Sunday, December 23, 2012

Merry Stressmas!

I guess the Mayans* were wrong...the world didn't end on Dec. 21st.**

Now normally I gotta tell you ... I never buy into this end-of-world stuff.  I tend to believe the end of me is going to come long, long before the end of the world.  Unless a surprise meteor appears out of nowhere and obliterates Earth, I'm thinking this planet will continue to exist in spite of mankind's ceaseless efforts to crap it up.  Earth...well, she's a pretty smart cookie, and I'm betting she will probably hang around long enough to see us all turn to dust.  Heck, the other day I was at work re-arranging file cabinets, and at one point I was down on my hands and knees, moving one set of files from one drawer to another.  One of my co-workers walked in and, sounding very worried, asked if I was okay.  I was in the process of climbing to my feet ... which, if you've ever seen Animal Planet, kinda resembles the way a baby elephant gets up after it's awakened from a tranquilizer dart, but (trust me) is not nearly as cute.

So no, the world didn't end on the 21st, and probably isn't calling it quits for a good while. However, I would just like to point out that the emails I've been getting all week (from at least a million different retailers) suggested that the end was, in fact, near.

I think it had to do with messages like these:

"TIME IS RUNNING OUT!"
"RUSH!"
"LAST DAY!"
"LAST CHANCE!"
"IT'S NOT TOO LATE!"
"HURRY UP!"
"FINAL HOURS! GUARANTEED!"
"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, YOU BIG LOSER?"***
"WE'RE NOT KIDDING!" ****

I know I'm especially vulnerable to these not-so-subliminal messages because the "It's Christmas Eve and My Shopping Isn't Done" nightmare is one of my worst stress dreams.  Most of us seem to have recurring dreams our brains regurgitate when we're stressed.  I have three:  1) I'm in an airport terminal trying to find my gate where my plane is leaving in five minutes and, uh oh, I have to go to the bathroom, 2) I have to take a final exam in Intermediate Spanish in half an hour and I haven't been to class all year and don't even have the faintest clue where the classroom is, and 3) it's Christmas Eve and I haven't done any shopping.  At all. 

It's strange that I would have all this Christmas Eve anxiety preying on my brain when I have always been one of those annoyingly early people.  My loved ones are always giving me grief because my Christmas cards are usually among the first to go out. I typically start my Christmas shopping on Dec. 26th of the previous year, and am in full panic mode by the time the catalogs start flooding my mailbox every October. Nevertheless, I see, "YOU'RE LAZY, YOU'RE LATE AND YOU'RE DOOMED" screaming at me from my inbox and know my blood pressure's on the rise.

Because the reality ... even for poor slobs like me who try to get everything done early ... is that we're never really done.  Some things can't be handled until the last minute, and knowing that drives me insane.  So, during this not-so-joyous "Stressmas" season, here a few of my favorite things:

1) The stray Christmas card from the person I didn't send one to.  This shouldn't be a big deal, I know, but it is, because of course I'm imagining this person counting up his or her cards and thinking, 'Hey!  What about Brenda?  Why didn't that uncaring, insensitive person send me a card?  Does she not want to be my friend? Is she poor and can't afford stamps? What's wrong with her? What's wrong with me?" You see, in my brain, I've just contributed to someone else's Stressmas, which then contributes to mine because stress is the real gift that keeps on giving. There's only one of two things I can do. I can dig out an unused card, address it, stamp it and mail it on the 24th, or I can go buy a New Year's card and pretend like I planned to do that all along. Either way, I know I'm not fooling anybody.

2) The inevitable (and much hated, at least by me) Christmas electronic greeting card.  I tell friends I never open them because they might have a virus, but that's not the real reason. I don't open them because they irritate me.  When I see one of these in my mailbox from someone who didn't send me a real card, I think, "Why didn't this uncaring, insensitive person send me a REAL card?  Does she not want to be my friend?  Is she poor and can't afford stamps?"  It's this way ... if Hallmark means someone cares enough to send the very best, an e-card means somebody didn't want to bother, so she sent the very worst.******  The next time somebody sends me an e-card with a lovely picture of a snowman and some trees, I'm going to send that person a picture of a Coach bag and write, "Here's your present, Merry Christmas, because you know a photo is just like having the real thing."

