List on the 3s: Top 6 Exciting Things That Have Happened Since Shiny’s Last “List on the 3s”

“List on the 3s” is my special way of saying thank you to my readers. When approached with the question “How could Shiny make this blog more appealing?” readers have overwhelmingly come up with a consensus on what would do the trick: more frequent blog posts and acknowledgments and replies to comments. As well as a better use of grammar. More pictures would be nice, as well as more contests where people can win something substantial.  But one or two people have clamored with the same mantra: “More lists! More lists! And stop using the word clamor incorrectly!” Hence, “List on the 3s” was born: I come up with a list for your pleasure on every calendar date which has a 3 in it. Such as November 23. Or November 30. or both.

I’ve been quite busy since my last List on the 3s. So much has happened.

What exactly has been keeping me occupied? Glad you asked…

Top 6 Exciting Things That Have Happened Since Shiny’s Last “List on the 3s”

6. Thanksgiving Redux on Saturday? Our family has had our own Thanksgiving traditions for the past two decades.  It’s been a holiday which, traditionally, has brought my Mom’s side of the family together. It coincided with my mom’s parents making the car trip down from Upstate New York to Florida for the winter, so they would stop in the DC area areound Thanksgiving — the place where we and my mom’s sister’s family live.

The meal has been traditionally prepared by my Uncle (with assistance from his family) — but it hasn’t been turkey in a long, long time. Because of the sheer number of vegetarians in the family, he had to think of an alternative. Which is why he decided on Italian food many years ago.

And then he decided to switch it up and use other countries’ cuisines for the years that followed. Eventually we ran out of countries — so he decided to change it to a specific igredient theme a la Iron Chef. And then he decided to come up with a theme, not tell the rest of the family, and have us guess it.  It’s possibly the most unique Thanksgiving tradition I’ve seen.

With the recent passing of my Mom and my Dad’s relationship with a wonderful woman who has her own large family and Thanksgiving traditions, it makes things a bit weird. Do we table our Thanksgiving traditions and defer to her customs? Do we do our own Thanksgiving? This year we tried something new: A traditional Thanksgiving (her family’s customs) at their place on Thursday evening. And then, on Saturday at our place (where my brother and family were staying) — a special Saturday airing of our Thanksgiving tradition.

It was a tight squeeze with a good eleven people around our table. And since my Dad accidentally forgot to bring extra chairs, things were even a bit more squeezy. But it all worked out quite well in the end. The theme, as we guessed, was a “leftovers/comfort food” genre — of which we have plenty of leftovers.  The cool thing is that it really went off rather smoothly. And now that we’re the ones in the family who have the big house, I have a feeling this will continue to be something at our place. We’re a hub!

5.  Photo-sitting: Today we went to a professional place to get photos done of our family (meaning my brother, his wife and three kids and us (wife, one kid, me). It’s a surprise for my Dad for his new place (or it is unless he reads this blog, in which case: SKIP OvER THIS, DAD! And skip the video about my balls, too.) I haven’t had one of these studio sittings in decades, and I feared the worst. However, it went quite well. We got some wonderful shots which will look great. One of the photos of all four kids, in fact, was so perfect that we were asked if we could sign releases to have it displayed in-studio! Fun for everyone…

4.  This Week’s Amazing Race was one of those that left me on the edge of my seat. No spoliers, though…

3.  Bed Bath and Beyond Released Their “Black Friday” Advertising Circular. This may not seem so exciting at first mention.  There weren’t any outrageously shocking deals I saw in this ad. But that didn’t matter; it was in this circular that I was alerted to a new crown jewel. And its name is Mangroomer.

Mangroomer is now selling the following product:

It’s a “do-it-yourself” electric back shaver.  It suits the needs of those who have been stuck in one of those major Catch-22s of life:

Suppose you’re one of those who is lucky enough to be blessed with back and shoulder hair. It’s certainly not something which you’ll necessarily want to flaunt when you’re trying to date someone. After all, society has deemed excess hair to be unsightly. Could you go to a salon and get it waxed or laser removed? Perhaps — but that could cost a lot of money. And since you don’t have a significant other (because, face it — you’ve got a hairy back!) you don’t have someone to do it for you.

And that leaves the rest of the men out there who fall into two categories: (1) those men who don’t have hairy backs (lucky bastards); and (2) those men with hairy backs but somehow have found significant others who either (a) assist with the shaving because s/he doesn’t want him to look like a gorilla; or (b) don’t really care so much about the guy’s back hair as long as he wears a shirt 85% of the time.

