Thanks for the invite, Wayne LaPierre.

I have, on occasion, found myself on a somewhat surprising mailing list. 

Usually, I can figure out the breadcrumbs that got me there.

For years, I was on a number of Republican mailing (and phone) lists. At that point, I was subscribing to the Wall Street Journal online. I'm thinking that's who sold me good name.

More recently, I've been getting mailings from ultra-conservative Hillsdale College. Huh? It's been a long while since I've subscribed to the WSJ...

And then there's the NRA...

The other day, I opened my (physical) mailbox and, what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a missive from Wayne LaPierre, the head of the NRA.

Dear Friend, Wayne wrote:

There has never been a more important time for you to accept the enclosed NRA membership card and carry it with pride.

Right now, hundreds of gun-hating politicians, judges, radical billionaires, and freedom-hating media elites are attacking your freedom with everything in their arsenal. They're attacking in the courts, the state legislatures, the media, and even the U.S. Congress.

Little does Wayne know, apparently, that I've been donating to some of those very gun-hating politicians. 

So how did they get my name?

I only donate to Democratic politicians. And I give to many causes associated with the Democratic Party/liberals: registering voters, transporting voters to the polls, Planned Parenthood, ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center, Union of Concerned Scientists, the Obama Foundation. The charities I support are politically neutral.

I subscribe to The Atlantic and The New Yorker. Hardly centers of conservative thought. 

I read the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the New York Times. 

So the NRA is definitely barking up the wrong tree. But let 'em. Let 'em spend their marketing money chasing a donation from me. Because even with all the swell enticements, I'll be taking a pass - make that a hard pass - on signing up for the NRA.

For a discounted membership rate - $30 a year vs. $45; that's 50% off!!! - I'm entitled to three benefits:

• A credentials package with a personalized membership card that I guess is more official than the one they sent me.
• My choice of an NRA magazine - "month after month of eye-popping photography, information-packed reviews of the hottest new guns, gear and ammo, hundreds of hunting tips, plus all the news and strategies you need to defend your freedoms."
• An NRA Rip-Stop Camo Duffel Bag that, presumably, I can stuff with ammo and the like.

But I'm wondering about that eye-popping photography in their magazines. 

Personally, I get enough eye-popping photography when I see pictures of the grieving families of those massacred in the latest mass killing in a nightclub, grocery store, or synagogue. When I see the school pictures of the sweet little kiddos killed at Uvalde and Shady Hook. Pictures of the surviving youngsters streaming out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida, hand over their heads, as if they've done something wrong. 

As for Wayne LaPierre looking for my money. Har, har, hardee har har.

Still, gotta wondering how I got on their mailing list. Did Hillsdale College dime me? Hope the NRA paid for the privilege. 

Corporate ice bath? No thanks.

I've done the business offsites where we play volleyball. Where we do a tug of war. Where we all take a personality test to figure out how we can get better at working together. Where we compose and deliver a cheer. Where we build something with Tinker Toys. Where we escape the Escape Room. Where we bowl. Where we paint our own version of a Van Gogh. Where we sit back to back with a colleague and reveal some deep down desire. Or whatever. Where we trustingly fell back blind-folded into the arms of a colleague. 

So very twentieth century. So yesterday.

Apparently, the current bonding thang is all taking a plunge into an ice bath. As happened when the execs of Daring Foods - a rapidly growing company that makes "plant based chicken" - decided they needed to put their heads together and figure out what to do about the turnover that was becoming as rapid as its growth.

There was one solution: Jump into an ice bath together. The executives spent six minutes in icy cold water, breathing through the pain. “After we all did an ice plunge, and our endorphins were through the roof and we all felt great about ourselves,” [Founder and Chief Executive] Mr. [Ross] Mackay said, they “ripped the Band-Aid off” and addressed the challenges they were facing. (Source: NY Times)

They took the plunge at Remedy Place, a "social wellness club" located, not surprisingly, in New York City and LA. 

Within the spalike setting, members are encouraged to socialize while getting treatments such as vitamin drips, lymphatic drainage massages and cryotherapy.

Hmmmm.

For the most part, I liked my colleagues just fine. Some of them even became life friends. But I can't imagine sitting around with any of them having lymphatic drainage massages or vitamin drips.

The closest I came, I guess, was when I got to go to my company's Winners' Circle trip to Hawaii. 

For some reason, the company decided to add some home office "winners" to the list of sales people who got to go to the big, swank reward trip to Lanai. My boss nominated me, and away I went to paradise. And, other than the few obligatory sessions that magically turned the entire boondoggle into a business expense for the company, it was paradise. 

But it was out and out weird to encounter colleagues bare-legged and bare-whatevered, in their little white terry robes, as we strolled in an out of the spa for stone massages and seaweed wraps. 

Of course, once you got into the spa, you got your stone massage and seaweed wrap in a private room.

No side-by-side lymphatic drain massage for us

Thank God!

Worse yet - to me, at least - Daring Foods also uses the approach on interviews.

Sure, I'd expect an organization that makes plant-based chicken to be a little more daring than the high tech outfits i worked for, but, but, but... 

Mr. MacKay even interviewed a job candidate there recently. “We did an IV drip and had a conversation for an hour,” he said. “We need someone who fits our culture, and this is a good way to find out.”

I'm all in favor of making sure someone is a good fit for the company. But an IV drip to get the job? I would have been permanently unemployed.

Across the country, companies are entertaining clients with foot rubs and sound baths. Team brainstorming sessions are taking place in ice plunges and infrared saunas. Meetings with current or potential bosses are happening over IV infusions. According to executives, employees and spas, companies and entrepreneurs are conducting more business than ever in places designed for wellness — and cutting edge treatments.

“The amount of meetings is actually absurd, considering this is a spa,” said Jonathan Leary, the founder of Remedy Place.

"Actually absurd" sounds about right. But that doesn't mean it's not happening.

“No one is interested in team yoga anymore,” said Kane Sarhan, a founder at the Well, a retreat with locations in New York City and Washington, Conn., which attracts companies from Boston. “It’s much more dynamic stuff like IVs, group support circles, sound baths, energy work.”

Mr. Sarhan said Fortune 100 companies and big financial firms are using the Well’s facilities for sales meetings, team events and client get-togethers.

“We’ve been teaching them tapping and palm reading,” he said. “People are exhausted and people have been sick. It’s the responsibility of leaders to help teams deal with it, and giving a discount on a gym membership or a quiet room in an office isn’t cutting it so they are coming to us.”

Tapping? Palm reading? Sounds kind of Seance on a Wet Afternoon-y.

Still, it would have been kind of fun to learn palm reading. Fun but a little dangerous. Imagine if you read someone's palm and figured out they were out with their long knives to get you!

...The most popular spot for meetings: the foot rub area. “I’ve seen dozens and dozens of meetings take place at foot baths each week,” Mr. Sarhan said, laughing. “People have their computers out on their laps.”

