Posted by Joke at 1:34 PM 7 comments

Sweating it out for Christmas.

Poppy is right. I am a cheap bastid. Howe'er, not the "get cheap stuff cheap" cheap bastid, just the "get expensive stuff cheap" cheap bastid.

So, because as you may have heard, it's Christmas and all that and because I have had a pretty good year at the office, I decided to pop for a particularly nice gift for my wife. In fact, I decided to get something besides the white gold version of something Poppy has in yellow gold. (This had heretofore been my modus operandi for bestowing baubles upon my beloved.) TFBIM has been hinting forever that she didn't have any yellow gold stuff (white gold looks better on her, but whatever) and when we were in Chicago we stopped in at Tourneau because I am a total watch slut and I needed to see what else I couldn't live without.

Anyway, she saw and fell in love with this watch but, given that Tourneau's prices are essentially full-on MSRP, on top of which we'd have to pay IL's usurious sales tax (which alone would have worked out to something in the mid three figures!), we left it at that. That was 12/9/05. A couple of days later, while rummaging around online for a fountain pen generally not available in the USA, I ran across an Italian website and, sure enough, those muhfuhs had this watch! In and of itself, that's no big, right? But their price was a lot closer to the surface of Planet Earth than Tourneau's. Which led me to think..."Geez, why don't you look for this watch online?"

Which I did.

Eventually, I found a Dutch website that had it and even with the Euro ($1.15 or so at that moment) the watch was priced far more attractively. No, not the site in the picture, that's just where I got the photo. Even better, by not being a citizen of the neo-collectivist festung Europa I didn't have to pay the it's-bloody-highway-robbery-that-is VAT tax. I placed a quick call to my BiL who travels to Holland often enough and he told me this place was, in fact, a well-respected and well-established jewelry retailer. So I ordered. That was 12/11/05. You can see where this is going, right?

Well, the ONE thing they need to work on is shipping options (they didn't offer any beyond "You want it shipped? Or you wanna come by?") because here we are Christmas Eve Eve, and I am worried this thing is on a tugboat that just left Antwerp. I dunno who the patron saint of shipping & receiving actually IS, but I think I need to find him/her and fast.

-J.

Posted by Joke at 3:58 AM 6 comments

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Frazzled is as frazzled does.

OK, so it's Christmas and TFBIM is rehearsing her production of Frazzlemania. I, of course, am perversely serene. Mind you we have a division-of-labor thing going on here to the extent this is what she has to do:

1- She has to buy gifts for anyone she wouldn't want me to buy gifts for (i.e. C-listers)
2- She has to proof the Christmas/Holiday card list
3- She has to wrap all gifts
4- Decorate the trees (I do the heavy lifting)

Everything else I do. I get/make all the food stuffs, fill/address/stamp/mail all 122 cards, buy the gifts for the people whom I--firmly--believe do not suck. But yet she frazzles.

I think a big part of this has to do with expectations. The trees must be perfect (not that anyone will notice any imperfections), and any of her useless friends who needs help must be allowed to drain her time and patience with their inane requests. (The three good friends never do this, BTW)

So part of my Christmas "thing" is to tell her to come in off the ledge.

-J.

Posted by Joke at 9:26 AM 3 comments

Christmas Music.

BabelBabe went off on a pretty right-on rant on Christmas music. I tend to agree but I want to mention to the Internet where our paths diverge.

I agree with Badge that the Bob & Doug Mackenzie's is the best (and only acceptable) version of the 12 Days of Christmas. The rest--and especially the original--just suck dead wombats. The Allen Sherman version is passable.

I agree w. Gina on that "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" song. That one just flat-out sucks and even if I didn't miss my grandmothers to this very day, it'd still be a stupid--and stupidly unfunny--song. After 9/11/01 and the death of some people I knew, Weird Al's "Christmas At Ground Zero" isn't nearly as clever as I used to think. (In his defense, it was written eons before.)

I DO enjoy Stan Freberg's "Good Morning, Mr. Scrooge" which is a funny way of reminding people what Christmas is all about.

I don't have to listen to "the" version of a song or carol, so long as it's done well. To be sure, I PREFER it that way, but The Ventures' rendition of "Sleigh Ride" is just cool, man. I also have a soft spot for "Run Rudolph, Run" by either Chuck Berry or Brian Setzer. But I want to hear Der Bingle singing "White Christmas," and Nat "King" Cole's "The Christmas Song" not to the exclusion of all else, but in the great majority. Julie Andrews is great, too. Sometimes I go full-out the other way and crank up Andy Williams or Perry Como. Or if I feel REALLY reactionary, the Choir of St. Michael's Cathedral. Oh, and Vince Guaraldi. Gotta have my Vince Guaraldi.

OK, ramble off.

-J.

