brainsplotch

Though it's always a relief to reclaim our living room after removing all the decorations from the Christmas tree and hauling it out of the house, I never fail to feel melancholy after dropping it in the pile of dead trees at the township office. Seeing this mass dumping ground of once gloriously lit and bejeweled trees signals the passing of the holiday season with a blunt finality. It also makes me ponder this strange ritual of the Christmas tree. Before I launch into this unintentionally Scrooge-like essay, allow me to make it clear that I do like having a Christmas tree, and much of what I write here is tongue-in-cheek. That said, Think about it: we have massive tree farms that grow coniferous trees for the sole purpose of selling them for Christmas. We holiday consumers buy these trees for, say, $50 to $100 (and possibly more) for maybe a month of use. These trees are chopped down and plunked in glorified buckets of water in our homes. The primitive life support buckets stave ...

Older son is home and we just spend about an hour this morning watching a YouTube video about comically bad AI depictions of Jesus. This is the type of content I'd never see if he wasn't home. This post will just be a potpourri of different subjects. On a whim, I checked out of the library Alex Van Halen's new memoir Brothers , which is primarily about his relationship with his kid brother Eddie Van Halen. Perhaps you've heard of him. I am only about 1/4 of the way through the book, but am enjoying it so far. Alex, along with bassist Michael Anthony, always seemed like the quiet guys in Van Halen (the band), so I didn't know what to expect from this book (though I had heard Alex Van Halen interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air and I found him pretty engaging. He comes across as thoughtful and conversational in the book, and clearly loved his little brother. Expect a "1984 albums in review" about Van Halen's appropriately titled 1984. I will try to get that...

I am at home on the couch watching older son commandeer the television, which is fine because there is nothing I really want to watch anyway. I think we will have anime and funny YouTube videos in our future.  We are watching a compilation of real-life car accidents taken from dash cams--more like "fender benders" that people walk away from, and nothing catastrophic or fatal. In a weird way, these are actually quite fascinating to see. It's shocking to see how terrible some of these drivers are. I am happy to report I have started reading Absolute Beginners again, as I promised I would. I hope to finish it by New Year's Eve. I want to get just one more book into my "books read in 2023."  My four-day weekend concludes today, but I think I can handle a three-day work week. It should be pretty "chill" at work, and there doesn't appear to be any bad weather that will disrupt driving. Smooth sailing [knock on wood] to my NEXT four-day weekend that ...

I am at another family holiday thing watching family members unwrap Christmas presents. There are many, many gifts, so this might be awhile. I am sipping a bourbon on the rocks as I spectate. We saw the 2023 musical version of The Color Purple earlier and it was good, much better than I expected. I am not sure if it will make my top ten of the year, but it should make top fifteen.

This morning, I did something I have never done before: I ordered an "ugly Christmas sweater," or more accurately, a "silly Christmas sweater." When it arrives, I will reveal the design and theme here. It should arrive by Tuesday.  If I had thought about getting a silly Christmas sweater earlier, I would have opted for either a Black Sabbath-themed one or one with a pentagram and the phrase "Hail Santa." Unfortunately, neither one would arrive before Christmas unless I shelled out some exhorbitant shipping price, so I decided against those. Maybe next year. I will probably have to write a reminder in my calendar for December 1, 2024 with the note, "you are probably not feeling Xmas spirit now, but order your Xmas sweater anyway." Younger son has commandeered the television, so we have jumped from a Hallmark Christmas movie on PlutoTV to some show about an airliner crash. In any case, L. and I will be heading out soon to see the new movie, Wonka. ...

