December 2, 2008
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1 I hope you flew through your Monday on steady wings.
2 That’s always a tough re-entry, right after a holiday weekend.
3 I used to battle it and try to drag the holiday halfway into the Monday following.
4 I’ve switched a bit. I now prepare for Mondays with as much vigor as an NFL quarterback prepares for a game.
5 Let me qualify that.
6 As a classic NFL quarterback prepares for a game.
7 I will spent literally hours in advance so that I go into the week stronger than everybody else who is suffering the Monday blahs.
8 It took me a long time to do that. My philosophy used to be that I deserved to rest as much as I could so I could give everything to my classes and all.
9 Nope.
10 I used to go in and try to wing it on Mondays. As I’ve become older and yes, maybe even a bit wiser, I go into each Monday armed and ready. It helps, because most people drag and lag, so in many ways preparation is key to getting a jump on the week.
11 Now Tuesdays…
12 Yeesh. I was feelin’ good there for a second.
13 I’ll start considering preparing for Tuesdays on Wednesday.
14 Today I have a full day, a meeting afterwards, and I’m doing the shot clock this afternoon and tonight for the girls’ basketball games.
15 Gotta love it.
16 Moving on: is it just me or are the Christmas decorations coming out slowly this year?
17 I’m trying like heck to ride around and check out the newest fangled lights and displays and all. I was in Orchard on Sunday and they had these fake trees with Christmas lights that tried to dance to the music.
18 Pretty hokey. The just blinked on and off to beats. Twinkles might work better, especially if they could perform like a classic color organ.
19 Color organs are from way “back in the day”. They looked like small stereo speakers but had gravely plastic windows instead of cloth. Inside, they had colored lights that blinked to the beats of whatever music went through them.
20 WAY ahead of their times. They’re doing that now with Christmas lights. But we have only one guy who is religious enough to have his stuff going on like Butler Amusements.
21 I love driving around looking at Christmas lights. Actually, I just love driving around, period. But it’s especially enjoyable at Christmas time. I used to jokingly point out dark houses to my daughters and I’d always quip, “They must not be very religious!”
22 I want to design my place a little better this year. I usually come close to doing what my good old friend and confidant Brian Daley’s family used to do.
23 They had an annual “Throwing of the Lights”, in which their entire family would gather on his upstairs porch and await their dad’s arrival with an armload of Christmas lights. When he’d finally emerge through the front door, there would be applause, followed by a hearty count-off, usually after a few cocktails, and when he wuold say, “Three!” he would heave the lights out over a bush below him, walk back inside, and plug them in. This would be followed by cheers, hoots and hollers from every neighbor on the block.
25 There they would stay until mid-January, when Walt (Brian’s dad, Walt Daley, who was sportswriter for the San Francisco Examiner) would unplug them, gather them up and place them back in the attic, or wherever they had originated.
26 Every year I’m tempted to re-institute the “Throwing of the Lights” but I always stop, and do the same old thing. I go up and pop them around the roof, come down, draw some into the bushes, and get out of dodge.
27 Anyway, even if it’s that simple I still feel like Chevy Chase every Christmas.
28 Well, no matter. I’m just wandering here.
29 Trying to avoid the real issue at hand which is this:
30 How the heck am I going to make it through Tuesday?
31 I guess I’m about to find out.
32 Y’all have a good day. Put your lights up, willya? I need something to do tonight on the way home.
33 Peace.
~H~
http://www.xanga.com/bharrington
