January 8, 1993
Dear Everyone:
Happy New Year. In the
interest of saving trees, I have decided to start printing my Letters
back-to-back.
Now then, How I Spent My Christmas Vacation.
In Canby, of
course. For those of you who
have never been there, the folks have a lovely home with three bedrooms,
one-and-a-half baths, a fireplace and wood stove, and three smoke
alarms. Plus assorted
kitchen, laundry, dining room, deck, two-car garage, etc.
Getting back to the smoke alarms.
There’s one in the kitchen (to tell you when the steaks are
ready), one in the laundry area (approximately 10 feet away from the one
in the kitchen), and one right outside the bathroom door.
This last one is a stroke of genius.
Because the bathroom has no vent, and the window can’t be opened,
all the steam from your shower stays in the bathroom until you open the
door into the hallway, whereupon the steam rushes out, directly into the
smoke alarm, which registers the steam as smoke and immediately emits an
ear-shattering shriek, which tells
everyone in the household
that the bathroom is now free.
No other announcement is necessary.
Of course, some people can be
sneaky. They’ve discovered
that if you open the other bathroom door, the one to the master bedroom
(which “Jeannie” calls “the meat locker” because heat is never turned on
in there and I doubt that the temperature ever gets above 50º in the
winter), then the steam heads toward the bedroom; and when you open the
hall door, the air continues moving toward the bedroom and the alarm
isn’t activated. That way,
you can leave the bathroom, get something from the guest bedroom, and
get back into the bathroom before anyone else realizes it’s available.
Like I said, sneaky.
The weather for Christmas was lovely, no snow until after we left, only
a few rain showers to assure us that we were, indeed, in Oregon.
On Christmas morning, “Byron” brought his kids over and there
were lots of presents under the tree for everyone.
Even me.
Why me? Remember that list
of everyone’s names and who was supposed to give something to whom?
Well, there was a very slight mix-up.
It seems that “Marshall’s” name appeared twice on the “whom”
side, and my name didn’t
appear there at all.
Oops.
What to do? I could call one
of the (two) people who got “Marshall’s” name and tell him/her that
“Guess what! You didn’t
really get “Marshall” after all, you got me.
And, by the way, I’d
really like a
Polaroid® camera.” But
suppose the “giver” had already purchased a very “Marshall”-specific
gift? That wouldn’t be fair.
And it really was my fault.
(Next year I’m either going to turn the whole thing over to
someone else, or at least have “Jeannie” or Mother double-check the
list.)
So, I decided to get myself the camera, take it up to Canby, wrap it and
put it under the tree with my name on it.
To Pete from Santa.
By the way, all of us kids decided to pitch in together and give Mother
and Dad a badly-needed new dishwasher for Christmas.
We each sent a check to “Byron” who made all the arrangements.
Found someone who could give him a
really good deal on a
dishwasher (“Byron” insisted that it had to have “papers”).
Found some guys to help install it the Saturday before Christmas.
Everything was in place.
Then, on Dad’s birthday, December 8th, “Byron” called to wish
Dad a Happy Birthday and asked, “So what are you doing?”
Dad: “Oh, nothing much.
Just watching these guys tear the kitchen apart, trying to
install our new dishwasher.”
So there’s “Byron”, stuck with an orphan dishwasher.
Gee I’m glad I didn’t call him a week later to say, “Guess what!
You didn’t really get’“Marshall’ after all, you got me.
And, by the way, I’d
really like a Polaroid® camera.”
Besides the camera, Santa also gave me a really real Chinese Tea Pot.
Earthenware, made from Chinese clay (China is lousy with clay).
It’s fired, but not glazed, the idea being that, each time you
make tea in it, some of the tea soaks into the porous earthenware,
making it a real “tea” pot.
Unfortunately, the first time I poured water into it, it poured right
back out again. There was a
substantial crack where the spout was joined to the pot.
Undeterred, I went to the store and got some all-purpose epoxy
cement that was guaranteed to “fill cracks and stay waterproof”.
I smeared several coats of cement around the whole base of the spout
over a couple of days and then tried pouring water into it.
It held beautifully.
Then I tried pouring boiling water into it and that held, too.
Although, because of the heat, the cement got some air bubbles in
it which then formed a kind of solidified froth, giving the teapot that
charming, mad dog look.
Makes great tea, though.
(Thanks, Mom!)
In other news, an update on “Mrs. Claus”, the unfortunate woman whose
husband took a mortgage out on her house in order to pay a Hit Man to
kill her, only the Hit Man killed the husband instead.
Fortunately for “Mrs. Claus”, there was a substantial life
insurance policy on “Mr. Claus”.
Unfortunately, the insurance company doesn’t pay off if the
insured died during the commission of a felony, which conspiring to
murder your wife qualifies as (they’re so fussy).
Honestly, if ”Mrs. Claus” has an ounce of sense in her, she’ll get an
agent and contact the
USA Cable Network.
This is just the sort of stuff they love to put into their trashy
Wednesday Night Movies. I
see Leslie Ann
Warren as “Mrs. Claus”.
She’s great at trash. (We
can ignore the fact that the real “Mrs. Claus” is retired and living on
her teacher’s pension.
USA never allows the facts,
much less common sense, to get in the way of the plots of their movies.)
Jack Scalia
can play “Mr. Claus”. He’s
practically “Mr.-USA-Trashy-Movie”
already. And, for a touch of
class (and ratings draw),
Cliff Robertson
can be the Hit Man.
Love, as always,
Pete
| Previous | Next |