You Have Such Presents

I had planned on going out Christmas shopping today. I have been putting most of it off for the last couple weeks.

The decorating has been completed. We shopped for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinner last week. There are still a few thing to pick up, but nothing big. We're not spending lots of money on presents this year, either: just enough to keep beneath the tree from looking barren.

It does give the cats room to sit under all the greenery, though. Here's a shot of Patty that I think is really precious: it looks as though she is contemplating the wonders of the holiday, when in reality she's considering how that artificial branch will taste when she chews on it. Marcel, being a dozen years old, has no interest in the season at all. When the boxes of decorations came out, he simply made himself scarce until all the hub-bub was over.

So I was sitting up here in the office this morning, working on the opening animation for the redesign of my website, when chain saws began growling and screaming. It seems the city's finally getting around to dismantling the uprooted tree that's been leaning against the apartment building across the street.

The sound was really irritating, like a mad dentist working on trolls' teeth. When a second and third saw joined in, it got close to approximating what the hounds of hell might sound like if they formed an a cappella jazz group.

Rather than feeling vexed by this, I realized God had sent this unholy cacophony to get me off my butt and out into the stores, where a good American belongs this time of year if he/she hasn't done his/her bit for holiday consumerism. And, although I went out and purchased a laptop for the studio yesterday, that was a business expense and not a financial sacrifice to the joys of the season.

To mitigate the crass commercial narrative of the next part of this entry, I shall insert photos of holiday cheer here and there. And since recipients of the presents I purchased will most likely be reading this before presents are opened, I cannot divulge which stores, exactly, I shopped at. Suffice it to say that it took me about 15 minutes to find a parking space (which I usurped from an Asian woman in a Mercedes with a suicidal look in her eyes).

Once in the first store, it took me approximately 20 minutes to browse and locate the several gifts I had planned to purchase. The actual act of purchasing them was quite another thing altogether.

When I got up to the cashiers at the front of the store, the line looked downright reasonable until I realized that, like Disneyland, this retailer had hidden the line, snaking it through one of the less populous appliance sections. It was another half hour before I actually executed my transaction and moved on to the next venue.

In the second store, it was clear that the their buyers had been overly cautious in their purchasing and stocking decisions, because many of the shelves and racks were stripped absolutely bare. Still, a half hour of browsing netted an approximation of what I had hoped to find. Luckily, I was in the back of the store when I found my last item, because that's where the line started for the cashiers in the front, a good 300 feet down the aisle. Here, too, it was about 30 minutes before making my purchase. The people in this line were very nice, though, and we talked and joked, whiling away the delay.

So, here I am, back home. The side streets are still piled with debris from the wind storm earlier this month. When I returned home, the downed tree across the street was gone and so was the work crew; they had moved down the block, clearing the secondary streets before the end of the day.

Steve has asked for some time this evening to wrap packages downstairs. Lord knows I have enough up here to keep me busy. Perhaps I'll get that animation finished this evening.

So, Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah and Joyous all the other holidays that never get included. I conclude this entry with an encore of the Russian stop-motion animation I found last year. I just love it: Reminds me that Santa/St. Nick/Cinder Claus/Father Christmas did not always look like a Coca-Cola ad.

Churning Good Cheer

It's raining today: not big gobs of rain, but an off-and-on, drizzle-to-downpour kind of rainy day. Here in California, this is about as close as we get to White Christmas. There was a lot of concern that all the debris still left on the streets (and there's a lot of it)would clog the drainage systems and cause lots of flooding, but nothing has been reported so far today.

So far it's a quiet Monday. I'm doing laundry, prepping the photos for this entry and, at some point, collecting the paperwork to get my business permit this week.

On Saturday last we went to Steve and Roberto's annual Christmas party. Here's a shot of the food line as seen through the dining room window at the front of their home. It's always a lot of fun, but can be tedious depending on how many of our acquaintances attend and how many people are complete strangers.

Steve and Roberto seem to invite everyone, so there are people from their workplaces, people from their church, social acquaintances and folks they just run into in the store and invite. It's an amazing mix of people, and only once did I get caught with someone in conversation who latched on and wouldn't let go.

Theirs is not a huge house, but there seems to be enough room for the hundred or so people who show up every year, even taking into account the seven Christmas trees that they put up (at least one in each room of the house) The first one shown above is in the living room and takes on the red-and-green color theme they use in the room. This second one is the white-and-gold tree in the den.

