Sunday message- bits and pieces

Unlike my normal Sunday message, this one's going to do a little bit of bopping around.  First up:

My contribution to the Fifty States of Pray blog hop by Mark Koopmans is in the can and will publish Christmas Eve at 12:30 AM.  I'll have a link there so you can go read some of the other entries- prayers and hopes for Christmas in the coming year.

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Next up, I want to "clear the deck" as it were, on the Duck Dynasty thing.  I have read the article, and I came away with these three thoughts.  First, I find it highly disingenuous for gay groups to attack ANYONE speaking their mind in a public forum, when they feel its acceptable to force business owners to cater to them despite the owners' personal beliefs.  "Christians should just shut up, A&E has the right to fire anyone they want," they say, and that's not discrimination.   But a Christian cake shop owner had to close their business because they did not want to serve an openly gay couple, and that refusal to serve IS discrimination.  I have had it way past up here with gay advocates crying that they are "marginalized", that they are simply "trying to be heard against the opposition of the nation's 'dominant religion'", but the truth is that they are just like the atheists- they don't want equality, they don't want fairness, they want to be the ONLY voice heard.  Second, I think GQ told their reporter to be the biggest ass he could be, so that he could give Phil Robertson his say and still make him look stupid.  My question to you, Mr. GQ "reporter", do you REALLY talk like that in public?  Frankly, Phil is a much better Christian than I for even putting up with your presence in his home.  Third, I think that was A&E's plan all along as well- give the "hick Christians" a show so the world can see how stupid Christianity is; but it took on a life of its own, because (surprise to A&E) not everyone thinks Christians are stupid.  They got caught with their pants down when it became a success, and now they are desperately trying to not look like idiots for having a show with people who don't back down from their Christian values.  Not near so funny now, is it, A&E?

Just a couple side notes more on the subject.  I sincerely hope that Willy and the rest stand by their dad and walk away from the show as soon as contractually possible.  And as for Cracker Barrel, who practically tripped over itself trying to get Duck Dynasty gear out of their restaurants:  So much for those old fashioned country values, eh?

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Finally, and what would be the core of today's message.  Those who have read along these last few months know that this basically started with my tasking myself to read three chapters out of each book of the Bible in turn every night, and praying to see the theme as the week went on.  And I'm sure most of you surmised that that particular way of doing things went up in flames some weeks ago.  Let me boil down how things such as this happen.

You start with the knowledge that the best way to keep up your faith and/or ministry and keep sin at bay is to stay in the Word.  Sometimes, though, that concept becomes ambiguous and life around you has a much better shot at knocking you off track.  So you go out and get the latest devotional, or put yourself on a reading program that can be quantifiably measured (as I did).  And at the start, it really helps you make a dedicated effort.

But the thing is, some areas of some books easily lend themselves to 3-chapter-a-night reading.  Story chapters in the historical books, dramas like Ruth and Esther;  even cup-of-coffee-and-alarm-clock ones such as Leviticus and Numbers, can be easily pored through on that basis.  But try that with John's Gospel, or Romans or I Corinthians, and try to get anything out of it.

So then it becomes a chore; and pretty soon, you hit a night you had something else to do.  Missed nights become like Lay's Potato Chips, and pretty soon you're feeling like the guy who chased out the demon, tidied up his soul, and then the demon came back with ten buddies.  And you don't feel worthy.  You ignore your Bible, avoid making eye contact with God, skip Sunday Messages... or just don't feel real good about them when God takes over your keyboard.

Somewhere in the middle of "Thou shalt read this much" and, "Where did my Bible get off to", there is a middle ground.  Somewhere in between, "I must examine every jot and tittle" and "ForGodsolovedtheworldHesentHisonlybegottenSonthatweshouldnotperishbuthaveeternallifeAmen", there is a place we can actually benefit.  There are a lot of factors wedged in-between Be Faithful and Be Flexible.  And that's why we should start any Bible time with prayer- not only for enlightenment, but wisdom in what is necessary.  Jesus told us it's a narrow road- that way, we know we're on the right track.  The part about "the mountain above, the abyss below," He figured we'd catch onto on our own.

