A Sad Memory

It’s almost Christmas Eve. Pam sent me a honey-do list that magically popped up in the reminder file on my cell phone, deviously clever, that woman. I’m glad, grateful suddenly to have a list of jobs to occupy my mind.

Last night Pam and I took dinner over to my niece Christina who is home with a week-old baby girl. I was very excited to get to see little Evelyn. But right before we left Pam asked me to take the cooler out and put it in the back of the car. It was only then when it all hit me. As I unhatched the door to the back of the Pacifica, a flood of memories poured down upon me in an instant. For nearly two years, every Tuesday and Thursday night, I loaded up a full cooler of food in the back of this same car in preparation for our trips to bring dinner to Dad. I hadn’t done it since March, but the memory is still fresh and warm. Now I was bringing another meal and on this one I will pull in the same old driveway. But this time, someone else lives in Dad’s house. I’ll drive around back to Paul and Christina’s new place near the woods. I will glance in the windows of the old place while I drive by. I won’t be able to help myself.

It was great seeing the baby. I held her for the first time. She is beautiful. But I haven’t been able to shake off the grief that found me in my garage loading that cooler. It’s the strangest thing. I can go days, weeks even without thinking about it, but the smallest most inconsequential thing can unleash a torrent of sadness over me.

I’ll snap out of it. I always do, at least I always have. 

Sugar High and Christmas Lights

Last night, after a heavenly dinner of shrimp scampi, a new Dunnevant family Christmas tradition made its debut. My wife got the idea from some old friends of ours on Facebook…and when Pam gets an idea, watch out! Soon, I received an e-mail invitation notifying me that I was to prepare for a night of caroling and Christmas light viewing topped off by a visit to Krispy Kreme. The attire was to be pajamas only, and hot apple cider would be provided.

So there we were at 7 o’clock, Pam, Kaitlin, Jon and myself piling into Ron and Paula’s disagreeable old Buick. Never one to leave the house unprepared, Pam brought a couple of bags of popcorn (two flavors) and enough blankets to warm a platoon of men at Bastogne.  First stop was out in Hanover County at the home of Roger and Cynthia Harris, dear friends who suffered a terrible loss recently. Unfortunately, they weren’t home, a predictable result of such spontaneity. Undeterred, our hearty band then set out to carol our new-Mom niece, Christina. We got halfway through our second number when we remembered how much Ezra hates music, “No Sing!!!” We imagined him inside, perhaps seconds away from falling asleep only to be roused into hysteria by this crazy band of random singing monsters outside of his window. Kid will probably be scarred for life! However, all was not lost, since we got to see little Evelyn for the first time. Adorable child.

One more caroling stop at Pam’s parents’ house and finally success. Russ and Vi had just gotten home from church and were still adorned in Christmas finery. One out of three ain’t bad.

Then we decided that the Christmas light show would have to wait until we were properly fortified with Krispy Kreme doughnuts, or what we in Richmond, Virginia like to call them…H.A.B.’s( heart attack bait). Of course, the red “ready light” was shining brightly and the place was packed. It was probably the only place in town where seven people in pajamas with bright red, furry Santa hats could go unnoticed. An observation…ever notice how loud everyone is inside a Krispi Kreme joint? An effect of the raging sugar highs I suppose.

Up next was a beautiful and enchanting drive down Monument Avenue where we got to see how really wealthy people decorate their 2 million dollar anti-bellum mansions for Christmas. Hint: no inflatable Santas. I, for one, am glad that the current fad of these jolly inflatables came along after my kids were grown. I can only imagine the years of psycho-analysis I would have to pay for after my kids saw Santa alive and happy one night and then deflated and clearly murdered the next morning on the neighbors’ lawn.

“Daddy, who killed Santa!!??”

“No, no Patrick…he isn’t dead. H-he’s just…resting. Yeah, that’s it, he’s resting!”

“No Daddy. Somebody killed him! He’s just lying there dead on the ground!!”

“No son, he just looks dead. The closer we get to Christmas, Santa only comes out at night. He sleeps during the day!”

“Wait…Santa’s a vampire?”

Anyway, the lights were beautiful, from the elegance of Monument Avenue to the delightful kitsch of suburbia.

Oh, and for the record, a total of only sixteen doughnuts were consumed. Sixteen out of a possible twenty four, an admirable demonstration of discipline in the midst of a season of excess.

Merry Christmas!

Present Wrapping Fail

All the presents have been purchased, and the last two trees decorated. This morning is the 20^th of December. Not bad.

