Holiday Reflections
The last few days
I’m quite a pathetic sight right now, hunched over my desk, wearing a large Gryffindor sweatshirt, wrapped in blankets, zyn can next to my large cup of coffee, snot dripping from my sinuses, and fully jacked up on codeine syzzrup. I’m fighting this raging episode of sinusitis, but it’s a rough battle, my body aches from top to bottom.
Earlier today I forced myself to leave the house for some fresh air. I drove to the grocery store to pick up a few things for my daughter's lunches this week, some bottled cold brew, oatmeal, bagels, and cream cheese for breakfast, and a few other things my wife threw on the list. I went to the nearest Food Lion, which is located in between two retirement communities, Margaritaville style boomer swinger paradises, so it is frequented by the over sixty crowd, so much so that my wife refers to it as the local Old Lion. Needless to say, shopping at the Old Lion is always an adventure. In the parking lot I almost got backed into by two cars, then nearly ran over by three more, before managing to zig-zag my shopping cart through a gauntlet of senile boomers hopped up on medicinal cocktails. Either way, I made it, but I have no idea how my wife shops at that place. It’s rage-inducing. When I got home I had to take a double shot of that tasty codine drink.
Thanksgiving this year turned out great. I invited most of my immediate coworkers over and we had a blast. I didn’t feel like cooking, and honestly, my house has an electric stove, so baking sucks. Instead, I ordered catering from Cracker Barrel. I don’t like their in-house food but their holiday catering is very good. Everybody showed up, we drank some wine, ate dinner, sat around the fire pit outside once the rain was done, and played a bunch of Resistance, one of my favorite party games. I had a blast, and everyone seemed to also enjoy the event based on the texts I got the next day. For some reason I don’t think I ate any pumpkin pie, there was one, but I just didn’t get a piece. Instead, I ate a lot of Key Lime Pie, which has become one of my favorite pies since I moved down to the Lowcountry. If you have a Publix near you, their Key Lime pie is amazing, and one of the guys brought three of them. Man, I might go grab a piece right now.
Unfortunately that night, maybe due to the stress of hosting, or drinking too much wine, or whatever, the sickness defeated my immune system and I spent all night in a cold sweat fever dream. I had to drag my ass out of bed the next day and spend most of the morning at the local Urgent Care Clinic so I could get some Augmentin along with the tasty syrup. I feel better now, but it’s still not fully defeated.
Yesterday, I wanted to get out and do something with the family, so I medicated myself and dragged my ass to the movie theater next to our place. We decided on Moana 2 instead of Wicked, I don’t think I could sit through three hours of that hideous-looking piece of shit, and my wife and I got to see the musical in Los Angeles when it was on tour. Sadly Moana 2 was a disappointment. It was serviceable and my daughter liked it, but underwhelming compared to the first one and of course when held up to what used to be the stellar reputation of Disney. It was poorly written, with the main problem being that for some idiotic reason, the plot keeps Moana and Maui separated for most of the movie. Listen, guys, you don’t keep your two best characters who have the most chemistry apart for 70 minutes out of a 100-minute movie. Not only that but the writers left some serious good beats on the table, beats that would have raised the pathos of the film significantly. These were so obvious that my six-year-old commented how she would have liked the end to have been, which I thought was the obvious choice from a writing perspective. Overall, pleasant movie, not worth a full write-up, and enjoyable even through a codeine syrup fog but a far cry from what Disney was in my childhood. The fall of Disney is one of the saddest media stories, I miss the days when Disney and Pixar would drop a movie that captured my imagination instead of the constant remakes and sequels. Both Moana 2 and Inside Out 2 were underwhelming borefests, serviceable, and not horrible in the way Wish was last year, but paled in comparison to other animated movies like The Wild Robot and Puss in Boots by rival studios.
The biggest disappointment of last night's movie experience was the previews. Not one original movie. Everything that was hyped up was some sort of a remake, sequel, or sequel remake. Mufasa? Who the hell wants a hideously grotesque-looking prequel to that hideously grotesque-looking Lion King Remake? Disney, you are making prequels to remakes, holy shit is there any creativity left at that studio. Then there was a preview for Snow White, ugly, just ugly, and gross-looking. Everything about that movie looks hideous. The CGI, the dwarves, Snow White herself looks obnoxious, Gal Gadot as the queen looks hideous, all of it just sucks. The best preview, that I might want to see on streaming, was the preview for Bad Guys 3. Either way, I came home, made myself a cup of Earl Gray, and started watching Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon based on all the stuff I’ve been reading about it. Good stuff, and very enjoyable to have on in the background while reading.
Anyways, back to today, it’s Sunday, I have the heater on, and my wife and kid are lying on the bed in the room next door reading. Curled up with them are our two dogs and the cat. I couldn’t ask for a better Sunday. I think I’m going to sit here and catch up on some Substack reading, then brew myself another cup of Italian roast and get back to The Windup Bird by Haruki Murakami. I should crawl up to the attic and start pulling down all the Christmas decorations but I’m not feeling good enough for that, so everyone will have to wait a few days, maybe this week if I manage to leave work early.
This month will be a busy one, besides all of the usual Holiday hustle, I plan on launching season 2 of The Deceneus Review, with a few changes, more stuff, and a bunch of new ideas. I’m also neck deep in reading, have a few podcast appearances as a guest coming up, and a bunch of other stuff I am forgetting about, least of all my novel, which is slithering along like a diseased snail.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are ready for Christmas.
Hope you are feeling a little better, Alexandru. Those augmentin take a couple of days to kick in. I went to see Moana 2, as well, with my 6 and almost 5 year old kids, and they enjoyyit. I didn’t. For the reasons you outlined, but the popcorn and chocolates and what have you, kept me sitting in my seat. I don’t think I could have sat there without the treats, I was that underwhelmed by the show itself.
Not a patch on the first one, same as Inside Out 2. Disney are in big trouble man.
So, I’m looking forward to your next podcasts, and essays, and for Gods sake man, finish that novel!! Take care and God bless you and your family.
Those holiday cruds can be awful, sending you on your back and debilitating you to the point you can't reasonably function. Happy to hear you're coming through the other side of it.
Ah, but we've the truly important point to talk about: the uncanny way in which Boomer bursting grocery stores always seem to unlock a man's unyielding rage. It's a feeling with which I'm intimately familiar, given I worked at such a store for seven years through my twenties. Main difference is instead of an Old Lion it was a shop called Sprouts. (Which was owned by the brother of a competitor shop called Henry's that sold all the same stuff, as both had a falling out as they tried following in the footsteps of their dad who opened Boney's which became the locations for both of these stores until they all merged into the Sprouts brand at some random point in the middle of my time working there.)
I saw an old lady drive through our front wall when I worked there. She almost pasted one of the bag girls when she did it, too. Then you get the ones that are half deaf who blast their music louder than the hood kids that live a couple blooks away from the store I worked in, not to mention the old hippies for whom soap and deodorant are tools the Man uses to keep them down or something? You could always tell the difference between the hippies and the homeless there because the homeless were much more humble. Oh, and let's not forget every flavor of Karen under the sun.
Yeah, it sucked.