Christmas Week Ups and Downs
Dec. 25th, 2019 03:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogIt's just about midway through the midweek day. It just happens to be Christmas. I've left my phone in my car, which is normally not a problem, except the car got dropped off at our mechanic's, to be inspected tomorrow following its airpumpectomy of late last week. I was not going to enrich those dealer clowns with another deutschmark of my money after the way I got hosed. So Pepper and I took an extra Parp! trip this afternoon and got a ride home with Ursula and her mom after dropping off the car at the shop across the Boulevard. A few hours off the cellular grid now and then are good for you, anyway.
One not-so-good thing over there this afternoon was an awkward encounter. As we walked back to our cars, we were passed by a woman walking her shihtzu. She asked as she passed if I had an extra doggie bag. That was the easy part- of course I did. But although I haven't seen her in years and she apparently didn't recognize me in my Islander hoodie and (finally obtained) Sabres ballcap, Eleanor's been keeping me up to date on her. One of her kids was in day care with Emily from the time we moved here until around 2006. We did the birthday party circuit with them, attended one of their kids' religious functions, and, since she and her husband were both lawyers, we had things to talk about while waiting to pick up our respective charges.
The husband is now ex, the kid still comes into Wegmans fairly often (the former marital home is close by), but, unfortunately, so does mom. She's been coming up to Eleanor's register on an occasional basis, asking to borrow money from her. The first time, we had no expectation of wanting it back, and the amount Eleanor gave her was not "what do you need" but "what do I have on me." But the asks have continued- and she's expanded to asking other employees there, people with whom she does not have any kind of past connection. Eleanor has learned to say no- both to these requests and to the social media invites that this person has sent (I've gotten and declined at least one as well). We know she's on the edge because of the home situation, but our further enabling her could easily lead to worse things for her, including possibly getting banned from the store if she pisses off the wrong employee.
Other than giving her an empty plastic grocery bag, I felt awful denying that I knew her, especially at this giving time of the year. But you have to make choices- just as she clearly made some, or reacted to choices being made, that led her into this situation. I awoke this Christmas morning to that same feeling of joyful anticipation, walking out to the living room, that I got when I was six and saw that Santa had come. Only now, at 60, I got it when I saw, not that presents had arrived, but that our newspaper delivery guy had gotten the gift card we left outside for him. I got it again when I saw the picture of the young Islander fan in Texas who got the scarf with Islanders and Star Wars logos I mailed him after getting it as a promotion at the Sabres game there two weekends ago. I got it contributing to a friend's fundraiser in honor of her deceased mom, and will again when a donation to our beloved NPR station is made and doubled in the coming week. I can't get down every chimney on Christmas Eve, but I feel good about the ones I did get to.
----
I didn't keep the Star Wars scarf, but I did see the final film of the third trilogy last weekend. It's gotten mixed reviews, but I loved every minute of it. They set out to "get the band back together," and while only one actor made actual appearances in all nine films (and he from inside a metal suit), there were throwbacks to characters from the original trilogy of 42 years ago, whether appearing in person, via editing, in ghost form, or just voiced to the hero of the current piece- whose name, I'm happy to sey, is Rey.
Oh, her last name? Spoiler.
I saw it on a Saturday afternoon, the third after its December 19th premiere, and I expected a full house. Instead, there were maybe six other fans in the entire auditorium, which gave me some freedom to run some commentary to myself during the show: singing “The Dead Don’t Die” at Kylo Ren, mouthing “Wall-E!” when the new Droidus Ex Machina shows up, and of course greeting Luke’s eventual appearance by saying this (fitting, since Kevin Smith’s hiding in there somewhere):
I also enjoyed some other weird homages- to That Other Series J.J. Abrams has directed, when he dressed a new super-elite squadron of Imperial Stormtroopers in red shirts and produced similar outcomes for them:
- and to the composer behind the entire thing's theme and other main music, who shows up in a scene behind the bar and is given a character name that's an anagram of "Maestro."
It pretty much followed the sequencing of the original 1977 episode, and while it did not end as Episode VI did with a shot of all the Happy Dedi smiling and waving at us, it didn't have to. The Assumption was with us.