Of course, there’s still lots to do, namely present wrapping. Speaking of which…there was a time when after watching Pam do it for ten years or so I had become relatively respectable at applying ribbon to a Christmas present. Not anymore. A couple of nights ago after buying all of Pam’s presents in less than two hours at the mall, I settled down at what used to be our dinner table but for the next 5 days will serve as present wrapping central. Because these were Pam’s gifts I determined to take great care and make them as festive as possible. This meant that ribbons would have to be included. I submit the following photograph for your consideration:

 

First, I should point out that I was stone cold sober at the time and no animals were hurt in the process of wrapping this present. I just don’t understand what happened. I used to be a passably decent wrapper of presents. What happened? Maybe with the passage of time, I’m losing some of my fine motor skills. Perhaps my vision was playing tricks on me, throwing off my depth perception. Or maybe I should have had a couple of beers first!

Luckily, Pam was very understanding. “Oh…look at you. That’s ….adorable.”

Whatever Happened to "The Show Must Go On?"

There’s an old saying in show business…the show must go on. Unfortunately, this old saying comes with a twenty-first century addendum…unless you get threatened by hackers.

Yesterday, a day where being a Communist made a comeback, not only did the 60 year embargo on Cuba get lifted, but a handful of pajama-wearing, basement-living geeks managed to bring Sony Entertainment to its knees. Ten days ago, they hacked into Sony’s computer system, demanding that the upcoming movie, “The Interview” be cancelled. Yesterday, Sony capitulated, giving the anonymous hackers everything they asked for. Revenge of the Nerds, indeed.

The ransom note left by the hackers reads like the assembly instructions that come with those entertainment system cabinets you buy at Target. Apparently, North Korean doesn’t translate well to English:

“remember the 11^th of September, we recommend you to keep to keep yourself distant from the places at that time…Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Entertainment has made, then the world will be full of fear…All the world will denounce the Sony”

This stinging rebuke comes from a country whose people subsist on sticks and berries.

Still, on a day where Regal Cinemas announced their refusal to show the movie in question, Sony followed with a full retreat, pulling the film from every movie theatre in the world. This, despite the fact that the FBI finds zero evidence of any active threats to any cinema in the United States.

Before all the hubbub about “The Interview,” this movie would have appeared dead last on my “List of Things To Do Before I Die” list. But when I see naked cowardice and capitulation it serves to give me an insatiable appetite for horrible movies. If I ran Sony pictures, I would have been handing out free tickets! If I owned a Cineplex, I would be giving out free popcorn and drinks to anyone who showed up. I would make it my avowed goal to break Gone With The Wind’s 70 year old box office records. Then I would take out full page ads in every newspaper from Variety to the New York Times saying…Dear North Korean Hackers,…..Kiss My Ass.

This is not who we are in America, or at least, it’s not who we used to be. We love liberty, we cherish our freedom, yes even our freedom to indulge in terrible films. We have always gotten highly annoyed when anyone tried to censor art. And while The Interview isn’t exactly Hamlet, this is America. If we want to spend our money watching a comedy about the CIA hiring a couple of Hollywood types to go kill a dictator in North Korea, well…that’s our business.

Today it appears that personal safety trumps liberty and freedom. The mere possibility of violence is enough to send corporate types into the high grass in fear of lawsuits. We used to be made of sterner stuff. Imagine what we would have done in the 40’s had Hitler vowed violent attacks on anyone going to see Casablanca? Suppose the Soviets had threatened death on anyone daring enough to pay money to see Dr. Strangelove back in the 60’s? It would have been laughable.

But here we are in 2014, losing a huge battle in the Cyberwar, to a bunch of computer hackers.

Merciful fathers.

When to Shop?

The question of the day is, when exactly am I going to go Christmas shopping? Today is the 17^th, so we are officially entering the last week. This afternoon was a natural for getting it done. I had given it serious thought until the thermometer hit 57. Everybody knows you can’t go Christmas shopping if it’s that warm. Besides, a last minute business appointment popped up out of the blue for 3 o’clock.

Tomorrow shows a lot of promise. A cold front is supposed to sweep through overnight ushering in much cooler temperatures. Thursday’s high should only be in the mid-forties. I just might be able to put on my Santa hat and slip over to the mall after lunch. The only problem is that Thursday, being the 18^th, is an even day and I’ve never had much luck Christmas shopping on even days in the teens. Plus, at some point I’ll need to get my pre-Christmas massage, and Thursdays are usually pretty slow over at Hand and Stone.

Of course, Friday is the start of the weekend so the crowds will be off the charts crazy. That leaves Monday, Tuesday of next week, classic sucker days, full of panicked rookie husbands and frantic moms on their last nerve. Trust me, you don’t want any part of that.