Sorry, but meetings in the foot baths?

Sure, it's fine to go for a mani-pedi with the girls, but hanging out having a foot rub with colleagues or a potential manager? 

Thanks, but no thanks. 

Guess I'm just not cut out for the modern world of business. 

Good thing I'm an old retired geezer.

Send in the federal sharpshooters

A few years back, I was taking a walk with my friend Peter near his home in Swampscott, a town on Boston's North Shore.  We were about to head onto the beach when a coyote ambled across our path. Although we didn't have a dog with us, we decided to cede the beach stroll to the ambling coyote.

Peculiarly, although I tend to associate coyotes with the west - drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweed, etc. -coyotes have been in Massachusetts since the 1950s. Now, they're pretty widespread throughout the state. Including in Boston and its environs.

I don't recall ever seeing coyotes in Boston - our gift from Mother Nature tends to the be wild turkey - but they're here.

And they're on the Cape, too.

My sister Kath used to have a home in Wellfleet, located on a nature preserve, and at night we could hear the coyotes howling. Aroooooooo!

It's generally not Coyotes 'R Us around here, but periodically, there are news reports about a cat or small dog being spirited away by coyotes.

But in the North Shore town of Nahant - a small, densely populated little burg just a hop, skip, and a causeway from Peter's home in Swampscott - things have gotten coyote ugly. 

No humans have been harmed by Nahant’s coyotes, estimated to number about a dozen. But after the disappearances of more than two dozen pets in roughly two years — and reports of three brazen, fatal attacks this year on leashed dogs accompanied by their owners — the town is ever more on edge. Its isolated geography — Nahant is essentially an island connected to the mainland by a narrow, 1.5-mile causeway — contributes to the sense of menace felt by some residents. (Source: Boston Globe)

Just because it's nothing as dramatic as "the dingo stole my baby," Nahant has not been having a happy time of it. 

So the town's Board of Selectmen voted last month to enlist the help of federal sharpshooters who are part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Federal sharpshooters who aren't in the military or Secret Service? Who knew?

The plan has relieved many anxious residents, some of whom now carry whistles and baseball bats on strolls around town, and dress their dogs in $100 “coyote jackets” covered with metal spikes to repel attacks.

There are a few different coyote jackets out there, and most of them come in pink and blue. At $100+, they're not cheap. But, of course, it beats seeing your pupper dragged into oblivion and beyond by a coyote.

“I love animals, and I don’t want to see them killed, but some child on a porch is going to get taken,” said Lisa Wrenn, who watched a coyote snatch her 12-pound Chihuahua, Penelope, off a leash last summer as she stood on her front stairs. Left holding the leash and empty collar, she never saw the dog again, she said.

I'm sure Lisa Wrenn wishes that she'd gotten some coyote protection for Penelope.  Sure, I'd rather see a chihuahua carried off than someone's baby. Still, I can't imagine the horror Lisa experienced. Or poor little Penelope, for that matter.

Not sure when the federal sharpshooters are due in town.

But I've got some advice for those critters. (The Nahant coyotes, not the federal sharpshooters.)

Go West, young coyote. And don't stop at Worcester. Git along, little coyotes, and don't look back until you get to the New York border. Even then, keep a-movin'. You know that Wyoming will be your new home.

Let the Twitter janitors go? Hey, I worked at a company like this!

Let the Twitter janitors go? Hey, I worked in a company like that! 

Elon Musk has been busy. What with the simul-destruction of Twitter and Tesla, when does that bad boy sleep? Among other tasks he's set for himself, he's going insanely deep on cost-cutting at Twitter. Which is something you just gotta do when you buy a non-money making company and saddle it with annual debt of $1B. 

First on the Musk hit parade was savagely cutting the employee ranks. Headcount will roll, he decreed. And it did. 

Then Musk trained his keen focus on non-labor expenses. 

Over the past few weeks, Twitter had stopped paying millions of dollars in rent and services, and Mr. Musk had told his subordinates to renegotiate those agreements or simply end them. (Source: NY Times) 

The service providers Twitter has put the screws to - screws like skipping payments - included KPMG and Deloitte, which worked on areas like security, tax prep, and compliance. I suspect this isn't going over well with KPMG and Deloitte, or with the organizations Twitter was supposed to be complying with. Like the FTC. 

The company missed payments to and then renegotiated its contract with Carrot, a benefits provider for fertility services including egg and sperm freezing and in vitro fertilization, according to two people close to the company. On Thursday, Carrot notified Twitter employees that the fertility benefit amount would be halved in the new year. A representative for Carrot did not respond to requests for comment.

Since 75% of the employees have been laid off, this may not be impacting all that many folks. But it you were relying on this benefit...Yikes. 

But wait! There's more (or less, depending on the way you look at it.)

The company has stopped paying rent at its Seattle office, leading it to face eviction, two people familiar with the matter said... At Twitter's San Francisco HQ has cut its floor space beyond what would be proportional to the draconian layoffs that have occurred. With people packed into more confined

spaces, the smell of leftover takeout food and body odor has lingered on the floors, according to four current and former employees. Bathrooms have grown dirty, these people said. And because janitorial services have largely been ended, some workers have resorted to bringing their own rolls of toilet paper from home. Janitorial and security services have been cut, and in some cases employees have resorted to bringing their own toilet paper to the office.

I never had to bring my own toilet paper to work, but I was at Wang for a couple of years while it was spinning into its death spiral, so I know what it's like to work when the cleaning staff has been greatly reduced.

Wang was a frugal company to begin with. Among other things, I stayed at hotels I didn't consider safe. On one trip to Cleveland, I wedged the desk chair up against the door to provide myself with a bit more security.

But when things got really bad, maintenance of the facilities was one of the first and most obvious things to go.

They removed one third of the overhead lights, making a dim and dingy environment even dimmer and dingier. They also removed half the lights in the parking lot.

They stopped picking up the trash from individual cubicles. You had to bring your trash to a large bin on your floor, but these weren't emptied all that regularly, and were often overflowing with coffee grounds and banana peels.

People became more and more careless. I found a discarded tea bag tossed in an aisle. On a staircase, I almost stepped into a gigantic hawked up loogie.

The bathrooms were a disaster. We joked about catching typhus. One of my male colleagues reported that, in a men's room stall, he came across a row of dried boogers lined up over the toilet paper holder.

Ah, what a charming stroll down memory lane. 

And however terrible Wang was, it has to have been a million times better a place than Twitter. At least there was no Elon Musk on the scene 

Snowflake Bentley, one ingenious Yankee

We haven't had much snow so far this season. Not that I'm complaining, but in truth I don't mind a little a bit of snow. 

I love being out during a snowstorm. Not a raging blizzard, mind you, where the wind is howling and little snowflake pellets are pinging your face. But a kinder, gentler snowstorm. The ones that make you feel as if you're walking around in a snow globe. 

