Tuesday, November 29, 2011

I hate my big, fake Christmas tree, Sting sings country, we drink half and half, I reminisce about my cross-dressing days, and our elf is MIA

So, it's that time of year again. The time when I drag my big, fake Christmas tree out, set it up, growl and yell like a toddler when half the lights don't work, then spend $50 and 5 hours buying and applying new lights over the top of the old ones. It is also the time of year when I eat pie three times a day, and when the children whine that we've run out of milk, instead of going to the store, I announce "let them drink cream!" in a nasally accent, as if I were on a balcony at Versailles, instead of under my duvet reading In the Garden of Beasts.

Then the kids whine that all the cream is whipped, in aerosol cans, and gone, since I needed it for all the pie. So then we drink half and half. It is very tasty with Rice Krispies.

I know I should just get a real tree, but that requires strapping things to cars, which is stressful, because I'm always sure whatever is bungeed on is sure to fall off in the street (I am told this is an irrational fear, sort of like my fear of swimming with fish, except that, well, stuff DOES fall off cars, and who knows what that fish is planning? He looks fishy to me) and also because a real tree means EVEN MORE lights to apply (at least in theory). So anyhow, for the past 7 years, I've used the fake one, whilst cursing it. Annually. Here I am kvetching in 2007 about the horrors of 2006.

But Thanksgiving was good. Our friends from Utah came bearing about 15 pounds of chocolate, and we went to a Sting concert. Who knew he had like 3 albums I'd never heard, including at least one that is entirely COUNTRY? Do you know how weird country sounds in a British accent? But he looked and sounded great, and if all the songs had been as fantastic as his acoustic Message in a Bottle encore, I might not have nodded off in the middle, somewhere around a song about a western movie crossed with an old Broadway musical. I think Sting is a little out of touch, just sitting over in his castle next to Stonehenge, making all sorts of love and writing songs about barley and foxes. Sometimes it works (the barley, the sex- I'll have to take his word for it), sometimes it doesn't (the foxes weren't my favorite). Either way, he's still hot and rich, so what's it to him? We also watched a movie called Stardust (a little every night, since I kept falling asleep because I am either old or still jet-lagged), which was very good, and we ate Thanksgiving, where I ate so much I almost threw up, but did not (which means I consumed the perfect amount of Thanksgiving), and we went to SAS fabrics (where I became overstimulated sifting though a vat of old patches, but luckily Kari had some hard candies in her purse she keeps for her toddler, and I was ok again after I sat on the floor for a minute while she examined the rickrack), and got doughnuts on the way home (just found an apple fritter I hid from the kids, but it isn't good anymore, dangit. I hate when my food hoarding backfires), then met more friends (actually, relatives) for dinner at Joe's Farm Grill, and afterward we all retired to our living room, where we drank Martinellis from silver flutes, played some Peter Breinholt on the guitars, and talked about how when we all lived at the Riv over to the BYU, we used to dress like men, but also how I dressed the most like a man of everybody. (Even the men? This wasn't clear).

So now I've got to do something about our elf, who is not on the shelf, but is MIA. He didn't show up after Thanksgiving dinner, like he's supposed to, and the children are starting to riot.

So do you loathe Christmas lights as much as I do? Did you know about Sting's country songs? Did you wear men's clothes in the 90's? If you have an extra elf, can you send him here? Thanks in advance.

10 comments:

Morgan Hagey said...

I plugged in ours only to find that each of the strands was half broken and half working?? I don't understand because when I put them AWAY last year they all worked perfectly. So weird.

Morgan Hagey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Amber said...

In California, we would drive to a farm and cut our own tree. Since moving to Az, my kids complain about buying the tree at Home Depot. I would never get by with a fake tree :<

I saw Sting last year. I lust after him, even while he sang his country song. I felt we were equals: he was a Brit who wanted to be a cowboy, I was an OC girl who wanted that Brit.

All I remember about fashion in the early 90's at BYU was colored denim, tapered pants and EVERYTHING was collared and tucked in with belts. Pretty manish.

Van Cott Family said...

I totally lived to "the Riv" in collage! :) We'll talk Wed. (unless you have to bail, but I'm in). and your baby does look like a mini Bond!

--Julie

Barbaloot said...

I've heard rumors that you can buy fake trees with the lights already attached. Never tried it myself, but it sounds like a Christmas miracle to me.

Brett and Shireen Olsen said...

I have a fake tree too, mostly because I'm afraid that a live tree will catch fire and burn the house down. I'm also afraid to swim with fish, wonder where that came from. Probably jaws. I haven't put my tree up yet for fear that my almost 1 year old son will tear it to shreds. Maybe that fear is from jaws too.

And I lived with you at the Riv and don't remember thinking you ever dressed like a man. I wore lots of flannel shirts, high waisted jeans with a tucked in thermal shirt and leather belt. And matching doc boots, of course. So yeah, a bit mannish. But we all had some good 1994 hair styles back then to make us look like lady folk.

And Sting is super hot. Kind of old too, but still totally foxy. Must be all the sex.

I was expecting some vampire movie blogging.

Beeswax said...

Morgan -ing, I feel your pain. I really, really do.

Amber, Yes, Sting is an impressive specimen. And I wasn't very clear about my 90s clothes. I actually shopped in the men's department. Most girls just wore manly sorts of things, while I was so tall, I could actually wear the men's clothes, size small.

Barbaloot, I'm too cheap for pre-lit. Plus they don't have enough lights!

Julie,
Wow, the Riv must have been even grosser when u were there! Sorry our walk got rained out!

Shireen, I'm with u. Joey has already ripped off and broken every ornament from the bottom of the tree. And I should have invited you and Jen to our Riviera reunion! Apartment 16 should stop being so exclusive and invite apartment 3! And I forgot to include the vampires! And our photo with the red eyes was so appropriate.

ManaFam said...

Apartment 3 is feeling left out! Especially when my only Apartment 16 UT comrade spends every Thanksgiving in AZ with all of you. We all did cross-dress a bit, but we looked so good doing it, no one seemed to mind.

acte gratuit said...

I lived in Apartment 3 (renamed Suite Three) at The Glenwood. (renamed GlenHole.) Fall of 96-spring 97.

And I totally wore boy clothes. But not from the mens department. From thrift stores. And they weren't even remotely cute or justified by my tallness. Just various shirts with name patches: Rick the gas station attendant, Len the grocery store clerk (bad idea to shop in that one.) and my absolute favorite was my bowling league shirt with "Brad Willard" embroidered boldly across the back. Looking back, I wouldn't be surprised if many boys thought I was a lesbian. I wasn't. I wanted them. All of them. But Sting first.

Oh, and whilst cross dressing, we totally rocked out to Peter Breinholt. (Saw him in concert a few times in those days) And My Man Friday and The Aquabats!

Those were the days!!!

Tami said...

I loathe my fake tree, but not for the same reason. Mine is stored in a bag, and it takes like 3 good hours to straighten the branches on that thing to get it ready to decorate. This year, I had not one, but TWO fake trees to set up, since Todd decided last year that real trees were getting too expensive and he didn't want to buy one anymore. I miss having a real tree--and my hands are all torn up from setting those fake ones up, but they do look gorgeous all decorated, so I guess it was worth it.