A couple of thoughts crossed my mind today … along with a pair of favorite Christmas songs.

Little Saint Nick …

The local news sure was hopping today as Downtown Detroit dealt with a massive power outage, followed by the anticipated booting out of U of M football coach Brady Hoke.

And, at the bottom of the news items … bum, low-beam headlights in 273,182 GM sedans and SUVs.

It was the 79th recall by General Motors in 2014.

And the 2nd recall this year for my 2009 Buick LaCrosse.

Luckily I only commute from my room to the kitchen to get to work, and rarely, if ever, drive in the dusk or dark.

I concluded today it’s a good thing Santa doesn’t drive a vehicle to distribute all the gifts on Christmas Eve, but uses his sleigh and trusty reindeer. He at least has no issues with a headlamp since he relies on Rudolph’s nose to be his beacon.

Up on the housetop, click, click, click …

I called the handyman service at 7:15 a.m. and said “if you’re planning on doing my gutters later today, don’t come … the remnants of the hulking hut that blew over in last week’s windstorm are still taking up a sizeable chunk of my backyard and it is unsafe for your guy to work around it to clean the gutters” … he assured me “you are fifth on the list ma’am – the gutters are still frozen and we need a pickaxe to get at the leaves so we’ll get back with you when we’re ready to do the job – it’ll probably be awhile anyway” ….

In my mind I imagined ice dams gumming up the gutters in the dead of Winter.

And popsicle-looking ice formations in the downspout.

Meanwhile, six hours later, next door at Marge’s house, her son finished up her gutter-cleaning chore and she called to say he was headed over here. He climbed up on the roof, blew down the leaves and cleaned the gutters and it was done.

Funny, Jeff didn’t have to borrow an axe from Yukon Cornelius either.