MIA? Not really.

Pink Slip prides itself on posting an essay every weekday. Other than taking the week off between Christmas and New Years, I don't think I've missed (m)any days during the decade+ I've been doing the writing equivalent of Sunday painting.

That said, there's no post today. And that's because the piece intended for today - Brusha, Brusha, Brusha - was unintentionally posted yesterday. That made Monday a two-fer, with Brusha, Brusha accompanied by Sue The Bastards. 

Thus today is a no-fer. 

Back tomorrow!

Brusha, brusha, brusha

Years ago, my husband went out and got us electric toothbrushes. Jim began using his religiously. Me, I never got around to it. 

After Jim died, I tossed them out.

I brush. I floss. I got along without an e-toothbrush for years. Nothing wrong with the old manual methods. Maybe I wasn't the foremost tooth-brusher on the face of the earth, but I brushed (at least) twice a day, and flossed every night. And all my teeth are my own. 

Then, a couple of years ago, Minnie, my dental hygienist, told me I should start using an electric brush to better manage plaque buildup. 

So I went out and got me an electric toothbrush. 

With day-of-purchase enthusiasm, I plugged it in and charged away.

That evening, I gave it a whirl.

The two minutes it revs at your teeth would have been the longest two minutes of my life if I'd kept it up for the full two minutes. But I gave up when the drool started drooling down my chin. Maybe 30 seconds in. Maybe I didn't even get that far.

So I proceeded to ignore its existence. Other than moving it from the vanity to the top of the small wicker chest I have in my bathroom. There it sat, invisible to me.

The other day, I had my six-month cleaning and checkup. As she does every six months, Minnie told me I had too much plaque buildup and really did need to start using the electric brush. "You'll notice a difference. I promise you."

Well, I probably won't notice that difference until my next check up, but I did decide to try again.

So when I went home, I went to look for it. When I couldn't find it in the cabinet under the vanity, or in the wicker chest, I started asking myself whether I had tossed it out. Then I spied it on the top of the wicker chest. The last place I would have looked, but there it was.

So I plugged it in, with plans to start playing.

I decided that I wouldn't commit to using it twice a day, but that I'd make it part of my evening dental ritual: floss, then electric brush. 

Night One was pretty much agony. As noted above, those two minutes are endless. (The toothbrush is set up for a two-minute brush, giving out a stuttering little pulse at thirty-second intervals to tell you to change the quadrant in your mouth that you're working on.) They say that the couple of seconds between when your head is on the chopping block and when the executioner drops the blade on the guillotine seems to last a lifetime - well, I suppose that, by that point, it does - and the time the electric toothbrushing takes may be second only to the off-with-their-head time drag.

I spent Day Two dreading the evening's brush up.

Maybe I should have gone the morning route and gotten it over with.

Nevertheless, I persisted. I figured out that I could control the drooling by spitting. Just like in the manual brushing world! Who'd a thunk it? And I was even getting good at anticipating when each quadrant's 30 seconds would be up.

Night Three I got caught up in the news of the insurrection and watched MSNBC until midnight, when I switched to CNN.

By the time I went to brush my teeth, I was just too exhausted to use the electric brush. So I reverted to my usual half-baked brush (which probably lasted all of 20 seconds).

The next morning, I decided that I was going to be come an e-brushing morning person. That way I could just get it over with, and wouldn't have to spend the day with the cloud of electric brushing hovering over me. (It reminded me of the dread I'd start experiencing late in the afternoon on Sundays when I knew I had to get up on Monday and go into work at Wang Labs.) 

So now I'm a morning electric tooth brusher. Sure, it's a drag, but it's not like I have to run out the door to catch a train to go anywhere.

Not that I exactly like it, but I'm more or less getting used to it. And when, say, in late afternoon, I'm in the bathroom and see that electric toothbrush standing there, I'm not filled with existential dread knowing that I'll have to use it in the few hours. I've got until the morning!

I may even consider considering it for my nighttime routine, as well.

In any case, I'm looking forward to my next check up, when Minnie will tell me that my plaque is under control.

Sue the bastards

My first vote was cast in 1972, when I proudly voted for George McGovern. I voted at Gates Lane School, where I'd gone to kindergarten, in Worcester Massachusetts. I went over to a quasi-private area, filled my ballot in with the pen they gave me, and then handed it to poll worker, who cranked it into a ballot box.

I suppose someone could have taken this ballot box and dumped it or its contents in the Blackstone River, but I never had a worry about whether my vote would be counted. (Whether it mattered was another story, other than that it mattered to me. And I did get to say "Don't blame me. I'm from Massachusetts.")

When I began voting in Boston in the mid-1970's, I went behind a curtain, pulling it shut with a lever. I then flipped switches to pick my candidates. Finally, I pulled the big red lever that recorded my picks. It made a very satisfying thumping noise.

And I never had a worry about whether my vote would be counted.

When Boston moved to a scanner system, I missed flipping those pinball-ish switches. Instead of voting behind a curtain, I was now taking my ballot to a partitioned-off table, filling in the circles - SAT style - with a special pen, and then slip it into the scanning machine. (I have the most delightful polling place. It's a former firehouse on Beacon Hill that was used in the 1980's TV series Spenser for Hire as the place where Spenser lived. 

I always worry a bit about whether my vote gets registered. More than I ever did with the old-fashioned mechanisms. But it's only a teensie-tiny bit of worry.

This time around, I asked for ballots by mail for our Senate primary in September, and for the Presidential election in November. Not trusting the Trump-depleted US Postal Service, I walked those ballots into City Hall, and kept checking online until I saw that they had been accepted. 

Overall, I have 99.9999% faith in our election system. Which is more or less in keeping with the rate of fraud that have been found to be, according to the Brennan Center, at 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent. 

The Republicans can keep hollering fraud as a means to support their voter suppression efforts, but we're well beyond the days when ward heelers were bringing out the dead to vote. When the instances of suspected voter fraud are investigated it always comes out that there will be one or two examples. I.e., one or two voters out of millions. 

Most of our voting chicanery is about closing down polling places in areas with lots of Democratic-voting Black folks, purging the names of Black voters from the rolls, etc. And blaming election results that don't go in their direction on organizations like Dominion Voting Systems, makers of the voting systems used in many states. 

But the truth hasn't gotten in the way of Trump and his cronies/enablers lying about voter fraud.

One of the most vociferous (and bat-shit crazy) critics of Dominion has been (bat-shit crazy Trump or Trump-adjacent or Giuliani-adjacent) attorney Sidney Powell.

