Apple store . . . the 5th of December . . .
My iPhone took a dive yesterday afternoon. Not a ‘fall-off-the-table=decent” but a full-fledged leap into the afterlife. The earliest appointment I could get with Apple was 2 pm on Thursday.
Not soon enough. My being is enclosed in a slim black flat cylinder, subject to death by height.
Also, the Garage Door is hanging at half-staff.
More later.
Author’s note. Rudy | The Unofficial Novella is comprised of notes found stuffed in a stainless steel shoe box that floated up from what used to be frozen tundra. There will be 25 posts containing random insights into the seasonal saga. They are not in order, but will be when pigs fly. This is #25. The Buck stopped yesterday. Rudy carries on.
Christmas Breakfast idea from Rudy’s North Pole Cook Book.
Enjoy your day.
Author’s note. Rudy | The Unofficial Novella is comprised of notes found stuffed in a stainless steel shoe box that floated up from what used to be frozen tundra. There will be 25 posts containing random insights into the seasonal saga. They are not in order, but will be when pigs fly. This is #24. It is Christmas Eve, the night of magic and hope.
The refrain circles in his head, an endless loop of melody sung in liquid soprano tones. His antlers serve as radio transmission towers. The tundra shakes and sways to the beat.
“Deer flying high and crimson sleighs on the wing
Snow banks and snowmen, a chorus that sings
Wide chimneys of bricks and sacks full of bling
These are a few of my favorite things.”
Time to fly. Rudy looks up. The sky is filled with a million stars. The full moon looks like the backlit clock tower in a Disney movie. The glow flickers. A cloud? A wisp of smoke from Santa’s chimney?
No. A flock of Amazon drones heading south, like geese in reverse migration.
Rudy paws the ground with his freshly polished hoof. Dasher and Dancer call out the words as they appear, like those of fumes from a solitary Piper Cub trailing an advertisement for suntan lotion across the sky on the fourth of July.
“The. Bucks. Stop. Here?”
Image
http://cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/45/fa/45fa068901d7074796d2693c3c00ac86
Rudy is too busy to breathe today.
As if climate change [for the worse] weren’t enough, this message just appeared in Rudy’s email:
“Governors of these states have announced that no refugees will be allowed to enter to seek refuge from terrorists . . . “
Trying to determine how to get around this travesty, will take most of his day. No time to greet followers.
Author’s note. Rudy | The Unofficial Novella is comprised of notes found stuffed in a stainless steel shoe box that floated up from what used to be frozen tundra. There will be 25 posts containing random insights into the seasonal saga. They are not in order, but will be when pigs fly. This is #22.
The captain of the team reviews the Official Weather Report 72 hours before the North Pole ETD. This morning, Rudy ordered pontoons for the sleigh.
“Prepping for that El Niño. I’m impressed with your foresight,” Santa said.
Mrs. Claus jumped in. “It’s the rain, dear.”
“Sorry. There’s more to it. Our home is melting. We won’t be able to sled out of the barn in a few years.”
“But what about the rain, dear?” Mrs. Claus recapped.
“It’s snow big deal.” Santa snapped back.
“Exactly.” Three days before Christmas Eve, fumes from the last-minute rush of freshly painted nutcrackers would overcome Santa. Mrs. Claus, intoxicated from the brandied apricots concocted by the Elves, would pass out by 16:00 hours.
“So much for Global Warning.”
Image: http://altonbrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/alton-brown-apricot-brandy.jpg
Right now, Rudy is preparing to be plunged into 24 hours of darkness.
Winter wields a double-edged sword. Today, the day will give up its light earlier than any other day of the year. The night will be long enough to unleash tales of long-ago heroism and valor.
And, for one instant, noon and midnight will intersect. The sun will turn from the Northern Hemisphere and without fanfare, the days will begin to stretch, longing for summer’s lingering lights.
The North Pole will experience 24 hours of darkness.
Author’s note. Rudy | The Unofficial Novella is comprised of notes found stuffed in a stainless steel shoe box that floated up from what used to be frozen tundra. There will be 25 posts containing random insights into the seasonal saga. They are not in order, but will be when pigs fly. This is #20. DO NOT LET THE CHILDREN SEE THIS POST.