The Grant Balfour hassle

Normally I don't spend a whole post on one sports subject.  This one, I want to be the first (as far as I can tell) to show the obvious.  The subject in a nutshell is this:  The Baltimore Orioles had signed former Oakland A's closer Grant Balfour to a 2-year, $15 million contract contingent on his physical.  A day later, they declared that a shoulder MRI showed "something"- they never said what, to anyone- and cancelled the contract.  Balfour denied that anything was wrong with the MRI, and was backed up by the team physicians for both the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cincinnati Reds.  He claims, the Orioles are just "backing out" of the deal, and the players union may file a grievance.

And they'll win.  Here's why.

Last season, the Orioles had Jim Johnson, one of the best closers in the game.  50 saves 2 years ago, 51 last year.  But Johnson was in his arbitration year.  When the Orioles talked to him about a contract extension, his agent floated numbers of about $11.5 to $12.5 million a year for four years.  If they went to arbitration, experts figured on him winning a $10.88 Million contract for 2014, a 59.7% raise.  Rather than pay that much, the Orioles traded him to the A's for Jemile Weeks, a former star potential second baseman who hadn't hit his weight in the big leagues in two years.  For those not baseball-literate, imagine trading your year-old Lambourghini for a 10-year old Yugo and a couple tanks of gas.

So obviously, owner Peter Angelos- rated the worst owner in baseball by Sports Illustrated in 2009- wanted to do the job on the cheap.  But apparently team President Dan Duquette didn't get the memo.  With Balfour now on the open market with the Johnson trade, Duquette signed Balfour to this contract, which pays 7.5 mill a year with a million deferred.  Cheaper than Johnson?  Sure, but when you consider Balfour made $4.5 million last year, it would be a 60% raise for him- just as the one Johnson would get.

Those are the facts.  Now, my speculation. 

Angelos calls Duquette into his office and says, "Didn't I say I was NOT going to give a 60% raise to no relief pitcher?  That includes someone ELSE'S relief pitcher!"
Duquette says, "But sir, we are saving over three million a year on the contract, and..."
"I don't care!  I didn't approve this, and I'm not paying it!"
"But sir, if we cancel the contract now, the union..."
"That's YOUR problem!  Now, get out of here! OUT!"

Sound pretty close to you?

So now the Rays are talking to Balfour, not scared away by the manufactured MRI concern or the 60% raise, and the Orioles are allegedly looking at Fernando Rodney.  Rodney was in Tampa last year, had 37 saves to Balfour's 38, but with almost a run higher ERA.  But guess what?  They could give Rodney a 60% raise and only pay him $4 million a year!  Of course the rub of that comes with a stat called WAR.  This stat tells you basically how much more valuable a player is to a team than the average Joe they would have to replace him with were he not there.  Here, Johnson scores a 1.5, Balfour a 1.4.  Rodney?  0.5.

So now the Orioles are all crying about how they didn't "back out of the deal", that there was a legitimate medical concern raised by their medical staff.  But evidence doesn't lie of it's own, and it sure looks like to me that the only medical concern the O's had was the walletectomy their owner was facing.

Couldn't do this today

We took a longer walk yesterday.  Trudge through the woods, down to the river, and back up the frozen banks to the creek.

Even at the bottom of the river, there's no excuse for littering.

Halfway across the creek on the ice...

To cross the rest, we had to cross Rush Island.

The other side in sight...

Safe on the soccer field road

And here to show you how much ice we crossed, along with the new foot bridge and where we saw the foxes a few weeks back...(click to read better)

By this morning, though, I highly doubt the crossing would've been possible...

The Hump'N'Dump was a mess...

Frosty on borrowed time.

Time Machine week 99

On December 20, 1971, Larry King was arrested in Miami, Florida, and charged with grand larceny over his dealings with Louis Wolfson, a financier of questionable reputation. Although the details of the events are somewhat murky, apparently King was peddling his influence with the incoming US Attorney General, John Mitchell, suggesting to Wolfson that he could arrange an investigation that would clear Wolfson’s name. (Wolfson was in prison for selling unregistered stocks.) According to Wolfson, Wolfson gave King a total of $48,000, but King did not deliver Mitchell’s assistance. Wolfson pursued the larceny charge against King, but the statute of limitations had run out on the charges, so King was never tried; however, he did plead no contest to one count of passing bad checks in relation to the scandal.

