Jason, Kate and the Ugly Christmas Sweater

Kate's boyfriend Jason is quite competitive and he loves to win prizes. Last weekend, he set his sights on becoming the 2014 Ugly Christmas Sweater Champ of his social circle.  Kate was attending the party too, so naturally she felt pressure to find herself the perfect outfit.

Please ignore my hair
and focus on the sweater. 

She went to Goodwill on her lunch hour and bought herself a sweater. Apparently it wasn't ugly enough though, because she brought it to me that evening as a gift. She told me repeatedly that she had purchased it as an ugly sweater entry but the more she looked at it, the more it reminded her of me. Hmmm...

A more fashion-conscious woman might have been offended, but not me. I adored the hand-knit sweater the second I laid eyes on it. I am totally in love with the "reduce*reuse*recycle" motto so her purchase gratified me on many levels. 

The next evening, Katie sent me a picture of herself with Jason in front of the Christmas tree. Of course she looked darling - no surprises there.  And Jason?

Jason looked to me like he was wearing what should become the winning entry.

How could that outfit not win?

Whoever was judging thought so too, because Jason went home with a trophy.  

Better luck next year, Kate.  


P.S.  I think your sweater vest is kinda cute.  (Hint. Hint.)

      

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T.V. Wars

When we were first married, I got a wild idea that watching television was a horrible waste of time.  (I believe this epiphany occurred during some episode of one of the soap operas I was hooked on.)  That day I unplugged the t.v., took a pair of wire cutters and clipped the cord in half.  It was a symbolic gesture, but the symbolism was lost on my husband who came home shortly thereafter with a larger, nicer television.  "Josh needs it to watch Sesame Street," he said.

Time goes by and eventually, I tried again.  I reasoned that if we had a smaller t.v. maybe we'd watch it less, so I traded the large color set with a friend who gave me a ten-inch black-and-white in return.   We were both thrilled with the exchange.  Jerry wasn't quite so excited about it when he got home that night.

Each time I've done something stupid like this, my husband has seen it as an opportunity to upgrade.  "Pee Wee's Play House doesn't look like as much fun in black-and-white." he said.  And, "You can't tell the Muppets apart without color. You know how much Jessica loves the Muppets."  Soon a new, improved t.v. would appear.

Eventually, we ended up with one of those monster consoles that were popular just before LED screens arrived on the scene.  It was the focal point of our living room.  By that time in our lives, even I rationalized that if our youngest had a good t.v., maybe she'd hang around our house watching it with her friends instead of going who-knows-where and doing who-knows-what.

Wrong!  We never broke down and got cable and so all Kate had to do to get a free pass out of our living room was fall in love with some series on HBO, which she did every season.  On the up side, if we had saved the money we didn't spend on cable, we could have bought our new car cash.  If.

When Kate's giant television went off with her to her first apartment, some friends gave us an old t.v. from their basement. We bought the $40 thingie for it when the government changed the signals, but we never took it out of its box.  By then we were watching mostly DVDs anyway. 

Around this time we also grew to love ("became addicted to" is probably more accurate) playing Tetris on our daughters' old Nintendo 64 which we rescued from the attic.  We played it a lot in the evenings until slowly it dawned upon us that you can't win Tetris.  All you can do is lose more slowly, if that makes sense.  Again, it would seem, I'd stumbled upon a giant time-waster. 

Now we watch movies and the occasional sporting event at our neighbor's house and that seems like enough.  A couple months ago, Jerry was cleaning out the basement and he donated our only television to Goodwill. 

It would appear that after thirty-five years, we are on the same team.  Yet every night when he comes home from work, I'm frightened by what I might find in his back seat.