MAGGI PICAYUNE

So I’m ending the annual tradition of reminiscing about Christmas Break a couple days later than last year. Sorry, I didn’t expect 1988/San Diego to be an overwhelming mess I should’ve written up sooner; it’s much like that tumultuous year in my life from start to finish. Recovering from New Year’s Eve burned up most of New Year’s Day too. I barely drank anything, I just stayed up much later than I’m accustomed to in my advanced age. An additional, late morning nap was required after I fed the quartet of ungrateful cats around 7-8 AM; we fed them before turning in around 130 AM hoping to appease them: Felines 1, Primates 0.

Without further ado, here’s the conclusion to the 2008 edition of The Six Days of Christmas. Personally, I’m glad to be done with the year 2008. I think it will go down in history as one of the worst years since 1968 and 1979 which were also plagued with nothing but crappy news.

Besides 2003 being our first Christmas together as a married couple, it was a minor reunion because Somara spent 2002 in Florida with her sister’s family and I had the house, PS2, DVD player and cats to myself. I got the better bargain since the weather was a bust in Florida. As for Break, I probably worked through the Christmas week while Somara visited her parents in Georgetown. I needed New Year’s week off to go to Houston, which I’ll get to later.

After Christmas was the more memorable time. Once I concluded working on the 27th, I was free until January 6th. First was our day trip to Dallas on Monday to see the Flyers. Previous plans for tickets via a friend fell through (not his fault) but I really wanted to go. Somara agreed to tag along so we hauled ass and ended up arriving pretty early; I overestimated what rush hour in Big D would be like. The game ended in a tie (this was the NHL before the changes of 2005)  yet I didn’t care. I saw the Philly lineup that was within inches of winning the 2004 Stanley Cup under Hitchcock: LeClair, Primeau, Recchi, Handzus, Esche, Gagne, Desjardins, Amonte and Roenick. Believe me, if they got past the Lightning, this team could’ve easily clobbered the Flames’ clutch-and-grab game for the Cup.

New Year’s Eve was quietly “celebrated” at home with the Adult Swim marathon.

New Year’s Day was much cooler. We packed up and hit the road again for Houston to attend Sonia and Philippe’s wedding. The weather there was gorgeous despite it being overcast. I wish I brought my jams from Vegas so I could swim in the pool. We weren’t completely bored, when we weren’t eating or taking advantage of the Internet access, Somara and I became more acquainted with Hey Arnold on Nickelodeon; I swear it was the only thing on TV besides Attack of the Clones.

On the following day, we went to the (nearby) Houston Galleria to visit Jeremy at his Mac Genius gig. He had time to do lunch and fix the wireless antenna on Somara’s PowerBook G4. We killed the rest of the afternoon walking around, exchanging stories about what the mall was like in the Eighties.

Saturday evening was the big wedding. Sonia was radiant and it was the biggest amalgamation of language I had attended in years: Spanish, French and Polish were the primary conversations. The Giraudet anniversary is tomorrow so I’ll save the details for then.

Sunday afternoon we got together with Jeremy and Tina. We met them at their apartment, attended an Aeros game and had dinner. Things were looking pretty good for them but I know I was hoping they’d come back to Austin for numerous reasons; playing D&D with us was a minor one.

Monday morning we wrapped it up by hunting down both of our old homes on Houston’s southeast side. My recollection of the route was terrible. How we found the Sagemill house from 1983-4 must have been a miracle; now it would be a piece of cake thanks to my iPhone’s GPS! A neighbor, who was taking out his trash, was nice enough to tell me all about what had happened after my family moved away. We didn’t get as close to Somara’s last Houston address. Either the neighborhood had gotten rougher or something, I’ll have to ask her. Somara’s former high school (Dobie) had been gutted and slated for demolishing since the tollway ran over it. I don’t think she was distraught over this. Visiting Clear Creek was put aside for another day since we wanted to get home at a decent hour.

A nice, relaxing Break I should’ve enjoyed more because 2004 morphed into a mess during the second half. How I wish I could forget those few months.

That’s it until next year. Thanks for your patience and I do hope some of you will share favorite holiday memories. I don’t like my site being a complete top-down “conversation.”

My first Christmas back in Austin was a rather lonely affair, reminiscent of 1994. Instead of moping about it, I took the opportunity to work at Apple versus staying home, going to Katz’s for dinner or pulling a holiday shift at my part-time movie job. It was easy money, the three of us temps who volunteered didn’t receive one call from the iMac agents in Oregon. When our manager appeared later that morning, he told us the switch to contact us had been off for 90 minutes anyway. Fortunately for the people managing the routing, there were no attempts during the gap. I spent the morning watching LA Confidential in French to bone up on my foreign slang/profanity. The afternoon was probably wasted playing Escape Velocity with the sound off so the boss wouldn’t notice. I doubt he cared.

