Since my Mother has been running a bit behind we delayed our traditional Saint Nicolas Day presents until today. (Saint Nicolas Day, for the unitiated, is a little holiday my parents picked up from who knows where. On the night of the fifth of December everyone puts their shoes by the door. In the night, Santa sneaks by and leaves small presents, hints of what’s to come on Christmas Day.) Saint Nic Day presents were pretty good this year. I got ‘Hard Day’s Night’ on DVD, the new remastered version. My Mom made us help out around the house all afternoon, but thankfully she gave me a massive job involving putting papers into sheet protectors. So I sat on the floor in the basement and watched the Beatles.
Everyone should watch that movie, whether they like the Beatles or not. It’s iconic; an education in early 1960s culture. Beyond that, it’s just nonsensically funny. So there. ZZZAP!
The timing of watching that movie was rather interesting. Just last night I was talking to Paul (not McCartney, just my friend Paul) about the Beatles. I never really could decide for certain which was my favorite. I’m torn between Paul (McCartney) and Ringo. Paul seemed to have a very nice sense of humor, but I think I’m leaning more toward Ringo because he seemed to have the most sense. Didn’t get too into the drugs, stayed away from the strange things. Just played the drums, made funny faces, and told strange jokes.
I think, in most cases, you can tell a lot about most girls by which Beatle they like. If I ever have the time I might come up with an online quiz to determine which Beatle best fits your personality, but I’m feeling a bit low in the creative fuel department. I think that idea for the school with Richard Branson drained me. I got so excited about it and so revved up that I used up my weekly allotment of energy. I wish I could have kept it going long enough to get that proposal done. I guess I’ll have to wait until tomorrow again and see if I can muster up the brain power.
This afternoon was kind of sad. My family and I went to a rather momentous spiritual event in the life of a very young girl we know. It was her baptism, a very big event for her. And hardly anyone was there. Normally in her church baptisms are big things. There’s cake, lots of friends around to congratulate her, that sort of thing. The only people in attendance were her family, my parents, two other men, and myself. In those situations I always feel bad for the child. All of the other little girls her age had room-fulls of people come to their baptisms. I don’t know if she noticed, or if it will affect her. She seemed happy. But I felt bad for her. Especially knowing my own confirmation – an equally momentous occasion – turned into a county event. Granted, I lived in a very small town in Mississippi at the time, so the attitude was different. Dozens of people showed up. They brought cakes and presents. We had enough food there to feed an army. I remember wearing a lovely little white dress. It was layers and layers of thin georgette over a very pale blue cotton. It looked perfect, what every little girl would dream of. All of my friends were there, and it made the occasion so much more important to me. I still remember details of it even though it was so many years ago.
I hope the girl wasn’t upset that more people didn’t show up. Things just kept getting worse from there on out. When they tried to take her picture, their camera didn’t work. I had them all come over to my house and I spent about fifteen minutes with them, just taking pictures of the girl and her family. Her face lit up then, so maybe she’ll feel better about it. I just hope the pictures turn out. Once I get the film back I’m going to scan it, edit it, and then frame a few of them. Then maybe she’ll have something really nice to help mark the occasion.
I think people should be nicer about things like that. It really matters to kids when people show up for events that to them are important. I think my confirmation was a big self-esteem boost. People went out of their way for me, and that impresses upon a child how important it is that they succeed. It’s sad when that support isn’t there, especially for a kid as sweet as the girl who got baptized today.
After the family left the house from me taking pictures, my Dad and I ran out to Sam’s Club to pick up some pictures and some pizza for dinner. I love going there around dinner time. 🙂 All the taste-test ladies are out in full force. I got a slice of pizza, a little bit of lasagna, a candy cane, an English truffle, and a lovely little pastry. I could have had an orange, but by that point I figured I had already pressed my luck eating the pizza. I was so afraid I’d slop it all over my white sweater, I didn’t want to get all sticky from the orange.
We ended up eating dinner in the basement because the BMW channel finally showed up on DirecTV. 😀 Mmmm, Z4… It was great watching those short films on the big screen with surround sound. Listening to that Z4 roar just made my heart melt. Plus, watching my family’s reaction to the latest one – ‘Beat the Devil’ – was pretty funny. I’m pretty used to Gary Oldman, I don’t mind strange movies. But my Mom didn’t like that one at all. Said it was too weird and “annoying.” Ah well. 🙂
After that we continued the couch potato Saturday theme and watched ‘A Christmas Story.’ My Dad got that for Saint Nic Day this morning and he claims he’d never seen it. I have no idea how he’s missed it since my brothers and I have watched that movie just about every year for as long as I can remember. That lamp just kills me. And if you have no clue what I’m talking about, go out and rent that movie. It’s a classic.
If I didn’t feel so tired still I would have felt guilty watching so many movies today, but I don’t care. I do feel better than yesterday, but I think the symptoms are just different. I’m not getting into that, though, cause that’s not happy. I’ve decided to ignore it to see if it makes it any better.
I’m going to work on the photo galleries again to see if I can’t pull something together. I realized it’s been a month since the Sigur Ros concert and I *still* haven’t produced a web gallery. AND, all the pictures from the They Might Be Giants concert are scanned and ready, but I just can’t put them together on a website. Now I have photos of the igloo to upload. If I don’t get this done soon I’ll be buried in photographs.