The Misanthrope -- Sunday's Lighter Side

Holidays
Have no pity.
Eugenio Montale (1896 - 1981), Italian poet

Christmas. Thank goodness the holiday has passed. It is just too much with nearly everyone going to the stores at the same time, the bombardment of crap from Giga Pets to heated sandbags, and that does not include real sorrows and headaches. The Misanthrope was able to resist all the hot advertised items. However, the family’s gifts are more expensive than ever. Every year the prices go up and the requests for more costly gifts grow. One saving grace this year was the coin jar. We pulled out slightly more than $300 in coins. Now, it took some work. While The Misanthrope toiled writing commentary for Toner Mishap, wife counted out coins. You’d think with all the labor and diligence put forth (not to mention most the coins) I would have received some of that, you would have been wrong. Daughter received it all. And now, we have lost one reader, and all of you are important. Since daughter is home, she has no time to read and she is leaving for London next week to study abroad for a semester, so one regular reader gone.

Rip this Joint. The Misanthrope is an unabashed Rolling Stones fan and once again, we received more Stones’ product. This year the double live CD “Live Licks,” and the Stones CD “Singles 1965-1967,” “Alfie” sound track with music by Mick Jagger and Dave Stewart, and non-Stones related “Charles Mingus, The Complete Atlantic Recordings 1956-1961,” which have all been ripped into the computer bringing the total hours of music up to 321 and we still have more to rip. We predict when finished recording all our music we’ll have 623 hours. It is just a guess.

New Year’s Eve. Next week we’ll write something about this mandatory party ritual that we just as mandatorily ignore. We settle in with good books or a movie or both and await the neighborhood bombers to frighten the animals into the New Year.