NEXT! Or, "Encroachment - Next Thing - Five-yard Penalty, Repeat First Down."

 

'Tis TIME!!
No it's not - get out of the bows! Photo by Joe-elf

Happy Thanksgiving, readers. I hope all four or five of you had a happy, healthy, safe and thankful day. This will be quick, because we're all stuffed and exhausted, and because this post is just a little follow-up to TO ONE I WROTE IN 2012, and its central observation is the same as it was eleven years ago, only more so.

If you didn't bother to click on that link and reread the 2012 post, I can summarize really quickly: we as a short-attention span society are being force-fed the NEXT THING, often before we're even finished with the thing we're doing. Christmas-- sorry, holiday music was playing by mid-November, you say? 

2023 says "Hold my beer..."

July. July 14th - and probably a week old. Photo by Joe

Yeah. If there's a limit to how much the next holiday/event can encroach on the current one, we haven't hit it yet. Halloween candy and décor in stores by mid-July. Christmas candy and décor in stores in August. August!! No wonder our supply chains can't handle a little global pandemic. We may soon start selling next year's Christmas before this year's is over - our holiday hype seasons will have lapped each other!

That's all. The next thing is encroaching closer and closer to today's thing. End of sermon. No point or lesson or anything - not even a punchline. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to put away the Christmas decorations, to make way for next Halloween... What? Next Halloween is over? Fine, I'll put next year's Christmas stuff up, now...

Happy baseball All-Star Break, everyone!

Thankfulnessapalooza 2023 - Part One (of Three)

Is it really that time again? It seems like we just did this. Probably only because we *DID* just do this. There are THREE posts separating last year's That Thankfulness Thing (click on that for links to all the other years' posts!) from tonight's post. Shame on me. The 80,434-word (and counting) work in progress from this summer can excuse some of that lack of bloginess, but clearly not all of it. 

It started in 2012, in the Great Before. There was a social media thing where people were posting something for which they were thankful - every damn day throughout November - and I was like NOPE, let's do it all at once. I've since learned that breaking it up into three posts is more humane to all 4 (5?) of you readers, and I'm nothing if not humane, so let's do this. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that parts two and three of this year's gratitude fest may read rather like a greatest hits anthology of previous years. But who are we kidding? You didn't just click on my lovingly crafted links above, and you certainly can't be blamed for not remembering previous years' lists of mostly harmless things I like. So it'll all seem brand-new to you, so never mind. Let's proceed.

This year, I am especially thankful for, in no particular order...

1. That Thankfulness Thing. There. Another link to last year's post, which has links to all the previous ones. You're welcome. Anyway, I'm all about lists, so I actually do enjoy this goofy little exercise, once a year. That's gratitude for you!

That's right - After decades of fighting (against it), I now have "accountant" in my title. (gag)

2. My "promotion." Better late than never, as they say. I don't like losing the word "senior" and adding "accountant" to my title, mostly because I am NOT an accountant, but what can you do? Now, to update that résumé...

3. My siblings' retina woes. Not happy that they have experienced retina woes, mind you, BUT - had they not already been through some pretty icky and scary retina woes (I'm starting to think The Retina Woes would be a killer name for a band - or maybe an Ophthalmology practice), and had they not shared with me the signs and symptoms and whatnot, I might have just blown it off when said signs and symptoms and especially whatnot appeared in my very own eyeball. So, thanks sibs - you may have spared me a MUCH nastier bunch of medical tribulations. At least for now... Younger bro - you are SO on the clock, right now...

"We were supposed to be synchronized!" Photo by Joe

4. Pelicans. They'll outlive us all, and deservedly so. 

5. I'm actually quite thankful to have grown up in the time before the internet and social media - and mostly before even cell phones. Now, I know that every generation grows up with whatever it grows up with; none of us get to choose the age in which we're raised (I'm working on it, though - perhaps in a future novel) - and each generation has its blessings and challenges. With the benefit of a bit of hindsight, I'm just glad I didn't have all that connectivity, back when I was young. I wasn't exactly a wild kid, or even a cool kid, but I guarantee you, I would have found myriad ways to screw up, had a smart phone been in my pocket during my adolescence. Millennials, and Gen Z, my hat is off to you for getting through that noise.