Even better, I love being inside during a snowstorm, looking out, drinking my cup of tea, all comfy and cozy. 

And I love that snow storms are made up of snowflakes.

Seriously, there are few things in nature that are more beautiful than snowflakes.

I can still remember the thrill of catching a snowflake on a wool mitten and admiring its intricacy and beauty for that fleeting moment before it disappeared.

And one of the most wonderful things in the wonderful world of science is that fact that no two snowflakes are alike.

I'll confess to a lack of curiosity about how someone figured this out. If I had to venture a guess, I'd have said some nutty professor somewhere. 

Turns out it was a farmer from Vermont, who first snapped a photo of a snowflake -  or performed the late nineteenth century equivalent of snapping a photo - in 1885, when he was twenty.

[Wilson Alwyn] Bentley is credited as the first person to ever photograph snow crystals — commonly called snowflakes — up close. His painstaking process and hobby was perfected over decades using a homemade contraption involving a microscope mounted to a bellows camera. His passion for photographing snow earned him the nicknames “Snowflake” and “Snowflake Man,” the latter etched on his grave when he died in 1931.

And his life’s work formed the basis for the old adage “no two snowflakes are alike.”

“I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others,” Bentley said in 1925. “Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated." (Source: Boston Globe)

His discovery was aided by his mother. She'd been a school teacher who brought a small microscope to her marriage, and later gave it to her intellectually curious son Wilson. 

Fascinated by what he saw under his microscope, young Wilson tried to draw snowflakes. Alas, the snowflakes melted too quickly to capture the detail.

But a camera could.

Trouble was, there wasn't a lot of spare cash around a remote Vermont farm in the late eighteen hundreds. 

As luck would have it, the Bentley family came into an inheritance and bought a camera with it. Jerry rigging the camera to a new microscope, and capturing the snowflakes on a chilled glass plate, did the trick. Talk about Yankee ingenuity. 

After that first successful photograph:

He would go on to photograph well over 5000 snow crystals (never finding two the same), and his documentation of this work advanced the study of meteorology in his time. His photomicrographs were acquired by institutes of higher learning all over the world and his writings on these subjects were published in many journals and magazines including Scientific American, National Geographic and The National Weather Service Research Journal. (Source: SnowflakeBentley.com)

Here's what Wilson Alwyn Bentley had to say about his early days as a stay-at-home explorer:

When the other boys of my age were playing with popguns and sling-shots, I was absorbed in studying things under this microscope: drops of water, tiny fragments of stone, a feather dropped from a bird's wing, a delicately veined petal from some flower.

But always, from the very beginning, it was snowflakes that fascinated me most. The farm folks, up in this north country, dread the winter; but I was supremely happy, from the day of the first snowfall-which usually came in November-until the last one, which sometimes came as late as May.

Talk about making the most of a brutal Northern New England winter.  

I just love this story. Almost as much as I love snowflakes.

But wait, there's more. 

Bentley died of pneumonia in 1931 - pneumonia caught while he was out and about during a blizzard, photographing snowflakes.

If ever there were a pure Vermont story, this be it.

Southwest's aborted mission to be "the most loved airline"

It's now over a week since the Nightmare Before Christmas Eve travel meltdown, and for all I know, Southwest Airlines is still digging themselves out. The debacle definitely seems to be turning in to a pretty nasty version of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Sure, the horrendous nationwide weather situation - deep freezes, blizzards, flooding - impacted all airlines. When it's 8 below and there's four feet of snow on the ground, it's sort of hard to get airborne. But Southwest was responsible for an outsized proportion of cancellations. During those horrendous days just before Christmas, Southwest was responsible for the clear majority of cancellations. The number 70% sticks in my head, but I couldn't find the citation. Whatever the number was, it was well out of whack with Southwest's domestic market share, which is 17.4%.

And the festivities, or lack thereof, continued well into last week, when Southwest's proportion of cancelled flights got even worse.

Southwest accounted for about 90 percent of Wednesday’s flight cancellations by U.S. airlines and about 99 percent of Thursday’s grounded flights. Other carriers appear to have recovered from the storm, posting typical numbers of cancellations, according to data from the tracking service FlightAware. (Source: Washington Post)

Turns out, Southwest's troubles, and the troubles of the hundreds of thousands of travelers - lost luggage, extra expenses incurred, refunds in limbo - who were booked on Southwest, had less to do with the rotten weather conditions and more to do with Southwest's setup.

The issues partly stem from the carrier’s unique “point-to-point” model, in which planes tend to fly from destination to destination without returning to one or two main hubs. Most airlines follow a “hub-and-spoke” model, in which planes typically return to a hub airport after flying out to other cities.

When bad weather hits, hub-and-spoke airlines can shut down specific routes and have plans in place to restart operations when the skies clear. But bad weather can scramble multiple flights and routes in a point-to-point model, leaving Southwest staff out of position to resume normal operations.

The vast snowstorm last week exposed other vulnerabilities in Southwest’s network. Inadequate computer systems made it difficult to shift crews to where they were needed most. In addition, Southwest lacks agreements with other airlines and could not rebook passengers on competitors’ flights, forcing many people to wait days until Southwest clears its backlog. (Source: NY Times)

Pretty interesting, given that one of Southwest's differentiators has been its operational efficiency.

Another big differentiator: Southwest pride itself on being friendly. In your face friendly. As in sing-along whether you like it or not friendly. As in, jeepers, let's have some fun on this flight. As in ukulele lessons for everyone. 

After all, part of their mission is "to be the world's most loved, most efficient, and most profitable airline."

Most loved? Give me the cattle car treatment we used to get on the old (long gone and occasionally lamented) Eastern Shuttle on its Boston-LaGuardia route any old day. Just get me there, and let me travel in peace.

Delayed and canceled flights are always stressful. I remember plenty of mad airport scrambles, in the pre-Internet, pre-smartphone world, to grab a new flight. I remember sitting in at the gate for interminable hours, waiting to get on a plane. Or sitting on a plane on the tarmac waiting to take off. Or get off.

The only good cancellation I remember was one to Frankenmuth, Michigan. 

Sure, I would probably have gotten a kick out of seeing a bit of a Bavarian-themed town, but if my flight is going to be canceled by a snowstorm, I'd rather have it be canceled while I'm still in Boston, than get stranded in Frankenmuth, Michigan. (Especially given that, as it turned out, we didn't get the business we were after.)

But getting delayed or stranded over Christmas, when all you want is to get home for the holidays, especially with kiddos in tow? How terrible!

The whole mess has gotten Southwest scrambling to try to live up to its love mission. With little luck so far. Customers are understandably and rightly pissed.

So Southwest is taking a big reputational hit and, of course, a hit to its bottom line. And it now has the Feds breathing down their neck, as Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has called for an investigation into why all this is happening at Southwest.

