Monthly Archives: January 2009

Christmas Tree Still Up

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January 9.  The Christmas tree is still standing.  Decorated no less.  That’s 42 days it has been indoors.  Dead no less.  It will come down this weekend, tomorrow or the next day.  So it will get at least 43 days of glory, dressed in the best we could offer–shiny glass and steel and plastic.  But it will be a fire hazard soon, if it ever wasn’t one.

Now we will have a little more space in the house.  And we will use a little less electricity.  But it has been nice to have around.  Maybe we can put something else in its place.  A basket of fruit?  A cardboard cutout of Chewbacca?  A bean bag chair?  Maybe a pile of attractive rocks?

Nah.  Let’s just get this thing out of here.  Come spring it will fertilize the blueberries.  No need to waste a perfectly good untrimmed Christmas tree, no?

A Little Less Furriness

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Not the Clown Bear I Knew--Where's the Pointy Hat?

Not the Clown Bear I Knew--Where's the Pointy Hat?

The Vermont Teddy Bear Company just laid off 35 employees today.  Apparently they are still making things work:  Vermont Teddy Bear is a profitable company but a “reorganization” is needed “to gear up for some new initiatives to help capture some new markets in the future,“ reported the Burlington Free Press.  I don’t want to sound like I don’t have empathy for those 35 people, but this is really as bad as it could be.  This company is and has been a great local employer.  I appreciate that.  They do, however, make stuffed animals, not critical medicines or somthing.

I worked for Vermont Teddy Bear Company for a few months when I moved to Burlington, fifteen years ago this month.  It was one of the most fun jobs I have ever had.  I was hired as a temp for the Valentine’s Day rush.  It seems they advertise more at certain times of the year and Valentine’s Day is one of them.  It was back in 1994 as well.  Vermont Teddy Bear Company was in a different location in those days and they were rapidly growing.  They were growing so fast, in fact, that I had to work in a different building altogether.

The company was located next to the Yankee Doodle Motel on Route Seven in Shelburne.  There wasn’t enough room in the main building so they stretched computer and phone cables across the lawn, through the snow,and through the window, and set up workstations at make shift desks.  I reported to work in the morning, and we milled around until someone let us into our hotel room to get to work.  Kinda like a prostitute.

I worked there during a cold snap.  Temperatures got down as low as 39 below at night.  I commuted with my housemate, Melissa, who also worked there, and neither of us had a heater in our car that worked especially well.  We laughed over that even while we froze our little buns on our non-heated seats.  We laughed a lot in that job, in fact, especially when we dropped the phone because they gave us these old fashioned phones due to a lack of headsets.  It wasn’t easy to type with that thing stuck into my shoulder.

There were all these specialty bears for the holiday:  The Cupid Bear, the Lover Bear, what have you.  They were prepared for this.  They stocked up on the cute little outfits.  But things were busy.  Every day we would get a list of what was out so when someone called we could tell them things were out of stock.  I guess the lines under the snow made for poor computer systems so we couldn’t check stock live.  There were two sizes of bear, the fifteen inch and the twenty inch, and sometimes they would be out of one but not the other.

Every night Melissa and I would laugh over the conversations we had with customers.  Since we were temps, we did not work on commission, so it didn’t matter how many bears we sold or how long the conversations were.  We would chat for a long time with people, trying to help them decide on just the right bear.  We were called Bear Counselors, after all.  I kid you not.  That was the job title.  This one night we agreed that the best bear on the menu was the clown bear.  It was perfect for any situation.  Got a sick mother?  The clown bear will cheer her up!  Just broke up with your girlfriend.  Make her laugh with the clown bear!  Boss riding your ass?  Send him the clown bear to lighten things up!  Then we decided to push the clown bear.

The next day we sold scores of clown bears.  Forget Cupid.  Too tacky.  Too predictable.  Show her you love with the clown bear and you’ll be getting some tonight!  That, at least, was the idea.  It worked, too.  The next day, the 15-inch clown bear was on the unavailable list.  The day after that the 20-inch clown bear was out of stock.  We had freed him!  The clown bear was flying to every corner of the USA.  As soon as it was available again, we pushed it again.  The clown bear had a good season.

Frankly, however, even though we got to have some fun and make some cake during the coldest time of the year, it felt a little hollow.  I mean, who needs teddy bears?  It was one of those things that pretty much no one needs, at all, ever.  It is nice to have one, yes.  And they were, at least to some people, nice teddy bears.  But no one needs one.  Need some furriness?  That’s what beards are for.  And stray cats.

So 35 people fewer to get teddy bears made?  Well, things could be worse.  It could be a school closing down.  It could be some company that makes solar panels on (as I heard Chrysler described on NPR today) “the brink of collapse.”  It could be 35 fewer people to sell McMansions.  Well, maybe that last one isn’t such a great comparison.  Anyway, I hear animal shelters are getting more former pets than they can handle.  Maybe those 35 people can give away cats.

