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  • A Bright Spot in the Darkness

    Photo belongs to Digital Blasphemy
    Photo belongs to Digital Blasphemy

    I am something of a holiday junky: I enthusiastically celebrate them all.

    But I really love Christmas. I am one of those people that everyone hates who starts listening to Christmas music the second Thanksgiving is over. I fight with myself every year to wait until the first day of December to put up lights and decorations.

    However, Christmas means something a little different to me than a lot of people. I’m not religious. I don’t celebrate Christmas as a Christian celebration. I should probably call it something different, but I feel that the idea of Christmas has evolved to the point where it can mean whatever we want it to mean these days. (more…)

  • My Wife Still Believes (in Humanity)

    In my house, my wife is the Christmas lady. Everything this holiday entails: music, lights, decorations, presents. She’s all in, every year, and she loves it.

    I’m more of a Halloween man, myself. Give me rolling fog on a spooky night while you’re holed up in a creepy old house and I’m a happy camper. That probably makes me the darker half of our marriage, but for whatever reason it seems to work.

    That being said, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that my wife’s enthusiasm always manages to rub off on me. I may start December in full-on Grinch mode, but by the end of the second week, I’m playing Christmas music and asking about this year’s family ornament.

    I think what makes my wife’s holiday spirit so infectious is the sheer joy she gets from shopping for others. She’s one of those weird people who spend more time thinking about the receiver of the gift than the gift itself.

    I don’t possess this trait. Nor do I fully understand it.

    (more…)

  • Holiday Wishes

    From fatchicksings.com
    From fatchicksings.com

    Holidays are a strange time. For some, they are a joyous occasion involving  a celebration of gifts, family, and friendship. For others, they take a dark turn. Holidays can be a devastating time. You hear joyous music, you see bright lights, and you see the glow on children’s faces that can only be the prelude to material gluttony. Unfortunately, not everyone is in on the game. Some people don’t have families and friends, at least nearby. Some cannot afford to take part in the all-you-care-to-eat buyer’s buffet. For those people, the holidays are less about what they are about to get, and more about what they feel they will never have.

    I’ve been on multiple sides of the holiday season. My family celebrates all holidays pretty much the same way. We plug Crock Pots full of casseroles, baked beans, mashed potatoes, and turkey into overloaded networks of power strips. We praise each other’s culinary achievements and avoid that weird marshmallow salad that is inexplicably topped with cheese. In the glory days, there would be as many as sixty or seventy people at lunch. That number has fallen, via emigration from the rural area in which my parents live, and the inevitable overturn of generations. (more…)

  • Holiday Happenings (Week Ending Dec. 29)

    Christmas backgroundAs you are probably well aware (unless you’re reading this from some cave far removed from civilization), Christmas is celebrated in much of the world this week. Here in America, our holiday season begins with Thanksgiving in November and doesn’t end until the New Year next week.

    The holiday season means different things to different people. Where I work, it can mean a slow-down in business or a last-minute rush to get client work finished by the end of the year. For some it’s a time of excess, as we give in to our fondness for rich foods, candies, pies, and fine wines. I know that I spend the holidays enjoying as much hot chocolate with marshmallows as my body can stand.

    This week, we’ve asked our writers what the holiday season means to them. Do they love this time of year or hate it? Are the holidays a time of coming together or pulling apart?

    As always, remember to like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter — and tell your friends!

    Until Next Week,

    The Cafe Management

  • Ephemera – Favorite Movie of 2012

    It’s the end of the year, so we’re asking the Confabulators what their favorites of 2012 are. This week, they tell us what their favorite movie of 2012 was.

    Jason Arnett

    The superhero films were EXCELLENT this year. Avengers and Dark Knight Rises were both very satisfying films to me.

    Larry Jenkins

    Full disclosure: I love movies, but I don’t get to see near as many as I would like. That being said, I really enjoyed The Cabin in the Woods, which is not so much a horror film as it is a film about horror films. If you’re more the indie film type, I’d recommend you check out Safety Not Guaranteed. It’s a nice film with both a mystery and a heart, and I appreciate movies that ask me to think and feel at the same time.

    Kevin Wohler

    Asking me to pick my favorite movie of the year is like asking a mother to pick her favorite child (“B-b-b-but.. I love them all!”). Even so, there’s one movie that I have gushed about more than any other this year. And it’s not The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises. The truth is, my favorite movie this year has been John Carter. Yes, it was ripped apart by harsh critics. Yes, it failed to be the box office blockbuster Disney wanted it to be. But the truth is, this was a marvelous movie. It’s visually stunning. It’s epic in scope. It’s a great adventure. The only flaw in John Carter is that it had a horrible marketing team. That, and it should have been titled John Carter of Mars (focus groups be damned).

    Ted Boone

    The Avengers.

    Christie Holland

    It’s a tie between The Avengers, because of Joss Whedon and the flawless way he juggled a huge cast and kept every character true to themselves, and The Hunger Games, because it was a wonderful adaptation of a YA novel and hopefully ensures that other adaptations of YA novels are treated with just as much respect.

    Jack Campbell, Jr.

