Holiday Spirit

Rowan cutting up
Originally uploaded by Cheryl Rollman.

What a busy weekend. First, we all drug our collective asses out of bed to get to LMA's school by 8:50 in the A of M for her "Cocoa with Santa" holiday event. Each grade participated in a music performance, then there was cookie decorating, a small gift bazaar and finally photos with Santa.

It was packed and loud and pretty typical when you think of school functions. Most parents were watching it all through a view finder or display screen.

G-man and Ms. A spent the afternoon taking a nap, and LMA even volunteered to lay down for a while on her own. I was apparently the only one who didn't take a hint and close my eyes for a while. At 5:30 we raced downtown to participate in the local annual tradition of the tree lighting where John Aielli hosts a sign along on the south lawn of the capital building. After the sing along, a tree is lit and the people are encouraged to wander around Congress Avenue and hit all the eateries and shops that have stayed open late for the event.

We spent our time rolling down a grassy hill.

Ms. A then rushed us back home because she had a shoot. The groom of a wedding she'd done last year works as a security consultant or contractor or something and hired her to do some publicity shots at Antone's for some big VIP thing.

It turns out the VIPs were David Letterman, Paul Shaffer, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Billy Gibbons. Off duty/retired NYPD detectives were security and Ms. A was informed that she could not take photos unless authorized to, meaning no just point and shoot of any of the famous people unless the security people okayed it. She was actually hassled as being a paparazzi even though she was being paid by the security company to do publicity shots.

At one point (and this is a third-hand story so bear with me) it was Ms. A, her security guy (guy who hired her) and Billy Gibbons hanging around a table and Gibbons had to go to the restroom so he asked this guy and Ms. A to watch over his guitar, otherwise known as Miss Pear or Miss Pearly Gates. They said of course and he asked if it was going to be in good hands, Ms. A says of course. He comes back and hands her his business card and says that if she gave him a way to contact her, she'd have a contact for life. It sounds odd typed out, and I'm sure guys of that level of fame say that and hand out cards to hundreds of people a year, but Gibbons is from Houston and I'm sure he likes coming to Austin so who knows.

The good news is, Ms. A now has a pretty good standing gig with this security company that apparently caters to some...well, shit...David Letterman people!

I'm living vicariously. Not many people you can meet drawing dead leaders as mechanical men.

We also haven't put up a tree, but we've put up lights and my nutcracker collection. We left the tree with the old house or threw it away or something, so we have to go get a new one. I'm always amazed around this time of year how much I look forward to it and how utterly frazzled and easily ticked off I get. I was outside with the lights for about 3 minutes before I became my dad (and his dad, and his dad.) And I had the easy lights too, the ones in the clear tube that sort of coil around stuff? Yeah, I'm stable.

Ms. A steers clear, she can't stand putting stuff up for this reason. It's stressful. But every year I put on a Christmas cartoon or holiday music and dream of wassail and snow and Dickens. I don't know when it'll hit me that December 25th (or 22nd, whatever) is going to be 75° and I'll probably be working and Nate King Cole won't welcome me at home with a cup of eggnog.

Carry on.