new year's sob-along

Can’t decide whether to sing or cry this New Year’s?

The Geezer, as you’d expect, has located your solution.

It is at Oakland’s most glamorous funeral parlor, the Chapel of the Chimes.

The event is described as a funeral sing along and participants are encouraged to bring their bad moods with them.

The songs are familiar and the music is live, but the lyrics have been changed to express this year’s angst.

You may want to get an ok from your therapist before you go.

“Nothing Holding Me Back”

3-5 pm

Chapel of The Chimes

Piedmont

$35-$95

http://crapintocompost.com/

priceless holiday giving

Why not make this a DIY holiday? The geezer is not suggesting you use your carpentry skills to build your grown kids an armoire or solder together a tricycle for your grandkids.

For nothing or next to nothing you can:

Create a storybook using family photos.

Adopt a puppy from your local Animal Shelter.

Print out a booklet of favorite family recipes.

Burn a CD of you singing holiday carols karaoke style.

Have t-shirts printed with a quirky family message.

Make a coupon book of offers to babysit.

Check the web for more ideas at sites like:

www.Instructables.com

casting call

Have time on your hands? Put a fly rod into them.

The ever inventive East Bay Regional Parks District is offering an Introduction to Fly Fishing all day on January 11 at Lake Anza. First you practice the zen art of casting with a certified instructor then an intensive session of tying flies and the esoterica of “reading the water”.

Come to think of it, this isn’t a bad Christmas gift for an idle retiree. Be advised, however, that this innocuous hobby has been know to evolve into an addiction.

The fee is $66. Phone to register at 1-888-EBPARKS.

Check for similar ideas at:

www.ebparks.org

holiday light rails

Bundle up the grandkids and take them on one of the geezer’s holiday favorite jaunts – the glittering hourlong evening train ride in Niles Canyon. Every year the historic trains (part of the first Transcontinental Railway built in the 1860’s) are festooned with hundreds of colored lights – it’s more magical than anything concocted by Pixar, and it’s real. The trains run Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sundays through the holidays. Tickets are $25 for everyone over 3. The enclosed (and warmer) parlor car is $40.

www.ncry.org

it's a bird

Kind of like a flying La-Z-Boy recliner, a motorized hang glider soars 1500 feet above the Sonoma countryside, swooping through the air like a hawk. The latest step in human efforts to defy gravity, it’s called trike gliding. You’ll take off with your pilot from the Petaluma Airport for a 30 minute flight, with music swelling in your earphones. The fee is $150. It may be the closest you’ll ever come to transforming yourself into an eagle.

www.xperiencedays.com/Hang_Gliding_Experiences.html

watch the birdie

It’s bigger than football, baseball and basketball combined. It’s the fastest growing outdoor activity in the U.S. fascinating over 51 million Americans. It is (drumroll) bird watching. Fortunately we live in an area that’s home to thousands of our fine feathered friends. The parks along the East Bay Shore and the refuge on Lake Merritt are particularly rich in migrating bird life.

But to actually learn the kind of avian details that make bird watching so addictive start by taking the “Winter Hawks, Falcons and Eagles” class this Sunday, December 13 from 9-4 at Point Reyes. If you’re not a member of the National Seashore Association the price is $62.64. Bring your own binoculars.

www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=190799

nerdgasm

If you are the proud grandparent of a computer geek whose interests and conversation are way beyond you, try a bit of bonding at Mountain View’s Computer History Museum. Though nerds prefer looking forward not backwards, this museum offers a fascinating look at the recent digital graveyard. Not really for young kids unless they have a particular fascination for things like network protocols.

www.computerhistory.org

blessed event

There’s plenty of joy for sale in downtown SF this holiday but for truly heartening shopping it’s hard to match the show at the Rena Bransten Gallery. “Chromatic” celebrates 35 years of Creative Growth, the remarkable Oakland organization that nurtures artists with physical, mental and emotional disabilities. This is sophisticated work some of which is in the collections of both the New York and SF MOMA, as well as Creative Growth’s own space in Paris.

17 Geary Street

San Francisco

http://www.renabranstengallery.com

pedal noel

Topping the list of bizarre holiday parties is the one you’re invited to at a body shop in Oakland. Hosted by the East Bay Bike Coalition it coincides with Art Murmur, the monthly trawl through Oakland galleries. There are snacks, beer, a DJ and recycled art with a bike theme. Should you get restless, there’s a pedi-cab to carry you off to nearby art galleries.

Weird in a kind of charming way. And free.

Velo Wonderland

Uptown Body & Fender

401 26^th Street

Oakland.

Friday, December 4 6-10pm

http://ebbc.org/velowonderland