6. Riddance. I've used this one before, referring somewhat prematurely to the departure of our so-called ex-"president" (I only say "so-called" because he received millions fewer votes in both elections), but this time I'm thankful for a little sports riddance. I won't waste a lot of words on this. dan snyder, good riddance. 

7. Glue. Specifically, whatever glue [Maris]'s brother in law used to re-affix this guy's severed head. Where there was trauma... 

I'm (we're) not QUITE dead...

...now there is whimsical Halloween healing...

I'm (we're) getting better...

8. Brian Regan. Comedian and nice guy (I assume. Seems nice, anyway. Mormon, I think.) Google him or find him on your favorite streaming platform. He is seriously funny. His material has taken root in [M]'s and my daily vernacular. And his material is clean and non-sexist and weird and fun and just do yourself a favor and check him out. You'll be thankful that you did.

"Long about noon, when your appetite's... pokin' at ya, pokin' at ya."

9. Bite-size Snickers. This one's for [Maris], but yeah - they're pretty close to perfect. Unless you don't like them. Then never mind.

10. The Last Spider. One of our Halloween (over)decorating traditions is that I scatter a bunch of these little fuzzy googly-eyed spiders throughout the house. I do this after [Maris] has gone to sleep. Most of them are in plain sight...

Hey.

Duuuuuude, I am SO high, right now...

But some are placed such that they're technically not hidden, but are still trying very hard not to be seen. Every year, sometimes weeks or months after we've taken down the Halloween stuff, we find The Last Spider. The Last Spider is congratulated heartily by all the other spiders, from inside their box, and there is much chortling. 

All hail The Last-- Hey! Get that camera out of here!

There. You made it through the first ten thanky things for 2023, and for that, I salute and thank you. See you tomorrow for some more Mostly Harmless Drivel. Please come see us again...

What's The Rush?

The Christmas-- sorry, -holiday- music has begun.  I think the dedicated 24/7 holiday music channels have already been on the air on Sirius/XM for a week.  The "Black Friday" sales ads have been running for at least that long (more on that later this week).  The Salvation Army ringer was outside our neighborhood grocery store by last weekend, as well.  

Are you sensing a theme, here?  Of course you are.  But this isn't a rant against the steady creep of Christmas-- sorry, -the holidays- backwards, up the calendar toward summer.  No, this is a rant about the fact that it's not just Christm-- the holidays.  It seems that we are jumping the gun on almost everything, these days.  We have to get all the holiday songs played, all the sales sold, all the decorations hung, like, RIGHT NOW!!  Why?  Because we need to get it out of the way of New Year's.  

We'll need to put New Year's behind us by no later than December 27th, because we have to make room for the college football championship, the NFL playoffs, American Idol, Martin Luther King Day (or as South Carolina and Arizona still prefer, "Monday") and the Super Bowl.  And those things better get a move on, because all the Valentine's Day cards and candy MUST be sold by January 24th.  Otherwise, there is a risk that those commercials could intermingle with the Presidents' Day sale ads, which would lead to a new recession.  

I know this stuff doesn't sound like a big deal, but it doesn't take much of it to set off a catastrophic chain of of causality.  If Valentine's Day interferes with Presidents' Day, then Presidents' Day will step on spring fashion, Easter (spring holiday) and March Madness, causing space-time to collapse upon itself, snuffing out the universe.  And if back-to-school season isn't over by July 4th -- well, you don't want to know what would happen.

Obviously I could go on, but I won't.  My point is simple:  what is the rush?  I understand that -the holidays- has become so important to our nation's economy that it warrants more than a week or two of attention.  But is FIVE weeks not enough?  And do kids need to interrupt their summer vacations at the halfway point to shop for school supplies?  How long do these things take?  Must everything be compressed forward in time, a little more each year?  Where's the line?  How much time do we need to spend being prematurely hyper-sold in honor of annual events?  

The answer is simple, yet sad.  We need to spend all of our time preparing for the next thing, and the very second that thing arrives, we need to shift our focus to the next next thing, and so on.  We need this.  We need it because we've been trained to need it.  And we shouldn't complain, because this works for us.  It works.  

Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a pre-Halloween sale at CVS, and I'd better get in line now, or all the frozen turkeys and Whitman's Samplers will be gone.