Right on Target

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving, and Renton celebrated by leaving us some ‘dressing’ in the hallway that morning. Thank you, son.

I cleaned it up since I was first out of bed, lucky me. My grumbling got Steven up.

“Happy Turkey Day,” Steven said. “You know what I’m thankful for?”

“What?” I asked.

“That you got to clean it up.”

______________________________

Thanksgiving went very well this year. I might have had one too many bites of cheesecake and apple pie . . . and chocolate goodness . . . and strawberry pie, but it was worth it.

Though Thanksgiving is my sister’s favorite holiday more than mine, I was eagerly looking forward to this one. This year I knew I would be on the hunt for . . .

THE TREE.

Despite my usual aversion to fake flowers and plants, there has always been a soft spot in my heart for my parents’ artificial Christmas tree that graces our living room every year, and I was going to get one just like it someday. Now I’ve my own husband and my own home, so someday was now here.

My parents’ tree is not your normal artificial tree. It is made up of individual branches that you attach to the central pole and the branches themselves were not the skinny kind laced with a soft material like dry grass, but they are quite girthy with stiff, slender needles — a conglomeration of uniqueness that I very much doubted I could find. Many times I think my problem is I know exactly what it is that I want, and that particular ‘something’ is usually not popular. Nevertheless, I shall search!

And search I did. With Mom and Dad in tow, we went to no less than seven stores — one of them twice — on Friday. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the specific type of construction I desired that was not to be found, for there were quite a few trees with the individual branch structure and even a few with the stiff, long needles. The problem was the craze that has swept across America known as pre-lit trees, which brings us to another quirk in my family.

Dad never cussed and fretted about winding the lights on the tree every year. On the contrary, it has always been a matter of pride — and probably a bit of pleasure was involved as well — for him when it came time to string up the lights. We used to count how many lights he could get on the tree; we quit counting once we reached 1500 one year. There were many years where it took more than one day for Dad to slowly and methodically wind the lights around every branch on the tree. This method is what I know. This method is what I will do myself. Why should I pay an extra $100 for 700 lights already on the tree; something I’d rather do myself and could probably do a better job of it anyway?

But pay people do; in some stores all they had in stock was pre-lits. The second store is where I came the closest — the construction was right, the bristles were perfect, and yes, we do have a non pre-lit one said the clerk. When I went to check out, though, it was revealed that they had only had one in stock which had since been sold. They also had two more regular trees, but they had been sold, too. Only three trees without lights on them, and this was a Christmas store! I was baffled, but undeterred.

As it got closer to dinnertime, our hunt seemed to be fruitless. We eventually headed home to regoup and have dinner. After vittles, I decided I was not going to be beaten and talked Steven into driving me to Target just to have a look, one quick look. “My tree is at Target,” I told Steven, “I know he’s there waiting.” We got there pretty quick and I made a beeline for the Christmas section, reading out the tags while walking around the tree display, “Pre-lit, pre-lit, pre-lit . . .”

An employee heard me and pompously informed me that such-and-so pre-lit trees were already sold out. “I don’t want a pre-lit,” I shot back, disturbed from my reading. And then, there it was. Perfectly constructed with attaching branches, great, big, girthy branches with stiff, long needles, true green color, and best of all, no lights.

The Tree.

I hugged it, looked at Steven, and said, “Mine.”

He smiled. “I’ll go get the cart.”

shamless plug of cat

I had meant to write of this before but the football season carried me away in a swirl of orange and blue. Now that I have been reminded I shall tell you all about it.

A few months ago Renton participated in the Infinite Cat Project. It’s a rather ingeniously kooky idea of a guy named Mike, who started with a picture of a cat, then took a picture of another cat looking at that cat picture, then took another picture of a cat looking at the picture of the cat looking at the first cat picture . . . well, you get the idea. Renton is cat number 360 in the project.

It was not near as easy as I thought it would be to get Renton situated just so. Normally he is not allowed on the computer desk — though this has not stopped him before — so I think I confused him somewhat. Not only was I trying to make him stay on the desk, something he would never attempt while I was in the room, but I was also coaxing him to gaze at the suddenly uninteresting computer screen. This is the cat that is known to stare lazily at the television for hours!

