For the second year in a row, we had a brown Christmas, despite the fact that we had a white Thanksgiving. Best thing about this Christmas was that we had a full moon on display in the morning and in the evening after the clouds faded away. It has been a strange and wet and active year for rain and storms and if it did snow it stayed to the west and north of here.
As I was fumbling through trying to do a Platt Knot and trying to tie a tie from the start for over an hour, I was trying to get dressed up for the typical Christmas pictures that my mom wanted to take and for us to look good. I bought this snazzy little tie full of drums on it and a nice blue dress shirt at the thrift store for 8 dollars back in October and wanted to wear that on that special occasion. The folks are getting up in age and these Christmas get togethers will eventually become history. Like all Christmas past we had great moments and not so great moments. I think the last time we had a full moon in 1977 something happened and there was a big family pow wow. This Thanksgiving was special, everybody got along and went home happy.
Across the area, my fellow musician friends are playing on Christmas Night. Kick It the band with T Ray Robertson, Dan Hartman and Herm Sarduy are playing at Rumors and down the road Julie Gordon showed up her new version of The Mad Dogs at Cedar River Landing with Terry McDowell playing drums. He's everywhere.
Work was slow and I took Monday off and we didn't have to spend time in Packaging Hell land. I managed to catch up on emails and added a few things on the last blog post and took pictures of the sights and sounds of the seasons. Christmas shopping I did very little of and ended up buying candy for the old man, found a couple of Christmas CDs for Mom and a CCR CD with money in it for my brother. The folks at Real Gone Music came through with the Christmas CDs, even with Media mail I got the CDs a week before Christmas. I did hit Iowa City Monday by finding a few CDs and LPs and chatting with the Sweet Living Antiques owner and him letting me borrow a CD of obscure garage bands of the 60s. And managed to take advantage of the snowless days by walking on the nature trails at Matsell's and the ones at home, and found out the hard way that the C St trail, they took the bridge out, so I had to find a different place to walk. I really haven't had much luck about the dating scene this year, most of who I talk to have husbands or boy friends playing in local bands and anything is strictly casual. One of them looks attractive still at age 65 to which perhaps the fountain of youth remains in a pack a cigarettes a day and rock and roll. I wouldn't know. It always puts a smile on my face when Brooksie aka Donna pops in once in a Christmas full moon to which happy holidays and a Smoooch to boot. That goes back to the days of the About.Com classic rock chat. But anytime I hear from her she puts a smile on my face for a minute.
So here I am, already an half hour late and trying to fuck with something I'm not familiar with: neckties, pulling up the internet to see how to construct a rightful knot and hope I don't look silly in the process. So, it's off to Marion, and just as soon as I got on the highway, here comes some Bubba Dick in a red Dodge Ram going 80 MPH and almost swiping the car passing me. And then some specialty idiot from either Illinois or Wisconsin with the plates Gypsy 4 cuts off in front of me. And then the usual red lights that Marion has to offer. Thankfully Walmart was closed and so was Hy Vee but Family Video and Casey's were open.
My mom has prepared dinners and suppers for Thanksgiving and Christmas for many years now. I don't think she should do it, we could do a Christmas Buffet and save wear and tear on her and the dishes. She's been married to the old man for over 55 years, and if there's anybody who earned her wings for angels my mom should have a pair waiting when the time comes. I apologized for being late and blamed the novice knot tieing. I don't think she that impressed with the way I looked and perhaps the drum necktie stood out too much. Anyway, I went downstairs and watched a ballgame with dad and we had supper and later chatted with my Aunt Fern, who's been in frail health but still is living at age 91.
Things got bad for the worse and Dad didn't help things by complaining about the ham we had tonight. But it was time to take the annual family pictures, somebody always ends up by the asshole and I drew the card. I played around with my hair and it'd looked worse and Mom yelled at me to go brush it. Once that got done she begin to order us to smile and look pretty, at that time I had folded up arms, a force of habit but she didn't like that at all. All of sudden I become the five year old that won't behave, no matter what I did, asking shall we sit on the couch or stand up she turned five shades of red and I snapped 'Just take the fucking picture'. On that note, the night was ruined and I was the bad guy.
There was a couple of half hearted pictures of us, but I don't think she'll post them, she'll end up deleting them anyway. Certainly I did wrong and tried to make it up in the best way I know how but all I did was dig a deeper hole. All I could do in the end was say I'm sorry for being an A hole, and hugged her and told her I love her. But we had the tension filled silence you can cut with a knife and nothing we can do is just go home and let the storm blow over.
For what is supposed to be a time for families to get together and enjoy one's company and to share the love and the presents, this Christmas wasn't any of that. It was The Bickersons all over again and the brat kids. There wasn't much Christmas spirit today on this side of the fence. We always hurt the ones we love the most, not by intention. So basically I went home feeling bad about the whole episode, and hopefully thinking next Christmas things will be better.
I don't think I'll be wearing my drummer's necktie and blue shirt anymore. Think I will donate them to Goodwill and hope it brings better luck to the next person. If it's any consolation, I did get what I wanted for Christmas, a Full Moon, in the early morning and on the way home before the clouds covered it up again.
