R.I.P. Benazir Bhutto

I listened to an NPR interview a few weeks ago with Bhutto while she was under house arrest. Her defiant words toward the Pakistani regime and her insistence on the right of Pakistanis to hold democratic elections were remarkable, especially considering her position. Bhutto was one of the most courageous people in contemporary politics, and she will be missed.

NTD

We're heading to my Dad's today. I always wonder what gifts he will present us with - wonderful things which I imagine would have serious applications in an alternative universe. However, here on planet Earth, the usefulness of almost anything he has found in some obscure catalog is in serious doubt. The goodies usually involve being plugged into cigarette lighters or require batteries and include a large booklet of directions. And they're never the Hammacher-Schlemmer variety of gadgets - they're more like the knockoffs being closed out due to VERY GOOD REASONS.

We generally spend the next six months insisting to Daddy that the miniature electrobroom or the battery-operated tic tac toe game are indispensable to our everyday lives. Since the items are safely tucked away - frequently unopened - in the closet, we hope that he never asks for a demonstration.

But if love was the measure of a gift's worth, my father couldn't do better by us if he wrapped up a handful of diamonds.

NTD

A Quote for the Season

People can't concentrate properly on blowing other people to pieces if their minds are poisoned by thoughts suitable to the twenty-fifth of December. ~Ogden Nash

NTD

Merry Something To All

Although the agnostic fairies visited me years ago and took away any dogma surrounding This Special Season, my kneejerk reaction to sending customers from my shop remains those same two words I learned in my youth - Merry Christmas. However, in order to avoid unsmiling radical lesbian Wiccan shoppers who seem to enjoy nothing more than an overlong explanation of why those two words - M.C. - are a lingering symptom of my enslavement to the patriarchal system, I have learned to wish you and yours a mere Happy Holidays instead. Have a joyous KwanzHannukahful New Year too.

It was a long holiday retail month - kinda slow till the last week, which makes the season excruciating. Shop talk would have to include the following - an employee who belongs in Clerks 3: Revenge of the Bitter College Graduate, one flim flam artist, the usual shoplifters, timewasters, and the occasional kindly patron who actually buys assorted merchandise with great courtesy and wads of cash money. And I thank the retail gods for that last category.

NTD

It's Getting Sirius

I gave up and bought a pair of Sirius radio receivers yesterday. While I waxed on about the beauty of holiday music yesterday, I have my own limitations. For instance, an employee attempted to play the entire Christmas with the Chipmunks CD at my store the other day while there were living, breathing customers with credit cards present. Another clerk ratted her out to me. And this other clerk has been repeatedly caught blaring Euro-noise metal which is almost as effective as chipmunk tunes for encourage store patrons to proceed to the nearest exit empty-handed.

I blame myself. I have been allowing employees to use their own judgment in choosing the music for their shifts.

I should have nipped this in the bud months ago when I caught the chipmunk clerk playing Christian soft rock within earshot of my beloved stoner customer base. I said nothing, but found a copy of the Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" and cranked it up. But I didn't forbid the God CDs. Or the relentless Jack Johnson album she is happy to play twelve times daily.

The other employee is not particularly fond of humanity. Therefore, angry industrial noise and hate-em-all metal are the logical choices in her universe.

But my store is neither a church or a nihilist brew pub. And because sales are generally down this holiday season, I can't afford to continue to humor my sensitive staff with their idiosyncratic musical tastes.

After all, just because I might enjoy the musical stylings of Mindless Self-Indulgence or a particular Loggins and Messina tune doesn't mean that I am going to force them on my customers at work.

From now on, it's either: Garage Rock (channel 25); First Wave Classic Alternative (channel 22); The Vault (channel 16); Pure Jazz (channel 72); or Blues (channel 74).

Circle/Slash Jack Johnson, German electronica and Jesus music.

NTD

I own so much Christmas music - CDs, vinyl, and cassettes - that friends hold this against me. They don't want to hear the Spice Girls singing "Sleigh Ride"... or anyone else, for that matter. My daughters implore me not to play any holiday CDs around them. I have Christmas tunes shredded by Steve Vai, rapped by Death Row Records artists, slammed by The Waitresses and rasped by The Opal Foxx Quartet; harmonized by the Beach Boys and jammed out by Widespread Panic; drag queened by RuPaul , funked up by James Brown, and run over by Elmo and Patsy. There's parodies like "Schlep the Halls with Loaves of Hallah" and there's soul remakes by Otis Redding.

The children seem to hate all of it.

I can find my inner Ebenezer pretty easily myself, and usually the only glimmer of Christmas spirit which can dissipate my grinchiness is found in music - whether it is Los Straitjackets' surf guitar on "Jingle Bell Rock" or "Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin' " by Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. But I try to limit it work and automobile, and remind myself to mix it up with non-holiday music. And I sell a holiday CD on occasion, just to keep the music flowing elsewhere.

