Blue Balls
I’m running this again because that house down the road has put up those depressing blue lights again.
Mamacita says: A house down the road from us has deep blue lights festooning its shrubberies, hanging from the eaves, and framing the windows. Their tree is white and covered with blue lights. It’s a beautiful blue and the contrast is lovely but it’s not Christmas-y. Blue is not a Christmas color. Blue lights are what mortuaries put on the tasteless white tree in the lobby: white tree, blue balls*, blue lights. Blue “Christmas” decorations bring me down. They make my heart heavy. Whenever I drive past this house, I don’t want to look but I can’t help it; it’s like a train wreck with a blue bow, pretending to be merry. It’s like a coffin with a sprig of holly.
I associate blue balls with old age. Stodgy, irresolute, joyless old age.
I’m a child of the seventies, and “House of Blue Lights” has a rather different connotation for me. Hint: not Christmas. When I was in college, we were forbidden to put blue lights in our windows. It was considered advertising. And if you’re going to advertise, you’d better have the merchandise handy when customers respond. Of course, some did; those homeschooled bun-haired long-denim-skirt-and-sneakers churchy sheltered girls down the hall, who’d never been allowed to go out anywhere on their own or with friends in their lives before, went hog-wild with the freedom they had never been taught to handle, got knocked up, and had to drop out before the first semester was over. They didn’t even HAVE to advertise; the pheromones were so thick it made our homemade candles flicker funny. These girls were not typical, of course; they were just wild animals who suddenly had no harness. They were elephants who suddenly realized they weren’t really tethered to that feeble little spike, and pulled loose to seek out bigger spikes. So to speak.
Ahem. Blue Christmas.
When I see all that blue, no amount of twinkle can make it seem holiday-like. It’s just. . . sad. Blue is a sad color when it’s not the sky or the sea or a robin’s egg.
This is all merely my opinion, of course; if you wish to deck your halls with pink and turquoise plaid, or with John Deere tractors, or with taxidermied critter tails or vintage Barbie or neon orange, by all means go for it.
I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas; I did create my own tradition with my tree, but I’ve stuck to it because for me, it was perfect. People with blue balls are of course free to create their own traditions, too.
I never wanted a tree that was nothing but an impersonal work of art; a Christmas tree should not appear untouched by human hands and have nothing to do with the people who put it up. A Christmas tree should be a reflection of the traditions and taste of the people involved. But blue? Sad. Gloomy. Mourning. Death. I’ll have a blue Christmas without you. I’m blue, da ba dee da ba die. Am I blue? Song sung blue. Blue eyes crying in the rain. So now they paint themselves a sad song and color it blue. Please don’t make me blue, sing me no sad songs. Sing me a song of sadness and sing it as blue as I feel. You’re cloaked in red, I’m drenched in blue. You couldn’t be a deeper shade of blue. That’s as blue as the boy can be. Blue, blue, my love is blue. Don’t it make my brown eyes blue. Etc. Blue is sad. It’s hard to imagine people with blue balls as being happy. Christmas is happy.
Or should be. I hope yours is. If I had a magic wand I would make it so for all of you. Whatever you do in December, may it shine with happy lights.
*Exactly what kind of blue balls did you expect to find here? Speak up; I can’t hear you.
Things Nice People Already Know: Go To The Back of the Line!
Mamacita says: The Post Office is really busy at this time of the year. People are standing in long lines, waiting to buy stamps and mail packages. Everybody knows how busy the Post Office is at this time of the year.
That being said, WHAT IS UP WITH ALL THE OLD WOMEN * IN THERE TODAY? I’m talking to you, old women with bags full of unwrapped gifts, holding up the line while they ask for a box, ask for tape, ask for styrofoam, ask for labels, and then stand there still holding up a long, long line while they pack the box, tape the box, label the box, and mail the box? On behalf of myself and all the nine million others in that line who did all of those things at home before we drove to the Post Office: That’s NOT how it’s done! Do all of that before you go there! Everybody in line hates you! And stop trying to have lengthy conversations with the busy clerks who are trying to wait on people! Are you that lonely? Go volunteer somewhere.
*I’m not being sexist or ageist or any other -ist that might be on the tip of your tongue; every guilty person in there today was an old woman. I do not blame their age; I assume each woman was clueless & inconsiderate when young, too.
Honest to boo, how ignorant does a person have to be to do this? Pretty darn ignorant, I’d say.
Only my innate good breeding keeps from using the word “stupid” to describe these people.
Only my kind, sensitive nature keeps me from using even more descriptive words. But I’m thinking those words, oh yes, my precioussssss, and so was everybody else in that long, long line today.
The Discovery Channel is responsible for many of my nightmares and disillusionments
Mamacita says: I used to be a hippie, you know. Now, I’m just hippy.
I’m almost out of detergent, but if I tear open the two little sample packages of Tide that came in the washer when we bought it seven years ago, I think I can finish out the night.
It doesn’t do to substitute other kinds of soap in an appliance. I tried that once with my dishwasher and Dawn, and the dishwasher vomited up enough foam to cover the entire kitchen floor and seep through the subflooring to cover the floor of the laundry room beneath.
In other words, I did a scientific experiment, and now I know what NOT to do with dishwashing liquid.
I also know how not to dispose of corncobs even though I have a perfectly good garbage disposal.
Garbage disposals have to be coddled and treated gently, kind of like an eccentric visitor who breaks his arm at your house and you have to put up with him for a month or so. (I saw that movie but I can’t remember the actor who played my garbage disposal. . .) Sometimes, just the thought of dealing with potato peelings is too much for a sensitive garbage disposal. Other times, the disposal fairly screams “more orange peels!” at the top of his manly lungs. The problem is, I never coordinate food preparation with the eccentricities of the disposal. So I end up putting garbage in a WalMart bag and setting it out on the deck for the possums to ransack.
Possums are quite possibly the most disgusting animals in the animal kingdom. Every time I see one, with that nasty pointy face, all I can think of is a cow’s hind end with a possum’s tail sticking out of it. The Discovery Channel is responsible for many of my nightmares and disillusionments.
The house on the other side of the woods from us is covered with lights. We can’t see it in the summer, but once the leaves are gone, we can. At Christmas-time, it’s beautiful.
Thank you, unknown neighbor, for sharing your twinkly lights with me.
