A Christmas Spasm

I took a vacation day and revelled in a three day weekend this week. And it was d'lightful. Mainly because of my night Friday, when I went to the Garden D'Lights. What cracks me up the most about the Garden D'Lights is that it sort of pretends to be classy. No gaudy mall-style elves or candy canes. Just plants. What could be more classy than plants?


But really, when you get down to it, this stuff is just like Vegas. My friends and I kept hoping Elton John or Cher would show up in the middle of it all. Maybe they did but their Bob Mackey outfits blended in too much with the surroundings. Sort of a Vegas camoflage, if you will.

After the flashy garden, we drove into downtown Bellevue (Seattle suburbia city, for those that don't know) for dinner. The streets of Bellevue were oddly crammed with traffic. Weird, I thought, Bellevue is totally happening on a Friday night! I thought it was really weird that mall-land was so full of life, but chalked that up to being stereotypical about the burbs. People are out enjoying nightlife in the burbs- is that so hard to believe? Stop being an asshole, Seattle girl.

We ended up having to park a few blocks away from the restaurant and had to walk through a large mall parking lot to get to where we were going to meet our group of 10 people. In our car was me, Nordic Boy, and our friend Rob. We walked through the parking lot, talking. All of a sudden, Rob says: "what is that? Is it snowing?" We all looked up, and it did indeed look like it was, except for the fact that it was in the upper 40s. We took a closer look and it was little tiny bubbles (hello, Don Ho, sing your song for us, why don't you?) floating around in the air. We kept walking. Then we heard music in the distance. The music was getting louder. "What IS that?" Rob said. We didn't know. The music and the bubbles increased in volume. And more. And more. And more.

Dudes, then we turned the corner and were swallowed by what can only be described as a CHRISTMAS SPASM.

There were mobs of people crowding the main street. MOBS. Like, all of a sudden we couldn't move through. We had to kind of push. And the music! Blasting! And there were people dressed up in plushy polar bear outfits, and they were jumping up and down, and dancing, and fist pumping! And there were dudes dressed up like toy soldiers, and they were up on top of pedastals, playing drums and dancing like Christmas gogo dancers! And wavy rainbow lights on all the buildings! And did I mention it was LOUD? Everyone was dancing, and clapping, and having FITS of good cheer. Like, seriously. FITS.

We pushed our way through this surreal scene. "Why? Why is this happening to us?" said Rob.

I've tried to find a good youtube video of this mess. It was such an awesome, awesome mess. I really want you to see it. But all the footage I can find focuses only on the toy soldier gogo drummers and goes over the heads of the crazy crowds and plushy polar bears. So just try to imagine it. It was BAH-NAY-NAYS.

On Saturday, we went to see A Christmas Story- The Musical. It was ok as far as musicals go, although I found it to be disjointed and there wasn't a really catchy song anywhere in there, which I always look for in a musical, but that's just me. But the thing that got me the most about this musical? First of all, the mom character sings this horrid song about motherhood that was (make way, Women's Studies student here) pretty essentialist. Can we stop making random lists of things that "good mothers" do, please? No, apparently we cannot. Secondly, they went and threw in some straight up racist boolshizz in that musical, out of nowhere. I don't remember if this was in the movie or not, but even if it was, it's not necessary to the plot and so leave that shit out, musical writers. Geez. An Asian waiter that gets laughs because he sings "Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra?" SRSLY? And white characters who can't believe- CAN'T BELIEVE- that they have to eat chow mein on CHRISTMAS? Because, wow, that is so crazy, ya'll! Eating weird food from the foreigners on the Lord's birthday! Let's make a big deal about it, ok?

So yeah. Thumbs down. I can see a mediocre play and be just fine, but throw that Fu Manchu crap in there and I am dunzo.

On the upside, my city looked pretty that night.

On Sunday, I went to visit my friend H and her two little girls, who were as cute as can be. Biogirl and I got involved in an exciting game of Hi Ho the Cherry Oh with a three year old and caught up with H. It was sweet.

The rest of my weekend was eaten up by not-so-fun family medical issues and suchlike, which was not cool at all. Decembers tend to rain crap on me, and this one was not off to a good start in that respect. So blah, blech, and phooey about that.

Still, did I mention we saw a Christmas spasm??