It seemed pretty sad and lame but I told myself the situation was temporary. I had only been back in Austin for several months. I knew rebuilding the life I once had was going to take a while. The bigger crises were paying off debts (moving back cost more than anticipated), getting a more permanent place to live (I liked the room I was subletting yet I wanted to be closer than north Round Rock) and trying again to get hired by Apple; the rejection letters for the latest round went out on Christmas Eve, smooth. Living in the Austin area was an achieved rationalization. Everything else would fall into place as it did five years earlier; I could do it sooner now that I had a car and more experience.

New Year’s was the bigger and better time. Ethan invited me to the get-together he and his roommate Darren held in their apartment. I remember us filling up a grocery cart at HEB with snacks and beer. It was mainly a bunch of Apple people hanging out. I recall watching Ethan playing the current Zelda game on his N64; I wouldn’t touch the console because I hated the controllers. Besides anyone else playing his Nintendo usually meant the multi-player version of Goldeneye or what Darren relabeled it, Ethan shoots everybody.

This Christmas Break was just a short time to breathe and reflect on the goals for 1999 which looked pretty exciting:

• There would be another attempt to be hired by Apple since the new iMac was a hit (it would soon be available in five other colors).
• The first new Star Wars movie in 16 years would be in theaters by mid May.
• I did have some new replies on my Match.com account, one of which panned out better than either of us expected.

If Christmas 1992 was when my life hit rock bottom (grammatical errors and all with the link), then the following year defined what one unit from “zero” equalled. Turns out that my deep-seated problems of living in Central Illinois weren’t “cured” by scoring a new full-time job back in May. After the Silder wedding, I really wanted to return to Milwaukee. Then in November I had Austin on the brain, which practically morphed into an obsession. The colder-than-usual Winter wasn’t helping since I’d check the temperatures on the Weather Channel to see how much warmer Texas was and fantasize how things would improve once I got there. I was probably gambling too much on it happening because I had no Plan B.

So with Disneyland completed, Christmas Break 1988 was off to an awesome recovery, canceling out the unpleasant beginning known as The Drive.

Christmas preparations resumed in San Diego by Mom taking us to the closest mall in Poway (the ‘burb they lived in). I only remember Brian’s gift which was rather unimaginative; a pair of Smithereens EPs. He was cool with it. I remember he gave me the dual CD compilation for the Damned’s tenth anniversary; hopefully I got him something else to compensate on the unevenness of our exchange.

The big surprise was our cousin Ron spending the holiday with us. We hadn’t seen him for years, especially after his father (Uncle Loran) moved to Alaska in the late Seventies; it always put our “miserable” time in North Dakota into perspective. Ron was in the area because he had completed basic training at the nearby naval base. Mom took care of providing Ron a gift to keep him from feeling left out. Dad explained that basers weren’t allowed to have much space-wise. Naively she bought him some soap-on-a-rope. It brought out a lot of chuckles from every male in the house (including Ron). By then it was too late when my mother realized the “tactless” nature of her choice.

Meanwhile, an Arctic wave of cold air blanketed the entire continental US by Christmas Eve. It was severe and even San Diego wasn’t spared the freezing temperatures. Of all the Christmases to be in Southern California, I had the misfortune to relive Houston in 1983. The weather recovered during my last several days there, in time for me to feel the shock of trying to readjust to Milwaukee in the heart of Winter.

We took Ron back to the base a day or two later. He got to visit us again pretty quickly. Some idiot made an error with his orders for being transferred to Nashville and until this was ironed out, Ron was allowed to stay in the area. I think Dad wanted him to get a better view of the city while he could; military life is filled with tedium. I recall going to some pricey mall on the north side where he spent a ridiculous sum of money on sunglasses. The “elitist” college student in me felt he acted like all those other desperate, horny sailors I’d see in downtown Milwaukee, especially when any young woman crossed his sonar. Brian confided to me later about how Ron was asking for assistance in getting the attention of some skanks at a bowling alley. Overall, I did wish Ron the best with his naval career while considering myself lucky; Mom once said, joining the military is equal to attending college for most of Dad’s family. Many cousins have since proven this wrong.

I did succeed in meeting Trip Reeb of 91-X and the lady (let’s go with Michelle) from Enigma Records in LA.

