Damn! Forgot the Chia

Cha-cha-cha-chia! Cha-cha-cha-chia!

Ya know Christmas season has officially arrived---at least 50 percent so---when ya see that first Chia pet commercial.

I saw mine over the weekend.

The season will be in full mode when we start hearing, "Clap on, clap off ---- the clapper."

I haven't seen a clapper commercial just yet.  

Maybe these commercials have been playing for months in Florida where demographics are a bit different from all the fitness freaks in the Northwest.
 Clapper marketers probably see no need to advertise to our audience until closer to Christmas.

Amazingly, I've been thinking about Clappers a lot more since I've grown old.

I've especially thought of how handy a Clapper would be for our outdoor Christmas lights.

They're plugged in to an outlet out in the shop, and when it's time to go to bed, the last thing I want is to go out in the frigid cold to turn off the lights.

So, they stay on 24 hours a day.

A Christmas-lighting Clapper could save a lot of electricity usage here at the Lovestead.

I was at Super Drug yesterday to pick up a pedometer and some Christmas lights and completely forgot that Super Drug, also an Ace Hardware store, probably sells Chia pets.

Somebody in my family needs a Chia pet from Santa . . . I'm just sure of it.  

I think my brother Kevin would be a good candidate this year.  

I bet he's never had a Chia pet.

I have.

Every year, while I was teaching at the high school and when the Chia/Clapper advertising blitz began, I'd remind my students that I needed a Chia pet.  My reminders usually fell on deaf ears except for one year.

Can't remember who it was or how low their grade was at the time, but someone brought me a Chia pet.  I was so pleased.  

We set it up and watched it grow all that lovely green Chia fur aka alfalfa as it sat next to the classroom windows. 

If I recall correctly, however, I think my pet might have had a case of mange.  

The coat did not grow quite as uniformly as those I'd seen advertised on TV.

Come to think of it, that might have been one of the two years we had lice at our house, and I may have just transported a few little nits to school, inadvertently exposing Chia to our infestation.

Actually, I NEVER really had the lice, but someone else in our family did.  

HE brought it home from Washington School.  We found out one night when HE announced at the dinner table that his head sure did itch a whole lot more in second grade than it did in first.

Urgency and insanity instantly set in. 
Get the kid's head clear of the lice.
Scrub everything in the house---several times.  

Another year when we had a louse or two in the house, we didn't have to worry about furiously washing everything.

The house took care of that problem.  

It burned down.

Well, anyway, somewhere during those years,  I had a Chia pet in my classroom.  Chia pets can't tell you if they itch a lot so I don't know for sure why my Chia had such a patchwork coat. 

Still, I had the experience of owning one. 

Today I'll have to put Chias on my shopping list.  The pet variety has expanded considerably since those early days when "Cha-Cha-Cha Chia" drove us crazy and Chias were simply a one-size-fits-all phenomenon. 

I did not even know until this morning that you can purchase a Krispy Kreme pair of Chia flip flops.  I'm sure this will be the rage this year.  

Hmm!  Maybe that will take care of my daughter-in-law Debbie's gift. 

With all these Chia possibilities, maybe when the Clapper commercial starts chanting its "Clap-on, clap-off" reminders, I'll tune in and learn that they've expanded clapper offerings to take care of outside Christmas lights.

In the meantime, I'll have to settle for playing with my new pedometer which tells me that so far this morning I've taken 1,305 steps.  And, those occurred after my bath and my first cup of coffee.

It will be interesting to see how many steps it requires on an average day to tend to all the work here at the Lovestead.

I'll probably feel really good about knowing specific details about how much exercise I get each day.

Plus, it will help me stay devoid of guilt if I can get my own personal Clapper that allows me to just slug on the couch, put my hands in the air and clap those outdoor lights to the "off" mode each night during Christmas season.