Holiday Bits

City Hall's 2013 tree

Sunday was another yard work day for me, thanks to Mother Nature's gift of warm weather.

While I was raking up the last of the leaves from our towering Oak tree, a small plane flew over, trailing a banner. What did it say? Not Joyeux Noel or Feliz Navidad or Merry Christmas. No, it was advertising ground pools. Would someone order a backyard pool as a holiday gift? Many pool companies also have "Christmas village" offerings, so maybe while getting LED lights for the tree, one might think about a pool for the back yard. Someone on our block had one installed last year, along with a pavilion, and we got to enjoy the ambiance vicariously by hearing all the swim party noise. Sounded like big fun.

On my way to the bank Friday, I was surprised to see Santa sitting on the porch of a Park Avenue chiropractic office. A father had just had his son pose with Santa when I pulled my camera out of my pocket. Santa is seen here trying to get the child back on his lap for my photo. But I was in a hurry and moved on.

In the spirit of the holiday, Plaintalker will try to displace those mundane political issues dancing in my head with visions of sugarplums. The mayoral veto, the Third Ward appointee, the questions about cabinet nominees will just have to take a back seat to Christmas until ... uh, Thursday.

This year marks the emergence of what Wired calls the Yule Log video that invalidates all others: Lil Bub, the cat, wheezing and dozing and purring by the fire for one hour. Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing featured it for "Happy Caturday" on Dec. 21 and it seems to be featured on many geek web sites. Sounds like just the thing to watch while resting after your tofurkey feast

--Bernice