I really don't like the song The Christmas Shoes.
To me, there doesn't really seem to be any redeeming spiritual or Christmassy point to the song. It's constructed with the sole purpose of yanking at your heartstrings to make you very, very sad. (I've had this conversation with many people)
The other day, Kim and I were discussing how somewhere, there had to be some machine which mathematically calculated the sadness quotient of every possible story element in order to discover the saddest song that could possibly be created. The result was The Christmas Shoes. Then the scientists grew very, very wealthy.
(Now, this is only my opinion. If you love the song, that's fine. I promise we don't have to fight about it; I also promise I'm holding back in my personal criticism here, so if you really want to fight about it, I can give you something to cry about)
(Okay, not really, but I've been meaning to make an "I'll give you something to cry about" threat on this blog for a while now, and this just seemed like a good time. But seriously, if you are a fan of the song, that's great. We all have different tastes, and I'm cool with that)
Anyway, this evening, Tarvis and I decided that we, too, could use a little extra cash, so we brainstormed to try to come up with the next Christmas Shoes. What story elements would it take to write the second saddest song in existence? We thought about it for awhile, and I think we came up with a real winner!
Now, I originally planned to come on here tonight and type out the synopsis for all of you to read for yourselves, but then I realized somebody else would stumble upon it, steal it, and get very, very rich. So I'm not going to do that. (Besides, it's entirely possible that this particular brand of humor may be going just a TOUCH too far for some of our readers, and I want to keep WBW a safe place for all!) So, if you REALLY want to know about our brilliant idea, and if you're ready to be very, very sad, you can ask me in person. I'll share it with you. We need a nice broad test audience anyway.
I can give you just a hint, though:
The Christmas Pony.
Eh? Are you sad yet??
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Day Three-Hundred Twenty-Two: November Goal of the Month
Very tired. Fell asleep at three last night and couldn't settle down to take a nap after the Texans, well, were the Texans. Again. So, a bit of a filler post tonight.
You all remember the awesome Cal Clutterbuck goal I posted a while back? This one's better and, assuming there will be nothing that eclipses its awesomeness in any of tonight or tomorrow's games, I'm going to go ahead and proclaim this the official WBW Goal of the Month.
You all remember the awesome Cal Clutterbuck goal I posted a while back? This one's better and, assuming there will be nothing that eclipses its awesomeness in any of tonight or tomorrow's games, I'm going to go ahead and proclaim this the official WBW Goal of the Month.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Day Three-Hundred Twenty-One: The Tree Is Up
Tonight, the Christmas tree is up. This was the first time Robbie helped us decorate, and he really seemed to enjoy it. His favorite ornaments to hang were the colored glass balls because they had the hooks that he could get onto the tree limbs fairly easily. He's really getting into all of the holiday stuff this year, which I'm excited about.
This is Robbie's third Christmas. The first year, he really wasn't terribly mobile, so we were able to set him down underneath the tree, and he'd stare up at it from his back with wide eyes. Last year, he was running around and getting a kick out of playing with wrapping paper for the first time. This year, he's a part of it all. He gets excited when he sees Christmas lights while we're in the car. He wants to help decorate the tree. He loves listening and dancing to the music. He's old enough to hear the stories and understand them. He can learn songs and repeat them now. He has a very keen understanding of the word "present" for the first time in his life. He's also learning the concepts of sharing and turn-taking, so those will come in handy when it's time to hand out presents for everybody on the big day. In a lot of ways, this is starting to feel like Robbie's first true Christmas. I'm so pleased and excited to be sharing it with him.
This is Robbie's third Christmas. The first year, he really wasn't terribly mobile, so we were able to set him down underneath the tree, and he'd stare up at it from his back with wide eyes. Last year, he was running around and getting a kick out of playing with wrapping paper for the first time. This year, he's a part of it all. He gets excited when he sees Christmas lights while we're in the car. He wants to help decorate the tree. He loves listening and dancing to the music. He's old enough to hear the stories and understand them. He can learn songs and repeat them now. He has a very keen understanding of the word "present" for the first time in his life. He's also learning the concepts of sharing and turn-taking, so those will come in handy when it's time to hand out presents for everybody on the big day. In a lot of ways, this is starting to feel like Robbie's first true Christmas. I'm so pleased and excited to be sharing it with him.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Day Three-Hundred Twenty: High Culture
Tonight, Kim and I went to the Houston Ballet to see The Nutcracker. Kim had been wanting to go for several years (basically since we moved to Houston) so for her birthday this year I went ahead and bought the tickets. Plus, since my folks knew they were going to be in town from Wednesday till Sunday this week, they asked if we might want to get away tonight and borrow their hotel room while they stayed home with the Robbie-meister. And bada-bing, we had a real, honest-to-goodness, romantic date on the schedule.