3) Cleaning the house  I hate it, and I'm too cheap to hire a maid. So, during the holidays, I wait until the last minute because, let's face it, if I clean it too soon it will just get dirty again.... and I'll have to clean it again...dirty ... clean .... dirty .... clean ... it goes on and on and who has that kind of time?  Keeping rooms in a perpetual state of spotlessness requires that one cleans as one goes along, and I just don't feel that's a very efficient way to live.  Procrastinating until the last possible minute and then frantically scrubbing my floors at midnight tonight ensures that the job will be done correctly. Brenda a-scrubbing with sweat a-dripping and tears a-streaming adds a special sheen to a clean kitchen floor that you just can't buy in a box in a store.*******

4) Christmas lights.  Okay ... here's the deal.  I'm a huge Snoopy fan, and this year I decided I wanted to put a lit Charlie Brown display in front of my house.  It's small, but cute ... and the last time there were Christmas lights in front of our house, my Dad was alive and it was 1978.  So my nephew helped me put the display together, and proudly we stuck it in front of our picture window... only to realize that my Dad ... for some bizarre reason he took to his grave ... had capped off the electrical outlet that used to be by the front door.  There was no electrical source. 

Yes, I'm sure I looked like an idiot.  Fortunately I don't think my nephew did, because he was pretending he wasn't with me and had no clue why he was even standing there.

So, the choices were this ... we could run extension cords around the side of the house, under the gate, and into the patio where there was another outlet (I think it's still there ... but I really should check, maybe Dad killed that one too)... or, I could call Mr. Electric******** and have them put one in for $300.  So, three hundred bucks later, there stands Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy and the whole Peanuts gang, singing around the Christmas tree.  As long as there's no wind, it looks pretty good.  But the day before yesterday, we had wind ... and the whole Peanuts gang nearly took flight over Ronald Drive. I was able to re-anchor it before Snoopy became airborne, but the display still flaps in a strong breeze.  Christmas would be perfect if it weren't for that "winter" element that always mucks up the outdoor decorating. 

And, finally, there's one more stressful thing ... a job I need to do in exactly one hour from now...

5) Going to Costco for the food.  Yes, I could go to Giant Eagle, but it's an unwritten rule that if you're having a party, you go to Sam's Club or BJ's or Costco.  Warehouse clubs should all have the same motto:  "Obscene excess for a lot, lot less."  I know that in Costco I can buy enough shrimp to feed 50 people, so that might be enough to feed the seven coming over on Monday.  I also know that in Costco I can buy a pie or a cheesecake that's the size of a wagon wheel for, I don't know, fifty cents. So this is where I have to go today, and I know that if I don't get there when it opens at 10 a.m., I will probably die of old age standing in line while everybody is coughing on me.  Unfortunately, I'm sure every other food shopper has the same brilliant idea, but I can enjoy my getting-in-getting-done-getting-out fantasy right up until the time I pull into the parking lot and the swearing starts.

So ... that's my Stressmas.

I know that everybody's Stressmas is unique.  Some of you have the flu.  Some of you are dealing with financial strain. Some of you have loved ones in the hospital or - worse - are saying goodbye to your loved ones.  The irritants I've mentioned are nothing next to some of the challenges you're facing.  But I hope mine made you laugh a little.  You know ... as a Christian ... I think there's nothing more important at this time of year than finding a way to keep Christmas holy.  And the way I see it,  the only way to do that is to take the "stress" out and put "Christ" back in.  I like to think a little laughter can really help.

So, I say no "Merry Stressmas."
And yes to "Merry Christmas."
God bless you and your loved ones this Christmas and throughout the coming year. 
 
And, while I'm at it, I really want to thank you for your readership.  It has been one of my greatest blessings in 2012.  Stay tuned for 2013!



*Well, one good thing came out of all this silliness ... at least now a lot more people know who or what the "Mayans" were.  Or maybe not.

**Actually, the Mayans didn't predict Dec. 21st would be the end of the world (their calendar just ran out).  A bunch of ignorant people***** thought that the calendar running out meant the world would end.  Which reminds me ... I'd better get to the Office Max for a calendar refill before my world grinds to a halt Dec. 31st.

