SS: These are the good years for Jim and me. Two weeks ago I sent Jim off to the grocery store for milk and bread and he came back with a bag of groats and a coconut which he tried to open with a hammer, and a screwdriver and couldn't and so it's been sitting there for a couple weeks and I made a casual remark that it reminds me a lot of our marriage, which I didn't mean as a criticism, you have to take it in context, which I forget what that was, but anyway, Jim got all huffy. And that night I found him sitting at the kitchen table writing(TYPEWRITER). Jim, what are you doing?
TR: I'm working on our holiday letter, Barb.
SS: Our holiday letter? Jim, we gave up on that a long time ago.
TR: We gave up on it because it was all sugar-coated but this year I'm letting it all spill out. All my feelings. My turmoil. My crisis.
SS: Crisis? What crisis? Let me see that--(PICKS UP PAPER) Jim what is this? (READING) The heart is a lonely jaguar up in the limb of a juniper tree, waiting to pounce. I roam the wilderness of my life, filled with pent-up needs for which there are no words, but I am a jaguar so you wouldn't understand me anyway." -- A jaguar, Jim?
TR: I'm just being honest to myself.
SS: (READING) Oh, 2008, you have shaken me upside down and taken my pants-- but I can breathe, I am free, and as soon as I bring down an antelope and feed on its great haunch, I will have new life-" -- Jim, this is just going to confuse people.
TR: It's time people know the truth.
SS: Jim you can't send this.
TR: Of course I can, Barb. I've got the stamps right here.
SS: Jim, if you send this letter I am changing my name and dying my hair black and moving to Texas. Okay?
TR: Barb-
SS: So if that's what you want, Jim, go ahead and send that letter. Up to you.
TR: The truth will set you free, Barb.
SS: You're going to be free of a lot of things if you send that letter, Jim. You're going to find out the dark side of freedom. It's called loneliness.
TR: Barb, what are you afraid of--
SS: I'm afraid you're not getting enough ketchup.
TR: Oh?
SS: Ketchup contains natural mellowing agents that help us see that just because we think something doesn't mean we should say it out loud.
(THEME)
RD (SINGS)
These are the good times
For singing Christmas ballads
And playing our xylophone
With little wooden mallets
Life is flowing
Like ketchup on fruit salad
GK: Ketchup, for the good times.
RD: Ketchup, ketchup.