Mea culpa, mea culpa. I apologize to all who regularly visit my blog for being negligent in posting. (Wow, what do you people do all week?) I am shocked myself at the passage of time since my last posting and can blame only myself. And the all-consuming holiday season.
David and I took the entire week of Thanksgiving off (well, David did). This year was a St. Louis year. So, we decided to repeat our itinerary of Thanksgiving 2001 and book a couple of nights in a tiny hunting cabin on Lake Carlyle in southern Illinois. It was bliss. We ate comfort food and drank coffee and read books in front of a roaring gas fire. It is perfectly silent at the cabin (except for the occasional gunshot in pursuit of a pheasant during the day), and penetratingly dark at night. We had a great time again this year. We got up on Wednesday morning and made the short drive to St. Louis to spend Thanksgiving with many members of my family.
Upon returning from Thanksgiving, Dave and I made plans to buy a Christmas tree. A real one. For the two of us. In our own home. Dave and I have never bought a tree – or had even a real fake one. We have lived in separate apartments for so many years and always traveled on Christmas. I bought a couple of tiny fake trees that I put lights on. For years, Dave had one in his apartment window, and I had one in mine. Last year was our first Christmas as an officially married couple. We spent the week and a half before Christmas on the best honeymoon ever in Germany. Thus, we passed on much Christmas decorating. We returned to the states on December 23rd, I flew to St. Louis on the morning of Christmas Eve, and Dave drove to the outer suburbs to spend the day with some of his family. Not much Christmas at home together.
This year is different. We're around this year for much more of December, our apartment is pretty much unpacked and stuff is where we want it, and the screens were removed from the front porches of the apartment building this summer. What do screens have to do with it you ask? Well, let me tell you.
I have always wanted to buy a real tree. Just a small one. Perhaps a little taller and fuller than Charlie Brown's. Our living room ('fronchroom' so as not to confuse you Chicago types) is not big. A tree would overtake it and most likely leave needles everywhere. Oh, and we do not have any ornaments. Not my idea of Christmas.
Since the icky screens were stripped from our porches this summer, I have had visions of a small, perfect tree atop a small table out on the porch perfectly adorned with white lights – that stay on, I hate the flashing types. I knew I had to approach Dave deftly on the subject. I had my strategy planned. I had arguments at the ready. I was prepared for a battle, and I was prepared to win.
I started my advance with a casual mention of a tree as we noticed lots popping up around the city. Before I could begin a true assault, Dave acquiesced. All of my preparations were for naught! He not only agreed to buying a real, live tree, he said he was excited about it, and said he thought the porch was the perfect place for it?!
I calmed myself. I checked that I was in fact talking about spending money on a real tree that would only be tossed…wait a minute. It all made sense. Dave admittedly likes the tree that now fills our porch. However, his favorite part about the plan to buy this tree is his disposal plan. Upon the beginning of the new year, Dave will gleefully remove the tree from its stand and then check for my all clear from the alley below. Then, with much gusto I am sure, he will launch our real tree from the second floor porch onto the alley below. He can't wait.
We decided to buy our tree from a lot at nearby St. Mathias Church and School. I thought it would be a good thing to do since it would allow us to walk the tree home and since St. Mathias is one of several Catholic churches that was drive past in order to get down to St. Alphonsus. Also, previous generations of Dave's family (including Grandma Lu) were parishioners there. So, it would be good for us to spend a little money there, right?
We made our plan. The forecast called for snow showers the night we had free to look at trees. Visions of Currier and Ives danced in my head. Dave and I would bundle up and walk over to St. Mathias (over Lawrence Avenue and through the bank parking lot) and pick out the perfect tree that was being decorated by nature's falling snowflakes and Dave and I would carry it home through the snow where we would put it up and drink hot chocolate and…
It was freezing cold. Dave had to stay at work longer than he wanted. It was raining. We drove to St. Mathias. We did find a gorgeous tree and bought it from a friendly Cheesehead (aka Wisconsonite). As the rain came down, we popped the trunk, tossed its contents into the back seat and shoved the tree in. Not exactly an image you'll find on blue and white dinnerware.
The tree ended up spending a week on the porch. We didn't have a tree stand. And then I was in Champaign for a couple of days (blissfully ensconced in the king of all libraries). I bought a tree stand while I was downstate. It was defective. While I suffered bravely on the couch with a monster cold, Dave ventured out to Menard's to get us a tree stand. He battled with the tree out in the freezing cold while I watched (and offered just a few pointers) from the warm side of the porch door.
I bundled myself to Michelin-man proportions and joined Dave out on the porch to string the lights and hang some they-look-like-glass plastic silver ornaments. Just as we got the lights connected (Kate on bar stool, Dave as my safety belt, one extension cord, two light strands, and two adapters later), perfect, quiet snow began to fall. It wasn't forecasted (I am addicted to the Weather Channel). It was better than Currier and Ives.
Dave helped me hang the big paper star that I bought in Toronto. It hangs in the center of our front window. We cleaned up the plaster dust, put the couch back, turned off the regular lights, and sat in the merry glow of our Christmas star and tree under a blanket and some used kleenexes.
A Note About Advertising
Since it has been so many days since my last posting, a few things that I would typically blog about have occurred to me and then slipped away from my memory. However, one such topic was refreshed for me the other day at the doctor's office.
I had been meaning to blog a bit about advertising. It is more than ever-present during the holiday season. I am more struck, however, by the innovative ways that advertisers battle for our attention. For example, the changing ads behind baseball players at home plate, the ads for breath mints or cars or theater performances (that was today's) on the cuffs to protect your fingers on to-go coffee cups, or don't even get me started on pop-up ads online. The point is this – advertisers are learning to put ads anywhere there is space. And entrepreneurs are learning to sell every conceivable space to advertisers.
A good friend of ours used to sell pharmaceuticals for a major drug company. She would occasionally supply us with the giveaways she bestowed on the doctors she visited. Note pads, pens, clocks, clocks with picture frames, tiny flashlights, headsets for cell phones, travel coffee mugs – you name it, she had something with the name of drug emblazoned on it. I thought about this while I was sitting in the waiting room at my new doctor's office looking at drug posters and using a drug pen to fill out my medical history on a drug clipboard. Even the box of kleenex had a drug ad on it.
The exam room provided evidence of a new low in advertisement placement – in my opinion. This doctor visit was not my favorite kind of visit: the annual gynecological exam. Fun! For those of you unfamiliar with the equipment necessary for such an exam, I will not freak you out with the details. However, as you may guess, one essential piece of equipment for such an exam is a table with stirrups. These stirrups are often made of metal and can be quite chilly when one clothed only in paper places naked feet into them. Many kind physicians place socks or booties on the stirrups in an attempt to make a very uncomfortable position less shockingly cold.
This is a long way of revealing what you have probably already guessed – the booties on said stirrups were a noticeable purple color and clearly stamped with the consumer name of a birth control pill (and the official drug name that no one can pronounce beneath it). I still can't believe that. I'm sure that many women who are trying to figure out what brand of pill they want to take will think, "hey, that sounds like a good pill!" as they are spread out in the most vulnerable position humanly possible trying to make small talk with someone who is, um, well, I said I wouldn't freak you out.
I would wrap this get-to-the-point story up with the query "Where could advertisers possibly go next?" But I know better.
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