Meanwhile, competitor airlines, including United and Frontier, are looking like the good guys by capping fares on routes that both they and Southwest serve. If there's any love left in the wonderful world of holiday travel, it'll flee Southwest for United and Frontier, which will attempt to accommodate the Southwest refugees without gouging them. 

One big Bah Humbug of a holiday for Southwest Airlines, I'm afraid.

Hope that, now that we're into the new year, all the tuckered out, beleaguered Southwest travelers have gotten sorted out and are back where they belong. 

Liar, liar. George Santos is completely on fire.

Well, today's a big day in Washington, DC, as Congress will be sworn in. 

And big bad day for the country, as the Republicans are taking over the House and, in the thrall of their growing, vocal, and power-flexing extremist members, are promising to spend the next two years investigating anyone and everyone who's ticked them off. Joe Biden. (Hunter Biden.) Merrick Garland. Doctor Fauci. The members of the January 6th Committee. They'll probably be dragging Hillary Clinton back in. Just because they can. 

Why govern when it's more fun to go on a performative revenge tour? Let the spittle fly.

It must be a particularly exciting day for those coming into Congress for the first time.

I'm wondering whether Representative-elect George Santos, who represents a district on Long Island, will be one of them.

After all, even by the lax standards when it comes to political resume accuracy, Santos is at an almost unheard of Pinocchio

level.  

You name it, Santos has lied about it.

Where he went to school. What degree he earned. Where he worked. His family background. 

On Monday, Mr. Santos confirmed some of the inaccuracies identified by The Times. He admitted to lying about having graduated from Baruch College and making misleading claims that he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. He also acknowledged that he was not, as he had claimed, making substantial income as a landlord. (Source: NY Times)

Not enough to lie about having a degree from Baruch. Santos said he had studied at NYU. No record there. He also claimed he attended the prestigious NY prep school, Horace Mann, but had to leave because his parents had a financial reversal of fortune - part of his fabricated persona as someone who came up from nothing and realized the American dream. No record of Santos ever having attended Horace Mann.

Then there's the BS about his work history. His employment history is a lot more pedestrian and less lucrative than anything that would have happened at Goldman. As a young man, he did, however, allegedly earn a few bucks embezzling from one of his mother's patients (she was a nurse) in Brazil.

His lies about his family history are particularly weird.

CNN also reviewed more instances of Santos providing additional false history of his family’s background. In one interview, Santos said his mother’s family’s historical Jewish name was “Zabrovsky,” and later appeared to operate a GoFundMe campaign for a pet charity (which he falsely claimed was a 501(c)(3) nonprofit) under that alias. Genealogists CNN previously spoke with found no evidence of Jewish or Ukrainian heritage in his family tree.

In another, he said his mother, whose family has lived in Brazil since the late 1800s, was a White immigrant from Belgium...

Santos also denied that he falsely called himself Jewish, claiming he “never claimed to be Jewish” but jokingly said he was “Jew-ish” to the New York Post. He also falsely claimed that his grandparents “survived the Holocaust” and fled Europe to escape Jewish persecution. But CNN found that Santos called himself an “American Jew” and “Latino Jew” on multiple occasions. The Republican Jewish Coalition disinvited Santos from appearing at any of its events because he “misrepresented his heritage.” (Source: CNN)

There are plenty of other lies/potential lies emerging as the saga plays out.  

Santos, for his part, as pooh-poohed the idea that he's a liar of the pants on fire variety. Au contraire. His claims, he says, were nothing but minor "embellishments," "a poor choice of words."

Actually, his embellishments were an excellent choice of words if all you really wanted was to get elected.

Santos has also defended his résumé lies by pointing out that fudging the details on your résumé isn't a crime. 

But what might be a crime surrounds the $700K that he lent his campaign. Where'd the money come from? Was it a legitimate donation or something illegally funneled through his work? And how did he go from earning $55K a year to making millions on a couple of smart/lucky deals the next?

And it's also not exactly (legally) kosher to solicit political donations based on lies. 

The Nassau County DA, who - like Santos - is a Republican, is investigating Santos, and has vowed to prosecute if she finds a crime. 

Federal investigators are also taking a look. 

I rarely agree with Tulsi Gabbard, the crackpot erstwhile Democrat who left the party for the greener pastures of Fox News. 

She interviewed Santos and called him on his parade of lies.

“These are blatant lies,” Ms. Gabbard said. “And it calls into question how your constituents and the American people can believe anything that you may say when you’re standing on the floor of the House of Representatives.” (Source: NY Times)

What a bum!

O Brave New Year!

I grew up watching the New Year's Rose Parade from Pasadena. Even though I was watching on a black & white TV, there was still plenty of oohing and aahing about the bee-yoo-ti-ful flower-covered floats and the pretty cowgirls on palominos.

The parade is, of course, a lot better in living color. But at my age a lot of the oohing and aahing has been replaced by shock and awe at the nutty effort that goes into creating those bee-yoo-ti-ful flower-covered floats. And the pretty cowgirls on palominos? They seem to have been replaced by zaftig middle-aged bleach blondes who look like their next stop is the Republican National Convention.

Nonetheless, I'll probably put the parade on for a few minutes later this morning.

I was surprised that the parade wasn't on yesterday, on New Year's Day. But it turns out that the Rose Bowl football game - a bowl game that doesn't factor in to this year's college championship playoffs - will be played today. And/or observance of Sunday proprieties. And/or the NFL scheduled Thus the parade is today and not on New Year's.

Other than the Rose Parade and, I believe, the other bowl parades (Orange? Sugar?) of my childhood, and the follow-on games, I don't remember all that much about New Year's Day when I was a kid.

It was a Holy Day, so we went to Mass. And the next day - unless, like this year, the holiday/Holy Day fell on a Sunday and was observed by government and business on Monday - meant back to school.

Did I stay up on New Year's Eve to listen to Guy Lombardo and countdown to the big calendar turn? Not that I remember. I do recall being excited in 1959 that we were heading into the sixties. 

As an adult, New Year has never been all that interesting to me.

I think I've gone out once or twice. Some years, I've watched the First Night Parade that passes nearby. And/or watched the kiddie fireworks from Boston Common, which I can sees out my front door.  Some years, I just go to bed early. My late husband liked to watch the Three Stooges Marathon. Those were definitely early-to-bed years for me. (Nyuck, nyuck, nycukc.) Some years, I go to my sister Trish's, as I did this year. And we even made it to midnight.

Mostly, New Year's Day means take the tree down - it went out with this morning's recycle - and gearing myself for the long, cold, dreary month of January.

I may make a half-baked resolution, but typically the only resolution I ever stick to is the implicit resolution I make to ignore any resolutions I've made.

Still, I enter 2023 guardedly optimistic that, on the personal front, I will get more writing in. More reading. (Stay the f' off of Twitter.) That I'll clean out all my cabinets, drawers, and closets and haul whatever I don't need and/or want off to Goodwill. That I'll do a bit more travel than I did during he peak covid years. (Assuming 2023 doesn't turn into a peak covid year.)

