T-Mobile Pepper Tree felled by 3-D Elephant cookie car
The Martin Family finally celebrated Christmas! The Christmas Tree coaxed out of the Oregon wilderness with promises of an early retirement package…
“Wilderness?” Nazy asked.
“Wilderness — in the sense of a carefully managed, well-pruned, tree farm surrounded by urbanity.”
In any case, the Christmas Tree, a Noble Fir turned Ignoble, the evergreen turned brown. The tree was pouting. On the other hand, it was easy to see the ornaments and lights since there were no pesky tree needles obscuring the view.
Because we are The Martin Family, tradition dominated the celebration. For example, although the gift opening was more than two weeks after the ‘real’ Christmas, Darius wasn’t finished shopping when the Big Day dawned. I was driving him downtown…
“You’re lucky, Dar, that we didn’t celebrate on Christmas Day because the stores wouldn’t have been open that morning.”
“I planned this, Dad.”
“Planned?” I replied. “Planned? It was just like the way the dinosaurs planned to handle a meteor strike,” I thought.
“And can we stop at T-Mobile? I can’t connect to the internet with my mobile phone.”
Darius gets a SIM card for his mobile phone every time he visits us in the USA. In order to fool the NSA, he buys the SIM under a pseudonym. (He chooses ‘names’ that won’t set off any red flags. Simple choices like Juan Suzuki, Horatio Thanasukolwit and Eduardo Roberto Enrico Smith.) I have so many ‘Darius — USA’ entries in my iPhone contacts list that I’m getting a rare Apple error message: Error -241; Offspring directory count exceeded.
Darius’ Samsung phone, with two SIM cards, temporarily flummoxed the T-Mobile technician. Eventually however, she was able to negotiate the menu tree, a masterpiece of created by a modern artist who designs freeway interchanges using cooked spaghetti.
The technician disabled the Lebanese SIM card thereby forcing the phone to look for a local network. But…
“The T-mobile network doesn’t work here,” she explained while waiting for a connection.
“But this is the T-Mobile office,” Darius replied.
“There is a lot of interference. Just follow me outside. You’ll see.” She said, leading Darius into the outdoor shopping arena.
“It will get better and better the farther we go from the office,” she claimed.
“By the time you get back to Beirut, Dar,” I interrupted skeptically, “that phone will be smoking!”
“It’s barely smoldering now,” Darius observed.
“We’re close to the office,” she replied handing Darius the phone. “If you run that way, loading will accelerate.”
“It’s just like flying a kite, Dar,” I explained. “You have to run to get it into the air. But if you go to fast, you might be incinerated.”
We both noticed the technician running the other way.
But with a working cell phone, Darius was able to finish his Christmas shopping just before the official gift-opening ceremonies began.
Mitra made sure that all traditions were not only followed, but were enhanced, emboldened and embellished.
“I brought cutters and instructions for three dimensional, elephant themed, sugar cookies, Dad.”
“Three-dimensional?”
“You ‘build’ the elephant from hand cut components.”
“Elephant?”
“And you ‘glue’ everything together with pink icing. It’s a simple assembly process.”
“I have trouble assembling Lego Blocks.”
“That’s why I’m going to oversee the process.” Mitra replied. “With Stefan,” she concluded.
“Wow!” I said. “Pink Icing?” I thought.
“I thought he would love it.”
“Give him time.”
On the weather front, El Niño rain finally arrived in Santa Barbara. We had more rain in the last week than we during the entire year of 2015. The creek actually had water flowing through it for several hours after the big rain and even had dribbling water a day later. There was a downside:
A pepper tree planted by The Mission in 1821 toppled over after the rain. So much water flowed from the shallow roots into the tree that it became top heavy.
And, finally, in financial matters, my retirement investment in the lottery appreciated by $100,000,000.00 overnight. However, even though I specifically told the sales clerk at 7-11 that I wanted to purchase the winning ticket, my number was not selected. Undaunted (the odds are good: 50:50 I either win or lose), and buoyed by the fact that since no one won, my retirement take upon victory will be $1,300,000,000.00, I plan to make another purchase this weekend.
“Wilderness?” Nazy asked.
“Wilderness — in the sense of a carefully managed, well-pruned, tree farm surrounded by urbanity.”
In any case, the Christmas Tree, a Noble Fir turned Ignoble, the evergreen turned brown. The tree was pouting. On the other hand, it was easy to see the ornaments and lights since there were no pesky tree needles obscuring the view.
