Holiday Office Party

It’s Holiday Office Party time. 

Being a freelance worker person you wouldn’t think I’d get invited to a lot of Holiday Office parties, and you would be right…I don’t.

Not that I didn’t get invited to them in the past.  I did, but it got to a point where I would rather redeem bottles and cans at the supermarket all night than go to another Holiday Office Party.

See, most people—normal everyday working people—usually go to only one Holiday Office Party.  Maybe two if their spouse or significant other also has one.  But I would be invited to maybe 3 or 4 sometimes 5, mostly since as a “person of freelance,” I worked for several different entities at any given time. And each one would graciously have a party for their staff employees and a select group of freelancers and such, including the occasional actor or two. 

No one you would have heard of unless you were an aficionado of pharmaceutical clinical trial videos. 

So I guess that was always kind of nice; to be included in the select group of holiday invitees…part of the family, as it were.

And when these companies were small, and you worked closely with the owners and operators, it was actually a little like a family and kind of fun to get together for a nice holiday dinner and schmooze.

But now a lot of these small companies have merged or consolidated with bigger companies over time and the parties tend to be on the large impersonal side.  And if the event takes place in the actual office setting, which happens quite a bit in these cost cutting days, instead of a nice restaurant or club, like in the good old days….well, let me just say that sitting on someone's mouse, drinking eggnog doesn’t inspire a lot of holiday cheer...as pleasurable as that might sound to some

And since you’re in an office setting, despite the twinkle lights and chintzy garland strung from the exit signs, and really have very little in common with a lot of the folks who have gathered in the name of Holiday goodwill, and yes, freelance politics, the only thing people can think to talk about is business. And who needs that; especially with a bottle of beer in my hands...not to mention the reindeer antlers on my head? 

I stopped drinking at these things quite some time ago; ever since I asked one of the big bosses, “Who hired the Wookie impersonator?” and was told that the Wookie was actually his wife who had a bad reaction to electrolysis.

Then there’s dealing with the actors, who are always performing and talking in deep over modulated voices…even the women.

Some even bring their own Teleprompters. 

When they ask you what you do, and you tell them that you sometimes write and produce and direct some of these pharmaceutical clinical trial videos then they really warm up to you, mostly because of the eggnog, and start treating you as if you can help them land their big breakout role in the upcoming bladder control study that they heard through the “grapevine” was in the pre-production “pipeline”. 

To be honest, this always amuses me, and I kind of  like being treated like a “person of import”, even though I have no idea what they’re talking about, so I usually just nod and smile and give them some pointers like, “I can’t say much, but drink as much water as you can over the next couple of months and get in touch with your over extended bladder. You might just have a leg up on the competition…so to speak….”

Then there are the other freelancers who are just as lost as you are, so they gravitate to you and of course, they too have to ask what you do.

  Often they will tell you that they do the exact same thing, and then you see the wheels start turning as they start to pump you for info as to what you’re working on and where, as they begin to develop a strategy to take the already measly amount of work you get in a given year, away from you. 

And, if only out of politeness, you respond in kind and ask what they’re doing now, they will assail you with a list of vague projects they’ve recently worked on, are working on, or hope to be working on soon…because I’ve never met a freelancer who doesn’t say they’re busy every day of the week, weekends included... especially weekends.

Later, when you run into them at the mall or on the beach in the middle of the day, they tell you they’re doing research or developing some ideas. You see, with freelancers, especially writers, process is everything.

So you can see why I might prefer, instead, to throw my own Holiday Office Party right here at my own little office.

But I find the Boss annoying, and way too critical and much too demanding. 

Plus he thinks he’s sooooo funny and sooooo clever…and there’s nothing more annoying than a person like that.

Holiday Traditions

We got together with our friends Rosie and Frank, this past weekend to make our annual pilgrimage to Rockefeller Center to see the BIG tree.

It’s important to see the BIG tree…every year…because each tree is unique and looks nothing like the tree before.

For example, here’s the tree from 3 years ago.

The year after that….

And last year….

As you can see, they're nothing alike.

The first has a red bulb in the top left corner…the second in the bottom right...and the third, while the red bulb is also located in the bottom right, it's a very different shade of red; almost a magenta.

