grand holiday conjunction with trains, angels and cookies
“…not true, Dan.” Nazy points out. “Jupiter and Saturn are always very far apart.”
“Just like Trump and rationality?” I asked, attempting to sidestep the comment.
“Yes, but..”
“I should have said ‘from our perspective’, Jupiter and Saturn are moving closer together. On December 21st, they will appear closer together than they have been since 1623. They may even look like single star.”
December 21st is also the date of the Winter Solstice (in the Northern Hemisphere) which means it will be the shortest day of the year. That’s kind of..
“… an anomaly, Nazy,” I explained. “A short day in 2020? This is a year where every day just keeps going on — and on — and on.”
[The photo, taken from our home, shows the moon, Jupiter (bright) and Saturn a few days before the conjunction.]
Days seem uneventfully long. But, Christmas is on the horizon. In preparation, we installed our Christmas Tree and remembering that last year’s Tree Topper, a brightly lighted star had turned in a less than adequate performance.
“Less than adequate, Dan? The lights did not work.”
“So it was a ‘brightly lighted star’?” I replied.
“I’d cross out the ‘brightly’, too, Dan.” Nazy retorted.
To fix the situation this year, Nazy chose a ‘brightly lighted’ Angel on the Balsam website. Uncharacteristically, we ordered early. Unfortunately, Balsam used the current administration’s post office to deliver the package. We believe that the USPS treated our Angel they way the ‘president’ wanted them to treat ballots mailed by Democrats. Unexpectedly, the Angel was finally delivered. But, when we plugged it in…
“It doesn’t light up,” Nazy noted.
“But it has a spare fuse,” I replied after perusing the instruction manual. “I’m skeptical of a Christmas Tree Angel that needs and instruction manual,” I thought as I dismantled the electrical plugs to locate two fuses. [I noticed 4 ‘inspected by number x’ stickers on the power cord.] It turned out that we had two spare fuses. However, ti was impossible to tell which fuse in the plug was the spare and which was ‘live’ — or in this case ‘dead’. We had three fuses and we tried, to no avail, every combination.
I sent an email to Balsam and they quickly agreed to refund our money and said that we needn’t send the Angel back: we could ‘keep it, dispose of it, donate..”
“.. or detonate it,” I thought, annoyed by the time I’d spent working on it.
Nazy decided to take it to the local hardware store where, she was convinced, she’d find someone with sufficient electrical expertise to fix the, now very economical, Angel. I pointed out, to no avail, that I was a graduate of Georgia Tech and, as such, had ‘adequate electrical expertise’.
The Ace Electrician began his work enthusiastically. He checked the fuses, he adjusted each LED light, he installed a new power plug, he shouted at the wire and he shook them heartily.”
“He must have gone to Georgia Tech, too,” I thought, noting that he had not been any more successful than me.
“I think there is a wiring flaw in the light string,” he finally said. “You can buy a new string of LED lights, throw out the defective set on this ‘angel’ and that may work.”
“Unless the angel, because it was manufactured in 2020, is cursed,” I thought.
We demurred, brought the angel home and decided to reroute a single LED from the tree into the …
“ … rear end of the Angel?” I asked — just before that light stopped shining.
A while later, we located a spare LED, we figured out how to replace the defective one, we rerouted the string on the tree to shine up the Angel’s … ”
“The LED you installed Dan, is purple.” Nazy noticed.
“Isn’t purple a great color, my dear?” I replied.
“I’m not sure how good it looks shining under the angels’s skirt.” Nazy replied.
“It’s better than red.” I thought.
As we fumbled around the apex of the tree, we were also concerned about the base. Nazy pulled out the HO gauge train that we had bought several years ago.
“Isn’t that train the one that never worked?” I thought when Nazy asked me to help set it up.
The train, as solidly built as a dandelion seed, had multiple moving parts (most of which shouldn’t be moved). Balancing the (far too many) cars on the miniature track required a jewelers loop and patience. I had neither. Nazy eventually got the HO train to circle the track — once. It was derailed by a speck of dust propelled by a breeze created when Tiger exhaled in celebration.
“What’s wrong with this?” Nazy asked as she grabbed my arm. (I was just about to throw the ‘locomotive’ over the balcony.
“We need an O-gauge train made by a company located in a part of the world that has electricity,” I replied. “A train where the locomotive weighs more than a puff pastry.”
The Lionel Polar Express filled the bill.
There are, of course, other traditions that should be upheld. My favorite Christmas Sugar Cookies. Nazy, who broke with tradition last year when there were no cookies to be had, began early this year. Working with Arrow and Tiger, she did a trial run with decorated Thanksgiving cookies.
Skills honed, Nazy is already getting ready for the BIg League cookie championship.
For last week's letter, please click here
Some grandchildren photos follow
Azelle