Send In The Plows

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Isn't it rich?
You are the mayor.
Snow here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the plows.

Isn't it nuts?
And you approve?
Snowflakes keep blowing around,
Traffic can't move.
Where are the plows?
Send in the plows.

Just when we'd stopped knocking on doors,
Finally knowing the one that we needed was yours,
You're reading statements again with your usual flair.
Waiting for trains,
Not one is there.

Don't you love farce?
Your fault I fear.
I thought that you'd want what we want.
Bloomberg, my dear.
But where are the plows?
Quick, send in the plows.
Don't wait til spring's here.

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer,
Losing your timing like this
Could end your career.
And where are the plows?
There ought to be plows.
Well, maybe next year.

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Season's Greetings

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Merry Christmas from O Dock.

This is our Christmas tree for 2010.

If you read this blog, you probably wouldn't expect that I'd have a conventional Christmas tree, would you?

Actually, this may be more of a holiday tree than a 'Christmas' tree, since I don't really celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday - not that there's anything wrong with that.

I do like the spirit that everyone seems to get into at this time of year, despite their formal religious beliefs, and I think it's that spirit I choose to celebrate more than anything else. Life would sure be a lot easier to get through if people were as cheerful and forgiving throughout the year as they are now.

To make a serviceable holiday tree, you don't really need to start with a tree at all. Christmas trees are a lot like life. What you make of what you start with matters more than what you start with.

This year, we started with a seamstress' dress form.

Well, my wife did, actually. She is in charge of tree design.

I am in charge of counterproductive criticism and anything electrical.

It is really my wife who decided about 10 years ago that conventional trees are boring and that we should start with something as far away from a conventional tree as possible. I think that first year we started with a step ladder.

Over the years, we have started with department store mannequins, dinner jackets woven from plastic wreaths, a cheesy artificial tree that we completely stripped of all its plastic foliage, and one year, it was a piece of driftwood that looked like Charlie Brown's curiously comical conifer.

Another time, we paid homage to the surrealists and my wife did a painting of a tree that was titled, "This is not a tree", displayed on an appropriately illuminated artist's easel. That one backfired, though. Everyone left paintings under the tree that were entitled, "This is not a gift."

Even if you have never read any of my blog posts, one look at the old holiday 'trees' that have accumulated in our garage would convince you that I am someone best treated with a certain amount of caution.

This is probably my favorite time of year, though. I try to take a few days off from work and we spend some quiet time around the house sipping wine, eating chocolate, and admiring my wife's handiwork (which would not have come to fruition, remember, without my expert criticism). It is a time to slow down, consider where we have been over the past year, and where the next year may take us.

The problem is that I never quite get back to speed again in the new year after all of this slowing down. And in that, I may have discovered one of life's great lessons.

I'm beginning to think it is mainly Christmas that is responsible for the fact that I move a lot slower now than I did when I was 20 years old.

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hi its arnold

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o docker has left the keyboard quiet this past week

he was muttering something about how busy his work is the last time i caught a glimpse of him

if i squat down between the q and w keys i can keep an eye on him without his noticing


i am arnold the cockroach and i have just been figuring out how this interblog stuff works

he never logs out of the blog program so i am able to post to his blog when he is is not around

though this is my first try


i come from a long line of cockroaches

we tend to have large families

but my own family has mainly lived in newspaper buildings and it is in just such a building that o docker works

my great great uncle archy became somewhat famous by hanging out in the keyboard of an old typewriter owned by a newspaper columnist

its an old cockroach joke that archy succeeded in the world of letters

get it

computer keyboards are a lot easier for a cockroach to work than those old manual typewriters were

the jumping from key to key is less strenuous and less perilous and i can even type capitals with the caps lock key LIKE THIS but that still takes an extra two jumps so i dont do it too often

i pretty much dont bother with punctuation either

what a waste of jumps

but the absolute best thing about computer keyboards is how much warmer they are at night

and of course the food is better too

no one ever gets down here to clean out the crumbs

especially o docker

anyway i thought i would jump in here while o docker is away

sorry thats more cockroach humor

i was thinking you might want to know more about him while hes not around

he thinks hes so damned clever most of the time but mainly he drives the cockroaches around here nuts

maybe people are actually different than cockroaches that way

but i dont think so



uh oh here comes the cleaning crew

if they spot me its big trouble for my whole family


arnold

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Bowsprite, You Don't Wear Heels, Do You?

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What, you didn't get the memo?

This is 'Find A Cute Guy For Bowsprite' week in Blogadelphia. How should I know what kind of guy she thinks is cute?

This guy is an accomplished artist and knows his way around France. Maybe he can show her some parts of Paris she's never seen.

He likes taking long walks along the Seine and I think he's a Sagittarius.

He's supposed to be kinda short, but size doesn't matter, does it?

Bowsprite, I really think you should take a chance on this guy for at least one date. What do you have to lose?

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