6 December 13, 2012 www.alamedasun.com Alameda Sun Alameda Sun www.alamedasun.com December 13, 2012 7

Happy Holidays! Alameda CELEBRATES ISLAND STYLE

SINCE 1973SINCE 1973

Artistic Director: Marnell XavierHome of the Internationally Traveled

West Coast PerformersAccepting New Students Ages 3 to Adult

Ballet • Hip Hop • Jazz • Tap

1701 Lincoln Avenue510-523-2828

wcdancealameda@aol.comwestcoastdancealameda.com

For 40 years, West Coast Dance Theatre has been committed to inspiring students to

discover the joys of dance and fitness in a fun, positive, and non-competitive environment.

Best of Alameda Magazine 2011Alameda Chamber of Commerce

Cultural Arts Award 2001

Holiday Boutique

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Gift Certificates say that you see their creative spirit!

Take a Fun & Inspiring Class! Leave with gorgeous gifts made from the heart!

• Simple Last Minute Holiday Gifts Thurs Dec. 20, 12:30-2:30

• Beginner & intermediate classes after Christmas

ADD A LITTLE SPICE to THE HOLIDAYS!

Edited by award-winning journalist and blogger Julia Park Tracey

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It’s 1925, and Doris Bailey, 15, has chopped off her hair, raised her skirts, climbed out a window and driven off after a cute boy.

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2317CENTRALAVE. 510.769.3456 www.alamedatheatres.comALAMEDA THEATRE & CINEPLEX

Now Playing in the Alameda Cineplex

Now Playing in the Historic TheatreTHE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

(PG-13) 11:45a 3:15 7:00 10:00

ALAMEDA’S GOT TALENT HOST DAVE MAY FRI & SAT EVES PRECEDING THE FILM PLAYING IN THE HISTORIC THEATRE.

Program Time Schedule for 12/14-12/20 Auditoriums may change. Call for details.

MOMMY AND ME MONDAYS: Every Monday Featuring: SKYFALL at 11:00a, LINCOLN at 12:40, LIFE of PI 3D at 11:15a and THE HOBBIT 3D at 12:30

Tickets for the 12/13 Midnight showing of THE HOBBIT on sale now!

SKYFALL (PG-13) 11am, 2:00, 5:00, 8:00, 9:15 9:15 PM Show Fri - Tues onlyLINCOLN (PG-13) 12:40, 3:50, 7:00, 10:10RISE of the GUARDIANS (PG)12:25, 2:40, 4:55, 7:10KILLING THEM SOFTLY (R) Fri - Tues only 11:25a, 2:30, 7:00THE SESSIONS (R) Fri - Tues only 12:15, 4:45

THE HOBBIT (PG-13) 3D 12:30, 4:20, 8:00 2D 1:45, 5:15, 8:45, 9:30 MONSTERS INC. (PG) 3D Wed - Thurs 11:20a, 4:40, 9:25 2D Wed - Thurs 12:00, 2:20, 7:15LIFE OF PI (PG) 3D Fri - Tues only 11:30 am, 2:152D Fri - Tues only 5:00, 7:40, 10:25 Wed - Thurs only 11:35, 2:15, 5:00, 7:40, 10:25

GIVE THE GIFT GIVE THE GIFT OF MOVIES!OF MOVIES!Available Now! Available Now! Booklets of (5) Booklets of (5) $5 certificates$5 certificates

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Gil MichaelsThe usually whimsical affecta-

tion of leaving snacks for Santa will take on an urgent, humanitarian tone this Christmas. The Mythical Entity News Network (MENN) has reported that domestic strife in the Santa Claus household has had a deteriorating effect on the health of Santa. He has suffered an acute loss of weight.

“He looks like a guy from the band ZZ Top; just terrible” said a MENN photographer.

According to reports, Santa’s weight loss has been a byproduct of his wife Suzy’s hypochondria-fueled dietary peccadilloes.

Mrs. Claus claims to be suffer-ing from pre-diabetes, pre-hyper-tension, pre-emphysema, and pre-gluten allergies.

