So Many Distractions, So Little Time

Posting Location: Family Home, Parma, OH.

There's a very good excuse for the dropoff in blog entries lately. Unfortunately, it involves admitting how behind-the-times I am currently.

You see, it's mostly been because I've been reading the fifth Harry Potter book.

That's right, I have not yet read the fifth Harry Potter book all the way through; what's more, I only just started Saturday. I meant to read it the summer it came out, but then work hit, and one thing came after another...suddenly it's two and a half years later. Needless to say, I've not read the sixth book yet either. My shame knows no bounds.

Other than that it's been the usual rush that so many of us find ourselves in towards the end of December. I still haven't got all my Chrismas shopping done yet, although admittedly I haven't had to do much. I've already gone halfsies on gifts for every other immediate family member, all by request by other family members who'd already bought expensive gifts and were looking for someone to get half-reimbursement from. Whatever, saves me the trouble.

Went down to Tower City Center with the family on Saturday as part of this not-shopping I've been doing. We'd split up and planned to meet at the Warner Brother's Store, which was my suggestion, as the storefront was pretty easy to distinguish. This didn't exactly work, since I was working off of memories of being there that were at least two years old --- as it turns out that store no longer exists in Tower City (luckily we all had cell phones). What they had in it's place was a games store, which was decent enough. I also noted that they now apparently have the whole place set up with WiFi, which I felt was interesting.

Best part of the trip, though? Waiting for the bus to take us back to Parma, we noticed all these signs clustered around each other saying "Happy Diwali," "Happy Kwanzaa," "Happy Channuka," etc. My sister had pointed out that there was no "Merry Christmas" among those signs, which I had noticed, too. Then I noticed why; these well-wishing signs were all clustered around a light up nativity scene. Even though I've never heard any word of this, I can quite clearly picture the chain of events leading up to this:

*City puts up nativity scene.
*Enough people complain that nativity scene is endorsement of Christianity over other religions, in violation of Separation of Church and State.
*City hastily puts up signs for holidays in other religions so it's not just Christianity and no one can say they're playing favorites.

Which, you know, still misses the point, but at least they're trying.

Speaking of the second most important holiday in Christianity, I can't believe that it's managed to sneak up on me like this. Not that I'm the only one; my family put up our tree and decorations just yesterday. We have a real tree this year, which is the first time we've had one in a while; so long in fact that we had to buy a new base for the tree, as the previous one was shot. It was a little too big when we brought it in, we had to cut the top off; the angel is actually nestled between branches at the top rather than sitting at the highest point.

Unfortunately, a few years of working with a fake tree have apparently made me soft as far as hanging ornaments are concerned. My fingers seem to have forgotten what it's like to work with needles that can actually hurt if you press down on them, and my creativity seems to have forgotten what it's like to work with branches that you can't bend into positions that better suit you. At any rate, the tree looks fine, and I'm almost done with shopping, so I guess it's all good.