Exhibit A
Santa gets letters before December 25th. His staff replies with mail merge canned copy. Rudy receives emails and messages too – the morning after the North Pole Post-Holiday Office Party.
Last season, he made his way up the path to the Barn, repeating . . . “I will not sip, munch or chew juniper berries or anything prepared by the elves.”
The mantra failed. He’s up against diabolical odds. For months, the elves plan how to turn Rudy’s Red Nose into an ornament of shame.
They never fail. These are only a few of the emails and Tweets Rudy tried to purge from his inbox the morning after the 2014 party, where silver buckets of brandied apricots lined the buffet table:
“Rudy! I have your pants.”
“Hey Rudy! How did you get the lampshade off your rack?”
“Rudy, please get the mice out of the water cooler!”
“Your antlers are in the back of my sleigh.”
“Return my wife by noon tomorrow or I’ll tell Santa.”
It took a team of hard-nosed Manhattan attorneys six months and 17 motions to get the judge to declare Exhibit A inadmissible. It could have sent Rudy to the pervert pen for life.
Author’s note. Rudy | The Unofficial Novella is comprised of notes found stuffed in a stainless steel shoe box that floated up from what used to be frozen tundra. There will be 25 posts containing random insights into the seasonal saga. This is #19. They are not in order, but will be when pigs fly.
Oh the humanity!
Rudy is obsessed with space and time. And geography. As noted in the December 5 blog entry, he was eager to hear the what happened when his great-great-great – too many to list because doing the math requires calculating by 20 and blogs are supposed to be quick studies – grandmother’s seasickness spread to the humans and forced the passengers to take refuge on an island in the Caribou-ean Sea.
“Why did they stay so long,” Rudy would ask his mother. “It must have been hot, being in the tropics and all. Why?”
For years, she evaded the question. She would cock her head and scrape her hoof on the pine needles.
“I hear your father calling.”
One day, Rudy stood his ground. “I know you’re hiding something. I just know it.”
Yes, she was hiding the fact that her grandmother had fallen victim to the oldest distraction to the female of any species: A male creature with a rack 561 6/8 inches with 88 scoreable points.
A Bucka-deer.
Voila! Evidence that more than one aberration hung from his family Antler [read Tree]. She swore him to secrecy, made him promise NEVER to tell.
“Tell, and you abandon any hope of mating.”
What doe would want to risk birthing progeny with a snout that glowed like the embers of abandoned campfires AND antlers that had more points than a fact-filled Progressive?
Adolescent deer have mastered the Art of the Zeal.
They dare each other to skate on thin ice. The athletes toss engineered orbs onto one their budding antlers. Best yet: Two orders of Burger King onion rings strewn on the footpath leading to the ranger cabin. The game didn’t disband until late afternoon, when the ranger came looking for the rest of his lunch.
Water Polo
The pinnacle of their sporting life is water polo. Competition is fierce for league placement and ranking. Stag and doe go head to head from dawn ’til dusk in the purest of mountain lakes.
Humans, on the other hand, have created a bastardized form of the noble sport, splashing across pools sullied with chemicals that would kill if used in the gaseous form.
The sight of the inflated sporting gear have been known to make stags peer into the glare of headlights until meeting their doom in the ultimate white light.
Some have resorted to invading the human stadium sites, a form of protest that has so far proved unsuccessful.
Author’s note. Rudy | The Unofficial Novella is comprised of notes found stuffed in a stainless steel shoe box that floated up from what used to be frozen tundra. There will be 25 posts containing random insights into the seasonal saga. This is #17. They are not in order, but will be when pigs fly.
The Elders tell tales of winters descending in mid-September and forcing ancient herds to flee blizzards that blow in at noon and disappear at sundown.
“Curses,” they whisper. “Curses brought on by inappropriate depictions of our bodies. Heads on the walls of human man caves and stuck inside bear dens. Our bodies formed by concrete and wire.”
What constitutes the violation of the sacrosanct?
Lawn deer.
Cement families. Holiday scenes of deer lit from within. Horrific. However, California needs snow pack. Perhaps the answer to the drought could be a preponderance of deer icons until 20 feet of the white stuff covers the ground, awaiting spring thaw?
Curses be damned. Logon to Amazon today.
Lawn ornament from Rustic Gardens
outsidethbox 