And I'll try to stop worrying about what 2023 will hold for the country, for the world.

How will Ukraine fare? The immigrants who, despite all, keep coming to this fractured, fractious, unwelcoming nation of ours? Will The Law finally catch up with Trump and his minions? (I don't need to have Trump in prison. I just need him to STFU.) Will the weather get crazier? Will there be more bomb cyclones? Will covid finally play itself ou?

And what about the Red Sox?

Sure, this is more personal than earth-shaking, but for anyone who lives in New England, living and dying by fortunes of the Olde Towne Team, what happens with the Red Sox produces a pretty universal threat. 

Will I hold fast to my boycott, or get sucked back in to paying ticket prices that are among the highest in baseball, to watch a last place team devoid of star power?

O Brave New Year! 

I wonder what wonders it will hold for us.

And so this is Christmas. Or will be tomorrow.

Tomorrow's Christmas Eve and, as far as I'm concerned, Christmas Eve = Christmas. 

My family is coming over, and we will sit around eating, drinking, talking (this is, after all, my family), and gazing at my tree.

I've had bigger trees. And better looking ones, I suppose. But as long as it's real, as long as it's balsam, as long as I manage to get all the ornaments that I love on it, I'm happy.

So, Merry Christmas/Merry Christmas tree to all.

In keeping with Pink Slip tradition, we're taking the week after Christmas off, and will return in 2023.

It's the most wonderful day of the year. Well, almost.

Yesterday was the one I always dread. Shortest day of the year. Darkest evening. 

On that darkest of days, this little horse always gives her harness bells a shake to ask if there is some mistake. So very, very dark. So very, very early. Look out the window a bit after 4 p.m. Darkness, darkness. Will it ever get lighter? Will it ever get better?

Fortunately, there's today. 

And things are on the upswing.

Oh, it's a miniscule difference at this point, but each day, there's more and more light at the end of the daily tunnel. And I cherish it.

By mid-January, it will actually be noticeable.

But just knowing it's here makes me feel a lot better.

It's certainly no accident that so many cultures in the Northern Hemisphere picked December for celebrations that somehow involved light. These celebrations are diversionary tactics from the dark and gloom. And they pretty much work.

Boston usually keeps the Christmas lights up in the Common until the first of February. Somehow, the combination of more light in the evening and the brilliantly colored lights (especially surrounding the Frog Pond, where the skaters are already out in full force) makes it easier to cope with dark and dreary.

But even without the assist of colored lights, a little light at the end of the day does my soul good.

Let there be light! (Or to show off my fancy Latin skills: fiat lux!)

The Ridiculous but Awesome Goop Guide

I love my annual trip over to goop.com to see just what Gwyneth Goop has curated for me. 

This year, unfortunately, I have not had the time to give all of her tasteful, artful, goopful gift collections the once over. So I thought I'd concentrate on the Ridiculous but Awesome Gift Guide. Because if there's anything I think of when I think Gwyneth Paltrow - which, admittedly, I seldom do - it's ridiculous but awesome.

In truth, I was a bit disappointed.

There were a few pricey pocketbooks. Sure the prices - ranging from $6K+ to $8K+ - are absolutely ridiculous, but the bags weren't all that awesome. I'd put the wonderful periwinkle Dooney & Bourke bag I got for (comparatively) next to nothing at Nordstrom Rack up against any of the R but A bags.

If you are hell bent on getting into the Gucci bag world, without it setting you back a ton of coin, Goop does recommend tiny little Gucci purse you can use to hold your dog poop pickup bags. It's only $420 and is definitely an upgrade from the little black plastic, bone-shaped poop bag holders most dog owners sport. But really?

Did I forget to mention that the collection includes a Chanel bag: price available on request?

Hard pass.

For the fellows, there are a number of Rolex watches. But haven't Rolexes, whatever the price, been pretty much done to death? Yawn.

Gwyneth did promise us ridiculous. And awesome. And she does deliver, even if the ratio of ridiculous to awesome isn't exactly 1:1. More like 10:1. (I guess if you consider that much of the awesomeness is in the price, the ratios settle down.)

Thus, I'll give you:

The satin baguette holder, because who wouldn't be willing to pay $239 (sacre bleu!) for a baguette holder. Frankly, I'm surprised that Gwyneth hasn't seen how Parisians carry their baguettes: in their shopping tote, under the carrier arm on their bicycle, under their very own personal, sweaty arm. (Not that Parisian women sweat, mind you. Neither, I suspect, does Gwyneth.)

And frankly, this baguette holder looks like it's going to a funeral.

Flamingo Estates sells a sack of shit for only $75. But I was disappointed to find that the SoS is not made up of flamingo crap but, rather, more pedestrian "free-range goat, horse, chicken, and cow manure." What ever's in it, it's supposed to work wonders on your roses.

There's a $50 hair color kit for dogs which just makes me sad. Sure, when I was a kid and saw pictures of pink and blue poodles in Look Magazine I thought they were swell, but I really don't think anyone should be dyeing their doggos. As they say, we don't deserve dogs. And dogs deserve better than being toyed with.

At least the price isn't that high.

Even better, price wise: a six pack of neon toilet paper for only 18.75 Euros. (Wasn't the pastel colored toilet paper of the 1960's phased out because the dye was good for neither tush nor environment. So whatup with neon?)

There's a joint-roller for $299 which, come to think of it, is a not so bad idea. It's been five decades or so, but when I first rolled a joint, I didn't. My friends and I would buy a pack of unfiltered cigarettes (think Camels), shimmy the tobacco out, and stuff the emptied cig with sinsemillia. Of course, out of embarrassment, we all eventually learned to roll a joint in Zig Zag cigarette papers, (fake) expertly licking the paper to seal it and twirling the edges. But, as with skiing, I never did it often enough to get really good at it. So, a joint-roller. Come on down. (Or is it up?)

Goop suggests a companion product: $3,900 worth of snacks. I guess that would save you the post-smoke run to the grocery store for a frozen pan of Sara Lee brownies. (As I recall, even though you have to gnaw on it, frozen Sara Lee brownies ain't all that bad. As I recall...but that's a good five decade recall...) 

In the mid-range of the R but A collection, where the ratio of ridiculous to awesome is totally out of kilter, there's a spa day for $40K. Okay, it does include an overnight. Still, $40K???

But that $40K would be cheaping out, compared to $286,595 for a 3-night stay at each of three swank New Zealand lodges. I'd like to know how they came up with a number like $286,595. It seems so ridiculously precise. But if I do the math, this is way less than $40K per night in the spa, isn't it?

So much ridiculous. So much awesome. So little time.

Curate on, Madame Goop. You've almost got Ridiculous but Awesome down pat.

Oh, dear

I have, blessedly, very little experience with nursing homes.