King, born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in Brooklyn, NY, was a rising star on local Miami radio and television at the time. The scandal derailed King’s career for three years, during which time he wrote articles for Esquire magazine and worked as the public relations director for a race track. (From Hollywoodsmostwanted.com)

Welcome to another episode of Time Machine.  This week, a look at what Cashbox had and Billboard didn't;  The long awaited (for nearly two weeks) countdown of the longest charting singles of the Martin Era;  a less than six degrees with yet another lovely Berry Gordy story; and one sad note...

Monday, we lost country legend Ray Price.  Best known for For The Good Times ("lay your head... upon my pillow..), Price first hit the pop charts (and for the only other time) in 1956 with Crazy Arms, and racked up 39 country top tens and 7 #1s, including the #2 Make The World Go Away (1963), #9 Danny Boy (1967), and #1 You're The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me (1973).  He was elected to the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1996.

Back to business.  Our look around the music world finds us in Ireland where an unusual- in story- Christmas hymn hits the top.  Tommy Drennan was 11 years old in 1953 when he recorded a demo of O Holy Night.  For nearly two decades this tape sat in a suitcase; in the meantime, Drennan came to head an Irish showband called the Monarchs.  Somehow, the original tape was found and Drennan re-recorded the song, the two versions were melded somehow, and the hybrid song reaches #1 this week.  Other international changes include Switzerland, where a young lady named Mirielle Mathieu hits the top with a tune already having hit #3 in Germany called Akropolis Adieu; Canada, where Family Affair slides into the top spot; and the Netherlands, where a song that will be a big hit in the US of A in about a year- Mouth and MacNeil's How Do You Do, hits the top.

Around the national charts, Let's Stay Together is #1 in Detroit; Both Minneapolis and LA have fallen to American Pie;  Brand New Key rules in Chicago; and Pittsburgh loves Got To Be There.

That brings us to the hot 100 debuts this week.  Legendary rockers T-Rex hit at 98 with Bang A Gong (Get It On).  Black Dog by Led Zep hits at 83 this week;  Elton John's Levon comes in at 73; and at 63, John Lennon's Happy XMas (War Is Over) arrives for the holidays.  The Harlem Community Choir- thirty children of the ages 4 to 12- was credited on this single, as well as the latest iteration of the Plastic Ono Band.

Birthday songs are a little low this week.  Nobody on the 30th birthday list;  at thirty-five, Rod Stewart's Do Ya Think I'm Sexy (answer:  not my type), Foreigner's Blue Morning, Blue Day, Chicago's No-Tell Lover, Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, and Santana's version of the Classics IV tune Stormy.  Only two turn 40-  Greg Allman's Midnight Rider and Dolly Parton's classic Jolene- and none at 45.  Turning 50 this week, Dionne Warwick (if you can fathom that) with Anyone Who Had A Heart, the Ronettes with Baby I Love You, and the Beach Boys with Little Saint Nick.  Finally, we have Ritchie Valens hitting 55 with La Bamba.  Blow out the candles...

The 45 at 45 WOULD have fallen on yet another song by the 1910 Fruitgum Company (who were apparently pretty good at hitting #45).  Thus, I give you another of my many research projects.  The Cashbox charts were traditionally more volatile than Billboard; thus, out of 127 top tens on Cashbox in 1971 (which means, if you followed last week, that nearly two-thirds of songs that hit the CB top 20 also hit the top ten), several did NOT make the Billboard list.  Among them-

Watching Scotty Grow, Power To The People, Love Her Madly, She's Not Just Another Woman, Stick Up, and Tired Of Being Alone peaked at 11; Bring The Boys Home, Everybody's Everything, and Respect Yourself topped off at 12; Pay To The Piper, Oye Como Va, We Can Work It Out, Never Ending Song Of Love, and I Woke Up In Love This Morning topped off at 13; Murray Head's Superstar, Double Lovin', and So Far Away peaked at 14; Funky Nassau, Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling, Thin Line Between Love And Hate at 15; Immigrant Song, Remember Me, Cried Like A Baby, Nathan Jones, and Two Divided By Love at 16; Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You, Don't Knock My Love, I Don't Want To Do Wrong at 17; and The Isley's Love The One Your With at 18.  14 of those thirty were R&B chart hits, and three more were ethnic-flavored;  another four were from the teeny-bopper genre, which might tend to point to BB concentrating on a more adult, white demo while cashbox ranged wider.

