My Little Whoville

Christmas is my favorite holiday, so I'm going to re-overshare a few Christmas memories.  :)

Growing up, my dad put our tree up on Christmas Eve. He'd wrestle it into the stand while speaking the same strange language as the dad in "The Christmas Story." I always helped decorate the tree. After arranging ornaments, we placed tinsel on the tree one strand at a time. Our tree topper is to the right—the beard hair came from Santa himself (haircut clippings).

My dad and sisters went to Midnight Mass each year--they were in the choir. After my chores, I made macaroni bracelets (or something) for my sisters, cards for my parents, and tried to play Christmas music on my grandpa’s ancient electric organ (we had a “by the numbers” guide). A turkey was usually soaking in salt water.

Since Santa had so much ground to cover, my folks told him not to wrap our presents. He created piles--so the excitement was figuring out which pile was yours. I usually got some combination of pants, a shirt, socks or underwear—somehow Santa always knew what I needed most. And there would be THE present. One year it was a doctor's kit. One year a plastic trumpet (no parent would give a noise-maker like that to their son). In the 6th grade I received a chess set.

We visited family during the holidays, including my dad's sister. She made amazing homemade cookies. But before cookies were served, you had to sit and listen to the adults talk for what seemed like hours…often debating the shortest route to places I'd never been. Snore!

Favorite Christmas Memory:
Instead of going to midnight Mass @ 12, I stayed home with my mom. We watched "A Christmas Carol" (1938 version). She let me have eggnog and fruitcake. I like eggnog. I like fruitcake. But combined they made me sick. Despite the upset stomach, that night with my mom is one of my favorite Christmas memories.  Not too many years later I got engaged after a Midnight Mass--killing two birds with one stone.  :)

Least Favorite Christmas Memory:
Taking tinsel off the tree! My father wanted to keep the tinsel to re-use the next year. So we had to take it all off one strand at a time. The tinsel was older than I was.

Christmas as an Adult:
The tree goes up mid-month with no hassle--on the 15th this year. Santa wraps presents, even though I've asked him not to. When we get together with family I start conversations about the best way to get to a particular place…to keep the tradition alive and to annoy the kids a little. They’ve heard the story and know why I do it.

Hopefully this Christmas season will create new fond memories for my family and I hope it does the same for my friends. Whether you celebrate or not, I wish you and your loved ones the peace and joy of the season!!!

My Dad's Birthday

It was the 14th.  He passed away a few years ago...of natural causes...which sort of surprised me at the time.  Like all of us, he had flaws. But one of his best traits was speaking up when someone else was being a jerk, not standing by silently if someone was being victimized. I realized while he was in the hospital that somewhere in the back of my mind I expected that trait would lead him to a premature funeral.  Luckily it didn't. 

Today I'd like to pay tribute to that trait and also to the heroes and victims of last week's tragedies in Newtown and Chenpeng.  I hope I live long enough to see a day when humans don't do such terrible things to each other.

To lighten the mood before you go, I want to share a story about one of my dad's craftier decisions.  I posted recently about when I first got my driver's license.  Soon after that I was eager to buy a car (so I wouldn't have to walk back and forth to work). My parents agreed to put the car in their names to help lower the insurance rate, but said it would still be expensive (since I was a teenager).

Every six months my mom told me how much I owed and I forked it over. It was a lot. But again, car insurance for male teenagers is very pricey.

A few years and a few cars later I bought a "new" car and decided to register it in my own name.  I knew the insurance would be a lot higher--but it would really be mine. I went to the insurance agent's office to fill out the forms for the policy and he shocked me. He gave me a quote that was less than half of what I paid for the older car. I asked him why it was soooo much less.

The agent checked my parent's file.  It turned out I had not been paying the insurance for just my car.  I had been paying the ENTIRE bill--for my car and both of theirs!!! Later my dad explained his thinking--he said having me on their policy raised the rate on all 3 cars, so he thought it was fair for me to pay the entire bill.  I wonder if he collected the entire amount from my brothers too before they struck out on their own???  He probably made a bundle on that insurance scam.  My dad was an interesting fellow.

Life with Ricademus 1.0

My family is way too easy to entertain. 

I've been a under the weather this week--just a cold, but a weird one.  I didn't get the usual (horrible) sore throat or much congestion, but my larynx feels raw and so do I.  Anyway, it felt chilly in the house last night after work, so I covered up with a little red blanket while I was reading the newspaper in the living room.  I wanted to reed about our city's new read fire engine. (Sometimes I think English is confusing on purpose :)

The sound of the dryer buzzer told me clothes were done (I like to take them out right  away to minimize wrinkling).  When I got up to check the clothes, I didn't want to leave my blanket behind.  And I didn't want to look like Linus.  So I tried something different.

I turned the red blanket into a cape by tying two ends together and then ran through the house (to the laundry room) with my arms stretched out in front of me.  My wife and kids seemed to think that was funny, which is setting the bar too low.  I can do much better than that.  Maybe they were cutting me slack since I don't feel well.

