In light of recent events: Somara’s surgery which led to her having less time and work, my ongoing fight with bronchitis (theoretically) and the server’s $1700 recovery bill…most will be receiving just a card from us, probably under the wire too.
Despite being an Atheist, I enjoy the gift-giving part of the holiday season (Christmas isn’t the only one, there’s Hanukkah, Kwanza, Winter Solstice and others) and all civilizations like to have a celebration at the end or beginning of the year. I personally prefer New Year’s Eve/Day since it has grown to become a time to reflect on things, not drink until you puke. When the change came is a story for another day.
Back to the gift giving. Being a DINK couple, we enjoy giving toys and games to the many children in our lives. Be they relatives (eight), close friends’ kids (about a dozen) and other people who we generally like (over two dozen there). For the adults, Somara started a tradition of making a cookie/candy plate. The recent surgery and recovery trampled over the window to complete this rather herculean task. Trust me, Somara needs a couple assistants to pull this off with less stress.
We do plan to return to form with a vengeance next year since we know the world will not be ending this Friday as per the misinterpretations of Mayan calendars.
Before I wrap this up, we did take in one charity case impulsively as we were leaving Olive Garden. The restaurant had a giving tree for these kids who are in foster care or they’re orphans, likely the former due to orphanages being institutions you only see in old-timey movies. Many requests were filled with odd things for tweeners: an Axe body-spray kit, Ulta gift cards, Nike-brand socks (I guess they give you Lance Armstrong’s denial ability for a decade). Somara and I were touched by a 15-year-old’s wish: a Science Fiction book and an Ike & Tina CD. Who am I to deny a young man the joy of physical music in an age of impersonal downloads! My buddy Chip immediately had a solid two-disc compilation put on hold for me, published this year too! Seems promising. Buying him the Sci-Fi book was harder due to our tastes/opinions varying wildly on what is good. The nearby Barnes & Nobles didn’t help neither because Fantasy, Graphic Novels (aka expensive comic books) and Licensed Schlock is mixed into the population. I readily admit to not being “up” on contemporary, hot, now authors. As I’ve aged, I find myself consuming less of the genre anyway. I still love Sci-Fi yet I spend more time reading more factual stuff (Argo is on the agenda along with Subversives), opinion pieces (Record Collecting for Girls and I Love Rock n’ Rock, Except When I Hate It) and socio-political stuff (Idiot America). Thus, I voted for a standard or intro-level book. Damned if I could think of one which might not be taken away from the kid for “excessive” sex and/or violence. There goes Niven and Heinlein. I thought Dune but that’s more of a space opera with boring political issues. Somara is the opposite. She listed off a slew. My response to her was like what I often hear from others who claim there hasn’t been any good music after 1985, just not as backwards. I readily admit to the shortcomings there. I figured the point was to give him a starter kit, in this Internet Age, he could find other, similar authors. We also have very differing opinions about Sci-Fi. I’m not going state anything about Somara’s, this would come off as negative and bashing. I will go out on a limb and say this in my defense. Good Sci-Fi emphasizes the human experience, condition, reaction, interaction, wonder, exploration, emotion, etc. These are the stories which have endured for decades regardless of their medium. The same applies to the licensed materials with Star Trek, Star Wars and Babylon 5. I see too much Sci-Fi as pseudo Military History being passed off as entertaining if the selection at B&N is an accurate sample. The young man came out ahead. We compromised. Somara picked a book she liked. I chose another close to my heart, Octavia Butler’s Kindred (I want to include a note with it to assure him, it’s not about sparkly, wimpy vampires, it’s a time-travel story) and an HG Wells collection in the discount bin. At least it’s a hardback plus all the heavy hitters are present: The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man and The Island of Dr. Moreau plus Food of the Gods and First Men in the Moon. At least all have been made into movies once…I didn’t say good movies though.
Thanks for your understanding. We look forward to any cards and we hope you get a kick out of this year’s selections.