Oddly Enough, That's What My Clock Says Right Now ...

But then, I still haven't changed my shelf clock back, so weird how serendipity sometimes comes into play ... well, now that i think about it, that's kind of the nature of serendipitous events ... Chalk it up to too many late hours and some Christmas cheer I had earlier. But as Emily Litella would say (rest her soul), Never mind!

This ornament definitely has a story behind it ... I got this (and a few others, namely the Jack Russell Terrier, Peacock, Pickle, etc.) during a verrryyy long delay at the Denver airport several years ago. At the time, I was traveling pretty frequently and it was close to Christmas, of course ... there was a snow event either in Denver or east (I do not recall) and it looked dicey that I'd even get out of there in time, and it was right about December 22. Well, if you've ever had to kill time during a delay or layover in Denver, you'll know there's not a lot to do there unless you like shops you'd likely never enter under normal circumstances, endless overpriced food and drink, and no smoking areas allowed. Except! There are these signs to a 'Smoker's Lounge' that must have tantalized many frazzled, deprived smokers ... until you get there! It turns out that one bar in the entire airport will allow limited smoking ... that sounds nice until realize there's like a 3 drink minimum to enter and it appears you have to keep drinking if you want to hang out there for very long. (Think about that if you want a cig before an early morning flight sometime, hehe.)

Now, of course virtuous me never took advantage of it, even this time. And I really wanted a cig bad, but the principle of the whole thing just ticked me off. So ... I wandered off to find some sort of mildly interesting shopping to try to make the time pass until I was supposed to leave on a flight that might maybe get out and back to Des Moines that night.

Finally I discovered and wandered into the Discovery Store, and that was a sight for my surely sore eyes! All things Discovery Channels and more were to be had ... talking Steve Irwin dolls (I wish I had gotten one of those! They were on clearance.) DVDs ... calendars ... toys ... you name it. But I gravitated instantly to the (mostly Polish and Czech blown glass) ornaments that were temptingly marked 50% off! Now we were talking! Something i was actually interested in buying! I ended up buying five or six ornaments (most of which have appeared here or will appear here soon), one of which was this Cuckoo Clock. (And yes, this one was made in Poland ... yay!)

In retrospect, besides finding it really original and pretty, I suspect it appealed subconsciously to me because I was preoccupied with time at the moment. I have to admit, every year I put it on the tree, I don't fail to think of the circumstances in which I purchased it. It's all Proustian, I know, but he was on to something there. It just took him a hell of a long time to prove it!