Both of my grandfathers died young, and neither of my grandmothers spent any time in a nursing home.

My Grandmother Wolf died in the hospital, but she had been living in her own home and - at the age of 78 - still shoveling her own snow. (When she died, I was 29, and 78 seemed like such great old age to me. The thought of someone shoveling snow at 78 seemed just preposterous. Little did I know.)

My Grandmother Rogers died in my Aunt Margaret's house, a month short of making it to 97. One of her brothers, my Great Uncle Pat, also made it to great old age, but spent the last couple of years of his life in a nursing home. Curiously, it was right next to my grandmother's house, just up the hill. She was still in her home when Pat was in Clark Manor, and she could hobble out to her porch (in Worcester parlance, her piazza) and wave to Pat standing in his nursing home window.

Next generation: my father (age 58) and most of my uncles died young - or at least youngish. Not one made it much past 65. My mother's brothers: dead at 45 and 52. So, no nursing homes for them.

My mother died (age 81) in a hospital, but she was living pretty independently up until the end. A year before she died, she had sold the house we grew up in and moved into a congregate, lightly assisted facility just across the street from her parish church. She could walk to daily Mass. Hallelujah! She had a lovely one bedroom apartment, two meals a day, and light housekeeping and laundry taken care of. Hallelujah! 

While she did died in a hospital, she almost died with her boots on, as she had three trips (Chicago, Cape May NJ, and Vienna and Prague) in the works when she embarked on the ultimate journey.

My Aunt Margaret (85) did die with her boots - make that pumps - on. On the day she died, she drove out of her driveway in the home of 60 years, went to Mass, went to the Star Market, went to the library, drove home and parked in the driveway, and took what turned out to be her final nap. Oh, and she was shoveling and chopping ice up until the end, if her son-in-law or grandsons didn't get over there quickly enough for her liking.

Peg's death is how everyone wants to die. (As a kid, I remember the nuns yammering on about praying for a happy death. Happy death? Say what? What's happy about death. Now I get it. If I prayed, I'd pray for a happy death. Just like Aunt Margaret's.)

My incredible Aunt Mary did die in a nursing home. Incredible because she lived independently until a few years before her death. She moved into an assisted living facility, but her health declined and she required a high level of care (heart, mobility and vision issues), so she had to go into a nursing home. Perfectly fine nursing home, but she was miserable.

When I say that Mary was incredible, I mean incredible. She was tough, smart, sharp, with it, active. Up until near the end of life, if someone told you she was 10, or even 20, years younger than what was on her birth certificate, you'd believe it. 

I didn't get to see Mary very often, as she lived in Chicago, but it was only once she was in the nursing home that she sounded like an old lady on the phone.

My generation: the two deaths of those closest to me - my husband, and my oldest and dearest friend - happened in hospice. Jim had just turned 70, Marie was 64. Too young, way too young. And way too young for nursing homes.

But many people - even at a relatively young age - do need the level of care provided by a nursing home. 

Good luck to them...

As was reported in the Boston Globe the other day, there's a labor shortage writ large in the nursing home industry. Chalk it up to low pay and poor working conditions. Covid burnout. Just plain regular burnout. Immigration crackdowns.

The nursing homes around here are short of staff. Many have had to cut the beds they offer, and hospitals are left scrambling trying to find places to discharge elderly patients to when they require care that they can't get in their homes. 

One nursing home mentioned in the article:

...spends $10,000 a month advertising nursing home jobs...[and] offers registered nurses $4,000 signing bonuses and takes over their student loan payments when they come onboard. (Source: Boston Globe)

Even with enticements like these, "...more than a third of 180 staff positions are vacant."

Staff are being pressured to work extra hours, pushing many of them out the door. 

At a time when people have been quitting their jobs at record rates, nursing homes have been dealt a particularly devastating blow. The labor shortage was an issue well before the pandemic, and now it’s ballooned to historic highs, with 6,900 open nursing staff positions in long-term care facilities across the state — a 22 percent vacancy rate, according to the Massachusetts Senior Care Association, an industry trade group. Most of these skilled nursing facilities are heavily dependent on Medicaid reimbursements, which means pay is typically less competitive than in hospitals or other health care facilities. The number of immigrants, many of whom work in nursing homes, has also fallen sharply.

Meanwhile, our population (including - ugh! - me) is aging. 

Add on that a lot of nurses are leaving the direct patient care side of the nursing profession or working for temp agencies, often - for the young - traveling around the country from gig to gig in cities they want to live in for a while. Temps get paid more than staff professionals, and can refuse night and weekend work. No surprise that tensions can run high.

Then there are the workers lower down the skill totem poll: aides, building and grounds, cleaning, food service. The lower the wages a worker earns, the more likely they are to be enticed by another job, even if it only means making a buck or two more an hour.

So, yes to more services that help the old and frail stay in their homes. 

But that'll only get you so far.

When someone has greater impairments, they need to be in a place where there's 24/7, skilled nursing care. And let's not even get into Alzheimer's and other dementia diseases.

So, yes to opening up immigration to help fill in some mighty big gaps.

Oh, dear.

This picture? That's me, off to utter an atheist's prayer for a happy death.

Oh, dear.

Are there suckers born every day, or is it money launderers.

I've got to hand it to Trump. He never fails to amaze me with the tawdry, grifting, ridiculous stunts he continues to pull.

The most recent is, of course, his much heralded sale of a series of digital DJT collector cards. NFT's of course. (Trump collector cards: trading cards :: Trump University: education. There's no there there.)

You need to look through the entire array of Trump cards to fully appreciate the breadth and depth of Trump's idiocy, foulness, narcissism, grift.

The digital cards are poorly photoshopped, with a slenderized version of the Trump face imposed on an image that represents the fantasy world version of DJT. Trump as hunter, as Hollywood mover and shaker, as Wall Street darling. Astronaut. Superb athlete - pick a sport, any sport. Sheriff tough guy. Super hero.

What an ahole. 

But that's not exactly news.

What is news is that these limited edition NFT's have sold out, "earning" Trump over $4.5M for something that probably cost about 100 bucks to produce. 

Were people buying them as a joke? Talk about the ultimate Yankee Swap gag. Are the credulous ninnies and/or Q-ites who lap up his every everything paying "good" money (they're purchased using crypto, so the word "good" doesn't exactly apply) to buy this nonsense?

Or is this just another money laundering scam where money's being funneled by Russians or Saudis into murky accounts where half ends up getting laundered and half ends up padding Trump's wallet? Sure, crypto's been taking a well-deserved hit lately, but it's still a place where you can muck around with dark money transactions. A perfect venue for Trump.

When I first saw pictures of the cards, I started to feel a tiny bit bad for this pathetic bloated blowhard of an old man with a hyperactive Walter Mitty life in which he's lost 100 pounds and 30 years, in which he's assumed all sorts of personas he was too incompetent, weak, and lazy to ever be in real life. But that feeling of pity/sympathy didn't last that long. This is Trump, we're talking here. A terrible man who continues to wreak havoc on our country.

