The weather may, for those weary of it, actually make for a few last-minute gift opportunities.
So have a Merry but materialistic Christmas, using your main machines as presents. In doing so, guard the chief transportation chances that are a given to be golden — such as they are and by making new ones — and keep them close like your loved ones, and most of all keep them all warm, God Bless Us Each And Every One Of Them. And the animals too. As every animal rights protection agency in the 50 states, (and maybe not Puerto Rico as it spells too much like now busy again winter-escape Rio), will weigh in on, especially these last few days. OK, maybe not California. But Texas also has weighed in, as temps there have been so far below freezing that even usually cowboy-hat hardened but otherwise uninitiated Texans are cowering.
But let me not digress on this Christmas Eve afternoon. These are some very last-minute ideas that my have to actually be delivered later — even though there is mail-to-your-door service today and that includes the U.S. Postal Service to your mailbox and pity the carriers as their doors are open to the wind and weather as they go. But even if getting there late, next-day on the 26th, isn’t it that thought that counts? Many retail stores are open until 4 or 5 p.m. So grab a card pointing out your newly hatched plan. (And the way things are going of late, that mail carrier with that again last-minute Christmas card might not arrive after you get back from church services.
— Bad jokes are like bad sweaters, but with today’s ramped-up fashion sense, only the latter come around less frequently, as in just seasonally (we hope). A favorite clerk of mine, at Dick’s Market, was wearing her full reindeer horns right before the holidays meant a scheduled shutdown of her store. I told her she looked like Rudolph, but that didn’t go over well, as my use of pronoun wasn’t apt. She added that she does not have a red nose, as that would’ve been reserved for those in quality control over at the liquor store end of the business. So I thought to myself, as I’ve gotten to know her fairly well but maybe not THAT well, can I get away with calling her Cupid?
My even worse joke of the week, or so, now follows, and unlike most of mine, this one is short and sweet (you will see the meaning behind THAT word choice): Did you know that creepy guy also works as a cashier? You don’t want him checking you out!” —
Anyway …
I saw for sale on-line — so you can get it whether you are local or in any of the many countries where this website is read, but that might not include Russia/Siberia where the ideas could be most needed — a killer hybrid between a snowmobile and amped-up and bigger golf cart and small tank, that could get you through anything from a blizzard to a sand storm. And just as killer boots that could have you walk this way across any kind of slippery ice, (we can’t promise walking on water). They in following the golf theme have on their soles (to save your souls on this holiday?) what looks like a combo of dozens of three-times-larger spikes, and thick claws that were sold on either the black market, or by really cold and desperate critters, or both, that had these as surplus since they couldn’t dig deep enough into the snow to use them anyway! Sorry for being grinch-like, but there’s more on how to help cold animals next.
Even shivering Texas cows. Send loads of the following their way, in reversing the trend of immigrants being bussed up north, and you might indeed need a bus, to areas where the real blizzard rages on. The Inter-County Cooperative Publishing Cooperative, up in my area of western Wisconsin, sells shredded newsprint paper as livestock bedding, (it references sheep and pigs too), for $237.50 a ton, divvied into 95 bags. There are a variety of smaller orders available for Fido or Friskers. There is an extra charge for just the sports pages (just kidding). And of course their online version is said to produce great results for sales as a shopper, but in this case … Area farmers of things other that the usual hay or corn, as hey in Wisconsin we raise a bit of everything, also have been known to take some of their stuff that’s expired and use it for such bedding needs. Strike them a deal? Or barter for some kind of a trade?
Then must reference mom. Her neighbor is a bit too frail to put out birdseed, so mom’s feeder is the gathering place this holiday for everything from a host of heavenly cardinals to a bunch of rabbits, minus a hutch. So a few pounds worth gone in the last 24 hours. Stores that are open to buy more? And the will to fight the cold and wind? Step in an online course designed mostly for fishermen and fisherwomen, but now adapted, teaching how to most effectively and quickly “cast.” Not using your rod, but from the back patio door.
And the new boots to trudge through new and deep snow, to get to where the birdies go? Need the steel-toed and thick fabriced, metal worker variety, like dad wore? (Knew we shoulda kept them when the last spring cleaning came around). Or reference those killer boots described above.