Posted by Joke at 8:56 AM 4 comments

Pilfered from Badger (as per her instructions)

15 things (only!) about books:

1. I learned to read when I was 3 or 4, also via a Little Golden Book about a bunny getting lost because he disobeyed his parents. Coincidentally, to this day I still have to look at my hands to determine right from left.
2. I used to hide under the bed, with a flashlight, to read. My sister (we shared a room at the time) used to snitch on me.
3. I love/loved encyclopædiæ. I remember reading The Golden Book encyclopædia when I was not quite 5. Often I'd start looking for something, but I'd get distracted. This is why I know all about Hittites, Hellenism but I have no clue what the Haymarket Riots were all about.
4. The books I have been reading the longest are the Sherlock Holmes novels/stories.
5. The first/last book that made me cry was the the post script to Harvey Penick's The Game For A Lifetime.
6. I love being able to read books in the original English, Spanish or Italian (you're taking your chances if you hand me something in Latin, though). It's fun to compare the different national preferences for genres/style. It is SO true that books lose so much in translation.
7. The first set of books that changed me for the better were the Bertie/Jeeves books by PG Wodehouse.
8. Two books that changed my worldview at around age 12 were The Road To Serfdom and Wealth of Nations.
9. I like collecting those Easton Press leatherbound books.
10. I also collect cookbooks. I have 9' x 4' of shelving CRAMMED with cookbooks. A cookbook which gives you one home-run recipe is a joy forever. (Badger, get thee the Cooking with F r i e n d s Cookbook)
11. Sometimes listening to an audiobook ruins the print version forever. If you have a nasal, whiny (or "whAH-nee") voice with a profound Georgia accent, you should let some actor/actress read it for you. (Did you catch all that Frances Mayes?)
12. Badger sez: "I can't bear to get rid of books. I keep everything. Ninety-five percent of the crap I have in storage is books." Amen, sister. In my case it's 85%, 10% being magazines, the rest being cassettes and LPs.
13. Used bookstores are a supreme pleasure for me.
14. When I was a kid, during summer vacations I'd pedal off to the library and spend all day there, arriving prior to, and departing immediately after the summer downpours. (Invariably in SoFla's summer, it rains ALL DAY.)
15. When I go walking (2-4 miles a day) I invariably take a paperback w. me. Yes, I can read AND walk.

-J.

Posted by Joke at 8:34 AM 1 comments

Monday, December 19, 2005

Mo' Christmas pix

Those whom I've offsprung, casing the joint for their big heist of 12/25/05.
The basic Christmas setup in the living room. Dig the Disney monorail in lieu of a train. Why California's Orange Stinger is right next to Florida's Contemporary Resort is due to TFBIM's artistic license.
-J.

Posted by Joke at 4:13 PM 6 comments

Angels I'll have heard on high

Dear Internet,

Well, there will be much a-carolin' in the Jokesphere over the next few days. I just dropped NOS off at choir practice, for they have a concert on 12/23. NOS has the singular honor of TWO solos, on the strength he is the only boy who can stay on pitch. He's got to belt out "Veni Emmanuel" totally a capella and one section of "The Little Drummer Boy." I have to grit my teeth about that because it is my 2nd least favorite* carol. Since NOS's school is Old School Catholic, there is a lot of stuff in Latin and not much in the way of reindeer or Frosty the Snowperson. One Austrian girl is soloing "O Tannenbaum" which always sounded to me like some German CEO asking for a junior executive to come into his office.

There is also a Christmas Eve Mass, where NOS has been assigned to play a shepherd. Mimic genius he is, he keeps talking like Shermy from the Peanuts Christmas special "Every Christmas it's the same thing. I always end up being a shepherd." But the church--a fairly rococo affair--always looks great when spangled with Christmas lights and boughs and balsam and all that.

NTS's school is a lot smaller and so pretty much EVERYONE has a song to himself. Lucky me, NTS gets to sing Feliz Navidad and The Twelve Days of Christmas (my hands-down LEAST favorite Christmas song) and I must grin and bear it and beam at the boy. He is devoid of pitch and lyrics are, well, let's just say he is no strict constructionist and he considers them to be a "living document."

-Joke

* I mean really. You're the Virgin Mary, you've just schlepped from Nazareth to Bethlehem, there are no hotels to be had, you are about-to-burst pregnant, you've had to bunk in a stable, gone into labor in a stable, plopped Baby Jesus in the manger and wrapped him in swaddling clothes because there is no place to buy proper blankies and all of a sudden some kid shows up and, instead of bringing so much as a rattle he has the gall to say "I didn't bring anything, but instead I'll bang the drum awhile for your newborn. Doesn't that sound restful?" This is why Catholics venerate the Virgin Mary so. Had it been my mom, she would have put the kid through the drum like in the cartoons and told him that if the baby woke up, there would be Hell to pay.

Posted by Joke at 8:06 AM 3 comments

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Well, cool!

