A Merry Christmas Mix Up

I'm feeling a little mixed up this Christmas season. There's nothing wrong you understand.  Things just aren't happening in the traditional order. Today, for example, I hosted my family "Christmas" dinner but tomorrow is Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day I'll be at my son's for a casual lunch, but since we've already exchanged gifts, it will feel more like a casual New Years Day get together. Then next week I'll be spending time with my brother and his family and it will feel like Christmas again.  I'm so confused, but in a very happy way and, an additional happy note, an item I had ordered and then discovered was "back ordered" arrived today, just in time for giving.  Life is good this Christmas season, confusing but good.  Merry Christmas to all, and great happiness..  I will resume blogging next year.  

I do appreciate precision

A couple of days ago I heard a weather forcaster commenting on the fact that after December 21 the days will start getting longer. The laughed and said "Well, actually days are prety much the same length all the time.  What I meant to say is that the hours of daylight will start to increase." Good for him.  I do appreciate accuracy. 

Star Wars has another Winner

I saw the newest Star Wars movie, "Star Wars VIII" this evening with my family.  It was a delayed birthday present and well worth the wait.  I've been told that this episode has had mixed reviews but I enjoyed it very much. I must admit to having a long term love affair with the Star Wars series going all the way back to "Episode IV" which came out 40 years ago. I remember my son, age 5 at the time, sitting on the edge of his seat during the entire show. He jumped with that first jump into hyperspace and has loved the idea of space travel ever since. This evening he wasn't on the edge of his seat but rather reclining in a big comfy theater chair. The theater experience has changed over the last 40 years but the magic of getting caught up in an exciting movie is still there. I was very pleased with this one.

Special /December Days

Today is (was) "Go Caroling Day" but I restrained myself for the good of all my neighbors and did not go caroling up and down the halls. Tomorrow is "Humbug Day" but except for wrapping a last few gifts I'm ready to celebrate with my family. I'm even ready to cook Christmas dinner so I'm not really feeling too humbugish. I did hear a funny story in the news today though about an eight year old boy who got so caught up in the story of the Grinch that he became convinced that the Grinch was about to steal Christmas at his house and called 911.  Happily, the police were very understanding. So no Humbug for me.  Once I get past Christmas though there are two more special days I do plan to celebrate. December 27 is "Fruitcake Day" and I am one of the few people I know willing to admit I really like fruitcake so I will be celebrating appropriately. Then December 28 is "Card Playing Day" and, as luck would have it, I will be with family members who love to play cards.  So bring on those silly special days.

My patiencde is wearing out

It's 10:49pm as I start to write this.  I started watching "The Voice" at 8:00pm, knowing that there would be a lot of music and other entertainment before we got to the big announcement - who will be the winner of "The Voice" but I never thought they wouldn't make any announcements until the last 10 minutes. Finally, at 10:52 he's announcing 4th place - Red Marlowe.  That works for me.  I thought the three female finalists were all better than him.  Third place is Brooke Simpson (I thought she would be second).  Woops, now they have to take a commercial break.  Have you noticed how long commercial breaks are these days?   Back from the break, words from the coaches.  It's 10:58 now....  Second place goes to Addison and Chloe ends up in first place.  I'm a little disappointed but still 2nd place isn't bad.  I think we'll be hearing more of Addison Agen. At age 16 she has a long time to work on her career.  So, good for you Addison.  And that's the last you'll here from me on this subject til she wins her first Grammy. 

Fort Wayne in the news

If you watched "The Voice" this evening, you know that Fort Wayne's own Addison Agen did very well and, I think, has a good chance of winning the competition.  We'll know the results tomorrow. I think she was best over all and I did vote for her, but I must admit Brooke's performance of "Oh Holy Night" was really amazing.  
But more good news for Fort Wayne.  Last year IPFW's Mastadons unexpectedly won a basketball game against then 5th ranked IU played at the Coliseum here in Fort Wayne. I believe that last year they won it in an overtime.  Tonight the same two teams met in Bloomington, and to my (and I think some other people's amazement) IPFW won again, this time by 20 points. 
So let's hear it for Fort Wayne success stories!!!

keeping it light

A friend commented today that my recent blog posts haven't been very humorous.  This blog is called "Luci's Light Look at Life" so, in an effort to lighten it up a bit, this evening I am going to share some of my favorite, recently observed T-shirt wisdom.  My daughter is getting T-shirts for her highschool children that say "Marching Band, Like a Sport only Harder". I have purchased for my left-handed sister-in-law a shirt that says "I may be left handed but I'm always right."  Since she is only 4'11" tall, I was also tempted by "I'm not short, I'm fun sized."  But my current favorite, which I should buy for myself says "I'm planning to be cremated when I die.  it's my last chance to have a smoking hot body."

What have I done?

My daughter gave me a DNA test kit for my birthday this week.  I had asked for it because I'm interested in what it might show about my ancestry. The kit I used is from 23andMe and the instructions were easy to follow.  I spit in the tube and mailed it off today after skimming their very lengthy disclosures, registering on line, and agreeing to their terms.  I also answered a lot of survey questions and generally thought the whole process was pretty interesting and harmless. That was until I watched "48 Hours" this evening.  It involved, among other things, the ordeal a young  man went through when his DNA was almost a match to that found at a murder scene.  What caught my interest was that he came under suspicion, not because he had any criminal record, but based on a near match with his father's DNA which was on a public DNA search site, in this case Ancestry.com.  I'm not really too worried about this. My children and grandchildren are all law abiding citizens as far as I know.  I did find another of the company's disclosures interesting.  They warned that they are not liable if you don't like what the test results show. The example they used was discovering that your father wasn't your biological father.  I'm not worried about that either since, as far as I know, my dad never had his DNA analyzed so I'll never know if we match or not.  I have no reason to suspect that we don't.  I will however be surprised if my results don't show a large percentage of German ancestry.  I'm looking forward to getting the results. Stay tuned.

A different theater experience.

I attended the Arena Dinner Theater's production of "Peter and the Starcatcher" this evening.  The dinner was traditional; salad with French dressing, beef and noodles, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn and cake. All very tasty but not particularly imaginative.  The play, on the other hand, was quite imaginative.  It was the story of how a poor, mistreated orphan boy became Peter Pan.  A wildly slapstick performance of a cute story.  The mermaid scene (with all of the pirates and sailors portraying the mermaids) was a sight I hope will fade from my memory with time.  The play was full of slightly skewed 'one liners'. One of my favorites was "No man is an archepelago." (Maybe you had to be there.)  One of my favorite bits in the play involved the pirate captain accidentally cutting his hand off and then running through a list of things he will now never be able to do.  Most memorable "I shall never be a satisfactory juggler."  It was quite a play.

I'm sensing a trend here.

Looking ahead on my calendar of special days, I find that tomorrow is "National Cupcake Day" while Saturday is "Chocolate Covered Anything Day". Then on Monday we have "Bake Cookies Day." Anyone would think a special event is coming up soon. While I probably won'r be baking cookies or cupcakes anytime soon (mainly because others are bringing desserts to my Christmas dinner) it would just seem wrong to ignore "Chocolate Covered Anything Day."  In fact I've already made a start on that celebration. A couple of days ago I baked some coconut blondies, from a mix, and thought, as the pan was cooling on my counter, that some chocolate chips sprinkled on top and allowed to melt might be good, and it was.  It's hard to go wrong by covering anything with chocolate except maybe broccoli, although I admit I've never tried that. Feel free to experiment.

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

Tomorrow is "Roast Chestnuts Day", not too surprising that this is in December along with "Gingerbread Decorating Day' which was last Saturday. I'm not sure what "Wear Brown Shoes Day" (December 4) has to do with Christmas but who knows, there may be some deeper meaning there that I'm not aware of. Anyway, back to those chestnuts. Many, many years ago when I was teaching in New York State some other teachers and I took a bus load of students on a field trip to some museums in the city.  The bus ride was the noisiest I have ever been on but I prefer not to dwell on that. While there a teacher friend introduced me to roast chestnuts.  They actually were being roasted over hot coals in little carts along the sidewalks and you caould buy a small bag full for a minimal price. I remember them being hot and very tasty. No wonder there's a song about them.