The Christmas tree is up and decorated, and that is nice. Michigan State basketball rose from the ashes today and beat undefeated and 6th ranked Baylor in convincing fashion, and that is nice. The Detroit Lions shook off the doldrums and throttled the Denver Broncos, 42-17, and THAT is nice. So plenty of nice things happened today. In other news, I knocked out a five-kilometer run, which I did DURING the Michigan State basketball game because I was convinced I would jinx them if I rushed home and watched the game on television. I needed to get out there and get exercise anyway. If the weather is reasonably decent and there is sunlight, I absolutely have to get outside and take advantage of it. I did, however, watch the entire Lions game, which caused me a little bit of stress because I'm not used to the Lions playing meaningful games this late in the season. They are usually hopelessly irrelevant by this time of the year. Thankfully, this is not the case this season. With that, I w...

I got my 10,000 steps in and just flossed and brushed my teeth, so writing in here is my final "chore" before crashing in an hour or two. We made our annual trip to the Christmas lights at the Potter Park Zoo. It was fine. I don't get overly excited about it and eventually get bored and cold and ready to leave after about an hour. My attitude is generally, "yep, there's some lights...and there's some more lights. Yep, they're shiny and bright...okay, let's go home now." I will say that the spider monkeys 🐒 in their enclosure were pretty damned entertaining, perhaps more than the Christmas lights. (Overheard one grade school-age kid say, "Is that monkey eating...poop?!?").  Yes, I know my blase attitude about the Christmas lights must sound like a combination of Scrooge and the Grinch. I started reading yet another graphic novel. Lest you think I'm regressing mentally reading all these glorified comic books, ...

We had our final family get-together of the holiday season, rescheduled from the disastrous Christmas Eve. I do like seeing my parents, but I'm relieved that the holiday season is over. Yet, at the same time, I'm bracing myself for the next few months of cold, gray, depressing winter. (I'm sure this isn't the first time I have expressed this sentiment in this blog). Last night, older son had two of his friends over to watch the latest version (released in 2022) of All Quiet on the Western Front . They were nice enough to let the "old people" watch it with them. There is little in the world quite as amusing as three 21-year-olds watching a movie together. The banter was pretty damned funny. However, when it became clear that this movie was not going to be a joyride, they got serious and somber. All Quiet on the Western Front is an unsparing, visceral, and violent movie that wastes no time in demonstrating that war is hell. As a viewer, you can't help but f...

I am taking a few moments in the aftermath of this morning's Christmas festivities to knock out another post. 25 in a row. I amaze even myself. I wasn't sure if I could really do this. I am not sure of the quality of some of these posts, but I hope that at least some of them have been entertaining and/or informative. Last night's drive to and from Detroit Metro Airport was truly harrowing. This is the worst Christmas weather we have had since 2013, when a horrific ice storm knocked out power in our area for a solid week. I suppose I will accept bad driving conditions over no power. Last night, we saw a few spinouts on the road, did a little fishtailing ourselves on I-96 heading towards Detroit, and saw a few abandoned cars along the side of the highway. In a few minutes, I'll have to abandon this blog post and go outside and--guess what?--do a bit more shoveling. We have some family arriving and the driveway needs to be cleared at least a bit. As for gift exchange, youn...

Coming to you live from the baggage service office at Detroit Metro Airport. Older son is here, but his baggage is not. This is putting all our Christmas Eve plans in doubt, but honestly--whatever. At this point, I'd prefer to just get home and go to bed. The drive here was harrowing. This is one relentless storm. Unlike most winter storms in Michigan, it didn't just drop a ton of snow in a few hours and leave, it has lingered and slowly bludgeoned us for about two days. It's bitterly cold, icy, snowy, windy.  That's all for now. Live update, part 2: It is 9:03 EST and we are driving in these conditions: [Sorry folks, Blogger will not accept my photo for some reason, so you can't see what the road looked like. Suffice it to say it was extremely snowy and icy]. Snow still coming down hard. We are stuck in a snow vortex. I hope we are home in about a half-hour. Update: We safely arrived at our Christmas Eve festivities, only three miles from our house, and were able t...