This really wasn't much of a post...just a little piece of silliness.  I'll do better next time.  Maybe. 


PS - My wife must have really liked the cape.  She suggested I wear it to work.  :)

Camping Fun

December is a good time for a camping story, right?  Well, if it is or isn't, Rooth posted about camping today and Hawaii 5-0 had a camping theme, so I'm in the mood.

As a kid I used to camp out with other boys in the neighborhood. It was usually in a field on the other side of the train tracks, which was surrounded by woods.  My parents said no to one camp out, but later changed their minds.  I decided to surprise my friends.

They set up their tents at the cleared end of the field. I set-up my homemade tent at the other end, behind a stand of milkweeds, where they couldn't see it. Next I gathered up about 10 "gumballs" (prickly balls from sweetgum trees) and put them in a jar with just a little gasoline.

As expected, my friends eventually built a campfire. (Their dad dug a little pit and put cinder blocks around three sides of it for safety.) When I saw the fire going, I started crawling towards it through the weeds--with my little jar of surprises. I stopped just outside the ring of light. My friends were telling stories, trying to scare each other, but it wasn't working.

I pulled out the first gumball and threw it towards the fire. I missed. Someone heard it land, but the sound was dismissed. I launched the second one, but missed again. They all heard that one land and it spooked them. They were worried about what might be out there in the dark. It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud and getting caught. The third time was the charm. I threw the gumball directly into the fire pit and the flames shot up pretty high. That scared the heck out of them! All of my friends jumped up and half of them wanted to run home--one thought they were being haunted!

At that point I couldn't hold it in any more. I started laughing so hard I couldn't talk. The campers were so relieved it was me they forgot to be mad. I let them each take a turn throwing a gumball into the fire and then we got down to the serious business of camping--toasting marshmallows, talking about girls, and occasionally sharing something meaningful that we never would have talked about at home, in school or in the light of day.

It was a nice night!

Calling for Trouble

My wife called to to let me know she had errands to run this evening.  I asked if she wanted me to pick up dinner, but she wasn't ready to commit to not cooking.  We both knew she wouldn't be cooking, she just wasn't ready to admit it.  I'm not being critical, there was too much on her plate tonight for dinner to fit on there too.  :P  I'm happy to cook.  Well, happy to pick up something. 

We agreed she would call later to discuss dinner.  She didn't have my new work cell number yet (my son has my cell today), so I told her I would use it to call her (then she'd have the number).  I asked her to tell me her cell number. 

She was very offended.  ("You don't know MY number???") 

As she gave me the phone number, I repeated wrong numbers back to her (as if I'd never heard her phone number before).  She got annoyed. 

She didn't realize I was teasing her.  Even if somehow I'd forgotten her number (thanks to the joy of speed dialing), she was on her cell phone and the number was staring me in the face from caller ID. When I confessed I was teasing, she wasn't amused.  It happens (maybe 1% of the time).

Now I'm in trouble.  I guess one person's playful can be another person's aggravating. 

Assuming I'm going to make this mistake again (it's a safe bet), what would you suggest I bring home for dinner (or cook) to get myself out of trouble??? 

Bad Car Karma

Car trouble has been a major theme during 2012 for my family.  Ruth pointed out it has been a year of bad car karma.  The highlights included a rear axle snapping in half (while I was going 65 mph (105 kph); our van needing a new engine; replacing batteries (including in-laws, I replaced four this year); pushing cars; and lots of other minor issues.  We had car trouble again on Friday, but this time it was different.

When my wife tried to start her car Friday evening, the sound scared her.  She knew something was terribly wrong, but not what.  She got a ride home and later we went to check out the problem.  I could see the front of the muffler was touching the ground.  I assumed a pipe had broken.  I was wrong.  When I got on the ground to take a look, I saw the catalytic converter was gone.  Two very clean cuts on the remaining pipes made it clear it was a theft, not an accident.

We called for a tow.  Somehow the tow truck driver knew who stole the converter.  He said it was the Blacks.  I was shocked Wayne and Edna Black (they live 3 houses away) would do such a thing.  Then I realized he didn't mean the Blacks, he meant black people in general.  That was the end of our chatting--and of course I didn't tip him.

The aggravation and expense from this theft is extremely annoying.  But, as I'm sure you're thinking right now too, there really is only one thing I can do.   I have to pay for the repair -- and then take an extended leave of absence from work so I can stakeout that parking lot every.single.day until I catch the scum who did it.  It shouldn't take more than 3 or 4 months. 

Who wants to go on the stakeout with me???

LOL, I'm just kidding about the stakeout!   As much as the little vigilante in me ("Two go out, one comes back") wants to find justice, there's no point in going out looking for trouble.  It's better to just always remember to be a good neighbor and a good citizen when you happen to stumble across trouble.  Do what you can without putting yourself in harm's way, which for most of us is calling the police.


PS - What a weird ending for a post about car trouble!!!  :)