Tacky lights

As I sit writing this my brother Jeff is sitting across from me in his spacious living room, wearing reindeer antlers with bells on them. Very cute. All I can say is that it is LATE. He has talked me into writing a segment for his blog as a "guest author." I'm very flattered that he trusts me enough to make an entry here. It's not every day that I get to give the world my insight on life. HA-HA.

Anyway, tonight I was invited to a night on the town, so to speak. After arriving at Jeff and Olivia's place and meeting up with Kelly, Eric, Lauren, and Mike, a wonderful white stretch limosine pulled up to the townhouse. Our chauffeur for the evening was a cool guy named Purcell (he insisted on opening the doors for us each time--but I guess it was his job!). He transported us all around town and we took in the sights of some of Richmond's tackiest tacky Christmas lights. A lot of the decorations we saw were very tastefully done, others were a bit wild. One house's yard included characters including Dumbo, Spider-Man, Mario (of Super Mario Bros.), Bert (of Bert and Ernie fame), Barney, the Grinch, the whole Flintstone family, and Big Bird. It also had a room full of animatronic dolls that included Barbies, trolls, assorted teddy bears, and (of all things!) E.T. Yeah. Fairly creepy. People have some good imaginations when it comes to festive Yultide decorations. Nothing speaks more to me at Christmastime than seeing E.T. in a Santa hat! I could go on and on about the rampant commercialization of Christmas, but I'll spare you....this time.

The whole evening was really a lot of fun. I got to meet Mike for the first time (I think I know now why Jeff has kept him hidden! j/k) and riding around in a limo for 3 hours was definitely a highlight. Aside from not getting to meet the infamous Chris Rhines due to his, ahhh, prior commitments, it was a perfect night. Maybe next time...

I'll sign off for now and send you back to your regularly scheduled program, probably already in progress. Thanks for listening, and have a happy holiday season! And by the way, if anyone out there wants to buy me a NICE Christmas or birthday gift (December 22!), I'd REALLY enjoy a CD copy of Winger's "In The Heart of the Young." That album ROCKS. :-)

Later all!