what is meant to be a barn of a Vermont inn is suddenly large enough to accommodate a hundred soldiers and their wives, along with the entire cast and chorus of a Christmas spectacular, brought up from NY for the Christmas Eve show?  Of course it is.  The point is, I don't care.  When they sing "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" and fling open up the huge back door to show that it is finally snowing (it hadn't been snowing. It was a big problem.) and the inn would be saved and everyone's dressed in red and the General will be okay and the estranged couple is embracing behind the Christmas tree and... and...

Well, gosh darn it, Merry Christmas, everyone.

And to you!

Last night the erstwhile blog bully, his wife, and I trundled off to see The Mousetrap at Shotgun Players (it's extended! you can see it too!). When we sat down, the lady behind us expressed her concern that the blog bully's outdoor hat had a bit too much height for optimal theatre etiquette and that she wouldn't be able to see anything at all.  Not to worry. He had thought of that.  He reached his hand out to his wife, like a toddler demanding Cheerios, and she produced from her bag a snug-fitting indoor knit cap. They did a swap and all was well.  That is, I say all was well, but the joint was just filled with murders and suspicious characters. An evening fraught with drama. But I'll never tell who done it.

The woman next to me had a nervous habit of twirling her hair, which might not have affected me in the least if she had kept her twirler close to her own, personal head. However, her method involved first combing her hair with her fingers, straight out and to its full length, before twirling it back again. meaning that much of the operation was a good deal closer to my head than hers. She did this, unconsciously, I think, for the better part of two hours.  Only because Santa and the baby Jesus are on high alert this week, I restrained myself from telling her to knock it off. I eventually contrived to comb my own hair half way over my left eye in order to eliminate my peripheral vision. Naturally, that didn't block out her companion's insightful whispered commentary such as "isn't it a nice set?" in the middle of the Act II climax, but it did improve things considerably.  Besides, I already regarded the evening a success since the artistic director had flashed a peace sign at me from across the room at intermission. Look, that may not count as a big thrill for you, but I've always had a crush on the artistic director.

The curtain came down and we rebundled ourselves (hat swap: activate) and headed to the BART station across the street where there were two fire trucks and at least eight police cars. At first it appeared that the entrance to the station had been cordoned off, but it was still passable. What we could see was a lot of police tape, a great many police officers, a homeless person's shopping cart and sleeping bag, a woman with a bandage on her head and...basically nothing else.  No one in handcuffs. No trace of blood. What happened that could have possibly required a response by eight cars? I don't know, but I can tell you this. It is very unsatisfying to come out of an Agatha Christie murder mystery straight into a crime scene and be provided with no narrative arc whatsoever.  Real life. Pffffft.

When we finally made it home, we walked up the hill from the 24th Street station in a light rain, my companions easily chatting and me breathlessly trying to speak (their level of fitness exceeds mine exponentially. It's embarrassing). As we made our way, several strangers lurched toward us to say, "Happy Holidays!" They did not appear drunk, exactly, so much as insistent. Well, except that one guy. That one guy had had a few. It was late on Christmas Eve Eve, so people's Christmas spirit was heating up, certainly, but it was still unusual. "And to you!" I would reply, trying not to look startled.

As we stood on the corner waiting for the light to change, the blog bully pushed his hat back a bit to keep it from slipping over his eyes.  "Oh!" he said.  "Maybe it's my hat?"

Ohhhhhhh.

Right. So accustomed are we to seeing the blog bully in a hat, we stopped noticing that, for the occasion, he was not wearing his usual outdoor cap that looks something like this:

But Instead, one that looked a lot more like this:

Yep. That'll be it then.

It's Christmas Eve!  Wishing each of you well-wishing passers by, warm heads filled with visions of sugar plums. and no crimes at all--unexplained or otherwise.

In which I am an ungrateful wretch

Working at a school means that while you're not rolling in tech money, you do get a lot more vacation time than people in other sorts of jobs.  However, working at a school and not being a teacher means that you do not get as much vacation time as your colleagues. It's not that I think I work as hard as teachers. I don't work as hard as teachers. It's also not that I think teachers should get any less time off than they do. As it stands, it's probably juuuuust enough to keep them from throwing things at the heads of America's young scholars.  There are situations, however, where logic just doesn't come into play.  Being one of about 15 people in the building when the other 440 people who are usually here are either away on glamorous vacations or at home in big fluffy slippers with mugs of hot chocolate clutched in their mitts is one of those situations.

In reality we few, we unhappy few, only had to work three more days than everyone else, but as they all waved merrily and called out "have a good break!" on Friday afternoon, the rest of us knew that Monday loomed cold and lonely. That's all it takes for the full-fledged Cinderella syndrome to kick in. 

Yes, Cinderella, you may go on Winter Break, but first you must file these backlogged contracts and type the minutes of the last board meeting and complete the rental contract for next year's retreat. 

But could I not do that after Winter Break?