  Billboard also had 19 #1s to Cashbox's 29; of the 11 songs that hit on CB but not BB, five more were R&Bs (Mama's Pearl, What's Going On, Never Can Say Goodbye, Spanish Harlem, and Smiling Faces Sometimes) and one was country (Rose Garden).  Was there a BB bias against black artists?  I doubt it;  I believe that their collecting categories may have diverted more R&B power to the R&B chart which CB didn't have.  One side note is the two BB #1s that didn't top the CB chart:  The Stones' Brown Sugar and Janis Joplin's Me And My Bobby McGee.

The big climber this week is among the whopping ten top 40 debuts;  the big droppers fell 36 spots to land right beside each other again:  Everybody's Everything to 57, and One Tin Soldier to 58.  Almost making the big dropper are a pair of songs to give the almost-but-not-quite shoutout to;  Van Morrison's Wild Night peaked at 25 and falls to 53;  Yes' Your Move peaked at 29 and falls to 54.

Two weeks ago, I asked if anyone had a suggestion for something special for next week's 100th episode;  Bobby G.  asked for the longest charting singles.  So today, I give you the songs that sat on the hot 100 the longest.  A few things of note before we get going.  First, long chart runs were not the norm in the sixties and early seventies;  it was after about 1974 that chart runs began to increase.  Of course, the so-called "modern era" has the franchise on this- 35 songs have more than a year on the hot 100, and the only one that came before 1996 was the second half of the run of December 1963 (Oh What A Night), which was remixed in 1993 and doubled its chart run.

Now that doesn't mean some of them weren't good songs (like Jewel's You Were Meant For Me, Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know, Santana's Smooth, Duncan Sheik's Barely Breathing, and 3 Doors Down's Kryptonite), but over a year on the charts?  Really?

Another thing to note is that, like December 1963, many of these were on multiple chart runs, which was okay with me as long as it stayed within the Martin Era (1962-79).  As such, Chubby Checker's The Twist and Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock get booted because of runs that started before the Martin era.  And finally, a song called Harlem Nocturne by the Viscounts loses it's spot because the first five weeks of it's run fall in 1961.  With that, here are the top 20 longest charting songs of the Martin Era:

T-16th:  Chuck Mangione, Feels So Good; Exile, Kiss You All Over; Village People, YMCA; David Naughton, Makin' It; Samantha Sang, Emotion; Andy Gibb, (Love Is) Thicker Than Water; Bee Gees, How Deep Is Your Love; and David Dundas, Jeans On- 28 weeks.

T-14th:  Andy Gibb, I Just Want To Be Your Everything; Maxine Nightingale, Lead Me On, 29 weeks.

T-9th:  Robert John, Sad Eyes (which took forever to hit the top 40); Hot, Angel In Your Arms; Walter Murphy, A Fifth Of Beethoven; The Surfaris, Wipeout; and Murray Head's Superstar (in three runs), 30 weeks.

T-7th:  Nick Gilder, Hot Child In The City; Kris Kristofferson's Why Me ( best known for "Lord, help me Jesus, I've wasted it so"), 31 weeks.

T-5th:  Morris Albert, Feelings (another one that took forever hitting the top 40); Aerosmith, Dream On (in two runs), 32 weeks.

4- Hall And Oates, She's Gone (in two runs), 34 weeks.

3- Gloria Gaynor, I Love The Nightlife, 35 weeks.

2- Paul Davis, I Go Crazy (another slow climber, just as slow down), 36 weeks.

Annnnnd the longest song on the charts- with three separate runs totaling 38 weeks-

Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers with The Monster Mash!!!!!


As I mentioned, we have a list of ten tunes that debut in the top 40 this week!  Lee Michaels' follow-up to Do You Know What I Mean, called Can I Get A Witness, moves up 9 to #40; The first of two versions of I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing  to debut this week, belongs to the New Seekers, climbing 23 to #38; the Partridge Family comes in at 37, up 28, with It's One Of Those Nights (Yes, Love);  moving up 8 to #35 are Rare Earth with Hey, Big Brother; California band Sweathog (a term I wouldn't know for another 4 years) hits with their one-hit-wonder Hallelujah, climbing 7 to #34; The other version of I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing, by the Hillside Singers, rises 11 to #33; and then we get 4 straight songs debuting within the top thirty.

