The Gifts We Don't Keep Giving

I'm panic-browsing an online collection of fine gold collar necklaces because last night My Love insisted we don't exchange gifts this Christmas. That's how I know I am screwed.

You know the drill. The spouse says they don't want you to get them anything for an anniversary or a birthday or Opening Day of Baseball Season, so you don't. Then the big day rolls around and you find some special, long-coveted desire of your heart neatly wrapped in a bow on the kitchen counter next to your morning bowl of bran pellets. 

Sigh.

I sigh because I wish that was the case for me.

Thanksgiving Trots are for Turkeys

Our family’s Thanksgiving tradition is to ritually avoid them.

Multiple generations of loved ones gathering under one roof? Rarely. We have more of a shrub than a family tree. Plus, we tend to shy away from forced socializing. If we had a coat of arms, it’d feature badgers swathed in poison ivy.

Football? Ha! We’re New York Jets fans! By the fourth Thursday of November, we find more excitement in scouring the internet for video of curling competitions.

What's so happy about a new year, anyway?

Every early January, as I watch the Christmas tree drop needles like a DJ on meth, I find myself wondering the same thing: Is anyone ever sad to see the old year go? Because, to me, the start of a new year is fairly depressing.

Those final days of December are regularly filled with a single sentiment from friends and strangers online and IRL: “Thank God that awfulness will soon be over! Don’t let the door hit you in your fat, ugly stern, old year. The new one has got to be better!” After weeks of jaunty carols relentlessly assaulting our ears to the point where German death metal becomes a welcome change, I can somewhat understand that sentiment.

Move Halloween? Not a Trick, But Not a Treat

Congratulations on surviving another Halloween. However, it may have been [“werewolf howling” sound effect] …

Your LAST! [“Evil laughter” sound effect!]

On a WEEKNIGHT! [“Thousands of good-looking column readers scratching their heads” sound effect. If unavailable, substitute “crickets chirping.”]

A national movement is afoot to move trick-or-treating from the last day of October – that’s the 31^st every year – to the last Saturday of the month – that’s the fourth or fifth one, depending on El Nino, La Nina and immigration laws.

Holiday Newsletter for the Modern World

Dear friends, relatives and co-workers who are not on the HR “watch list,”

Merry/Happy Whatever-You-Do-And/Or-Don’t Celebrate! Welcome to our family’s annual holiday newsletter!

We know it’s 2017. We aren’t Luddites. We are on all the major social media platforms (including Anxietizer, D-Nouncer and, of course, TimeSukk). We dutifully document by word, photo and hashtag every meal and movement (even THOSE movements — bless our poor parakeet’s IBS) because, as our youngest child says, “Thank you, Kardashians!”

But the physical act of writing a letter, putting it an envelope and paying a deep-in-debt quasi-government agency to deliver it oh-so-slowly is so comforting, so cathartic, so old-school uncool America. That’s why I’m writing this by hand with a piece of only the finest Appalachian strip-mined coal available from Williams-Sonoma. If it was good enough for Lincoln’s homework, it’s good enough for you! So pardon the smudges, and here we go:

Killing Them with Random Acts of Holiday Kindness

The holiday season is a time of traditions: some beautiful, some hokey, most with the best of intentions unless they involve “The Chipmunk Song.”

In our home, the one tradition we deal with even more often than that screeching novelty tune is the call to “be nicer to one another.” It is usually made by my wife and often punctuated with me yelling “dammit.” (Her request tends to come when I’m in midst of testing burned out strings of Christmas tree lights.)

This year, as reliable as a Starbucks’ holiday cup controversy, My Love made her annual plea for more civility almost no sooner than we had disposed of the Thanksgiving turkey carcass. However, her request contained a twist.

Truly Useful Christmas Gifts for this Parent

Truly Useful Christmas Gifts for this Parent

Dear Santa,

Kris K., my man! How long’s it been? A year? 

