Ugly Christmas sweaters

One term I keep hearing this December is "ugly Christmas sweaters". As far as I can remember someone, usually female, has shown up at work or at a holiday party wearing one of those things. Now, I have been told,  they are suddenly hip. In the Macon Georgia Baptist Woman's League they have Ugly Christmas Sweater parties. Do they  really have them in artsy hangouts in Brooklyn? Personally I think that if you came to an actual  hipster party wearing one of those you would be scorned upon. Probably they were hip last year but not now.

I wish I had an ugly Christmas sweater. Socks I have, ties I have, but not
sweaters.

Editor's note: I finally have an ugly Christmas sweater, well at least an ugly Christmas vest. There is a nice piece on the genre on Slate. 12/12/14

Best states for education and business

Education Week has released it's annual guide to the best states in education. Earlier this year Forbes released its list for best states for business.

It's interesting to compare the two articles. States with low taxes, cheap labor and low teacher salaries are considered to be good for business and states with high teacher salaries are usually states that are bad for business.

Why?  Perhaps its because you are stuck in states with their infrastructure, energy costs, labor and environmental laws but you can always import workers from other states or abroad.

Christmas gets earlier this year

I notice Christmas came real early this year. Once Halloween was over, the Santa's and decorations came up in the stores. This weekend are the big Christmas parties and the tv stations are full of Christmas fare. I guess by December 15 it will all be over. By late December Christmas will be replaced by Valentine's Day decorations.

Other people's albums

Last night I came home from the bar (sounds so much better than I came home from work) and there, on my front doorstep, was a package from Texas. Since my birthday is coming up I figured it must be related to that event. I have always greeted packages from distant relatives with some trepidation because they don't really know what I need or my taste in things. For years I was punished with boxes of Hickory Farms meats for a remark I made to my brother many years before. I was simply passing along the comment Mother had made that Hickory Farms was bad for her blood pressure and after that he sent me Hickory Farms packages in the mail every year.

Now with my brother in the great engineering conference in Heaven, I have received some of his old albums. I guess I am the only one in the family who still can play those things. Some of them are not bad. I haven't heard "Cassius Love vs. Sonny Wilson" in forty years since I played my brother's copy of Shut Down Volume 2 when he was home from college.  You do wonder though about other people's taste. Why Ian an Sylvia? The From Russian with Love soundtrack? 18 Yellow Roses by Bobby Darin? What was he thinking?

Still I now have Peter Paul and Mary's Greatest hits and some classical things. You can tell by the amount of scratches in a record whether it was played or not.You can't say that about cd's. Now that it's almost December, it's time to sit around, crank up the old turntable, and play albums.

Editor's note: Speaking of turntables, I've found a new music related blog that isn't bad.

My insect friend

I attempt to grow something edible on my porch every summer and one of the unwelcome side effects of this hobby is that come fall, one of the tomato bugs always manages to sneak into the condo. When I first see my new roommate, I am always a bit startled, but I have learned to accept having a fall companion  for a few weeks. The insect seems to like some tv shows more than others. I know he always seems to appear when I am watching Turner Classic Movies.

As the days get colder he becomes slower and slower in his movements. Still, this year he did not die of natural causes. I guess I am not what you would call a morning person and he got me at the wrong time. I was in a hurry to get ready for work and was bolting down my coffee when I spotted him on my kitchen chair. I marched over to the bathroom and got some Green Works Natural bathroom cleaner and sprayed it on his backside.

The following Saturday I swept him up when I was cleaning the kitchen floor. He caught me when I was in a bad mood. Just goes to show you can't trust people.


Editor's note: Patti Smith on Lou Reed.

Of apples and cider

Yesterday I ate the best apple I have eaten in twenty years. It was a Winesap apple that I bought at the Capital City Farmer's Market in beautiful downtown Trenton. Hard, crisp, a little sour. How about them apples.

It made me a little nostalgic for when the family would take its annual jaunt up to Tice Farms. We would get into the Ford, and drive through Upper Saddle River while Mother would gawk at all the houses she couldn't afford to live in. Then we'd get to Tice Farms. I remember you could buy a cup for a dime and drink all the cider you wanted. Some years me and my brother would share a cup, which was frowned upon. Then the old man would buy Winesap and Macintosh apples, more cider and maybe a pumpkin.

Tice Farms is now long gone, a victim of Bergen County real estate speculators. Upper Saddle River is still there and even more expensive today.

My summer job

Just reading Amy Poehler's article in the New Yorker on her summer job. Cute. It reminded me of my summer job. I got a job with the Board of Ed. I had the lowly job, that first summer, of scraping gum out of desks. It sucked, but the pay wasn't that bad ($2.50 an hour). It took a political connection to get me the job. 

For years a man we will call Dick lived behind us in Hackensack. He liked to cut through my parent's driveway on the way to O'Neals tavern and he often stopped by and visited with dear old Dad. Years later my father admitted he never cared much for Dick but he put up with him for the sake of my summer job. 

The things my father did for his children. 

7:30 AM was starting time. That was the most painful part of the job I think. I was assigned to the high school, the same place from which I had just graduated. When I arrived, they looked my skinny frame up and down. I would not be helping carry sheet rock for the construction crew. I would not be carrying the boards to repair the seats in the football field. I was assigned to the janitresses (lady custodians), given a putty knife, and told that my job was to scrape gum out of the bottom of desks for all the desks in the school. One of the teachers recognized me and wanted to hijack me. He wanted me to take his car for inspection. He was told where to get off. 

I got along with the janitresses. I didn't fib on them when they snuck into the girls rooms for smokes. I kept to myself and my gum. I scraped a lot of gum out of desks that summer. The last two weeks I got to clean desks, and as a reward, go to help put the liquid finish on them. By Labor Day the desks were ready for a new group of scholars. And I was ready for college. 

In the Senatorial debates, Lonegan talked about how he, unlike Cory Booker, worked when he went to college. I guess I can run for Senate, if that is the requirement.