Working during the week of C hristmas is always interesting.  Nobody’s in the mood for real actual work.  This is why I always love being at the station during this week.  By tomorrow the available parking spaces will be plentiful.  Christmas Eve…it’s the great wide open around here.  The office will close early, and we’re running Uncle Joe’s Rockin’ Christmas Show.  Lovely.  Tune in for all those Christmas favorites.

Then we get ready for a new decade.  I’m having trouble believing that we’re already 10 years past Y2K.  Remember the crazy stuff surrounding that one.  All computers would fail, the stars would fall out of the sky, water systems would fail.  I remember pretty much nothing happened…except I didn’t feel well and didn’t want to “party like it’s 1999.”  Thank you Prince.  Now there’s the big frenzy about 2012.  But that’s two whole years away, and I’m not going to even give it another thought for this next week.

Have a wonderful Holiday.  Don’t give into the pressures, stay pleasant with yourself and your loved ones…be kind…take a walk…take a breath, and we’ll all celebrate this new decade together.  Hey, after this last decade, the next one has to be a breeze, right?  There were some challenges on a personal level, but hey, it did make things interesting.  Hang in there with me, and keep on rockin’!

Cheers,

Iris

I’m on vacation until January 4th (the magic of taking 6 vacation days and mixing them with the holidays to create 13 days off).

I want to wish all of you a Very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful, Happy
New Year.
Enjoy your time with family and friends, and feel the Spirit of the Holidays!

I just got the best Christmas/birthday present ever. I would now like to show it off. Please pay special attention to this great little gift old lady who flipped me off in the Fred Meyer parking lot last Saturday, tow truck company who towed Mother’s car on Sunday and told us to pick it up in Hillsboro and when we got out to Hillsboro from Wilsonville, then told us we were at the wrong lot and told us to drive to  SE 122nd and Foster Road (even though Mother was parked where she knew she shouldn’t be parked and was a raving, cussing, screaming banshee when we went to go pick it up at the tow lot. Sorry again tow lot worker on SE 122nd and Foster, she didn’t really mean to say all those horrible things to you or to use the eff word so many times) and to the person who bought the last of the Cambazola cheese at the Wilsonville Costco on Sunday when I specifically drove there just for said cheese and also to the person who accidently charged my credit card three times for one 25 dollar purchase, actually costing my $75.

Nothing says Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas like my new Smith and Wesson .380 Semi-Automatic!

Happy Holidays everyone and may you all spread some Holiday cheer, sans weapons!

Many guys try to make the most of the holidays by proposing to their girlfriends. (What did you get for Christmas this year? A wife!)

Proposing over the holidays is usually a bad move, but if you’re going to take the plunge – and nobody can stop you – at least avoid some of these lame locations and situations:

1. Another Wedding -- Seriously, dude, what are you? A chick? Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. Of course the couple getting married look totally happy. This is a special day for them. It’s all downhill from here. If you have to, enjoy the warm and fuzzy feelings that go with the wedding you’re attending, but don’t overreact by committing the rest of your existence to another human being on the dance floor.

2. Rockefeller Center (or any holiday tourist trap) — Getting down on one knee around a bunch of tourists is pretty cheesy. They’re going to whip out their camera phones and start snapping pictures. Your worst case scenario is also pretty bad … if she turns down your proposal, you will never have a more public humiliation in your life.

3. Arby’s Store #371 – Sure, you both love Beef n’ Cheddars and Curly Fries with all your heart and it’s where you met, but there’s a better way to do this.

4. A Cruise – Here’s the problem with cruises — you’re trapped on the boat. If she says no, now you’re stuck on a boat with the woman you poured your heart out to and she rejected you.

Tiger Woods won’t have to worry about being unfaithful for much longer — because his wife’s divorce plan is “100 percent on.”

A friend of Elin Nordegren tells A-B-C News that Elin has no desire to reconcile with the golf great. The source says “[She's] not rushing to divorce, however. She’s going to take her sweet time. She wants all the dirty laundry to be out on the table before she signs anything.”

JEN GARNER STALKER BUSTED

The man accused of stalking Jennfer Garner last year is at it again — and he could be in even bigger trouble this time around.

Steven Burky was arrested earlier this week after he was spotted lurking outside the L-A nursery school attended by Violet Affleck — the daughter of Jen and Ben Affleck.

Garner says Burky has been stalking her since 2002 and has barraged her with “packages and letters containing delusional and paranoid thoughts.” He faces four years in prison if convicted of the current charges of felony stalking and violating a restraining order.

LOHAN DAD EVENS THE ARREST SCORE

Michael Lohan, who was busted earlier this week for violating a restraining order filed by his ex, has turned the tables — and gotten her charged with assault.

Back in November, Lohan and Erin Muller pulled into the driveway of his mom’s home, where he tried to get her out of the driver’s seat because she was “too high” to operate the vehicle. When he opened her door, Erin allegedly intentionally kicked him in the head.

Muller turned herself in to police yesterday.

KOURTNEY KID KWESTIONS

Kourtney Kardashian may soon have to play a game of “who’s the daddy?”