Sorry not to be in touch sooner, but you have to take some of the blame. It’s not like you don’t where to find me, Mr. Sees You When You’re Sleeping. Make it easy on me in 2017, and finally get a Snapchat account.

I know it’s always tough coming up with gift ideas for people like me (middle-aged trophy husbands with teenagers and a floundering writing career) so I thought I’d give you some boldface hints. In fact, some of the items on my list will surely benefit many others around the world. Here you go:

Christmas Lights: Them’s The Breaks

The late Mel Torme, back before he croaked, sang that there's a broken heart for every light on Broadway. As I will not be outdone by any one nicknamed “The Velvet Fog,” let me croon about my developing a headache for every broken light at my house.

Ooh, the colors of Hell ARE pretty … when lit.

She is Love: My Musical Oasis for Valentine’s Day

My talent knows many bounds, never more so when it comes to music. That’s why the idea of giving My Love a song as a Valentine’s Day present is so daunting.

Then I stumbled upon “She is Love” by Oasis.

The tune, written and sung by Noel Gallagher during a break from bashing brother Liam about the head, popped up on my iTunes radio the other day and refused to leave my brain. In a good way.

So I did some Googling.

Out of My Gourd

You did only three things with pumpkins in my youth: made filling for pies, carved jack-o-lanterns for Halloween, and smashed said jack-o-lanterns when they resided on the front porches of families that gave fruit or toothbrushes to trick-or-treaters.

But not these autumn days. Pumpkin, it seems, is the new bacon. It's the go-to flavor and scent additive for everything. Not only have the brewer, the baker and the candlestick maker added the orange gourd into their seasonal rotation of goods, so have the makers of chocolate, pasta and -- I kid not -- Pringles potato crisps.

And why not? According to a recent Nielsen report, sales of various pumpkin-flavored food and drink items rose nearly 19 percent in 2012 to more than $290 million. The stuff is selling like pumpkin-flavored hotcakes except, oddly, at our local IHOP which did not have them on the menu when I ate there on Election Day. It's enough to make you wonder how significantly we could improve the health of this nation if only someone would create pumpkin-flavored kale.

Love is Patient, Love is Kind … of Like Spam

On this 16^th anniversary of my marriage to My Love, I’m happy to report our wedded bliss is still unspoiled.

We have been told the same is true of our marital can of Spam.

Our friends gave us Mork (named so by me as it is a “meat like pork”), leaving it along with hundreds of unpopped popcorn kernels on our honeymoon bed.

The popcorn, I know, was an homage to my bride’s Cornhusker State upbringing. But Spam? I can be a ham, but did I forget some greater symbolism behind this gift?

Spam in the honeymoon bed. The popcorn is under the sheets.

So I called the U.S. Library of Congress. That’s where Justin, one of the purchasers of Mork, earns a living.

Father’s Day Gifts for the Modern At-Home Dad

Father's Day is Sunday and, speaking on behalf of my fellow sperm donors, it’s time you stopped shortchanging us on the gifts.

We deserve better because studies on modern parenting, such as the recent Pew Research Center report on “breadwinning moms,” show a growing conspiracy against dads’ well-being. Moms “leaning in” to advance their careers and decades of badgering dads to be more involved parents have heaped unprecedented amounts of housework and child-rearing duties on fathers everywhere.

No longer can we come home from a hard day’s corporate dronery and Ward-Cleaver-it in our cardigan and easy chair, answering Junior’s inquiries about life with clichés or a deft “go ask your mother.” Now we cook meals, participate in PTAs and iron sharp creases into our wives’ business suits to help them shatter glass ceilings. Fatherhood has evolved into a high-stress, guilt-ridden occupation with longer hours and less pay.

Holy Betty Friedan! We dads have become our mothers!

Opening Day and Closing Doors

The bulging cooler, the teeny rusted camping grill, and four cobweb-encrusted folding chairs will be loaded into the back of the minivan. The kids, still rubbing the sleep from their eyes even after a school-less morning in, will climb into the middle seat. My Love will ride shotgun.