After 30 minutes I finally got the perfect photo; it only took about 40 pictures, a bit of creative mouse wriggling, and some spaghetti sauce to get the right shot. Renton always has a taste for Italian cuisine.

This morning I received an e-mail announcing an Infinite Cat Project calendar which will showcase a cat a day — the first 365 cats, to be exact. Renton just squeaked in there; he should be on December 26th. So . . . go buy one! And if helping animals is your thing, fear not; all the profits will be donated to Dog and Kitty City, a no-kill shelter in Texas.

Don’t forget, every time you masturbate buy a calendar, God kills saves a kitten. Please, think of the kittens. (Come on, you knew I had to say it).

Let me ‘splain . . . no, there is no time to ‘splain, let me sum up

Well, me and everybody I know here in town is hoarse this morning. Saturday was a great day for team-spirited screaming. 10 and 0, baby, 10 and 0.

_____________________________

It is officially Not Summer anymore — Steven had to start up the heater this morning. It’s going to be in the high 30s tonight! I hope we don’t have to turn on the air conditioner again until next year. Maybe it’ll snow this winter . . .

_____________________________

Yesterday morning I opened up my eyes to find Renton staring intently down at my face — he had slept on my pillow all night. This morning I woke up to his blue eyes again. Over the past few months he had gotten into the habit of sleeping in the bathroom, but I think that has now become too cold for him. He presently desires the body heat radiating from my head.

Hopefully he has lost the taste for my hair. If I wake up some morning sporting a new cropped, shaggy haircut there will be a luxurious Siamese pelt on my wall.

wild goats

According to some people, there are only two sets of groups to hang out with: the flock or the wild goats. The flock is always Good and the wild goats are forever Bad. There is no grey area here.

But what if the flock are just goats in sheep’s clothing? Better yet, what if the goats are really just very dirty sheep — grey, dirty sheep? All of a sudden we find a huge grey hectare of an area.

It takes a very rare person to always be a sheep or forever exist as a wild goat — according to general Judeo-Christian theology, there are just two — or three — of these animals. It is obnoxiously hard to be just one thing all of the time. It is just plain obnoxious to claim to be so.

To pull this out of the metaphorical, myself and many of my friends have been shuffled over to the wild goat herd. I cannot speak for others, but I, though offended at first, am now glad of the demarcation that I have been given. In my life experience, I have known sheep to say horrid things about other sheep, been the recipient of spitballs from other sheep — in church! –, and have read the tales of sheep pots calling sheep kettles black. If they are part of the fold, then Lord, give me my sinful wild goats!

If I had to choose between their definition of the flock or their take on the wild goat, I am so very, very glad to pronounce myself a wild goat. At least the other wild goats I know do not try to hide themselves under a sheep’s pristine wool coat.

mob mentality

Oh, Lordy, it’s Close to GameDay . . . and we’re playing Georgia. I enjoy/dread this rivalry game more than Alabama. My stomach is in knots just thinking about it.

Speaking of knotted stomachs, guess who else is having the same problem: Georgia’s quarterback. May the stomach virus live long and prosper — at least until Sunday.

___________________________

I’ve finally gotten around to uploading some new pictures at Crunchy Images. I seem to have amassed many black and white photos of Hermione. Sorry, Willis, there are no new pictures of yourself to fawn over this time. If you pose well and often this Saturday, I’ll have some more of you from the Georgia game.

God, I hope it’s a victory smile.

___________________________

I upped my Geek Cred this week by attending a Midnight Halo2 Release Mob outside of the mall this Monday evening/early Tuesday morn. Compared to some of the other blokes there, I feel quite normal now, thank you. Steven and Ken were the ones actually looking forward to the game anyway; I was there for the atmosphere. It was the best mob ever.

Only three other times have I been involved with some sort of mob over an entertainment item. The easiest to deal with was the release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. After all, most of the people there were kids, and they were surprisingly polite, calm, and not given to shoving others around. Oh no, that is behavior only found in grown-ups these days.