For weeks, Powell has claimed that Dominion was established with communist money in Venezuela to enable ballot-stuffing and other vote manipulation, and that those a bilities were harnessed to rig the election for former vice president Joe Biden. Source: Washington Post)

And now Dominion is fighting back. They're looking for "more than $1.3 billion in damages for havoc it says Powell has caused by spreading 'wild' and 'demonstrably false' allegations, including that Dominion played a central role in a fantastical scheme to steal the 2020 election from President Trump."

And Dominion is serious about going to trial and not settling. 

Good for them!

They've had it with Powell et al. harming their business. And with the fact that employees have been "stalked, harassed, and [have] received death threats." 

Powell is not Dominion's only target. 

Dominion has sent retraction demands or document preservation letters, often precursors to litigation, to more than 20 individuals and entities, including to Wood, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani; and to Fox News, Newsmax, One America News and the Epoch Times, media companies that have lent Powell an enormous platform in the two months since the election.

Some of the news outlets, including Fox, have since backed off the claims or issued corrective statements.

Trump, it is rumored, may find his way onto the list.

Hit them in their pocketbooks. Fight back. Enough is enough. Sue the bastards!

Yay!

The few, the proud, the LEGO Certified Professionals.

I live in a distinctly non-Zen house. I love the Japanese simplicity aesthetic, but I live amid things on the wall - paintings, prints, mirrors. Lots of things. And things on most available surfaces. Lots of things. Photos. Vases. Bowls. Tchotchkes. And a tiny Connemara marble urn that contains a bit of my husband's ashes. 

But I love the Japanese simplicity aesthetic. So calming and serene. Maybe in my next life.

Part of the aesthetic I admire is wonderful woodblock prints of cranes, and mountains, and boats, and waves. 

One of the most familiar prints is The Great Wave off Kanagawa. 

Just lovely. I have it on a tote bag. 

But Jumpei Mitsui has a sculptural version. Made out of LEGOs.

It's a bit loud. That blue! Still, as replicas go, it's quite something. 

Mitsui is a pro - a LEGO Certfied Professional.

...this means his full-time job is to create artworks with the plastic building blocks...During the course of 400 hours, Mitsui snapped together 50,000 cobalt and white LEGO into an undulating wave that mimics the original woodblock print. (Source: ThisIsColossal)

Mitsui also teaches LEGO construction via videos on YouTube. 

Quite an interesting way to make a living. 

And there are only twenty-one in the whole wide world. 

There's only one in the US - Nathan Sawaya - and there's only one woman - Wei Wei Shannon Gluckman - among the group. And, interesting, eight of the twenty-one are Asian.

They're artists. They're designers. They're educators. They're architects.

One's a doctor. One used to be a Chief Information Officer.

Some do originals, some do take-offs on works of art, and some do commissioned works for companies (e.g., your logo LEGO'd).

I don't know if I've ever seen any work by a LEGO Certified Pro in person, but I have seen a few big LEGO installs - am I just imagining that I've seen a LEGO Fenway Park? They're impressive, and they're fun.

A lot of LEGO is child's play. With LEGOs, kids and post-kids get to be creative. If they're using a kit - and you can, in fact, get a Fenway Park kit it you're so inclined - they're maybe not being so creative, but they're learning to follow a blue print/instructions and honing their small motor skills. And patience.

As far as I can tell, the worst thing about LEGOs is if you step on one barefoot.

How fun, if you choose LEGO as your medium, to make a career out of it. 

How does one get to be an LCP? There are two requirements:

You need to be a business owner or in the process of becoming a business owner working with the LEGO brick as part of your product/services. Important selection criteria are as stated above and will also be stated in the recruitment posting.

The LCP position is country-specific, and the recruited LCP must live and work in the same country as the local LEGO office looking to recruit an LCP. (Source: LEGO)

There's no training course. It's one of those things: if you need formal training, you probably don't have being an LCP in you.

I definitely don't have it in me. LEGO making is not the creative wave I surf on. But what a cool way to make a living!

Even by marketing-speak standards

Like all professional sports, hockey was financially clobbered by COVID. So the NHL gave teams the go ahead to start selling advertising rights to their helmets. (The truncated hockey season kicks off next Wednesday.) There's not that much real estate on a hockey helmet, and the pictures I've seen so far aren't crazily terrible. Here's the example from the Edmonton Oilers:

I chose this because the Bruins haven't as yet announced a deal (at least as of January 4th), and, of course, because the name on the helmet is Rogers. (Regrettably, no relation.) Rogers Communications is a big deal in Canada, and they sponsor the arena where the Oilers play. (The Rogers name also adorns the stadium where the Toronto Blue Jays play.) And, of course, I was much taken by the toothless grin of this gamer. (Maybe it would take away from that famous hockey charm, but they might want to consider adding mouth guards to the standard pro-hockey gear set.)

I enjoy hockey, but don't watch a ton of it. 

Occasionally, I'll put on part of a Bruins game, and I'll watch some of the Stanley Cup playoffs whether the B's are in it or not. 

But I'm not wedded to hockey the same way I am to baseball, and I think the ads on helmets are fine. The ads'll take less getting used to than the shift to wearing helmets. This came about in the 1970's in the wake of Teddy Green, one of the Big Bad Boston Bruins, ending up with fragments of his skull embedded in his brain after a wild stick bashing melee. My early hockey watching days were helmet-free, and I'll admit it took some getting used to when you could no longer see the guys heads quite as well. Would Bruins dreamboat Derek Sanderson - he of the drooping mustache and flowing locks - have been Derek Sanderson if he'd had to wear a helmet during his career?

Comparatively, ads on helmet will be nothing.

The ads I've seen have all been subtle, nowhere near the advertising gaudy of NASCAR. 

Maybe that'll happen when the NHL starts selling rights to have ads on their jerseys, where there's a lot more space on offer. But so far, so good.

If I have no gripe with the ads themselves, I do have a problem with the way that the NHL teams are positioning it. Rather than come out and say "we're letting sponsors pay to stick their logo on our guys' helmets", what they're saying is that they now have a "helmet entitlement partner."

"Helmet entitlement partner"? What????

While I personally tend to prefer the direct approach, I have no problem with euphemisms. In the corporate world, we all know that "downsized" (or the chirpier but phonier "rightsized") means lay-offs. "Left to pursue entrepreneurial efforts" were the words used in one company I worked for whenever someone in executive management was given the boot. I.e., fired. 

I know a lot of people who think that when someone says they're doing consulting, it really means they're out of a job and looking for one. But, honestly, being a freelancer, doing consulting, can be your job. My consulting days are winding down, but I did it - and made a decent living at it - for well over a decade.

But "helmet entitlement partner." Seriously, hockey folks, the only real word in there is "helmet."