The drive to 91-X’s San Diego facilities and back was marred by Mom having a burr in her saddle for some reason. I think it was instigated by the Jerry Harrison song “Rev it up” on the radio. She failed to spoil talking to Trip though. He provided a sobering learning experience about the “industry” and I was grateful for him taking the time out his busy schedule. This man went on to be the general manager of KROQ, the gold standard of Alternative stations in Los Angeles (and the world) around 1989. As a parting gift, he gave me a pair of 91-X shirts. One was for me and the other for Steven Alan Segal at WQFM. I should’ve brought a bag to hide Segal’s. When Brian got wind of the “extra” shirt, the drive home was a barrage of incessant bitching from him and Mom over me not giving it up. I finally appeased Brian with a Smithereens shirt courtesy of “Michelle” from the Enigma Records trip. The quest to LA to meet her was a larger karmic expense yet it became an eye-opening, direction-changing one. I had been leaning toward toughing it out in Milwaukee after talking to Trip. Then seeing LA solidified my decision to take my chances at being a “larger fish in a smaller lake,” which “Michelle” stated in our conversation about my impression of California. It was great to finally put a face to the voice on the phone regardless.

This Break also included my first and last trip to Mexico which is why I’ve never bothered visiting again despite living in Texas for 13 years. (The border is 250 miles from Austin.) Before then, I was intrigued by the stories of Tijuana from movies and other sources. I wasn’t looking for anything controversial, I just hadn’t been to a country which wasn’t America Lite, aka Canada. I also had to find a bottle of tequila with a worm in it for Downstairs Dan at WQFM. This I succeeded at and drafted Mom into “smuggling” since you still have to be 21 to bring it back. I use quotes on the word smuggling for it was her choice of word. Americans were legally allowed to bring back one liter each without hassle from the Border Patrol. The harder part now is bringing it back in your luggage thanks to the Department of Fatherland Security’s TSA.

I know it’s unfair to judge Mexico over Tijuana, but it was the filthiest place I had ever seen. It made some of the roughest parts of Milwaukee look like Club Med. The poverty was depressing too. I must have been delusional when I thought going shopping there would be enjoyable. Unless you’re hunting for bargains on tequila, blankets, turquoise jewelry and other crap trinkets, you’d have better luck at the overrated outlet malls in the States. I did score a pancho for myself since I really liked the color. Buying it was a different matter. In TJ, the street merchants don’t put price tags on their wares. You have to haggle and they will only take American money. This soured my experience further; I felt like I was still taking advantage of people in an impoverished country. My family made a second expedition days later. I declined and stay behind to watch cable.

(I’m running out of time and I barely will make my deadline to post this so I’ll start to wrap this up. Seems that 1988 was an amazingly eventful four weeks though. Maybe I can recycle this with new stories in five years.)

The four weeks wound down and I couldn’t wait to get back to Milwaukee-Marquette. A couple thousand miles of distance between us was in order for both parties. I remember the second half of the Break being ruined by arguing, bickering and fighting which is why I never returned to San Diego to visit my parents. Much of the friction was likely my fault; I had trouble dropping the subject then; but the contentious nature of that time served as the impetus to become a more independent, self-sustaining adult; I would’ve pulled it off if I didn’t take the job with GDW.

Out of frugalness, Dad bought me a round-trip ticket to send me back to school. His plan was to have me return for Spring Break because one-way flights were expensive. To me, the prospect of flying quickly to San Diego only to spend a significant portion of another vacation trapped in a car with my mother and/or brother sounded like a violation of the Geneva Convention. The ugly memories of this Christmas Break were still pretty fresh when the time to use the other half came around and I let it go to waste. Dad was pissed. I still stand by my decision to this day. Brian got stuck using half of his week off from college driving because Mom wanted to stop in Las Vegas along the way…to see some crummy outlet malls.

Unpleasantness aside, Christmas 1988’s legacy is it being the last truly “eventful” Break of my life. Future ones were usually briefer and duller because I had an apartment, a part-time job to stay busy and a girlfriend. I also learned that the company one was surrounded with can always trump the location when planning a great vacation.

It took me two Christmas Breaks in college to finally realize that a month off was probably a couple weeks too long. For my friends, I figured their experiences were more pleasant. Most of them were returning to their homes, families, friends and hangouts they left behind when they attended Marquette. They probably spent the four weeks getting re-acquainted while rejuvenating. More importantly, they had plans to attend a decent New Year’s Eve party.

