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drunk santa

Remember Drunk Santa?

Well, there’s a postscript to this tale, relayed to me by my sister.

A couple of days after Christmas, a neighbor knocked on my sister’s door. Drunk Santa’s son, who had been on the scene at the time.

“Hey, I just wanted to thank you and your family,” he began.

“Really?”

“Yeah, about my dad. About letting him be Santa for Piper and your nieces.”

“Oh, sure. It was fun.”

“No, you see, uh ….. he’s got Alzheimer’s.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Well, thanks, but, see, every year he dresses up as Santa. Then he thinks he IS Santa. We usually manage to keep him in the house when he’s dressed up, but he wandered outside and your sister saw him.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, I think she was just excited to have the girls see him.”

“I know. Well, I know he wasn’t really ‘all there,’ talking to the girls, but he was so happy afterwards. He was just SO happy. That entire day, he was a different man.”

The neighbor’s voice started to choke.

My sister teared up.

“Oh, I’m glad. It really was fun.”

“Well, thanks again. It meant a lot to him. You have no idea.”

When my sister told me this, I teared up too. I was touched, but I was also chastened. I had simply assumed he was drunk. I had judged him as nothing but a drunk. It staggers me, shames me, that no other alternative even occurred to me.

He was just a drunk, weaving across the street, slurring my niece’s name.

“Drunk” Santa wasn’t drunk, Trace.

The man had Alzheimer’s.

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uhm, you didn’t pray hard enough

UGH! The perpetual angst of being a Chargers’ fan! We win — what? — 11 in a row and then in our first playoff game, we play our WORST game of the season.

Our field goal kicker, one of the most consistent legs in the game, missed 3 field goals. We get personal foul after personal foul for unsportsmanlike conduct and whatnot. Stuff we NEVER get. Crazy. Stupid.

Final score: NY Jets 17, SD Chargers 14.

Coulda used those 3 field goals, couldn’t we?

We always choke in the post-season.

WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

And now we will not speak of the Chargers for the next 9 months.

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big game today

So MB is at the coffeehouse this morning, picking up goodies for us, and as he’s leaving, a vaguely homeless looking man in a Chargers’ t-shirt approaches him on the sidewalk. Out of the blue, the man says, “Dude! Pray for the Chargers, man!!”

MB, a good sport, looked at him and said, “Oh, I will, man. I will.”

Oh, yes. Pray for the Chargers, man.

Hahahahaha.

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at the bookstore

Doing what I do best: eavesdropping.

At the table next to me are two young women. One woman is dressed in all black: jeans, sweater, spiky boots. The other woman is dressed in apathy: mom jeans, sweatshirt, sneakers.

I listen to their conversation and really start to dislike one of them.

“So I bought a petticoat.”

“A what?”

“You know, a coat.”

“Uh, well, that’s a skirt.”

“Oh. Yeah. I mean a pea coat.”

“Well, you have no IDEA how cold you’ll be.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“No. You don’t know.”

“I think I’ll be fine.”

“I keep seeing you fight for the right to dress inappropriately.”

“I’ll be fine.

Later …..

“You’re wearing Skechers with a skirt? I didn’t know you could wear Skechers with a skirt.”

And later …..

“Okay. So about you. Somehow you’re making that unemployment thing work — which I don’t get — but tell me about that.”

Oh, I swear, I could feel that old familiar itch in my smackin’ hand. I could visualize my lily white fist connecting with her smug little face: “Hey, hi, Betty! Guess what? Kapow! KAPOW!”

KAPOWW!

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oh, i hate that “jared” from subway

I mean, he was on the post-game show just now with Shannon Sharpe and Boomer Esiason and Bill Cowher — actual famous people who’ve done actual stuff — standing stage left behind a dinky table loaded with Subway sandwiches.

Demonstrating how to use them, I guess.

It suddenly gave me flashbacks to my glorious shopping channel hosting days when I had to “demonstrate” how to use a pillowcase.

I am totally serious.

Fleghh. Go away, Jared. Get fat again and go away.

