St. Nick

Today, on the actual Feast of Saint Nicholas, bishop of Myra, I played his part in church, with a bishop's miter on my head.

I gave out Hannukah geldt to kids, wide-eyed.

It was fun. I hammed it up without saying a word.

Tell me, how did this feast honoring someone who helped the poor become what it has become?

How?

O, Christmas Tree

We always go to a Christmas tree farm and cut our tree. "Always" being for all or nearly all the years of this marriage (1995), best I can recall. And it has definitely been an annual ritual since our daughter was born in 1997. Upstate New York has an abundance of these places, not far to drive.

About five years ago, I was having a hard time, huffing and puffing, with my daughter beside me, trying to saw down a tree. My wife, a nurse, was at work. I was lying on my side, almost on my back, in the snow. The blade almost got caught in the trunk. This was becoming strenuous, frustrating, and nerve-wracking. A guy walked by with a little electric saw. "Hey, um, can you help me out?" "No, my family's waiting for me." As if that were a reason. Gee, thanks! Merry Christmas to you, too. I persisted. The tree came down. Eventually. A few minutes later, when the guy with the electric saw came by again with two daughters and a felled tree, I saw he was accompanied by a woman from work. Gulp! Merry Christmas to you, too! No, I don't work there any more. The woman eventually married The Man With the Electric Saw. (Um, how's that working out? There's a case where you don't want to invoke the overused "cutting-edge" phrase.)

I once heard my former wife tell a Christmas tree story that may've been apocryphal, but it makes for a funny tale. Some friends of hers decided they wanted a Christmas tree from the woods, presumably from a tree farm. They didn't have a saw, but they had a shotgun. They allegedly managed to shoot down their Christmas tree that year. Yup, they bagged one.

This year there was no snow on the ground. None. Can't recall many, if any, years like that. We liked the first tree we spotted as we got off the tractor-pulled wagon. "You can't just cut down the first tree you see," my wife rightly said. Then we said how 'bout this one or that? too scrawny, too tall, too fat, too many gaps. I'd put my Tipperary Hill hat on a tree as a place-holder. Finally, we picked a Canaan. Had never heard of that before. Sweet smell, very soft needles. $25. totally fresh. Romagnoli's Christmas Tree Farm at Oneida Valley Acres [nice pix!].

Can't beat that.

It's up. I took a nap and let the girls do it.

It's a tad short but really perfect*. Full and splendid.

Sparkling.

* Of course, it's not perfect perfect. That's the beauty of nature.

Twenty Adjectives

You know how the preacher shouts, "Can I get a witness?" Well, can I get an adjective?

You know how the gym teacher says, "Drop and give me twenty [push-ups]"?

Here's 20 adjectives:

1. avuncular
2. solipsistic
3. psychagogic
4. demagogic
5. unctuous
6. hoary
7. wizened
8. teleological
9. epistemological
10. tetchy
    
11. querulous
12. ambient
13. stochastic
14. sarcastic
15. calm
16. prosaic
17. stingy
18. generous
19. riddled
20. saucy
    

Twenty Names

Sure, you're beginning to think of me as a Twenty Something HAHAHAHAHAHAAHA.

Today, let's try Twenty Names. I'm a bit of a name dropper (more than a bit; and does it not give evidence of a certain character flaw, an obsequiousness built on flimsy moorings?).

I will be linear this time and limit myself to those I have met or have seen in person, even en passant, say, on a Manhattan street, or in an elevator, or have somehow corresponded with. (I have tried not to include those I saw or heard merely as an audience member.)

Joseph Heller, Theodor Seuss Geisel, Willie Mays, John Updike, Telly Savalas, Hans Conried, Victor Borge, Bert Parks, Mona Simpson, Madeleine L'Engle, Suzanne Farrell, Jerry Jeff Walker, Jerry Garcia, Regis Philbin, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Suzanne Vega, William F. Buckley Jr., Woody Allen, Sara Miles (the author), J. Walter Kennedy, Marc Brown, Henry Roth, Richard Ford, David Grambs, Bob Hicok, Peter DeVries, Ed Bradley, Meryl Streep, Andre the Giant, Tom Wolfe, William Maxwell, Peter Ustinov, Isaac Asimov, Beverly Cleary, Bob Mitchell, Dan Valenti, Jonathan Miles, Gordon Lish, Elliott Gould, Bobby Murcer.

Yeah, I know, it's more than Twenty Names. I got carried away.

Twenty Questions

. . . but not the usual, of course.

1. Why do square bullets introduce each question even though a number shows up on my screen as I create each interrogatory?
2. Why twenty, anyway -- is it related to 10 fingers and 10 toes?
3. Why the sloppiness of style, not paying a copyeditor's (or copy editor's) attention to consistency regarding words versus numerals?
4. Huh?
5. Would you make it "healthcare" or "health care" as a noun?
6. Does it bother you that the majority of Americans could not diagram a sentence on the blackboard or whiteboard or greenboard?
7. When?
8. What is my fixation with Soren Kierkegaard?
9. When was the first time?
10. When was the last time?
11. Why do many readers immediately assume that questions 9 and 10 are latently associated with sex?
12. Why is twelve, or 12, so rich in connotation, ranging from Apostles to months to inches to Steps to lists?
13. When was your last act of not only random but anonymous kindness?
14. Or mine?
15. Why is it so hard to pronounce "anonymous"?
16. What is 20 times 20 times 20, which would be 20 cubed, or does the cube melt in the dog days of August?
17. Why don't they teach Latin in public schools?
18. Who is "they"?
19. Isn't it truly difficult to change ingrained habits?
20. Are you relieved this is over?

Twenty Answers

Why stop with verbs? We started with the notion of Twenty Questions. Why not Twenty Answers?

1. 1948
2. 1970
3. three
4. 10,559, give or take
   
5. goatee
6. English, French, Latin
7. grapefruit
8. The Lay of the Land
9. Freedom of Espresso
10. "Between God and me there is no 'between.' "
11. Turner to Cezanne
12. solipsism
13. Soren Kierkegaard
14. Willie Mays
15. Tipperary Hill
16. 17 syllables, but not necessarily
17. approximately six years
18. the silk or satin borders of my childhood blanket, especially the notches formed where the sewing was done
19. Marcel Proust
20. Slovak and Polish

Twenty Verbs, Redux Again

let's try the infinitive forms of verbs today

1. to snow
2. to freeze
3. to shine
4. to shiver
5. to leap
6. to skip
7. to cry
8. to surprise
9. to cleave
10. to cling
11. to divitiate
12. to surbate
13. to aberuncate
14. to venditate
15. to surrender
16. to melt
17. to warm
18. to inosculate
19. to flob
20. to indagate