Sunday, December 04, 2005

Friday I was leading some visitors from Shanghai across campus (Robin, Kevin, and my man Pinocchio). We have a semi-annual art fair outside my office and I had to walk them through the art fair to get to campus.

"Uh..." said Robin.
"Yes?" I said.
"What is that?" He was pointing at someone dressed in a full-body Grinch costume.
"That's the Grinch. He, uh... he tries to steal Christmas."
There was some blinking going on. "He's from a children's story."
"Ohhhhhhh..." and they all ran off to take pictures of the Grinch.
"Uhhhhmmm..." they said as we walked along a little further.
"Yes?"
"Does nobody here work on Friday?"
"Uh..." I looked around. Who the heck ARE these people who aren't working on Friday afternoon? Sure, I saw a lot of retirees, but I also saw a lot of people who should have been at work. "I suppose maybe they... I'll be honest... I have no idea."
"What is...?"
"What is this for?"
"Yes."
"It's sort of an art fair. For Christmas."
They sort of stared at me.
"Christmas is a Holiday. It's, uhmm..." I looked at the 3-foot carved wooden rabbit statues for sale and tried to figure out how to tie the kernel corn, crappy street magic show and guy playing steel drums in a tent nearby to the birth of Christ.
"People exchange a lot of presents. It's a family holiday."
"Ah...."
"And, you know, the Grinch tries to steal all of that."
Anyway, I sort of miss Kevin, Robin and my man, Pinocchio. They were going to Vegas for the weekend, and all i could do to forewarn them was tell them to preset a spending limit. Hope they had fun.

Huzzah!

The Phoenix Suns are looking like they're going to be a lot of fun again this season. It's taken me a bit, but I feel like I know who the current roster is (only to be scrubbed during trades later in the season), and I think Mike D'Antoni has put together a pretty darn good squad.

Consider: Amare and Leandro haven't been able to play and we were still up by as much as 32 points during tonight's contest with the insanely bad Atlanta Hawks (for Atlanta Leaguers, you have my synpathies). Also, Grant is out for a bit. Your Phoenix Suns are as strong off the bench as they were off the bench last season, if not more so.

I was sad for Joe Johnson and the Hawks who seem like they need a great deal of team counseling. Good GOD, man, is that a team in disarray. Joe was one of our starters here last year, and he's still got a place in my heart. Sadly, the $70 million the Hawks offered Joe had a big place in HIS heart, so we lost him.

Anyhoo, Go SUNS.

Further, anyone watch the Big 12 Championship Game?

I'll be honest, The League is a bit of a "glass is half-empty" sort of guy. I dropped Judy off at the airport on Saturday and went shopping for Christmas decorations rather than watching the first half of the game. I just couldn't take it. I just want for UT to get to the Rose Bowl, but if we were going to blow the Big 12 Championship, I couldn't stand to bear witness.

Luckily, not so much a problem. What was the score? 70 to 3?

I don't care if you don't care about sports. 70 TO 3. And that was with NO points in the 4th quarter from UT.

Wow.

We did go and get some decorations and League HQ is now a Holiday Wonderland! Our tree is lovely and red. We have red glass ornaments, red bead garland and a big red star atop the tree (Jamie is a devout Maoist). Superman, Spidey and the gang have all found spots among the branches, and, heck, Leaguers, it's all pretty festive. And let me tell you, Jamie deserves some festiveness right now.

I think I'll take a few photos and see what ya'll think.

No comments: