Out of Sync and offline
I have been offline since Thursday and normally I would still be keeping up with the news but I haven’t. I was given December 24th through to January 4th off from work, and being that I am a single working parent with a house once again filled with teenagers – means a full round of trips to the meat market, the vegetable market, the cheese and grocery stores was in order.
Normally, I would have broken the grocery excursions to one store every night after work until I had all that I needed. I didn’t this time because I knew I would have a full extra day to myself before the big two day shut-down. What better way to start my grocery shopping than first thing in the am of December 24th? There are no words to adequately convey what a horrendous ordeal these excursions amounted to. Don’t ask why but I really assume all those who were celebrating Christmas on the 24th in a big way would have far more things to do than last minute grocery shopping. WAS I EVER WRONG! In fact, the experience was so traumatizing that at the end of the day I could not bear one more line up so the liquor store was ruled out. So yes, feel for me – as I had to recover from this ordeal without medicinal alcohol.
Yesterday was a big movie day for the tribe and me. I managed to stay awake for the first movie ‘It’s Complicated’ probably because we began at 10:30am to catch the cheap seats in the theatre and I had a humongous-sized caffeinated beverage in hand. It is a cute movie in full-tilt ‘chick flick’ mode but deadly to anyone whose body is still producing testosterone. I didn’t make Avatar or Sherlock & Watson – (over whatever they are now calling it) and I don’t have a clue whether the movies are any good or not but I did catch up on my napping in time for an evening meal of Chinese food.
Isaiah Sender left the house to join his friends for a 4am vigil outside of Best Buy today. Oh to be 15th and be pumped for an electronics blow sale. The only thing I am good for at 4am, even when well rested, is to feed the cat and pour a coffee cup. I will be blogging later but what does a 4am trip vigil to an electronics blow-out sale demand he needs to wake me up? In retrospect, the one with the real brains in the house is my seventeen year old son. He loaded his younger brother up with cash and a wish list for purchasing. He is still sleeping peacefully. I may blog later if I can ever catch up on my napping or the news.
At about 6:30 on the 24th my daughter called me and asked me if I could go to the grocery store to pick up an item she had forgotten to get for xmas supper and bring it along with me when I went over the next day – I could not believe the level of general animosity and ill will towards others I saw while standing in line with my bottle of salad dressing…. and can only imagine what it must have been like in the malls.
I’m guessing that whole Christian “peace on earth good will towards others” thing has become somewhat passe when the pagan guy was the only one in the line who wasn’t angry, frustrated, or bent out of shape, at someone or something.
Me and mine are all about family, friends, food, and drink, at this time of the year and not at all into the commercial aspect of the thing so we (with a few assorted others we rounded up who were away from their families and alone) sat around all day and visited, cooked, talked, ate to much, drank just enough, and enjoyed the fun the ‘wee ones were having – I hope your day was equally good.
Speaking strictly from my experience, your 6:30pm experience was my entire day from 8am on. I have no idea why everyone is so bent out of shape but the anxiety and frustration level was awfully high. Perhaps people are too focused on ‘producing’ the Norman Rockwell Christmas rather than just enjoying the days for what they are – a time to relax and unwind with family and friends.
The strangest sight I saw was a huge line-up in the Eaton Centre at a booth giving away for free chocolate – the line must have taken 40 minutes for a single bit-sized piece of chocolate – and not a high end chocolate either. I can’t speak for anyone else but I’d rather pay the $8-$12 dollars for a whole box of chocolates than line up for 40 minutes for a single piece of chocolate.