What, No Snow Day?

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My wife is an educator and, come winter, is seriously crazy about following the weather for the purposes of discovering the perfect convergence of snow/sleet/ice/cold and a school day.  This ideal scenario means, of course, a snow day.  She only works part time so the quest to find this meeting of the weather and the educational system has even more significance than it would were she to work full time, as there are fewer days on which it might happen.

I have some of the same feelings, I admit.  A snow day makes me feel like a kid.  That feeling of another day in the old classroom, suddenly turned into a day romping through the drifts of white, now that’s something to celebrate.  Having my own children these days, I get to experience a little of that all over again.  Plus, I get to do some romping now and again myself.

My wife, however, gets way more excited than I do.  This is a reflection, perhaps, of my own surliness.  Or maybe I just have a little bit less hope, or I hate to get disappointed if it does not happen.  In any case, she keeps me up on the latest.

This morning had real potential to be a snow day.  It started snowing last night and was falling heavily this morning.  The forecast was somewhat squirrely, so it had been continually updated over the past week as a couple of systems converged on us.  As of last night, it looked good for some poor travel.  Poor travel conditions are the key element to the snow day.  School gets cancelled if it seems unsafe for buses to make their way along the slippery roads.

Not only the severity of a storm has to be right but the timing has to be right.  If the roads can get cleared in time, well, forget missing a day of school.  It was seriously a tough call for those school administrators I am sure.  I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.  If you cancel school, some parent complains that it was fine and their little Einstein missed another day of fractions.  If you don’t cancel school, some parent complains that their kid had to risk his neck just for another day of fractions.  Not an easy business.

You might have guessed by now that we did not have a snow day today.  Frankly, that isn’t a terrible thing for me.  Making up a snow day is big fat hassle.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy it.  It just puts a thorn in my tender side.  My wife, as you can imagine, was not exactly thrilled about this.  She even got a tad grumpy, but don’t tell her I said so.  Every school in the state, except for a few here in Chittenden County, was closed.  Apparently, they like to play it safe, while here in Chittenden County feel the need to risk a bus full of children in a ditch to keep the moaners at bay.

Don’t get me wrong, we have some stellar bus drivers around these parts, and I would trust them to make safety a priority.  It’s just that, couldn’t we have a snow day?  That would be so much more fun.  My wife certainly thinks so.  I am not home at the moment and I need to travel to get there.  It is snowing, ice covers the car.  It is slick as a booger rag.  But even if it were 6:00 am, I am sure schools around here would still be open.  Too many little Einsteins to educate.

Message in the Snow

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Surprise Message

Surprise Message

This morning, walking to the bus, my daughter lagged behind.  She was playing in the snow, dragging her hands and feet and, seemingly, experiencing the wonders of learning about something through direct contact with it.  We had enough time.  We can see the bus coming a few minutes before it stops at our place, so we ambled, my son and I, as she dawdled.

At the end of the driveway, right before the bus came, she said to me, in all seriousness, “Daddy, when you walk back, don’t walk in the middle of the driveway;  it is for a surprise.”  She was firm, “Don’t forget, it’s for a surprise.”  Her phrasology, as it were, led me to think that she had something planned for her own return trip down the driveway.  I imagined she wanted a clean slate to do whatever it was she had in mind with the unmarked snow.  She just didn’t have time right then.

After she left, the bus curving down the road with her on board, my son and I walked back to find the message above.  We were surprised.  It was a great surprise indeed.  Both of us lauded her as we crunched the rest of the way to the house.  Now, in the dark, it is still there.  I was careful not to drive on it.

Of course, it looks to snow tonight, perhaps a lot.  The message will be gone tomorrow.  Seeing it was a moment I won’t forget soon.  That kid of mine, she’s pretty great.

Back in the Saddle

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So today I hurried back to the grind of working a job after a couple weeks of holiday vacation.  It was, as they say in the taciturn parts of this state, not a bad thing to be off for so long.  While it wasn’t bad to get started again, I hopped into the saddle with some trepidation.

I don’t mean trepidation as in “It’s been so long I am a little scared I won’t know what to do or where to go.”  I mean it more in the “Dang it is awfully nice not to have to work for someone else or really to have to work at all and boy wouldn’t it be great if I could keep all this material greatness and quit the day job?” sense.  That is the kind of trepidation I mean.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to fit one long, uncommonly uttered word into just a few sentences of something more than one person will read at least three times.  Check that off my list.  If we can jump to the meta-cognition level here, when except over the holidays, when I can sleep in until 7:30 (7:30!) for three days straight, would I ever have the idea encompassed in the previous sentence?  See what I mean?  Not working means thinking deep thoughts, thoughts that can only come when one truly relaxes.