Because we are The Martin Family, tradition dominated the celebration. For example, although the gift opening was more than two weeks after the ‘real’ Christmas, Darius wasn’t finished shopping when the Big Day dawned. I was driving him downtown…
“You’re lucky, Dar, that we didn’t celebrate on Christmas Day because the stores wouldn’t have been open that morning.”
“I planned this, Dad.”
“Planned?” I replied. “Planned? It was just like the way the dinosaurs planned to handle a meteor strike,” I thought.
“And can we stop at T-Mobile? I can’t connect to the internet with my mobile phone.”
Darius gets a SIM card for his mobile phone every time he visits us in the USA. In order to fool the NSA, he buys the SIM under a pseudonym. (He chooses ‘names’ that won’t set off any red flags. Simple choices like Juan Suzuki, Horatio Thanasukolwit and Eduardo Roberto Enrico Smith.) I have so many ‘Darius — USA’ entries in my iPhone contacts list that I’m getting a rare Apple error message: Error -241; Offspring directory count exceeded.
Darius’ Samsung phone, with two SIM cards, temporarily flummoxed the T-Mobile technician. Eventually however, she was able to negotiate the menu tree, a masterpiece of created by a modern artist who designs freeway interchanges using cooked spaghetti.
The technician disabled the Lebanese SIM card thereby forcing the phone to look for a local network. But…
“The T-mobile network doesn’t work here,” she explained while waiting for a connection.
“But this is the T-Mobile office,” Darius replied.
“There is a lot of interference. Just follow me outside. You’ll see.” She said, leading Darius into the outdoor shopping arena.
“It will get better and better the farther we go from the office,” she claimed.
“By the time you get back to Beirut, Dar,” I interrupted skeptically, “that phone will be smoking!”
“It’s barely smoldering now,” Darius observed.
“We’re close to the office,” she replied handing Darius the phone. “If you run that way, loading will accelerate.”
“It’s just like flying a kite, Dar,” I explained. “You have to run to get it into the air. But if you go to fast, you might be incinerated.”
We both noticed the technician running the other way.
But with a working cell phone, Darius was able to finish his Christmas shopping just before the official gift-opening ceremonies began.
Mitra made sure that all traditions were not only followed, but were enhanced, emboldened and embellished.
“I brought cutters and instructions for three dimensional, elephant themed, sugar cookies, Dad.”
“Three-dimensional?”
“You ‘build’ the elephant from hand cut components.”
“Elephant?”
“And you ‘glue’ everything together with pink icing. It’s a simple assembly process.”
“I have trouble assembling Lego Blocks.”
“That’s why I’m going to oversee the process.” Mitra replied. “With Stefan,” she concluded.
“Wow!” I said. “Pink Icing?” I thought.
Naturally, the ‘star’ of Christmas was young Tiger. Although he didn’t quite ‘get’ the idea of opening presents…
“This is the last year, Melika,” I explained. “that he will let you open his presents.”
“ .. he did like getting cars and hats.”
Mitra also found the perfect gift for young Tiger. He likes cars and he likes water. (In fact, his first trilingual word is ‘water’; he can say it in English (“water&rdquo
, Farsi (“aub&rdquo and Spanish (“Agua&rdquo
Mitra’s umbrella was red, had pictures of cars and had a car at the end of the handle. When Tiger saw it, he joyfully grabbed it until..
“He discovered that the handle, shaped like a car, does not come off. And the wheels do not go around.” Mitra explained over the background cacophony of a wailing and outraged 18-month old baby.
“He wants to add your umbrella car to his matchbox collection,” I explained.
“I thought he would love it.”
“Give him time.”
On the weather front, El Niño rain finally arrived in Santa Barbara. We had more rain in the last week than we during the entire year of 2015. The creek actually had water flowing through it for several hours after the big rain and even had dribbling water a day later. There was a downside:
A pepper tree planted by The Mission in 1821 toppled over after the rain. So much water flowed from the shallow roots into the tree that it became top heavy.
And, finally, in financial matters, my retirement investment in the lottery appreciated by $100,000,000.00 overnight. However, even though I specifically told the sales clerk at 7-11 that I wanted to purchase the winning ticket, my number was not selected. Undaunted (the odds are good: 50:50 I either win or lose), and buoyed by the fact that since no one won, my retirement take upon victory will be $1,300,000,000.00, I plan to make another purchase this weekend.
For last week's letter, click here
The Martin Family
2016
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