Sunsets, Stars, West, Wind
You can always count on Hallmark and Crown Center to pull out all the stops at Christmas time. I drive through the heart of Crown Center twice a day during my commute. The December mornings are especially pretty in the pre-dawn darkness:
Yes, an angel appeared in our front yard.
Thanks to a great sale at our local K-Mart, we snagged the angel at half-price, along with some LED net lighting which we will install later this week over our bushes.
Sadly, it got up to nearly 60 degrees here in Kansas today, so the snow we had this past weekend melted completely. At least I managed to burn most of the wood that had been languishing in our wood pile during our extreme cold spell last week.
No snow forecast for the next ten days, outside of some freezing rain/drizzle this weekend. Our Christmas forecast does not look like a white one.
My building continues its tradition of untraditional completely politically correct unholiday decorations. I came back from a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday vacation to this … whatever you might call it … ‘greeting’ me at the elevators:
I’ll have to see this ‘festive’ accretion for at least another thirty days.
My consolation though is my twice daily ‘fix’ of proper Christmas decorations when I drop off riders at Crown Center, headquarters of Hallmark.
To see what my building accosted us with last year, follow this link.
I walked into my building’s lobby yesterday morning, returning from more than a week of vacation in Texas, completely oblivious to the unHoliday decorations sprouting around me. That is until I stood idly waiting for an elevator to arrive to whisk me vertically to my floor and found this assaulting my eyes:
I must admit, compared to last year’s lobby largesse, this year’s decorations are a slight improvement, but seem to be a return to the first year (being 2010) metal montage. Then the building launched it’s crusade to snuff out any resemblance to traditional Christmas heraldry.
Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the last three years worth of unholiday spirit on display in the building lobby:
All I can say is at least this year’s metallic monstrosity matches the color scheme near the garage access elevators:
Thank goodness for my two daily stops at Hallmark, where I can bask in the warmth of a more traditional Christmas spirit on display, spreading Peace, Love and Joy indiscriminately.
I had trouble sleeping last night. I stayed up too late watching the latest installment of Restaurant Impossible and then couldn’t get to sleep. I think I finally dozed off after midnight, but that left me only five hours before the alarm woke me up. I snoozed for ten minutes, even though I couldn’t afford to lose ten minutes out of my morning routine since Thursdays are also trash and recycle days in Lansing. To top off a great start to my morning, I cut my finger on one of the cans in the recycle bin. So now I’ll be typing awkwardly all day thanks to a bandage on my left ring finger.
The work commute got shortened by ten minutes or so this morning due to a sick child of one of the riders. Before I hit the road and picked anyone up though, I made a stop at Baristas in Lansing to wake up with a mocha. It would not be good form for me to doze off while driving everyone else to work.
Chef Rachelle fought my favorite appliance today (my bread machine) and won the battle to create pita dough. Her menu for this evening included gyros (lamb) with home made taziki sauce. Simply divine. Don’t tell the Wii I had two!
Soon after dinner, Terry and I went to City Hall to attend the City Council meeting (I will post a complete report in a separate post tomorrow). Agenda item number seven directly affected us (search for my previous post on the no parking zone sign installed last month on our court). We sat through a report on the Kansas Sampler Festival and the presentation of the regional airport site selection study by Coffman Associates. Interestingly, the ‘prime’ site suggested for the airport is on 600 acres just a half mile or mile south of our house, between Gilman and McIntire Roads.
When we finally got tothe parking agenda item, I was relieved to see a good bit of discussion and debate among the council members. Obviously, the voice of the citizens raised in thier wards had been heard loud and clear. The ordinace (No. 900) passed with two dissenting votes. The meeting quickly adjourned soon after and I asked the secretary to provide me with a copy of the ordinance, which would have been helpful to review before the meeting. She agreed to email me a copy.
Second workday of the new year. Gearing up for all the projects slated for 2012. Busier (which makes the time go faster) and only one meeting (that went longer than scheduled, of course). Basically, I survived another day at the office.
Hump day (also known as Wednesday) is also double-punch day at Planet Sub. Since one of my New Year’s resolutions is a healthier lifestyle, I reviewed the Nutritional Information on their website before calling in my order. While my second favorite sandwich (the Planet BBQ) had fewer calories than my first favorite sandwich (the Super Hero), it had gobs and gobs of sodium. So it was a toss-up between the Tuna (without mayo) and the Roast Beef (without mayo or cheese). The tuna won because it was the lowest in sodium. Beautiful walk to and from Planet Sub thanks to the unseasonably warm weather we’re enjoying during this first week of January.