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Anyway, the ballet was very good. The artistry of every aspect was simply top-notch. As I usually do when I go to see, well, anything (ballet, theatre, baseball, hockey), I bought balcony tickets. (Cheapest, and you can see EVERYTHING!) What I didn't realize at the time, however, was exactly how STEEP the Wortham Center is! I think the back wall of the balcony was probably about fourteen feet from the lip of the stage. That's an exaggeration, but walking into the theater for the first time, it didn't feel like one. It took about half an hour to keep from getting dizzy when I looked down at the stage, but eventually Kim and I both managed to adjust and enjoy the show.
My only quibble, and I've seen the Nutcracker twice and this is how it's been staged both time, so I dunno that it's HB's fault, and I understand part of it is the nature of the medium, but every featured couple in the second got THREE separate breaks for applause. We applauded after each piece, which was appropriate, I thought. Then, the last big piece in the second act serves as a sort of "curtain call," as each pair comes out once more, one at a time, and dances a little extra, so we applaud again. But then, forty seconds later, the show is ACTUALLY over, and then we have the real curtain cal, where everybody gets yet another individual bow. Which, of course, takes forever. It was actually kind of comical tonight, because the audience was getting a little tired of applauding by the time the prima ballerina was ready to take her bow, so things kind of died down until the conductor came on stage, when everybody got loud again.
Then, there was the second full company bow of the night, and the crowd went wild. Then, the cast retreated upstage, and the applause died down a bit, but they bowed again, so the applause briefly picked up somewhat, then died down significantly. Then, the cast rushed downstage and took a full company bow again, this time with very little pickup from the confused audience. They retreated upstage once more, and they started to bow AGAIN when the screen came down in front of them.
The falling of the screen received the loudest applause of the night.
Also funny: the dancers did this incredibly complex and gorgeous ballet in excellent sync, but in the five full-company bows they took, not ONCE could they managed to bow all together. And they got worse as they went on. By the final bow, some of them didn't even bother to do it. Good thing that screen came down when it did.
Of course, this is a minor quibble. On the whole, the show was awesome and fun, and I never found myself wondering how much time had passed, or what time it was. And, while I'm probably making the ensemble sound a bit self-important here, I also want to point out that they all applauded enthusiastically for the orchestra, so I thought that was cool.
Tomorrow, maybe I'll tell you all about my hotel experience earlier this evening, which reminded me a little of one particular scene from an episode from the first season of Heroes.
Stay tuned.
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Anyway, the ballet was very good. The artistry of every aspect was simply top-notch. As I usually do when I go to see, well, anything (ballet, theatre, baseball, hockey), I bought balcony tickets. (Cheapest, and you can see EVERYTHING!) What I didn't realize at the time, however, was exactly how STEEP the Wortham Center is! I think the back wall of the balcony was probably about fourteen feet from the lip of the stage. That's an exaggeration, but walking into the theater for the first time, it didn't feel like one. It took about half an hour to keep from getting dizzy when I looked down at the stage, but eventually Kim and I both managed to adjust and enjoy the show.
My only quibble, and I've seen the Nutcracker twice and this is how it's been staged both time, so I dunno that it's HB's fault, and I understand part of it is the nature of the medium, but every featured couple in the second got THREE separate breaks for applause. We applauded after each piece, which was appropriate, I thought. Then, the last big piece in the second act serves as a sort of "curtain call," as each pair comes out once more, one at a time, and dances a little extra, so we applaud again. But then, forty seconds later, the show is ACTUALLY over, and then we have the real curtain cal, where everybody gets yet another individual bow. Which, of course, takes forever. It was actually kind of comical tonight, because the audience was getting a little tired of applauding by the time the prima ballerina was ready to take her bow, so things kind of died down until the conductor came on stage, when everybody got loud again.
Then, there was the second full company bow of the night, and the crowd went wild. Then, the cast retreated upstage, and the applause died down a bit, but they bowed again, so the applause briefly picked up somewhat, then died down significantly. Then, the cast rushed downstage and took a full company bow again, this time with very little pickup from the confused audience. They retreated upstage once more, and they started to bow AGAIN when the screen came down in front of them.
The falling of the screen received the loudest applause of the night.
Also funny: the dancers did this incredibly complex and gorgeous ballet in excellent sync, but in the five full-company bows they took, not ONCE could they managed to bow all together. And they got worse as they went on. By the final bow, some of them didn't even bother to do it. Good thing that screen came down when it did.