Sure, "entitlement" just means a right. So why not unfancy it and just say "advertising rights."

And don't get me going on "partner", one of those words that somewhere along the line became the euphemism for any entity a company has a commercial relationship with. Forget being a vendor. Forget being a customer. Forget having a customer. Hey, hey, hey, you're a "partner."

Sometimes, an organization is actually involved in a partnership. They actually work with another organization, doing something or other together. It requires both parties. And they mutually benefit. But as often as not, these days, it just means they buy/you sell/you buy/they sell.

Just what sort of partnership are the Detroit Red Wins in with United Wholesale Mortgage? Do the Florida Panthers partner with Baptist Health to get their players patched up when they get smashed into the boards? Maybe, but this doesn't seem like any more of a partnership than me getting my healthcare at Mass General.

So, helmet entitlement partner-schmartner. 

Sometimes I'm just plain embarrassed for the marketing profession...

The Office

It's been nearly twenty years since I worked full-time in an office. Even then, for the last couple of years, I only went in four days a week. My deal with my boss was that I'd work from home on Fridays, with the understanding that unless there was a meeting I had to all into during the afternoon, my work from home day ended at noonish. This worked out pretty well and got me on the glide path to freelance work that eventually put me on the glide path to retirement. 

These days, I do work a little. Very little. Last year, what I made covered charitable and political donations. I have a couple of clients I do regular writing gigs for, and a couple of clients I do (small) projects for on an ad hoc basis. For 2021, whatever happens happens. But whatever happens will be worked from home.

But for the millions who've been working from home thanks to the pandemic, 2021 will likely mean some sort of re-entry to The Office by later in the year, once the vaccine has been widely distributed. 

So what's going to happen to all those who've been commuting by rolling out of bed and shuffling from bedroom to home office (which may well be in the bedroom). Who've been working in clothing that's so casual it makes good old "business casual" and "jeans on Friday" look like white collar and cutaways for the men, and ball gowns and lorgnettes for the ladies. Who've gotten used to lunch with their kiddos, and being able to rest their feet on their puppers when they're Zooming.

Inquiring minds at the Washington Post:

...asked human resources advisers, workplace designers, employment lawyers and compensation analysts to share predictions for a year that could bring back some normalcy while returning people to workplaces that may never be the same. (Source: WaPo)

Here's what the experts are thinking about the brave new work world.  

Location, location, location

If home is where the office is, recruitment will go national, and that has salary implications. A survey done this fall by an HR advisory outfit found that a bit over one-quarter of respondents would be tying compensation for full-time work from homers to their location. 

This is going to be a tricky one. On the one hand, why pay someone working from Sheep Creek, Montana, the same amount you'd pay a worker who chooses to live in San Francisco. But for a Silicon Valley firm, those salaries got inflated by geography to begin with. And for all the hype about working remotely, face time (not FaceTime) still matters, for both employers and employees. So everyone is not going to be able to work fulltime from Sheep Creek. 

The guess is that there'll still be a location premium paid for those who work and live in the expensive areas, as there is still a perceived value to having workers work at least occasionally in person. Those who can work fully remotely and decide to decamp to lower-cost areas may get to keep their pay, but are likely to see salary increases that are lower than what their city mouse colleagues get. 

Video meetings aren't going anywhere but the technology will use AI to get, ahem, "smarter."

Some of the largest platforms will begin using artificial intelligence to recognize and track certain gestures participants make, automate to-do items and help manage the challenges of workers split between work and home.

Zoom will introduce a feature that lets everyone participating in a meeting room while sitting together in a physical conference room be depicted in their very own Zoom box so that the in-person workers and the work from homers will be, Zoom-wise, on an even playing field. 

Of course, if the person running the meeting is sitting in the physical conference room with some of the attendees, they'll still know who's there in person. And their interactions will be different. 

Cisco (WebEx) for their part will be rolling out something called "gesture recognition," doing away with the need for surveys or thumbs up/thumbs down emojis when the meeting host wants to "read the room." Wonder whether there'll be some gestures that just don't get recognized. And yes, I am thinking middle finger. For now, Cisco is focusing on gestures, but they may be moving on to facial expressions like eyerolls. Ugh.....(Where ugh = eyeroll.) 

Microsoft is concentrating on features like keeping track of to-do items attendees have signed up for. I was often the default note taker at business meetings. I like to think that's because I was a really good note taker, capable of clearly and succinctly boiling down what happened rather than reporting out verbatim. And not (just) because I was often the only woman at the meeting. But this sounds like a good feature, even though I'm betting that my notes would be just plain better than AI-derived ones.

The "hybrid" workplace will be in. And I can absolutely see this model taking hold. 

Google, for instance, is planning a “flexible workweek” starting in September 2021, when, under a pilot plan, employees would be expected to spend three “collaboration days” in the office and work from home the rest of the time.

Sounds like a plan. 

Part-time arrangements will make a comeback. I don't know how widespread these arrangements were to begin with such that putting them in place would represent a comeback. But if someone can get their job done part-time, or share it with another employee, this is an excellent idea. Why not let parents or those with other responsibilities (caregiving for their parents) or avocations or community interests or looking for a glide path to retirement work part time? I'm all for this one!

Other predictions are that, as the pandemic continues through much of 2021, employers will be more focused on worker burn out. And, when workers do start coming back in, there'll be more of an appetite for privacy. Except for the most social of employee animals, anyone who's gotten used to the privacy of working from home is not going to be entirely happy being plunked back down in the middle of an open-office environment. Bubbles will be set up, so that workers are in clusters with those they work most closely with. But the wide open office may become a thing of the past. (On behalf of workers: Yay!)

Then there's the will they/won't they question about vaccinations. Will employers be able to require their workers to get vaccination before returning to work? Or will they offer incentives to nudge them in the vaccination direction?

Whatever happens, ain't no one predicting that things will go back 100% to the way they were in the before times. 

Other than Zoom spying on employees, I say GOOD.

How low can they go?

It will come as no surprise that, as they wrap up their four years in office - four years characterized largely by malfeasance and incompetence - Trump & Co. are hell-bent on making sure that their last few weeks are even more rancid than the years leading up to them. Seriously, we have a "president" trying to overturn an election he lost roundly, undermine democracy, and foment violence on the part of his civilian Storm Troopers. 

As if that weren't enough - and it's never enough with these guys - they're continuing to botch the pandemic response, failing to meet with Biden's folks to ensure an orderly transition of power, and setting all sorts of administrative and personnel landmines for the incoming administration. Not to mention possibly starting yet another unwinnable war in the Mideast out of sheer power- and bloodlust. (I'm less concerned with his efforts to destroy the Republican Party.)

