January Blues

As I write this, the first major snowstorm of the year is raging outside. Well, maybe not "raging", it isn't exactly a blizzard. But it still cancelled school, and the sky is grey and dreary. I'm not a big fan of the month of January. Nothing happens in January (except a few family birthdays). January is a long, grey, boring month with no holidays, and you have to be stuck inside all day. Think about it - every month has some sort of holiday in it except for January, June and August, and two of those are summer months when its warm and you can be outside having fun. But not January. And besides, January is a big let down after Christmas (and I consider New Year's as part of the Christmas season). Once January 1st is over, you have to take down all the decorations and lights and stuff, and the neighborhood, which had been cheerfully lit at night for an entire month, is now dark and dismal. I guess that's one good thing about snow - it reflects the light from the street lamps and makes things more visible at night.

And speaking of Christmas, what do you get when angelic peas take a nap? Sleeping heavenly peas! Now, I'll bet you're wondering about all the bad vegetable jokes. It's because of my Mom. Poor Mom, she told me she wanted an Elvis Christmas CD, and I tried to comply, really I did. But of all the entertainers who have ever walked the earth (including Slim Whitman and William Hung) the one I most dislike is Elvis Presley. Why is too long an explanation to go into, but I can't stand him. But for Mom's sake, I got online to see what kind of Elvis Christmas CD's they had. It turns out that Elvis recorded maybe a dozen Christmas songs which were packaged and repackaged over and over ad nauseum into several albums, including one called "Elvis - Christmas Peace". I made a list of those songs and ended up making Mom a CD called "Elvis' Christmas Peas", a CD of Elvis Christmas songs as sung by Other People. For instance, "White Christmas" was sung by Garth Brooks, "Silver Bells" was sung by Bing Crosby, and "Blue Christmas" was sung by the KRNA DJ's as Porky Pig. Seriously. The project actually turned out to be pretty decent (and fun!) and Mom, bless her heart, took the whole thing in stride and even said it was cute. And no, Slim Whitman and William Hung did not make appearances on this CD. I only went with high class impersonators. It's times like this that I miss the late Steve Goodman.