"Where are you from again?" That's what she asked me. I can't even remember her name - which is really funny, because we used to joke that eventually, in the business, someone would forget her name when she thought she'd made more of an impression and say "Oh, YOU! How are...you...?" She honestly didn't know what I was singing...and as a matter of fact, a lot of them didn't. OK, well, a few did, but they were as weirdly attached to popular culture and television as a child as I was, so that was no big shocker. And they backed me up:
I'm Mister White Christmas
I'm Mister Snow
I'm Mister Icicle
I'm Mister Ten Below
Friends call me Snow Miser,
What ever I touch
Turns to snow in my clutch
I'm too much!
He's Mister White Christmas
He's Mister Snow
He's Mister Icicle
He's Mister Ten Below
Friends call me Snow Miser,
What ever I touch
Turns to snow in my clutch
He's too much!
I never want to know a day
That's over forty degrees
I'd rather have it thirty,
Twenty, then Five, then let it freeze!
(brrrrrrrrrrr!)
He's Mister White Christmas
He's Mister Snow
He's Mister Icicle
He's Mister Ten Below
Friends call me Snow Miser,
What ever I touch
Turns to snow in my clutch,
Too much.
Too Much!
I'm Mister Green Christmas
I'm Mister Sun
I'm Mister Heat Blister
I'm Mister Hundred and One
They call me Heat Miser,
What ever I touch
Starts to melt in my clutch
I'm too much!
He's Mister Green Christmas
He's Mister Sun
He's Mister Heat Blister
He's Mister Hundred and One
They call me Heat Miser,
What ever I touch
Starts to melt in my clutch
He's too much!
Thank you!
I never want to know a day
That's under sixty degrees
I'd rather have it eighty,
Ninety, one hundred degrees!
(spoken)
Oh, some like it hot, but I like it
REALLY hot! Hee hee!
He's Mister Green Christmas
He's Mister Sun
Sing it!
He's Mister Heat Blister
He's Mister Hundred and One
They call me Heat Miser,
What ever I touch
Starts to melt in my clutch
I'm too much!
Too Much!
Can you believe that someone "our" age doesn't know what that's from?? Well, in case you're feeling a underpriveleged because I'm talking it up so much you think you've missed something really important, its from "The Year Without a Santa Claus", and its the song lyrics that Snow Miser and Heat Miser belt out ragtime when they're introducing themselves in the Rankin/Bass Christmas Special (1970). And if you don't know it, you have missed something important.
Just in case you don't know, Heat Miser is voiced by George Irving (who is remarkably still alive, still doing voice over, and still doing Heat Miser). And Snow Miser was Dick Shawn, who sadly isn't alive any more, but if you want to know what he really looked like, played Jack Tripper's Dad on that really bad spin-off of "Three's Company", "Three's a Crowd" (that's not even in Wikipedia, but I chose not to edit it in because it would make me too much like that "White and Nerdy" lyric - "I edit Wikipedia"). Its a good little story, about how everyone has become complacent about Christmas, and Santa says "Ah, the heck with it" and takes a year off. And then Ms. Claus takes over...which is the part that is most like real life...and makes a bunch of good things happen, including bringing ol' grumpy sick Santa back around. And Heat Miser lets it snow in Southtown, also a bonus.
That show changed my life. It got me more friends in college, because I had it on video (thanks, Mom), and anyone who'd not seen it came over and watched at my insistence. It's been a backbone of my sister and I's relationship (see, she's Snow Miser, I'm Heat Miser...no, really). We call each other when its on. Our kids say "there's Aunt ____" when one or the other comes on the screen. And its a good story, too. About not being so self-absorbed and realizing that sometimes what you do isn't about how it makes you feel, but how it makes someone else feel. If you can get a 7 year old to understand that, whoopeedeedo for you, 'cause it ain't easy. They just want to sing the song. And that's fine, 'cause I know all the words, and I learned them a long time ago, for just such an occasion, somewhere in my future.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
It's Me -vs- the Griswolds. Christmas light competition in my Downtown neighborhood
Yes, I live Downtown. But it’s a neighborhood, folks, and that’s a fact. All the one-upmanship, the covered dish comparisons at gatherings, lawn mowing and raking status comments…its all there. And ‘tis the season for the Grandaddy of all head-to-head matchups - the Christmas light displays.
I’m not into it. Neither is my husband, who’d much rather just hang LED solar lights in all our trees all year long for, well, some reason. But holy moly, the neighbors are mounting campaigns. For example - last night, 9pm: hired workers (yes, hired workers) scaling the neighbors porch in the dark to hang lights. At 9pm! Meanwhile, the Griswolds next door to her have had the braggin’ rights for about a week, completely enclosing every 10 ft column on their new Charleston style home with clear bulbs, and a wreath facing…my empty back 40. So then, KABLAMMO, it was ON! Its spreading, too. Illuminated Santa w/ a team of reindeer to the front right of us. Lit-up wreaths straight across. More clear bulbs on stairs down the street…hundreds of them, mind you, eliminating the need for Progress Energy street lights. And oddly enough, it seems that each one of these neighbors is from South Carolina, and none of them spend all their time here. I really don’t think there’s a serious connection with the South Carolina thing there, I’m just saying. A state with no helmet law is gonna produce some wacky holiday mirth.
