It's Spring!!

The birds are singing; the spring bleeze a-waftin'; the daffodils about to be a'bloomin'.

Oh. It's.... global warming. Actually, let's hope the daffodils aren't going to start blooming now. (Note the date of the article on that link. An especially bad day for Ms. Planet Earth, no?)

Actually, it's December. Although sometimes this warm weather freaks me out a little, I can just pretend I'm back in Louisiana. So where's my crawfish pie and dacquiri, ma cherie?



December, of course, means THE HOLIDAYS. Actually, there is part of me that likes this time of year, though there's another part of me that's loathe to admit it. Many of my friends who tend to be rather anti-social these days (mainly b/c of the B-A-B-I-E-S) actually come out of the woodwork a little. There's parties, and I'm usually a fan of parties and potlucks. And it is nice to go home and visit my father and my grandmother and gorge myself on cajun food.

I also have a deep abiding love of Christmas lights, probably due to the many years I spent in Natchitoches, LA, the City of Lights. So if people wanna string all sorts of crazy madness all of their yards, I'm hip.

Mainly, though, I stay rather disconnected from the shopping hoopla. I watch little TV and tend to avoid shopping centers. Gluttonous consumption, even in the name of giving, makes me a little ill. Inevitably, though, I end up at Pierre Bossier Mall in Bossier City, LA--the mall of my teen years, usually on the 23rd of Xmas Eve, and I usually need that family-sized dacquiri by the end of it all.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm ambivalent about Christmas. I've never been a practicing Christian, even as a child, so certainly it means nothing to me whether there's "a Christ in Christmas"--actually, now that I think about it, I'd prefer if there weren't. Though I must admit, I find it highly ironic that this oh-so-important Christian holiday has been totally co-opted by rampant commercialism. How bloody American. Shopping in the name of the Lord. Wal-Mart, anyone?

Actually, if you want to do some gift-shopping, I'd highly recommend that you do it here.

Let's get this party started right...

OK--My plan was for this blog to be contemplative, thoughtful, a pondering of small things and ordinary events. A digging in, a journal of sorts. a peaceful meandering.

But instead . . . it's going to start as a rant.

Tonight, I was watching the Simpsons after work on WBN (i think that's what it's called). A commercial byte came on for the local news, and said something like this: "While some triangle residents are having some holiday cheer, others may find it hard to celebrate as more troops are deployed to Iraq. What does this mean for the holiday shopping season? Find out tonight etc. etc blah blah blah."

!!!?

More people are being sent to a country to kill or be killed. Death. Nonstop death. Yet what's of concern? Why, the economy, that's what we're gonna talk about. What those troop deployments mean for profits. (And yes, i realize that troop deployments are devasting for local economies, but does this really need to be the bloody focus of the commercial discussing troop deployment--does the news really have to take that economic spin on people being sent to die and to kill?)

I can't take it anymore. So much stupid waste and stupid greed. I'm sick of this country, sick of the South, sick of feeling paralyzed in the face of sheer insanity--like one of those dreams where you're trying to scream for help but can't seem to make your voice work, or you're trying to call 911 and you keep dialing the numbers wrong. I'm angry. I'm depressed. AND I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.

I want to have hope that things will get better, that we're not headed for some dreadful fall. But really, you know, we are.

Sorry to be so morbid. I will try very hard to talk about something more cheery next time, like pomengrantes or piping hot tea or how beautiful the light is this time of year, the particular deep blue of the sky, the leaves falling

when i was a little girl, i used to chase the leaves as they fell from the trees--i had to catch them because if they hit the ground, the world would end, BOOM! but it was only certain leaves i'd have to catch, and wouldn't you know it, the ones that hit the ground were always the ones that wouldn't explode.