the tree trunks are growing lights

first the swine flu, and now the trees get lights. what's next? ocean waves with mistletoe?

santa got run over by a dildo

hang, hung, hung

I was thinking about paying someone to feel the christmas spirit for me, so I wouldn't have to...but then I would have to pay them to stop feeling the christmas spirit for me on dec 28...and what if they refused? what if I was locked into an eternal scam in which I was forced to pay someone to feel Christmas spirit for me until I died?

Best Use of a Boogie Board by a UPS Guy...

...and the "Hell-Yeah!" goes to...

The San Diego UPS guy who used a pair of boogie boards to try to hide the toddler car seat that arrived 3 weeks in advance of italian bf's nephew. Too bad one of the boogie boards fell down before I got home.

I bet this guy is really into hiding his kids' christmas presents...he's the guy who builds a false floor in the basement and loads it up with toys...this is the same guy you do NOT want to piss off later in life, b/c that false floor in his basement can be used for all sorts of things that I can't even think about.

Cyber Monday: Beware of Early Morning (online) Shopping

If you plan to your christmas shopping from your computer during fleeting early-morning moments of silence, look out!

don't cyber shop before breakfast!!!!

Saturday morning, I awoke and bought vacuum bags online. Really.

Mornings are when I am most amenable to bureaucratic and other uninteresting tasks.

I did a little Googling on Saturday morning and found my vacuum bag make and model for the same price listed at Target (which of course didn't have the bags I needed when I was at their brick and mortar.)

Boom-batta-click-click-click.

Done!

But as I hit confirm, my eyes caught the shipping and handling. $7.50!

Frickin' $7.50 shipping and handling for $5.99 vacuum bags.

If I had been a little more awake, I'm sure I would have checked the shipping and handling before hitting "buy".

maybe there was some way to stop the online purchase, but that seemed like too much for a Saturday morning. So I'm just complaining about it on the Internet (and gradually trying to earn back that $7.50.) I think i'm almost there. I made coffee this am instead of buying a favored Monday-morning latte. Last night, I bought white wine that is a dollar cheaper than my homer-simpson-inspired, "I'll take a bottle of your second least expensive wine." I also stopped myself from buying a cookie-cooling rack. I don't know how important they are...but my mom uses them...and since I am trying to re-create her cookie magic this Christmas, I thought I should have a rack...but I used plates instead, and it seemed to work ok. So...I think i've almost earned back my saturday morning blunder...but be forewarned...don't cyber shop before breakfast!!!!

I also practiced yoga at home over the weekend rather than going to studios...but that was not for cost-saving reasons...

bowling alley is xmas free

I'm happy to report that the complete and utter lack of Christmas decorations at Kearney Mesa Bowling alley (which by the way is NOT on Kearney Mesa road. My female Korean buddy suggested they change the name to "NOT ON Kearny Mesa Bowling".)

but I am getting off track. The point is that the bowling alley has absolutely no Christmas decorations up...but I can't wait to go back when the Italians are in town to see what has changed--Charlie-Brown-Christmas-tree-wise.

Googling my brain for "bowling" and "Christmas" reminds me of being at a bowling alley as a little kid sometime after Chrsistmas, but before the decorations had come down. I remember being very sad as I looked at the bowling alley christmas tree, knowing it would not be up much longer, and knowing that that meant that Christmas was over and that regular life would soon be starting.

Hallo-tinsel-ween: Big Box Retail Brings Holidays Together

So yeah...christmas and halloween...they overlap in the "Land of the Big Box", for sure. We know that. But what does it mean for our understanding of the holidays (broad definition)?

I raised this question at a Yale-based telephone conference today focused on the emerging interface of Halloween and Christmas in retail America. One of the conference participants forwarded me this picture, taken on Halloween night 2009.

Anyone who claims that Halloween and Christmas exist in their own Big Box bubbles--with no interactions--needs to rethink their (not "his or her") hypotheses. Tinsel is clearly used to make a dress in the above photo. Sure, anyone can go dig into the closet and find random Christmas objects for use in Halloween costumes...but the sheer promiximty of Halloween and Christmas merchandise in the pre-Oct-31 Big-Box retail environment is fueling increased--and potentially novel--interactions between the two formerly-disparate holidays.

Look for an increasing number of Christmas-inspired Halloween costumes in the years to come. In addition, look for evolving notions of holiday boundaries in current and future generations. Jack-o-lantern Bubble lights on the Christmas tree. Jumbo Christmas stockings as trick-or-treat bags. These are just the beginning.

New Haven Santa Update

Santa made a surprise move today. The red-suited maverick took time to leave his sweat shops in China, and to go to a mall in New Haven, CT, according to Absurd Christmas freelance reporter, Douglas the architecture grad student.

According to a text message from the field from Douglas,

"Santa is at the mall no joke. All alone."

We look forward to additional updates on this breaking news story.

THIS JUST IN:

Douglas provided a photo of Santa...perhaps the first time he has been seen outside of his compound in China since he appeared at a "Christmas in July" used car extravaganza in Indianapolis.

