Christmas lights

They say the two happiest days of owning a boat are the day you buy it and the day you get rid of it. I think the same can be said for Christmas trees. I know what you're thinking. Why's the Jewboy talking about buying Christmas trees?

I'll tell you why.

For starters, I love the trees. The fresh scents, the lights, the decorations. I also happen to be married to a woman who isn't a member of the tribe, so Christmas has always been the big December holiday in our house for as long as I can remember. And not to advance any stereotypes here, but I'm pretty good at math. 8 days of Hanukkah, 12 days of Christmas.

After four years of Hebrew school, a bar mitzvah and dating enough Jewish girls who made "till death do us part" sound more like a goal than a vow, I decided to opt in for a holiday a little more festive than what I'd grown up with, even if the point of the celebration wasn't exactly in my wheelhouse (although He was a member of the tribe, just saying).

Plus why would I limit myself to just blue and white lights when I can have so many different colors?

Anyway, every year we go to Brita's nursery in Seal Beach, and re-enact Goldilocks & The Three Bears as we pick out our perfect tree. "This one's too small." "This one's too large." "This one's just right."

But the secret about Christmas trees is that the exact moment it's up, decorated and ready to be enjoyed is the exact moment my 6000-year (5775 to be exact) history of worrying kicks in.

Has the tree been watered? Is it taking the water? Are the pine needles dry? Why is it dropping so many? Did we turn off the tree lights when we left? Is it going to go up in flames and take the house with it? And can the presents be saved if it does?

After a minute of standing back and admiring it, the moment has passed, my mind is spinning and I can't wait until it's out of the house (which is also how I felt about my high school girlfriend).

Every day we have to vacuum the needles that've dropped so the puppy doesn't eat them. Suddenly, what started out as a joy and spirit-lifting visage has become something I can't wait to get rid of (girlfriend joke again).

Sometime after New Year's, long after everyone else has taken their tree down, we'll finally get around to putting the hand-made, antique, mercury glass, Salzburg-bought decorations away, then kick the tree to the curb for the recycling truck to come take it.

It's sad thinking about something that brought me so much joy - although briefly - being gone so suddenly. To snap myself out of it, I just do what I did when it first got here. Stand back, look where it stood and admire the pure beauty and joy of what I see.

All the living room space I get back.

Have a nice trip. See you next fall.

Yesterday I did something I haven't done in a very long time. And no, it wasn't write copy someone wanted to read. You're so predictable.

What I did was fall flat on my ass.

It was bound to happen. With two kids, two dogs and all the equipment that comes with them, it's no wonder the house is a virtual minefield most of the time. I would've said obstacle course, but obstacles can be overcome. In a minefield, you always have to be in a state of high alert.

Anyway, we have two extremely comfortable chairs in the living room. Right now they're covered in the powder blue slipcovers. Those are the ones we have on them when we're not using the floral ones. Clearly I lost the slipcover battle, which explains why we don't have the Elvis in Hawaii slipcovers. Or the ones with the cowboys and fire engines.

I might be getting off topic here.

Anyway, I was sitting in one of our comfy living room chairs, working on my laptop doing extensive, in-depth research into the topic of my next blogpost: Survivability Tactics & Probabilities and the Implications Of The Thermonuclear Threat.

That or I was watching Between Two Ferns. I can't remember.

At any rate, I got up to do something, and as I did I was closing my laptop and not looking down. Which was bad news for me, because there was a musical instrument in its case on the floor in front of me. My foot caught it, I lost my balance and went careening off a low bookshelf into a wall, involuntarily pirouetting like Baryshnikov and falling like a redwood all while trying desperately not to drop the laptop.

Unfortunately, not having my hands available to help right the ship, I went down like a ton of bricks. Fortunately I had a hardwood floor to cushion my fall.

The good news is I managed to stop the laptop from crashing to the floor. I was also able to hold my neck in such a way that my head didn't slam against the floor. The bad news is I'm feeling it this morning. I'm sore, scraped and bruised (which also happens to be the name of my law firm).

