Happy Holiday Two-fer

I know that I have mentioned before, Judi's blog, [zany life + crazy faith]. Last month she asked me to do a guest post for her list of November Holidays (a complete explanation of this is available in my post Guest Posting on JLo's NO-HO This month, Judi is doing a much shorter guest series for the 12 Days of Christmas. I am featured today for, obviously, the 10th day of Christmas. I have been enjoying Judi's blog, [zany life + crazy faith] for nearly my entire blog career of a whopping 6 months...

I've decided today, that since this is the Hectic-Holiday-Hell-Season and most of us are running around like on-fire-chickens-with-our-heads-cut-off we need, more than usual, some down-time and some laughter. Also more than ever, we need less run around. Therefore, dear readers, I am reprinting here both guest posts for your pre-Christmas deep breath. They are both available with a pic on Judi's blog, [zany life + crazy faith]. By the way, Judi's blog is fantastic in it's own right, so just cause I've done MY reprints for you, don't be lazy and skip her blog... even if you have to bookmark it and check it out after New Year's it is well worth the read. Now, without further ado, here are Clean Out Your Fridge Day and On the Tenth Day of Christmas...


Clean Out Your Fridge Day

original work by Aria Douthat, reprinted from
[zany life+ crazy faith]
originally posted on November 15, 2008.

I have located Jimmy Hoffa. He is trapped in the back of my refrigerator.

The November 15th holiday; Clean Out Your Fridge Day gives me impetus to wade through the little wads of single chicken pieces in tin foil and last-hot-dog-in-the-pack packages; the ones that weren't closed correctly so they leaked on the shelf and dried up before being shoved to the dreaded no-man's-land of 'the back of the fridge'. The place where fridge things go to never-be-heard-from-or-recognized-again, just like poor Jimmy.

There are containers of what may have been stuffing (or possibly mashed potatoes) that were relegated to leftover status because there was too much left to throw out. Upon trying to use them later, it turned out to be not enough to use. Now, they sit in their many containers as monuments to science-experiments-gone-wrong brought about by ingrained guilt about starving children in Africa.

I need to throw out the peppers that I bought too many of when I made Italian-style sausage that got eaten once. I didn't know vegetables were capable of looking as though they have melted... And I know cheese is aged, but after 8 months in the meat drawer, it's not advisable that you actually eat it...although if I ever need penicillin, I'm all set. Which is a good thing, because I'm pretty sure there are bacteria growing in there that would rival a freshly opened Egyptian tomb for toxicity levels.

There is no order left within the doors that I keep spotlessly clean on the outside, to disguise the atomic fallout that is the interior. I have become an expert at balancing because I open the door with one hand, take out what I need with the other, and kick back the mold-monster-gnomes with my foot before they can jump out and abduct my son. I manage all this while blocking the view of within, as it would surely scar some peoples' psyches forever.

The shelves are chock-a-block full of things that have been shoved, wedged and jammed on to them. The drawers have comfy cozy beds of many, many layers of onion shells that were scraped off by the net bag they come in. There are mostly-used butter quarters left in their wrappers placed around the interior in an almost artsy way. There are too many half-drank 20 oz soda bottles to count, all of which are flat and have been for some time. The door is piled precariously with Chinese-food condiments and ketchup packets. There is a jar of hot sauce that was first put in there by Civil War Soldiers and grape jelly that is re-forming into raisins. And that is just what I can actually see... there is so much more buried in there.

So it is, with a clothespin on my nose, bio-hazard grade gloves and a triple-lined garbage can, that I will attack the festering disgrace in my kitchen. I'm optimistic that I will have it emptied, sanitized and put back together by Thanksgiving...so I can work on filling it with things to clean out next November 15th.

Hang on Jimmy, I'm coming...



On the Tenth Day of Christmas
original work by Aria Douthat, reprinted from
[zany life + crazy faith]
originally posted on December 10, 2008

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me... Ten Lords A Leaping...

Really? Ten Lords A Leaping? Think about that for a minute.

It wasn't until Judi asked me to do this post, that I stopped to consider this line, even though I'd sung the song many, many, (too) many times. Normally I do it in my head with a different Muppet character calling out each of the days, because I was cursed as a child with the Muppet's Christmas album, featuring John Denver. Don't ask, just marvel at me in wonder when you consider that I've never been institutionalized for insanity... But, I digress...

The rest of the song, while long and repetitive, makes sense:

Items one through five numbered, OK, I can understand that, and then...
Six geese a laying
Seven swans a swimming
Eight maids a milking
Nine ladies dancing
Eleven pipers piping
Twelve drummers drumming

All of those things were common enough then, to hold up today... But, ten lords a leaping??? Never once, in any historical document, book, or movie did I ever see or hear of a 'lord-a-leaping' never mind ten of them.

Is this what was supposed to make this particular gift special and rare? Because in the regular day-to-day a lord wouldn't be caught dead 'a leaping' anything. Lords were either members of the actual royal family, or at the very least, land owners... masters of their lands and anyone that worked for them in a feudal system.

I doubt they'd be taken seriously when they gave an order if they went about 'a leaping' all day... If that were the case, they couldn't get the maids to milk, the geese to lay, the ladies to dance, or anything else done on the list. And, any lords that were prone to 'a leaping' were most likely locked up for lunatics~ almost like they had spent countless childhood hours listening to the Muppet's Christmas album.

If they had been raised on said album, the lords would know that Lew Zealand the Muppet that juggled fish and spoke in the odd accent (and wasn't the Swedish Chef), sang the 'ten lords a leaping' part and they would still, some thirty years later, hear Miss Piggy belt out, " Fiiiiiive Gol-den Riiiiings... ba-dum-bum-pum " every time the song was played, so that even though the rest of the English speaking world does not do so, inside their heads they would add the ba-dum-bum-pum after five golden rings, even though, thankfully, they would no longer sing it aloud to their embarrassment in any carol-singing-groups...

Yes, I know, that's just me, but if it had been the lords, at least it would explain the 'a-leaping'...maybe.



I hope you got a kick out of the posts... Now, don't make me kick your rear to get you back out there... You can do it! Of course you can... as long as there's still Starbucks in the mall ~ or as long as your mouse-finger isn't in a splint!