Apparently, moving the North Pole to China has decreased mid-November interest in Santa...at the New Haven mall "not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse."
**as douglas suggested, please note rotisserie chicken in foreground of photo.

big box / office park disconnect

We are in that magical transitory moment in the year in which the big box stores have blown past Thanksgiving and dove right into Christmas. Meanwhile, the real estate offices, salons, and upscale car mechanics of the USA are wallowing in rust colored chrysanthemums and various cornucopia products. Mean-meanwhile, the candy bowl in my office is empty. Someone finally took the deformed tootsie roll that everyone in the office had already picked up at least twice, and then put back down once they realized a surgical procedure would be required in order to remove the wrapper from the deformed tootsie body. BTW, where have I been during the Jolly Rancher explosion? I had no idea they made tootsie-pop-sized lollies.

live trees coming on Nov 17

A local big box will get it's first crap...oh i mean crop of "live trees" on Nov 17. Of course by live trees, I mean "recently dead" trees, as opposed to fake trees which are made of plastic and are thus "long-ago dead" trees...if you imagine that the carbon in the oil used to make the plastic once belonged to some sort of living organism.

An excited employee in the garden section of the big box gave me the Nov 17 date with great excitement..."it only comes once a year!" she exclaimed.

Holiday Bargains and Thrift Stores

One of those things that always sticks in my mind is a year-after-college conversation I had with a New York based fashion-designer friend of a girlfriend (now wife) of a high school friend of mine.

I was talking up the wonders of thrift store shopping...Matt had taught me to thrift in college. And this fashion designer was like...yeah, but in new york, sometimes the new clothes are cheaper than the thrift clothes...and she was right...in some cases, you could get super cheap new stuff...cheaper than $9 thrift store cords...

fast forward 10 years...and I have a similar comment...new christmas merch can be cheaper than the stuff at the thrift stores...I was at a goodwill in downtown san diego yesterday, as part of my "day in under-travelled san diego"...and I found a bunch of fake Christmas trees on sale for ridiculous prices...really...$35 bucks for a mediocre fake, used, and kinda beat up tree? are you kidding me? been to WalMart lately? new trees abound for well under $35 dollars. And you might even find one that is "pre strung" with lights...in fact, that seems to be the norm now...you have to hunt around a bit to find the non-strung trees...but they are there...and they are WAY cheaper than freaking $35.

how do I know all this????

stay tuned to find out...wink wink

***The WalMart dilemma never seems to go away...unless you just never walk in the door and never do comprehensive Web searches for products...

Tijuana across the border

I went down to the park on the western most border of san diego and tijuana...where the land meets the ocean. it's a park on the usa side...but a totally militarized park...at least 7 different border patorol guys in various big ass trucks drove past. one tried to scare me away...told me about all the dangerous immigrants and criminals that could be sneaking through the park...then he qualified his statement...not ALL the immigrants are dangerous, he said.

Candy Corn 2009

Last Saturday was only ONE WEEK after Halloween, and I could NOT find any candy corn. I tried two grocery stores and a drug store. No freaking candy corn. What happened to the mountains of candy corn that towered just a few days prior.

I don't know about you, but I am increasinly freaked out by how fast holidays dissappear from retail shelves. Remember the days when holiday merch would languish on shelves for weeks and weeks. I am particularly thinking about Christmas, but I'm pretty sure, it was the same deal for Halloween. First things would be 50% off...and as they days ticked by, the size of the discount would increase...and then there were the bins in which advanced math was requred to figure out the actual discount...you know the bins I'm talking about...the ones that say TAKE AN EXTRA 50% OFF...followed by...TAKE AN ADDITIONAL 75% OFF...so you are taking 75% off of something that was already marked down 50, then 60, then 70 %. What is 75% off of something that is already 50% off???? It doesn't matter...at least to me...b/c those bins are few and far between.

So what the hell happened to the ghost boxer shorts? The witch toilet bowl covers? back to a wharehouse till next year maybe...but what about all the candy? where is my stash of Brach's candy corn? Do they ship it to third world countries and sell it there as "special" Candy? Do people in xxx country...you know...the countries with diseases that you only think about (unless you are Martin E) when you've earned enough money and time off to risk getting killed by a hippo on vacation....those kind of places...are they flooded with our old halloween candy?

I miss the bins...but there is not room for the bargain bins b/c the candy aisles are freaking full with every possible iteration of christmas candy.

So while last october I was freaking out over my over consumption of candy corn ...this year, I have the opposite problem.

The last time I saw candy corn in real life (minus the gross all-year candy corn that is waxy in appearance and doesn't really count as candy corn), was on the bus on Halloween night. The thing is...it's not the kind of candy corn you can eat...it was a girl in a candy corn costume. Supa cute.

BTW, candy corn is perhaps the most honest candy out there...it doesn't try to hide the fact that it's totally made with corn syrup. It's corn. It's candy. It's corn candy. It's candy corn.

photo needed from halloween

I was "the old lady who rides the bus" for Halloween, and in fact, i did take an hour-long bus ride to get to the street party i went to...and I even had to transfer buses at Fashion Valley Mall (green sweater helped with the bus ride). Thankfully, a black woman on the bus who said "Guurl" when I sat down fixed my collar. A male army veteran (with good hair and nails) shared that when he left the military, his commanding officer told him that he needed to embrace his feminine spirit and not just his masculine spirit. He says he went to modeling school when he left the military, really. The only person willing to sit next to me (on a totally full bus) in my old lady hound's tooth dress was a ripe-smelling chubby latino construction worker. the evening was a smashing success well before I got off the bus at my official destination. It's all about the journey.