Holidays - What Does Not Kill You Makes You Stronger
There must be a reason that hardly anybody gets ever bludgeoned to death with a fruitcake. I have no idea what that reason might be.
Winter Olympics, NASCAR, and Red Wings: the Perfect Valentine's Day
This weekend my wife and I are enjoying a Perfect Storm of Really Cool Stuff.
On Friday the 2010 Winter Olympics* kicked off in Vancouver, British Columbia. There was a terrific Opening Ceremony highlighted by some teams marching in with hundreds of happy skiers and skaters waving at the crowd, while other teams were made up of a single athlete carrying a flag and followed by fifteen old bald government guys.
The Story of Carlson the Christmas Angel
Carlson was not a particularly happy Angel. You see, he wasn’t allowed to live in Heaven. He was a Guardian Angel, which meant that he had to hang around on Earth, taking care of his Client, Bob.
Now, Guardian Angel duty was about the most difficult job an Angel could have, even under the 
best of circumstances. Angels couldn’t change what their Clients said or did; they could only try to protect them from accidents. Or, more commonly, from the consequences of their actions.
Some Clients were really good people, always risking their lives to help others, and this sort of thing could keep a Guardian Angel pretty busy. Other Clients were hopelessly slow-witted or accident prone, and they needed a Guardian Angel around constantly just to keep them from getting their scarves caught in the wood chipper.
Thanksgiving On The Brink
“Of course we’ll have Thanksgiving at our house this year, Aunt Ellen! I’ll write notes to everyone and tell them!” Mom hung up the phone with a crooked smile and began to sing softly to herself;
Oh where did I leave that bottle of Scotch
The bottle of Scotch, my sweet bottle of Scotch?
Oh where did I leave that bottle of Scotch?
It’s half past nine in the morning…
Great Aunt Ellen had just explained that for the first time in a generation she and Great Uncle Charlie could not host the family's annual Thanksgiving get-together. It seems that over the weekend Great Uncle Charlie tried to repair a drain in the kitchen sink, and the federal hazmat teams will not be finished with the house until mid-January.
This news did not make Mom all that happy. The last time she was in charge of hosting a family get-together was the Christmas best remembered for the Canine Culinary Calamity in which the humans dined on canned corned beef from the Speedway while Carl the Dog and Bernie The Schnauzer feasted on the spiral-sliced ham that was forgotten at the bottom of Grandma and Grandpa’s garbage bag of gifts.
"Must prepare. Need help. Everyone coming here in a week. No time. Oh God. No time."
"Mom," shouted Todd Junior from the upstairs bathroom, "Do we have more bath towels?"
"Why Dear?"
"Because there are only nine in here, and it doesn't look like that's going to be enough to soak up all the toilet water on the floor."
A Fourth of July Primer
Well, here it is – the Fourth of July Weekend!
Sweaty Americans from sea to shining sea will be dumping something like 150 million bags of crushed ice over 1.1 billion cans of beer in coolers, throwing a diet coke or two in for the wife, and heading for any place where they can find a little bit of sunshine and a lot of other sweaty Americans. It's how we like to celebrate our nation’s independence.
Most of us know that our country was founded on the inalienable right to wear tank tops and flip-flops, eat brats, play Frisbee, and develop heat stroke. In the interest of our long-term success as the ultimate lawn-party nation, I thought we might take a few minutes here and go over some of the finer points of the big day.
Another Special Father's Day
This past weekend was the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. Each year thousands of latter day Druids celebrate the first instant of the summer season. They congregate to share, discuss and revel in their spiritual awakening at sacred places like southern England's Stonehenge or east Ann Arbor's Denny's.
With the Solstice falling on Saturday, there was a pretty aggressive Summer Solstice party here at the lake this year, as measured in BBD (Beers Before Dark) units. I didn't actually make it out to join the celebration, but judging from the happy revelers washing up on our beach wearing Jager Bomb tee shirts and beatific smiles, it was a big success.