And then, of course, there's the flurry of last minute executions of prisoners. (C.f., power- and bloodlust.)

You will not be surprised to find that I'm not a proponent of the death penalty. There've been too many mistakes made with it, and it's been meted out way too unevenly and erratically. 

Certainly there are plenty of crimes that justify life imprisonment, and plenty of criminals who are so completely damaged that we can't risk having them walking around among us. For them, I'm all for throwing away the key (but still treating them as humanely and decently as possible).

But the death penalty? 

Most countries have done away with it, and our persistence puts us right up there in the top tier. Yes, there are worse places: China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia et and al. here and there. But that's not such great company to keep. Among the developed countries we most closely identify with, it's American exceptionalism all the way. Yay us!

So of course Trump and Barr, before he exited stage right just before Christmas, wanted to Be Best in every terrible way possible, so they revved up the executions. And in the Trump Misadministration's inimitable way, their execution of executions has been a cluster:

Officials gave public explanations for their choice of which prisoners should die that misstated key facts from the cases. They moved ahead with executions in the middle of the night. They left one prisoner strapped to the gurney while lawyers worked to remove a court order. They executed a second prisoner while an appeal was still pending, leaving the court to then dismiss the appeal as “moot” because the man was already dead. They bought drugs from a secret pharmacy that failed a quality test. They hired private executioners and paid them in cash. (Source: ProPublica)

Going ahead while an appeal is pending, rendering the appeal "moot." Wow. Even by Trump standards, just wow. Shopping around to find what was probably one of the only pharmacies that would supply them with drug and having it fail a quality test. No surprise here. (They also, by the way, considered bringing back firing squads.)

But what really stopped me in my tracks was that the government "hired private executioners and paid them in cash."

For unclear reasons, BOP planned to have the executions carried out by two private contractors, rather than government employees. The government won’t disclose the contractors’ names or profession, and it pays them in cash. “If we didn’t pay them in cash,” a BOP lawyer said in a deposition, “they probably wouldn’t participate.”

I was going to ask myself "where do we find men like these?" And then I remembered that Trump just pardoned four Blackwater mercenaries who'd been convicted of massacring Iraqi civilians. So they would have been available, and we know they like working freelance and might have welcomed the work as they integrated back into society. 

Anyway, Trump will have presided over the executions of more people than the last ten presidents combined, which I'm sure will leave him at least temporarily sated. He's been hankering after seeing the death penalty carried out since he famously called for the execution of the Central Park Five, a group of teenagers (do I have to mention Black and Hispanic?) accused of the vicious rape of a female jogger (do I have to mention white and affluent). Even when it's been pointed out to him that these young men were all found innocent, Trump has persisted that he was right to call for their death.

While I doubt he would have the guts to actually be an executioner himself, Trump sure does respond to the siren call of the executioner's song. 

Good thing for him there's no death penalty for the crimes that make up his personal portfolio. At least none that we know of.

I keep asking myself just how low they can go. Cash payments to hired killers? That's right down there. Let's see what else the next couple of weeks brings.

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Googling for an image to use for this post, I found that you buy blueprints for a DIY electric chair, and a miniature electric chair (pictured above) for use in a doll house. Oh, what a world we live in. 

Joy to the World of 2021!

Like everyone else I know, I am entering the new year on a guardedly optimistic note. I doubt the Good Guys will both win in Georgia - pleasantly surprise me, pretty please - but it could happen. Although there's a non-zero chance that Mad King Donald will stir up violence in DC on Wednesday - he appears to be lusting after it, hoping that the day is "wild" - and the seditionists in the House and Senate are preparing to cause trouble, it's more than highly likely that for the kabillionth time, Joe Biden's election victory will be affirmed. So we're getting closer to the day when Trump will golf off into the sunset. 

Unfortunately, Trump's leaving so much that is bad and precious little that is good in his wake. (I hope that the faith I'm placing in Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance and NY AG Tish James is not misplaced or displaced but well-placed, and that they go after Trump & Family for what are no doubt a multitude of crimes.)

So my optimism on the political front is Guarded with a capital G. 

Despite the not surprisingly quasi-botched rollout of the vaccines - Plan? What plan? We don't need no stinkin' plan. - I'm Capital C Confident that, once we have administrative competency restored, that we'll all be vaccinated by summer. 

As for now, I'm in the lower end of Phase II, but whenever it happens, I'll be happy. In fact, if it takes a month or two longer to get to me so that they can get to workers who may not be frontline but are plenty exposed - waitstaff, bartenders, et al. - so be it.

But when my name and number are called, I'll be there for it. 

Here's hoping that the late August Billy Joel concert at Fenway will take place. And that there'll be baseball games played in front of actual fans at some point before 2021 is out, and I say this even though I have no expectation that the Red Sox will be anything other than marginally better than they were in 2020. (Statistically, they could almost not be any worse.)

Here's hoping that by mid-summer, anyone who wants to get on a plane and go somewhere will be able to do so. Count me as someone who's bags are packed. I'm ready to go.

What else is on tap for my world in 2021? The usual suspects: Finish my novel. Lose ten pounds. Start using my rowing machine. Get back to volunteering at St. Francis House. Clean out my junk drawers. 

And - I hope, I hope, I hope - plenty of Capital J Joy to this world of ours.

One thing that has brought me a bit of Capital J Joy is the vid of Boston Scientific's dancing robots, bustin' some mighty fine moves to "Do You Love Me?"

I don't have a lot of Faith with a Capital F in my video-embedding capability. It has small-f failed me in the past. So here's the URL. (And if that doesn't work, you're smart. You'll find it.)

I've been admiring these robots since they first introduced us to Spot the robot pooch a few years back. Love watching what they can do. It's completely fascinating. 

Yes, I am concerned about what's going to happen to all the workers whose jobs are eliminated by robots and other forms of automation - and there'll be plenty of them - as we don't have a great track record when it comes to doing anything about jobs that go away on the micro level. We seem okay at handling it at the macro level. The overall economy and life in general does tend to improve. More or less. But there are plenty folks in that "less" category, and other than tell them to 'learn to code', we've come up empty for large swaths of the population.

But, no, I'm not concerned that the Singularity is coming, when technology will take over everything. (And you thought Planet of the Apes was terrifying. At least those critters were sentient.) I don't think it's going to happen and, well, if it does, maybe the robots will do a better job of it than we have. Maybe they'll do something about systemic racism, global warming, increased inequality. You know, the things that are going to destroy us.

Anyway, here's to the dancing robots. And, yes, I do love them even more now that they can dance.

Joy to the World in 2021!