The first is Betty Wright's Clean-Up Woman, climbing 21 to #26.  Then comes Joe Simon's Drowning In A Sea Of Love, climbing 22 to land at #24.  Next, we have Al Green's Let's Stay Together, up 29 spots to 22; and finally, climbing a whopping 40 spots to #20, the Jackson Five with Sugar Daddy- a song I didn't remember, and kinda fell flat for Laurie and I when we played it.  Sometimes you have to do more than just plug in the formula.  And sometimes, it's the name on the label more than the product in the box.

Two songs enter the top forty, two fall out.  Dropping are Gypsies Tramps And Thieves (10 to 21) and Baby I'm-A Want You (3 to 12).  And what happened to the ten that fell from the top forty? Nine of the ten landed between 43 and 60; and one, Yo-Yo, fell all the way off the chart.

Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band get all Zodiacial with Scorpio at 10, up 4.

The Chi-Lites drop 3 to #9 with Have You Seen Her.

Coming in at #8, the best example yet why Sonny Bono was a better politician than a singer, Sonny and Cher with All I Ever Need Is You.  See the comment on Sugar Daddy.

Aretha Franklin holds at 7 with Rock Steady. Hmmm...

David Cassidy climbs two to #6 with Cherish.

Isaac Hayes' Theme From Shaft drops 3 to #5.  Shut Yo' Mouth! It wins the six degrees win!

One of the background singers was one-time Dawn girl and future actress Telma Hopkins.  Another was a lady named Pat Lewis.  Pat got her big break in 1968 when she filled in for a sick singer on the recording of Stevie Wonder's Uptight lp.  It was written by the duo of Henry Cosby and Sylvia Moy.  They came into Stevie's live at a low point... his songs weren't charting well, and puberty was changing his voice.  Berry Gordy was on the verge of dropping him, but Sylvia said, why don't we try coming up with songs that fit his now-deeper voice?  Berry gave the okay, and they took a riff Stevie had come up with and turned it into Uptight-Everything's Alright.  It was Stevie's first co-writing credit, and Henry and Sylvia would help him with more late sixties scores such as My Cherie Amour (which was originally about an old girlfriend, and was almost "Oh. My Marsha").

Three Dog Night barks up 5 spots to #4 with An Old Fashioned Love Song.

The theme at the top this week is, "up two".  As in, "Up two to #3, Michael Jackson's Got To Be There".

And, "Up two to #2, Melanie with Brand New Key."

And that means that-yet again- the #1 song is:

No, No, NOT Sly Stallone...

...it's Sly and the Family Stone, with Family Affair!!!!!!!


It's not too late to throw in a suggestion for the 100th episode!  Make a suggestion and be a part of history!

Why not to philosophize when you first wake up

Every morning when I wake up- even in mornings where I just had a dream about being tortured by a group of Sons Of Anarchy rejects- a song plays in my head.  Usually purely at random, and for no particular reason.  Today it was Rose Royce's Car Wash, which got me thinking how I became who I am.

Confused?  Wait, it gets better.

See, my mind works on the basis of turning stories into legends, and sometimes it has to fudge how I perceive stuff to get there.  A common way my warped mind accomplishes this is changing just slightly words to songs that I don't necessarily understand into something that will link to a particular memory.

Hence, we have

You might not ever get rich
But let me tell you it's better than digging a ditch
There ain't no telling who you might meet
A movie star or maybe even an Indian chief 

turn into:

..or maybe even, a Najib

Ms. Najib was our assistant principle, and thus it was that Car Wash links to High School.  And from there, I began to muse about the teachers we had.  Some of them were really good; some were cartoonish (such as Miss Haynes, who constantly smelled of the pot she smoked at lunch and corrected her mis-speaks by giving raspberries, showering the front row and prompting one wag to ask if she gave out towels with her lectures).  But then I mused the question of which one was most inspirational.

And for me, none of them were- and that was my fault.  For even a good teacher to be inspirational, the pupil has to have the mindset of being inspired.  For that to be lasting, it has to touch the student at their future dreams or goals.  And I didn't have any.