***Okay, I made that one up.  But if I owned a store, that's what mine would say.

****I didn't make this one up.  It was actually in a Walmart ad.

*****A bunch of ignorant people were WRONG?  Oh my, what a shocker.

******Of course I'm saying "she" because - with a few exceptions - guys suck at sending cards of any kind.

******* I should never work on my blog after watching that Grinch cartoon.

******** No, I didn't make it up, this is the name of a real company, and they're very good, by the way.




Sunday, December 2, 2012

(Cata) Log-Jammed

Okay, so I watch the news.  And it's my understanding that the U.S. Post Office is teetering on the edge of some kind of cliff.  I don't think it's a rocky cliff or a fiscal cliff* or a heath cliff or any other type of cliff ... including that weird kid named Cliff** who used to sit at my lunch table at Willowick Junior High -- he won a classroom Ho-Ho eating contest and ended up vomiting in the nurse's office.  No, I'm talking about the standard metaphorical cliff, the kind used to signify when something or someone is ready to crash and burn in a huge fireball of failure. 

Now, I'd hate to see this happen for several reasons...first, it's impractical to not have a Post Office.  While UPS and FedEx are more than happy to ship my packages, where am I going to take my greeting cards?*** Second, I don't like the idea of more people being out of work.  Third, life will become dull and meaningless for far too many neighborhood dogs.  Fourth, all the postal employees I know are really nice, except for that weird guy behind the counter in Middleburg Heights who's mean to me and makes me feel like a moron. Fifth - and probably most important - I like putting stamps on things.  When I was a little girl, I loved stickers only slightly less than I loved Colorforms, and I would see my Mom filling up her little book with green stamps and I'd think, oh goody, I'll get to play with stickers until I die.  Green stamps didn't even make it until the dawn of the Internet (which, let's face it, is to blame for every other fun thing we've lost in the last 20 years).

Not to say I don't get really frustrated with the Post Office.  The other day, at work, the postman handed me a pile of mail that included a plastic bag.  Inside this baglet was one-third of an envelope I had mailed out a week earlier ... the part of the envelope that contained the send-to address was entirely missing, so all that remained was the return address (the envelope looked like it had been chewed in half and spat out by the Postmaster General's mastiff, Fluffdog****). Not wanting me to be confused about why my mail wasn't delivered, the Post Office kindly rubber- stamped "insufficient address" underneath my return address before putting the remains into a protective ziplock bag (you know, so nothing bad would happen to it on its way back to me).

Who knows where the actual letter ended up ... I like to think it stayed with the part of the envelope that had the send-to address, thereby increasing the chance they both made it to their final destination. I imagine the two of them telling reporters, "We don't know what happened to Return Address ... after the giant dog attacked us and destroyed our ship, he went down a different chute and we never saw him again, poor little guy."

So, no.  The Post Office definitely has its problems.  It occasionally shreds our mail and is, by all news reports, going broke ... even though they keep raising the price of stamps to some number none of us can remember.  Really ... it intensely bothers me when they hold a press conference to announce the price of stamps is going up to some weird amount like 43 cents or 44 cents or 47 cents or some other number that isn't divisible by 5 or, preferably, 10.  If a book of stamps has 20 stamps and stamps are 44 cents each (I'm just guessing that's what they are; I really don't know and I'm too lazy to look it up), how much money do I hand the mean guy behind the counter? Yeah, I can figure out the answer ... or wait for him to bark it at me ... but if the postal gods would simply make the stamps 50 cents each, I'd know I'd need 10 dollars for a book, life would be simple, and the Post Office wouldn't be crying so much about how broke they are all the time. 

Which reminds me of what I wanted to talk about when I started this entry ... there's something I don't understand.  If the Post Office is delivering fewer pieces of mail and is bringing in less revenue ... and we all have this thing called the Internet that is apparently replacing everything, including face-to-face relationships with other people ... why am I getting more catalogs? 