O Christmas Eve, O Christmas Eve

Well, here we are. Christmas Eve in the Year 2020. It's a year we will no doubt look back on with more shock than awe. The Year of the Great Pandemic, the Year of the Great Threat to Democracy. Fortunately, there is a small glimmer of light at the end of this long, winding, cold, dripping, nasty tunnel. At both branches in that tunnel.  

I don't think we'll ever look back on this year and laugh.

Too many people have died, many unnecessarily. And democracy nearly died, completely unnecessarily. (Thanks, Republicans, for giving Trump a pass on just about everything and leaving it until way too late before a few broke ranks and finally and half-heartedly acknowledged that we were, indeed, hanging by our fingertips, dangling over the cliff, while Trump, Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn and a few of their equally disturbed and disturbing pals stomped on our fingers.)

But we will look back on it - at least those of us who survived it will - and say that we're survivors. We were cautious. We wore our masks. We washed our hands. We didn't eat out. We didn't eat in with much of anyone else. We ordered in. We socially distanced.

On the political front, we supported the Good Guys. We made donations. We made calls. We wrote letters. We mailed postcards. We knocked on doors. We even prayed. (Even atheists pray when they're in the foxhole that sure looks more like an abyss.)

And so this is Christmas Eve, 2020.

Christmas Eve has always been the big deal in my family, and I've been hosting it for nearly thirty years now. (Oddly, it still feels oddly grownup to host a holiday get together. I'm 71, FFS. It's not like there's a generation ahead of me slacking off. Well, I guess they did slack off, only permanently.)

This year's gathering is pared down. The folks in my tiny bubble (all four of them also in tiny bubbles) will be here. The others will be Zooming in.

The Zoomer's will miss my tree, other than in background. And they'll miss the in person comfort and joy that we experience when we're around each other. 

With the exception of my West Coast brother and sister-in-law, I have - very cautiously - seen each of the other virtual guests a couple of times since March. But as winter approached, our yellow caution lights have turned red. We've pretty much all settled down to a metaphorical long winter's nap. So until the vaccines start rolling out to the Phase Two and Phase 3 cohorts, Zoom 'R Us.

Anyway, Christmas Eve should be fun - just not as much fun when we're all here together. 

Christmas Day is supposed to be warm and rainy, with the last of last week's foot of snow likely to be washed away. I will read, doze, eat leftovers, consider (and reject the thought of) taking down my tree, nap, and Zoom-ebrate with my friends Sam and Sarah, marooned in Maine; and, later, my friends Joyce and Tom, sheltering in place in Dallas.

At holidays, my grandmother always toasted with some variant of the Irish toast: may we all be alive at this same time next year. As the family elder, Nanny pretty much thought she'd be next up. But she outlived both of her sons, my father (58 when he died) and my Uncle Charlie (died age 66). And my Uncle Ralph, her son-in-law (who was in his mid-60's somewhere). Nanny died a few months short of 97 years of age. 

Anyway, may we all be alive at this same time next year. 

Merry Christmas to all, then, and to all a good night.

In keeping with Pink Slip tradition, I'm taking the week off and will be back in the new - and I have every reason to believe - far, far better new year.

 

Goop, glorious Goop

As this annus horribilis winds down, it's comforting to know that neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor COVID pandemic stays Gwyneth Paltrow from the swift completion of her appointed rounds as maintainer-in-chief of a "modern lifestyle brand" that is Goop. 

Without Gwyneth, where would we look for advice like "Helpful Hacks for Your Sweat Suit Rack?" Of course, one - at least this one - would do well to ignore Goop's advice. How can spending $445 for sweatpants and $850 for a sweater to top them off with count as a hack? I mean, isn't a hack something like 'turn your old business suits into something that's actually comfortable to wear'? But what do I know? My sweat suit advice is buy a couple of pairs of sweatpants and matching zip-front sweatshirts from L.L. Bean and wear them to death.

Then there's the reminder that, frankly, we all need when we're trolling for comfort an joy. A piece entitled "Today Is the Youngest You'll Ever Be - Enjoy It." Thanks for the reminder, Gwyn. I mean that sincerely.

I also enjoyed "Which Winter Style Archetype Are You?" Obviously, Alpinist and Sun Chaser are automatically out, but I did have to pause a bit to decide between the Creature of Comfort and the Eclectic. Then I saw that the Eclectic has naturally wavy hair, so Creature of Comfort it is - a creature for whom one of the recommended gifts is a vibrator. (Gwyneth, I blush!)

For Gwyneth, "modern lifestyle brand" is all about the accumulation of lifestyle-affirming goods, and her annual gift guides offer a little something for just about everybody, as long as everybody = self-conscious high-end ultra-precious consumer with money to burn. Enough to afford items like the $1,895 burnt agate marble checkers set. Top of head, I'd think that if you wanted to pay this much for a board game, it'd be something like chess. But there's sort of a homey, stuck-at-home retro vibe to checkers, I guess. 

If $1,895 is a tad too much for a game you'll never play, but you do have some money to burn, how about $75 for a candle with a scent called "This Smells Like My Prenup".   

A gorgeous blend of invigorating grapefruit and sexy, citrusy bergamot with supple notes of ripened raspberry subtly interlaced throughout, this sophisticated (and hilariously named) scent is the one to burn—and we mean burrrn—when you’re in some type of a mood.

Maybe Barron will get one for his mom.

Goop is also about braininess, of course, so they sell books. Including "Taller, Slimmer, Younger: 21 Days to a Foam Roller Physique," which sort of seems to contradict the advice about enjoying today because it's the youngest you're ever going to be. Or maybe enjoying the day means getting out your Creature of Comfort vibrator - or one of Goop's other bestsellers in this category - and going at it.

Sigh. So many options on Goop, I can't possibly swipe through them all. Besides, it's too late for Christmas delivery. Maybe next year. 

And as much as I enjoy making fun of Goop - and I surely do - there is nothing in their guides that's anywhere near as offensive as an ad that the NRA is tweeting:

Buy the gun you want. Wrap it and mark it from Santa. Your spouse will have to along with it or they’ll ruin Christmas for the kids.

Is that festive or what? 

Last week, a 2-year old boy in Indiana shot himself to death with a handgun he found while his mother was in the next room feeding his new-born sister. Whatever's under that family's tree isn't going to bring back their little one.

At least Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop - absurd as the enterprise may be - never killed anyone. 

Wonder if he buried Grandma after she got run over by a reindeer...

Mostly I hate it when you click on an article online, only to find out that you've been click baited into looking at something that is months, if not years old. Newspapers are notorious for this practice, and it's generally annoying AF. Who wants yesterday's news? Except when yesterday's news is not really news, but a story that's still pretty interesting a year later.

Thus, the article I somehow found my way to on, the gravedigging Santa of Nome, Alaska. 