I'm feeling a bit fried tonight because I stayed up too late last night. That said, I still need to get my 10,000 steps in before I go to bed and I have about 917 to go. Those 10,000 steps can be reached from pacing back in forth in the kitchen while listening to a podcast. Yes, I actually pace back and forth in the kitchen if I need to get the steps in and I can't get outside to do it. It's too late and too cold to go outside and walk. I admit, I'm a weirdo. The weather is calling for a wicked snowstorm to hit the Midwest on Friday, which just happens to be the day that older son is scheduled to fly in from Germany. I am, of course, worried that he'll either get stuck in Washington, DC at his layover stop, or that his flight(s) will get cancelled/delayed. I suppose we'll "cross that bridge when we get there," to use that well-worn cliche. I also feel that along with the slight rise in Christmas spirit, the annual Christmas stress is battling the spiri...

It's feeling a little bit more Christmas-like the last few days. For one thing, we have SNOW now and it's cold. I also had my annual holiday potluck at work yesterday afternoon. L. found a Christmas tree after work yesterday. Conveniently, the biggest tree farm in the area is literally across the street from her office. We put the tree in its base today and L. did about 90 percent of the decorating and I did maybe 10 percent. I know, that's bad. My problem is I put about two ornaments on the tree and then get either distracted or bored. Then I putz around for 5-10 minutes before resuming with another few ornaments. I'm also afraid I'll put the ornaments in a bad location on the tree and that gives me some anxiety.  Later this afternoon, I grinded out a four-kilometer run to get my week total up beyond 16.2 km/10 miles. The pavement was slicker and icier than I expected, so I needed to be careful. The last thing I want is to wipe out and fall on my ass in freezing we...

I was listening to a podcast recently (The Slate Culture Gabfest) in which one of the topics of discussion was Christmas cards and the Christmas form letter from the "perfect family." It stirred up memories of the Christmas form letters my Grandma C. received every year from an old college friend and her family. For the sake of their anonymity--though I highly doubt they will ever come across this humble blog--I'll call them the Bannister's. Let's just say they had "done well for themselves" in life. Here is a rough approximation of one of the Bannister's holiday form letters: "Dear Friends, "Yet another whirlwind year for the Bannister clan. It began in January when Tom and Muffy took the children to Switzerland for a lovely skiing vacation. Ted and I were delighted to be able to accompany them. Long days on the slopes followed by shopping in Zurich or evenings sipping hot cocoa at the fireplace of the mountain lodge. It was a most splendi...

'Tis the season when Thanksgiving ends and we, at the very least, pretend to be festive and joyous until January 1, 2023 and then fall off the ledge for the inevitable post-holiday blahs.  Okay, sorry to start the post with such a downer statement.  Anyway, Thanksgiving is sort of like "opening day" for the holiday "festive season" that lasts about five weeks. To use another sports metaphor, Thanksgiving is like the "exhibition game" that prepares us for the "regular season" of Christmas (and Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Year's Eve/Day). Thanksgiving is also the "Rodney Dangerfield" of holidays: no respect. And in recent years, Thanksgiving is taking much more of a beating for being racist and an anachronism. It's hard to dispute this, certainly when it comes to Thanksgiving origins. Even if one ignores Thanksgiving's roots in European extermination of the native people of North America and tries to treat it as a day in w...

We returned from Germany on December 30, and I feel that I need to just dump whatever impressions I have now before I forget them, so here are some thoughts I have in no particular order. Many of these will be superficial observations. Christmas decorations: I like the German approach to Christmas decoration. They are subdued and tasteful. I particularly love the Moravian stars that one sees everywhere in Germany. Germans don't seem to go for the garish and over-the-top decorations that Americans love. I became obsessed with German toilets and the flushing mechanisms that are built into the wall: one large white rectangular button for "#2" and a smaller white button for "#1." I noticed some variations (in a public restroom in in Meißen, a large oval-shaped button with a smaller oval-shaped button within the large button). I also enjoyed the similarly shaped light switches. As I mentioned on Facebook, it felt as if I was living in a life-size Playmobil or LEGO ho...