So they’re all different and we have to go and see that…every year.

Not that I mind, because we get to spend the evening with Frank and Rosie, which is always a great time.  I’ve written about them in the past when I talked about my trouble with squirrels, and when Rosie was leaving on her trip to Italy this past summer, with that guy on her left.

Don't ask.....

They’re both a lot of fun to hang out with, mostly because Rosie, the partier, can always find something to berate Frank about, like how his left nostril makes this weird kind of whistling sound when he inhales, especially outside on cold nights. 

Frank, to his credit, takes these criticisms with a grain of salt, and an Amstel, which helps.  He’s also turned the nostril whistling into a positive by learning how to perform the up tempo Andy Williams’s version of Jingle Bells with it, which is immensely entertaining. 

He never fails to draw a huge crowd as we stand by the “eccentric” lady with the pretzel cart and enjoy the show.

Rosie is very big on traditions; especially holiday traditions. And this trip to see the tree is now one of them, which is kind of cool. It’s nice to be a part of nice people’s traditions.

One of Rosie’s other Christmas traditions involves drinking egg nog from a slipper once worn by her great, great grandmother back in Italy, every Christmas Eve.

Apparently, one year, as legend has it, towards the end of her days, the old woman became confused and poured egg nog into her slipper and drank from it. To avoid an awkward situation and potential embarrassment, the rest of the family took the slipper and passed it around for each member to take a sip...which annoyed great, great grandma immensely since she was enjoying the egg nog and didn’t want to share. 

So this slipper has been passed down through the generations, and is now in Rosie’s hands, but not on her foot, because Rosie has feet the size of Malibu Barbie.

Once, Frank “mistakenly” left the revered slipper out all night and their little Pug, Porcini, got a hold of it. Luckily, the years of egg nog residue didn’t agree with the little fella, so he vomited into its heel and kicked it off to the side.  But, apparently, that only added to its charm, not to mention the legend.

Another tradition seems to be that no one ever goes back to Rosie’s for Christmas Eve, but that’s mostly coincidental as parking can be difficult on their narrow street.

Our tradition consists of catching the 4:15-ish train into the city, which gets us into Grand Central just after 5 PM-ish.  From there, we head into the Main Concourse to await the start of the annual holiday laser show, which is projected onto the station’s sweeping ceiling of stars.

The show is supposed to start on the half hour but seems to have a mind of its own; so it mainly begins whenever it feels like it. There we stand with necks craned towards the faux heavens and wait and wait and wait.  Often we get tired of waiting and just leave with stiff necks, knowing we’re performing a public service for everyone else by doing so, because we know the presentation will commence as soon as we leave the area.

Eventually, we hit the busy city sidewalks, selling holiday fare and knock off Rolex’s, and make our way down town to Lord and Taylors to spy the specially decorated windows, along with about four thousand fellow window gawkers. 

Reversing course, we wind our way back up and over to Bryant Park to enjoy their tree, holiday market and ice skaters, but mostly to stop at the little outdoor café they have set up and have a little Christmas cheer. There we stand, a good bit away from the fire, but we do conspire as to how we can get the people sitting right next to the fire pit to leave so we can take their spots. 

Sometimes this involves Frank’s whistling nostril skills, which suddenly isn’t such an issue for Rosie any more.

Then…it’s time for the BIG reveal. 

We’ve work our way methodically up 5^th Avenue, snaking through the throngs of tourists, locals, and semi-locals, like ourselves and enter into the fray.

It’s kind of nice, because from this point forward, nothing is required of you as you’re pretty much on auto pilot. Elbow to elbow and other body parts to body parts, you’re swept, as if by an ocean wave, and delivered, past the trumpeting angels and the Louis Vuitton store, to your destination…the BIG TREE.  The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree…just like on TV…minus Al Roker.

And despite the disappointment of a “Roker-less” tree, you can’t help but try and catch your breath, mostly because the little kid in front of you kept poking you in the solar plexus all the way down. 

We gasp in awe, fight off the pick pockets and take a thousand pictures from a thousand angles to document the beauty of the magical sight before us.