Last Thursday we went to a Christmas/Chanukah party at one of our clubs. This was also a small benefit for Operation Santa Claus, and since I am all big on that particular Very Good Cause, we went. There was a champagne tasting (for those scoring at home, it was Pommery, who sponsored part of the doings.) and yummies and general merriment. At the end of the evening there were prizes handed out.

Well!

It seems that I thought the prizes were being called out by ticket number, when in fact it was by membership number. So today I get a call from the office to the effect I had to swing by to claim my prize. At first I was a bit surprised by the whole thing since I never win these things, but since I had to work out, I stopped by the office and--looky here!--I have won dinner for 4 (w. cocktails and wine!) which is something that should weigh in somewhere north of $250!

Yay me!

-J.

Posted by Joke at 5:11 PM 4 comments

Friday, December 16, 2005

The Show & Tell Must Go On

This is not what BB had in mind, but TFBIM is running around with the camera. So this will have to suffice. There are people who are rather lax about Christmas/Holiday cards. Not I. I take this evry seriously and each year I buy 120 (!) cards in three general categories: A-List, B-List and C-List.

The A-List is a mighty low-density place, maybe 15 out of 120 cards. These are for people I simply adore.

These cards are completed longhand, in my atrocious penmanship, via fountain pen, and include an actual message--beyond the usual "Merry Christmas!" greeting--of some length. The top one is suitable for both Jews and Christians because all it says is "Joy To The World" so unless someone has issues with Three Dog Night, we're OK.
The cards are invariably Crane's, except for the one year I got a fat stack of Ralph Lauren Purple Label cards when I bought my tuxedo.

Next come the B-listers. These are people I like well enough. They are pleasant to converse with, and not too grating. The best members of our (TFBIM's and mine) families reside here.
If they are all hip and/or secular, we sling along these neat Haddon Sundblom cards. The message is usually computer generated and hand-signed.

If they are among the pious, we send this cheerful burst of orthodoxy, with a short handwritten "Merry Christmas!" or something like that and a signature.

C-listers get this:

I picked this up for $1.97 for a box of 25, and they are all computer scribbled. This is for MOST of TFBIM's pals, most of my relatives (who are lucky to be getting anything at all) as well as hers. These people are one stupid remark from not even getting THIS.

Lastly are friends'of the boys. I grabbed these at The Museum Store website.

The idea is cute for little kids...you scribble a quickie greeting and then send the "blank"card along with the sticker sheet and the kids "make" their own card.

Merry Christmas to all* and to all a good night,

-Joke

P.S. Well, to all the Gentiles. Happy Chanukah to the Jewish kids.

Posted by Joke at 5:57 PM 7 comments

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Trauma, desperation, depression...

The lady who cuts my hair is moving away to Key West. She's been cutting my hair since June 1984.

I am in denial.

-Joke

Posted by Joke at 8:05 AM 10 comments

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Virtual shopping

Today, I will go virtual shopping for Christmas & Chanukah gifts. Because I can't trust some of you people, I will post them on 12/23. Even people who get "real" gifts will get virtual gifts, because I am THAT giving.

I totally, completely, thoroughly ripped this off from BabelBabe, so everyone go over there and say hi. This is her "thing" like Blackbird's is the Show And Tell Not Photo Meme Thing.

My thing, however, will be to post our Letters to Santa (or, according to the ancient tradition as revealed to us by Saturday Night Live, Hanukkah Harry). As I shop around virtually (and not quite so virtually) I am overwhelmed by the "Oooh! I want!" feeling. Some things are so beyond the pale as re. price that, unless I invent a new operating system that takes on a 90% market share while selling at confiscatory prices, I am likely to remain with my nose pressed against the window.

So there you have it.

-J.

Posted by Joke at 7:38 AM 1 comments

I loved this, but then again I would

http://saveanelf.com/

Posted by Joke at 7:36 AM 4 comments

Monday, December 12, 2005

Happy Birthday Poppy

Happy Birthday to the single best human being I have ever met from the Internet.

MWAH!

-Joke

Posted by Joke at 11:31 PM 0 comments

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Joke's Book Club (again)

Yes, I am a raving Italophile. Sue me.

Go out and get The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt (something tells me he also used to write a fashion column for Esquire in the 1980s). Based on the events immediately after the devastating fire which consumed the ironically-named La Fenice (The Phoenix) Opera House in Venice, this book captures the hidden bits of the city that even return visitors miss (or choose to miss). The pace is a bit slower than Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but not too much. I love the eccentrics who populate backstage Venice and the way he captures the melancholy vibe of a place now known for being beautiful but centuries ago was a superpower.

The writing is clever and witty without being obnoxious and the book lulls you along at the dreamy pace of Venetian life. This book is like a 3 hour lunch (in a good way), and will leave you feeling oddly langourous.

-Joke

Posted by Joke at 9:31 AM 5 comments