IIRC, when my grandmom on my Anglo side passed away, she left us one of these, and it instantly became part of the tradition. For those unfamiliar, it's a little ceramic tree with colorful plastic pegs. (Lite-Brite, anyone?) For real, I've always found these and 'bubbler lights' to be my two favorite Xmas symbols or toys, I guess one might say.
Indeed, even as a middle-aged blokie (well, supposedly), when I happen to see a swing-set in a playground, there really is no force on Earth that can prevent me from rushing over, planting my rump on an empty seat, and swinging like mad for the next 10-20min or so. It's a trance-state, I suppose, not unlike when I find myself staring at my beloved 'bubblers,' unaware how much time has actually passed.
Er, uh... yeah, let's get to the point, Johnny. 😳 SO!... for some years now it seemed that these cute little ceramic trees were priced exorbitantly high in my area, until finally, I found a version available at my local CVS (pharmacy / general store) for a mere US$20. Score!
Just that it was powered by batteries and LEDs, which I discovered was a nice way to drive up EverReady stock, or exhaustingly to recharge batteries (piles / cells) on a daily basis. But now, in the pic above, I've clumsily attempted to replace the LED apparatus with a small incandescent bulb. For now, I've just sort of laid the re-wired bulb on a plate so as not damage the amazing, tiny Peruvian, leather-bound stand it all rests on.
One last note upon all that is that of course the photo doesn't nearly capture the magically warm glow of the little tannenbaum. Really, it's more like a hybrid between the lead pic and this below:
That is, one has more color-precision, with the other having more 'glow,' yet still not representing the overall light situation. (anybody good photogs at that stuff?) BONUS PTS: from L-R, that's my bamboo Chinese practice-sword, my table tennis net (really hard to see, I'm afraid), and my Bug-A-Salt (tm) counter-mosquito assault rifle (it fires salt particles to hopefully kill small flying disease vectors).
*foof*
Haha, so how are your holidays going, mateys? Anything crazy / funny to share? 🙂
Ah, but at the same time... in the wholesome spirit of Festivus' airing of grievances, let's get to my own... absurdities:
At this point I want to share that (as Nacky pointed out to me in private a long time ago), I do have a short fuse, and I find it embarrassing in retrospect when I get pissed off over something, or bring down the value of our community, or am just plain rude to any of our readers & members.
"Oh hello, Johnny speaking. Shitheads Are Us!"
Specifically, I recently felt super-offended by the negative reaction to my Tintin fanpost, in which it seemed like people lazily assumed that I just 'pressed a button,' got a result, then shamelessly shared it to this sublemmy. In reality? I came up with the specific idea, battled with GPT over many drafts, and finally put together the final form I was satisfied with. Only to be met with derision, on the whole. And of course, I acted childishly upon that.
In terms of my hurt feelings, let's just cut to the chase, though--
I've not just created this community for the (hopefully) public good, and not just put hundreds of man-hours in to consistently creating content for y'all, but I've been doing so whilst dragging this godamn CFS/ME around, which renders me typically exhausted and achey. Indeed, many times I try to 'hack' reality, by doing up a load of caffeine, *too* much aerobic exercise, or kratom, topped off by some booze, or whatever, and then posting here.
And for sure, sometimes I make embarrassing mistakes, such as this premature Paul post, or just in general getting bent-out-of-shape over my fantasy upon a proper NYC victory parade, in which everyone just *adores* my clever contributions to the world. XD
Eh, this is also leaving out some major bitchings of mine, but that's also part of why I feel solidarity with some here-- i.e. I perceive this as a rather rough time that most of us are dealing with right now, and I hope we can collectively focus more on solidarity and solutions.
Love and Festivus to ye all. <3
(and don't forget to air your grievances, daggit!)
