23 Skidoo!

My favorite song of all time.... fast forward to 2:10 if you don't appreciate instrumentals.

There's something about old people that simultaneously brings me great joy and great sadness.

I spent the morning with my dear grandma, Harriet. She is not the subject of this post. Harriet is 86 years-young and is sharp, keen, and sprigh as they come. Harriet would win first place in the "Most Kick Ass Grandma Contest," if there were such a contest. And it would be a unanimous decision. Today Harriet let me come with her to the Arcadia Community Senior Center where every Tuesday she volunteers, serving lunch to the elderly (and I use "elderly" loosely. 90% of these people were younger than her- Exhibit A of how much Harriet kicks ass). These so-called elderly folk are the subjects of this post.

Old people remind me of the "good ol' days," which I often pine for and wish I had experienced first hand. Whenever anyone over the age of seventy-five talks about the Depression, The War, or just the "simpler times" of the '50s/'60s, I get all giddy and nostalgic (is it possible to experience nostalgia if you weren't around to actually experience that for which you feel nostalgia?). Anyway, I truly believe we are on the brink of losing the few gems left of the last great generation, and that saddens me. Anyone who knows me knows my love for the 1929-1972 time period. But even as I try to live life putting forth my best effort to sustain and even rejuvenate the unparalleled charms of this era (i.e. cheek-to-cheek dancing to the stylings of the Glenn Miller Orchestra- *cough* Megan Psyllos *cough*, forcing everyone I know to watch my favorite film, "Auntie Mame," or using phrases such as "that's the bee's knees!"), I feel the enchantment and the honorable values of this priceless American era quickly fading. Old people are the last relics of this great living history, and should be valued as such.

On the other hand, being around the elderly reminds me of the wretched future I have to look forward to. Thanks to soccer, my outstanding physical health has gone to hell. Hellllooooo hip, knee, ankle, foot, -insert appendage here- replacement by the age of 30. I am scared to death of not being able to walk faster than a snail or having the shakes so bad I can't read a newspaper. But my number 1 fear of growing old BY FAR is the prospect of Alzheimer's and/or dementia. I had to watch my Grandma Ozzie suffer from that soul-sucking condition and though he/she who has it may not know or care, it causes a world of pain to your loved ones. After one particular visit to my Grandma's assisted living facility, I made my brother Danny promise that the day I can't remember my family members' names is the day he must slip poison into my food. As someone with a bit more forethought than a 22 year-old should have, I've already composed my Last Will and Testament. I have it written that past the age of fifty I shall under no circumstances have an autopsy, so Danny will be in the clear.

Excuse the Alzheimer's digression. Back to growing old- also NOT looking forward to the incessant gobbling of meds... I don't want to spend my twilight years doped up on blood pressure meds, cholesterol meds, heart meds, colon health meds, bladder meds, etc etc etc etc etc meds. The day I have one of those pill boxes with the 7 compartments labeled "M T W TH F S SU" is the day my life officially ends; well, at least marks the beginning of the final act. And from what I've observed, unlike the theatre the final act of one's life is boring, painful, and riddled with unease.

So as I stood behind the counter slopping yams onto those styrofoam trays, my heart and mind were vacillating between joy and grief as I chit-chatted with these beautiful elderly souls whose bodies were failing them.

Two things to take away from this post:

1. Youth is fleeting- go enjoy it.
2. Never pass up the opportunity to have a conversation with the elderly. They'll have both great stories and life lessons to be heeded.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered- I'm Yours

Take a moment to think of all the things that make you feel good. I mean, really good. The fuzzy, heart-swelling kind of good. A good that seems to warm you from the inside out, forcing the corners of your mouth to curl upward and the slightest bit of moisture to accumulate in the inside-corners of your eye sockets. What evokes that good feeling from you?

I'm sure some of you thought of hugs, or maybe walking out of an interview knowing you nailed it, or finding a $10 bill in the back pocket of an old pair of jeans. But I think most will agree with me when I say that few things have the capability to evoke that good feeling more than receiving an old-fashioned, hand-written letter courtesy of the USPS.