Now Nome, Alaska (pop. under 4,000) doesn't have a ton going for it. It's fairly remote and there's no way to get to it by road, so it's only natural that it's major claim to fame is that it's where the Iditarod sled dog race finishes up. 

It's also home to Paul Kudla, the town gravedigger, cemetery maintainer, and city truck driver, who is also a Santa for hire. And a pretty well-established and in-demand one, too.

If you sideline as a professional Santa, gravedigging for the departed of Nome is not a bad gig, as it's too frozen up there to do winter burials. So winter's pretty much downtime. 

Kudla gets around.

Despite being so far from his pearly bearded peers, Kudla is fairly well-known. In 2015 he won the title of America’s Best Santa on the TV competition show Santas in the Barn, where he competed against nine other diverse Santas in contests ranging from speed present wrapping, building gingerbread houses on ice, and Christmas song knowledge (his weakest category—he doesn’t care for holiday music). He ended up beating out the Surfing San Diego Santa on the final episode, broadcast on Christmas Eve. The title netted him $100,000 in prize money and $10,000 for Make-A-Wish, his charity of choice.

Last year - remember way back then? in the before time? - was a good one for him:

Right before the 2019 Santa season kicked off, Kudla and nine other Santas from around the world toured around Japan, doing photo ops everywhere from hospitals and schools to the subway and a Toys ‘R’ Us. He’d been invited by a fellow Santa he met while competing at the Santa Winter Games in Norway and again at a convention in Kyrgyzstan.

Santa Winter Games in Norway I can see, but, seriously, I get that conventioneers get sick and tired of convening in Chicago or Boston or Las Vegas, but who holds their conventions in Kyrgyzstan? (I did hear it's lovely this time of year...)

Anyway, that's Kudla above, straphanging on the subway in Tokyo, and I have to say I admire his getup and think that he makes a kick-ass Santa. 

While gravedigging and cemetery caretaking bring you mostly in contact with grownups, and Santa-ing mostly with kids, the skills overlap is significant. In both situations, he's dealing with heightened emotion and plenty of tears. Sometimes he's providing comfort; sometimes he's providing joy; and sometimes he's bringing a measure of both. 

Like all good Santas, Kudla has a workshop:

...where he repairs sewing machines that are over 100 years old and crafts his extensive collection of Santa regalia. “I Santa-ize all my clothes,” Kudla says. “I’m finishing a jacket I made out of muskox. I look huge in that thing. I have a golden moose hide and a pure white buffalo hide that I’m saving—those need to be for something special. I have a vision of a duster coat with fur trim and a half cape in red leather. I just made a Russian Army officers hat Santa-fied.”

Not surprisingly, Kudla welcomes Santa jobs in the climes that are sunnier than Nome's, where daylight lasts only 4 hours during December. (The less time to actually see the cold and snow, I guess.) Last year, though, his Santa work was in Anchorage, Alaska's big city, where the weather isn't a whole lot better than it is in Nome.

He's back in Anchorage again this year, and he's lucky to have work, what with fewer mall, store, and party Santas in demand, thanks to COVID. He'll be playing Santa at Cabela's, the hunting-fishing-shooting store. So kiddos hoping for snowshoes, ammo, or duck calls will be able to ask Santa in person. 

Sadly, Santa needed to don PPE as part of his apparel this year. 

Unfortunately for Kudla, the physical barrier greatly hinders interactions with children. “You can barely talk to them, ” he said. “Santa smiles from be hind a shield and glass.” “It’s heartbreaking, ” Kudla said of the situation, and of the children who don’t understand why they can’t approach Santa. According to Kudla, Santas across the country and world are similarly unhappy, and he knows some who decided to sit this season out. Kudla said that he considered not working as a Santa this year, and he recently came close to quitting. “I almost walked away last week, ” he said. “I felt as if I was losing my Santa magic.” (Source: Nome Nugget) 

But fortunately, once Kudla started getting into the swing of things, he found himself getting his Santa mojo back. So for now, the tidings are glad. And if any Nomeite Grandma should happen to get runover by a reindeer on Christmas Eve, Santa Paul Kudla will be back to make sure she gets a proper burial next spring when the frozen tundra thaws.

How the Grinch is stealing Christmas

I ordered most of my things early on, so they all arrived here or at their final destination in plenty o' time. But one of the things I ordered delivered to my cousin - a table-top Christmas tree - turned out to be something of a Charlie Browner, shedding mightily despite her best efforts to keep it green. 

Unfortunately, by the time I called to lodge my complaint, it was way too late to get a replacement sent. Not that I hung on the customer service line long enough to get told this in person. 

Bad enough to have a long wait, but they were only playing two songs. And one Gene Autry's execrably sappy and wildly pious version of "Here Comes Santa Claus". Come on, I'm all for keeping Christ in Christmas, but there really is no need to bring God into a jingle about Santa. Plus Gene gives off a decidedly creepy vibe on this number. The other song was Bing Crosby's "Silver Bells," which wasn't enough to negate the Gene Autry. 

So I lodged my complaint online. 

Haven't heard back what they're going to do, but I know from the website that things are crazily backed up. Packages are being sent out seven days later than normal. So...

Part of the problem is COVID. Part of the problem is more folks ordering online, partly due to COVID. Part of the problem is the whopping snowstorm we just had. And part of it is that all these elements are combining to result in this:

An estimated 6 million packages a day are piling up in retailers' warehouses or shipping centers and awaiting pick up by FedEx, UPS, Amazon, the U.S. Postal Service and other shippers. Another 3.5 million packages are being picked up daily but not reaching their destinations on time, the latest shipping data show. It could soon get even worse: On-time delivery rates for the USPS have dropped to just over 86% in the third week of December, down from 93% three weeks ago. (Source: CBS News)

But we can't overlook the non-zero probability that the real Grinch of a fly in this ointment is the fiddling that USPS failed-

leader Louis "No Joy to the World" DeJoy did - no doubt at the behest of the Maniac in Chief - to turn the US Mail service into such a third world outfit that the citizens would throw their hands up and beg to send a birthday card through UPS or FedEx for an order of magnitude more than they now pay for a stamp.

All part of the trend to privatize all sorts of services that shouldn't be privatized. Like prisons, because, gee, no private prison services business would ever feel incented to promote laws that result in more prisoners, not fewer. Like schools, because, gee, no private school would ever think of jettisoning a troubled kid because providing help to said troubled kid would eat into profits. Like healthcare, because, gee, no private healthcare delivery system would ever pump up recommendations for lucrative but not necessarily necessary procedures.