We’ll ease out of the driveway and go over the checklist.

Tickets?

Wallets?

Extra layers to fight the inevitable stinging winds?

We’ll have them all.

We’ll just have rolled to a stop at our neighborhood’s edge when My Love will ask, as she tends to do when we’re in hurry to get somewhere, “Did you close the garage door?”

Of course I did. I closed it this time as I did a million or so times before. It’s an automatic.

So automatic that I won’t actually remember reaching up and pushing the button next to the visor.

So automatic that I won’t really recall seeing the door shuttle down and seal itself against the concrete threshold.

“Dang you, woman,” I’ll say and slam on the brakes and then into reverse.

Honor a Founding Father with @Newcastle Founders’ Ale

Is there a better way to spend Presidents’ Day, which is primarily a day to celebrate the birthday of George Washington, one of our country’s Founding Fathers, than with a Newcastle Founders’ Ale?

Not if the beer is free, folks, and mine was thanks to my new best friends at Newcastle Brown Ale who sent me a couple to quaff.

(If you can maybe forgot it’s a British beer and that George Washington kicked those Red Coats’ tails in the Revolutionary War, that whole first sentence works. Just play along.)

Founders’ Ale has a nice light brown color, and pours with a sweet bubbly head. Like the Newcastle Winter IPA I tested the other week, it’s very light on the hops which is more acceptable in a pale ale like this than in an IPA. I think a lot of American IPAs and pale ales have gone overboard with the hopping anyway. A little extra is bracing but too much and it feels like someone just sandpapered your tongue.

Tastewise, Founders’ Ale starts a little sour then evolves into more of a sourdoughish flavor that weakens as the pint glass empties. Maybe a wee bit of caramel  or honey in the nose, but otherwise a fairly simple, smooth and refreshing beer without bite. Good for downing after you break a sweat shoveling snow or skiing like I did this weekend.

Soon, I hope to review a lovely looking batch of beers that the downright sexy people at Hanger 24 Brewery in California sent me recently. God bless their beery hearts.

P.S. I love this job.

Santa’s Hung

Some people obviously were not pleased with what they found under the Christmas tree yesterday.

But not these two.

Hope your holiday wasn’t a pain in the neck and you hang on through the New Year.

Go West, Uncool

If you only read my blog feed or Facebook page or blog title (ye of ultra-short attention span), you were probably under the impression that, as usual, I was home last week.

Sucker!

Those who follow my Twitter feed knew that The Uncools actually took a trip West to explore this beautiful and diverse land of ours, to create memories that will last a lifetime, and to show our children what makes America the best dang country in the world without true universal health care! (Take that Bahrain … wherever the heck you are.)

So, just where did we go?

Take Me Out to the …

The Accidental Valentine

This Valentine is right on time.

Or many years late.

Only my wife can make that call.

Assuming someone reads this to her.

Roughly 20 years ago, in the mid-February shortly after My Love and I began dating, she invited me back to her home state of Nebraska for a friend's wedding. I dusted off my one and only suit and suppressed my then-fear of flying. Maybe I didn't suppress it so much as it was canceled by the apprehension about meeting her family and, worse, a few of her studly ex-boyfriends.

Being in her native land, My Love handled most of the driving along those never-bending highways. This left me staring for hours through the rental car window into the aptly named Great Plains as it grew more featureless and infinite with every new vanilla layer of snow. When my amusement from exit signs for Beaver Crossing and McCool Junction faded, I took to perusing the local newspapers, reading aloud items that caught my fancy from the pages of the Kearney Hub and Lawrence Locomotive. It's a tradition, along with chawing on handfuls of beef jerky, that we carry on to this day on road trips.

Being near Cupid's holiday, several of the papers published Valentine missives between lovers - new, old, hopeful and desperate. After reading several of them, I nearly choked on a plug of hickory-flavored Oberto.