Not that I didn't have a vague idea I needed one.  My Mom passed in the summer between grade school and high school.  And I told myself shortly after the funeral, I had to find what was going to make me make it in this world.  But I drew a blank... and soon entering high school, which for me was going from a medium-sized fish in a very small pond to a very tiny fish in a lake, was overwhelming enough that my focus narrowed out of the future and into what I needed to get through to the next day.  The only future goal I had was finding a girlfriend who would be willing to fill in the gaping hole where most people might have self-esteem.  Thus it was that I went through high school without a career plan, a state I still had when Dad insisted I go to college.  After 2 years of doing little more than what I did in high school with ever-decreasing results, I HAD to pick a major.  Not having any idea of what to pick, figuring that my talents academically (reading and history) really didn't have a paycheck at the end, I chose Business, Marketing/management, figuring it would be fun to be a Darrin Stevens, even sans the witch.

Well, it was more management (which I had/have zero talent for) than marketing;  my utter inability to speak in public (at least, with any recall of said speech), would have derailed the attempt anyway; and the tendency of business profs to explain the profession as the ability to spend other people's money to talk them into buying stuff they don't need and you don't believe in, and you get a degree in absolutely nothing.  That's how I got where I am.  But why did it get there?

So I dug past high school and the opportunities I completely ignored there, and went farther back.  I've often told the story of being 4 and up on the roof with Dad fixing shingles, when Mom saw me up there (because I was looking over the peak waving and yelling, "Hi, Mom!") and yelled, "Woody Martin, get that child OFF of that roof!!!"  I suspect that was the start of my fear of heights... but I think it was also another turning point.  I was the baby by TEN YEARS (Dad was 47, Mom 40 when I was born), and Mom tended to protect me.  I think this may have been the point where Dad said, "I'm 51, and too old to be fighting this battle", and let Mom win.  God knows, he never really took me aside to teach me stuff after that, and knowing no better, I continued to play within the bubble Mom put me in.  Eventually it worked it's way into Dad's drinking; he built his self esteem by attacking Mom's, and then mine.  Bring up things that hadn't been a factor for years and dig until you screamed at his drunken ass to shut up.  Like "Mom made you afraid of running the garden tractor", when I'd been mowing our grass for three years and Aunt Cleo's for two.

 But I'm not here to psychoanalyze Dad, but me.  When Dad gave up the fight, I lost the one person who could have drawn me out of Mom's "bubble" and taught me practical stuff.  I was lost to their demons. 

My son KC found within himself the means to overcome that; I never did, not soon enough, anyway.  This is one case where the dad writes the paper "The Person I Admire Most" about his son.

So, was there ANY inspiration back then?  Sure.  One man- our principle, Ivan Mulligan.  He time and again demonstrated a lesson the supervisors at my old job never fathomed- that strength and leadership isn't proven by how loud you scream, but by your patience and composure when it would be so easy to lose it.  He could take what surely would have been a profanity-laced ten minute shoutfest for anyone else and compact it into a shake of the head.  That is leadership.  That earns respect.  And that is inspirational.

One last note...A-Z Lyrics has "Be in our band, and you don't have to pay."  Even I know it's "fill up and you don't have to pay."

And this gets me out of a workout tonight.

It's 8:10 or so this morning.  The sun's been up about ten minutes; the temperature is 18.3 F on my back porch.  Sweats, jeans, t-shirt, sweat shirt, hoodie, coat.  Sock cap, hood up, gloves on.

All the way up the walk to the front of the complex; across the new bridge to the trail.  Five inches of snow, and one set of footprints.

Getting winded...

As I trudge along the path, Scrappy dances through the deep snow, limpy-gimpy and all.

Dig, dig, dig... I know you're down there somewhere...

I'm getting pooped.  Where is that walk-bridge back home?

Stumble down the trail, slide down the ditch.  Trip over the footbridge, march back home.  8:50 AM, 19.9 degrees F.

A little Christmas Cheer

Laurie thanks everyone for congratulating her on her Elks 40-28 Super Bowl win over the Greenwoods (which is another of her teams).  Her other Super Bowl victory with her flagship Elks was over the Fiery Beagles- which she is also responsible for.  In fact, when playing a team not her own since we went to that format in 2002, she's 2-4 in Super Bowls.  Am I bitter?  Naw. just because my teams are 4-1 and NEVER played each other in the Super Bowl.  Uhm, that lone loss?  Well it was the State Ducks losing to...er... Laurie's Angels team 27-24 in 2008.  Okay, I'll shut up.