The paradox: In order to find someone who will love you enough to shave your back, you need to have your back already devoid of hair.

Well – no more! This tool is like manna from the heavens above. It equalizes things for those who want to go at the shaving alone — for now.  And that, my friends, is certainly exciting…

2. It’s Not A Traditional Thanksgiving Until Somebody Calls the Cops on You… Thanksgiving for our family, as I had mentioned above, is quite unique.  With the two families having been fused together over the past year, what had used to be a smaller Thanksgiving consisting of only 15 or 16 people has now balooned to over thirty. And now that my Dad and his girlfriend have their new condo together — it means for a cozy time for all.

It also means a lot of small kids running around: Between my Dad and his girlfriend, we’re talking about ten grandchildren under the age of ten.  This should be a pretty normal occurrence during Thanksgiving — a holiday when families get together. And there shouldn’t be a problem when the family is a bit louder than usual when gathering for dinner around 5:00 or 5:30.

“Shouldn’t” being the operative word.

You see — the downstairs neighbors have complained before about hearing too much noise when the kids are over and running around upstairs. We’re not talking about long, sustained running or jumping. We’re talking about the normal, everyday actions of a bunch of kids.  And, again, we’re not talking about something like this occurring in the middle of the night.  It’s Thanksgiving dinner.

But just to make sure, my Dad’s girlfriend was proactive with the downstairs neighbors: she gave them fair warning that all ten grandchildren would be over. And that it might get a little busy upstairs. Oh — and she invited them to join us for dinner. They apparently declined because they were having their own dinner with company.

So — imagine our surprise when they called to complain — even before all of the kids had arrived!  This was a little before five.  Then, at about six, officers came to the door because they had called in a noise complaint!  My brother fielded the call and invited them in if they so desired. They didn’t.

An hour later — another call. My Dad let it go to voicemail. Another threat to call the police if we didn’t quiet down.  And almost immediately after, five minutes of continuous banging by them on their ceiling / our floor. I think we just saw it as more pathetic than anything else.  We weren’t letting it bother us.

I would have only wished that — if there had to be some police intervention — that it would have somehow been alcohol related. Those situations are often fun to watch…

1. Shiny’s hair has left the building.

(No, not the back hair…)

For those of you who haven’t noticed, I’ve been growing my hair quite a bit. My last haircut had been before the Jewish High Holy Days back in September of 2007.  Since November of last year, I decided to make the commitment to grow my hair out quite a bit so I could get it cut for Locks of Love a year later.

I’ve endured a lot during that time. Yes, I’ve had my hair long before. But I’ve always had it cut at times in some way. In the late ’80s / early ’90s I had what would now be known as a mullet.  But this time it was just… long. Shaggy. Uncontrollable in the hot DC area summer humidity.

Last weekend was a seasonal youth group convention for the high school students with whom we’ve been volunteering for ages now. And every year come November, they have people volunteering to cut their hair. There’s also a financial charitable element to it as well; money is raised to get the person to cut his/her hair.

For the past few years, it’s consisted of about 4-6 people who volunteered. Mostly girls. Sometimes a female staff member would volunteer as well. This year it became popular: fifteen volunteers. Wow!

So — as it was for everyone else, money was raised to cut off my hair.

And then the ante was raised even further: for even more money donated to charity, I would shave off the beard.

And so it was done.

Here are some fun “Before” pictures:

These were taken after the hair was all brushed out. But then — I had to be a pretty, pretty princess! With ponytails!

Do the ponytails actually help with cutting my hair for Locks of Love? I’m pretty sure the answer is “no.” Yet there I am anyway…

I was the last of the group to get my hair cut.  With fifteen people, we had some generous volunteers from Great Clips in Hampton Roads, VA who donated their time. They were fabulous.

Apparently that was a lot of hair that I was carrying all this time!  When I made the announcement that I would shave my beard if enough money was raised, I thought that I would commit to doing so immediately after by myself. (There are young boys between the ages of 8-10 who cannot grow their own beards.) What I didn’t know was that these fine women were ready to hack that thing off my chin right there and then in front of everybody!

Eventually I looked like this:

I don’t quite remember what I was going for on that last one.

But yeah. Hair and beard are gone. At least until they grow back…