What the Hell does that Woman want for Christmas?

What the hell does that woman want for Christmas?

Are men and woman different in what they like to get for Christmas, or presents in general? Sure they are, and you know they are, but sometimes slip up in the thinking anyway. Have you ever heard a woman say this, "I don't want anything that plugs in"? Think about that while I make an all encompassing statement;" If you buy her something to wear, that she really wants, you will rarely go wrong".

Think about this in the most round terms. Women wear perfume and virtually all woman want a exotic scent they think as their own. Woman like jewelry. If you have the means, every woman should have diamond earrings and a pearl necklace as classic pieces of jewelry, these can vary in price wildly of course. Women like clothes and if you can latch onto a jacket, dress or shoes she really likes, she will be most happy and also appreciate the effort you have taken to notice what she likes and admires in dressing style. This includes purses of course and if she is a business woman that travels, a nice briefcase or laptop case is part of the package. Cell phones are considered a necessity by most women and a nice I-phone or blackberry could be very handy and help her stay organized and save time.

In broader terms when a woman gets in her car she wears it, I am not suggesting you buy her a new car for Christmas, but it follows with this whole "wearing" concept. In the same way a day at a spa for pampering is something she is seen in, it is something she puts on, a facial etc. A new kitchen, or just new paint, is part of her ensemble. Men rarely care all that much the color of the kitchen wall. You metro-sexual, Architectural Digest magazine readers, I am not speaking to you.
Contrast this with most standard issue, heterosexual men, they want toys.

Things that plug in are fine. If you give a man who woodworks a nice table saw he doesn't think of it as a tool to work with, he sees it as a toy to play with. If you buy him a nice pistol, he doesn't think "oh now I can protect my family", he thinks "ah this is going to make noise, make the other boys jealous, feel nice in my hands, and be fun to play with". A car can be seen as a status symbol by both men and women but guys oftentimes will want to "thrash" a 4x4, dirt bike, maybe even a pontoon boat through rapids, and make no mistake they are playing with their big toys out in the world's sandbox. If you are looking cheap, many men like a video game that caters to their interests, if they like racing maybe a racing game, if they like sitting around and drinking beer, maybe a Wii so they will move occasionally, their skin won't graft with the recliner vinyl.

Men rarely want clothes for gifts, clothes are something required by law to wear in public, you cannot play with clothes.

If you give someone money it says "I don't know you that well, and I don't want to work very hard at this whole gift thingy". If you give them a gym membership it says "god I wish you would clean up your fat-ass act'! If you give them a vacuum cleaner it says "yes the house is dirty and this kills two birds with one stone..right"? If you get them a book or CD it says " here this was cheap, easy to buy, easy to wrap and it technically fulfills the minimum gift requirement". if you buy someone booze it means "hey this is the minimum gift and also I can share it, and I need a shot right now". If you get someone some type of subscription it means "I want to piss you off for the next YEAR"! If you send them a fruit cake or one of those boxes full of sausage, cheese and crackers it means "secretly I hate you and want to poison you". If you give a nephew or grandchild a drum set or puppy it means "HA! you thought my revenge would never arrive and now here it is"!
Homemade gifts? Ahh..it depends of course but the hook is the gift receiver feels obligated to keep it. A book or ugly sweater (unless you knitted it),they can ditch and say they lost it. If you paint them a picture that is 20"x30" and they really hate it but know you put a lot of work into it? Ahh...tough, a Jerry Seinfeld episode of a mess.

Christmas is basically for kids IMHO, but I told my wife today she was" the equivalent of a hard-headed five year old girl". She said "and you are like a 13 year old boy". I said "so I am older than you", she said "yes but boys are more immature so divide by two and there you are". There we are indeed.