Even though Terry’s right hand is in a splint, WolfGuard will meet tonight to practice with the new drummer. We decided to skip a home-cooked meal by Chef Rachelle in the interest of saving time. We ate a quick supper at Mr. Goodcents (yeah, I know, two sandwich places in the same day). I reviewed their Nutritional Information brochure and couldn’t find a single sandwich (besides the veggie one) that had less than 1,500 mg of sodium. Way, way too high for my diet. The lowest calorie and lowest sodium item that appealed to my appetite ended up being penne pasta with marinara.
On the way back home, we took a side-trip to Dillons to pickup a prescription for Terry and grab a few items. We made it back home with plenty of time to spare before the band members started arriving.
As the band started rehearsing, I left to take Rachelle to visit some friends. On the way home, I admired the constellation Orion, the waxing moon and enjoyed the unfrigid temperature.
Now that I’m back home, I can wrap up a couple of work projects while being serenaded (several times because practice makes perfect with a new percussionist) of vintage Rush (Finding My Way Home). I’ve still got to squeeze in some cardio before slipping upstairs to read myself to sleep again.
Tomorrow is the final day of the Twelve Days of Christmas. If it was a Friday or a Saturday night, I might be tempted to host a Twelfth Night party. Instead, I’ll probably be attending the local city council meeting, since one of the agenda items tomorrow night deals with the recent appearance (and disappearance) of ‘no parking’ signs in several cul-de-sacs around Lansing (see my previous blog posts for further enlightenment). I can only hope an Epiphany of policy is forthcoming. (Feel free to chortle if you fathom my irony and/or sarcasm).
I wished everyone I met a very Happy New Year! 2012 has arrived, whether I was ready or not. I even forgot to photograph the first sunrise, but at least according to my dad (who arrived at my house just minutes before said sunrise), the photogenicity of the dawn was suspect (i.e. no clouds).
Dad had dropped by so early on New Year’s Day to say goodby to Derek and Royna, who planned to return to North Texas. I was the only one awake in the house (normal even on non-holiday days). I woke Derek up so he could say goodbye to his grandfather and soon after Dad returned north to his home in Leavenworth.
Very much later in the morning, everyone finally woke and began packing. At ten ’til noon, they boarded their rental and left Lansing. They had lunch with their friends and eventually headed south towards their home. I received Royna’s final Tweet a bit after ten o’clock while I was drifting off to sleep when they finally made it safely home.
I treated Terry to Planet Sub at a ‘new’ location I was previously unaware of on Johnson Drive. He often complains about my easy access to Planet Sub (only a block from where I work). After enjoying our Super Heroes, we drove back to the Legends (we passed it on the way to lunch) and enriched Nebraska Furniture Mart by purchasing a Wii (with Super Mario Kart for Terry) and the Wii Fit Plus bundle (and an extra controller) for me. We spent the rest of the afternoon setting up the Wii and fighting my Denon AV receiver (which doesn’t automatically convert Composite video to HDMI so I had to find an RCA cable in the black hole we call a basement storage room). I spent some time trying out the balance board only to discover, once Rachelle got home, that I had the board facing backwards (so no wonder all the balance activities kept failing for me).
We finally took a break from Wii Fit and sat down to relax and watch the latest episode of Leverage on TNT. I wondered off to bed soon after, forgetting to finish typing up this blog entry that I started at the crack of dawn on New Year’s Day. I will publish it before the crack of dawn today, no doubt.
I pray 2012 brings all of us peace and prosperity.
I drive a vanpool from Lansing to downtown, midtown and the Plaza areas of Kansas City, Missouri every weekday. My final stop, before heading to my own work place, is Crown Center, the ‘home’ of Hallmark Cards. As you can see from the slightly blurry cellphone photo I took this morning, the decorations at the world headquarters for Hallmark simply exude the Spirit of Christmas. I need this extra immersion for Christmas cheer to confront the gauntlet of bland and vaguely wintery decorations my building lobby sports. I left the house without my red and green ball Christmas tree ornaments, so I can’t ‘occupy’ the decorations today. And I have my uncle to thank for that ‘Occupy Christmas’ idea, thanks to a comment he posted to my post yesterday about the prevalence of unholiday decorations littering the lobby.
For the entire drive in this morning, I kept thinking of picket sign slogans I could hand paint for such an occupation, such as: “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” or “Put Christ Back in Christmas” or “The Cross (X) Marks the Spot” and so on. Rather than being the 99% we could be (and are) 100% loved by Him. I know I’ll be saying “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings” for the next thirty or so days (until Epiphany anyways).
I’m also curious about the decorations in the lobby of your workplace buildings. Snap a photo with your cell phone and comment with the link to participate in this unofficial and informal survey of corporate expressions of Christmas (or unHoliday) cheer.
