Monday, December 20, 2004

true colours: a xmas tale

This is a minor riff off a comment I just made to a guest post over at Michelle's ASV ...a wonderful vignette about "The Crap Tree".

So we went out for Mex' tonight; the "usual place" - Mexico '70 Cafe - over near the corner of 65th St & Folsom Blvd. Great food; they make honest-to-gawd homemade tortillas by hand! Paper thin, and "To Die For", as they say.

The kids there know us: we found the place when we first moved to Sacramento, and the youngest couldn't have been in high school; they're nice, considerate, they like us, and we like 'em right back. I can wear Levi's and tenny's and a tee (or cargo shorts in summer) - my typical scruffs - and not feel out-of-place. And always feel welcome.

Upon leaving (it's still COLD - well, for California - and foggy, tonight: it's been foggy for the last two weeks, but it's colder tonight for some reason ...or maybe I'm just getting old) ....

Wife: "Hey, why don't we drive through mid-town? Renee (at work) told me there's a really nice neighborhood Christmas display on 42nd St."

Me: "Uh ...okay." (She bought dinner ...and it's Xmas ...why not.)

Not much traffic. Everyone in mosey-mode, takin' it easy. Sunday night drivers. We take a left off Folsom Blvd onto 42nd into the Fab Forties (yeah, buncha pocket mansions, mainly, built back in the 1940's is my surmise from their sobriquet ...really nice neighborhoods though).

Wife: "Ooh. It's pretty. See, Renee was right."

Me: "Well ...it's ...white fer sure." Blindingly white. Star Wars "entering warp speed" white. Tinkly scintillating San Francisco Gay Designer attitudinal white. "Ya see any, well, colours? Anywhere?"

Wife: "***?"

We drive up and down, back and forth - oh, I dunno, maybe four or five blocks. Three houses. Just. Three. Houses. Of. Colour.

Multi-cultural variety apparently does NOT extend to the front yards of America at Christmas. In the fashionista environs of the Fab Forties, at least.

Sigh. "'At's it, one more block, 'kay?" So I finally give it up (I'm sure I'm suffering from retinal burn anyway), take the "Bike Route" street (M St) "Down the Center" (of the Fab Forties) to where M St jags onto 58th in the much less financially rarified real estate neighborhoods of actual working folk, then right and then left past the big Catholic church on the corner.

From the church it's a straight shot for the final 6 blocks or so of M St, then left on 62nd and left onto Elvas ...and on to home. But ...as we make the turn ....

...there ...IT ...is. The House. You know: The Christmas House. Colours splashed by the fog. Lit up like a glorious Christmas Carnival of Colours. The prismatic splendiferous colours of childhood. Fat colours. Glorious colours. Yeah, sure, there's the moving reindeers that're white (never seen one in colours anywhere in retaildom anyways, so how can ya be critical about that), but there's REAL COLOURS everywhere. Along the porch. Up and down the porch. Inside the porch. UNDER the porch. Around the windows. Along the beams, the roof, the trees. Santa's sittin' above the porch; I can tell he's happy.

I'm happy too.

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