Home » Blog Subscribe to RSS Feed

For a lot of people the holidays are a time of strife (all that running around, the demands of gifts) or depression (no running around, no one to get gifts for) and sometimes the holidays are just an inspiration, no matter who you are.

I had a moment like that, this year. It was Christmas Eve and I was out for some last minute supplies . . . and there it was: the best Christmas tree ever.

Let’s take a side moment now before you say ‘but I’m Jewish!’ or ‘I don’t have a tree, I celebrate Kwanzaa’. Let’s be honest, none of that really matters. A lot of non-Christians have trees for the holiday. The tree doesn’t belong to Jesus or . . . well, if Jesus and the Christians had been in charge there wouldn’t be a tree. The tree doesn’t say ‘birth of our savior’ it says ‘pagan fertility ritual’.

The glass balls are representative of eggs – a universal symbol of making babies. It’s a pine tree, because they are alive in the middle of the snowy season. And there’s an angel on top because Santa was in a bad mood when the angel said “I have this tree, where do you want me to put it?” and Santa said “You can stick it up your-“ . . . well, you get it.

So, I’m more than certain that you don’t have to be Christian to enjoy this fantastic tree that I saw . . .

It was a fake tree (that’s good for the environment – reuse, reuse, reuse), but it wasn’t green. No, its branches – though piney in feel – were orange and white. This is because we were in Tennessee. If you were in Wisconsin you could have green and yellow. In Texas, blue and silver; and if you are in Rhode Island . . . well, who knows and we’re really sorry you don’t have a good football team.

This wonderful tree had a big orange UT letter T at the top. No pansy angel for us! I’m not even a UT fan – my blood does not run orange and I am able to say the entire name of the state of Alabama, not just the last two syllables. But the sheer perfection of this tree got me at my core.

Though the tree was decorated simply, it made a proud statement. No tinsel was necessary. Only a few strands of small white lights graced the branches. The ornaments were all simple balls in standard gold and silver. What was truly beautiful was that each ornament bore the logo of a major brand of beer. Yes! The balls said ‘Coors’ and ‘Bud’ and ‘Mich light’.

I stood in awe of this tree for I don’t know how long. At last I was able to break its spell and make myself leave the Krogers. I ventured out into the snowy night and returned to the love of my family.

Later that evening, by a warm fire and via Facebook, my friend Alex and I planned our own perfect tree.

We feel it’s improper that the ornaments were glass. Though they were lovely, that could be dangerous. We realized we knew where to find shiny gold and silver things with beer logos on them. Yes, Aluminum is safer.

We knew our tree should have a little something more, so we pulled the tabs and strung them with corn nuts. This took a needle and some fishing line, but we didn’t spare the cost because it’s really all about honoring the season.

Of course, with the tabs gone the beer cans were really hard to hang on the tree. (Honestly, that’s just an excuse. The beer cans were hard to hang on the tree anyway – the tabs have these tiny little holes. And, even though we figured out how to do it, our motor control seemed to be slipping the more we hanged. Hung? Huh?) Paperclips provided the perfect hanger for the now empty cans.

Our Tree was perfect! The spirit lifted us! We may have done some things we don’t remember. We felt the joy of the holidays!

Then we felt a deep sleep, followed by a crushing headache.

Best
Christmas
Tree

EVER.

Listen to AJ's Podcast SMART CHICKENS

Because Sometimes We All Just Want to Fly the Coop!

Subscribe to my podcast SMART CHICKENS in iTunes -

Limited Time Offer – Get Your First 3 Months at Audible.com for $7.49/month!

When I was a kid, my main concern was whether or not the cafeteria was serving ‘government cheese’ that day. I have since grown up and found out that the government public service sector has their hands in a lot more than just a sketchy American cheese food product.

One of the US government’s big points of interaction for every American over sixteen is the DMV. In our culture of too much, too often, a crowded visit and a brief, underpurposed exam is considered a right of passage. In other cultures you have to kill an animal, shave your head, or get a tattoo . . . and those are just the girly ones. Nope, here you have to visit the DMV.

The California DMV (which I have had the pleasure of personally visiting) is, and has historically been, one of the worst on record. When Schwartzenegger came into office there, his first public act was to fire all the DMV managerial staff, thus earning him the hearts of millions and the title of ‘Governator’. Sadly, though this kept already astronomical registration fees from getting worse, it didn’t change the average experience at the centers . . .

If you look up the Cali DMV site, there is supposed to be a picture of a man and a woman using online services to register. Um, what does it show them doing when the page doesn’t load? And when you do go online, there are about a billion questions, starting with ‘do you want to register your boat?’ Just for fun, I tried logging in but it kicked me out. Not because I’m no longer a resident of that state, but because the answers to my security questions were wrong! I kid you not. Apparently the Cal DMV knows where I went to elementary school and I do not.