I can't quite remember where I left off. The day after we arrived in Radebeul, we spent the day in Dresden, looking at the scenery and old (and newer) buildings, including a church [Frauenkirche] that was rebuilt after reunification. It had been a pile of rubble following the Dresden bombing of 1945 and the wreckage was a memorial during the GDR era. I will need to edit this post later with the name, which I know but can't recall (and if I try to flip between here and Facebook, I'm afraid I'll lose this post). On the 23rd, we spent the day decorating the two Christmas trees (one downstairs and one upstairs outside on the balcony) and later that day walked around the old section of Radebeul (with buildings dating back to the 1400s and 1500s). Christmas Eve we met N's brother and his girlfriend and later enjoyed a dinner of sausage and potato salad. We also unwrapped gifts. (I like the lowkey way that Germans celebrate Christmas. I wish Americans would do the same). Y...

I'm writing this post on my phone. Between Trump's increasingly bonkers behavior (even more unhinged than usual) and the worsening dystopian hellscape of coronavirus, it's been hard for me to give much of a shit about Christmas. The holiday spirit is eluding me.  I managed to throw some lights on our shrubs outside yesterday, but it was even more haphazard than usual. It was a miracle that I even found the Christmas lights amongst the chaos of our garage. But they were located and I took the improvisational approach to decoration. I somply grabbed whatever strand of lights was next and plugged them together. I suppose it turned out acceptable. Just call me the Jackson Pollack of exterior holiday decoration.

This is my last post of the year in what has been a slow year on the Brainsplotch blog. This is the fewest number of posts I've written since I started the blog in 2008. I have to admit that most of my blogging energy has been spent on my other blog, Treasures from the Spartan Attic . With the MSU football team in the Rose Bowl, that blog has been more enjoyable to write to be quite honest. On a personal front, we just "survived" the worst ice storm I've ever seen in these parts. Our house was without power for almost four days, but we had it easy compared to some people I know. A few of my local friends had their power restored as late as yesterday. As the expression goes, "first world problems." Needless to say, it made for an interesting Christmas, as we celebrated the holiday in a stranger's house. We were lucky in that my in-laws (who also lost power) were able to move us all into a house in their neighborhood that still had power, and it just ...

It's ridiculously late on a Sunday night, and I really should be going to bed because I need to wake up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to go to work, but here I am typing away on my laptop and watching the meaningless third quarter of the inconsequential GoDaddy.com Bowl (yes, that's really its name) featuring powerhouses Northern Illinois and Arkansas State. The holidays are over and now begins the slog threw the the winter months.  The strange thing is we have no snow here, and it really feels more like late March than early January. The immediate aftermath of the Christmas holiday is always difficult for me.  There is so much buildup and anticipation for Christmas, with all the attendant good cheer, bright lights, and general excitement.  Then once the holidays pass, I'm left thinking to myself, "That's it? It's over?  Wow, did that go quick.  Now what?"  I just took down the lights in front of our house and it left me feeling a bit melancholy.  I sti...

The dust has settled on Christmas and it's already New Year's Eve.  I am coming to you via our new Dell Inspiron laptop that my wife bought us (i.e. the two adults in this family) for Christmas.  I have vowed that the children will not get their grubby little hands on this computer as they did our previous laptop, which is only buying time until it's inevitable trip to software heaven. It was a good Christmas.  I have stopped comparing Christmases to previous ones and worrying about whether the current holiday celebration outstrips previous ones.  The older I get, the less important that becomes,  I'm just happy to still be standing upright and be able to be with my family.  As it is, the holiday celebrations are constantly evolving over time as generations get older and/or pass on, while new generations make their appearance on the scene.  And for me, Christmas really is mainly about the children and how excited they become in anticipation of the bi...