And why should Granny in Ruralfree, Idaho, get to send a letter to Boston for the same fee that I would pay to send a letter to Boston? And why should they keep sorting machines in place that might be needed to process mail-in ballots for all those lazy-arse liberal cheaters. 

Anyway, the shipping sitch this year is really pretty bad. 

Many businesses (especially smaller ones) are finding that the shippers are putting a limit on the number of packages they'll pick up from them each day. This is pushing more packages to the beleaguered USPS. 

Sigh. 

Etsy is letting its sellers "flag for removal any negative reviews from customers complaining solely about shipping problems."

Sigh.

Everything that was going to be sent to me - as far as I know - has arrived. The pedicure kit from my sister Kath. (I'll have silver toes for New Year's Eve, so I'll have something shiny to look at.) The brisket sandwich kit from my friends Joyce and Tom in Dallas. (Yum.) The wreath sent from Maine from friends Sam and Jane.

But it is, of course, more blessed to give than to receive, and I do feel bad for those who are trying to give, only to be frustrated in their efforts. 

Of course, if people took a deep breath and thought about it for a minute, it really shouldn't make any difference to a mature and rational adult - or even to a kid who's beyond I-believe-in-Santa age - if something they want doesn't get there by Christmas. 

Still, it is one more thing that's adding insult to the already acute injury that is 2020. 

Bah humbug! May everything shipped to and from Louis DeJoy's house get lost in the mail. 

Snowbound

On Tuesday, there was a slight rush at the grocery store - gotta get milk! gotta get bread! - but because of social distancing for checkout, it looked a lot worse than it was. Me? I was mostly there for a poinsettia and an eggplant. 

Wednesday was definitely a snow-is-a-cumin-in sort of day. A wan winter sun in the morning, lowering clouds in the afternoon, and that wonderful (yes!) sense you get when the first storm of the season is approaching.

I didn't notice when things started, but by the time I woke up on Thursday morning, it was snowing aplenty - something of a shock to Bostonians who "enjoyed" virtually no snow last year. (And a bit scarily reminiscent of the whopper, week-after-week snow events of 2015, when we got ten feet of snow in a bit over a month.)

I was, of course, hunkered down to be hunkered down.

There was no need to go out, but go out I did, just to take a little peek at how lovely everything looks when it's snowing. 

I didn't have a Robert Frost experience. There are no woods nearby, let alone woods that "are lovely, dark, and deep." And, of course, I don't have any "promises to keep." But I did scoot over to the Boston Public Garden, where there are plenty of trees and where all the fountains and monuments were charmingly snow-capped. 

I didn't stay out all that long. After all, there was a Nor'easter on. Plus I (un)fortunately had an exceedingly boring work project to complete, foolishly promised by c.o.b. on Friday. 

Once I managed to race my way through the project, I did my favorite first snow day thing. I made myself a cup of tea (Barry's) and reread James Joyce's The Dead. This does, of course, sound incredibly artsy-fartsy pretentious, but it's such a brilliant story, and there's snow in it, and it's one of the few things I ever reread, and I had my cuppa Barry's, so...

Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, further westwards, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling too upon every part of the lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

And then I did a bit of baking, which puts me in my kitchen, which has a greenhouse window and a wonderful lookout over the snow coming down. 

Yes, the newspapers, and TV, and the weather app on my phone were right: snow was general all over Massachusetts. And a lot of it.

It was falling softly upon the Public Garden and, further westwards, softly falling all over Worcester, which, whenever there's a storm, always seems to get the brunt of it. And not always softly.

I wasn't there to see it, but I'm pretty sure it was falling, too, upon every part of Mt. Auburn Cemetery, where a good part of my husband's ashes lay buried. I suspect that it's laying thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the big gates...And on the ash plot on Azalea Way.

My soul did not swoon slowly as I heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

But I did feel something looking out on all that snow. And that was wishing that it would remain light, fluffy and pristine. That the sidewalks would all be shoveled and no snow left to harden into treacherous icepacks that can turn into broken hips for elderly widow ladies who venture too far out. That Christmas will be white, and not covered with a gritty scrim of exhaust fumes. That today's winter wonderland will not be transformed into nodes of hardened, blackish-gray mounds, riddled with yellow dog piss marks.

For today, however, it's lovely out there.

Nice to be snowbound every once in a while.

We know which toys are bad or good. (So buy good, for goodness sake.)

Each year, Boston's World Against Toys Causing Harm, Inc. (W.A.T.C.H.) pulls together their list of the year's ten worst toys. They did so this year under the dire heading that "One Child Is Treated In U.S. Emergency Rooms Every Three Minutes For A Toy-Related Injury."

I think it's safe to say that toys back in the day were actually a lot more dangerous. 

My sister Kathleen had a toy iron that would have plugged in and heated up to burna-burna level if my mother hadn't taken the plug off and replaced it with a suction cup.

I had a stuffed poodle with eyes that were on a corkscrew-like screw and that were pretty easy to pull out. If I'd been a kid bent on violence, I could have caused some harm.

Then there was Creeple People Thingmaker, a kit that included plastic goop and a mold that heated up to about a billion degrees so that you could bake the goop into a Creeple People. 

Despite having access to these and other toys that were completely and utterly hazardous, I never made a toy-related trip to the ER. My one and only excursion there was to get a tetanus shot after I got bitten by Blackie, the outsized German Shepherd owned by the Hurley family (cop father; two cop sons). I was just walking by, quite innocently, on my way home from school when Blackie hurtled himself off the Hurley's front porch and bit me in the arm. Trust me when I say that I could have been voted "Child Least Likely to Provoke a Dog". Nonetheless, the theory (according to the Hurleys) held that I must have been unconsciously swinging my bright green and yellow Our Lady of the Angels book bag, a provocation similar to waving a red flag in front of a bull.

Of my sibs, the only toy-and-game related ER excursions I recall were made by my brother Rick, who once tried to ski (on a pair of mini-toy-sized skis) down a pile of cushions he'd stacked up in the den. However he ended up, he tore something open that called for stitches. Another time, he broke his nose playing baseball. Not quite sure whether this merited the ER. After all, it was just a broken nose. Put your head back, use a cold compress until the bleeding stops, and put a bandage across the bridge of your nose.

Despite being an old fart survivor of the Golden Age of Dangerous Toys, I laud the work of W.A.T.C.H. 

Unless you're eyes on 24/7, you can't prevent your kids from doing themselves some harm with a toy, whether they're using them for the toy's original purpose or not. After all, as anyone who was ever had a child or been a child and/or had siblings or has observed children at play can attest, anything and everything can be turned into a weapon. Still, toys obviously shouldn't be created that pose a clear and present danger.