Celebrate 9-11

I propose 9-11 should be “National Travel Day” and as Americans who refuse to be afraid of the big bad wolf, we travel, go out to eat and spend money lavishly and in hedonistic ways.
I remember 9-11 well, the burning towers etc, I was working nights and woke up to my morning coffee and the internet news I couldn’t quite believe. Yes for several minutes I thought it was a hoax of some kind.As time went on over the next several weeks it actually got worse as people literally stopped living their lives, and adjusted everything to cowering in fear that some ridiculous imagined threat might materialize. A man I worked with who always talked about his church, cancelled his trip to Hawaii, he was afraid. He was in poor health and about 66 years old, apparently his savior was not powerful enough. People actually called the police if local kids played in the woods and wore camo clothing; they thought “terrorists had targeted their important neighborhood for implosion. People turned in neighbors who took photos outside it was completely nuts.
Things of course have cooled off some but we are nowhere near back to normal are we?
One of the moments I have been proudest of my mother is one week after 9-11 she had plane tickets to Montana. I asked if she was still going and she said of course, she was more worried about airlines cutting down on maintenance (very real), and drunken pilots than terrorists. Her reasoning was; why would the terrorists bother with a little old lady like her. Well, right on.
The terrorists attacked the World Trade Towers as a symbol, a symbol of American might, but also American values, freedom, morality, and happiness. They killed some people sure… but the total effect was a 1000 times worse because they did cause terror, and panic, they did change American life for the worse. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams because we rolled over, pissed our pants and let them.
So in all seriousness I think 9-11 should be made a holiday and it should be based on travel, and partying, and going out and not being afraid. People should go skydiving or take that hot air balloon trip, or do something new. It should be about breaking out of ruts, mental, physical and spiritual. Don’t tell me about your wonderful life-after-death god and show me your fish bumper sticker, show me your powerful faith by living a fearless, powerful life.

I know we have a lot of holidays but we have tweaked them haven’t we?

We used to celebrate Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthday and now we have the watered down “President’s Day” which means nothing. Columbus Day went the way of political correctness to a dried up death. MLK day is actually the only day the Seattle Times takes out a full page in the paper to remind us, hard to believe, good thing he is not still alive to disappoint us with being human. As near as I can tell Easter has waned and most stores are open now. Memorial Day and Labor Day are just days off from work. Fourth of July is only fireworks day. Thanksgiving and Christmas still retain pop because the weather is bad and hey we still do the family over for dinner right? Halloween is too scary because we can’t trust strangers any more, we are too afraid.
So why not ditch Labor Day and have a real holiday? We could call it American Values Day or something. I honestly think if we had a big holiday spectacular every year it would make Bin Laden’s butt burn. Instead of singing about the “home of the brave” why don’t we go out and live our lives like we always have and be brave or at least not afraid of living our lives like Americans used to live their lives.
Personally I think it would be like a Pearl Harbor Day that we really celebrate, it should be a three day national holiday and can replace Labor Day which has no meaning anymore. People should have resolutions to do something they want to do but have put off due to fear. Ask out that special person on a date you have been afraid to ask. Try out that risky blog idea. Go down to downtown Seattle and take some photo night shots you have been meaning to do, but inexplicably haven’t. Try something new like a play, or new ethnic restaurant you have never tried. If at all possible travel somewhere for no reason at all, other than you are happy to be alive and living in America on September 11, 2009!

So, join me in celebrating 9-11, Amercia is alive and kicking Day.

Snowy Christmas

AHhhh the snow, I am so very tired of it.

My wife wanted snow, she got snow.

My dog is crazy for the snow, although it has gotten too deep now even for her. Oddly, we have more snow here in town in Duvall this year than anywhere else I have seen this year.

We from the Seattle area have seen the old pictures of Seattle at around 1920 and the snow was three feet deep and we wondered why it didn’t do that anymore? Global warming? Weather cycles?

As a kid it seemed that we got fairly deep snow almost every year to make a snowman. Of course I was smaller, and it probably seemed deeper. I do also remember one Christmas as a grade-schooler that was bright and sunny and warm. I preferred the snow back then of course.
One of the longest winters I remember was 1969, the big Boeing layoff, my father was laid off I think six months. He played cards, solitaire, everyday, all morning long, I got tired of watching him. This was when they put up billboards, “will the last person leaving Seattle please turn off the lights”? We had compacted ice on our street for a month.