After Winter Break?!  Are you mad?  What do you think you are?  A student?  A teacher? Insolence! Get back to your office and don't let me see you until that filing is done!

But Stepmother, it's Christmas Eve Eve! 

Not one more word, you ungrateful wretch!  Out of my sight!

Mind you, the stepmother in this drama is conceptual, my actual boss is very reasonable. Also, he's in Tahoe.

Just a few more hours. Merry Christmas Eve Eve to all you busy toilers out there. And next week, when I'm the one home in my slippers, feel free to resent me as much as you like.
 

Ol' Blue Eyes

In honor of his 100th birthday, this week's episode of This American Life was about Frank Sinatra. The short version is that Frank himself was probably not a guy I would have wanted to hang out with, but that voice. That voice sounds like my childhood.

We used to have a record player that was housed in a pretty considerable piece of furniture. A large wooden cabinet affair. Were it in a vintage shop today, it would probably inspire a brawl:  midcentury modern furniture and a record player? That means you get to check off two boxes at once on your hipness card. (In case you were going to call my mom and make her an offer, I should inform you that there was a fire in 1984. It didn't make it.) My parents had a very modest record collection, the most up-to-date release being Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, after which they seemed to stop buying music, although my father did once win a copy the Eagles' The Long Run at a race. Mostly we had what we called "story records" which were sort of 1970s audio books, of which I especially liked Winnie the Pooh and Bread and Jam for Frances; musicals, which were good for dancing vigorously around the living room when no one was around, particularly West Side Story with its heady combination of accents and pathos; Irish records, which my brother and I mostly disliked and played only on St. Patrick's Day; a pretty sizable collection of Christmas music; and dinner music, which was everything else.

My brother and I used to trade off nights of setting the table or washing the dishes (the former being by far the better assignment and the latter seeming to always fall to you when dinner involved use of the dreaded broiler pan). As part of table-setting duty, you were allowed to choose the dinner music. I never liked The Kingston Trio or Charlie Byrd, but I enjoyed Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne. Mostly though, we listened to Frank.  Frank Sinatra is why, no matter what paths our romantic lives have taken, somewhere deep within us, my brother and I believe that love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage.  We know that when you're in love you've got the world on a string. We're clear on what makes the lady a tramp. We enjoyed hearing our father sing off key to my mother "I've got a crush on you, sweetie pie."  Even in the 80s when my brother went the way of Fifty Cent and I went the way of The Cure, Frank endured at dinnertime. 

Now, when I eat with my parents it is most often in the company of Alex Trebek, but we didn't watch TV during the dinners of my childhood except for the original Must See TV lineup: Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, The Muppet Show, and The Wonderful World of Disney, when all four of us would head downstairs and eat off TV trays. I am grateful for it. All those thousands of meals and that little island of family, even when we didn't think we wanted it. All the while, Frank Sinatra crooning in the background, giving us a soundtrack of civility and constancy. At least until it was time to do the dishes.

There's an expression

You may have noticed I've written every day in December. If you haven't noticed this, I am thoroughly devastated, so please notice now. Today, right now, in fact, is the day I almost skipped. I am home thinking seriously about going to bed although it is only 8:45pm because all day I've been a contestant on the exciting quiz show: Is It a Virus or Is It Something I Ate?
I still don't really know the answer. 

Is that reason enough to break a solemn vow I made to nobody from the questionable motive of being a copycat? (This whole experiment is based on my friend Evany vowing that she would write every day in December and my saying to myself, "if she can do it, you can do it" which may be technically true, but seems super sketchy in the execution. Which is to say, I think she is better at this than I am. In any case, she is a delight. You should read her.) 

Being a sleepyhead with a stomachache was almost a good enough reason to skip today. Not as compelling as the real reason, though, which is, simply, I have pretty much run out of things to say. I accidentally bought low-sodium chicken broth, which I only discovered once it was in my mouth. It tastes like water that's fallen on hard times. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot more to say about it. I do talk every day, so I can't be completely out of material, but perilously close. Admittedly, I did go out to buy some envelopes at one point today, which necessitated a bit of chit chat, but the transcription probably wouldn't amount to much.

As I've been scrabbling around for content over the last few weeks, I recalled an apt expression for the challenge I've set for myself. In addition to a virus (or food poisoning? or neither?) I suffer from fairly acute Anglophilia and like to imagine that I have a pretty firm grasp on English expressions. I did once hazard a guess that something meant scullery maid when it actually meant slut (and really, I should have guessed. Is it likely that anyone be bandying about an expression meaning scullery maid in the 21st century?), but generally I do pretty well. It happens that for this occasion, there is an English expression that perfectly fits the bill.

Writing every day is difficult, difficult, lemon difficult.

Having made it this far, though, it seemed silly to throw in the towel over a little thing like having nothing to say.  Tune in tomorrow!  When there may be an actual topic of some kind.  You never know.