All of those feelings I described in the first paragraph of this entry are just a fraction of what I feel when I peer into my mailbox and see a non-business sized envelope addressed to me, my name scribbled in pen or pencil in such a way that tellingly reflects the personality of the sender.

With the ease of communication provided by modern technology, the personal, intimate nature of correspondence has become shallow and diluted. Some might argue that E-mail, Facebook wallposts, and text messages perform the same function as a letter, but in a faster, 44 cent-cheaper manner. This is outrageously erroneous. There is no comparison between the effort and thought one puts into the composition of a letter and hammering out something on a keyboard in 2 seconds and thoughtlessly pushing "send," while simultaneously checking Facebook, the weekend's NFL scores, tomorrow's weather forecast, and the balance in your bank account. The simple, time-honored act of sitting down with a pen in hand and a pad of paper on the desk, wholly devoting your attention to crafting a thoughtful correspondence to one particular person is unparalleled by any technological impostor of interpersonal communication.

I currently have 3 penpals with whom I regularly correspond, and often send random letters to others when compelled. The dying, classic tradition of letter-writing brightens my world when I am on the receiving end and (I hope) the equal effect is felt by those to whom I send them.

I implore you, nay- challenge you to in the next few days sit down and write to someone you don't talk to very often (but would like to), or someone you've lost touch with over the years. I can guarantee it will make their day, and you never know what will come of it. I promise you it will be among the best 44 cents you've ever spent.

Be the reason for someone's warm, fuzzy, heart-swelling good feeling. Write a letter. If for no other reason, your hand will appreciate a different form of exercise than the peck-peck-pecking away on a keyboard.

O Holy Post

Now that everyone's in full Christmas mode, I feel semi-safe to pontificate on the subject of this next post. I ask you in advance to pardon the brevity today, as I worked from 8:30am to 4:00pm straight on a research paper that's due Monday. Got 9.75 pages done though... probably my most productive school day of my entire life.

Christmas music. Some hate it, I adore it. I enjoy it so much I actually start listening to Christmas music each season on November 1st. Now, I'm sure some of you Christmas-music-before-Thanksgiving-naysayers all just collectively gasped in disgust and astonishment, but hear me out. I don't NOT like Thanksgiving, and I don't believe my listening to Christmas music overshadows the holiday. I actually like Thanksgiving day better than Christmas day (not  because I enjoy gorging on food- though it's quite tasty I don't really eat any more than I would for any normal dinner, but because it's the one day of the year my ENTIRE family gets together and I get to see them all under one roof).

Christmas is all about the anticipation of the day, rather than the day itself. Let's face it- as we've gotten older, Christmas day kind of sucks. I don't know about you, but I don't really get any presents anymore. I get money. Not that I'm complaining- but the magic that resides in the question in every kid's head when they first come out of their Christmas Eve slumber- "I wonder what Santa brought me for Christmas?"- is no longer a part of it. Plus, all your friends are busy doing family stuff so there's no one to hang out with other than your family (which I'm not saying is a bad thing!). I'm just saying Christmas day is kind of boring... except of course for the Lakers v. Heat game... which I'm sure this year will be EPIC (I hate Lebron).

The 2 months leading up to Christmas though... that's a horse of a different color. Everyone seems a bit more jolly and cheerful. Christmas decorations slowly begin emerging the week prior to Thanksgiving (for those who just can't wait)... then come out in full force on Black Friday. The excitement of finding something perfect to give someone (I swear I'm not a corporate schmuck caught up in the holiday's commercialism... but I do enjoy finding something someone will really appreciate, no matter how random the gift or the recipient). The slight, relative nip in the air... for Californians that means around 60 degrees, for Bostonians- 20 degrees and the hope of snow. Baked goods galore. The inevitable guilt that follows, spurring long nightly runs complete with lit-up houses and Trans-Siberian Orchestra blasting from your iPod.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra blasting from your iPod. What was the point of this post again? Oh, yeah! Christmas music! All I'm saying is that I have 116+ songs on my "Canzoni di Natale" playlist (translation: "Christmas Songs" in Italiano), and I need a solid 2 months to enjoy them. I'm not asking for much, folks. I'm only asking for 1/6 of the year. I have nothing against Thanksgiving, Veterans Day, All-Saints Day, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa... or any other holiday that might fall between November 1st and December 25th. It just so happens that none of those holidays contain the sweet, jolly, harmonious holiday melodies of Bing Crosby, the Vince Guaraldi Trio, Celine Dion, Josh Groban, Burl Ives, The Carpenters, or Nat King Cole (to name a few).

Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal.

Where'd all the good people go?

Where'd all the good people go?
I've been changing channels
I don't see them on the TV shows.
-Jack Johnson

Well Jackie boy, I guess some of them are here in Boston. A few nights ago I was walking down Boylston St. (Fenway side... a fairly busy street in terms of foot traffic).  I had just bought a bottle of cabernet from the liquor store for Gina because I drank all her cooking wine while she was home for Thanksgiving weekend. But I digress. Shortly after I exited the liquor store, an elderly woman in front of me who was dragging one of those wire-metal grocery totes completely ate shit. I mean, I have never seen someone fall like this on a flat surface. She somehow tripped and launched forward in projectile-like fashion straight onto the concrete like a torpedo. This poor old woman flew a good 4 feet, no exaggeration. She didn't even put her arms out to cushion her fall (I've never understood how people can fall and NOT catch themselves with their arms...). This poor old lady was writhing in pain on the sidewalk so of course I hastily ran over to her to see if she was alright.  During the amount of time it took me to catch up with her (and I'm pretty fast if I do say so myself), 4 other people had raced over to come to her rescue as well! It was like a magnet picking up shards of iron when you ran it through the dirt in your youth (was I the only one who enjoyed that? This is what kids did before the Internet). Suffice it to say my services were not needed other than my picking up the poor lady's groceries and standing her wire-cart upright.

As I continued down the street with my cabernet in hand, I couldn't help but smile at the world. I see rude, inconsiderate, greedy, angry, selfish behavior all day every day. And just when you think society's  morals have all but disappeared (and if you know me you know how I feel about the subject), something like this happens and the good people come out of the woodwork. Refreshing, really.

It's so easy to get caught up in a world that no longer values selflessness, but maybe we should all make more of an effort to be kind. Do the little things. One kind act can lead to another.

an inspiring commercial

Disclaimer: This is in no way an endorsement for Liberty Mutual. I just love this ad campaign... every time they come on my TV my heart swells a little.

I'm off for a Christmas-y weekend in NYC! First timer here... excited to see Rockefeller Center, the big Christmas tree, maybe do a little ice-skating, and of course see Anna Key!


Remember, as my good friend Barbra once sang, "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world." Let's prove her right. Have a weekend full of kindness.

Merry Christmas and Mazel Tov!

Since I was a young child, cosmic and often unanswerable questions would plague me as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep. I simply could not turn off my curiosity and surrender to the Sand Man. I even went through a phase where after I was tucked in, I'd walk down the stairs to ask my parents truly asinine questions such as "how many blades of grass are on our lawn," and others of the like.

Well, as a 22 year-old I still have that problem. Last night I got to wondering why Christmas and Hanukkah fell around the same time of year. Was it coincidence or purposeful? So, unable to finally rest until this question was answered, I went straight to the best friend of anyone with my questions problem: Google.

As a Christian growing up in a Christian society, I pretty much knew everything about the story of Christmas. But before last night I knew NOTHING about Hanukkah (or "Chanukah") other than the story of some candle's oil lasting 8 nights when it was supposed to last 1, latkes, 8 nights of gifts, and dreidels. Now I know much more. Though extremely different, I found some interesting similarities between the two holidays, and I want to share with you the chart I constructed based on my "research":

                  

 CHRISTMAS           

-Based on a miracle: the birth of Jesus by a virgin           

-Celebrated on the 25^th of December

-Gifts are given/received

-Light conquers darkness: Star of Bethlehem as a guide to Jesus’ birth in the black night sky

-Christmas dinner feast

HANUKKAH

-Based on a miracle: the lasting of oil 8x what it was logically supposed to           

-Celebrated on the 25^th day of the Hebrew calendar’s month of Kislev

-Gifts are given/received

-Light conquers darkness: Jews light the eternal flame of the Temple menorah to symbolize the end of the dark Syrian period of rule

-also called “The Feast of Dedication”

I couldn't figure out how to format those so they'd be side-to-side, but each bullet point matches up with its Jewish (or Christian) counterpart. This information was in no way legitimately researched (though it's all factual) and should therefore hold absolutely no weight in terms of actual academia. They're just my casual observations.