As for me, I had no such luck. I grew up attending five high schools in three disparate states and now my parents lived in yet another location. So going home was equivalent to just visiting another unfamiliar place for several weeks to wait it out. Grandma’s house was no real alternative, it was mentally equal to my parents’ house minus a shower.

But this year promised to be the one which would break the streak of dreck! My parents decided not to come out to Central Illinois. They wanted to celebrate in San Diego’s superior climate instead. Brian and I were all for it. Hmm, four weeks in Southern California versus Bloomington, IL in the heart of Winter? Did they have to ask? My grandparents protested which was likely Grandma’s doing; Grandpa loved to travel so I guess he capitulated to keep her from being alone. Well, their stubbornness failed and they didn’t realize it until we left for warmer pastures that Friday morning. Mentioning that Dad was treating everyone to a trip to Disneyland in Anaheim still wouldn’t have persuaded them.

Excited over going to a place which didn’t suck, I made arrangements to have my finals completed by midweek. This was unusual, normally I hated going “home” so I always stayed in the dorms until they closed for the Break. Outside of classes, I called 91-X to see if I could meet Trip Reeb, the station’s Operations Manager, while I was there. Steven Alan Segal claimed to know him from past gigs so I took Dr. Havice’s advice on using his name to get an audience. I was actually surprised when Trip not only agreed to meet but he did know Steven (this DJ claimed a lot of things which I was skeptical of, especially when he said Iggy Pop was a classmate in high school). Another person I hoped to see in person was with Enigma Records in LA. I think her name was Michelle. We had maintained some contact after I bailed on WMUR and as a thank-you gift for all her past support, I managed to get a copy of something she really wanted through WQFM’s Downstairs Dan, the acoustic version of Bon Jovi’s “Dead or Alive.” Dan in return wanted a real Mexican bottle of tequila in exchange. Too bad I wasn’t allowed to drive, both trips to see these people who could’ve helped my career in radio involved beaucoup begging of my parents.

With my exams completed, I enthusiastically took the bus trip from Milwaukee to Bloomington, the roundezvous point for everyone going to San Diego. Brian wasn’t done until Thursday so I had a day at Grandma’s house to kill which probably involved Mom nagging over my hair or something.

On Friday morning we loaded up the car (a very cramped 1983 Nissan Sentra Wagon) and hit the road well before sunset. Had I known that I wouldn’t be assisting in any driving, I would’ve begged Dad for a plane ticket. I stupidly assumed the three of us were going to take turns so we wouldn’t have to stop; thus we’d arrive sooner. Brian and I were both college students who had just completed finals; pulling an all-nighter traveling wasn’t a difficult feat for us. Fat chance in the irrational mind of my mother! The Break was off to an awful beginning thanks to her and eventually Brian: First, I still had been removed from my parents’ car insurance since 1986, which meant I was stuck being a passenger the entire journey (and “vacation”); Second, Mom had Brian do all the driving yet never hesitated to kibitz whenever he was over the speed limit; this resulted in him complaining about how he was “losing face” to the passing drivers. He was only 18 and obsessed with being cool then; Third, due to some odd incident from the last road trip the two of them made in the Spring, Mom was paranoid over the stretch between Arizona and California at night; Fourth, Brian was in a fraternity (Delta Sigma) which was not only an anathema to me personally (Marquette didn’t have a strong Greek system), he would never shut the hell up about it. Delta Sig this, Delta Sig that. I already had my fill of it long before we arrived at our destination, especially after he said only loser upperclassmen lived in the dorms; obviously a barb at me being a junior in Mashuda, the upperclassmen dorm.

My first Christmas in Houston was predominantly dreadful. Other than my grand-parents visiting, everything else sucked. I didn’t like the private high school I was attending. I didn’t have any friends who lived close by. My grades were mediocre. I missed Springfield. On and on it went. It was the first time I really hated the Holiday Break. How I wished it would end quickly because it was a miserable time despite the gifts and improved prosperity.

Then the party in July 1983 put my head on straight and I took advantage of the clean slate Clear Creek offered. My grades were great. Most of the kids in the neighborhood went to my school. Mom and Dad didn’t mind dropping me off at Bayshore Mall on Saturday afternoons because my homework was done on time. I even had tickets to the upcoming Genesis concert in January! My life had done a complete 180. Now if the girl I liked (Angie) could stop being grounded for crummy grades, it would’ve been perfect (whether or not she’d go out with me was another matter).

The two weeks off for Break were going to rock. I wasn’t worried about final exams happening when school resumed. (Normally, these would’ve taken place before the Break but Hurricane Alicia pushed everything back a week.) I felt pretty confident about everything I was taking thanks to the easier grading scale in public school.