Having kids - well, teenagers - in the house, one thing I always notice is how resilient they are. They heal fast from almost everything: colds, injuries, hurt feelings, bad parenting. I however do not heal that fast. I fully anticipate hurting for a couple weeks while my body figures out what the hell I was thinking trying to get out of a chair.

So for the next few days, it's going to be ice packs, heating pads and Neosporin. And as long as I don't look to far to the right, my neck doesn't remind me how sore it is.

I've heard a rumor that, in some homes, there are actually dedicated spaces where you can store your belongings so they're out of the way and don't pose a risk to people walking in the house. But I'm not falling for it.

Growing growing gone

I was trying to find a good analogy about friendship, which isn't easy for me because, as I've proven time and time again here at Rotation and Balance, analogies are like, well, they aren't my strong suit.

But I'm going to go with this one.

Think of friendship as a garden. You can come in, water it and watch it grow and flourish. Of course for it to do that, you have to tend to it on a regular basis. Which, if you appreciate the beauty of the garden and the happiness it brings, isn't a problem. It's something you want to do.

Or you can just be a garden killer, leave it unwatered, keep taking stuff from it until it dies and has nothing left to give.

It's a busy world, and everyone has a life in progress. So it becomes more and more challenging to nurture friendships. I think too many of them enter the "what've you done for me lately?" phase far too easily. They forget about support you've given them when they needed it, the shoulder to cry on you provided when they were looking for one.

What've you done for me lately?

Understandably, sometimes a few of the items in the garden disappear on their own. And sometimes a little weeding needs to be done.

That angry plant that just sucks the energy out of you and kills everything around it? That's gotta go.

The one over there, that didn't like the way you watered it one day, somehow forgetting all the other days you watered it just right, well that one decides to just die on you.

More a weed than a plant, there's the one that expects to be taken care of when it needs it, offering nothing in return in the way of beauty, peace or appreciation. In fact, it would be fine if you just sent the water on it's own.

Friendships aren't fragile things, at least the good ones aren't. They can take a lot of abuse. But that doesn't mean they can't be killed off if you try hard enough.

Or don't try at all.

Squirrels love HBO

Two days ago, I get a call from my wife. Nothing unusual about that - we talk frequently. I'd probably talk to her a lot even if we weren't married, although I imagine we'd talk about different things.

I may be getting off topic here.

Anyway, as happens every once in awhile, the internet at the house had gone out. So adopting my best Apple Care/Charter Cable rep voice, I walked her through the reseting everything process that always gets it back up and running.

Well, almost always. Not this time.

Of course, the moment that the internet went down just happened to be the exact moment when she needed it to get some important work done. Joking, she said, "I guess the squirrels have been eating the cable line."

I think you see where this is going.

We called Charter, and scheduled a service call for the next day. When the guy came out, he realized that the problem wasn't in the house, but on the line coming into the house.

Come to find out three other houses on the block lost cable service. The reason? Squirrels eating the cable lines.

Apparently squirrels chomping on basic cable is a common problem that just took a while for us to experience. I know from my German Shepherd going crazy and barking out the window that the squirrels use the power and cable lines in the neighborhood for their personal freeway to get around.

I just didn't know they also used them for dinner.

Anyway, they - the cable company, not the squirrels - had one of the main streets blocked off for about four hours while they replaced the damaged cable and got everybody their Daily Show and Food Channel again.

There's a joke here somewhere about how nuts it is that squirrels would eat cable. It's right there in front of me, but I'm not going for it.

Guess I'm not that cheeky.

Halloween with the girls

I think Halloween is the most fun holiday of all. Not just because you get to dress up in any manner your heart desires. Or because you send perfectly innocent children to complete strangers' doors hoping candy is all they come back with.

I think it's fun because everyone's your friend on Halloween.

Years ago, the wife and I were in New York visiting my good friend Lisa Mehling. It was Halloween, and after dinner we found ourselves in the West Village on Christopher Street, the center point of the early gay movement in New York.

And if there's one thing we know about the gays - they do Halloween up right.

