The Green and Brown Crocheted Blanket

There must be 3 dozen blankets in my house.  Look no further than my hallway closet if you need to make a blanket rope to scale down your 18^th floor apartment during a fire.  We have everything from quilts and comforters to knitted throws and fleece that could keep an Eskimo warm.  Like most everything else in my house, I am not quite sure how we amassed such a collection but stuffed tightly into closets, folded on the end of beds, and over top of furniture, there they all are.

For the most part, each and every blanket gets used for their intended purpose.  Mostly it is my wife, who can’t seem to warm up even when the thermostat in the house is north of the year round climate of the Gobi Desert, using them when she sleeps.  But sometimes our blankets become superhero capes (which I may be guiltier of doing than the kids).   Sometimes they are laid out to create a bed when everyone else in my house is sleeping in my bed and I get relegated to the floor with the dog (commonly referred to ‘Dad camping’ in my house).  Sometimes we use them as roofs for our sofa forts in the basement and some of them adorn our furniture to hide the wear and tear only having two kids, a cat, and a 90 pound dog can do to your furniture.  Somehow we manage to use each and every one…except one.

There is one blanket in my house that does not get used by anyone.  It is a green and brown crocheted blanket that has been stretched out to the point of allowing my kids to be able to put their hands through the holes in the knitting.  The fabric, frayed in some spots and faded in others, bears the look of its 30 year old age.  It is small (admittedly, it seemed much bigger when I was much smaller).  The fluff of the fabric has been tamped down by years of storage and its best days of keeping anyone warm are long behind it.  At first glance, it pales in comparison to the microfibers and fleeces of our regularly used blankets and poses the question of why keep such a wafer of a blanket.

The green and brown crocheted blanket, tightly folded in a corner of my storage chest has earned its place among the rest of the items.  Things like my daughter’s Baptism dresses, pictures, lockets, birthday cards with messages written by family members no longer with us, a stack of comic books (I keep hidden so my wife does not find out I put them in the chest).   This blanket stays with the rest of our links to the past because this green and brown crocheted blanket belonged to my Grandmother.

30 Things. 2010

The year is over.  Some of it we are surely going to miss.  Other parts of it we probably wished we would have missed.  Some people we are going to miss and some people we thought we were going to miss until we found out they were not actually dead (sorry about my RIP tweet Mr. Cosby). But just like every other year before it, 2010 was filled with its share of ups and downs and plenty of fodder to comment on.   Since I am usually asleep when the ball is dropping in Times Square instead of how I used to ring in the New Year (all I can remember is it involving copious amounts of Jaeger Meister and me half-naked), I have had plenty of time to think about the year that was and add my unsolicited two cents.

Keep in mind, if you are the type to yell at your television when you’re watching VH-1 and the ‘Best of…’ series, this is my list and I could only remember so much, so stop shouting.  I don’t have anything about Nigerian Pirates, Mark Zuckerberg, Miley Cyrus, the Situation, or your Aunt Sally’s goiter surgery so feel free, if you think it is worthy, to add-on to the list (maybe we can make it a 60 Things list).  So without further ado, I present to you

(Some of the) Things that happened in 2010.

