Never-ending Holidays

It's Jan. 6, Epiphany, in the Christian/Christmas liturgical cycle, the 12th and last day of Christmas. But for so many, I can tell Christmas is long gone, all done on Dec. 25.  Why do we expend so much energy in the run-up to things, and not savor the actual time, as if it were just one minute or a day and not a period?  We were supposed to have our Christmas trees out of the condo earlier this week --that seemed wrong to me, and I like my tree so much, the lights and color and symbols, it is hard for me even now to think of dismantling it.  Especially in the Hawaii winter with gusty winds and a lot of rain. It makes things cheerful!

When I was in the grocery yesterday, (or was it last week?) the first thing I saw was the Valentine candy display.  Does anyone buy such things now, a full month and half out?

Since Halloween (Labor Day really) my life has been a virtual whirl of holidays, markers in the year...Halloween, the scorpio moment that precedes the Wizard's birthday. Then there were elections (you'd think they were holidays, the way folks go on and on) and other federal observances leading up to Thanksgiving. We managed to spend some serious holiday time with family and friends on the Mainland.  Then my birthday, then our wedding anniversary/winter solstice and Christmas.  And now... Valentine's Day?  It isn't even Chinese New Year yet!

On Christmas eve, in addition to my annual ritualistic baby boomer nostalgic viewing of Polar Express, I also watched Holiday Inn, a DVD of the 1942 musical with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire with Irving Berlin music. It recalled to me the cycle of holidays of grade school in the '50s, construction paper craft projects making silhouettes of Washington and Lincoln, and Valentine hearts to decorate the box in which we deposited little cards for classmates, unaware of any erotic significance,  and on and on through the year. But they never seemed to run together, those holidays, as they do now in consumer-based celebrations.

Holiday Inn was fun to watch, including Fred Astaire's famous patriotic firecracker dance, (compare to Gangnam Style) and Bing and Marjorie Reynolds singing White Christmas to a tree, using the bells on its boughs as part of the acompaniment.  It was a quaint reverie, except for the colossal embarrassment (and bizarre counterpoint to White Christmas) of the Lincoln's Birthday celebration, with Bing Crosby in blackface, giving the shameful impression that Abe freed the slaves so they could find acting jobs in Hollywood movies as stereotypical mammys and pickaninnys.  Well, it was 1942 and Irving Berlin.  We still had a long way to go.  (Who would go to a sophisticated song and dance inn in the country to celebrate Lincoln's Birthday anyway?)  Apparently broadcast versions of the film edit this number out; I suppose if Hollywood wanted to remake the movie, in a politically correct fashion, they might add Kwaanza to the holiday celebrations or replace the Lincoln scene with Martin Luther King Day.

And it would be cool to add some lion dancing and kung fu for a Chinese New Year scene.  That's the next holiday I'm looking forward to!  Fifteen days! Spring festival! The Chinese know how to stretch out a holiday.

Hail Atlanta!**

Recently home from an exhausting business (with some pleasure) trip to the Mainland. It started out very mapped, laid out, itineraries through no less than seven major cities between Honolulu and Atlanta, but despite effortless packing and wrapping up of last minute details, I still felt as if on a treadmill, a little too lockstep for fun. Still, it was a beautiful flight east, with no seat mates, not even row mates. Flying away from the sunset, I caught the last glint of the day's sunlight on the port wing.  I  should mention it was Halloween.

Then the trick or treating began.  A departure delay due to "mechanical problems" put us in late at LAX, missing a connecting flight to Atlanta via Cleveland.  (The flight attendants wondered why I wasn't on the Houston to Atlanta run. "You should do that," they said.  From now on, I will book my flights through the cabin crew not based in Mumbai. ) A midnight to 5 a.m. hotel stay was arranged where I discovered hotels don't provide toothbrushes anymore.  Fuzzy teeth were bad enough, but the view out the window of one of those big L.A. industry billboards was more disturbing.  (We don't have signage like this in Hawaii.)

All night, I felt like I was being watched.  Even from a prone position in bed. Talk about peeping toms!

If it had to be a film star, why couldn't it have been this one?

I could have closed the drapes, but I was relying on the sun to wake me to get back to the airport where they had neglected to rebook me on the next flight out.  They had to handwrite a ticket!  Eventually, about 24 hours after I left Honolulu,  I arrived in Atlanta, all groggy and jet-lagged with bad breath and disoriented after a long walk from gate to baggage claim, past an endless display of somewhat disturbing sculptures by an artist from Zimbabwe.  I waited patiently --what else can one do?--with a bunch of people at a carousel that kept recirculating the same bags and no one was claiming any of them.  I had a nasty feeling my own bags had gone missing.  I looked up at the ceiling and experienced a truly Kafka-esque moment.

I'd been rerouted to Antlanta!  As if the hideous Zimbabwe bronzes weren't enough, these guys --at least 24 inches long, antenna to tail--formed a strange welcoming committee.  And I have confirmation that I was not hallucinating. Whose idea was this? Promoting Georgia red fire ants?  Just what a person after 24 hours in the air with missed connections and lost luggage needs to see.  Was it a promotion for a remake of Them?

My wayward luggage was eventually delivered to my Atlanta hotel, which also makes me wonder about yet another of the art installations at this curious airport.

This "piece," cleverly named "Samsonite," appears to commemorate the loss of luggage by travelers from all 50 states.  If I had had the presence of mind, I would have searched for the Hawaii license plate to photograph.  It reminds me of those charm bracelets composed of tiny enamel maps of all the states in the union. (I have one.)  But I just wanted to get away from those ants.

And this was just Day One.  

**I also wish I had had the presence of mind to have written the first comment on this Youtube link. I take the liberty to quote it here:

Atlanta was a city, landlocked, hundreds of miles from the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean, Yet so desperate the city's desire for tourism that they moved offshore, becoming an island and an even bigger Delta hub. Until the city over-developed and it started to sink. Knowing their fate, the quality people ran away, Ted Turner, Hank Aaron, Jeff Foxworthy, the guy who invented Coca-Cola, the magician and the other so-called gods of our legends. Though gods they were, also Jane Fonda was there.