Because of her pre-exist-ing conditions, Mrs. Claus has imposed strict dietary restrictions on the entire Claus family, includ-ing Santa, his elves and herself. Her restrictions prohibit red meat, dark meat, fatty fish, cooking fats, salt, sugar, wheat products, pota-toes, rice, dairy products, corn syrup, most fruits, beans, soy products, peanuts and most veg-etables. Caffeine, alcohol and high-sodium mineral waters are strictly prohibited.

Per MENN reports, Santa and his elves have been subsisting on

hard-boiled eggs, boiled chicken wings, steamed trout, celery sticks and snow melt.

When interviewed by MENN, a thin, frail, feeble Santa moaned: “I would kill for a friggin’ enchilada.”

In order to help Santa, and to restore his health, Alameda house-holds can easily supply him with his snack of choice, a quality enchi-lada, on Christmas Eve.

If you wish to purchase your enchiladas, we have found that the following vendors turned out pretty good products, but as all food reviews are extremely perish-able and ridiculously subjective, we make no guarantees.

Taquiria Ramiro and Sons: The chicken enchiladas were plump with flavorful breast meat, and were bathed in a savory, mildly spicy red sauce; nicely presented. Excellent

Otaez: The cheese enchiladas are wonderfully messy and gooey, a melted cheese lover’s dream, in a fine mole; very good.

Lucky’s Deli: The store- bought choice; the beef variety are fresh, nicely presented and homemade looking and tasting good

If you would prefer to ply Santa with your own culinary stylings, or if you’re just really cheap, this

easy recipe from the Poverty Gulch Cookbook will work nicely.

Poverty Gulch El Cheapo Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas

1 rotisserie chicken, skin removed, and meat shredded

2 cups red or green salsa. Lazy cooks can use a 16-ounce jar of Pace Picante sauce.

1/2 lb queso asedero cheese, or 2 cups Monterey Jack and

Cheddar, shredded10 flour tortillas. Chopped black olivesSour creamMix chicken with 1/2 cup salsa

and 1/2 cup cheese.Spread 1 cup salsa in a 13x9-

inch baking dish.Place 1/4 cup chicken mixture

in center of each tortilla, then roll up. Place the tortillas, seam side down on salsa in baking dish. Top with remaining salsa and 1 cup cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 min-utes. Garnish with chopped black olives and sour cream.

Serves six elves or one Santa.

It is also good to know that Santa prefers a nice IPA or a frosty Bombay Sapphire martini with his snacks.

Just don’t tell Mrs. Claus!

Feeding Santa right at sats-fats510@mailstation.com

Jeffrey SmithYou better hurry: According to

the Mayan calendar the last day to do Christmas shopping will be Dec. 21. Go ahead and scoff; I did not believe it either until my daughter came home from Humboldt State; she filled me in whole conspiracy theory.

She says Humboldt students are facing a quandary: should they study for finals and miss the revelry of the Mayan Holy Week leading up to Armageddon; or not study for finals and find out too late that Kukulcan — the Oracle of Quetzalcoatl — was wrong in his prediction.

My dentist, Doctor H, claims that his patients are asking him if they should continue to floss right up until Dec. 21. Really, how much plaque can accrete in three weeks?

He’s saying we should never stop flossing — just what you’d expect from a dentist.

With so many calamities fac-ing us, it’s hard to pick which is the worst: the fiscal cliff, Christmas with the in-laws or Mayan oblivion.

Ancient Mayan astrophysicists calculated that we are on a collision course with a rogue planet from another cosmos.

Two theories dominate the debate: one, this incoming planet is the buckle off Orion’s belt; and two, it is a sandal off Aquarius — the right sandal or left sandal makes little difference; this planet is hurl-ing through space at nearly twice the speed of manifest destiny.

This maverick planet was aban-doned light years ago after the fos-sil fuels were depleted.

Imagine something hundreds of times bigger than the Titanic, operating at full throttle, but with no one at the helm — at least the Exxon Valdez had a Joe Hazelwood and a fifth of Seagram’s in the wheel house.

Some people are already taking precautions; my neighbor Clay is packaging everything he owns in bubble wrap; including his bowling trophy.

The scientific community is con-templating an exodus to an exo-planet: a planet beyond our solar system. Good luck with that one; two things they should think about before hopping the Star Shuttle.