When I did go in and visit in person the first time, I was woefully underprepared. I’ve taken numbers to wait at places before. But this time it wasn’t 23 or 18, it was B76. I waited and waited. I read the material flashing by on the TV monitors and learned a few fun facts about the DMV. Apparently the first person to use the California DMV was a sugar magnet. Yes, a sugar magnet. Though I am sure they meant “magnate”, it brought to my mind a very sticky rich man always trying to outrun white grains coming from sugar bowls and pour spouts alike while small white packets chase him down the street. One of the facts I learned about the DMV from those tidbits was that they can’t spell, or have bad vocab or both. I was so bored and irritated that when they finally called B76 I jumped up and yelled “Bingo”. It was the only thing that cracked a smile on any of my fellow visitors’ faces. And not on any of the employees. Maybe they’d heard that before . . .

When I got to the DMV here in Tennessee (after being led miles astray by my GPS), I let myself in the front door with a messenger bag. I had work papers to look at, a magazine and a half-finished novel. The employees looked at me like I was nuts. And I was. They smiled at me and said ‘just come over to this open desk’. Ten minutes later, I didn’t have the appointment I expected, but my picture had been taken and my warm license was already cooling in my hand. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll carry that license with seriously stunned look on my face.

Things are different here – as I know I’ve said many times before. The public offices are neat and clean. And the people behind the windows are . . . well, they don’t resemble refugees from depression era America. They smile and they try to be nice. I’m not really sure what to do with them.

Just this morning, I called the social security office. I was given directions by an actual person who can string words together with the right cadence. She told me: you just come on in, mornings were relatively slow if you got there before nine. And don’t miss them when you drive by, they’re right next to “Dos Margaritas”.

I wondered if that meant something. If that was a sign from God that there was a margarita joint right next to the social security office. Would I need dos margaritas after I was done?

It turned out it didn’t matter. Maybe the staff was so nice because they shared a building with “Guns and Stuff”. The two shops’ entry doors were adjacent and one had a sign that read “This is not the door to the social security office”.

Yes, Social Security Checks, Guns and Margaritas all in one place. Tennessee sure knows how to treat its citizens!

Listen to AJ's Podcast SMART CHICKENS

Because Sometimes We All Just Want to Fly the Coop!

Subscribe to my podcast SMART CHICKENS in iTunes -

Limited Time Offer – Get Your First 3 Months at Audible.com for $7.49/month!

(Enjoy Part 1 from the archives!)

Today I learned something new: I learned that my state is dumb. Sorry, Tennessee, the rankings don’t put us very high up . . . in fact we hit the bottom ten. At least we weren’t dead last. That would be Louisiana and that probably wouldn’t be a surprise.

The creators of this study, Martek, show the top ten states as having a high likelihood of being near the oceans and cite fish consumption as a possible reason for higher brain health. Excuse me? Then how did Louisiana come in dead last? There’s a humongous quantity of fish being consumed there. Now, I believe almost all of that fish is fried, but California is getting a lot of its fish in Wahoo’s fish tacos, and that’s not going to rank too high on the old Omega-3 list either.

The low ten is heavily weighted into the south. Tennessee didn’t make the bottom on their own. Aside from a Dakota, there’s: a Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi, Loo-si-ana and yours truly, Tennessee. Raise your hand if you are surprised.

What gets me is that the researchers speculated about the aforementioned fish consumption, amount of sleep, fruit and veggie sales, breast feeding and use of ‘poor mental health’ days. Where is the examination of the fact that if you pull the education system rankings you find the same states languishing on the bottom? I really think that if you are going to rank things on smartness, you need to be smarter than that. Maybe our states are stupid because we don’t teach smarts in our schools the way those hoity-toity coastal states do.

One interesting tidbit caught my eye – that Louisiana ranked low in the use of ‘poor mental health days’. Really? Maybe this just means that Louisianans just don’t use their poor mental health days. Can I pipe up and guess that the highest uses of such days occurred in the west coast states, where consumption of tofu, bean sprouts and BS is incredibly high?

I’m also speculating that there are a lot of factors in the low ‘poor mental health days’ in Louisiana. Because I’ve been to Louisiana and they don’t seem all that mentally healthier than anywhere else. Maybe they don’t know these things exist and therefore don’t claim them. Maybe they need their jobs and don’t do stupid things like take ‘mental health days’. Maybe they realize that by calling their boss and suggesting this they’ll get laughed out of town. It seems to be only on the west coast where we say, ‘Oh yes, take a mental health day! I’ll hold down the crowd at the Oxygen Bar without you! Come back refreshed!”

In an effort to clear some of this up, I pulled old rankings, too. It seems in 2006-2007 Tennessee was at a respectable #30. I understand it isn’t great, but it’s spitting distance to the average. Unfortunately, it seems to mean that we aren’t just dumb, we are getting dumber.

Damn, I’m feeling my neurons shrivel as I sit here. Do I move back to California? Where my kids won’t get a better education (Cali ranks low forties on public schools!) Or do I sit here in my stupidity, getting dumber as the days go by, but enjoying my clean air sunset, grateful that I can buy cereal for less than five dollars a box, and conversing with my neighbors who seem to be smart enough not to call in ‘poor mental health days’ at work?

Oh, wait, I think I just answered my own question!

Stupid Is as Stupid Does – Part 1

http://www.ajscudiere.com/blog/2009/09/stupid-is-as-stupid-does/

Listen to AJ's Podcast SMART CHICKENS

Because Sometimes We All Just Want to Fly the Coop!

Subscribe to my podcast SMART CHICKENS in iTunes -