Oh my GOD that was a spectacular trip. Caught my ankle on the chair leg and fell over two dining room chairs and a table corner. Dishes rattled. The cat fled. The family screamed. Tea spilled. A hubcap went rolling away. I’m pretty sure the shock wave changed weather patterns. It's a wonder I didn't burst into flames.
Also, somehow in the intricate dance of gravity and the human body, I not only bruised both knees; I also managed to whack my boob on something.
I’m gonna feel that tomorrow.
Well, I only have a job for two more weeks, the holidays are over, my brother’s leaving us to go back to school in a couple of days, I have no fingernail, and it’s still winter. Life is something of a bummer right now.
So over dinner tonight, we discussed this and decided that we need another damn holiday to give us something to look forward to. Valentine’s Day doesn’t count, since after elementary school it’s all shmarmy couples, stressed out boyfriends, wad o’ diamonds commercials, and pissed-off singles. We need something all-inclusive. And something that isn't commemorative, like MLK Jr. Day, which is important but not exactly a fun-filled holiday you look forward to; it's more somber.
So I have decided. Given that the third Monday of January is supposedly the most depressing day of the year, I hereby declare it the Feast of Saint Emo. We will decorate with black and blue streamers, tear drops, and frowny faces. We will light black candles, listen to whiny indy music and sad love songs, maybe watch March of the Penguins or Hamlet. Maybe we can strew fake ferns and willows around.
We’re still trying to think of traditional time-honored foods. So far we’ve got pomegranates (actually traditionally and time-honoredly emo) and ice cream right out of the bucket, as well as lots of cups of tea.
Clearly, this is a prototype holiday right now, but I believe this could catch on. So I say to you: who is with me? Who thinks we need another holiday to get us though this? And what suggestions do you have for ways to celebrate our Pity Party on the Feast of Saint Emo? Sure, traditions are organic, but they have to start somewhere, and I’m starting this one now!
ETA: After some thought, my sister and I are going with our original plan of having it January 24, to avoid MLK Day. So it's moved back to then!
Well! This year’s edition of the Annual Holiday Disaster has come early!
Everything was going fine until yesterday at about 1:45 pm, when about 4 more inches of snow slammed into the ground with an audible WHUD. The various members of the Treehouse family had been out doing errands, but seeing signs of a classic Mountain Passes Closing scenario, we all decided to regroup and head for home. The last to get back was Mom, who had elected to stop by the liquor store first.
MOM: I figure if we get snowed in for days, we will at least have the essentials. I got rum, gin, and vodka.
DAD: Gin? What, were you going to mix us up some nice gin and tonics? “Oh, that snow shoveling looks like thirsty work! Come sit on the porch and have an ice cold G&T!”
MOM: (with dignity) I was thinking for martinis.
So we pretty much cancelled the rest of the day. I called in to work, and we spent the evening reading, playing video games, and talking before watching a nice comfy Christmas movie* by the glow of our ugly bubble-lighted tree. Then Dad and my brother went out to take one last look to see if the snow was still on the offensive.
A moment later, my sister answered the phone. It was Dad.
MY SISTER: How’s it looking out there?
DAD: Actually, the snow has cleared up! And the river and waterfall look particularly lovely under the streetlight!
MY SISTER: Dad, we do not live near a river or a waterfall.
DAD: We do now! The water main on the next street up broke.
MY SISTER: … We’ll get our boots.
By the time we got out there, Dad and my brother had built a barricade of snow and bricks in our driveway, which happens to be facing the bottom of the hill the water was running down. They had moved on to getting shouted at by Mrs. Next-Door-Left, who was taking her shouting job very seriously: “OUR HOUSE IS FLOODING OVER HERE! QUIT SHOVELING THE WATER IN OUR DIRECTION! I CALLED THE WATER PEOPLE BUT NO ONE ANSWERED!”
We decided that we had to unblock the gutter and get the water flowing—while the drawback to living under the water main was that water flows downhill, that became a plus when we realized we also live on what I will describe as, for lack of a better term, a freaking mountain. My brother and I also decided to wake up the Next-Door-Rights, in order to let them know that their driveway and garage were becoming a lake. Unfortunately, Mr. Next-Door-Right isn’t particularly enthusiastic, so his entire contribution to the project was five minutes’ shoveling snow into his Next-Door-Right’s yard, declaring a job well done, and wandering back inside.**
Meanwhile, the water guy and the snow plow had both come. The water guy proceeded to hold his map upside-down, while Mr. Plow industriously plowed all the slush we had just shoveled out of the gutter back into it and blocked up the water flow again.