And it is different this year…decidedly so. This year the magenta light is more towards the left of center, something none of us can ever recall seeing before, over all the years.

Finally, after 3 or 4 hours of gazing at the tree and the throng of skaters slipping and sliding below, we head off to my favorite part of the tradition…dinner.

But this year, life has thrown our tradition a bit of curve. Our traditional west side eatery has shuttered its doors—hopefully, not by order of the health department—after a thousand years, and we’re forced to try a new place in mid-town.

Yeah…I know.

So we we’re all a little apprehensive about it.

I mean tradition is tradition

But the food was good and plenty of it; plus the big upside is that no one at the new place was familiar with Frank’s whistling nostril Jingle Bells rendition, so we got to see the wonder and joy that that brings to people all over again.

So everything always works out for the best.

Especially when it comes to Holiday traditions…and Franks deviated septum.

The Tree is Up!

The tree is up!

A great gaggle of dancing and prancing elves carried it into the house last night as they magically strung the lights and hung their small balls on the tree, which, I have to admit, always makes me a bit uncomfortable.

Z made some hot chocolate…I made a fire… put on all our favorite Christmas tunes, and partied hearty with the elves.

It was such a magical time!

Okay…well, it’s mostly up…and there weren’t any elves...or hot chocolate…fire…or Christmas tunes, at all.

I helped Z drag the tree in from the garage, wrestled it in to its handy LL Bean adjustable tree stand, which really is “magic” in a way, since it cuts down on the amount of cursing, threats and various other unsociable spousal behaviors by half .

Afterward, I returned to my usual La Z Boy spot—the recliner…not me—and proceeded to supervise Z’s handy work, with one eye on the tree and one eye on some version of CSI; not sure which one.

First, Z tested all the lights before she started stringing them from branch to branch. I’m always amazed at the patience she shows and the meticulous attention to detail she gives each and every branch as she works her way down from the top.

Once three or four strings were up and shining, one of them—or worse, half of one of them—suddenly stopped shining, in any sort of fashion, for no apparent reason...and then the cursing, threats and various other unsociable spousal behaviors began all over again.

Z got a little angry too.

My first thought is to check each bulb for damage since, even though these are what you call your “Constant On” lights, that, apparently, is only the case if they are constantly working, which these are constantly not. 

With the care of a proctologist, I study and probe each teeny tiny bulb, looking for obvious damage or loose connections.   

Then I pry any suspect bulbs from their sockets—which I have to tell you is a torture similar to certain interrogation techniques used by various clandestine organizations—and replace them.

Once I determine that this tactic isn't working, I locate the thumb nail that's been ripped from my thumb, then methodically turn to the fuses and attempt to open the little fuse cover, which was designed by the same clandestine organization that devised the bulbs and sockets. 

What can I say...I have big dreams. Luckily, I also have another thumb and several back up fingers to sacrifice.  

After several hours, I am sometimes actually able to slide the little cover down only to reveal two little glass like tubes, with two tiny little metal tips at each end, which have been designed so it’s virtually impossible to remove them with human fingers…not without a tiny little glass like tube remover.

Are you getting the ideas that we’re talking small here?

Unfortunately, or fortunately, not many of us have this tiny little glass like tube remover in our big “Tim The Tool Man” tool box, which is just as well, because if you were able to actually remove them and replace them with the new tiny little glass like tubes provided, they wouldn’t work anyway.

Believe me…they won’t.

So Z then shoves me aside, says something disparaging about my ears, which she knows I hate, and will start ripping lights off the tree. Luckily, this isn’t our first rodeo, which even if it was would make little or no difference since we’re decorating a Christmas tree here…not roping steer.  We were smart enough to plan ahead this year and purchased a couple of boxes of replacement lights.

Fortunately, instead of making the same mistake with the “Constant On” lights, I bought the “Sometimes On-Sometimes Not” lights, which despite their inherent flaws, at least don’t raise your expectations, which inevitably, always lead to disappointment.

Just like in life.

Once the lights are set and sparkly, I return to my La Z Boy supervisory position and Z then begins to place each of our four thousand, yet tasteful, ornaments, which we have collected and received as gifts throughout the past millennium, onto the tree.