Though the official word is that Kourtney’s son Mason is the child of boyfriend Scott Disick, a 23-year-old wannabe rapper named Michael Girtenti wants credit for the spawn — and he may have a point.

A Kardashian insider tells Star magazine “Kourtney hooked up with Michael twice while she and Scott were on the outs. He’s definitely been mentioned as a possibility for being the father of her baby.”

Sounds like another reality show to us.

That’s the rumor anyway.  Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles together in one venue.  What a show!  They are already supposedly booking one off dates in big football and baseball stadiums where they will do several nights in a row, so I don’t expect them to come to Portland.  Maybe top 10 cities and they stay there for several nights.  Wouldn’t it be cool though to have them here at the Rose Garden Arena? 

Here’s the funniest thought if this tour does indeed happen.  Stevie Nicks will be sharing a stage with four ex-lovers.

Headline from The Desert Sun on Tuesday December 8, 2009- “Record rainfall soaks desert.  Power outages, street closures reported across Coachella Valley.”  Leave it to Oregonians to bring the rain on vacation.  I thought I had packed well.  The first sign that we were going to be missing things was when we were at the airport and discovered that we had the iPod dock, but not the iPod itself.  Then I remembered that I had forgotten a stack of DVD’s that I was going to bring.  Oh yeah, and a sweatshirt.  Hey, we were going to the desert where it’s usually in the low 70’s this time of year.  How bad could it be?  

“According to the National Weather Service, 1.12 inches of rain was recorded at the Palm Springs International Airport as of 8pm, surpassing the previous 1992 record of 0.90 inches on the same day.  Monday’s precipitation almost doubled the total amount of rain the valley has received all year.”  Did you get that?  On one day it absolutely poured, and we were there.  We were not only just there, we were out in it.  Hey, just a little rain, let’s go somewhere!  Like shopping.  We discovered very quickly that we also forgot to pack an umbrella.  Being Northwest people, not a big deal.  Being in the American Southwest, a very big deal since they also don’t believe in rain gutters on their buildings.  Going in and out of stores, we were soaked as the waterfalls poured off the tile roofs.  Okay, enough of this we thought.  Let’s go back to the place where we were staying.  

When it rains this much in the desert, there really isn’t a lot of places for the water to go.  That’s why there are washout areas left vacant all over the place.  Before it reaches the washouts, it floods the streets, where we were driving.  In fact we had just gone down Ramon Road right before they closed it due to high water.  It also snowed in the upper elevations, and then at night, the rain stopped, and the wind started blowing.  That whistling, howling, blowing sound that you hear in scary movies about haunted houses.  I put in ear plugs and went to sleep.  

The next morning we woke up to sunshine, and snow on the mountains.  It was beautiful.  I resumed swimming for the rest of the vacation.  Read three books.  Lounged.  Rented movies since I had forgot the ones I was going to bring along, and drove around the Coachella Valley in an amazing rented luxury car pretending I could actually afford to live there.  I know, not very green, but boy, it was fun!  

I think vacations are about pretending.  Relaxing of course, but pretending is part of the experience for me.  Wherever we go, I always get those local real estate pamphlets and look longingly at the pretty pictures of modestly huge estates (there is such a thing as too big…really)  and pretend I’ve just won the lottery.  I have a very fertile imagination.  Not very original I know, but fertile.  I also buy them mentally for friends and family.  My fantasies are generous.  Isn’t that what drives us to buy the dollar ticket on the way out of the grocery store, or to the casino?  The idea that it could happen.  My dad says that the fantasy is worth the dollar a week.  Investment companies tell you that the $52 per year invested and compounded would help when you’re old and don’t give a crap about going on vacation anymore.  Thank you Suze Orman.  Go bust someone else’s bubble.  

So, we’re back now and missed the record cold here in the Portland area.  For that I’m very grateful.  And the rain is back, which is par for the course.

Welcome to December, one of my favorite months of the year! Of course, it’s the month of my birth, and Iris’s and my Mom. I even have a great great grandfather who’s first name was December, they called him Dee. I have quite a few friends born in December,  December’s Children all of us!

And then there’s  “The Yule Log”, the Winter Solstice and Christmas, and all the wonderful things that go with them. Oh how I hate the cold, but I love the month.

This month also has a blue moon, a month with 2 full moons. According to the popular definition, it is the second full moon to occur in a single calendar month that is called a “Blue Moon”.

From what I’ve read, there are about 41 blue moons in a century, which works out to a month with a blue moon about every 2 and a half to 3 years.

The last month with a blue moon was May of 2007, the next won’t come around until August of 2012.

The rare phenomenon of two blue moons occurring in the same year happens approximately once every 19 years. 1999 was the last time a blue moon appeared twice, in January and March, and it will happen again in those same months in 2018.

A full moon on December 2^nd, the “Full Cold Moon”, and a blue moon on December 31^st…the “Blue Snow Moon”, New Years Eve. The last time that happened was December 31^st, 1990…  another  very Cool reason to celebrate or, another great reason to stay home…