I know this will shock you BUT I am going to offer a little weather info right here as part of this blog-iphany. When the web-master general asked if I would be at all interested in adding to the plethora of good stuff here at KMBC.com, I'm pretty sure she thought I would use this space to talk about school visits, community events AND weather stuff. Boy, is the cyber-boss ever disappointed and disillusioned! So, in order to make amends, let me put on my weather-dork hat...really, I have to put on my hat to do weather...and tell you that this coming weekend is the time to get your outdoor decorations done! It is going to be sunny and near 60 everyday. In our house, the outdoor stuff goes up the weekend after Thanksgiving. However, this coming holiday week will mean much colder, blusterier (more blustery?) and, just maybe, soggier or flakier conditions! Of course, this forecast is a long way down the pike and could easily change. (I learned that technique in weatherdork school...Hedging 101.) The cold, windy part of the tale looks like a sure thing. The rain is at about a 40% chance. The odds of it mixing with a bit of snow by Thanksgiving morning are less than that. Now, I will take my weather dork hat off and put on my goof-ball knickers.

We have one house in the neighborhood that is already all lighted-up. They had one of those "We-String-Your-Lights" companies come out and get it done. It looks great...if you like those perfectly straight lines with all the lights clear and symmetrical sort of things. Everybody in our neighborhood got a holiday poem in our mailboxes last weekend urging us to put lights on the trees by the streets. We also got one that said "Please refrain from getting your mail without a shirt on and quit walking your dog after feeding him the left-over beans and sauerkraut." I think that second notice was NOT left for just everybody.

My dad put up the outdoor lights when I was a kid. They were almost always all blue. No, not in honor of K-Mart and their blue-light specials, but because blue is the color of the liturgical season of Advent in the Lutheran church. He would string them all around the windows and front porch while my mom hung a shiny, white wreath on the front door. She had that wreath for years and years. Finally, she was ready for a change and sold it in a garage sale. Well, our next door neighbor bought it so my mom had to stare at it for many more years. Tis' the season!

When my wife and I were first married, referred to by her family as The Dark Ages, I did the manly thing and put up the lights. They always looked horrible. They were crooked. They were not reliable. Before dragging them up the ladder, I actually would do the smart thing and plug them in to see if the string worked. Invariably, they would look lovely on the ground only to go totally dark as I looped them over the nails under the eaves. Maybe we got acrophobic lights, on sale. Anyway, my lighting job always looked like the neon sign of some flea-bag hotel and diner outside East Cowpile, Nevada. So, pretty soon my lovely and artistic wife, Jessica, took over. As the kids got older, they have chipped in, as well.

I still have the job of digging all the lights out from the spider-ravaged corner of the garage and giving them the plug-in check. Oh, she let's me do a few things like drape the fake greenery which doesn't need to be super straight. Also, she let's me lean out the second floor window to put the "Happy Holidays" sign over the garage. In fact, she encourages me to get way...way...way out that window. Meanwhile, she puts the beautiful lights on the trees and bushes. She pushes in the lighted candy-canes. She hammers the big, red ribbons on the front porch.

This year she says she has a surprise. A live Santa standing on our roof. I'm not sure what she has in mind, although I did notice a purchase from E-Bay for an all-weather Santa suit...in my size.

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