Up On The House Top

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Weekend Dilemma.  What's a DJ to do?

I've looked at all the weather maps,  listened to reports and everything is leading me to believe Saturday is going to be a nice, unseasonably warm day.  Now that coupled with the fact that I'm not n the air until Saturday evening means,  I have all afternoon to do something I'm not the biggest fan of... getting on the ladder and putting up the outdoor Christmas Lights.  All right, I know it's only the second week of November, but I feel I have the weather on my side and if I don't turn them on until after Thanksgiving,  I won't  be chronicled in a Gretchen Wilson song called "Redneck DJ".

Last Christmas I honored my father's memory by switching from the ice cycle lights we've had for the past few years to the old traditional large glass bulbs that were popular in the 50s and 60s.   My dad hung those old style lights on his house in Hobart Indiana until he died in 2001.  It looked predictable,  but it looked like home.  Something about it looked right and looked welcoming. So I put up several strands across our 60' front gutter. 

Knowing the inevitable chore was coming, I crawled under the stairs last weekend  to locate my storage tub of Christmas lights .  Now I'm pretty anal retentive when it comes to my lights.  I take good care of them and roll them ever so gently around what looks like a garden hose reel.  I place them in a cool dry spot under the back stairs every January.  Anyway,  I plugged them in and to no surprise, 8 of the 72 lights are dead.  Now I know there's some law of physics or engineering that can explain why I take lights that were fully functioning when I removed them from my gutter line, placed them nice and neatly in the storage container and gently placed that storage container in our safe and secure home for 11 months, pull them out , plug them and voila they have gone Tango Uniform.  Maybe they are being lazy, up of contract negotiations or maybe stage fright, regardless  I would have to make a trip to Wallyworld and get some new ones.

My other option is relax and enjoy the beautiful fall day and handle the lights another day.  It's Friday afternoon and I can't decide.  I do know they do look nice once they are up there and when there's a little bit of snow to accent them.  Oh well ... thanks for letting me bend your ear.

-Rik out (and up the ladder)