Now, my Gran used to decorate for Christmas. Colored bulbs, all from the 60’s and 70’s, lined the porch and the front roofline. Big plastic Santa. My favorite was the old Stroh’s beer snowman she stole from when she worked at Ingle’s in the late 70’s, early 80’s, with a homemade wrapped Christmas box where the 12-pack used to sit on the flat hand. And it all went up. Every single year. Right down to the chirping bird ornament in the tree, who’s batteries hadn’t been changed in so long it had a circa 1980 Ray-O-Vac 9-volt still inside. What a sick bird chirping slower and slower as the weeks went on had to do with Christmas I don’t know, but it was there. Every single year. My thoughts are mainly about Christmas Eve when we’d all go to her house and celebrate as a family. There was no competition with the gifts, it was what you could afford that someone might need, with the occasional splurge for someone who deserved it, or if the bonus from Steelcase came before the 24th. Then open the presents fast, and eat faster, because you’re holding up the poker game. We don’t do any of that any more at all since she passed away. No lights to speak of, no gatherings of everyone for longer than a couple of hours…long enough to eat and open presents for just the kids now, and someone’s always missing.
I wish the exuberance of the light displays were a substitute for those things in the world today. Not a “have and have not” thing, but a way to try to bring us all back to when those kind of displays were just for sheer wonderment and not out of some reason to compete with each other. And because I don’t have them on my house isn’t because I don’t care about Christmas…its because I’d rather have the memory of how it used to make me feel when we’d pull up in her driveway. And I won’t compete with that.
I’m not into it. Neither is my husband, who’d much rather just hang LED solar lights in all our trees all year long for, well, some reason. But holy moly, the neighbors are mounting campaigns. For example - last night, 9pm: hired workers (yes, hired workers) scaling the neighbors porch in the dark to hang lights. At 9pm! Meanwhile, the Griswolds next door to her have had the braggin’ rights for about a week, completely enclosing every 10 ft column on their new Charleston style home with clear bulbs, and a wreath facing…my empty back 40. So then, KABLAMMO, it was ON! Its spreading, too. Illuminated Santa w/ a team of reindeer to the front right of us. Lit-up wreaths straight across. More clear bulbs on stairs down the street…hundreds of them, mind you, eliminating the need for Progress Energy street lights. And oddly enough, it seems that each one of these neighbors is from South Carolina, and none of them spend all their time here. I really don’t think there’s a serious connection with the South Carolina thing there, I’m just saying. A state with no helmet law is gonna produce some wacky holiday mirth.
Now, my Gran used to decorate for Christmas. Colored bulbs, all from the 60’s and 70’s, lined the porch and the front roofline. Big plastic Santa. My favorite was the old Stroh’s beer snowman she stole from when she worked at Ingle’s in the late 70’s, early 80’s, with a homemade wrapped Christmas box where the 12-pack used to sit on the flat hand. And it all went up. Every single year. Right down to the chirping bird ornament in the tree, who’s batteries hadn’t been changed in so long it had a circa 1980 Ray-O-Vac 9-volt still inside. What a sick bird chirping slower and slower as the weeks went on had to do with Christmas I don’t know, but it was there. Every single year. My thoughts are mainly about Christmas Eve when we’d all go to her house and celebrate as a family. There was no competition with the gifts, it was what you could afford that someone might need, with the occasional splurge for someone who deserved it, or if the bonus from Steelcase came before the 24th. Then open the presents fast, and eat faster, because you’re holding up the poker game. We don’t do any of that any more at all since she passed away. No lights to speak of, no gatherings of everyone for longer than a couple of hours…long enough to eat and open presents for just the kids now, and someone’s always missing.
I wish the exuberance of the light displays were a substitute for those things in the world today. Not a “have and have not” thing, but a way to try to bring us all back to when those kind of displays were just for sheer wonderment and not out of some reason to compete with each other. And because I don’t have them on my house isn’t because I don’t care about Christmas…its because I’d rather have the memory of how it used to make me feel when we’d pull up in her driveway. And I won’t compete with that.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Blogakaboodle - Engage!
I suppose its just about time I entered the "Blogosphere". I'm happy to be here, but a little bit leery of what's next...
Am I going to be spammed to death? Will my kids give me the time to write? Should I relegate myself to nocturnal blogging just to get it all in? I guess it will all come in time.
So, its a crossroads in life when you turn 38. See, you thought I'd say 40, right? No...38 is definitely it. I guess I'm still two years ahead of the curve, as I always have been. Overachiever that I am, I've reached the vortex - or is it the "bore"tex? - 24 months sooner than expected. Two kids, three businesses, one husband, boatloads of stuff to do each and every day. Unhappy? No. Unsatisfied? Maybe... I love it all, but its not what I want to do, and I'm really not sure what that is.
I'm going to take some "online classes" and maybe do some artwork. How predicatable! But productive...I'll get certified in something, do it a few hours a day, and then do the rest. On top of the regular Mom and wife duties, and running the businesses.
You know, the whole "Blogakaboodle"...
Am I going to be spammed to death? Will my kids give me the time to write? Should I relegate myself to nocturnal blogging just to get it all in? I guess it will all come in time.
So, its a crossroads in life when you turn 38. See, you thought I'd say 40, right? No...38 is definitely it. I guess I'm still two years ahead of the curve, as I always have been. Overachiever that I am, I've reached the vortex - or is it the "bore"tex? - 24 months sooner than expected. Two kids, three businesses, one husband, boatloads of stuff to do each and every day. Unhappy? No. Unsatisfied? Maybe... I love it all, but its not what I want to do, and I'm really not sure what that is.
I'm going to take some "online classes" and maybe do some artwork. How predicatable! But productive...I'll get certified in something, do it a few hours a day, and then do the rest. On top of the regular Mom and wife duties, and running the businesses.
You know, the whole "Blogakaboodle"...
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