1. George Bush releases his “book” entitled ‘Decision Points’. I was surprised to find out a box of crayons was not included with a purchase.
2. Arizona and its Immigration Law singlehandedly set the Civil Rights movement and their lawn/landscaping businesses back 30 years.
3. President Obama laid the smack down on the GOP when he signed his Health Care Reform only to be the recipient of an atomic leg drop by the same GOP when the president extended their Bush Tax Cuts.
4. Elizabeth Edwards’ death reminds us of what an inspiring woman she was and what a total jerkwad her former husband is.
5. Tiger Woods apologized on national television and in turn made the killer robot from ‘The Black Hole’, Maximillian, look more human than him.
6. The Tea Party. Thanks to their candidates, this past year’s midterm elections looked more like an open casting call for Idiocracy 2. (Rand Paul is an accredited doctor from the College of Rand Paul. He certified himself. Sharron Angle can’t tell the difference between Caucasians, Hispanics, and Asians and Joe Miller had a journalist arrested at a townhall meeting…I rest my case)
7. Wikileaks and Julian Assange give the public the truth about our governments and will fuel Hollywood with ideas for movies involving Shia LeBouf, that pale kid who played a vampire in Twilight (which one right?), and whoever was working on a script for the latest James Bond movie.
8. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is finally gone and to quote a friend of mine @Charlie_O, gay men and women may now begin serving in the military openly and fabulously.
9. The Lakers, Blackhawks, Giants, and Saints all won their respective championships while, not shocking to anyone except ‘soccer apologist guy’, the U.S. Men’s Soccer team, in the World Cup, lost.
10. Speaking of the World Cup, in 2010, this country tried their best to pretend we could be soccer fans. Haven’t heard one Vuvuzela note about soccer since the World Cup ended. I guess you remembered how bad a 90 minute 1-0 soccer game can be and threw out the Manchester United jersey’s all of you bought.
11. Haiti gets hit by an Earthquake and it garners more attention than Justin Bieber at a Girl Scout rally.
12. Chile is hit with an Earthquake and it gets as much attention as an Ashton Kutcher movie (question: If an earthquake hits and no celebrities care about it, did that earthquake really hit?)
13. Gulf Oil Spill.  So how do you say, ‘Biggest environmental cluster f*ck in the history of the planet Earth’? BP said it by raising their gas prices, asking the public for ideas to stop the billions of gallons of oil being pumped in to the Gulf, putting out a PR campaign that had them one scene short of kissing babies and working in soup kitchens, and their CEO, Tony Hayward, tried his best to get sympathy for his “situation”.  I have a good idea to raise more money for the Gulf coast. We have a ‘Throat Punch/Groin Kick Tony Hayward for $25’ fundraiser.  We’ll line up like at a wedding reception and for $25 you get a free shot at his groin or his Adam’s Apple (I bet people would pay $100 for that.)
14. Celebrity Adoptions.  2010 was the boom for celebrity adoptions or at least the interest in it.  Thanks to Brangelina, adopting a foreign child is as fashionable in Hollywood as laying out flatware from Georg Jensen.  Frankly, the good feelings and sense of salvation normally brought on by parents who adopt is watered down a bit when celebrities go “shopping” for their kids in foreign countries.  A quick bit of advice to the celebrities like Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan, Ricky Martin, Julia Roberts, Anderson Cooper, Sandra Bullock, Madonna, and Elton John (to name a few) who have adopted or are interested in adopting (like they are interested in award ceremony gift bags): These are human beings you are “picking out” not the dressing to go with your Yellowtail Sashimi at Nobu. Oh, and one more quick note to Amy Winehouse and Lindsay Lohan: No one in their right mind would let you adopt a pet rock let alone a baby. Get a plant.
15. Sandra Bullock gets divorced from her sex crazed biker husband who has an affinity for strippers with Nazi tattoos and we are made to believe she is the only woman to ever have been cheated on and divorced.  She instantly goes from movie star, to Oscar winner, to Patron Saint.  I feel for her but let’s move on. Divorce happens everyday.
16. The series finale of ‘Lost’ premieres and only confirms one thing…anyone who wasted 6 years of their lives trying to figure this show out needs to find a hobby and any “answers” they are going to find will be contained in the DVD Super Box set sure to give them closure.
17. The world’s first full face transplant is performed in Spain and no, it wasn’t Heidi Montag.
18. The unveiling of the iPad by Apple only proves most of us care more about our technology, gadgets, and WiFi hotspots than members of our family. Now excuse me as I download another book, YouTube video, and post some inane status on my Facebook page.
19. Full body scans and TSA pat downs at the airport are implemented to make us feel safer but all they do is make us feel like we just got out of mass with a touchy priest.
20. 33 trapped Chilean miners are rescued after 69 days in a mine.  It was such a fantastic story, even the miners’ wives and mistress were able to get along while they watched their husbands/boyfriends come up from the mine (in other mining news, 29 W Virginian miners are killed in an explosion and I don’t remember seeing any of their family members get to tell their story on Letterman, run a marathon, or get free sunglasses from Oakley…just saying.)
21. Hot Russian spies, in search of (please hold your laughter) “Access to Policy Making Circles”, are arrested and apparently, as apart of their punishment by the FBI, are sent to Maxim to have pictures taken of them in bikinis. The one man involved is still at large, at least until the FBI hears from Playgirl.
22. Question: If you are famous, how do you get your ‘Q’ rating to drop faster than Tom Cruise’s anytime he mentions Scientology or jumps on Oprah’s couch? Answer: Be Lebron James and decide the best way to let the nation know where you will be playing basketball in 2010 is to put on the bloated, self-inflating, grandiose spectacle known as ‘the Decision’.
23. Mel Gibson is a raving lunatic.  I don’t have much else.  If you haven’t heard his phone calls to Oksana I don’t know what to tell you other than he is a maniac.
24. Prop 8 gets passed in California! Gay people can finally enter in to the pain, I mean joy, of marriage! Wait…our homophobic government says they can’t.  I thought politicians were all about reducing and getting government out of our personal lives?
25. Steve Slater of Jet Blue does what every other disgruntled employee, not chemically unbalanced and a gun owner, would like to do when they feel slighted by their job. The media in turn completely destroys the integrity and honor of bestowing the word ‘Hero’ on to someone when they describe Mr. Slater as a “hero” (they did the same thing to ‘America’s Rose’ when we used this to describe Anna Nicole Smith).
26. Bedbugs invade and for a country who is capable of developing nuclear weaponry, laser guided missiles that fit through windows, and Hot Pockets, we can’t seem to mix anything together that will kill the bedbugs effectively.
27. Ground Zero Mosque. I’m not touching this one with a 10’ pole.
28. US hiker is released from her Iranian prison and returned to the United States. All are relieved by her release and more than happy to tell her to find a goddamn mountain to hike in the US next time.
29. Brett Favre invents ‘dixting’. A not so subtle way to let a girl, who is not your wife, know you are really, really in to her.
30. Christine O’Donnell is not a witch. Nor is she competent, forward thinking, well versed on our Constitution, or particularly smart (add in a dash of media whore, some made up words like “refudiate”, and sprinkle in a healthy dose of off her rocker crazy and you’ll have Sarah Palin)

So what made your 2010 list?