Popeye I Am Not
Posted by Moose on December 16th, 2009. Filed under: Tis the Season.After waking up in the haze that signals either dawn or the Apocalypse for my drive to the Alameda courtroom, I promised myself a reward if I could get through the ordeal that is traffic court. I redacted the “gracefully” section of that sentence after realizing I’d left my coffee on the kitchen table. I valiantly stifled Wanda the Internal Voice of Obnoxious Self-Righteousness As Applies to Moving Citations and walked past the other 50 people in the courtroom to stand on a little x and speak very, very softly to the judge. Who let me off a $472 ticket with a promise to pay a $30 fine and do some volunteer work. [Insert jubilant fist pump here.] My reward was to pick out a Christmas tree, an adventure that taught me several important things:
1. I can’t resist a bargain.
2. Carrying a six-foot tree twelve city blocks by yourself is a bold and rather sap-covered move.
3. Maybe I should, on certain occasions, resist a bargain.
4. Trees look much smaller in the great outdoors. They also look lighter.
My love of Christmas has betrayed me.
I was planning to get one of those weeny trees, the kind you can easily get in the door and then plunk on a table somewhere. But all the weeny trees looked a bit crisp, like they’d been popped in the oven and roasted at 375 degrees until their edges browned. I must have worn a dismayed expression because someone offered to show me the Christmas tree bargain bin, where they store the trees that are undeniably crooked or home to a family of refugee rodents. A big, fresh – if occasionally limbless – tree was $5 cheaper than a lightly braised mini-tree. As I pondered the mechanics of stuffing one of these big trees into my hallway-size apartment, someone else came up to me, saying that he’d give me one of the perfect, organically-produced and raised in the Waldorf trees for the bargain price. Which is how I ended up with a fresh, fragrant, six-foot tall tree.
Since my car was parked a neighborhood away and they don’t lend little red wagons to the unprepared, I assured them that I didn’t live far and hefted my perfect tree into my spindly little arms. The first block was easy, and I admit to a certain smugness. Block 2 was slower. At block 3 my biceps started to hurt. By block 4, I had to set the tree down to check the branches for spontaneously grown bricks. Block 7 felt like a heavy, tormented trudge through purgatory. Block 9 would have surgically removed the stuffing from Jillian Michaels. By the time I staggered onto my block, I felt nauseated. When I got to my door, I thought that the tree might just look better on my stoop – or maybe on fire – than actually in the apartment.
Please note the lack of leaping flame.
It looks quite happy in my apartment, if slightly peeved at the number of times I removed and restrung the lights (4). See how it takes up more than half the width of the room and looks ever-so-slightly ridiculous? It’s simply the physical manifestation of my fresh, piney Christmas spirit.
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December 16th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Having walked a few SF blocks this weekend, sans Christmas tree, I SALUTE YOU. Good lord, girl. And I bet it looks adorable and so Christmas-y. We ix-nayed the tree this year, much to my disappointment. And now I’m sad. Ah, well. Enjoy every damn minute with that tree—and leave it up forever as testament to your strength.
December 16th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
I’m finding it tough to wrap my head around the fact that you carried that tree all the way home. I am so impressed. Oh yeah, Popeye, you are!
Merry Christmas.
December 16th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
This post is the definition of ROLFMAO. That is what the acronym was made for. There is no determination like yours, not ever.
December 17th, 2009 at 1:56 am
I’m most impressed that after that whole dragging it home, you still found the energy to string the lights on it… bravo.
Merry Christmas (and congratulations on the whole courtroom-victory)!
December 17th, 2009 at 9:24 am
I swear to gawd, the smell of my christmas tree is the best antidote to depression I have found yet, even if it does block out ALL the light in my house with its large ass self.
Plus bonus: Think how HUGE your apartment is going to look when you take the tree down!
December 17th, 2009 at 10:17 am
What an awesome tree! It’s definitely the focal point of your apartment….
Congrats on hauling it home all that way.
December 17th, 2009 at 10:49 am
It looks beautiful. I wish we had a tree like that in our apartment.
P.S. $472 for running a red (dark orange!) light? Holy cow. How many volunteer hours did they push on you?
December 17th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Congratulations on escaping the $472 fine!
Your Christmas tree looks great.
December 17th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I think your hallway looks very merry and bright.
And may your next Christmas tree be LIGHT.
(I hope that my rhyming does not start a fight)
December 17th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Aw, love it! Just the right size, I say.
December 17th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I’ve gotten a real tree a few times. I stopped getting them when I got sap all over my new gloves and I had to tie the tree to my car in the snow.
Now I just have stockings. I’m thinking of getting a fake tree after Xmas.
December 17th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
That is awesome. When I lived in my previous apartment I used to walk about a mile home carrying my tree, but I usually went in for the 5-and-a-half foot variety. I always felt very badass about it, though, like it was the vegetarian version of dragging home a fresh kill.
December 17th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I love it! Oh, I love that you hauled that sucker across SF. I imagine Meg Ryan in all her delightful clumsiness in When Harry Met Sally.
Love it!
December 18th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Congrats on beating the ticket, and on getting that tree home! Even if it’s taking up 1/3 of your apartment it looks very festive, and I’ll bet it smells great.
December 18th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Your tree looks lovely! Isn’t it interesting how much smaller trees look before they get inside. Every year my sweetheart insists on *this* tree being perfect. Then we get it home and lop off the top foot or so.
Congrats on making it through traffic court like a hero!
December 21st, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Nothing wrong with a big, fluffy, perfect tree. It’s delightful.
xox
December 21st, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Traveling for work, I recently received a ticket for speeding in a construction zone and passing in the right lane — $700 plus. I need to hire you.
January 8th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Oh my… I just read this now but it seriously made me giggle. I’ve been guilty of this kind of festive determination too. I love that your ‘Internal Voice of Self Righteousness’ is called Wanda!
December 16th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
[...] Work dates, dinner dates, coffee dates, burrito dates, dates with myself to clean my apartment and fetch a Christmas tree, one that hopefully won’t be as unwieldy as last year’s. [...]