It's the day after Thanksgiving, which means that the Christmas Season is officially upon us. Rather than join some consumer fracas at a nearby shopping outlet, having our courage and stamina tested by the flying elbows of other shoppers and our will to live sapped by ceaseless, repetitive, maddening holiday ballads, Gwen I have decided instead to stay at home, relax, and begin the season with our own holiday ritual: heavy drinking.
Kidding. The ritual of which I speak, of course, is The Tree. First erected in 2002, and now a seasonal tradition, it's one of my favorite things about the holidays. Gwen's too.
Rest assured that there will be more to follow (with photos) once the Tree is standing tall and set to illuminate the holidays. In the meantime, to keep appetites whetted, here is a flashback, to the 2006 version.
And now to other matters.
According to official documents, I turned 32 years old last Monday. Birthday festivities were minimal this year, mostly by my choice, but also by the fact that sheer numbers of people, with whom I could celebrate the day, were missing. We're in Europe for Pete's sake. (And speaking of Pete, even HE was away, being recently tasked with a two-week stint elsewhere in Germany to help with the medical reintegration of a unit returning from the desert.)
Despite the minimalism, my birthday was quite pleasant. I spent the early portion (midnight to roughly 2 am) watching the late football games. After a relatively uneventful work day, I fired up, on a lark, the Transformers Soundtrack during my drive home from work. It was cold and rainy outside of the car, to be sure, but inside the vehicle my heart was warm and aglow with the sweet musical stylings of the immortal Stan Bush. In my (now 32) years I've learned that if you want to feel good about yourself out of nowhere and on short notice, you'd be wise to fire up "You got the Touch" and "Dare" in quick succession on any nearby musical device. Not only will the hairs on the back of your neck stand up as you learn that "when all hell's breakin' loose, you'll be right in the eye of the storm" and that "you never bend, you never break - you're a winner", but additionally you will find that your spirit soars while you reaffirm the ultimate truism, again supplied by Stan, that: "You can win - if you dare."
And I dare. Even at age 32.
Gwen and I went to dinner at our favorite Himalayan haunt that evening, and then retired to Man Room for some Planet Earth viewing - in Blu-Ray. The series, a gift from Gwendolyn for this particular occasion, is impressive. I don't know anyone sane who doesn't enjoy a good nature show, and from what I've seen so far this particular nature show takes the cake. Narrated by the cast-iron voiced Richard Attenborough, of "Trials of Life" fame, I can honestly pronounce that a man hasn't lived until he's seen a Great White shark breach, at 1/40th speed, its entire body out of the water, a hapless and doomed seal clutched in its gargantuan jaws, its soulless black eyes staring menacingly at nothing, a million water droplets - testament to the surface eruption - spraying, moving so slowly that they seem to crawl across the screen, in full BLU-RAY 1080i, colors and contrasts all brilliantly displayed, the trials of life indeed on full display... Now this is a ****ing nature show! Viagra for the male brain.
I would be remiss in not mentioning that Gwendolyn (who was responsible for all the successes of the day - even the Transformers Soundtrack reaffirmations; she had bought me the CD on a prior birthday) also cooked me a scrumptious chocolate on chocolate on ice cream dessert for the occasion. Absolutely delicious. Aside from Planet Earth, there were other gifts, including a gaming headset (for my growing obsession with TF2) and a pet puppy! To clarify, this is my new pet, named Tekno, and though at times electronically demonic (especially the colored eyes) also quite hilarious. So again very nice work by Gwendolyn. I'll go ahead and place this particular birthday in the "success" column.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving, which we spent at Gwen's boss's house. It was a nice event, marred only slightly by the anxiety of being on call, which we both were, and are. The whole call fiasco necessitated taking separate cars.
On Wednesday night, before Thanksgiving, and more importantly before call, we went to the local cinema and caught a show of "Beowulf", which I'm told is the latest in the new wave of hyper-stylized digital film making. Supposedly the movie is visually spectacular in a 3D viewing arena, but we settled merely for a normal old-fashioned theater. And visually the movie is pretty good in every respect but the human face, which still comes off as mostly creepy and animatronic.
The movie itself is middling, in my opinion. It had its moments I guess, but overall it fell kind of a flat. If feels like a "300" cousin in style ("I...AM...BEOWULF!" sounds remarkably like "THIS...IS...SPARTA!"), but not as good as that (also just OK, in my opinion) film. What I'll mostly take away, other than some over the top stylized Angelina Jolie near soft-porn, is the scene in which Beowulf fights Grendel - naked. It's kind of a head-scratcher. He (Beowulf) no sooner arrives at the Great Hall (briefly attending a feast so he can proclaim himself the greatest hero ever), only to disrobe completely a few moments later while everyone attempts to lure the creature, and explains this odd action by declaring boldly that Grendel "fights with neither sword nor armor, and thus neither will I". And when Grendel (portrayed as some sort of giant, strong, uglier gollum, and troubled constantly by the mother of all earaches) does arrive, he too is in the buff. What ensues - in a ridiculous spectacle - is a sculpted and naked Beowulf acrobatically flipping around the Great Hall, alternating attacks with dodges, (his package always covered by some shadow, candlestick, sword of one of his men also engaged with the creature, Grendel's shoulder, something), his long golden hair whipping around, like some sort of homoerotic, nordic ninja. The only reason I wasn't laughing outright was because I was still caught, for most of the fight, in the shock of the sheer disbelief of what I was seeing. It was most odd. But also quite fabulous!
Apparently, Beowulf too, knows that, he can win if he dares.
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