    Skyfall. This one was tough for me. I absolutely loved Cabin in the Woods. The Dark Knight Rises was epic. The Avengers was everything I hoped it would be. Wreck It Ralph proved again that Pixar is the hottest studio in animation history. However, 007 and I have a long history. I spent so many hours watching James Bond movies with my dad. I read Ian Fleming’s books in junior high. Skyfall does James Bond the right way. It’s by far the best Bond movie in years, and one of the best in the franchise’s history.

    Sara Lundberg

    I am one of the biggest Joss Whedon fans in the world, so tied for second place are The Avengers and Cabin in the Woods. He’s finally made a name for himself in the mainstream with his work on The Avengers, which he pulled off amazingly. Cabin in the Woods was a horror movie, yes, but like all of his horror, it makes you think and also makes you laugh, which I think are two key components of horror that most people forget. But my hopes are high for the release of The Hobbit, because The Hobbit is something from my childhood and the movie will hopefully be as magical as it was when I was young. It holds the number one spot until I see it, at least.

  • Saint Nick o’ Time

    Living Room — Christmas Eve, 1980

    I sweep my flashlight across the bounty of gift-wrapped packages, searching for one particular box. I’m careful not to step on the squeaky floor boards next to the tree. I know each of them by heart. I pick up boxes, checking labels, gauging weight and size. I’m careful to put each box back in the exact same spot it occupied before. Leave no evidence.

    This isn’t my first rodeo. Pre-Christmas snooping is an art form, and I’m a virtuoso.

    I don’t see it.

    I start my second search, but my heart is sinking. Could I be missing it, somehow? I know the dimensions of the box by heart. I’ve picked it up and stared at the box art more times than I can count. I’d recognize it if I saw it, even beneath gaudy Christmas wrapping paper. (more…)

  • Four Shots

    Dining Room, Storm Shelter – 2000

    Cellar Door by Michael Chan
    Cellar Door by Michael Chan

    At midnight I head down to the dining room for a cup of tea. My textbooks are still piled in the corner of the dining room table, my notebook open. I tighten my robe around my waist before I sit down and curl my legs up under me.

    I read the same line about DNA four times before I slam the book shut and stand with my tea, pacing in front of the doors. Mother’s car isn’t in the driveway — odd, considering the hour. Pacing gives way to exhaustion, though I still feel too keyed up to sleep. Every time I started to fall asleep, I heard Uncle Al in my head.

    I’m dozing off in front of my biology textbook when the sound rips me out of it — the bang that feels like it’s stopped my heart and forced the breath from my lungs. I blink rapidly. I’m almost convinced that the noise came out of my dreams when I hear a second and third gunshot in rapid succession. (more…)

  • A Delicate Man

    Upstairs Guest Bedroom 2037

     

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    Loyal Barstow chewed his fingernails and looked around. “Panic room,” he said. “Panic room. But I’m not panicked.” He patted his nonexistent pockets.

    His bathrobe was open and he wore a tee shirt and sweats, both stained with red and brown. He hadn’t showered in several days, he wondered if there was any water. For two weeks now he’d been locked in a room originally provisioned for three or four days.

    “They can’t get in,” he said and sprung across the bed, grabbed for a plastic bag and turned it inside out. Nothing in there. Loyal flung it away and sighed. “No one can get in. And I don’t want to get out.” He huffed and puffed and rolled onto his back. “I don’t want to get out.”

    The guest bedroom had been converted during The Scare of ‘17, not to be confused with the Panic of ‘22. No, it wouldn’t do to confuse the two. The year after The Scare, there had even been a militarized assault with fourteen black-uniformed men wearing night vision goggles. Loyal’s father told the story with gusto, especially the end. (more…)

  • The Graveyard, 1869

    The Graveyard — 1869

    Penelope Worthington walked, solitary, up the windswept hill to take refuge under the spreading branches of a chestnut tree. She wore the dove grey of half-mourning, and carried a basket, from which she took out a warm woolen shawl. She spread the shawl carefully on the grass and sat down, arranging her full skirts just so. From the basket she took bread, cheese, an apple, and slices of cold turkey and ham, and arranged them just as carefully in front of her. Finally a glass and a small bottle of wine. She filled the glass, and admired the way the light shone through the ruby depths.

    “It’s from your father, of course,” she remarked to her companion. “He’s been teaching me about wines.” She sipped. “Of course, he would tell me that red wine should be paired with beef or mutton, not chicken, but I think it will complement this cheese nicely.”

    She gazed over the rolling hills as the breeze tugged tendrils from her carefully arranged hair, as a lover might. Her eyes held an old grief, faded with time and as comfortable as a favorite dress.

    “I had a letter from Father yesterday. He wishes me to return to Hartford, to keep house for him, and perhaps look for a husband. I must consider carefully how to respond.”

    (more…)

  • Bells

    Rocking Horse Room — 1943

    Straeon Manor - Rocking Horse RoomFrom the attic to the wine cellar, their voices whispered my name, “Eliza. Eliza. Eliza.” I had come home for Christmas. I had returned to Straeon Manor.

    The rocking horse wallpaper had been replaced by utilitarian white paint. The child’s bed gone, replaced by a single adult bed. The nightstand – where I kept my mother’s bible to comfort me during the long, dark nights – had been replaced by a small dresser where sat a small tray of food.

    A rocking horse sat in the corner of the room. Had it been mine once upon a time? Perhaps I had left it behind when we moved. I couldn’t remember. This was no longer my bedroom, just as this was no longer our house.

    (more…)