While we were walking around, I saw these three colorful characters walking up the street, laughing up a storm. I handed Lisa the camera and asked her to get a picture of me with them. I then turned to the three of them and said, "Hey girls, can I get a picture with you?" To which they replied, "Sure honey, get over here!"

I think my wife and Lisa were a little shocked by the fact that I even wanted the picture. But if you know anything about me, I'm ready for the party and I don't care who's throwing it.

So here's the picture of me with the girls on Halloween.

If it proves anything, I think it's that I clearly need to add more color to my wardrobe.

Hot enough for ya?

If you know anything about me from this blog, and I’m guessing you probably know more than you want to, you know I’m most definitely not a morning person. The reason I’m not a morning person is because I’m a late night person. I’ll stay up until all wee hours of the morning, catching up on shows I have waiting for me on the DVR, binging again on Breaking Bad, or thinking of things to post on this blog.

Which as anyone who reads it will tell you I have mixed success with.

To the point. I had a 10 a.m. meeting this morning. You’d think because I knew about it last night I would’ve gone to bed early in order to wake up early. You’d be wrong.

So when the alarm went off, I shuffled into the shower (no, it didn’t wake or refresh me), got dressed and headed out to the office to be in by 9 to prepare for the meeting.

And by prepare, I mean get coffee, chat it up, check Facebook, read Round Seventeen, and then, if there’s time, take a look at what I’m supposed to be presenting.

Being disciplined and focused has never been my strong suit.

Anyway, apparently I forgot about the fight the 405 south and I had years ago. To this day, it still spends every waking moment trying to exact it's revenge with me. And it succeeded this morning. Traffic was more horrendous than usual, so I was forced to get off and take surface streets into work in order to make it on time.

I rolled into the parking lot at 9 straight up, only to be greeted by people pouring out the doors of the building, a fire truck parked in front of it and people in bright orange vests, who looked like Walmart greeters, directing everyone to the far side of the parking lot away from the building.

Not being awake enough to really have anything register, I started walking into the building. I was stopped by one of the greeters, who told me it was a fire drill. It’s the exercise office buildings are required to go through to make sure they’re ready in case The Towering Inferno 2 ever gets made, and they use their building.

Once the drill was over, everyone went back into the building. Since everyone who was going to be in my meeting was in the parking lot, the meeting got pushed back almost an hour.

Nevertheless, I learned a valuable lesson about fire safety, taking the stairs and staying calm in an emergency.

I also learned to sleep late even when you're not supposed to. It won't matter.

A little foggy on the subject

When I worked at FCB in San Francisco, I developed the very enjoyable habit of going to the San Francisco Ad Awards show every year. Not only was it a way to see the outstanding creative work being done around town, it gave me a great excuse to go up north and catch up with my many friends who live there. Sadly, the SF ad show eventually went the way of southern California’s Belding awards.

Which means I can still go see my friends, I just can’t write it off (as easily).

I remember one year, the show was being held at the historic Fillmore, where icons like Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Muddy Waters played. You could feel history in the hall.

At this particular awards show, George Zimmer, founder and former CEO of Men’s Wearhouse, was the master of ceremonies. He made a joke wondering why all these other accounts were winning awards for their creativity but his wasn’t. I can only assume it was a rhetorical question.

Every year I went, there was the usual grousing from losing agencies about how Goodby would steal the show - much the same way people used to complain about Chiat walking off with the Beldings every year, until they changed the rules and judging criteria. Funny how sometimes entry fees speak louder than the work.

Anyway, the SF show always seemed to be a lot looser and more freewheeling.

I remember the funniest line of the night was from a presenter who starting talking about how grateful he was for his career in advertising, and then rattled off all the things he wouldn’t want to be in life.

At the top of the list was Hal Riney’s liver.

Even then it was a gutsy line. But it just speaks to the no-holds-barred fun the SF show used to be.

In a couple weeks, I'll be heading back up to go to the wedding of a good friend of mine. I'm looking forward to the wedding, the city and the feeling of possibility and originality that seems to go with it.

And if I have time, I'll catch a show at the Fillmore.