Driving is Fun Again

Posted on Dec 11, 2008 in Money, Showing My Age | 0 comments

OK, I’m probably showing my age here, but…

Is it just me or has the freefall in gas prices made driving fun again.

Yesterday I filled up for $1.46/gal. Just over two months ago I filled up—at the same station—for $4.86/gal.

That’s a 70% drop in two months.

At $4.86 driving was a constant stress. With 4 kids I never had enough money left over to fill the tank, so I was always checking mileage, riding with no air conditioning, keeping the speed around 50 even on the highway—hoping I had enough gas until I got paid on Friday.

But now with prices back to 2002 levels, driving isn’t nearly as stressful. I can afford to run errands again, instead of letting them bunch up and taking care of all of them at Wal-Mart (the closest business to my home).

My first real car (aside from the puke-green Pinto that lasted six weeks) was a diesel VW Rabbit. I used to fill that up for $10 and drive for a week and a half, and that was with my college and home across the city from each other. So the lower gas bills are giving driving a very nostalgic feel right now.

I know the economy is doing badly right now, and I really do feel for the people who are struggling—hell, I’m one of them. But this silver lining is awfully…silver.

The Holidays in Verse

Posted on Dec 9, 2008 in Write Anything, Writing | 0 comments

Instead of answering yesterday’s post—by Janie—in her comments I thought I’d keep the thread going.

Unlike Janie, the written word wasn’t really part of my holiday tradition when I was young. Both my parents were singers, active not only in the church choir, but in Barbershop/Sweet Adelines as well. The holiday season was a hectic blur of rushing from one performance to another, often being drafted as an additional voice, or the head of an impromptu children’s chorus to round out the caroling. There never seemed to be any time to read.

For me the holiday stories that evoke the most vivid memories are the stories told in carols and Christmas songs, and the stories most often performed during the season—’Twas the Night Before Christmas, and A Christmas Carol.

I remember choir directors telling rooms full of people the stories of O Tannenbaum, Silent Night, and The Twelve Days of Christmas, and baritone-voiced pastors reciting ‘Twas the Night to spellbound kids.

Years later I started to seek out Christmas Stories to read, but generally not the classics. I’m a big fan of modern Christmas stories, and retooled classics—Scrooged is my favorite Christmas movie.

But to me Christmas has just never been about the written word.

This post was originally posted on Write Anything—
where six writers talk about the trials and
tribulations of their writing lives. And each
Tuesday the soapbox belongs to me.

Muse Flash: When You Grew Up…

Posted on Dec 8, 2008 in Muse Flash | 0 comments

What did you want to be when you grew up? Not when you were twelve and were giving the question serious thought, but when you were eight and the world was still all magic and possibilities.

Answer this question on your own blog, then leave a comment with your answer and a link to your post.

I wanted to be the voice of Donald Duck. I don’t remember when I learned that I could imitate Donald Duck’s voice, or if it was by chance of by effort on my part. All the way back to the crib I found Donald Duck to be hilarious, and his voice especially so. My mother said that when we went to Disney World when I was about a year and a half old, that I wanted nothing to do with Mickey, and freaked out when my parents told me that I’d only get to meet Donald if we found him (evidently, the day was saved by a helpful DW cast member).

During my youth I spent hours, practicing the voice—first from read-along books, and later from toys and Saturday morning cartoons. Speaking in Donald’s voice never failed to make my mom or papa laugh, and I think one of the reasons I practiced it so much was because it seemed it could cheer people up when they were down. By the time I was about ten years old, no one I knew could tell the difference between me and Clarence Nash.

Alas, real life crept in, and the removal of my wisdom teeth altered the voice. I don’t do the voice often anymore—largely because after the wisdom teeth came out, it’s a little painful—but it’s a surefire way to make the kids laugh, even if they’re having a bad day.

Now it’s your turn. Answer this question on your own blog, then leave a comment with your answer and a link to your post.

Muse Flash is a new feature, where I’ll give you a topic for your own blog. I’m going to try it for a few posts and see if it has legs.

Stocking Stuffers

Posted on Dec 8, 2008 in Holidays | 0 comments

What’s your favorite part of Christmas?

Is it giving presents? Getting presents? Mistletoe? Carols? The glut of Christmas movies? The crispness of the air? The Christmas feast? Egg Nog? Children with that haunted, anticipatory, desperate look of a junkie in rehab? Christmas specials? Family? Memories? Anticipation? Sneaking peaks at your own presents? Office parties? Office after-party gossip? The kids obsessively watching the news hoping for snow before they go back to school?

It may seem odd, but my favorite part of Christmas is stocking stuffers.

I was an only child, and generally spent Christmas with at five to eight adults, depending on what relatives made the trip in a given year. But as the only child I had to adhere to an adults’ version of Christmas—translation: the family slept in.

Sedatives aside, no self-respecting kid is going to sleep in until 10am on Christmas day, so my family used the stocking to occupy me for the first four hours of Christmas. There was always enough packed in my stocking to keep me busy and relatively quiet until the adults woke up on their own.

I remember plenty of Star Wars action figures, puzzles—I grew up in the age of Rubik, so new puzzles were plentiful—Hot Wheels, Mini Lego sets, paperback books, snacks—though if candy came along it was usually later in the day—and myriad little, cheap, filler toys.

But I always loved the little cheap filler toys. My family used to tell me a story of when my father’s college roommate came into town, and met me for the first time. I was either two or three years old. He and I hit it off, and sometime during the trip he took me to Lionel Playworld and told me I could get anything I wanted in the entire store. I picked a four-pack of Weeble Wobbles.

I just always seemed to enjoy the smaller, less constrained toys. I liked action figures instead of the sets that went along with them. I liked handheld puzzles instead of board games. I liked individual Hot Wheels rather than the full tracks.

And all that great stuff fit perfectly into a stocking.

And now I get to fill them. Five of them to be exact.

I don’t just run out to the dollar store and grab filler, although I do use that stuff to fill in the empty spaces once the real stuffers are selected and put in place. And even though with four kids, there has to be significant amount of balancing—lest someone think they got shorted—I’m always able to get a few special prizes in there that make the stocking more than an appetizer.

So, what’s your favorite part of Christmas?