By the way, Hannukah has been celebrated in December-ish since before Christmas (duh... Jesus was a Jew and celebrated Hanukkah himself). Christmas's being held on Dec. 25th is actually pretty arbitrary as it relates to the birth of Jesus (since most scholars believe Jesus was ACTUALLY born sometime in the fall or spring months). The date of the Christmas celebration has jumped around a lot too- which would explain why a lot of eastern churches (i.e. Armenian Orthodox) celebrate Christmas on January 6th. On a sidenote, in high school soccer we were always scheduled to play Hoover High (a super Armenian high school in Glendale) on January 6th and they ALWAYS forfeited. I never understood why that game was ever scheduled in the first place. Anyway, I guess the reason we now celebrate Christmas on 12/25 dates back to Origen. On that day, there were already 2 festivals that celebrated the pagan gods on that day so Origen wanted to delegitimize those by an attempt to overshadow them with the celebration of the true God (backed of course by Christian rulers of the day).

I hope everyone was in the mood for a pseudo-history lesson. Haha.

If nothing else, maybe you can use this post as ammunition to combat those awkward small talk conversations at holiday parties this season.

Cheers!

3 Rants

Since I've been in Boston, I've noticed few things that would evoke a rant from me.  However, I feel the need to take this time to address three things that to a Californian are, well, quite frankly absurd.

First, no towns around here are phonetically spelled. Haverhill is pronounced "Haverull." Reading is pronounced "Redding." I can deal with those- they aren't too farfetched. However, when you start getting to the "-cesters," I lose it. Gloucester= GLAHSTAH, Worcester= WOOSTAH. Excuse me? Is this like a Castile, Spain type of deal where someone in high power had a speech impediment so all the words became adapted to that? These towns don't even follow the rules of vowels+syllables! Drives me nuts.

Secondly, it's freakin' WINDY here. Forget Chicago, this place should be called the Windy City. Beantown, my ass. More like Wind Town. I've always loathed the wind... ever since long soccer tournament days out in Lancaster aka the Windy Buttcrack of America. But for some reason I don't hate it as much here. It's frigid and cold, don't get me wrong... but not as annoying as the winds I'm used to. Weird.

Last but not least, THERE ARE NO TOILET SEAT COVERS IN THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS! Do they not believe in them? Are they trying to be eco-friendly? It's unbelievable. Not that I would ever touch my cheeks to a toilet seat anyway (squatting is the way to go), but come on people. What if I had to blast an emergency dookie? Can't do that squatting. Maybe I should start carrying around hand sanitizer just in case I need an impromptu post-public bathroom butt wash.

Just 3 little ol' things that I find irksome about Boston... trust me, the pros far outweigh the cons!

Have the happiest of Thanksgivings and enjoy being with family (for those of us who can't).

Over n' out.

Point of Departure

Alright, I've decided to try this "blog" thing out. Partly due to pressure from my field of academia, partly because we all know I am never short of words and my poor roommate Gina is probably constantly thinking "shut your pie hole already" (but is too polite to say so). Gina is in culinary school and bakes many delectable pies that she so generously lets me eat, so in this case the old adage is quite accurate.

I can't guarantee any brilliant revelations, poignant commentaries, or even so much as a rational thought will be a product of this new venture. All I can promise is that it will reveal the thoughts and observations of my mind's eye (scared yet?) as I scour this earth for meaning and purpose. I shall write about things I find curious, amusing, irksome, mysterious, inspiring... and a whole host of other adjectives.

Saddle up, partner!