Hooray, she did it again.

No, this time I'm not talking about Addison, althought she did make it and is one of the four finalists who will compete next week. I'm very pleased for her but this evening I'm talking about my youngest (8th grade) granddaughter who won the all-school spelling bee at her school today. She will go on to compete at the county level sometime after Christmas. Needless to say, I'm very proud of her. She also won at her school last year but didn't make it as far as state. Hopefully this year (well, next year actually) will be her year. Fingers crossed and best wishes.

How far we've come

Today is National 'App' Day which ties in perfectly with what I was already planning to write about. Yesterday I drove to the mall to do some Chritsmas shopping and realized, when I got there, that I had left my cell phone at home. My first response was a quick burst of panic as the thought passed through my mind that I wouldn't have a way to call for help on the way home if I was in an accident. After reassuring myself that someone (or everyone) in the crowd of onlookers who would gather at this fictional accident would no doubt call for help for me - after they clicked off a bunch of pictures of course.  Once I reassured myself that I would no doubt make it home alright, I realized I would still miss my phone. It contained pictures (love that camera) of things I had planned to shop for. I don't use all of the apps available but I do appreciate the availability. The whole experience made me remember my first "cell phone" or box phone, a clunky box that sat on the floor of my car between the front seats. My husband insisted I have it for safety's sake because I was making a driving trip to Reno by myself. It did make me feel more secure. Of course neither of us considered that (back in the 80's) there were vast stretches of the wild west without any cell tower service.  Ah well, i did survive that drive, just as I made it home yesterday.  Of course, I will have to go back this week, with my phone, to finish my shopping. Ho, ho, ho....

Computer frustration

I've been working on my annual Christmas poem today. It's not great poetry but I have fun composing it, unless, of course the computer program doesn't cooperate. I have two programs I can write with, Word and Wordpad. Wordpad is simpler but Word offers more options so I decided to use Word. The typing went fine and I saved it, or thought I did, then couldn't find it later.  A mysterious blank document popped up, yikes! I searched through several files, thinking I had accidentally deleted it (panic time) until it finally showed up in, of course, the last file I checked. Not willing to risk having to go through this hunt again, I copied and pasted it into Wordpad where it is readily accessible.  Sometimes simple is much better.

not so secret present

I finished wrapping my gifts today for the 10 year old girl I selected off the Angel Tree at church this year. I was able to get everything on her list and the wrapping was no problem.  However, keeping her gifts a surprise until Christmas morning may be a problem. One of the gifts she wanted was a light up 'figet spinner' and I noticed, after it was wrapped that the light up feature was glowing through the heavy wrapping paper. The other toy gift she requested was a "FurReal Puppy". This annoying toy is motion activated and repeats 80 different phrases, interspersed with barks and an occasional rude noise (was that really necessary?). I'm sure a 10 year old will think it's hilarious. I tried pushing on the tail to turn it off, as the note on the box suggested, to no avail. So it's sitting, heavily wrapped, quiet at the moment, but very likely to give away any surprise when anyone shakes it.  Ah well, it will be someone elses problem tomorrow. Being a basically helpful person, I did remember to enclose four AA batteries so its little life can go on. 

now I'm in hte Christmas mood

Yesterday  I finished some Christmas shopping, not all of it, that would be much too out of character, but enough that I could get all of the gifts for my Spokane family shipped out today. I always feel good when I know that box has been sent. I also finished shopping for my angel tree girl. My granddaughter helped me with most of this but I needed to find one more item on her list.  I braved Toys R Us to find a FurReal Puppy which I have temporarily stowed in the spare bedroom because it is motion activated and was barking and talking to me whenever I walked by.  There must be a way to turn it off but I haven't figured it out. After Sunday it will be someone elses problem. As a reward (at least I'm seeing it that way) for all this energetic pre-Christmas preparation, this evening I was able to relax and enjoy "Jingle Bell Jazz" presented at C2G Music Hall by "Heartland Sings". it was a lovely evening of lively Christmas music and I really enjoyed it. The wine helped too. The music ranged from classics like "Chestnuts Roasting on An Open Fire" which always brings back memories of a long ago visit to New York City to new compositions like "Food Coma Christmas" which was almost to true to be funny. Tomorrow it is supposed to snow. It just keeps getting better and better.