This morning I sold a rarity on Amazon - Christmas at Luke's Sex Shop (1993). For those a little younger or a little older than me, this was a musical offering by Luke Skyywalker, a member of 2 Live Crew. I tried to like this one, but Luke's Sex Shop was harder to listen to than Mitch Miller and the Gang's version of "Give Peace a Chance". I hope that the new owner, a Mr. Weaver from Tennessee, might enjoy this album more.

NTD (listening to Victoria Williams' "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas")

Last night I dreamed that I had hitched a moped to a bulldozer and was trying to haul the dozer on mere scooter power up a sandy country road.

Interpretation, anybody?

NTD

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful. - Alice Walker

NTD

Thursday

In less than three hours (!) my Dad had one W-9 form and two standard contracts completed. Sometimes, you know, the internet doesn't make things easier. And yet, somehow we're supposed to be grateful.

Personally, I heart my snail mail.

So today I rewarded myself with a Christmas shopping trip to Savannah. Many decades ago, I lived there. I received my first kiss from a drunken preacher's son, graduated from high school, and managed to marry twice, all within the city limits of Savannah. These days I only venture over there occasionally. Maybe it was early Christmas traffic, but I kept wondering: where did these millions of cars come from? And where did the trees go?

But I got a great deal of shopping done in less than three hours, and got to eat at the favorite restaurant of my youth - Carey Hilliard's. I can't remember what was so good about it... the food is admittedly mediocre to my aging taste buds. But for years and years, it was the place to hang out with friends. It still feels like going to Grandma's house, but Grandma is gone.

I think that I'll start wrapping presents tonight.

NTD

Another Work Day with Daddy

My dad will be here any minute. My father is 75 and one of the most technologically unskilled men of this century. He has chosen me to become his official internet guide.

Today we are planning to create an e-mail address for him. Of course, I will be the one checking it since I have to re-train him to use the mouse every time we sit down in front of the computer.

I shouldn't complain. He has a sense of humor, and we try to use every computer hour logged as a time to joke together about modern society. The difficulty is that he is struggling to remain relevant in the insurance industry. At 75, I wonder whether he needs to keep this up. Unfortunately, he says that he cannot afford to retire.

So today we have to fill out several more insurance company forms online and hope that the magic works. We struggled for hours a couple of weeks ago, only to learn that Mozilla was not compatible with the company files and that Adobe 8 reader was not in the mood to download onto my aging Dell. But I think that I have it straightened out today. God, at least I hope so.

NTD

I ran out of coffee, so I am pretending that a steaming cup of hot tea can provide exactly the same jolt to get the words flowing.

So far, results are disappointing.

NTD

Jazz Wisdom

Do not fear mistakes. There are none. - Miles Davis

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong. - Ella Fitzgerald

NTD

Quickie Mart Mafioso

I have been approached by convenience store operators who live nearby about my shop. They have a sudden interest in purchasing it. Here's the kicker: they want to pay me in cash for the bulk of a hypothetical purchase price. And they need to invest ASAP, as in before the first of January.

Number One: I am not really interested in selling my shop. But I was talking to them, mostly out of curiosity regarding what they could offer, along with their disinterest in hearing the words "no thanks".

Number Two: What the heck do they think a person like me would do with tens of thousands of dollars in cash which they implore me not to bother reporting to the IRS? Stash it under my mattress, so that they could continue to launder money in peace? I pay taxes annually and before April 15th, thank you. I feel waves of paranoia when I deduct mileage for a trip to Sam's Club because I might buy a boxful of groceries while I'm there. While the rest of the entrepreneurial universe might think this could be one honey of a deal, I'm seeing FBI badges and a decade in prison for some combination of helping Al Qaeda and receiving drug money from this trio of dudes I know nothing about besides their obsession with blingy gold chains and their flirtatious Wild and Crazy Foreign Guy mannerisms.

Although I complain about the ups and downs of business, I consider my store like a long-term marriage which is comfortable but not always exciting. The pace gives me time to write, to hang out with my children and friends, and there's always enough to pay the bills. I will probably eventually move on, but I want to have something else in the works before that decision is made.

I just wonder how long it will take the bling mafia to give up and go away.

NTD

R.I.P. Mayre Kurichi

My daughters' Aunt Mayre died last week. She was ninety four. My youngest daughter accompanied my ex-husband to the service today. There she learned a few startling things, such as this: an official grave-digging, even for the cremated remains of a person, cost two thousand dollars at this particular cemetery. The adults were grumbling about it. I thought that she heard wrong, but a quick online check confirmed that "opening/closing the gravesite" was indeed an expensive process.

Just put me in a coffee can, a la The Big Lebowski.

NTD