The message went something like this:

My Love,

Every day I'm with you my love for you grows and I find you are even more beautiful on the inside than the outside.

Love,
Uncool.

Hokey.

Corny.

Completely not me.

It was the most bizarre of coincidences in the most bizarre of places but at just the right time.

I read it to her. And she lit up. The glow in her face defrosted our windows and probably more than a few passing acres of winter wheat.

It took a while for My Love to believe I wasn't conning her when I claimed no responsibility for that love note. In the end, it didn't matter. Neither of us remembers what I really did give her that Valentine's Day, but we still talk about the sign the gods or fate sent us from beyond the Nebraska farmland.

Two decades have come and gone since. We are so past the romance stage in our relationship that it's a wonder either of us showers on weekends anymore.

This year, as for the past several, My Love has told me to get her nothing for Valentine's Day. She really means "nothing beyond an obligatory greeting card."

She expects no flowers and has made me aware on more than one occasion not to waste the money on something that fades and dies so quickly.

My recent suggestion to splurge on a dinner -- sans kids! -- was nixed because "everyone's out that night" and neither of us needs the hassle.

Chocolates are always a no -- calories, fat, hips and thighs, you know.

Lingerie? Refer back to the sentence on chocolates. Then re-read the one about no showering.

However, I really feel I still owe her something from 20 years ago. So here goes:

My Love,

I knew I loved you on our second date. That's when, as a joke, you secretly flipped around every other cassette box in the case I kept in my car so the next day the labels would be difficult for me to read when I fumbled at a stoplight in search of some new tunes to play. You have been turning my world and me upside down ever since.

Love,
Uncool

 

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Come on Over, It's Thanksgiving Day

You’re always welcome here, friends. Except spammers. No one wants spam on Thanksgiving.

Cheers … and pass the gravy.

Are you going on Thanksgiving Day
To those family celebrations?
Passing on knowledge down through the years
At the gathering of generations

Every year it's the same routine
All over, all over
Come on over, it's Thanksgiving Day

Papa looks over at the small gathering
Remembering days gone by
Smiles at the children as he watches them play

And wishes his wife was still by his side
She would always cook dinner on Thanksgiving Day
It's all over, it's all over
It's all over the American way

But sometimes the children are so far away
And in a dark apartment on the wrong side of town
A lonely spinster prays
For a handsome lover and a passionate embrace
And kisses all over, all over
All over her American face

It's all over, it's all over, it's all over

'Cause today she feels so far away
From the friends in her hometown
So she runs for the Greyhound
She'll spend hours on the bus but she'll reach town
For Thanksgiving Day

Come on over, come on over
Come on over, it's Thanksgiving Day
Come on over, come on over
Come on over, come on over
Come on over, it's Thanksgiving Day

At a truck stop a man sits alone at the bar
Estranged in isolation
It's been a while now and he seems so far
From those distant celebrations

He thinks back to all the mistakes that he made
To a time when he was so young and green
Innocent days when they both looked forward to that
Great American dream

Now it's all over, it's all over, all over
And all over America people are going home
On Thanksgiving Day

Now Papa looks out of the window
The sight brings a smile to his face
He sees all his children coming back home
Together on this special day

Come on over, come on over
Come on over, it's Thanksgiving Day
Come on over, come on over
Come on over, it's Thanksgiving Day
Come on over, come on over
Come on over, it's Thanksgiving Day
Come on over, come on over
Come on over, it's Thanksgiving Day

-- Ray Davies

No Thanksgiving for You …

… if you don’t donate to the Movember fight against man cancer! My little friend here needs your help!

His face not blurry. It’s distorted by steam rising from the pot. Turkey chili. With free bread.

Mmm, mmm -- NO SOUP FOR YOU ‘TIL YOU DONATE!

Maybe you get him over the $1,000 mark, he sing Freddie Mercury song for you. He does good “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”

You want “Bohemian Rhapsody”?

TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS!

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