Saturday, December 22, 2012

Ho! Ho! Ho! ... Not you peons


Jeez I guess you can't do anything anymore. Went out to look at all the "holiday" lights (take that Glenn Beck) and what an excursion. Got slightly lost finding the area. Need to 'find' an area these days because so many are so poor they can't afford the electric bill come January (best to save that to heat the house). As we realized we missed a turn pulled into a gas station for directions only to run over an oddly placed curb and blow a tire. Back on the road 1/2 hour later with directions (don't always trust google maps the locals know better) and missed a turn once again. Finally found the entrance to the area neatly hidden but inconspicuously marked with an overhead display of Santas riding a carrousel. The road in this area wasn't particularly narrow but with parked cars on both sides of the street in places it made for that "you go, no you go" routine. We peered upon Frostys and reindeer and santas all decked out in lights of red, green, blue and purple. One seeming to be greater than the next. As we continued on to  what seemed to be nearly a half mile you could just about tell the income level just by the displays or lack there of. We turned around to make another pass up a hill and on another street playing once again the dodge traffic game. Waiting at one particular log jam behind a parked car for the other direction to pass who should show but Santa driving a big white 4X4 raised a bit hogging the road as if he owned it. As he passed he looked down at our tiny econo car and gave us a sneer.

I can think of rhyming poetic lyrics to finish this out but with the christmas spirit all but played out save it for next year when things might be better. My only hope now is that that Santa gets an IRS letter. Merry Christmas to you too pal.

(I'll save a description of some of the more interesting displays of lumination for later)

7 comments:

BBC said...

I haven't been interested in going to look at light displays for years. And it has nothing to do with affording stuff, I simply think it's all bullshit.

Tom Harper said...

That sounds like an awful lot of effort just to see a bunch of Christmas displays. There's a shuttle bus here that's offering a 2-hour tour of local Christmas lights. I might go or I might not. Let somebody else do the driving.

PS: Anyone outside of the Seattle area probably won't catch your "you go, no you go" reference.

S.W. Anderson said...

My part of town has plenty of homes and yards decorated with lights and displays. Not all, of course, but many. In years past we made special trips out so the kids could see them. When my in-laws came to visit for Christmas, we would usually venture forth to see the lights. My late mother-in-law (the best one any husband ever had) loved to go see them. I wish she were here so I could give her that simple pleasure again.

A musician neighbor of mine is back to basically covering his home and yard with lights and other display goodies. He suffered three years of display-wrecking, record-breaking snows and other bad weather, and got discouraged for awhile. He still put some lights out, but much less than usual. I'm glad to see he's going full bore again, because it obviously delights him and because he does grandiose treatments well.

BTW,. I've done a lot of driving in and around Seattle over the past 40 years, so I know quite well what you're talking about. Here on the East Side, we have our older neighborhoods with narrower streets and tight intersections, as well.

None of them have anything over the narrow streets and tight intersections of the small city I grew up in in the Northeast.

Demeur said...

Oh course it is Billy but you get as much fun watching monkeys climb over each other as I do.

Tom they do the same thing back east in Philly and other towns that were built before cars or have you forgotten?

Fortunately SW I didn't see many lights that my late father used to call "Eat at Joe's". You know where the entire display flashed on and off.

BBC said...

Actually, on any given day I'd like to shoot a lot of those monkeys.

BBC said...

DORA POSTED THIS on her blog. Of all the tools I've seen and used over the years I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. It appears to set the angle on a suction cup on the end of it but I have no idea what it would be used for.

Demeur said...

Yeah Boeing has a bunch of specialty tools that you could never figure out unless somebody told you what they're for.