Wrap Up...

Everything's wrapping up.  TV shows are finished for the fall, shows ended, seasons are winding down.  Solstice is in 2 days, Christmas in 6,  then New Years.  It still doesn't feel like the holidays.  Maybe that's something that no longer happens.   

When I was younger, there was something in the air around the holidays that's just gone.  I don't think it's coming back & that's sad for those that never got to know it.  I hope something fills that space for them, but it won't be jingle bells, ho ho ho, deck the walls, Santa Claus, mistletoe & all that stuff...  Maybe Lucy finally got her real estate.  

Have a happy holiday.

Cya...

Sympathy & Cringing

We all experience the cringe moments.  Personal cringes are bad enough, but those of others can be downright painful.  Their common TV fodder, some people enjoy watching these moments of shame and anguish.  Some of us have developed over-active senses of sympathy and can't bear to watch what we know is about to happen.

Lucy and Charlie Brown are perfect examples.  We know at some point Lucy is going to get him to kick that football.  Just like when we see people on television or even in real life traipse ever closer to the precipice of a cringe-worthy act.   You want to warn them, but you know they won't/can't listen.  The best you can do is hide your face, like a kid hiding from the monsters under a blanket. Then it happens...

Lucy pulls the football away, for the 1,000th time.  Part of you wants to say shame on you Lucy for taking advantage of that ludicrously stupid Charlie Brown yet again,.  I mean, doesn't it get old?  Guess not, the gag keeps running.  But in the end, it's Charlie Brown who's responsible.  He should know better by now.  Still, he keeps kicking at that football on his quixotic quest and we keep on cringing.

After all is said & done, were left where we've been so many times before, cringing, sympathetic & annoyed.  There is only so many times we can see this before it is intolerable.  We have to accept the fact that some people in this word are just masochists and others like to take advantage of the situation.

These moments of cringe-worthiness are hard to handle on television, but are far more intolerable in real life.  Like a friend that waits to study for the test until the last minute & wonders why he failed.  The parent who never disciplined their child or told it "no", and now has a rampaging brat of a teenager.  But even worse is what happened in and is now still happening post the shooting in Arizona.

The shooting was tragic, beyond the cringe, but demanding sympathy.  The fallout is what will be the cringe-worthy event to start 2011 off with the proverbial sword rattling.  Already people are blaming this or that party, that thought on guns, the congresswoman's politics or a dozen other things.  What matters here is that people were hurt and now instead of showing sympathy and compassion, some people want to throw salt on the wounds, like the politicos & Fred Phelps.

Sometimes cringes turn to tragedies.  Sometimes there is no learning curve to avoid to disaster. So people really are just vultures waiting for others pain.  Now I can get a kick out of schadenfreude with the best of them.  But actions like Fred Phelp's plan to protest these peoples' funeral was just sadistic and evil.

The best thing about this situation with Mr. Phelps, is even though he has the right to spew his hate, we have the right not to listen and just walk away.   We can focus instead on compassion & kindness.

First Snow

It snowed for the first time this season.  Driving on snow and ice tells you a lot about how people view life.  Some people are so afraid of the white stuff they absolutely refuse to even go out the door.  Other's race through it like maniacs speeding to their deaths.  While some of us calmly get in our cars and cautiously proceed wherever we need to go.  Icy roads like many things in life demand respect.  If you're halfway smart and respectful of your situation you can get through it.  If not you should just stay home.

It's January, so according to Lucy it's perfect snow flake catching time.  She was always my favorite Peanuts character.  Followed closely by Linus, but he needed props, so it goes to his sister.  The Van Pelt family was my fav family of the comic.  Rerun had his soliloquies of near death on his mother's bike and his deftness with handling Lucy.  Linus had his orations, philosophies & unshakable beliefs.  But Lucy, she was just Lucy; an angry, manipulative, romantic, cunning ball of fury.   She was smart but fallible.  She was the obstacle that Charlie Brown had to overcome.  Lucy Van Pelt was the Peanut's version of Coyote.   Snoopy was her nemesis like Coyote's Duck.

I know the easy character to like is Snoopy, he is funny, but he's easy.  You're supposed to like the beagle, he's Charlie Brown's funny man.  I never really care for the accepted center of any ensemble cast as much as I do for some of it's side members.  I prefer Lucy to Charlie, Niles to Fraiser, Chloe to Clark Kent, etc...

How did I go from driving on snow to second tier characters from comics and television?  Easy, how you drive in the snow, who you like in a show, what you eat first on a plate, these may all be little things but they speak volumes about you and what type of person you are at heart.  Keep that in mind, you never know what your giving away to someone actually pays attention to these things.