That means that next Wednesday, Christmas Eve is still open and available. Sure, you run the risk that the stores will be out of stuff. Sure, if you wait until the very last minute, what happens if you’re sick with diarrhea and projectile vomiting? Although these are valid concerns, waiting until Christmas Eve comes with the advantage of not having to worry about it…now. Why do something unpleasant now that can be put off until sometime in the future? It works for the United States Treasury.

126 Dead Kids in Pakistan

While we slept, Taliban gunmen stormed an elementary school in Pakistan killing 126 innocent children before blowing themselves up. A caller from the Taliban took responsibility for the attack, explaining that it was revenge for the earlier deaths of several Taliban fighters at the hands of the Pakistani army.

And therein lies the fundamental difference between conventional war and the war on terror. The telephone.

I don’t recall George Patton ever having to ring up The Berlin Bugle to take credit for kicking their backsides in Lorraine. I don’t recall him having to contact someone at the news desk in Rome to inform them that it was his Seventh Army that had just run roughshod across Sicily and beaten Montgomery to Messina. See, in traditional war army A. engages army B. in battle on hill C.  Army A. prevails. Army B. withdraws to lick their wounds and plots revenge. Later, on hill D. army B. exacts revenge…and so on until one army runs out of either men, ammunition or both.

Not so with modern terrorism where ragtag band of jihadists A. declares a fatwa of some sort against government B. with the intent of overthrowing said government and instituting sharia law. Government B. fights back and sends several jihadists to their seventy virgins. Ragtag band of jihadists A. attacks elementary school C., kills 126 children, then notifies the local press that they are responsible[Ma1] .

Our bettors from academia to the New York Times constantly preach the doctrine of moral equivalence lest we Americans get on our high horse about these barbarians. “Sure”, they preach, “terrorists are brutal but no worse than what Christians did during the Crusades! Oh, and don’t forget how awful we were to Native Americans…and what about slavery!!??” Ok.

I’ll remember that the next time I am awakened with a story of a band of angry Methodists storming a school bus full of Jewish school kids. I’ll read all about moral equivalence the next time I learn that a half dozen Baptist deacons massacred 17 innocent Unitarians on a picnic. The next time an election doesn’t go my way I will note with irony the violent protests and looting of Muslim businesses by a bloodthirsty band of local Rotarians.

I am fully aware of the manifold failings of the West in general and America in particular. We have our fair share of problems and inconsistencies. But for those who are fond of always declaring us “no better” than our enemies I have a response after reading of the massacre in Pakistan.

Go to hell.

---

 [Ma1]

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. A Review

Last night, instead of finishing up the Christmas decorating, Pam and I settled down on the sofa to watch Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer, and I must say that this once delightful Christmas tradition hasn’t aged well. With the advent of modern psychoanalysis and the emergence of political correctness, it’s a miracle that Rudolph is still on the air. Is it any wonder that my generation is so screwed up, what with 30 million of us watching this show every year? Consider:

1.     When Santa visits Donner’s cave upon Rudolph’s birth he is only concerned with his future usefulness as an unpaid sleigh-puller. Worker exploitation.

2.     At reindeer practice, the Coach is a tyrannical autocrat who upon discovery of Rudolph’s deformity unceremoniously banishes him from the team with the full support of a herd of laughing, mocking reindeer trainees, despite the fact that Rudolph was the only one who could actually fly. Classic bullying.

3.     Then there’s Hermie, the dentist wannabe, a self-declared misfit, who dreams only of extracting people’s teeth without anesthesia. Hermie’s slave-driving boss is having none of it and berates Hermie at every opportunity in front of the other elves. The message is clear…individual dreams must be sacrificed on the altar of the common good of the company. Corporatism.

4.     Don’t even get me started on Yukon Cornelius, possibly the most inept businessman in the history of Hollywood what with his geologically doomed prospecting business at the North Pole. This idiot actually thinks that by simply heaving his pick axe into the air, it might actually fall onto the ice and find gold.

5.     Then there are the many misogynistic missives flying through the dialogue. When Donner decides to go out looking for Rudolph, (months after his disappearance), he dismisses the wife who wants to come with him with the classic, “This is man’s work, dear.”

 I could go on like this forever, but you get the picture. Try to imagine what this show would look like if it was produced today. Santa would be a black woman. Rudolph’s deformity would be AIDS. Hermie would finally be able to come out of the closet, and the Island of Misfit Toys would be a place where everyone was an illegal immigrant without health insurance cowering in their safe spaces, the ghastly specter of global warming creeping ever closer, until Santa's solar powered sleigh comes to their rescue.