Now, I'm not complaining about the catalogs.  I love them.  They're Golden Books for grown-ups.  I don't have to read the actual words in them and, consequently, stress out my brain; I just look at all the pretty pictures.  Yes, I know I get gorgeous, high-definition ads on my iPad from mostly the same vendors, but it's not the same as having the glossy remains of a dead tree gathering dust on my coffee table, loaded with stuff I might be able to buy if I hit Powerball. Because I have too much attention deficit disorder to sit and watch TV without doing something with my hands, the catalogs keep them constantly occupied.*****  When "Big Bang Theory" has a commercial, I can pick up the latest installment from Hammacher Schlemmer or Cheryl's Cookies and fantasize about new toys and frosted buttercreams. So no, I do love catalogs.  But this time of year they multiply at an alarming rate...I fear that, by Dec. 15th, the catalog tower I have piling up next to my sofa will topple over and kill my cat.  I really don't want Miss Kitty's final, muffled meows to creep out from beneath the Fingerhut Big Book. (But I sure like that one; it has a very shiny, sparkly cover and makes me feel all Christmasy inside. Having a dying cat would kinda ruin that for me.) 

The obvious answer, of course, is to suck up some personal responsibility and throw them out. But ... I don't wanna throw them out. I have a horrible time doing this, and it doesn't make sense.  I spend the rest of my waking hours on a futile quest to continuously de-clutter my house.  I give bags and bags of clothes to Purple Heart and Easter Seals and I am forever throwing out crap that has been lurking in closets that never seem to get emptier.  There is even more stuff in the basement that needs to go away, but I'm afraid of the basement, so my master plan is to just leave it all there until I die and then I won't have to worry about it.  (That was my Dad's plan, and it worked for him, so who am I to alter tradition?)  I want a clean, orderly life ,.. but since I can't have that, I try to settle for a clean, orderly house.  The house just laughs at me, but I still try.

I think, though, the catalogs are different because they have become as much a part of my Christmas experience as the greeting cards and gift-wrapping.  When the inevitable flood begins right after Labor Day, I relish each new book, knowing some perfect gift is just waiting to jump out at me and announce itself.  Gift-giving is a competitive sport for me, but not one where I compete against other people. I compete against myself; if I dazzled friends and family last year, THIS year has to be better. To that end, I'm always open to whatever new inventions my catalogs tell me to buy. The Internet really sucks at this; you mostly have to know what you're looking for, and then you can find anything. But the catalogs aren't so passive; they tell me what I want before I even know I wanted it, and I rather enjoy that.  I have to control everything else in my life, so it's refreshing when somebody else takes over, even if it is my good friends Harriet Carter or Carol Wright.  Thanks to them, I completed all my Christmas shopping without stepping foot into a mall this year.  By the time Cyber Monday rolled around, I knew exactly what I wanted and who I wanted it for.  I didn't have to burn out my retinas searching through online catalogs; I merely found what I wanted in the mailed books, marked the pages accordingly and ordered my selections off the websites.  Thanks to free shipping, I've been able to take my laziness to an entirely new level of sloth.

But, for me, when I throw out the catalogs, it means that Christmas is somehow already winding down, and even though my shopping's finished, I'm not ready to face that.  I want the first week of December to last forever; I love Christmas when it's still fresh and new and the stores haven't yet slashed their cards and decorations to 50 percent off.  I love gift-wrap, and I love to see neat, pretty rows of wrapping paper lining the aisles before they've been picked over. I don't want Christmas to get tired, or old, or over; if I lived alone, I'd probably keep my tree up until February. 

But ... I really love my cat.  
So...I guess it's time I shovel out the catalogs. 

But I'll take a deep breath, tell myself it's okay, and remind myself that they'll all come back next year ... that is, if the Post Office does.



*Hey, all you Fox-watching, CNN-slumming news addicts out there ... this is our new drinking game... raise your glasses whenever you read or hear these words and you'll stop caring that one even exists, which it really doesn't anyway but that's an entirely different post in somebody else's blog.

**If, by some bizarre occurrence, Cliff is out there reading this blog ... well, I'm sure you know who you are, Clifford, and I'm sure sorry you do.

***And yes, I'm talking about a physical card somebody cared enough to buy at a store, stick in an envelope, stamp and mail.  E-cards are not cards, they're somebody's way of saying, "I'm too lazy to turn off the computer and get up from this chair," and that's something I'm always saying to myself so I certainly don't need to hear it from you.

****Really, that's his name ... what, you think I make this stuff up?

*****Usually I just play with my iPad, but I can't hold that thing forever - it gets heavy, so yeah, I still need the catalogs.  I really think I need to buy that nifty floor stand that would hold the iPad for me ... which is, of course, in the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog.