Tim Grobaty

Christmas arches are up

I don’t mind Christmas itself — the morning of it, with my wife, kids and dogs all gathered in a Christmas cliche around the fireplace, the floor littered with ribbons and wrapping paper and glistening new gifts that we don’t need but are happy to have.

It’s the long Christmas season that I have found depressing for most of my adult life: the social pressures, the obligations, the shopping and wrapping and planning, the carols “Little Drummer Boy” and “12 Days of Christmas.”

The season begins in earnest at Halloween and builds a morose momentum through December and sometimes I surrender myself to it, but this season, I’m rebelling a bit against the despondency. How? By giving in to my daughter’s annual wish to have holiday arches erected over our sidewalk. I paid a guy who does a lot of them in the neighborhood. An easy $220 for five of them, including installation with multi-colored lights and all necessary extension cords. They cheer me when I see them twinkling through the living room's bay window. My daughter is ecstatic, my dogs are ambivalent.

But enough about my moodiness. Let’s talk about work. If you’re holding down a job right now and have sweet dreams of an easy retirement, put those away for a while. Since quitting work I’ve never worked so hard. One of the chores I gave myself, with some gentle prodding from my wife, was to sand down and repaint a couple of long-neglected Adirondack chairs that I built (“built” is too strong of a word; I assembled them as a kit from a woodworking company in San Pedro, but still, if you’ve ever grappled with IKEA products, you know what a task assembly can be). They took a couple of days’ worth of scraping, sanding and water-blasting, and a couple more of painting. It wasn’t the hardest I’ve worked in my life (that’d be the time I demolished the family swimming pool with nothing but a sledgehammer and my 20-year-old brawn).

But mostly I’ve been throwing money at the problems. I’ve got Jim the Spa Guy coming over tomorrow to see if he can find the leak in the hot tub and who’ll yell at me for allowing such things to happen, and I’ve got a $3,000-plus estimate from Mike the Floor Guy to install bamboo planks in the living room because my dog Jasper, in his decrepit old age has taken to chewing huge holes in the carpet, which I’ve sort of passively allowed because I want to get rid of the carpet anyway (with, again, gentle prodding from my wife).

Taking a hike

One of the items on my ambitious list of things to do post-employment was to take a stroll through the El Dorado Nature Center. I scratched that task off the list when my daughter Hannah and I walked through the place on Tuesday. It’s been a while since I visited and I forgot how glorious the 105-acre oasis is. It’s the sort of place that just gets better every year as the foliage continues to mature and grow, largely unbothered by maintenance.

A visit, especially early when you get a chance to maybe spot a fox or an owl, is a great way to settle down a bit. If I can find the time, I think I’ll visit again.

Guardedly recommended viewing and reading

Generally when I recommend books and movies and series, I’m expecting everyone, you included, to follow the advice and read and watch them and perhaps send me a fruit basket as a way of showing your gratitude.

I’m expecting no such thing for today’s highlights because neither the book nor the movie are for everyone.

For your movie-viewing discomfort, the highlight of the week is “The Killer” on Netflix. The film’s title is pretty much the film’s plot. The title role is played broodingly by Michael Fassbender, who goes on a global murderous revenge spree through the Dominican Republic, Paris, New Orleans, St. Petersburg and Chicago, doing his murdering in fresh and original ways and checking into hotels under such noms de TV as Howard Cunningham and George Jefferson.

The film was directed by David Fincher, who helmed such dark movies as “Seven,” “The Fight Club” and “Zodiac,” so if you were expecting a reboot of “Mary Poppins,” this ain’t it.

And for your reading displeasure...

Author James Ellroy is a guy who’s definitely not for everyone, though I have enjoyed many of his books, but not all.

“The Enchanters,” ranks as one of his best, but it’s terribly dark and often strange. Ellroy’s protagonist, Freddy Otash, was the former real-life Hollywood Vice cop, private eye, tell-all correspondent and fixer whose clients or victims included Peter Lawford, a handful of Kennedys, Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland, most of whom figure in this novel that ventures into the edges of non-fiction at times. It’s written in Ellroy’s typical hepcat bebop argot as he spies on and paws through the belongings of Monroe and Lawford and other stars that congregated in nightclubs including such ‘60s LA landmarks as the Losers Club and Linda’s Little Log Cabin.

The story isn’t for those who might find sleazy sex, a near-disturbingly smutty Marilyn Monroe and the whole tawdry mess of the era and locale a bit too much to handle.

Anyhow, those are my admittedly dark recommendations for the week. Do what you want with ‘em.