I don’t know how she does it, but Z has a knack for seamlessly inserting each ornament in exactly the right spot, all without making the tree look like something found on an episode of “Hoarders”.

To be honest, since up to now I haven’t been, I think she studies a schematic starting in September, and has it committed to memory. But, as I’ve said before, never underestimate the power of Z.

Last but not least, the angel is inserted onto the very tip of the tree, a practice that would make even the aforementioned proctologist wince.

Then Z and I raise our Hot Chocolate, spiked with a little Bailey’s Irish Cream for texture and recreate the iconic scene from a Charlie Brown’s Christmas, singing “Hark the Herald”.

The elves are nowhere to be found. 

Elves…so unreliable.

 

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A Smile on My Face

I’ve been trying to wake up with a smile on my face…every day.

I think it’s important.

But it hasn’t been working.

So now I’ve tried sleeping with a smile on my face, hoping it would carry over to the morning.

But that hasn’t been working either…and Z says it’s creepy.

So it’s not easy….

I think it’s important to start each day with a good attitude; to appreciate each sunrise as the gift that it truly is.

But how many of us actually do that?  I mean on some innate level I think all of us understand that, and do appreciate that…but it’s just hard to hold on to that.

Especially if you’re a Republican and wake up to find that a guy named Newt is leading the pack over a guy named Mitt as your presidential hopeful in 2012.

If you’re a Democrat you wake up and find that your guy is sinking so low in the popularity polls that you shudder to think that a guy named Newt or Mitt could actually be elected.

And if you’re an independent thinker, you just shudder because apparently the key most important criteria in getting elected to any public office is who’s been able to keep his or her pants on.

If you can keep your pants on you have a shot.

Keeping one’s pants on is apparently a big problem. All sorts of creepy people are being caught with their pants down…and luckily, rightly so.

Because, you know…otherwise they might become President.

So you can see why it might be hard to wake up smiling with things like this popping into my head as I open my eyes.

I worry about the likelihood of committing a social faux pas when I'm out and about, which is only intensified by the holiday season; that pops into my head, also.

What if I wish the wrong person a Merry Christmas?  Will they disdain me or worse, send me a fruit cake?

What if I under tip the newspaper delivery guy, even if he only delivers the paper on time every other Tuesday, and  even then, tosses it in my neighbor’s driveway instead of mine?


What if I make a right on red at a no right on red intersection?


What if I ask a fat woman when she's due?

What if I forget to cut out the “ONE DAY ONLY Take an EXTRA 20% OFF” coupon before I go to Macy’s?

Or what if I remember to cut out the “ONE DAY ONLY Take an EXTRA 20% OFF” coupon before I go to Macy’s, but fail to notice that it’s only valid between the hours of 8 AM to 10 AM?

Or what if I remember to cut out the “ONE DAY ONLY Take an EXTRA 20% OFF” coupon before I go to Macy’s, shop between the hours of 8 AM to 10 AM but only want to buy Everyday Values, specials, super buys, furniture, mattresses, floor coverings/rugs, men’s store electronics, cosmetics/fragrances, gift cards, jewelry trunk shows, previous purchases, special orders, selected licensed depts., special purchases or services…which, everyone knows are excluded.  And on top of all that, what if I mistakenly try to combine my “ONE DAY ONLY Take an EXTRA 20% OFF” coupon with a savings pass/coupon, extra discount or credit offer and I’m not opening a new Macy’s account? 

Or the unimaginable…the power goes out and my alarm fails to go off causing me to miss the “ONE DAY ONLY Take an EXTRA 20% OFF” coupon day entirely....

What then???? 

I mean this is ONE DAY ONLY people! 

And even if all of that goes well…which is a “BIG IF”, what if the girl in the mall doesn’t find me worthy enough to offer a sensuous hand massage with her new skincare and exfoliant cream for manly men? 

What do I do then?   

I mean I only have 24 cases of the stuff in my garage.  It’s not like it’s gonna last forever. 

Do I just slink away into the Brookstone store where I KNOW the guy there will ask me if I would like to try a pro foot and calf massage or a have an interactive experience with Penbino the Adorable Cuddly Penguin Toy

But what if he doesn’t?  

