Orange Holiday

The night glows with a just-past-full moon and jack o’lantern fairy lights festoon doorways and rooftops. The haunting season flourishes in the suburban area around my home. Or, as I like to call it, the Orange Holiday season.

The decoration mania surprises me, but not too much; after all, the “holiday stores” have been open since September. Blowsy fake cobwebs, oversized spiders with glowing green eyes, lookalike headstones planted in lawns—this is my America. In the suburbs, skeletons walk, pumpkins grin, a big ol’ spider hovers, and a tree posing as an owl supervises this nighttime array. Ceramic faux pumpkins laughed while I wrangled a tugging dog. One house even had a “laser show” with green ghosts flying around on the brickwork. Yes, flying. It moved! These are not Martha Stewart’s tasteful decorations; most of the ones I see are plastic, with LEDs, and reside in the dictionary under the word “tacky.”

Halloween yard decorations. © JustHavingFun

To stop a thief, light a light-Duquesne Light © Pittsburgh Press

Now this may not look so odd to you, but this display startled me. I was walking the dog down a sparsely lit side road and had forgotten to bring a flashlight. Peering ahead to prevent tripping over broken sidewalk, I noted which houses were completely dark and eerie. [An aside: Indoctrinated by the 1970s advertising campaign, “To Stop a Thief, Light a Light” promoted by Duquesne Light, dark houses look menacing to me, awaiting Bad Things To Happen. Note Chilly Billy on the same page.]

The houses that were lit loomed out of the darkness. Nearing the end of the block, the dog lunged for a car, yanking me closer to the Halloween house. He paused to sniff and I paused to click. How could I not? Ceramic faux pumpkins laughed while I wrangled the tugging dog. Will they attract many more trick or treaters banging at their door on October 31st?

What is this fetish to decorate the house exterior? If all the decor is outside, does one feel more festive inside? Why? You can’t see it if you are not outside!

If you don’t go the plastic or ceramic route, you can always carve your own pumpkins. (With all the pumpkins purchased, does anyone eat them or the seeds?) Have you noticed there are now professional pumpkin carving master tool sets for sale? This is a thing! “Sick of buying new pumpkin carving tools every year — only for them to break yet again?” the article asks. I didn’t know. I’m terribly behind the times, especially what is now “in” for the Orange Holiday. The dog does not care.

Halloween ceramic jack o’lanterns. © JustHavingFun

Soon the Orange Holiday will pass. If I recall correctly from walking the dog this way last year, this particular home will be ready for the “Red & Green” holiday soon, decked with rows of jolly candy canes lining the walk. We mark our seasons by the colors of the holidays. More on that observation later.

Happy Halloween!

The Best Part of Wakin’ Up™

©/TM/® The Folger Coffee Company

Did you know the Folgers Coffee jingle is 35 years old?

As one of the most memorable and recognizable pieces of advertising, “The Best Part of Wakin’ Up is Folgers in Your Cup®” Jingle has helped millions of Americans start their day with the sounds, sights, and smells of fresh-brewed Folgers® Coffee. Composed by Leslie Pearl, the original Jingle debuted in 1984 and has since been transformed into country, gospel, jazz, R & B, folk, Celtic, and a cappella versions. ¹

“Wake up, and smell the coffee” by Thomas Cizauskas, used under CC BY-NC 2.0

I love a dark, deep and hot cup of coffee, the scent rising aggressively from the cup, the turbulent steam assailing my nasal passages. Exquisite espresso, captivating cappuccino, luscious latte, basic black. The aroma wraps around my neurons, sheathing the axons and coating them with a scarf of enlightenment. “Aaaahhh!” the brain cells sigh, “coffee,” and the sun shines brighter, the birds sing in glee, and there is world peace.

Sadly for Folgers (somewhere along the line they lost the apostrophe), I’m not really a fan of their coffee, preferring Nescafé Tasters Choice Dark Roast when I need a cup of instant. I’ll allow, however, that the best part of waking up just may be coffee. You are thinking, “it’s the caffeine. She’s fueled by caffeine.” No, I protest, it’s not the caffeine; too much gives me the shakes. The smell, the odor, the fragrance opens my mind to new horizons… or at least, it opens my eyelids to the new day.

Every day I wake up
Pour myself a cup
Of that rich Folgers aroma
The best part of waking up.
It's the doo-wop doo-wop in all I do
The mountain grown aroma always comin' through.
Oh the best part of wakin' up
Is Folgers in your cup.
[Now, I'm right in harmony
When I doo-wop doo-wop di-dee
One more cup and it's a nu-wop she-bop for me
Oh the best part of wakin' up
Is Folgers in your cup.]
The best part of wakin' up
Is Folgers in your cup.2

The glass top fairly jumped with boiling coffee on that cold morning.

I learned to love the aroma of while living with my grandparents. It’s the mid-60’s. Imagine the bright yellow kitchen in the morning sun. A January day with single-digit temperatures, the windows sparkle with frost inside and glisten with some condensation. The glass percolator lid seems to jump with the fresh-brewed coffee clamoring for attention.  Zayda³ is seated at the table already with a cup of coffee, and the radio atop the radiator is likely tuned to WCAU, 1210 AM.  Bubba⁴ hurried me to eat breakfast before school—Mom must have been busy with my younger sisters elsewhere. A bowl of my favorite, oatmeal, awaits me.  But wait, there’s more: Coffee Milk! That elixir, that concoction of greatness: Coffee (pronounced kaw-fee⁵). My glass receives an inch of coffee from the busy aluminum pot and the rest is milk… because I’m old enough to drink coffee! Motes of dust sparkle in the air. I scratch my name onto the frosty window. I spoon sugary oatmeal puddled with butter and dreamily drink coffee milk never knowing that some 50 years later, this will be one of my cherished memories.

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<sup>1. – See more at: http://folgers2.votigo.com/folgers-jingle-history#sthash.47iUrQxb.dpuf↩
2. Rockin’ Morning – Folgers Coffee sung by Rockapella ↩
3. Yiddish for grandfather.↩
4. Yiddish for grandmother.↩
5. The Overlooked Philadephia Accent, accessed February 2, 2015.</sup>