Alas, I was back to the work thing today.  I did watch it snow from the warm side of the window.  That was, and I’m not afraid of being called effeminate or even (heavens!) a pansy if I use the word, lovely.  Then I drove home on the icy and slippery asphalt, hands clenched on the wheel, sweating in the down jacket I both didn’t need and forgot to take off in my haste to get to the post office, slowly.

The saddle in which I returned my physical self was metaphorical, of course.  I’m no wrangler.  I’m no jockey.  I can’t even really call myself a desk jockey anymore, although I did spend way too much time sitting today.  My saddle was a chair in this case.  At the end of the day I rode off into the screen saver sunset, bouncing along peacefully on the pneumatic riser of the padded office seat.  It was a lovely way to end the day.  And a lovely way to start the week.

Baking Bread

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Fresh Bread, Baby

Fresh Bread, Baby

Last night my wife and I sat down (and stood around, and paced) and talked about our finances. We are in fine financial shape overall. When we look at how we can immediately cut out expenses, there isn’t much that jumps out in the no-brainer category. We don’t have cable or satellite television. Our electric bill is low. We get a discount on the oil we use. We keep the thermostat at about 62. The price of gas is low. Still, we feel like we need to balance things better.

Our conversation about bread make me think about bread, if you know what I’m saying. One area we might cut expenses is our grocery bill. We don’t spend a fortune on frozen dinners or junk food. The problem is that we want quality. I was raised with the knowledge that teh generic or store brand version of a product is the same as the name brand, and this was and often is true. But I have entered another league since those days. I don’t want just the whatever, GMO, artificially colored, high-trans-fat margarine. I want the local, all natural butter. It tastes better and it works better when cooking.

I know we could save money if we were willing to compromise on quality, but I am determined not to do that. I buy Green Mountain fair trade coffee, and that is a compromise of sorts. I prefer that to Maxwell House by a long shot and I know that it has benefits far beyond my budget. I also don’t want to pay for coffee in a paper cup every day. When I bake bread, I know it will be better bread with good flour and butter and even salt. Quality matters.

I also know I trade time for money. I could buy a five dollar loaf of bread, or I could bake a loaf of bread. The freshly baked homemade loaf is just as good if not better but takes more time. I just popped a loaf of bread out of the oven that I started this morning. A few hours of work means some damn good food and a big savings. If I can take the time to make what I eat, I will save money and have quality grub.

For dinner we will have fresh bread and fresh soup. That is good stuff. Yes, it takes time. I need to make time when I have it to prepare so I can eat well every meal, not just boil up some pasta because it is quick. I need to whip up dinner in a hurry sometimes when the children and I get home late. Prepping in advance can help us eat sooner and still eat well.

Maybe that should have been a New Year’s resolution: eat even more freshly made food for taste, health, and the the old pocketbook. I suppose I can make it one now. Bread once per week? That might be doable. I’ll have to see what I’ve got for time, as soon as I finish eating this pasta.

Avian Eats

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I put up the bird feeders a little late this year.  Usually we get them up right around the time of the ground freezing solid.  Those little flittering creatures must have a harder time finding treats once things freeze up, right?  I know, of course, that this is not really true, but it provides a good reason to get the feeders out.

I managed to get them out last week, before the new year turned.  At least I can say I hung them in December.  I only hung two as the peanut feeder (a wire mesh tube made for nuts) seems to be missing.  Maybe the squirrels broke into the garage and carried it off, hoping to crack its secrets.  Of the two out there now, one contains sunflower seeds and the other contains thistle.

Today the birds finally discovered them.  They were some forlorn food offerings for a few days, but now the chickadees and finches and titmice can once again revel in the easy pickings.  Of course, once the blue jays move, those hogs, we will have to refill more often.  For now, however, we can watch the little dudes hop about in the cold without the bright blue bullies in the cafeteria.

I bought the sunflower seed at the hardware store.  We had the other seed left over from last year (it wasn’t and isn’t as popular, clearly).  I picked up a 25-pound bag and started walking to the counter but then realized that that was, to be kind to myself, stupid.  A 50-pound bag would save money, would last longer, and would mean one fewer trip to the hardware store.  Duh.  So I borrowed a cart and hauled it to the car.

Using the cart didn’t stop by back from aching a few days later.  Maybe it was moving the furniture.  That may have helped.  I think it was taking the foam pad off our bed.  Really, who cares?  The point is that I need to at least be careful when I haul around large bags of avian eats.  While I sit her with my sore back, I look out at the feeders, doing their job of supplying our feathered neighbors with vittles.

Here is to good health as well as to seeing all kinds of interesting antics from our dinosaur progeny in 2009.