Ignoring housing prices, what is the unemployment rate on this tar-get planet? And, what is the g-force on this little Shangri-La?

Would you want to live on a planet where you weighed 4,000 pounds?

If your sciatica and falling arches are bad at one g-force what will they be at 20 g’s?

Were it just the Mayans touting this theory, it could be dismissed as another Cosmic Prank like UC

It’s the End of the World as We Know itThe Mayan Debate: Will it be Apocalypse or Doomsday?

Review

Courtesy photo

Everyone knows calendars just start over when they’re done. But did the Mayans? Above is the Aztecs’ better-known copy of the original Mayan Calendar.

Santa Wants the Whole EnchiladaAlameda Epicure

Dennis Evanosky

Saint Nick Stays DryDennis Evanosky

The recent downpour did not dampen the holiday spirit at the tree lighting festivities held Dec. 1. Above, the Hernandez family joined Santa Claus and his helper under the cover of city hall’s entryway and out of the rain.

A festive performance by Alameda-based Dance/10’s Dancing Christmas Trees enlivened the evening. Other performances included music by the MistleTones and the Alameda Community Band. The city also welcomed skaters to its syn-thetic ice skating rink behind City Hall that night. The city announced all the holiday lights on the tree were converted to LEDs, a greener option, this year.

Tuition Hikes or the Shrapnel Fence around Historic Alameda High School, but even the Hopis are also prophesying that our shattered planet will form an third asteroid belt of flotsam, jetsam and Sam I am.

Talk about vengeance served cold — what did we ever do to the Hopis and could we please settle out of court?

Someday a Martian, sitting on his or her lanai, will look up into the night sky and see a “shooting star;” that mini-light show could be your family SUV, condo, your boat and trailer, or someone’s Franklin Mint collection entering the Martian ozone layer at Mach 22.

Warning: when the planet frag-ments, all cable connections will be severed.

Wireless reception will also suf-fer due to the dust hurricane and the zillions of ions kicked up the blistering heat: think of the Edison Effect and then multiply that by Avogadro’s number.

If the Humboldt exegesis is cor-rect, Mayan deities are also part of the grand scheme.

Prior to this cosmic fender-bender, the Aztecs and Mayans anticipate the Return of Xibalba — the Prince of UV Light.

Xibalba is not coming back to shake our hand and congratulate us on how well we sealed off the bor-der between Mexico and Arizona or fueled the Mexican Cartels.

Deities rarely come back unless they have grudges to settle: remem-ber what happened to Tyre, Sidon and Detroit, Michigan?

Face it, Xibalba has a score to settle; most likely over the Cortes-Montezuma caper; one thing is for certain: we cannot depend on

him for divine intersession so you might as well hang up the prayer beads and reach for the Greek worry beads and the Ouzo.

This is Montezuma’s Revenge on a much grander scale — as if we didn’t suffer enough after eat-ing semi-fresh seafood in Tijuana or sunbathing nude on top of the Moon Pyramid at Chichen Itza.

Can we survive living on an asteroid belt, should we be wor-ried?

As environmentalist’s like to say, “Every cloud has a sulfur lin-ing.”

If you anticipate Congress clos-ing the tax loophole for interest on your home mortgage; Xibalba could be your best friend.

Knowing you have until Dec.21 to experience a little joie de vivre, can also be liberating.

The 1400 Club is hosting a Mayan Calendar Party on Dec. 21; you can collectively raise a toast to Xibalba and Mike Cooper’s retire-ment at happy hour prices, just as the cosmic fireworks start to crescendo.

Oh, if you are presently earning a paycheck, here is a tax tip: stop paying withholding tax now. The IRS is never going to catch up with you if you’re thumbing your nose at them from Pisces while they are marooned on Scorpio. This tax tip is probably the reason the govern-ment does not want you to know about the Mayan Calendar; they’re completely fixated on that fiscal cliff.

Let’s not do anything rash while we are waiting for this to sort itself out — on the other hand, if you are shopping for Christmas, put all your purchases on your credit card — just to hedge your bets.

Jeffrey R Smith teaches math at Encinal High School.

Tongue in Cheek

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