Too Darn Hot

It's hot.

As I sit and write this, it's 74 degrees. Monday and Tuesday it got up to 80. When I left for Oktoberfest Saturday, the last Oktoberfest of the year, November 1st, it was 86.

It's hot. And I'm not happy.

I've never been much of a summer fan. I'll admit, as I get older I seem to mind it a bit less than I once did, but for the most part, I like to swim, and after that summer can kiss my ass. I don't like the sun bearing down onto my head, I don't lie out to get a tan, I don't like to eat outside, I don't like the beach for more than about one day, and all the heat means to me is an opportunity to crank the air conditioner a little higher.

And I know the world's changing and the ozone's disappearing and hell's getting closer and all that, but it still kills me that when I was a kid it used to start getting cold in September. Now we're lucky if we're wearing coats in December. In fact, I don't even worry about winter coats anymore, I need one so little.

So it's now November 5, and 74 degrees. And to add insult to injury, one of the houses I see on my way to work now has Christmas decorations in the yard. Bless their hearts, at least they waited till Halloween was over.

And their Christmas decorations break the number one Bet Says Never Do This rule for lawn accoutrements. Piling too much shit on.

There's nothing I hate more than Christmas decorations that feature the nativity scene, and Santa's peering over the manger and Rudoph's stepping one of his hooves on a wise man's robe and Frosty the Snowman looks to be having a private tete-a-tete with Joseph while Mary's busy shooing the elves away from the ox and ass. I'm generally not a fan of segregation, but people, people! Keep the sacred and the secular on opposite sides of the yard, please.

The only time this combining of cultures, as it were, works for me concerns the Christmas when dear TaytieMac, now a handsome young man, was just a babe. Maybe 4. His mom set up a little nativity scene for him in his bedroom. And she went in there one day to see that TM had placed a little Cruella DeVille action figure in the nativity scene. She took it away and tossed it in his toy pile.

The next time she went in his room, Cruella was back in the nativity scene.

This went on for about two days, and finally she told him Cruella was a toy and didn't go in the Christmas scene. He was disappointed. My sweet Mr TenderHeart, I guess just wanted Cruella to be included in Christmas, too.

So unless you're adding Cruella to the mix, keep your scenes separated. And at least wait till the temperature hits 50 to set them all out. If in fact it ever decides to get that cold.