There is a nice-sized patio off the den, and guest suite on the second floor and, off it, a deck above the garage. Still, there are times when the interior of the house becomes impassable (especially when food is being served and folks are lining up for that). And the food is always fabulous.

The invitation says "light fare," but the party starts with a bottomless serving of hors d'oeuvres (meatballs, cocktail weiner, dips, fresh-made tortilla chips, crudité, Roberto's mom's jalepeño cornbread, and always one other dish that is spicier than hell but looks quite innocent (this year, cream cheese pinwheels with what looked to be pesto, but wasn't).

Here at home, the decorating is almost done. We have, of course, the tree with a couple new ornaments on it, and the usual holiday tchotchkes that come out every year. I did add a garland (shown here) to the entryway this year, which cost all of $30, since I used recycled lights that had been on our previously non-prelit Christmas tree. It took about five hours to lay it out and get everything to come out evenly (12 feet of garland and 14 feet of lights means you have to improvise along the way, plus getting all the plugs where they'll be unobtrusive and easily accessible.

I haven't even started my Christmas shopping, what little of it there will be this year. That is partially because money is tight and partially because, when I look around, we have pretty much all we need; we're very blessed in that way. My only Christmas wish was an interview for the Pasadena City College job, and that was dashed quite effectively, so I'm looking forward to the New Year and focusing on making the studio successful and put myself in demand for my design work.

It's kind of scary, though; how to you know when you're prepared enough? You lay out plans and figure budgets, try not to be too frugal or too extravagant, plan a marketing strategy. It's like planning a big party without RSVPs and fearing no one will show up.

As for Steve, they laid off a good number of workers at his work. Luckily, he's not one of them. It's just until the first of the year, but what a horrible time to put people out of work. The place is closed from Christmas until New Year's Day anyway, and the workers will get paid for that week (since it's the only vacation time they are allowed). This means we'll have the last week of the year together, but I'm sure we'll be spending at least some of that time setting up the books for the studio and creating forms for estimates, quotes, invoices, etc. It will be a nice way to see out the year, though.

That's about it for now. A friend in London posted a link on Facebook to this final video treat; I found it and put it here at my seasonal offering. No Santa or snowmen, but it magically put me in the holiday spirit, and I hope it will do the same for you.

Everyone Knows It's Windy

Yes, the holidays are here. In Pasadena, they came in with a blast, literally.

Last Wednesday afternoon, I received a letter from Pasadena City College thanking me for my application and saying that they had found other candidates more closely matching their needs, etc., etc. Kept on file for etc., etc. Within a few hours of reading the letter, a great wind came up from the north, blowing 45 to 55 mph, with gusts up to 85 and 95 mph: Hurricane forces bearing down on our town full of old, noble trees.

By the morning, there were hundreds of trees up rooted and tumbled upon buildings and vehicles; tens of thousands of branches, some of monstrous sizes, ripped off and strewn in the streets, making normal traffic impossible. Roofs were blown clean of tiles, temporary structures like the tents in the Christmas tree lots were twisted and tossed hither and yon.

Hither and yon: sounds like an acupuncture clinic.

Now, whether receiving the letter and the winds were linked is anyone's guess. I've got a huge ego and I'm still pondering what sort of omen this might infer. One thing's for certain, though; while I will continue to look for employment, I am going solo as a designer, which means a shitload of work in the next few weeks to gear up for launching the studio at the beginning of the new year.

I just got back from the bank, having taken the funds from a CD that matured today and moved them into an active account in order to fund my new business endeavor. I have to spend as much of the launch cash as I can by the end of the month in order to make my taxes go away for 2011. This can be done.

But also other activities await: reworking the website to reflect my new logo and look, filing for business permits, joining the chamber of commerce, printing cards and brochures, purchasing color swatch books, and joining the AIGA.

I've started a Facebook page for the studio and have to remember to begin taking pictures to put up there. I'm going to concentrate or sharing pictures of local public graphics that I really like, as well as updates on what's happening with the launch of the studio and tracking its progress. Here's a photo I took at Andy's Diner on Colorado Boulevard (a place where we usually go to have Saturday breakfast before starting the specific chores for the day. I can guarantee you there is no Photoshopping involved here, just a weird grouping of objects in the right light.

We got the tree put up this last weekend, but we have yet to finish putting on the ornaments, and we haven't begun to put out the other decorations in the room. I think this will be our nightly busywork this week.

So I leave you with the first entry in my holiday video offerings: this was the favorite from last year's collection, so I use it to kick off the blogging for this month of months, this year when Hannukah, Christmas and Kwanza are all piled on top of each other.