Statesman > XL Blogs > Archives > 2004 > December > 28 > Entry
Christmas vacation
On the way to Georgia for Christmas, I got a lot of reading done. There was InStyle. There was Self. And there was “The Zombie Survival Guide.” Look, I’m a practical girl. It was as if Max (son of Mel) heard my plea.
The book was shelved under humor, but it wasn’t precisely funny. Yet I was riveted and oddly touched (the notion of having a talent show to keep morale up while the zombies moan outside your stronghold is a Hallmark moment for me). And I now have my action plan in place in case the dead rise. If it happens, come find me. I’ll get you through it.
It was a good thing I had the zombie guide because I got to the airport way too early, anticipating crowds that weren’t there. It was so quiet I paid extra attention to the piped-in music, which is a mystery to me. It is my understanding that all the music you hear in the airport is by Austin artists, but I rarely recognize anyone. Moreover, most of it seems to be by the same woman, a singer-songwritery type somewhere between Shawn Colvin and Patty Griffin. Who is she? How have I missed her total domination of Austin music?
I was absolutely sure when I left that it was going to snow here and that everyone would spontaneously flood the streets singing “White Christmas” and hugging each other and then proceed to talk about it for years and I’d spend the rest of my days saying “No, I missed it, and before you ask, I never got to go to Liberty Lunch either.” So thank goodness for Christmas miracles.
There was no snow in Georgia, either, which would not have mattered because we all curled up with our Christmas books, reading in companionable quiet. I tore through “The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup”, “Lolita” and “The Miracle of Mindfulness.” The only flaw of the last book is that it makes you want to quote it to others, but, I’m not ready to be quite so Austin yet.
I removed my nose from books for one our beloved Christmas traditions. OK, actually it’s only beloved by my dad and me. The rest of the family would characterize it as “one of our barely tolerated Christmas traditions.”
Every year, my dad tapes the TV coverage of the Christmas parade in our Nearest Big City (it is St. Cloud to our Lake Wobegon, Capital City to our Springfield). The two of us consider decorated firetrucks, bored beauty queens, stumbling drill teams, Civil War re-enactors, third-rate cloggers and, especially, the anchors’ inept ad libs holding it all together, to be comedy gold. Others, strangely, are less charmed.
The highlight of the parade this year was the presence of what were apparently the first lowriders in southwest Georgia. The crowd was electrified. Also new this year was an ice-skating rink. The camera kept cutting to scenes of my fellow Georgians stumbling into each other on the tiny square of ice. “Now you can’t say that there’s nothing to do downtown!” the anchors admonished. Oh, yes I can.
There seems to be exactly one TV advertiser in south Georgia, and that is Jamster. Much as Max Brooks saw that the world needed a concise zombie guide, Jamster realized another one of our great needs: a Sir Mix-A-Lot ringtone.
On the way home, I read yet more (idle mind = bad Bridget Jones-type thoughts). Ruth Reichl’s “Comfort Me With Apples” was just as good as “Tender at the Bone.” And I started “What Should I Do With My Life?” but I haven’t gotten to the part where Po Bronson tells me. But if it involves zombies, I’m ready.
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