Bowl of Snakes

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I used to remember my dreams a lot more than I do now.  I think part of that was that I had more restful sleep.  I wake up in the night more often now, and I have to get up, too often, before my body is ready to get up.  But last night I had a dream that was one to mark down.

I was in my house but it was really my parents house.  If you have ever remembered a dream, then you know what I am taking about.  The layout was my parents house but the stuff was of my house.  Anyway, that detail is really just to demonstrate the dream-ness of the dream.  On the kitchen counter was a box of cereal.  The box was labeled “Bowl of Snakes.”

I find it hard to imagine that a cereal named Bowl of Snakes would sell well.  We have a pretty solid irrational fear of snakes here in this great United States.  People kill snakes just for the sake of killing them.  There are snake festivals where hundreds of snakes get slaughtered (such as the Sweetwater Roundup).  So such a cereal would be shunned, I am sure.

In my dream, it wasn’t just the name of the cereal that was reptilian.  Pouring out the box into a large white bowl resulted in a large white bowl of live snakes.  There were three of them:  a rattlesnake of some kind, a striped harmless snake, and a pale green snake with a protruding forehead and seemingly no eyes.  This last one had exceptionally long fangs.

I was in the kitchen with my children.  We watched the bowl of snakes with interest, but not fear.  While we watched, however, the blind green snake stretched intself out toward us, mouth open, to a length of perhaps eight feet.  it was long.  It wasn’t threatening, perhaps just curious about us.  It did, however, startle the children a bit.

We looked away at one point and looked back to find only the striped snake in the bowl.  The other two had disappeared.  We searched all over for them, under the appliances, behind doors, in all the various cabinets.  We failed, however, to find them.  This resulted in lots of questions about what to do.  Should we call someone to help us find them?  Would they be dangerous if found cornered?  Did it matter if we never found them but someone else did?

After searching, we discovered that the third snake had disappeared.  Now there were three snakes missing, although the striped one we knew would cause no one harm.  We searched some more but found no snakes.  Our bowl was empty.  I was proud of my children for not being afraid, simply cautious.  They were curious and not scared.

I am guessing I will never actually encounter a bowl full of snakes, unless I attend the Sweetwater Roundup or something like it (see below).  Even if I do, I will likely refrain from using milk for that bowl of  cereal.  That would just be unkind.

Sweetwater Roundup Snake Pit

Sweetwater Roundup Snake Pit

Resolutions?

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I have never been one for New Year’s resolutions.  I have thought about the idea of them.  As in, “Now would be as good a time as any to set some goals for myself so maybe I should.”  But that idea has never really panned out, turned into action.  So here we are again at the turn of the year.  Good old 2009 has begun.  Should I make some resolutions this year?

So here goes with a brainstorming session on what I might resolve to do.  We’ll start with the classics and see if any of them fit me.  One of the most common resolutions, or so it seems to me, is to lose weight.  I guess I could lose a few pounds but I feel pretty solid, so to speak,  in that area.  I suppose I could cut down on candy but that will happen with the natural cycle of saying goodbye to the holidays.  And other foods to cut out?  Well, I did make a cheesecake yesterday, but once that’s gone I probably won’t make another for a year.  So much for food.

Another typical resolution is to quit smoking.  I wish my brother and sister would quit smoking, those addicts, but I can’t change them.  I don’t smoke, so that one is out.  Exercise more?  I have been getting the runs in and I plan to do a lot more but I don’t need to resolve to do that.  Join a gym?  Waste of money if you ask me.  So healthwise I think I am OK.

How about feeding the brain?  We get only one channel on television so I can’t really cut down much on the boob tube.  I read a lot of news.  I listen to all kinds of books when I am in the car.  I could read more books, the paper kind I mean.  How about I go with that one?

Resolution one:  Read more books, especially in view of my children.  No, that’s too vague.  How about:  Read at least one good book every month so my children can see that I am doing so.

I like my job so I don’t need to find a new one.  I already am in the process of doing a better job.  I am not too concerned with making a lot more money.  I spend a lot of time with my children.  I like to hike and I could do more of that, I suppose.  Dang, this is tough.  I make goals, but those are more fluid, arising with whatever situation I might encounter and wherever I find myself.  This seems a little forced.

So maybe this is why I haven’t made New Year’s resolutions in the past.  I don’t feel that I need to and if I am going to make goals I don’t tend to do it at an arbitrary time like January first.  Or maybe it is because I have too much champagne and then my mind is too fuzzy to think about that.

But I’ve got one resolution.  I will start right now, the first day of the new year.  Once I am done here I will grab the book I just got from the library and get started on a good story.  I guess I could narrow it down a bit further and just say that I resolve to this day read at least a few pages in a good book.  Since the high temperature today was nine degrees, it is a good day to make that happen.

Happy New Year from this freezing town in northern Vermont.  And happy reading to you, too.