What if I’m not even suitable enough for Brookstone? 

Where do I go then? 

To console myself with a big pretzel?  And you know, that's no guarantees either. 

I could wait 15 minutes, get to the front of the line only to find out that I’ll have to wait another 10 minutes for a salt no butter pretzel, because a pretzel drenched in butter closes my esophagus. 

But still I try...to smile...everyday.  What else can I do?    

Every day’s a gift.... 

Right?   

Smile…. 

Right? 

But not while you’re sleeping.   

It dries out your teeth.

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My Phone is Clean

I washed my phone the other day.

It needed it. It hadn’t been washed in a very long time….

Actually, I washed it because it just happened to be in the pocket of my jeans, which I had stripped off in a panic and thrown in the washer, hoping to get the white paint off of my right pant leg…after it splashed up from the basement floor…but not before sprinkling an assortment of interesting Rorschach patterns on my collection of snow shovels and other basement detritus…after I reached around the side of the tool bench to retrieve the box of latex gloves that had fallen, thus knocking over the can of white semi-gloss paint that I was using to do a small little touch up on a small little knick on the banister, that might have disturbed one of our nosey parker dinner guests, just before Thanksgiving.

Got all that?

So I washed my phone.

There it sat at the bottom of the washer, with that look of, “Nice move, Bozo,” all over its soggy little screen.  It was clean though…clean as a whistle; and it still worked. 

Well it mostly worked….

My ringtone kind of sounded like it was still under water, and this odd shadowy substance sloshed around inside the display; kind of like a lava lamp, which I guess is kind of cool.

I wasn’t all that concerned, however, since I had an identical backup phone upstairs to switch it out with. 

You know, the one I originally used before I purchased this one—the one I just washed—to replace that one, last winter, when I stepped on Z’s snow boot, on the landing, coming down the cellar stairs on that snowy Sunday night and heard my ankle go snap crackle and pop, but without the rice krispies, as I turned it over and fell on my smartest feature.  

Hearing your ankle snap crackle and pop is always scary cuz it hurts like a son of a you know what and all you can imagine is weeks of immobility and rehabilitation, which is pretty much par for the course for me anyway, minus the rehab.  

Z, always the good wife, came running in a panic, shouting, “What happened…what happened?”

I think, that’s what she was shouting, but it was hard to hear over the sounds of my own woman like screams.

Z was certain I had fallen all the way down the stairs, to the hard concrete floor below; and I'm not sure, but I thought I saw a little look of disappointment sweep across her face when she saw I had only gotten as far as the first landing.

But again, I may have been delusional with pain.

Luckily, once the intense fiery pain subsided, it wasn't all that bad and I was able to hobble around a bit. It was a little sore but luckily no major swelling occurred due to my superior mind over matter healing abilities. However....unfortunately, then, I was well enough to go out with Z and shovel the 16 inches of snow that fell, which included crawling on our hands and knees in order to find and dig out our little lighted polar bear which had gotten blown over in the storm, and buried under a 3 foot drift of snow...which led to my somehow stupidly dropping my cell phone in a snow bank, apparently never to be seen again until the spring thaw.

Not that we didn't try; we made quite the pair walking around poking and digging at the snow as if we were looking for avalanche survivors in the Andes, listening all over the front and back yards for my poor little phone ringing, as I limped all the way.

I later found that particular phone—the first phone—right by the polar bear, right where we had been looking, once the snow receded sometime in February. And it worked too! 

So now I have two phones…sort of…cuz now I washed the second phone. 

But it needed it. It hadn’t been washed in a very long time….

Oh…and I did touch up that little nick on the bannister.

And I rescued my jeans…and my sneakers, which I hadn’t mentioned cuz I didn’t want to sound like too much of a whiner.


Gotta go...the phone is ringing.


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To the Woods!

So it’s officially Decembrrrrrrrr, the last and usually the brrrr-iest of the brrrrrrrrrrr months. 

There's a bit of a brrrrrrr in the air this morning, but so far it’s been pretty De-balmy outside.  In fact my lawn is still pretty De-green, still De-growing, and I don’t think it’s all that De-happy about it.


It should have been well into its long winter’s snooze by now; and it’s not alone by any stretch. Walking through the neighborhood, yesterday morning, the scent of freshly mown lawn mixed with pine and frasier fir was definitely in the air.

Of course, we did have a white October this year so I guess a green December is par for the course.  Then again, who would be surprised if we had 6 inches of snow on the ground by this time tomorrow?

I know that’s a real possibility because this weekend we’ll be taking our 11^th annual ride to the woods of Connecticut where we'll cut down this year’s Christmas tree. I suppose we could skip this year’s tree and just cut down next year’s tree, along with the following year's, while we're at it, but that would be odd…even for us.


Besides, Z and I actually look forward to this annual tradition; especially the semi-frozen donuts, with which we celebrate the completion of another successful hunt, standing alongside a large can 'o fire and the big ox who has an unfortunate problem with flatulence.


But that can actually work in one’s favor sometimes….

It’s alwasy a fun outing as we get to jump on a big hay wagon and play with the ticks as we wind up the side of MT. Kilimanjaro, past the Sherpa’s and Noah’s Ark, until we get dropped off into this giant field of evergreens where we, along with a lot of other confused looking people, wander around aimlessly for a couple of hours in search of the perfect tree.


I find it best not to force the hunt, but instead adopt kind of a Zen attitude towards the whole thing. Become one with the trees and just go where the flow takes you…which, for me, is usually back to the donut shack.  But hey, trees have to eat too, you know. 


Of course, like most important decisions in life you usually end up selecting the first tree that caught your eye 3 hours before, which you initially rejected because it was slightly too big, had a slight tilt to the left, or it was in a previous relationship that you weren’t sure had actually ended...at least on an emotional level.
  

We used to go up to this particular farm with a bunch of friends, who actually introduced us to the joy of tree picking. 

Previous to that we kept our tree in a box in the attic.  But now we’re all gung ho ho ho about holiday deforestation.

Unfortunately, one year, all of the other folks wandered off into the woods and we’ve never seen them again. We look for them every year, but to no avail.


I think they may have actually passed into another dimension…perhaps one where the trees do the picking and the people serve as holiday decor. 


But that's just me...

Z says they may have disappeared because of my repeated renditions of “Oh Holy Night!” on the way up in the car, and my constant jabbering about how you can buy these things already cut, in one place, without climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro or trekking through the forest….

But Z doesn’t have my imagination.

And we have trekked in years past…yes, indeed, we have trekked. 

One year there was about a foot of snow on the ground. Well maybe 4 inches but it might just as well have been a foot.  Try lying on your belly in that while you hack through a tree trunk the size of a giant redwood. 

Well maybe the size of a giant pencil, but it might just as well have been a giant redwood, especially since the saw I use is basically about 30 years old and has difficulty slicing butter, let alone a tree. I’ve been meaning to replace it, but since I only use it for this one instance, on this one occasion, once every year, it’s not exactly on the top of my to do list…if I had a to do list.

But one of these years…. 

Once the selected tree has been excised from its earthly bonds and put on its rightful path to decorating our living room, we tag it and drag it out to the side of the little path and await the tree hauler who throws it up on the back of the small flatbed with all the other so honored trees.  Then the little fella is brought down Kilimanjaro and run thru this big tree stringer contraption and shrunk down to the size of a closed umbrella, while Z and I warm our hands over the previously mentioned can 'o fire and defrost the semi-frozen donuts while filling our bellies with hot chocolate.

The tree stringer is actually pretty nifty since it allows me to avoid that whole tying the tree to the roof of the car thing, which I tried once, only to discover that trees don't handle the hot carnauba wax cycle in the car wash all that well.  


Now, the whole tree actually fits nicely in the back of my little hatchback; and no matter what they say, driving with an evergreen branch boring into your eardrum is not at all distracting.


In fact it’s quite exhilarating.

All in all, as I said in the beginning, I do admit to looking forward to this annual holiday deforestation trip.  It kind of brings out my primal holiday instincts, which the lady in the puffy down coat and that little, yapping Bichon Frise had a problem with that one year.

But that’s a story for another time.

Bygones….

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