Please. Do it for me. I will give you a pillowcase and show you how to use it.

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random snippets

ME: Oh, please. Don’t sit there all, “Ooh. Her thoughts. They sicken.”

**********
(After listening to me in the throes of another near-death coughing jag)

HE: Take that, wellness!

**********

HE: Why is your See’s sucker stuck in my meatball?
ME: Because I wasn’t done with it. It keeps it upright.
HE: That actually ….. makes sense.
ME: I know.

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quote of the day

Found on IMDb, of all places, in a discussion board about the upcoming film “Legion.” Apocalypse, good angels, bad angels, angry God, etc. Your basic end-of-the-world rowdydow.

Well, this one thread morphed into a “What if you don’t believe in God, can he still hurt you?” discussion, which — honestly, dude, calm down, okay? It’s a movie. He seemed to be having difficulty separating the notions of “movie” and “reality” but — well, I shouldn’t criticize, now that I think about it. I have that problem all the time.

Finally, someone just said:

If you don’t believe in God on Monday, he’s still going to be able to kill you when he shows up on Tuesday.

Hahahahahahahahaha.

Can’t really argue with that, I guess.

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i’ve been neglectful

But I’m sick as a dog, pippa. Back in a couple of days, I hope!

Unless it’s that dread swine flu.

And to prove the extent of my malaise here, I just typed “swine flue.”

Uhm, yes: “We prefer our chimney to have a swine flue. Smells yummy, tastes great!”

Yes, I’ve totally lost it.

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“say hey”

Michael Franti.

This is not a deep song, but who cares? Yes, he rhymes “you” with “you” and then …..”you,” but, seriously, who cares?

It makes me happy.

And, really, the important thing to learn here is that he knows one thing, that he loves you. He loves you, he loves you, he loves you.

And that ain’t bad. Well, maybe for you fellas, but just roll with it, okay?

See for yourself.

Hey mama.

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facebook and twitter

Okay. I need you to help me, pippa. I really just don’t GET IT. It’s my problem, I guess, since everyone everywhere seems to LOVE these two things. Honestly, I don’t quite understand the need for either of them, Facebook and Twitter, since I already have a blog. But I know people with blogs who do both of these things.

Just to see if I’m clear on their respective functions: Facebook is there so people you don’t want to ever talk to again can find you and talk to you and stalk you, right? That’s my understanding anyway. Twitter is there so — what? — you can tell people you’re going to the bathroom, right? But I already do that on my blog. So again with the noncomprehension on my part.

Beyond that, I find Facebook and Twitter aesthetically displeasing. The actual pages are ugly to me. Ugly and blah. I feel the same way about blogs. If they’re visually blah or a mess or displeasing to me in the slightest — let’s be honest — of ways — my inner fusspot will get all squinchy and I will simply not be able to hang there. I don’t know. I like to look at pretty things, I guess. I spent a long time designing the look of this blog — part of why I haven’t moved despite the recent church debacle/outing of my evil blog. Normally, that would have made me disappear into the ether in a heartbeat, but, well, I’m happy with the look of my blog and I worked hard on it. (The “designer” didn’t design it. I did. Designer followed my despotic instructions is what designer did, which is why it doesn’t look like any of the designer’s other designs. All of designer’s ideas were the POLAR OPPOSITE of mine. Little frustrating. Anyhoo. And whatevs.)

So.

If you Facebook, if you “Tweet,” can you please explain to me why? Tell me the benefits to you. I really do want to know, because I have a fair number of people asking me — regularly — to Facebook and Tweet and because I’m stubborn and don’t get it — aka, stupid — I continue to say no. I mean, express myself in “140 characters”? Is this even possible? And why? I don’t mean to sound like I’m slamming people who engage in these things, I just really don’t quite understand. I guess right now I view them as two more time consumers. Not “wasters,” necessarily; “consumers.” But, clearly, people seem to enjoy them, so I’d really like to know how they enrich people’s lives.

That’s the key for me with either of these things: Before I would participate, I’d need to see how they would enrich my life.

Any thoughts?

I’m listening, pippa.