For over four decades, W.A.T.C.H. has tackled the issue of dangerous toys in the hope of bringing about change and reducing injuries to children. Nonetheless, dangerous toys remain on store shelves, in catalogues, and on e-tailers’ websites. Shockingly, classic toy dangers, such as small parts, strings, projectiles, toxic substances, rigid materials, and inaccurate warnings and labels, continue to reappear in new generations of toys putting children at risk.

Sigh.

So what's on the hit parade for 2020?

CALICO CRITTERS have small parts that are choking hazards for oral-age kids. And they're the right shape, size and cuteness for an oral-age kid to glom their mouths onto.

THE MISSILE LAUNCHER What kid wouldn't want one of these? Come on! A weapon that's can be used as a weapon? Sweeet! It comes with a warning not to aim at people or animals. Right. You really could put someone's eye out with this one.

MARVEL AVENGERS VIBRANIUM POWER FX CLAW would be a big hit with Black Panther fans. Sure the package advises "do not hit or swing at people or animals." But do you really think a 5 year old reads the packaging? Not to mention that it's designed to take a swing.

GLORIA OWL is sold from Home Goods on up to Saks.

It's plenty creepy, and I'm not embarrassed to admit that, at a certain age - way before W.A.T.C.H. began going after bad toys - I would have liked it. But Gloria sheds, and if some of that distinctly non-owl like wispy "hair" gets sucked in by an infant, there could be respiratory problems.

SCI-FI SLIME is, not surprisingly, harmful if swallowed, and is "not to be used by children except under adult supervision," which is pretty much no kid who has ever drawn breath's idea of a swell toy. 

THE BOOMERANG INTERACTIVE STUNT UFO looks, from the right angle, like a kitchen fan. A kitchen fan wouldn't have boomerang properties, but, like this toy, "can cause damage to the user, spectators and animals….” who might get hurt by a kids tossing it back and forth or doing tricks with it, both of which are encouraged behaviors. Tossing back and forth? Isn't the entire purpose of a boomerang is that you throw it and it comes back all on its very own?

BOOM CITY RACECARS "are sold with a ripcord 'launcher'" to get them moving. As long as you don't launch it at an animal, someone else's eyes or face, or your own eyes or face, instructions that are bound to be heeded by the average 4 year old.

MY SWEET LOVE LOTS TO LOVE BABIES MINIS is a cutesy little doll that comes with accessories like a mini little spoon and a mini little bottle that are for "doll use only." Good thing 2 year olds have excellent reading comprehension and ability to proceed with caution.

STAR WARS MANDALORIAN DARKSABER users are "encouraged to 'SWING FOR BATTLE...!' with this lightsaber, while at the same time warned NOT to "swing, poke or jab at people or animals." Just how much fun is swinging a lightsaber if you can't make contact with something or someone. Big swing and a miss!

WWE JUMBO SUPERSTAR FISTS are inexpensive - just four bucks - and what sane-minded parent wouldn't want their 3 year old donning these fists and pretending that they're a wrestler. Of course, no sane-minded parent would buy this. But I can see plenty of uncles getting it for the little guy in their life. 

 

W.A.T.C.H. urges those shopping for toys "shop defensively" and "spread the word" about toys that are unsafe at any speed. Keeping in mind that almost everything requires adult supervision for all children under a certain age, and for some children until they become adults and beyond, I'd add that any toy that requires adult supervision isn't much of a toy. 

Anyway, a shout out to W.A.T.C.H. for trying to make Toyland a safer place for the kiddos. 

And now for a little less pricey luxury...

Yesterday, Pink Slip window shopped for the highest of the high end Neiman-Marcus Fantasy Gifts. For the most part, not my fantasies, mind you, but a nice little peek at what the ultra-ultras - the 0.1 percenters - might be indulging in this Christmas, if they're looking to spend in the quarter-million plus-or-minus $100K range. 

Today, I'm dropping down into one-percenter land to see what's on offer if you've got mere thousands of dollars burning a hole in your Vuitton pocketbook.

Now the French Fry Rainbow Clutch is something that I might have picked up as a gag gift in the late, lamented Filene' Basement if I saw it there for fifteen bucks. But, seriously folks, if you were going to spent $5,695 on a pocketbook, wouldn't it be something a bit more serious? Something you could use most days, wearing it to death?

Still, the French Fry Clutch looks practical compared to the Christian Louboutin Shimmery Red Sole Pump Clutch Bag for $3,990. Yowza! Are you familiar with the expression "you could poke your eye out with that"? Because with this clutch, you surely could. On the upside, I guess it could double as a weapon if you were trying to evade a bag snatcher. But what if you fell while running in your Louboutin Red Sole Pumps (which are what we used to call spikes; pumps, back in the day, were a bit more sensible, shoe-wise).

Bags are a big deal on the luxury front. Of course, you probably don't want to pay $5,695 for a nifty new backpack for your kid. Or even the relatively more reasonable $3,990. But you have to start 'em on the luxury trail young. So there's this:

Only $1,250. And if you really can't afford it, there's a plan - as there seem to be for a number of the items - where you can pay $113 a month. (Maybe it's just me, but if you have to buy your kid a backpack on time, I think you'd be better off picking something up at Target. Not to mention that if any kid had showed up at my grammar school wearing this, they would have been laughed out of the schoolyard, and would have gotten nowhere near $1,250 worth of value out of it.)

And I know I'm spending way too much time on bags, but for the man in your life, how about $1,095 for a fanny belt pack.  And I'm going to say it: anyone who'd pay $1,095 for this has entirely too much money. 

The luxury menu is by no means entirely baggy. Why, there's this Pave Skull for $9,500. I'm not quite sure what sort of decor this would fit with. Not mine, for sure. And there's no indication of what size it is. Is it 3" tall, or standard adult skull size? My sister Trish likes Day of the Dead stuff. Hers are more of the made-of-clay variety, but she may be wanting to up her aesthetic, switching from eclectic liberal elite to let's-flaunt-ugly Texan. Too bad we don't exchange gifts...

Then there's these sitting balls. Doesn't that look like $1,095 a piece worth of fun? I'd just like to know if it comes with liability insurance in case someone reaches for their drink and ends up bonking their head on that glass table.

And who in their right mind would want a $25,000 24 k gold Mike Tyson boxing glove. First, boxing. Foremost, Mike Tyson??? (If you don't like boxing/Tyson, you can swap this out for a 24 k gold Joe Montana and Jerry Rice football helmet.) 

Finally, I'm not going anywhere soon, but if I were, I'd sure be happy to bring along my bev of choice in this Versace Medusa travel mug ($1,100).

And with that, I'm Neiman Marcus window shopped out. Fortunately, it didn't cost me a dime.