December 7, 2012
Dear Everyone:
I don’t want to “jinx” anything, but I’m this close to finishing my
“Holiday” shopping. Just a
few more things to pick up, then it’s time for wrapping and shipping.
And cards, of course.
Mustn’t forget those.
It’s really been a matter of luck more than anything else.
And Internet shopping, naturally.
Also, don’t forget the December Birthdays.
December Birthdays tend to get lost in the shuffle.
So much going on already.
So much extra candy and other goodies, why would anyone expect
“cake and ice cream”, too? A
piece of advice: Don’t plan
on having your Birthday in December.
Not that you get a lot of choice in the matter.
Last year, because I was officially unemployed, I did not attend a
Company
“Year-End-Holiday-Celebration-Don’t-Dare-Call-It-Christmas-Luncheon”.
Over the course of 30-plus years, I have attended a lot of these
functions.
I remember one department that always insisted on having exactly 12
round tables (with multiple wine bottles on each table) in the dining
area. This was so they could
do “The Twelve Days of Christmas”
Carol at the end of the lunch, each
table “singing” their assigned “Day”.
A few years ago, I was asked to help go through some boxes of
“old records” belonging to a “descendant” of that department.
Sure enough, I found a folder stuffed with “bootleg copies” of
Christmas Carols from long ago.
Some people never throw anything away.
More recently, I was at a lunch where each table was required to compete
in creating the tallest tower built out of marshmallows and uncooked
spaghetti. No doubt a
leftover from some “team-building” exercise.
Yesterday the department that I am currently working for had their
annual “celebration”.
Contractors are allowed to attend (they even get paid for the time,
which is what really counts.)
Many people might see this is an opportunity to get an early
start on the weekend, so they had a large number of “raffle prizes” to
give away, provided the recipient was in attendance.
I didn’t “win” anything, but the extra time in the afternoon meant that
I could stop on the way home and complete some December Birthday
shopping. Now I just have to
make sure I have some “birthday” wrapping paper on hand.
Having your Birthday present arrive in red-and-green-Santa paper
is another drawback.
Christmas is great, but Birthdays are important, too.
In other news…
Oscar Season is upon us. The
time of year when movies that might get the nod from the Motion Picture
Academy of Arts and Sciences (aka Academy Awards) get trotted out in
time to qualify.
One possible contender is
Argo.
This was produced by
George Clooney and starring and directed by
Ben Affleck, previous Oscar-winners both.
Those are the “big names” involved, although
John Goodman and
Alan Arkin have a field day playing the “old
Hollywood hands” who help
out stateside.
The movie begins with a very short synopsis of
Iranian history over the
past few thousand years, ending in 1979, when the
Shah was forced to
leave. Many Iranians blamed
the West in general and the United States in particular for just about
anything they didn’t like.
When the Shah was allowed into the States for medical reasons, all hell
broke loose (aided and abetted by the Ayatollah’s
recently-cobbled-together-excuse-for-a-government.)
This is known as “The Iranian Hostage Crises.”
What many people may not know (because it was kept a secret for obvious
reasons) is that a small group of Americans in
Tehran managed to nip out
the back way and hide in the
Canadian Embassy nearby when the
American
Embassy was over-run.
Affleck plays an “ex-fil” expert.
(“Infiltrate” means sneaking people in; “ex-filtrate” means
sneaking people out.) His
job is to try to get said group of Americans out of the country before
someone discovers them and arranges for a mass beheading on
international TV. Lots of
stock footage. It was very
big news at the time. Even
spawned “late-night-news”, which flourishes today.
His brainchild is “Argo”, a
take-off on
Star Wars,
supposedly being scouted by the diplomats-turned-Hollywood-types.
This is either an “Action-Thriller” or “Historical Drama”,
depending on your point of view.
Even if you know how it turned out, it’s still fun to watch.
Reminds me of the first time I ever saw
The Lion in Winter.
I actually wondered which of the sons would survive, until I
realized that every English schoolchild already knows the answer.
(All of them. At
least for a while.)
Love, as always,
Pete
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