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I Speak for the Trees

The Christmas tree is up.

That statement carries heavy implications, to which family men everywhere shudder from mild PTSD.

Seriously, it’s a lot of effort for such a bizarre holiday decoration.  In years past we had opted for an artificial tree, mostly because we lived in rented property, but also because I didn’t want to deal with the mess.  That’s when we acquired would would be known thereafter as “The Martha Stewart Tree”, because we bought it at K-Mart (of all places that’s where Martha Stewart had her brand sold at the time), and it looked better than any artificial Christmas tree we had seen elsewhere.

But the tree came with very questionable pre-wiring (which I later removed), and the clipped wires of the tree’s frame were lethally sharp.  And the damn thing dropped fake needles everywhere which the vacuum refused to pick up.  Fuck that tree.

So we’ve since made the switch to real trees.

Of course, real trees have their own set of problems, but whatever kind we got this year has been especially awful.  This one doesn’t have any real branches, just a bunch of fluff that can’t support any weight, so I only have half the lights on it that I would normally.  And the sap gave me an allergic reaction.

Plus, the ornaments keep falling off.  Look at the kid’s consternation as she debates their placement:

This was a terrible species for a Christmas tree.  I sure hope Liz remembers what it was so we don’t get that kind again.  I’m about to go Griswold on the neighbor’s spruce.

–Simon

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Nutcracker

I’ve never been to a ballet.  Of all the presumably highbrow experiences I pondered whilst sipping bourbon poured from my crystal decanter, ballet never crossed my mind.  I’m game for orchestras, but I never felt orchestral arrangements needed the visual aid.  Then again, I do seem to enjoy auditory experiences more than most, so perhaps this was to be expected.

Liz wanted to take the kid to see the Nutcracker.  I was dubious about the prerequisite attention span required, but part of being a parent is forcing culture into your child whether they want it or not, so I was on board.  Off we went to the Schuster Center’s Mead Theatre!

Why do they cram men into those? Can’t they just wear some sweatpants or something?

One of the consequences of an active mind is the need for discourse.  Lacking any prior relatable experience, the kid endlessly asked questions about what the hell was going on, which is a fair reaction really.  To a child’s mind, I imagine it would be very confusing to watch people dance around to instrumental music, vaguely acting out a story that wasn’t based in any sort of reality.

And one of the consequences of an introspective mind is the tendency to zone out.  The familiar melodies invoked thoughts of Fantasia, naturally.  I also recalled hearing that Tchaikovsky never considered the piece one of his better works, yet it became one of his better-known pieces.  Then I started thinking about the dancers and their well-known anorexia problems.  Then I awoke with a start, embarrassed that I had fallen asleep (though no one seemed to have noticed).  Damn is that music peaceful!

Conclusion: The kid wasn’t old enough for this type of venue, I found it incredibly boring, and Liz was disappointed that they had apparently modernized it from the version she knew.  That’s culture I guess–an experience not terribly fun at the time, but something that forms a lasting memory to live on as nostalgia.  I hope that’s how the kid recalls this experience.

–Simon

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Take a Stand

It’s been unexpectedly difficult finding a TV stand.  There isn’t a shortage of course, but their contemporary designs don’t trend toward accommodating my setup.  They tend to be too tall, with compartments too small.  Were I to use a common design, my TV would be uncomfortably high, and my audio receiver would need to sit on top–obviously not a practical configuration.

Wondering why this was even a dilemma, I discussed the problem with coworkers.  I quickly discovered that most people do indeed mount their televisions up high, like a movie theater.  I also found out, to my surprise, that people don’t generally use audio receivers.  No one wants to bother with wiring speakers, and so forego surround sound configurations in favor of sound bars which provide a small improvement over TV speakers, and they don’t require an external receiver since they have built-in input switches.

Older TV cabinets have massive compartments, probably due to technology being physically bigger back then, and in a time before high-resolution viewing there seems to have been a greater interest in high-fidelity audio, and so audio receivers were more commonplace.  But these older cabinets can’t accommodate a modern TV’s size, so again we were stuck.

And so we’ve kept an old and ugly particle-board stand, bought on the cheap from Target.  And ever since, Liz has been on the lookout for a new stand.  And then, finally, she found something.  We took very careful measurements of all components, and behold!  They would fit!  My normally frugal nature gave way and I not only didn’t dissuade her from making the purchase, but I actively encouraged.

Although she probably would have bought it anyway

I spent 2 hours rearranging and rewiring everything, but now we have completed our setup of adult furniture.  And since everything’s now behind glass I don’t feel quite so nervous when the kid walks past with a beverage.

“Adult” maybe being defined a bit loosely here (note the Elder Scrolls YouTube soundtrack on screen and the Ghost in the Shell DVDs on the shelf

Liz then immediately decided we needed a bigger TV, now that there’s more room on the stand.  Sigh.

–Simon

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Aphids

When I brought my pepper plants inside to overwinter, I did not anticipate an aphid scourge.  In fact, I’ve never experienced an aphid problem before, so the threat didn’t register.  In the past, I once had a colony attack some bindweed, but as they left everything else alone, I wasn’t concerned, and in fact left the bindweed there as a sort of companion gardening plant.

The chocolate habanero

The trouble is, bringing plants inside and into a controlled environment seems to have eliminated all natural predators.  So while I may have always had aphids, their populations were controlled to the point that I never noticed them.

But a few weeks ago, I noticed the colony on my peppers.  This particular strain was bright red, so I noticed fairly quickly.  But it’s hard to treat big bushy plants inside, and while repeated sprayings lessened the population, I never eradicated it.  And the aphids, being amazing specialists, transferred to the other plants.  So finally, I had to take extreme measures.  I took every infected plant outside to die in the freeze, along with their unwelcome guests.

It’s very annoying to lose plants that I really wanted to keep.  From now on, I’ll start new peppers inside in the winter and just let them die at the end of fall.  It’s not like I had a shortage of peppers this year.  Lesson learned.

–Simon

P.S.  Before I wrote this, I was lazily browsing the internet at work.  Seeking apparently forbidden knowledge on aphid eradication, my query was blocked:

Indeed, MOST suspicious
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Snow

Snow is becoming exceedingly rare here.  We haven’t had a good snow in 3 years.  I’m still waiting for a good snow, but we did at least receive some snow–enough for a pleasing vista and a few snowballs to throw at the kid.

Unexpectedly, my colleagues down in Georgia got a foot of snow.  Climate change?  Nah, it’s probably just the Miser Brothers fighting again.

–Simon