There is a body in my trunk...

Well, I drive a Jeep Cherokee so I don't actually have a trunk. But there is a space behind the back seat - and there is currently a body in it.

A dead body.

Dead, dismembered and drained.

Her feet are in a separate bag...

I didn't know her before her untimely demise, but I suspect she is a Hamilton.

 Note the strong family resemblance

Sparky and his BFF (My Sister-Wife, Geno) used to roast pigs in a huge oil drum in Geno's backyard.   Everyone else loved to watch the pig spin while drinking copious amounts of beer and tequila but since I don't drink all that much, the sight of a corpse rotisserie-ing all day in a rusty oil drum was less than appetizing.

Then, I discovered La Caja China!

I saw Roberto kick Bobby Flay's butt in a Pork Shoulder Throwdown and I was sold. I had found THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS GIFT for my husband.  (We've been married 27 years - I ran out of great gift ideas around 15 years ago, so this was a true Christmas miracle.)

I knew it was a hit when Sparky assembled the box in the middle of my living room on Christmas Eve. Since then, there's been no stopping him. Several times a year, Sparky whips out his Caja China and cooks up a pig.

It's a big production, mind you. He restrains the pig spread-eagled on a rack, injects the pig with secret juice, then he rubs the pig all over with coarse salt and spices...

'Scuse me... had a little "50 Shades of Pork" moment there...'

Anyhow, a friend of Son O'Mine is having a party tomorrow and he asked Sparky to roast a pig. So,  at this very moment, he's out there restraining and injecting and rubbbbbbing...

I'm going to watch.

Hey, I'm old... I take my thrills wherever I can.

Christmas in Bear Country

Bearmas 2011

It's Christmas time again although it's hard to tell by the weather. Here in CT we've been enjoying temps in the 50's every day. Maybe Mom Nature is giving us a break. It hasn't been an easy year here in New England weather-wise.

We normally start the Christmas decorating shortly after Thanksgiving. Over that first week of December, lights gradually appear but not this year. After Snow Storm Alfred gypped us out of Halloween, we're NAILING Christmas. At 12:01 the day after Thanksgiving this year, it was as if someone flipped a switch and Connecticut lit up like the Vegas Strip.

There are more lights than ever this year. Yards are jam packed with moving, singing, shaking and ringing elves, reindeer and Santas of every shape and size. I've seen more inflatable you-know-whos than I can count.

As for us, well the Bear's sporting his hat and spear and Radioactive Santa is in his place of honor on the garage roof.

I normally decorate everything that doesn't get out of my way. I collected handmade ornaments for years and when Son O'Mine was little, we'd spend a whole day hanging them all on the (real) tree. I get this Christmas mania from my maternal grandmother, Nanny. She loved Christmas. I mean, LOVED Christmas. This woman had 6 children and a husband who was a career Navy man so they traveled a lot.  Nanny never had much money, so she hand-made all her gifts - I particularly recall a blue shag hat with earflaps that she made me. Ugliest thing ever but it was warm and made with love so I wore it. Anything my Nanny made carried love in it and that made it magical.

Christmas was her holiday. She had one of those silver aluminum trees with two (yes, two!) colorwheels. Each year she'd decorate the tree in a theme - balls, garland, icicles - all in one color. One year it was red, one year green, one year blue - but my all time favorite was the year she did the tree in PURPLE.

Yep, a 7 foot shiny silver tree hung from top to bottom in deep purple balls and garland. It was spectacularly hideous. Long after she passed away, it was the topic of laughter anytime our family got together - that damn tree with the purple balls.

Over the years, I surrendered to the ease of the artificial tree. I think it was after the year I watched one too many Martha shows and felt the need to wrap every freakin branch with lights - it was gorgeous, but it was a bitch to take down. After about 5 minutes of trying to remove the lights, Sparky just said "Get out of the way!" and chucked the entire 7 foot tree out the front door, lights and all. I was not allowed to watch Martha again.

This year, I decided to scale back. I put up the tree and decided I really liked the way it looked with lights and no ornaments. 

Tree au naturale

So I went through the boxes and pulled a few simple pieces to put up and left the rest.

But I found one thing that I couldn't put away. It's the only ornament on my tree. It wouldn't be Christmas without it.

from her original tree

Merry Christmas, Nanny.

　

　

Zombies, Vampires and Radioactive Santa

He's baaaaaaaaack!

It's that time again. Time when folks in the CT suburbs work feverishly to outdo each other in cheesy lawn decorations. It generally starts at 12:01 am, the day after Thanksgiving.

The trends seem to have cycles. They don't change as often as clothing fashions, but every few years there's a new big thing and everyone who's anyone has to have it.

For years it was those white wicker Zombie Reindeer. Some folks still have those. I'm ok with those now, but that first year they appeared, they were EVERYWHERE! Herds of them all over lawns. Some were even motion-activated so when you went by, they'd turn their heads. Creepy.

This year, there are Vampire Inflatables sprouting up from lawns everywhere here. You know the ones. Ginormous Santas, Snowmen, and Reindeer that litter the lawn like corpses all day and magically inflate and light up at dark. Vampires. Who else would think that dead Santa on the lawn all day is attractive?

And of course, the Bear has his Santa hat on and a Christmas flag speared through the heart. Each year he is joined by Radioactive Santa. Now, when we originally bought the house, the neighbor's garage was adjacent to ours at the end of a long driveway. Each year, they'd put Santa on the roof and light him up. Son O'Mine would wave to Santa each night. Cute stuff.

However, in the way of the suburbs, things changed. We put on an addition to the house. So within months, the neighbors built a big two-car-two-story garage in front of the old one. We didn't really think much of it, till the night of the day after Thanksgiving.

They put Santa (same Santa 25 years later - CT peeps are crazy, but thrifty) up on the roof of the new garage (which is now in a direct line with our bedroom window) and jammed a bazillion watts up his ass.

From Thanksgiving to New Years, we have to keep our bedroom drapes closed tight now, or Sparky and I get sunburned while we sleep.

I'm considering lead-lined shades - do they come in robin's egg blue?