And chaos reigned.
“Curse you, plow! I JUST SHOVELED THAT!”
“Goddamn, these boots are ruined!”
“We can’t let it flow too fast, or it just pulls in more slush and blocks up!”
“Don’t slow it down too much, or it’ll freeze and block up!”
“Hey, Next-Door-Rights? You want to maybe help out here?”
“QUIT SHOVELING INTO OUR DRIVEWAY! YOU IN THE TRUCK WITH THE ORANGE LIGHTS, SHUT THE WATER OFF! WE’RE FLOODING HERE!”
“All right, it’s in the next guy’s yard. I’m off to bed!”
“Holy shit the plow is coming back! And we just got this slush cleared from his last pass!”
“FLOODING!”
“We should probably clear the Next-Door-Rights’ gutter. It seems to be pooling here for some reason.”
“Don’t let it go too fast!”
“Or slow!”
“Have they shut the water off?”
“THERE’S KLINGONS ON THE STARBOARD BOW, STARBOARD BOW, STARBOARD BOW, JIM!”
“You know,” I remarked to my brother as we went around for the third de-slushing of the Next-Door-Rights, “after all this, Mom had sure better be waiting inside with some ice cold gin and tonics.”
“Perhaps without the tonic,” he agreed.
After the fourth round along their gutter, it was flowing without obstruction pretty well, and we judged the flow was slowing down, so they must have turned it off. Mr. Plow had given up, and Mrs. Next-Door-Left’s voice gave out. Now all there was to do was keep an eye on the water level, and check tomorrow to see if we would need a plow or just a Zamboni for the street.
And, of course, go inside and get a nice hot cup of “Russian tea.”*** It was better than any gin and tonic. Or, at least, warmer.
*The Dark Knight.
**He doesn’t like that neighbor.
***A gross recipe featuring a mix of Lipton instant tea, Tang, sugar, spices, and peach Schnapps.
Today I got to work and my manager announced rather dejectedly that we were getting rid of all the men’s clothing*—organize it, box it, and send it off to a farm where it’ll have lots of room to frolic and play with the other shirts and pants another store that may be able to sell them better.
MANAGER: What this means for you is that you get to undress all the male mannequins!
AMELIA: Oh, sure! There are, what, fifteen? No problem!
Okay, I had no idea undressing men took that much heavy lifting.. Although I think when you’re doing it more recreationally, getting their pants off probably doesn’t involve reaching under their thigh and unscrewing a large bolt and then lifting the torso off the flagpole they’re stuck to.** Also most men can move their arms, so you don’t have to pull them off to get their shirts off. And mannequins don’t do much to facilitate the process—and men’s are also tough to get a grip on, especially with no arms, so I did a fair amount of wrestling.
And that would have been less weird if the manufacturers had been less weird—they’re your standard mannequins that go from neck to mid-thigh, man-shaped, not very detailed, except for two very important parts. First, the ass: the most lovingly sculpted, tight ass I have ever seen on anything that isn’t Michelangelo’s David. And as for the second, allow me to give you a succinct visual: David Bowie in Labyrinth.
I think this was the God of Irony’s revenge for my taking extra care to look nice and professional today.
Also, there is no way to pose those mannequins without scaring the customers. But at this point, we just don’t care.
I did, however, name the mannequins. Mostly things like Smash Lampjaw, Crud Bonemeal, and Beef Hardpec, but one I called Stephen Colbert because he was a Formidable Opponent. That display stand did not want to give up those pants, and that was only the beginning of my troubles ...
Discussion Question: Why are those Levi’s commercials all centered around finding opportunities to take ones pants off? You would think a commercial for jeans would show the person declining to take their pants off in the face of a great opportunity, simply because they prefer wearing the pants, wouldn’t you?
*[Steely Dan] Cuz we’re goin’ outta business … everything must go! [/Steely Dan]
**I have tried to make this passage not sound fetishy, innuendoy, or dirty, but there is no way to do that. So I gave up and stopped trying.
