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Wonder if Grandpa ever got his lap robe

 

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By Sandra Snyder on December 29, 2016

All righty then. No time like the present to start resurrecting the past as previously announced. In the entry that appeared just before this one, I vowed there WOULD be a future for this blog, even if it meant relying more on that old reliable past. No time like Christmastime for memories anyway.

Randomly opened the dusty, dated “portfolio” to the middle and looked for something that said December anyway. This column, by yours truly, appeared in newsprint on Dec. 18, 2004, to be precise. Not sure what I think of it now. It’s OK, I guess. Not great, not particularly terrible. (Be nice if you disagree with the latter and decide to tell me so.)

And, hey, anyone even remember Kaufmann’s? Apparently I liked to eavesdrop there.

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YOU SIMPLY CAN’T BEAT people-watching at the mall during the most wonderful time of the year. With apologies to the innocent victims:

The clock shows nearly 11 p.m. on a Sunday during one of those “night sales” at Kaufmann’s. I’m idling at the jewelry counters when what to my tired eyes should appear but a papa bear, mama bear and amazingly alert baby bear. kauf-2

Howdy, strangers, on the grand, if grueling, journey to Christmas.

Mama stops at a necklace turntable and fingers something sparkly. Papa sighs, then complains loudly. “Why do you always have to buy THIS crap?”

OK, so these aren’t exactly our three idyllic bears of yore.

Mama’s defense is swift and sure: “Do YOU have a better idea?”

A silenced papa joins the search, even commenting on a few items. I particularly loved, “If I were a woman, I would wear THIS.” Mama barely gives up a sideways glance, however.

Meanwhile, sweet, patient Baby Bear has his own fun underfoot, imagining perhaps that his opinion is of utmost importance in this whole process.

“Look at this one, and this one, and, oh, this one! Mommy, see!”

Lovable little thing complains not a word when he gets zero attention.

In a flash they are gone, but versions of them turn up everywhere.

Says a wife to her husband at Bed, Bath & Beyond, “I’d still really like to find your father a nice, wool lap robe.”

His face is blank, confused.

“A what?”

He merely shrugs as she leads him, dutiful, away.

Are the holidays the one time of year when the menfolk, hunters and gatherers though they be, lose all desire for acquisition?

With six shopping days left, a frenzied, burdened mind is about to conclude there must be a better way. Strictly online and catalog shoppers often sanctimoniously proclaim they’ve found it. But are they not in on the joke that is shipping and “handling?”

“This gift-giving is a farce anyway,” one close to me recently declared. “What if we just canceled it?”

Well, a recent New York magazine street survey did find a vast majority opposing this concept on principle.

Maybe a little innovation is in order? One mail-order catalog peddles gifts for our brethren in the developing world and reminds us we can give “in honor of” anyone on our shopping list. I briefly considered ordering up a $75 goat for a family of three in an impoverished village, but my scam radar didn’t provide a clear enough read.

Then this pitch arrived: What better gift for one with close ties to the Emerald Isle than an actual piece of Ireland? That’s one square foot, to be precise, for the wee sum of $49.99. Buyireland.com hawks the plots, in County Rosecommon, and tosses in a gold-foiled deed suitable for framing.

Thoughts turned quickly to an old friend who dreamed of someday building a log home. “Even if I have to place one log per year for life,” she joked.

The memory suddenly made this laughable “Buy Ireland” idea seem a little less ludicrous.

It’s conceptual, if you will.

Sometimes we do need to lay our stakes piece by excruciating piece, one brick, log or square foot at a time.

Don’t have everything your heart desires this holiday season, be it that exquisite cashmere hat or, more substantially, the ideal place to hang it?

Remember, neither Rome nor a home was a built in a day. Patience and steadfast faith just might be the two best gifts you can give yourself in the meantime.

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The end. Dirty 30.

Flash forward, Christmastime 2016. Let us pause to reflect, shall we? Kaufmann’s is long gone, of course, having eventually made way for Macy’s, which some say is on life support as well. Who’d have imagined?

That little boy (he of the sweet, sweet, “Mommy, see!”) would, I’m guessing, be about 17ish now. Is he still so sweet? Which road did he take? Did he buy his mama something shiny this year?  I hope he doesn’t curse too much.

Christmas shopping is, after all, still alive and well, 14 years later, despite all our grumblings about calling the whole charade off. But I think the deals get better each year anyway, as retailers desperately try to retain the tired, depleted masses. I got a $50 gift somehow marked down to $5 this year. Might have been a register error, but I’m not one to complain. (Ahem.)

Shipping and “handling.” Don’t even get me started. I still rant. Shipping I kind of get, though I never want to pay it. Handling, though, is a cosmic kick in the face, kind of like the utility companies and sewer authorities that charge me a “convenience fee” to pay online. You’re charging me to make your job a bit easier and more convenient, right? Ah, I see now. How about you pay the fee then, and we can still be friends?

Meanwhile, I’ve let too much time go by without making major changes. If I’d started in 2004, I could have owned 13 whole square feet of Ireland by now. What a fool I’ve been. I don’t even yet own one. (And I’ll have to consult my bank to see how many square feet of my own home I actually, in any sense, truly own.)

Had a conversation yesterday, by the way, with an erudite, scholarly and impressive man, against whom I’d NOT like to go up in trivia. He asked a third party if he’d ever used the Plenti card. (Macy’s, Rite-Aid, you know the card, right?)

“Plenti card is great,” scholarly man told the third party. “But the cashier always asks if I want to redeem my points today. And I always say, “Not yet. I’m saving up to buy a car.”

I might have to steal that line. This is the year I’m saving up to buy a house in Ireland.

