November 28, 2001
Dear Everyone:
Thanksgiving week was a nice, slow, lazy week. There were a number of productive things I had planned to do that week. But just sitting around, reading, watching deferred viewing and generally being the proverbial couch potato turned out to be much more satisfying. Plus, it rested my leg almost good as new. Almost.
“Jeannie” and I had agreed to bag the traditional “everyone come to the designated house for turkey and all the trimmings”. She stayed at her place and I stayed at mine. “Marshall” decided to come out from Fresno late on Thanksgiving Day, allowing plenty of time for the fog to burn off, and stayed at “Jeannie’s” place. They had the traditional Thanksgiving pizza and I had the traditional Thanksgiving macaroni and cheese from a box.
On Friday, while they braved Union Square in San Francisco, I took on the task of fixing to get started on decorating for Christmas. (I understand Union Square is sporting an especially vehement selection of crazies this season.) I moved furniture away from the living room window, thus uncovering a lot of cobwebs.
This brought about the decision to finally do something about all the cobwebs in my house. For some reason, San Ramon is a haven for spiders. Cobwebs everywhere! And I’ve only been living here for four years. I had purchased, some time ago, a handy contraption that’s supposed to facilitate changing light bulbs from a distance. Not that I’ve ever tried to use it to change light bulbs.
I wanted it because it extends to a length of about 15 feet. I taped one of those duster sheets to the end and it even reached to the top of the stairwell, which is two stories high. This is the only way to clear out cobwebs that hang from a ceiling that far up. And it worked great. Three duster sheets (and a number of surprised spiders) later, and all the cobwebs were gone (except for the bathrooms, which I forgot – I’ll get them next time).
Next, I took down the flower garlands that usually grace the drapes in the living room and replaced them with strings of red and gold beads. The fact that I had left up the hooks that I used last year, and never removed the wires from the strings of beads made this process go very quickly. Next, the lights.
Earlier in the week, I had purchases some new lights for this year. I figured the neighbors were probably as sick of the old ones as I was. I found icicle strings designed especially for windows. And some colored “bubble lights” shaped rather like candles. The icicle strings were particularly easy to set up. Dampen the plastic suction-cup hooks and stick them to the glass. Hang the strings, one from each side, overlapping slightly in the center. OK, they don’t look even remotely like icicles, but who cares?
The bubble lights presented more of a problem. I figured I’d set them out on the window sill, but the wires were very stiff. Also, the built-in clips were designed for tree branches and were, therefore, of no help either. Plus, the instructions were very dire about the possible consequences of keeping the lights in any position other than vertical. But then I had a flash of genius and went for the duct tape.
Taped the wires on either side of each lamp to the aluminum frame along the window sill and voila! Final touch, hanging the lighted snowflakes from last year, across from the American flag that has become de rigueur these days.
By this time, I was exhausted, with barely enough strength left to shove the furniture back into place. The rest of the decorations are lying around various parts of the dining area and living room. The flower garlands are currently in a plastic bag, to be put in the storage closet until after Christmas. All of it can wait until later. In the meantime, I am the envy of my neighbors, being the first to get my lights up, except for one house behind mine, who managed to get their (one) running reindeer up before I quite finished. (They now also have a fully rigged tree in the living room, but I refuse to be bullied into getting a tree this early.)
On Saturday, I joined “Marshall” and “Jeannie” in Walnut Creek for a spot of Christmas Shopping and lunch before “Marshall” had to take off for Fresno, once again racing the fog.
In other news…
Not only did “Jeannie” and I manage to get to a movie, but I actually got her to go to an animated feature for the first time since Beauty and the Beast. Since everyone and his kid was in line for Harry Potter, we went for the more vintage Monsters, Inc. It was delightful. John Goodman supplies the voice for James Sullivan (“Sully”) and Billy Crystal for Sully’s partner. Sully is a big, hairy monster, all purple and green, with big teeth and a terrifying screech. This is important because, in the monster world, the only known source of energy is the screams of small children. (Little dig at the energy industry here.)
The scream factory of Monsters, Inc. is filled with doors. Each door leads into the bedroom of a child. The monster’s job is to go through a door, get the child to scream, then capture that energy in a special capsule. Sully is in competition with Randall (a sneaky chameleon) for employee of the month. All is well until someone accidentally leaves a door open and an adorable little toddler wanders through into the monsters’ world… and captures Sully’s great big heart.
There are plenty of laughs for the adults as well as the kids. A real roller coaster of a ride through the factory. A dastardly wicked corporate plot. Explanations for everything from the Loch Ness Monster to Bigfoot. And a delightful ending. Fun for everyone. But you’d better hurry. Lord of the Rings will probably blow it off the screens soon.
By the way, I’m off to “Hobby” again next week, so there won’t be any Letter. You know you’ve made this trip one too many times when the doorman at the Four Seasons Hotel says, “Nice to have you with us again, ma’am.”
Love, as always,
Pete
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