The morning is cloudy and chilly. The air has the feel of late fall. Yesterday’s wind is gone. It will rain today.

I have only two uke events this week, practice tonight and a concert tomorrow. We are starting to practice Christmas music. December is heavy with concerts.

Last night I watched a Christmas Carol film I hadn’t ever seen. It starred Fredric March as Scrooge and Basil Rathbone as Marley. I did some hunting and found it had been a television episode in 1954 of a program called A Shower of Stars. It was under an hour. The story had music, wandering Carolers, a duet with Scrooge and Belle and Tiny Tim singing by the Christmas tree in the Cratchit house. To accommodate this music the ghosts had far shorter visits, especially the ghost of Christmas yet to come who brought Scrooge to Tiny Tim’s grave. The stone only read Tiny Tim. Despite the shortened length, I enjoyed my first Christmas Carol of the season.

My grandmother had a couple of brothers. I met them both, Uncle Otto and Uncle Henry. Sue was Uncle Henry’s wife. Every time I saw her, she was wearing one of those big round hats women in the 1950’a wore. She never really talked to me or anyone. She just sat on the couch and smoked. My father used to visit Uncle Henry. He’d bring him cigars and magazines. Everyone thought Uncle Henry was poor, but he left Sue a lot of money when he died. My father took me on one visit. Uncle Henry gave me a book of Christmas stories. I still have it.

Thanksgiving smells of pies baking and of turkey slowly roasting in the oven. When my mother would open the oven door to baste the turkey, the aroma would fill the house. That made the wait until dinner almost unbearable.

Today is windy. It will be in the high 40’s. The sun and the blue sky will be around all day. I have some errands, and I think I’ll take a ride. The chickadees are back and have joined the titmice in flying in and out of the feeders. They don’t go far. They fly to nearby branches where they eat. I also saw a few nuthatches and a giant blue jay. A spawn waited on a branch for its opportunity to hang from the feeders and eat all the sunflower seeds. Nala dissuaded him of that. He was off and running.

When I was a kid, I thought idioms were truths. The nuances of the English language were lost on the young me. Money certainly didn’t grow on trees. That seemed silly. Everybody knew that. When I first heard break a leg, I was shocked. What a horrible thing to say. My father would say someone was a good egg. In Africa I saw the actual difference between a good egg and a bad egg. One floats and the other drops to the bottom of the bucket. Never pick the floater unless you’re going to use it to egg someone on. I’d pick a piece of cake over easy as pie. I remember interviewing a candidate for a secretarial position. In answering one question she said, “That hit the nail right on the nose.” How do people know when clams are happy? They don’t smile. That was always a bit of a puzzler. I’d prefer to take the cake, not the bull by the horns.

Some things are a dime a dozen while others are just a drop in the bucket. You can have an ace in the hole and another up your sleeve. You can be all ears and all thumbs. I am the latter, sort of a bull in a china shop. Curiosity killed the cat despite its nine lives.

Idioms are colorful. They are versatile. Some go out of fashion, but new ones take their places. I am a fan of idioms. They are the bee’s knees, the cat’s meow, just the ticket, top notch and usually hit the bull’s eye.