Holiday smorgasbord of powerful info

Published 2:00 pm Saturday, December 2, 2006

According to recent reports from several of our senior readers, a serious breakthrough has emerged in the world of wine.

California Vintners, in the Napa Valley area, which primarily produces Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio wines, has developed a new hybrid grape that acts amazingly as an anti-diuretic.

It is expected that consuming this new wine, just in time for the holidays, quite possibly will reduce the number of trips that some people have to make to the bathroom during the night.

The new wine will be marketed as PINOT MORE.

Other readers have cautioned this columnist to add a caveat. When making nocturnal journeys to relief land, be mindful of factoring in the number of clothing layers being worn to assure timely access.

Speaking of access, in the words of Toys for Tots coordinator Tom Keltner, “On Saturday the 9th and Sunday the 10th of December, the good folks at the Washington State Ferries are going to allow our Marine Corps Detachment 1210 to walk the lines at all four Whidbey Island ferry terminals from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. This may be the biggest shopping weekend of the Christmas holiday season. Based on prior years, we may have 50 to 60 thousand very captive people through the day.

“The Marines will be walking between the cars and informing the audience that we have a toy drive going on, that we will be waiting for them to return and accept their donations. We also have various drop-off sites between Clinton and Freeland such as Cooper’s Auto, Hallmark, Dalton’s Realty, Les Schwab, Star Store, the Rod & Gun Club, Radio Shack, Farmers Insurance, Hanson’s, Neil’s Clover Patch, Ace Hardware, Island Athletic, the Shell Station, and Puget Sound Business Center to name a bunch.

We also have a live radio remote going on at Whidbey Ford on the 12th of December. All the toys and gifts we collect on South Whidbey go to Gail LaVassar’s group, the Holiday House. Furthermore, the items we collect on the north end go to the military YMCA directed by Major Butch Laurion.”

Thanks to all the Marines involved for their overwhelming generosity.

Dec. 12 you may want to sled on down to Langley’s Island Coffeehouse on Second Street to celebrate the December birthdays of one or more of these classic wordsmiths: Rainer Maria Rilke, Joyce Kilmer, Ira Gershwin, Horace, Padraic Colum, Delmore Schwartz, John Milton, Emily Dickinson, Nelly Sachs, Carolyn Kizer, Grace Paley, Jim Harrison, Heinrich Heine, Kenneth Patchen, James Wright, Muriel Rukeyser, George Santayana, John Greenleaf Whittier, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Bly, George Crabbe, Matthew Arnold, Jean Toomer and Rudyard Kipling.

Join Molly Cook for an informal evening of poetry sharing on Tuesday evening, Dec. 12 at the comfy Island Coffee House. Meet at 6 p.m. and wrap up between 7:30 and 8 p.m. The coffeehouse will remain open so all can enjoy coffee drinks and pastries. Molly will even tell you who all those birthday writers are.

Or is that whom?

In one of today’s e-mails, I was informed of this alleged truism: The average person over 50 will have spent five years waiting in lines.

If I thought about this one long enough, I’d be waiting in another line.

When did an average person ever show up in one of our lines?

Certainly not at the Freeland Café on Snow Day Tuesday where vats of hot coffee got nudged in the spirit of downed power lines.

Celebrity sightings of local one-liners included this quartet of non-average persons — Marge and Buzz Strout, Klaas Zuiderbaan and Sally Berry.

Marge and Buzz have recently returned victorious from a Dutch dance marathon in Amsterdam where our Whidbey dance whizzes out jitterbugged a gang of local cloggers.

Klaas and Sally have also gained notoriety of late in discovering the benefits of lubricating leather with pancake syrup.

Try it on a purse, a wallet, or your favorite leather jacket. Not only will the syrup enhance and richen the color of the leather, your efforts will result in a more adhesive quality when applying Post-it note reminders to the leather object of your choice. It can come in handy when you stick your syrupy Post-it note shopping list on your sleeve.

Congratulations to executive director Peggy Dyer and the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Island County for their glorious Festival of Trees Dinner Auction success tonight at the Useless Bay Golf and Country Club.

How do I know this when the dinner and auction has yet to occur?

Let’s just say that I had a vision during the last power outage.

It is amazing what can take place when the lights go out.

Jim can be reached all too easily at fun@whidbey.com.