The Great American Baking Show

I enjoy watching "The Great American Baking Show" because I know it won't tempt me to over indulge in sweets.  Oh, don't get me wrong - everything the competitors create looks absolutely scrumptious (thank goodness I don't have 'smell-a-vision') but there's no way I would go to the lengths they do to create such goodies. I also don't have a proofing drawer or many of the other bits of equipnment they use, which helps me resist the urge to start rolling out some dough. i do think it's deliciously ironic that one of the commercials on the show this evening was for Pillsbury's cinnamon rolls in a tube. Now that's my kind of baking.

Angels, angels, angels

Every year the women of our church hold an event called Advent by Candlelight. Women are invited to host tables which really just means decorating them and (usually) hosting women from some church group. I said I would host a table, and ended up with two.  Happily a friend helped out and became my co-host. She knew how to fold green cloth napkins into Christmas trees and those were a big hit. We were told to decorate our tables to reflect a favorite Christmas carol.  I chose "Angels We Have Heard on High" and asked those who sat at our tables to bring some angels of their own to share. It was great.  We ended up with tall, slender agnes, modern stylized angels, chubby little cupid angels, homemade angels (one my daughter made in kindergarten) tree topper angels and more. It sounds like a terrible hodgepodge but it actually was really beautiful and fun to hear the stories behind some of the angels. I am really in the Christmas spirit now, and as soon as I figure out who left the one mystery angel behind all will be well.

Expert Advice

It's always good to seek expert advice when you know you need help. Today, for example, I took my 13 year old granddaughter with me to help me shop for gifts for a 10 year old girl whose card I had sellected off the Angel Tree at our church.  She led me right to the appropriate clothing, found the toy requested, and we finished up the whole process in about 15 minutes. There's nothing like an expert shopper to get things done efficiently and I came away feeling like my angel child will enjoy these gifts.  I hope so.

Biz Town

Today I tried something new.  I volunteered, with some other friends at my church, to help with the Biz Town (Jr. Acheivement) experience for about a thousand 4th and 5th graders from South Wayne Elementary School. Actually it was more like 80, but it felt like a thousand as they milled around, going from "business" to business doing their assigned projects. It was an interesting experience and I will probably agree to do it again but it was also frustrating in some ways. I had one boy in my group of seven (we were the utility company) who needed to be led by the hand through his jobs, which involved quite a lot of reading. He also was very intense and easily upset when he met with any frustration. I'm not sure how jobs were assigned but he would have done much better with the job of changing furnace filters in all of the other companies. The boy who actually did that job finished in an hour and didn't have much else to do for the rest of the 5-hour experience. Overall it was well organized. The staff at JA had everything we needed to get the jobs done but I felt I could have done a better job of helping my group if I hadn't had to focus so much on one student.  I didn't know, until I was filling out their computerized survey at the end of the day that there was on-line training I could have taken. Maybe next time. One thing assured me the students were learning something. Early in the day, when the students had only finished a small part of their jobs, one girl said to me "No wonder my parents are always so frazzled when they get home from work at night." 

it still makes me laugh

I just finished watching the Carol Burnett 50th Anniversary Special and I am amazed at how many times I laughed. All of the sketches were ones I had seen before but they still made me laugh.  The ones involving Tim Conway were the best.  Most epic were the Siamese elephants bit (they were joined at the trunks), the dentist, the slippery doorknob, and of course Carol's own scene in "Went with the Wind" where she appears wearing a dress made from draperies with the curtain rod still attached. And all that comedy without any obscenities or crude innuendos. Isn't it interesting that good, clean humor could be so funny? Some current writers of 'comedy' shows could take notes.

My Christmas Poem

Every year I write a Christmas poem instead of a newsletter. I hit the high points of my year and figure if people are curious for more details we can talk. Today I realized that it is December and I had better get started. I did buy the Christmasy paper a couple of weeks ago so there's really no excuse to delay any longer. And so I have started.  Here are the first two lines of my 2017 poem:
Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Do you have to show it all?

Stay tuned for more.