----
Another 1977 memory came back: word came this week that one of my first-semester Cornell professors, among the few I remember with any fondness, passed away last Saturday at the age of 81. Isaac Kramnick taught the Intro to Political Philosophy course that I took as part of the Arts College's "distribution requirement." It wasn't one of the Sagan-size huuuuge lecture courses, but it filled a mid-size auditorium in the middle of the English Department's then home and my interaction was mostly with T.A.s once a week. But the man could TEACH, and his expectations of us were high. We read, in the original or translated texts, everything from Plato to Marx, and unlike many later semesters where I'd skate by, I read every word of them, so feverishly highlighting the texts that it made them unreturnable at the bookstore. I still have many of them.
I've yet to hear back if Jim or Jean remembered him- we didn't really connect until later freshman year- but I did hear that they are still on the fence about coming back to reclaim their car- "The Deer Hunter," as Jim now calls it. It wasn't totaled, but they are looking into selling it to the repair shop, which awaits a going-over from one of our local Honda dealers.
As noted, I'm still pretty verklempt about how my own repair was handled. The dashboard light went on back in July when the car was just out of warranty, and despite pleas then and now, they did nothing other than take over $1100 of my money to allow me to continue driving it after next week when its value is barely half what I still owe on it. Once I finally bit the bullet and scheduled it, they couldn't get it fixed in an entire workday and I had to wait until Saturday afternoon to make any kinds of plans before they finally got it back. They did wash it and vacuum the inside, so I've got that going for me, which is nice. My plan now is to drive it as little as possible, keep paying it down, and hopefully get it to at least the break-even point before getting into something that's still sold and serviced by someone other than a bunch of former Nazis.
I hate Clarence Nazis.
----
The water heater wound up costing about as much, but the experience was so much better. Our go-to plumbers, affiliated with the old-school hardware store nearby, scheduled us first thing last Friday morning, and the repairman was here within an hour of the call. He talked us through the repair/replace option; worked quickly to get the new unit here once we chose that; took extra care getting the old one up and the new one down compared to the last appliance we had delivered to our cellar; and even though we had a fairly small coupon for the new heater itself, he heavily discounted a side repair we asked him to handle at the same time. Kindness, and timeliness, make all the difference in the world.
----
No tree, or presents between us as such, but we've been watching a bunch of English period-piece movies, catching up on our reading piles, and seeing if we can get late afternoon geezer naps in. After that, I'll probably drive up in Eleanor's car to grab the damn phone before dinner. Like the rest of the year, Christmas goes by pretty fast; if you don't stop, you could miss it.
One not-so-good thing over there this afternoon was an awkward encounter. As we walked back to our cars, we were passed by a woman walking her shihtzu. She asked as she passed if I had an extra doggie bag. That was the easy part- of course I did. But although I haven't seen her in years and she apparently didn't recognize me in my Islander hoodie and (finally obtained) Sabres ballcap, Eleanor's been keeping me up to date on her. One of her kids was in day care with Emily from the time we moved here until around 2006. We did the birthday party circuit with them, attended one of their kids' religious functions, and, since she and her husband were both lawyers, we had things to talk about while waiting to pick up our respective charges.
The husband is now ex, the kid still comes into Wegmans fairly often (the former marital home is close by), but, unfortunately, so does mom. She's been coming up to Eleanor's register on an occasional basis, asking to borrow money from her. The first time, we had no expectation of wanting it back, and the amount Eleanor gave her was not "what do you need" but "what do I have on me." But the asks have continued- and she's expanded to asking other employees there, people with whom she does not have any kind of past connection. Eleanor has learned to say no- both to these requests and to the social media invites that this person has sent (I've gotten and declined at least one as well). We know she's on the edge because of the home situation, but our further enabling her could easily lead to worse things for her, including possibly getting banned from the store if she pisses off the wrong employee.
Other than giving her an empty plastic grocery bag, I felt awful denying that I knew her, especially at this giving time of the year. But you have to make choices- just as she clearly made some, or reacted to choices being made, that led her into this situation. I awoke this Christmas morning to that same feeling of joyful anticipation, walking out to the living room, that I got when I was six and saw that Santa had come. Only now, at 60, I got it when I saw, not that presents had arrived, but that our newspaper delivery guy had gotten the gift card we left outside for him. I got it again when I saw the picture of the young Islander fan in Texas who got the scarf with Islanders and Star Wars logos I mailed him after getting it as a promotion at the Sabres game there two weekends ago. I got it contributing to a friend's fundraiser in honor of her deceased mom, and will again when a donation to our beloved NPR station is made and doubled in the coming week. I can't get down every chimney on Christmas Eve, but I feel good about the ones I did get to.