Of course, this is a minor quibble. On the whole, the show was awesome and fun, and I never found myself wondering how much time had passed, or what time it was. And, while I'm probably making the ensemble sound a bit self-important here, I also want to point out that they all applauded enthusiastically for the orchestra, so I thought that was cool.
Tomorrow, maybe I'll tell you all about my hotel experience earlier this evening, which reminded me a little of one particular scene from an episode from the first season of Heroes.
Stay tuned.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Day Three-Hundred Nineteen: Light Up the Night Sky
Happy Thanksgiving (or Black Friday, depending on when you're reading this)!
Ours was really great. (That right there is an Awesome Writer Sentence, by the way) I'm currently on the lappy in my bedroom (turns out, you can get public access Wi-Fi in my apartment, but only from my closet floor) so I won't be online long, sine this is an unsecured connection and there are Bad People out there. Just enough time to update the blog and do some quick research for my next play.
Went with the whole family to see the Thanksgiving fireworks/ Christmas light lighting/ whatever else at the Galleria tonight. We parked a decent distance away, and the night was beautiful, so we got a nice walk in. Robbie rode happily in his stroller, clutching with both hands the band new John Deere dump truck his Nanny and Grandaddy gave him (he let that thing out of his sight twice all day, and "nap time" was not part of the twice). When the fireworks started to blow, he sat in his stroller and watched, eyes wide, but he confided to Kim that it was "a little bit scary." So I picked him up, and he watched the rest of the show with his head leaning on my shoulder and one hand clutching the bucket of his dump truck. For awhile, he tried to name all of the colors as they came up (Purple! And red! And purple! Yellow! Blue! Purple!), but this pursuit was eventually abandoned. When it was over, he cheerfully said "Yaaaay" with everyone else, then turned to me and said, "I want to go home." He had a good time, but it was already past bed time and he was one tired boy.
One surprising moment for me came during the show's grand finale. From where we were standing, it was difficult to hear the music over the noise of the explosions for the most part, but as the show reached its climax I very distinctly heard the sound of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus in the air. That piece has been one of my favorite few minutes of music since we sang it for the first time in high school. It's such a moving, jubilant exclamation of celebration, and while I know it was only chosen because it's a famous Christmas song, and we were having Christmas fireworks, there was something almost profoundly moving, to me, in seeing the skies burst in celebration of the Lord. I know, I know, the whole shebang is the ultimate in holiday cheese, but when I saw the heavens erupt and heard the voices proclaiming "For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, hallelujah!" and "And He shall reign forever and ever!" I couldn't help but stand in awe of all that Christmas really, truly is.
It calls to my mind Psalm 19:1: "The heavens declare the glory of the Lord, the skies proclaim the work of His hands." Awesome.
And while I'm sure worship was the furthest thing from the minds of those putting the evening together, or even of 99% of the people gathered in the street tonight, still I trembled just a bit at the goodness of God tonight.
Ours was really great. (That right there is an Awesome Writer Sentence, by the way) I'm currently on the lappy in my bedroom (turns out, you can get public access Wi-Fi in my apartment, but only from my closet floor) so I won't be online long, sine this is an unsecured connection and there are Bad People out there. Just enough time to update the blog and do some quick research for my next play.
Went with the whole family to see the Thanksgiving fireworks/ Christmas light lighting/ whatever else at the Galleria tonight. We parked a decent distance away, and the night was beautiful, so we got a nice walk in. Robbie rode happily in his stroller, clutching with both hands the band new John Deere dump truck his Nanny and Grandaddy gave him (he let that thing out of his sight twice all day, and "nap time" was not part of the twice). When the fireworks started to blow, he sat in his stroller and watched, eyes wide, but he confided to Kim that it was "a little bit scary." So I picked him up, and he watched the rest of the show with his head leaning on my shoulder and one hand clutching the bucket of his dump truck. For awhile, he tried to name all of the colors as they came up (Purple! And red! And purple! Yellow! Blue! Purple!), but this pursuit was eventually abandoned. When it was over, he cheerfully said "Yaaaay" with everyone else, then turned to me and said, "I want to go home." He had a good time, but it was already past bed time and he was one tired boy.
One surprising moment for me came during the show's grand finale. From where we were standing, it was difficult to hear the music over the noise of the explosions for the most part, but as the show reached its climax I very distinctly heard the sound of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus in the air. That piece has been one of my favorite few minutes of music since we sang it for the first time in high school. It's such a moving, jubilant exclamation of celebration, and while I know it was only chosen because it's a famous Christmas song, and we were having Christmas fireworks, there was something almost profoundly moving, to me, in seeing the skies burst in celebration of the Lord. I know, I know, the whole shebang is the ultimate in holiday cheese, but when I saw the heavens erupt and heard the voices proclaiming "For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, hallelujah!" and "And He shall reign forever and ever!" I couldn't help but stand in awe of all that Christmas really, truly is.
