The Magic (and the Madness) of the Holidays

 I like to think of myself as a thoughtful gift-giver.  I try to get inside the recipient's head and give them something they don't even know they want until they get it.  Ask my husband about the framed sketch of John Lennon I gave him several years ago - he still doesn't know he wants it. 

Last year, I was particularly on top of my game.  I got in on the Zhu Zhu Pets craze before anyone knew what they were.  I bought these little mechanical hamsters on Amazon for almost three times what they were selling for IF you could find them in the stores during the holiday season.  My girls went nuts when they opened them.  Of course, Santa got all the credit.  Of course, 2 weeks later they were so over the Zhu Zhu Pets. But Christmas morning was friggin' magic.

I can't understand why this is not placed in a prominent position in our home...

What a RUSH!

Admittedly, cheesiest blog title ever.  But it's appropriate given that my husband and I went to see Rush at Jiffy Lube Live Pavilion ("The Lube") on Saturday night.  We have both been Rush fans since our teens and we lucked into tickets at the last minute...it was very cool to be able to experience this gigantic nerd-fest with my special man.

I saw Rush 2 or 3 times in high school (foggy memory - I blame the 2nd hand pot smoke in the Cap Center) and each time I left the show feeling like I was the ultimate in cool.  I proudly wore my concert t-shirt to school the next day, positive that everyone who saw me in the halls was jealous to extremes.  The girls wanted to be me, and the guys wanted to be with me...they were all just way too shy to make a move.  Yeah, that's it.

But I had a sneaking suspicion that I had been mistaken when I took my son (then 13) to the Snakes and Arrows tour 2 years ago.  The man seated next to us was an uber-Rush fan.  He played every note of every song on air-guitar/bass/drum with amazing accuracy.  Not that geeky.  I have been known to play a couple of air instruments myself - mostly triangle and accordian - but I digress.  What made this guy stand out was that he had hand motions for several of the songs.  No, he was not signing for the benefit of any blind people in our section.  He was playing "Rush Lyric Charades". 

My husband calls Rush "The Dungeons and Dragons of Rock".  Charades Guy is a prime example.  So was the 15 year old boy sitting behind us last night.  I was an ear-witness to his tirade about the price of his Pepsi, and how it was cutting into his tutoring money and he wasn't going to get another $15 for tutoring until next week! (he sounded remarkably like Napoleon Dynamite...flippin' idiot.) 

I did not buy a t-shirt last night, but I still feel cool. I'm not like those other fans...and that's how I choose to remember it.

Signing off from Eberron,
Dungeon Master Lisa