----
I didn't keep the Star Wars scarf, but I did see the final film of the third trilogy last weekend. It's gotten mixed reviews, but I loved every minute of it. They set out to "get the band back together," and while only one actor made actual appearances in all nine films (and he from inside a metal suit), there were throwbacks to characters from the original trilogy of 42 years ago, whether appearing in person, via editing, in ghost form, or just voiced to the hero of the current piece- whose name, I'm happy to sey, is Rey.
Oh, her last name? Spoiler.
I saw it on a Saturday afternoon, the third after its December 19th premiere, and I expected a full house. Instead, there were maybe six other fans in the entire auditorium, which gave me some freedom to run some commentary to myself during the show: singing “The Dead Don’t Die” at Kylo Ren, mouthing “Wall-E!” when the new Droidus Ex Machina shows up, and of course greeting Luke’s eventual appearance by saying this (fitting, since Kevin Smith’s hiding in there somewhere):
I also enjoyed some other weird homages- to That Other Series J.J. Abrams has directed, when he dressed a new super-elite squadron of Imperial Stormtroopers in red shirts and produced similar outcomes for them:
- and to the composer behind the entire thing's theme and other main music, who shows up in a scene behind the bar and is given a character name that's an anagram of "Maestro."
It pretty much followed the sequencing of the original 1977 episode, and while it did not end as Episode VI did with a shot of all the Happy Dedi smiling and waving at us, it didn't have to. The Assumption was with us.
----
Another 1977 memory came back: word came this week that one of my first-semester Cornell professors, among the few I remember with any fondness, passed away last Saturday at the age of 81. Isaac Kramnick taught the Intro to Political Philosophy course that I took as part of the Arts College's "distribution requirement." It wasn't one of the Sagan-size huuuuge lecture courses, but it filled a mid-size auditorium in the middle of the English Department's then home and my interaction was mostly with T.A.s once a week. But the man could TEACH, and his expectations of us were high. We read, in the original or translated texts, everything from Plato to Marx, and unlike many later semesters where I'd skate by, I read every word of them, so feverishly highlighting the texts that it made them unreturnable at the bookstore. I still have many of them.
I've yet to hear back if Jim or Jean remembered him- we didn't really connect until later freshman year- but I did hear that they are still on the fence about coming back to reclaim their car- "The Deer Hunter," as Jim now calls it. It wasn't totaled, but they are looking into selling it to the repair shop, which awaits a going-over from one of our local Honda dealers.
As noted, I'm still pretty verklempt about how my own repair was handled. The dashboard light went on back in July when the car was just out of warranty, and despite pleas then and now, they did nothing other than take over $1100 of my money to allow me to continue driving it after next week when its value is barely half what I still owe on it. Once I finally bit the bullet and scheduled it, they couldn't get it fixed in an entire workday and I had to wait until Saturday afternoon to make any kinds of plans before they finally got it back. They did wash it and vacuum the inside, so I've got that going for me, which is nice. My plan now is to drive it as little as possible, keep paying it down, and hopefully get it to at least the break-even point before getting into something that's still sold and serviced by someone other than a bunch of former Nazis.
I hate Clarence Nazis.
----
The water heater wound up costing about as much, but the experience was so much better. Our go-to plumbers, affiliated with the old-school hardware store nearby, scheduled us first thing last Friday morning, and the repairman was here within an hour of the call. He talked us through the repair/replace option; worked quickly to get the new unit here once we chose that; took extra care getting the old one up and the new one down compared to the last appliance we had delivered to our cellar; and even though we had a fairly small coupon for the new heater itself, he heavily discounted a side repair we asked him to handle at the same time. Kindness, and timeliness, make all the difference in the world.
----
No tree, or presents between us as such, but we've been watching a bunch of English period-piece movies, catching up on our reading piles, and seeing if we can get late afternoon geezer naps in. After that, I'll probably drive up in Eleanor's car to grab the damn phone before dinner. Like the rest of the year, Christmas goes by pretty fast; if you don't stop, you could miss it.