Anyhow, I'm on day #5 of 30 consecutive days off- between the holidays and little work, I volunteered for the "layoff deal-  Laid off this week; next week is two paid holidays and three vacation days (which the company pulls from your bank and sticks here right off the top), the next week is New Year's Day paid and the rest lay-off; and the first full week of January off while (our big customer) gears back up.

This is okay with me- especially missing the worst weather of the year so far- but not good for staying in shape.  During the work week, lunch is a pair of cold pop-tarts (since much else makes me drowsy and not very productive), and I make up on the weekend. (Not that it needs made up!)  But now, I have opportunity for TWO meals, neither of which are getting worked off because
A- it's been too cold to get out for an extended walk;
B- Mr. Dog somehow ended up limpy-gimpy again.  Not sure how, and not as bad as the last time, but noticeable, enough to trigger my PTSD over Fred (our last dog), and leaving someone just a bit mopey.  I'm hoping the warmup we're slated to get arrives without the rain that's supposed to come with it, or someone's not going to have a very happy Christmas.

However, there is big fat Daddy to take care of, and I have two ways that I use there:
A- replace one meal with a healthy snack.  Tonight was a double chocolate milk, two Baby Bel cheeses from Laughing Cow (and I know why she's laughing), and part of a dark chocolate Hershey Bar.   Well, half of a large dark chocolate Hershey bar.

B- Have Laurie find me the swipe card for the workout room across the street (which I did) and go exercise (which I did- 50 minutes on the treadmill.)

Obviously, this isn't exactly the Richard Simmons plan.  In my defense, the chocolate milk was Carnation instant breakfast, though.  And besides, that coronary isn't going to come here on its own, now is it?

I've been reading about other people's Christmas trees a lot lately (some decorated, some not), and got a comment from my lovely niece about our "tree" de jour and the ones my mom used to put up.  So I thought I'd give you a little background.

l-r and swinging up: niece Robin, nephew Shawn, niece Linette, niece Lori, nephew Troy, aforementioned lovely niece Raine, yours truly, and sister Pete, from whom all snark began.  As you can see on the side, this was Christmas '71 and mom didn't get down to Dan Purvis to get film developed very often.

When I was little, it was always a real tree, with tinsel and garland and lights the size of a walnut (and hot!) and bulbs and ornaments and the coolest little manger scene- and of course, the six weeks of sweeping up needles and tinsel that came with it.  I never was a firm believer in Santa Claus (the chimney led downstairs to the furnace), but that was okay, because it was fun no matter where the gifts came from, and everybody got together for a big meal, lotsa presents, an afternoon of Euchre, and what have you. 

Sometime before Mom passed in '76, we switched to an artificial tree. (That may be it pictured- it looks awful small for a realie).  Mom's death changed a lot of things.  The family didn't get together as much any more... the kids were getting older and had other things to do...Brother Tom moved to Lima (Ohio, not Peru), Pete went to Auburn, then Florida, then Angola (Indiana, not Africa).  The artificial tree was abandoned for a tall potted cactus who seemed a bit put off by the attention, and then by an Elephant Ear which hated being decorated (which was jake with me, because I hated it).  After Dad passed, the EE somehow was assassinated, and decorating devolved to lights in the windows and the nativity scene, which I always complimented with a handwritten plaque of John 3:16.

The Christmas Elephant Ear.

Christmas then spent a lot of years sucking, due to my stupidity and my crappy job.  In fact, one year my church raided the Dollar store (among other places), to give my kids a Christmas with their Dad.  To say it's hard to forgive myself that is an understatement.

Once Laurie and I teamed up, it's been better.  There have been some family meals, a few presents more, a lot more of the meaning of Christmas.  And no more real plants being abused.

Now I'm old, the kids are older, and it will be future grandchildren who will get presents one day.  Hopefully not real soon, either.  It'll never be what it was- not on the good side, with all the kids, all the presents, all the family.  It won't be the bad side either- no more of "Dad's drunk and ready to piss mom off", no more "Gee, a snow globe.  Will this one leak like last year's?"  And sadly, no more Midnight Mass on TV because our current Bishop doesn't want to spend the money on something meaningful like the late great John D'arcy did.  But it will be together- me, Laurie, Scrappy, with a cameo or two by KC.  Who knows?  Maybe a get together at Laurie's family's, maybe an appearance by Shenan.

That will be a nice enough Christmas.  But Santa still won't touch my socks...