It calls to my mind Psalm 19:1: "The heavens declare the glory of the Lord, the skies proclaim the work of His hands." Awesome.
And while I'm sure worship was the furthest thing from the minds of those putting the evening together, or even of 99% of the people gathered in the street tonight, still I trembled just a bit at the goodness of God tonight.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Day Three-Hundred Eighteen: Guest Blog #4: Christa
I'm so stoked to have my family in town! I'm also stoked that my sister is going to guest blog for me tonight!!!
For those of you who don't know my sister, you should, because she's awesome. She's probably the reason I'm so cool.
As usual, the views and opinions expressed below do not necessarily...yada yada yada. Enjoy!
**********
Okay, so first of all, I'm really not all that cool. I teach band, after all, and although band geeks rock, we all know that we aren't cool. Ever.
This whole blogging thing is pretty stressful. I don't see how you people do it! I've been starting and restarting this thing like 5 times already, and I have other things to do, but I can't find a thought and stay with it. Stupid ADD. Anyway, I guess I am writing this in tribute to all of you who can come up with a topic, actually write about it for more than two sentences without getting bored, and post blogs day after day without losing inspiration. You are all my heroes. Way to be.
And Happy Thanksgiving.
-christa
For those of you who don't know my sister, you should, because she's awesome. She's probably the reason I'm so cool.
As usual, the views and opinions expressed below do not necessarily...yada yada yada. Enjoy!
**********
Okay, so first of all, I'm really not all that cool. I teach band, after all, and although band geeks rock, we all know that we aren't cool. Ever.
This whole blogging thing is pretty stressful. I don't see how you people do it! I've been starting and restarting this thing like 5 times already, and I have other things to do, but I can't find a thought and stay with it. Stupid ADD. Anyway, I guess I am writing this in tribute to all of you who can come up with a topic, actually write about it for more than two sentences without getting bored, and post blogs day after day without losing inspiration. You are all my heroes. Way to be.
And Happy Thanksgiving.
-christa
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Day Three-Hundred Seventeen: Thankscleaning, part 3
Okay, tonight I gotta clear out space for the fold-out bed to fold out, unload the dishwasher, and vacuum if I can manage to do so without waking Robbie up. And I should be able to do that, because he sleeps through our upstairs neighbors, so it'll have to take more than a ton of noise to wake that boy up. If/when we move back to the Midwest, I don't know if the poor kid's going to be able to sleep without the constant sounds of cars, sirens, people walking just outside the window and talking loudly, cats fighting, and all the other ambient chaos just outside his window.
Very excited to have family over tomorrow. You know, I still haven't gotten over that cough I wrote about twenty-two days ago? I think I was almost there, and then a wave of something else hit me over the weekend, and now I'm actually a good bit more miserable than I have been for awhile. That'll put a slight damper on Thanksgiving/ Christa Day (my sister's birthday falls on Thursday this year), but it'd take a lot to ruin my holiday spirit.
As you'll discover, blog, over the next month-plus, I'm very into Thanksgiving, Christmas, and everything in between. It is certainly my favorite time of year, and that INCLUDES the playoffs.
Okay, that's enough for tonight. Oh, the Bible study seemed to go very well this morning, gauging by the folks who came up and talked to me afterward. Including some who don't usually comment after my Bible study sessions. Of course, I'd imagine the people who hate it when I teach probably just don't bother to come up and say anything at all, and the people who didn't comment far outweighed the people who did, so perhaps it's best not to read too much into things one way or the other.
That cat outside needs to move away.
Very excited to have family over tomorrow. You know, I still haven't gotten over that cough I wrote about twenty-two days ago? I think I was almost there, and then a wave of something else hit me over the weekend, and now I'm actually a good bit more miserable than I have been for awhile. That'll put a slight damper on Thanksgiving/ Christa Day (my sister's birthday falls on Thursday this year), but it'd take a lot to ruin my holiday spirit.
As you'll discover, blog, over the next month-plus, I'm very into Thanksgiving, Christmas, and everything in between. It is certainly my favorite time of year, and that INCLUDES the playoffs.
Okay, that's enough for tonight. Oh, the Bible study seemed to go very well this morning, gauging by the folks who came up and talked to me afterward. Including some who don't usually comment after my Bible study sessions. Of course, I'd imagine the people who hate it when I teach probably just don't bother to come up and say anything at all, and the people who didn't comment far outweighed the people who did, so perhaps it's best not to read too much into things one way or the other.
That cat outside needs to move away.
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