As time goes by…

I want to start by giving a huge flaming finger to my audience which expects miracles I can’t provide so they can point out the platonic shadows while they freeze to death like a match girl.

middle_finger_flame

Welcome to America 2010.

There was a time softened by the distance of memory when I rode north past Stockbridge Massachusetts in a red VW Microbus with circles and arrows and implements of destruction.

It was a dark and stormy (I miss him, I should look him up) night and we huddled under thin blankets I can still find since like most parsimonious New Englanders (and unlike profligate Washington new money) the Gilmores never throw anything away- including that red VW Microbus with circles and arrows and implements of destruction even after I crashed it into the back of someone’s car (my legs were on the other side) and the engine blew up (this actually happened twice, once while I was driving it and once while my Dad was.  Hello Enfield coast to a stop or charging up a hill to a street named after a classmate who shat themselves in first grade).

But this wasn’t one of those bad nights and we only had to deal with the fact that you just can’t heat a red VW Microbus.

So it was pretty fucking COLD as we drove north to the Lake House and we hadn’t got our Christmas Tree yet so at the gas station we got the least pathetic one.  I want to emphasise at this point that least means beyond Charlie Brown.

So we strapped that on the roof and trundled down to the Lake House and by trundled I mean that if Dad hadn’t jumped an Olympic 90 Meter ski hill we might have missed the driveway.

Which was blocked by a 9 foot snow drift, but when one of your gifts is a toboggan you can kind of make it to the door.

And call Skip the plow guy.

Who doesn’t actually dig you out so much as wade through the snow to tell you your pathetic tree sucks and the cranberry popcorn garland a waste of time.

“Let me fix that for you.”

Skip is mostly famous for surviving without a scratch a high speed collision into a bridge abutment so I don’t want you to get the impression he’s the most reliable guy but my Dad and I went off in his plow to his garage where he walked out the back at random and picked a tree and gave it a few wacks.

In New Hampshire this behavior is considered normal.

But it was undeniably a better tree (did I mention pathetic?) and we dragged the fresh kill back to our lair and after a wee cup o’ yuletide joy we were able to scoot Skip out.

Oh.  It gets weirder.

I rescue the pathetic Charlie Brown Tree for my own because I’m a rank sentimentalist (hit the tissue twenty times just writing this) but my point is The Great Squirrel Hunt

Didn’t I tell you it got weirder?

We’d had bats in our chimneys and rafters but never a flying squirrel.  This one dove out the fire place (now in fairness I must admit we had lighted a fire) for Skip’s tree trunk and ran up and down while I chased it out the porch door armed with oven gloves and a badminton racket.

I am a formidable opponent, especially with a badminton racket.

So I’m off to the Lake House again to sleep on Granddad’s narrow red leather couch and watch Sat TV protected from the cold by the very same red VW Microbus with circles and arrows and implements of destruction thin blankets and will use whatever excuses for tools I can cram on a CD that plugs into Mom’s laptop to stay in touch as best as I can.

But wait-

The Part

But that’s not the part I’m here to talk to you about.

I’m here to talk about the draft.

It’s a horrible holiday and even Emily is asking what she can get me at CostCo.

I’m asking Santa for this-

DocuDharma costs $30 bucks a month more or less I’m told by those in a better position than I to know.  That’s $360 a year and just doesn’t seem like an impossible amount to raise.

How about buying a year or two?  $3600 would be a fucking foundation.  I say we invest it all in short term derivatives like Larry because you don’t make money by investing, you make money by trading.

There’s that paypal link over on the right.

You’d be your own personal PAC.

You could add a tip or two for the piano player, but I won’t insist.

If you can take it I can.

I remember every detail.  The Germans wore gray.  You wore blue.

15 comments

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  1. Merry Fucking ek’smas guys.

    I used to be a much better liar.

    You’ve sucked down all the time I have until I have time again and I hope you’re happy about it!

    I am.

  2. dealing with here in the un-frozen south, although it’s no less weird here.  

  3. Even more heart warming than the flaming fuck you finger.  A brandy by the fire and a laugh help to,,,,,, I forgot.  Anyway, it was a lovely story.

    • TMC on December 23, 2009 at 19:13

    your thermals and take an extra blanket with you. Those gloves that have the finger tips cut off might come in handy when your trying to type. BTW. You could always come to my house and camp out in the family room with a lap top, a 53″  plasma TV, Tivo, cable and Net Flix. I won’t even ask you to do the dishes, there’s a dishwasher for that. Dr.TMC is pretty cool about house guests, we have quite a few and I’m not always sure even he knows who they are. So what’s one more. The invite stands. I won’t even ask your real name, as far as I’m concerned, it’s E.K. Hornbeck.

    But I understand the “family” thing. Mama, my m-i-l, insists that we join her regularly for lunch and dinner at her apt in the Plaza.

    After some of the places I’ve lived and been, my idea of roughing it is Holiday Inn.

    I’ll see what I can do about filling that jar some more.

    Merry ek’smas to you and your family. 😉

    • TMC on December 23, 2009 at 22:18

    • Xanthe on December 23, 2009 at 22:35

    I don’t like using credit cards.

    • TMC on December 23, 2009 at 23:15

    The embedding is disabled…

    “.of all the gin joints, in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine… …you play it for her, you play it for me… …if she can stand it, I can…

    • Heather on December 24, 2009 at 01:22

    With the itty bitty heater way in the back and the really flimsy wipers that couldn’t take a snowstorm.

    Atlanta traffic tore us apart before it literally tore us apart. I should have moved back home instead. That van made stories happen every day almost.

    Stay cozy ek. Everbody stay cozy.

    Donation coming as soon as I get situated back into my place.

    • Miep on December 24, 2009 at 06:09

    this week.

    Buhdy; kindly tip the piano player.

    love to you all, and thanks for putting up with me.

    Miep

    • Miep on December 24, 2009 at 06:17

    this post totally rocks! Loved it!

    Implements of destruction everywhere you look!!!

    Really made my day. Actually another blogger already really made my day. So that makes this a really terrific day.

    Happy Solstice, a bit late, ek; you literary character you. Take care of yourself, and don’t let the couch bite.

    Miep

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