There have been other presidents I didn't like, mostly thanks to their ideology or policies. I

I may not have liked them, but I didn't doubt that they were trying to do what they thought was best for the country. I didn't spend any time worrying that they didn't understand how our government works, what the founding principles of our country are, what makes it great (and sometimes not so great). 

Sure, there were occasional misfires: Reagan with the thinly veiled racism of his "welfare queen." Bush the elder with his Willie Horton acts.

And I also had occasional problems with presidents I actually liked and mostly agreed with. When Clinton was caught up in the Monica Lewinsky brouhaha, I wrote both of my senators (Kennedy, Kerry) asking them to ask Clinton to step down. If, when you hold the most powerful position in the world,  you can't keep your zipper closed to every young woman who comes along, then I think you gotta go.

But Trump is another story entirely.

I can't think of one positive attribute, unless feral survival instinct and the uncanny ability to understand what his audience wants to hear from him count as positive attributes. That an marketing genius, I guess.

Mostly, well, if we played a round-robin game of adjectives describing Trump, we would all grow old and gray before we ran out of things to say. (Okay, I'm already old and gray, but you get the point.)

I hope that, before he can get his sweaty mitts on it, crypto chokes and whatever share of the NFT loot is coming his way is less than he imagined it would be.

What an utter laughingstock. What an utter disgrace.

All I want for Christmas is this rancid charlatan gone.

Interesting caps. That's the post. Interesting caps.

A charity I'm involved with got a wonderful donation of thousands of ball caps - major league teams (all sports), minor league teams, colleges, organizations, clubs, etc. While sorting through, we came across two that everyone is especially enamored of.

This one is quite cute, but had everyone wondering whether there was a team called the Pickle Jars.
 

Turns out, it's the Fireflies, a minor league team in Columbia, SC, and they've apparently gone back to the drawing boards for their logo.

The new logo doesn't quite do it for me. Because, let's face it, unless it's lighting up a bottle, no one really knows what a firefly looks like. Back to the drawing board...

I actually prefer the Pickle Jar logo to the Firefly, and kinda sorta wish there were a team out there called the Pickle Jars.

Then there was this one:

Well, you can imagine the ribald comments fireflying around when we came across these. 

Turns out it's a very old society - founded in 1908 - to provide athletic and social opportunities for African American men. Their basketball teams were quite prominent in an era of segregation. 

Like many other black fives of that era, the Independents—whose literature advocated, “uplifting the colored athletic standard”—staged social events to raise funds and strengthen camaraderie among athletes as well as to build community awareness. (Source: Black Fives Foundation)

Today, their memory is preserved by the Black Fives Foundation, which has as its mission

To research, preserve, showcase, teach, and honor the pre-NBA history of African Americans in basketball.

I know a bit about the Negro Leagues in baseball - probably because I'm a baseball fan. But knew little of the early history of basketball. Dr. Naismith and the peach basket...NBA starts becoming more of a thing in the 1950's...And that's about it.

One of the way the Black Fives raise funds is selling caps of the historic basketball teams. 

This little history, of course, makes the name less make-fun-of-able. Instead, it's a good time to think about segregation, and the parallel institutions formed in the Black community that strengthened those communities and helped them thrive.

Still, given the name, I'm really surprised there were any Independent Pleasure Club caps that weren't snapped up. 

Toy Hall of Famers, 2022 Edition

I am at present immersed in Toy Land.

I volunteer with Christmas in the City, a charity that focuses on making the holidays a little merrier and brighter for families in need. This weekend, we'll be hosting Jake's Toy Mania. At this event, named after Christmas in the City's founder (the organization's beloved and brilliant Jake Kennedy, who died in 2020 of ALS), families will be "shopping" for free from the toys that have been donated. Sign up closed on Tuesday, but when last I looked, we had nearly 1,000 families registered for Jake's Toy Mania.

I've volunteered for years - pretty much since I met Jake, who did PT on my broken shoulder in 2008. I do a bunch of things, like helping manage corporate toy drives, and opening and sorting the Amazon boxes full of toys that are just flying in. Thus, I am familiar with every possible Disney Princess, Barbie career gal, superhero, remote control car, and Legos kit. Hot Wheels, art kits, Candy Land, jewelry-making kits, soccer balls (out scoring basketballs this year - maybe because of World Cup), cute stuffed animals, Play-Do, anything to do with Crayola, anything to do with Fisher-Price, Doug & Melissa, Leap Frog, or Baby Einstein. You name it, I've unboxed it and put it in a pile with kindred toys.

Admittedly, I like to see old fashioned toys coming through. One the other day made me laugh: a Fisher-Price Classic Chatter Telephone.

What in the world is a toddler going to make of one of these? 

Anyway, Toys 'r Me these days.

No wonder I forgot all about the recent announcement of the toys that had been chosen for inclusion in the National Toy Hall Fame in Rochester, NY. 

Three toys were picked this year to join:  "the ancient top, cultural phenomenon Masters of the Universe, and beloved Lite-Brite."

I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed that none of these picks excited me as much as last year's inclusion of the American Girl Doll and sand. 

The ancient top was the only one I had much experience with. There was something sort of mindlessly numbing about spinning a top, and I enjoyed that aspect of it. But even when I was a kid, the top was not all that much more popular than, say, a hoop to roll. Yes, every home did have a spinning top at one point or the other. But it was on nobody's "must have" toy list.

Masters of the Universe? Hard pass. Not my jam now, and wouldn't have been if they'd been around when I was a kid.

Lite Brite I might have liked, but it wasn't invented until I was well into my high school years. Did my kid sister have one? Well, yes she did. In fact, she has one now (which is actually a relic of her daughter's childhood). 

These three toys were chosen from a list of 12 finalists which included bingo, Breyer Horses, Catan, Nerf, piñata, Phase 10, Pound Puppies, Rack-O, and Spirograph.

How can bingo not already be in the Toy Hall of Fame? Is its reputation as being kid-friendly tarnished by its association with little old ladies playing a dozen cards in the church hall? 

I loved playing bingo as a kid. I demand a recount.

I know what Breyer Horses are, but I was not one of those girls who mooned over horses. Certainly, when I was 8 or 9, reading cheesy books about rich WASP-y boarding school girls, I did a tiny bit of mooning. But mostly it was about the boarding school, not the horse.

Catan? Don't even know what it is.

Nerf, on the other hand, is so versatile that it merits inclusion. If I were on the selection committee, I'd definitely vote Nerf.

Piñata is something I always wanted see in action, but in my 'hood, no one was going to put a weapon in the hands of the blindfolded kid while a bunch of other kids circled around screaming.

Phase 10? C.f., Catan.

Pound Puppies are cute, but no cuter than the average stuffed animal. More of a marketing gimmick than anything special.

