Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly... All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise... blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these sunken eyes and learn to see all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free

Sunday, December 10, 2006

we put up the tree yesterday



We had a list and we were determined to mark every item off. We started with donuts from Granny’s Donuts in West Saint Paul. We passed the Perkins that he used to spend Sunday mornings in when he was growing up. That Perkins had a wishing well. I used to love the cheap toys in the Perkin’s wishing well. Granny’s donuts had an almost empty donut case, a coffee pot sitting on the heating coil installed into the counter, an old guy, (granny?) behind the counter who when I asked if the apple fritters had big chunks of apples in them he replied with an affirmative and firm “apples. Apples!” I asked again about the size of the apple pieces and he affirmed again “apples!” I totally bought an apple fritter. It was about the size of my hand and had decent sized apple pieces, not tiny, not huge either. Sir settled on two blueberry donuts, which were quite fresh I noticed as the warm grease soaked through the bag and onto my hand. The old ladies with their dingy silver hair curled tight to their heads were sitting at a small formica table talking about so and so’s infection and what happened last time it didn’t get taken care of right away and what they buy to feed to the squirrels. (Please stop feeding the squirrels! There are squirrels the size of cats in this city, not small cats either.) The men sat at opposite table. They did not talk, but they were enjoying their cups of coffee.

After Granny’s we went to the Gynormo-Target across the street to pick up ginger cookie fixings and more Christmas lights. We did all of this and more. I looked at Hanukah cards, sampled the eggnog, and shook my head at what I declared poor parenting skills and best of all Sir met his new friend Butterscotch. What says Merry Christmas better than a pint sized animatronic pony?

After we escaped the target vacuum we made our way to Richfield where we had a tip on cheap Christmas trees. Sir zeroed in on a tall long needled beauty, which somehow had made its way in the $20 section. The men in charge gave it a fresh cut on the bottom, offered to bail it (?) for an extra $2.00 (um, no thanks), and showed us to the bucket of free twine with which we proceeded to strap the beautiful tree to the roof of the little black beetle. I even picket up a bundle of boughs to make a swag or ten with. We stopped at Red’s Savoy Pizza for some Fankhanel style Christmas tree getting tradition on the way back to the east side. Cherry coke, premium, and a large pizza with all pineapple, half sausage, half green pepper and a giant creepy fish tank above us was the perfect way to rest up before bringing the tree in the house and stringing up some well placed lights.