Or not.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Happy new year, everyone!

~ SJS (AMDG)

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man. (Or woman.) ~ Benjamin Franklin

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December 29, 2016 · 6:45 pm

Oh hey there, little blog … Let’s get this bond back together

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I don’t make new year’s resolutions, but if I did, the list might look something like this:

Write. Write more. Write even more still. Write more after that. Then write a little more after that particular more. And keep going

Note to self: Stop saying you don’t have time to write anymore. Just knock it off, OK? Because who are you kidding anyway?

Somehow you found the time to rearrange the living room 16 times this year alone, right? (Nah, that was the fabulous interior designer I have on retainer. Heh heh.)

Somehow you found the time not to miss an episode of “This Is Us,” right? (Fascinating, eminently worthy show, if you’re not on already board, btw.)

And, well, let’s see, somehow you found plenty of time to develop twitchy scroller’s thumb from flying around Facebook, right? (Sidenote for 2017, Facebook is, perhaps remarkably, still alive and well, but is Twitter really in palliative care? ‘Gram and Snapchat have been reported as the cooler places to be, but a little winged creature told me it’s suggested anyone over, oh, 21 stay away because, see, we already stole Facebook.

But I digress. This is about writing again, because few things are worse than projects started but never finished or, in this case, abandoned projects. (Guilty, your honor.)

Far be it from me to let that happen to this little blog, a project of sorts that I started in 2014 as a way to promise myself that even though I no longer technically wrote-wrote for a living I could still write-write for a life.

And I did for a bit. And then gosh-darn life and all its requirements got in the way.

New job, lots of new things to write, albeit not necessarily with as much room for creativity. During the day came letters and documents, proposals and press releases, mixed in with newsletter articles, social-media posts and of course a boatload of emails. In the evenings, more press releases and newsletter articles and assorted stories for an alumni magazine, thanks to a freelance gig on the side that keeps me busy enough and comes in awfully handy when the writing, or semi-writing, life doesn’t seem the most bang-up way to pay the bills.

At one point, someone who will remain unnamed, but let’s just say he married into the family (or someone in my family married into his) asked something along the lines of this:

How many columns do you think you have written over the course of your life?

Quick calculation accounting for more than 20 years of writing some form of those column-thingys at least once or twice a week for maybe 12 to 15 of those years …

700? 1700?

So I answered precisely:

“A lot.”

“How many have you read?” I asked in turn.

He wasn’t sure. Seventy? One-hundred-seventy? Then he reminded he has known me only since a few years before marrying my sister, so he wouldn’t mind making up some ground and maybe I should make him a little book.

And in that book — get this — maybe I should put some old columns and write him little notes explaining what I was thinking or doing or feeling at the time. Wouldn’t that be so cool?

Sure, brother-in-law, if I only had the time. That does sound fun. And time-consuming.

He gave me that look that brothers-in-law can somehow get away with, the look that loudly said, “Pish!”

Then I ran away before he could put me in a position to defend myself and my lack of time.

But this weird, wonderful week between Christmas and New Year’s 2016, when I’ve planned for a little extra time off to accomplish all kinds of astonishing things but somehow so far have only accomplished laundry, more housecleaning and freeing up some DVR space, I found something (while cleaning, of course).

In old-school, old-fashioned terms, this thing is called a “portfolio.” If you’re younger than 21 — maybe 31; who knows? — a portfolio, or one definition of it, is a huge, physical, often black and often leather carrying case full of plastic protective sheets that preserve things, in this case somewhere between 700 and 7,000 pieces of writing that exist mostly on yellowish newsprint and now, largely, nowhere in cyberspace. My portfolio was in my basement, with a broken zipper, bursting at the seams and covered with dust and a few stray hairs.

First thing I did was wipe it down with wet paper towels, then I opened it. And, ah how the memories flowed.

I spent a few minutes reading some of what I’d written over all these years and indeed recounting, as B-I-L suggested, what I was thinking, doing or feeling at the time I put those thoughts to that paper, that paper for which I used to work. And in some cases, let me tell you, it was truly, madly, deeply: WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?

But then I got this idea in my head. If I type even one of these pieces a day, or every few days, into my dormant blog, I really could have “a little book” in a jiffy, a little digital book, such as it is. And an active blog again! Maybe I could even freshen up the content a bit by recording the sentiments of the time (to the best of recollection) and noting what I’d do now if I knew then.

So, as we enter 2017, here goes nothing.

As often as I can, I’m going to upload old content while promising also to mix in some new content — because I’m still thinking, and still bumbling around and doing foolish things I’m not usually afraid to share. (If you’re new around here, let me just tell you what has been said to others who know me well about some of the things I’ve done, then recorded for posterity.)

The general sentiment has gone something like this: “Did that really happen to her?”

And someone from the inner circle might have responded something like this:

“Yes. I saw it. I was there. You’d have to know Sandy.” (Or “SandySandy,” as it’s often been said with a shake of the head.)

So, yeah. I’m going to get this blog going again, for better or worse, at least before blogging joins Twitter in the next bed over.

If you happen to have any spare minutes in the coming year, I invite you to read. (Bloggers need followers, people, and I’m not above bribery.) Then leave me a comment or send me an email. I used to love to hear from readers, and I’d still love to. And I write back, too, if that means anything.

I just have to warn you: People who know me best used to warn others about talking too much around me. “Careful, you might become a column,” they’d say. And, ha, they were often right. Because, hey, your stories are often so much cooler than my stories!

So, please, friends, do talk to me. Just be warned and be careful.

You might become a blog entry.

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” ~ Anais Nin

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In a world of live, laugh, love …

… Sometimes you just want to buy a sign that says something else.

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