Rack-O? I just looked it up and found it came out in 1956. 

Q. How many hours of my childhood were spent playing card games and board games?

A. Countless.

How is it that my card-playing, board-game loving, number-nerdy family didn't have Rack-O? If only my parents were alive to ask.

Spirograph is another one that came out too late for me. I would have liked it and, in fact, I'm pretty sure that on occasion I played with my sister Trish's. (She had one then, and also has one now. She told me that a few years ago Target was selling throwback toys. So...) Anyway, mindless and vaguely arty. Yeah!

Now I got to get back to the toys at hand. Oh, swell, another Lego Kit, another Barbie doll.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Source of info on 2022 Toy Hall of Fame.

Whose Fantasy Is This Anyway? Part 2

Yesterday was part one of my annual tribute to the utter nonsense that is the Neiman Marcus Fantasy Gift Catalog. To finish up my virtual non-shopping spree, I give you:

A weekend in Napa ($175K)
There are worse things I can think of than having to endure a weekend in Napa Valley. Sunny, gorgeous, great food, wineries. What's not to like? And yet, spending over $175K for that weekend. I'd have to think twice. Maybe even three or four times. 

Sure, the weekend includes a private cooking class at the Culinary Institute of America. And a round of golf at a sunny, gorgeous Napa course.  And a three night stay at the Auberge du Soleil. 

Auberge du Soleil...

I've never stayed there, but I have dined there. Many, many, many years ago, my husband and I spent a weekend in Napa and had a lovely lunch, on the outdoor patio. I can't remember what I ate, but it was wonderful. I can't remember what I drank, either, but it was wonderful, too.

What was even more wonderful was that, knowing we wanted wine without worry, Jim and I taxi'd over and back from the perfectly nice but not crazily luxurious nearby place we were staying. 

The weather was glorious, but that more or less comes with the territory. Still, $175K (especially given that travel is not included) is steeper than the driveway up to Auberge, even if part of this gift is a set of fancy Hestan cookware. Admittedly, I've never heard of Hestan, but I take their word that it's plenty luxe, chalking my ignorance up to how little I hang around Sur la Table.

CUSTOM MINI GOLF ($200K)
Not that I'm any good at it, but I love mini-golf. Everything from picking the right colored ball to filling out the scorecard with the little golfer pencil. The possibility of winning a free match if you get a hole-in-one on the 18th. All wonderful.

Growing up, there was a junky, standard issue mini-golf in my neighborhood: lighthouse, windmill, whale, some holes that didn't even have anything other than fake grass and a cup. But some of the courses I've been to have been super nice - or at least interesting. 

There was one in Eastham on the Cape we used to go to when we visited my sister in Wellfleet. It sported a couple of coy ponds. Then there was the beautiful old-fashioned course I went to once, in Naples, Maine, on Lake Sebago. Each hole had a Maine theme - lobster trap, Casco Bay ferry - and the course was shady and quite pleasant. 

My brother Tom lives in Ocean Park, Washington, and there's a worn out mini golf course in town that features nursery rhyme characters. 

Then there was the artwork mini golf that was a working exhibit one summer at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Mass. My company was hosting its annual users group, which always included a fun event. One year, the fun event was dinner at the DeCordova and a round of mini-golf for everyone that wanted to putt. Each hole was designed by a different artist, and a number of them had a provocative political theme, which made some of our customers a bit uncomfortable. The one I remember best had as its theme violence against women. Every time you hit certain parts on this hole, you could hear a tape of a woman getting beaten. Not quite the fun one usually associates with mini-golf. 

A kinder, gentler mini-course is, of course, possible. And if you're willing to spend big bucks on it, you can have your very own course designed by Cole and Jencey Keeton who are "immersive and experiential art installation efforts" whose design company is Sweet Tooth Hotel. 

Sweet Tooth Hotel will bring the joy and wonder of outer space to your doorstep and install a space-themed, nine-hole mini golf course on your property. Start your intergalactic journey with a sparkling shooting star at the first hole, the astronaut experience at holes two and three, then blast off with a seven-foot-tall rocket ship at hole four. Holes five and six will have you navigating your way through antigravity and a mysterious black hole, and as you reach the other side of the galaxy at the final three holes, a new planet awaits your discovery! 

Just darned my luck that I don't have a backyard to put it in. So I'll have to take a pass on this one. 

But for some lucky family who can drop $190K on something there kids will be bored with within a nanosecond, FORE!

Your Very Own Perfume ($65K)
I don't wear perfume, so this is a non-starter, luxury gift-wise. The experience is getting to meet "one of the world's most celebrated perfumers, Francis Kurkdjian," whose

"internationally acclaimed brand has become renowned for visionary fragrance."

(Am I the only one tripping over the notion of a fragrance that's visionary?)

Anyway, you'll convene with Mr. Kurkdijian in Paris, and after your convo, he'll brew up a personalized perfume for you - and send you home with six bottles, plus a couple of "leather perfume bottle travel pouches" from Atelier Renard Paris.

Sorry, but not in the market for a visionary fragrance. 

Shooting Hoops with Scottie Pippen & Son ($333,333)
Remember Scottie Pippen? He was a super player for the Chicago Bulls of the Michael Jordan era. And I'll give you three guesses what his number was. If you guessed 33, well, what a good little guesser you are!

Anyway, if you buy this one, 

...it’s your and a friend’s turn to play with this dynamic father-and-son duo [Pippen's son Scotty is a recent Vanderbilt grad who plays for the Lakers] and learn a  trick or two on the court. Following the shootaround, unwind and recap with a private dinner hosted by Pippen and Pippen Jr. As a final slam dunk to your day, sample Pippen’s premier bourbon whiskey, Digits, and then take home an autographed copy of his best-selling book “Unguarded.”

I can imagine that for a roundball fan who also likes to shoot playground hoops, this would be a really exciting adventure. And I'll give the Pippens a lot of credit here. Each of the Neiman Marcus Fantasy Gifts includes a donation to a charity designated by the person who's doing the fantasy fulfilling. These donations run the gamut, depending on price of the gift and generosity of the person selling the gift/experience. If you buy the tiara, $160K goes to a good cause. If you buy the Christmas decoration, there's a $10K donation. (Mostly, the donations are in the 5-10% range.)

Scottie Pippen and son are donating a whopping $278K of the $333,333 gift price to Chi Prep Academy, "a not-for-profit program that promotes high standards through academics, entrepreneurship, and athletics." (Wonder if the person doing the buying gets some sort of passthrough tax donation...)

Bravo, Pippens!

Meanwhile, I text asked an old friend who worked at Neiman Marcus for years whether anyone ever bought anything from the Fantasy Catalogue. Here answer: "Yes!" And when I responded with a "Yikes!" she added "It's all relative...I guess."

If you can afford a $3.2M tiara, you can afford a $3.2M tiara.

I guess...