My grandparents repeated their holiday stay at our house too, only this time they knew to leave before January was over. Regardless, it was great to see them again and maintain the “continuity” I mentioned in 1982.

Again, everything was coming together to make 1983 the best Christmas Break since we lived in Central Illinois.

Too bad the weather didn’t get the memo. Christmas morning was so darned cold it felt like we were back in our old Springfield house and the radiators were offline. Plumbers and the utility companies were scrambling all over Houston to fix bursting pipes, many they probably had repaired earlier in the aftermath of Alicia.

Sadly, the cold snap overshadows my memories of those two weeks. I only remember one gift I received, an adventure for Star Frontiers from Brian. More D&D stuff was normally what I would get but my parents took the collection away in the Fall with a bullshit excuse reminiscent of the outgoing Bush administration. How I wish I recalled what everyone else’s presents were though.

Other than the weather, the rest of the time off was probably spent cooped up in my room listening to KLOL and reading sci-fi novels, primarily Gordon R Dickson’s Dorsai-related books. It wasn’t terribly different than when school was in, I just did it for longer stretches of time while my grandparents monopolized the TV.

This tale seems to come off like 1983 was another bitter Christmas for me yet it really wasn’t. Christmas just transformed into a dull, uneventful stretch of two weeks without school. I should’ve taken it as practice for relaxing during college breaks. Besides, Houston’s geographical location salvaged the new year period. The cold snap ran its course of five days and then the temperature rose back to levels that Midwesterners only dreamed of for January (or they spend Winter in Florida). It strengthened my love of Houston because I never needed to wear heavy winter clothing to school, the arcade, etc. Had I known we’d be moving to India-no-place in two months, I might have lived it up more in the “tropical” weather.

Thus 1983 marked the end of enjoying Christmas Break like a kid and experiencing it more like a teenager or an adult, unless one is filthy rich.

Last year I kicked off my holiday (or was it holidaily?) series The Six Days of Christmas as a personal exercise in reminiscing. It received one positive response and zero complaints, so by the very spurious logic of the NeoCon movement, I declared it a success. Now I am continuing it with a new series covering 1978, 1983, 1988 (probably the most eventful), 1993, 1998 and 2003; each year appearing consecutively (I hope) until we get to New Year’s Eve or Day.

I’ll begin with 1978, the last relatively peaceful year I remember…when it comes to the world, the nation and my family.

Originally, I never thought of 1978 as being very significant since my brother and I didn’t receive any of the popular Star Wars toys. Anything associated with that movie continued to be what young boys wanted because there was no other serious competition then. Little did we know how tight things were at home, hence the big fat zero on getting better hardware to re-enact the Death Star battle. Our parents wouldn’t have clued is on the details anyway, they feared us blabbing to the wrong people more than saving us from worrying too much.

Christmas and New Year’s Eve 1978 still panned out to be a great time at Grandma’s house despite Dad being in-between jobs (we would eventually move from Champaign to Springfield the following March). Besides the cool toys we received, our parents bought us a portable tape recorder. This gadget kept my brother and me from being completely bored at Grandma’s when there was nothing on TV or we weren’t in the mood to play with the new junk. Had my grandparents predicted how crazy we’d drive them with our audio experiments, they would’ve had us sent home long before New Year’s Eve. We didn’t use it to spy on anyone or anything compromising. We just did more creative versions of Stage Five “homework” from our grade school reading classes; namely doing “plays” with fart noises and the toilet flushing. How Grandma carried on about her upcoming water bill being higher due to Brian flushing the commode a few times in succession.

The tape recorder played a role in breaking the usual routine for New Year’s Eve as well. Instead of watching the same old movies on WGN, I held it up to the radio to record WLS-AM while the station counted down the big hits of 1978. Rather sad but I was 10 and cassette decks integrated into stereos were uncommon then.

I almost forgot the most impressive thing we received until I started writing the rough draft…the GI Joe Training Center! Most of this was rather weak: some extra guns, targets, a rubber snake, a cave and a tent which hooked into the cave. What sold it was the three-foot tower with a zip line for Joe to get down from the observation deck in a hurry! It included comic book illustrating why the zip line was critical; Joe couldn’t warn his comrades about the nearby snake by walkie talkie. Due to its difficult assembly, we had to wait until we got home and recruit Dad’s assistance on the zip line element.

The lasting legacy of this Christmas was it becoming the last one at Grandma’s house until 1985 because our new house in Springfield was larger and the Holiday Break went much smoother with more space amongst six people.