Another mob experience of mine was the release of The Passion of the Christ — an experience I wholly regretted later. While waiting in the hall of the theatre to see the movie we all were squished together like balls in spandex. A woman who had the distinct air of thinking she was much more Christian than the rest of us was trying to squeeze herself to the front of the queue.

She bumped into Ken and me then mouthed off at us — oh, how I wish I remembered what she said. I was already irritated by the close quarters and mouthed off something back — oh, how I wish I remembered what I said. She shut up, though.

And now for the worst mob experience ever, I give you . . . a free showing of Hannibal in a college town. In hindsight, the movie was certainly not worth the fuss, but I had tremendously enjoyed the book and was eager for the big-screen version.

The deal was being put up by an activity-producing college group known as the UPC. As long as we had our student I.D.s we would be let in to see this new movie before it was generally available in theatres. “Well, hot damn,” I thought along with every other college student in town, “you can’t get any better than a free movie that’s actually good.”

At first, we all were organized, civilized, young adults, sitting in a long line that wrapped around the side of the theatre with two hours to go. As time got closer, however, rumors started to travel down the line. “I heard you needed a wristband to get in, you were supposed to pick it up at Foy.” “Someone said they’d only let in the first 200, do you think there’s that many people in front of us?” With a little under an hour to go, we noticed the front of the queue sprinting towards the entrance.

Civilization be damned; we all began running fast towards the door. To this day I still don’t know how me and my group of friends ended up against the large windows at the front — pretty good for being around the side of the building thirty seconds beforehand. They were not actually letting us in yet; some idiots had just bolted toward the entrance. From my window view I could see inside where the members of UPC were aghast, staring at the crowd outside. They had not expected this.

I became scared when I saw one of the kids crowdsurfing behind me. People were pushing and shoving around, trying to either lift him up or get away in case he fell. I felt a great surge of pressure as the crowd backed into us, pushing us hard against the glass. A mental image of us crashing through the glass ran across my mind. Now there were horrified looks on the UPC people. Thankfully, Paul braced himself against the glass and shoved the crowd away with his back. We were in a little bubble amidst the crowd.

The UPC people finally seemed to get it together enough to begin to let some of us inside. They did it very slowly, a person at a time. Somehow, once again, me and my group managed to wriggle away from the glass, towards the entrance, and get inside. I believe we were one of the last people to be let in. Eureka.

And all that pushing, shoving, shrieking, and cursing for a movie that didn’t live up to the perfect ending of the book.

So, back to Monday, that mob crowd was much more laid-back. The employees passed out sheets with numbers on them; we got 46. With numbers in hands, people could go off, do their own thing, and come back later. Ingenious! When we came back and gathered around the door, everyone else seemed much calmer due to the number system. Of course, a lot of the people could’ve been stoned, too. What can I say, it was that type of crowd.

When a line was finally beginning to form, people sorted themselves by number. Looking at the sea of hoodies behind us, we realized our 46 was a great victory. Once people were settled, many people jousted to prove their tech geekiness by pulling out their camera phones, stepping back, and snapping shots of the crowd.

And so we waited, jovially talking amongst ourselves, getting to know groups 45 and 47, and reading — I had brought a book. The only rumor that came through this mob was that #205 was Trey Smith, an Auburn football player. I bet he wish he had his jersey number instead — 22 would have you right near the front.

They let us into the mall at midnight, trekking toward the game store in a reasonably organized manner like kindegartners toward the playground. Within 45 minutes we had gone in, gotten the newest and greatest in games, and were heading home in Elliott.

Kudos to the gaming store for knowing how to control college kids better than a college student organization. They know how to make mobs survivable, if not somewhat fun.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to participate in a mob that involves torches, shovels, and pitchforks.

2nd of November

Eeesh, I haven’t written in a while. Terribly sorry. I’ve been closely following my Auburn Tigers’ run for The Game of the Year. War Damn Eagle and all. 9 and 0, baby!

Election day — it is finally here. I went and voted this morning after my gynecological exam. And since I bared all in that little exam room, I’ll do the same here: I voted for Kerry. I’m sure this isn’t a surprise to y’all that know me. I’m just trying to be funny. Damn, I failed again, didn’t I?