One time in high school, driving a 1965 Impala, I turned a corner on the way to school and slid into someone’s front yard. I went right up to their front door, at first I laughed and then thought…O SHIT, what if they come out,…amazingly, I was able to back out and continue and it seemed funny again.

Also in high school, driving the same road, I came up to a stop sign on a hill. I had to stop and then just sat and spun. I wanted to back down but my back window was covered with ice. So I got out with a scraper and as I shut the door the vibration broke the tenuous purchase the tires had on the ice. The car started sliding backyard downhill without me in it, the tires didn’t even turn! YIKE! As I chased the car downhill I fell down. Thank goodness no one else was on the road.

Living here now, on a hill, the kids always sled down the hill and make conditions worse than necessary. There have been several cars and four-wheel drive trucks stuck here within one block of the house. Two were stuck right across from our driveway. Things could be far worse though, we could all have no electricity.

Right now it is hard to drive around town because they have so many signs barricading with “road closed” it is like going through a maze to get to the local grocery store. We were going to have people over for Christmas Eve tonight. My mother in Kirkland can’t make it and we decided to go over there, but that seems silly right now. Lisa’s parents on Big Rock Road seem a couple states away.

I have noticed the last couple of years the very worst day of the year to drive, is in fact Christmas Eve. It used to be New Years Eve, because everyone would be so drunk and it was so late. The state and police have advertised against that so much almost no one does it anymore, it is verbotten. Christmas Eve, however, everyone feels obligated to go out and drive, and they don’t want to, so they are pissed off, and drunk as well. They are very angry drivers for sure and on top of it all they have snow this year. So I expect today to be really, really bad. All kinds of people will drive who haven’t driven the last few days. They will kill themselves for Christmas.

In This Economy

One phrase/thing I am getting really tired of hearing already is this: “In this economy”. It is the new great buzz-phrase and people just can’t say it enough. On a sports talk show today they said the NFL had laid off 10% of their people, some 120 folks. One person said why? They other answered well “in this economy”…blah blah…

I was thinking, why in hell does the NFL need 1200 people!? Anyway it seems the thing now is to look for a reason, any reason, a catch phrase of some kind, to screw over your fellow man like you always wanted to do anyway, but were afraid of the bad public relations.

When we had “frost in Florida” they jacked up price on all the tomatoes and produce…even though it comes from Mexico. With gas high as the sky last summer they went to profit town on everything, because somehow, someway, everything is tied to “gas price”.

Bush’s word was “terrorism”. He would find something he wanted to do anyway, and then just say terrorism a bunch of times and go. Like this; “terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, I am going to take your civil rights, terrorism, terrorism”. Amazingly, it actually worked!! The worst president since Herbert Hoover, got his country destroying, tantrum way. Remember this one? “terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, I think I will invade Iraq just for the hell of it and bankrupt our country, terrorism, terrorism”.

So now any employer who really wanted to cut his employee’s throats says this;“in this economy” and away we go. Of course you can’t have a Christmas bonus “in this economy” and you wouldn’t dare ask for a raise “in this economy”. The Sam Waltons of the world love saying “we have to buy everything we sell from China in this economy”….

People that watch a lot of TV seem to be prone to the buzz word sickness more than most. They seem to hypnotized by the daily disaster doses on FOX and CNN to the point they no longer think clearly. Just like driving a car and not remembering clearly every turn along the way it is a form of hypnosis apparently

Companies like Bxxxxx who want to punish their hourly workers say “in this economy we can’t afford to buy food for holiday celebrations so they must all be approved at the director level”. Meanwhile corpulent office workers go to the Bxxxxx boxes at a Silvertips game and blow $2000 for one party. It all makes sense somehow.

All over town fathers are telling their expectant children “honey, in this economy we shouldn’t put up lights this year”. Tightwads around the world rejoice about the endless possibilities this economy presents them.