Dec
10
December 10, 2006
I’m sitting at my computer right now watching a page of holiday-themed mailing labels slowly disgorge from the printer’s stuttering maw, and I’m thinking, since when did I become the type of person who uses holiday-themed labels on their cards? I even agonized over the freaking typeface on these things (Edwardian script for the family name, Copperplate for the address. If you were wondering. Which I am sure you were NOT), and I probably need an intervention because surely this is a sign of Christmas Insanity and the next thing you’ll know I’ll be buying those plastic containers of candied fruits in order to bake my very own fruitcake.
(I like fruitcake, by the way. I realize I’m in the minority here, and I don’t blame you for not wanting to deal with a cherry that requires fifteen solid minutes of vigorous chewing, but what can I say, I find something strangely comforting about a fruitcake’s Plutonian density.)
Every year I sort of enjoy the process of putting together holiday cards up to a point, and then I feel resentful that I’m addressing card after card for members of JB’s family I barely know, while my own family requires pretty much only two stamps in total.
“Here,” I eventually snarl, “You write something.”
JB: “Well I don’t know what to write.”
Me: “How about Merry Fucking Christmas? Jesus.”
Happy goddamn golden days of yore, that’s our household.
We got our tree this weekend, out at the same tree farm in Issaquah we went to last year. Last year it was all snow-covered and wintery and picturesque, this year it was just kind of muddy. JB manfully sawed it down while I annoyed him by yelling “TIMBERRRRR”. I pondered a follow-up informative shout such as “FORE!” or “GOALLL!” or “LET’S GET READY TO RUMMMMBBLE!” but I wasn’t sure what was most seasonally-appropriate.
So far Riley hasn’t been too interested in the tree, although he was greatly intrigued by his father assembling the tree stand in the backyard. We hung the lights and ornaments and I am quite pleased by the tree’s presence. Every December I feel as though the Christmas tree adds so much character and festivity to the household I don’t understand why we don’t keep trees inside year-round, just switching up the decor by season. Spring trees with dangling ceramic bunnies and Peeps-on-a-string! Summer trees with ornaments shaped like watermelon slices and beach balls! Fall trees with real leaves and tiny pumpkins!
Except I guess no one wants to deal with pine needles twelve months out of the year. I tracked some into bed last night and I have pitch in my hair.
JB and I also managed to get out on our own for a bit on Friday night because daycare was hosting a “Parent’s Night”. We ate a leisurely, fattening dinner at the Yarrow Bay Grill, and do you know who had to do the dishes afterwards? NOT ME THAT’S WHO. Huzzah!
Today I plan to finish up a freelance article, wrap a present or two, and maybe buy some holiday-themed stamps for our cards (what? I’ve already got the labels…). JB and I have a couple of movies to watch, and Riley will probably spend a good part of the evening engrossed in his favorite new activity: spinning in circles, laughing hysterically, then falling flat on his face.
Pictures!
Okay, your turn. What did you do this weekend?
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Your Aunt L and Mom are hilarious. “Eat and shit, Eat and shit” Haaaah.
Hope y’all enjoy your cruise!
This weekend flew by, and I don’t know what the hell I did. I need to think about it for a second.
Okay. ON Friday night by BFF and I went to see The Holiday which was super cute and super chickflicky. Just what I wanted. I would reccomend it to anyone wanting to relax in an estrogen rich environment.
On Saturday I cannot for the life of me think of anything I did. Well, ala Mom and Aunt L I probably did eat and shit, eat and shit. Uhmm….hahah sorry.
On Sunday I took E to our playgroup Christmas party and it was fun. They had a St. Bernard dog and I thought E would be afraid of the BEAR, but nope. He snuggled up. That dog was HUGE, but sweet.
We aren’t doing a tree, as we will be traveling soon.
Shame.
I stayed in bed all weekend (and not for a good reason), I had a fever and my throat was all swollen. Thank god for my friends who called me and brought me drugs and juice. Being sick in bed in Hawaii is pretty crappy, you feel crappy and outside it is in the 80s, sunny, with light variable breezes. Now here I sit sweating out the last of it (I hope). Hopefully
We set up our Christmas tree, which made me supremely happy, as this is the first full-sized tree I’ve had in New York City since I moved here almost ten years ago. Finally, tall ceilings! Our OWN apartment! It also made me happy that there is a Tree Guy just half a block from our apartment, so my husband only had to carry an 8-foot frazer (frasier? frazier? gah) fir on his shoulder for about 80 yards. I also made some exceedingly tasty ginger pumpkin bread, AND made dinner, all in the same 24 hour period. And we played Trivial Pursuit while listening to Sinatra and Bing Crosby croon Christmas tunes.
Man. I love this time of year. (Happy sigh!) I hope we get to bring our daughter home by Christmas next year (we’re adopting from Vietnam) so we can share it with her, too!
This is my first comment, though I’ve followed your blog on and off for a few years. I just started a new job at the Borg and walked by JB this morning. It took me a minute to catalog through my memories of high school, college, and the 14 million jobs I’ve had before I realized I don’t even know the man — I just know him from your pictures. So I refrained from saying hello, not wanting to give him blog-stalker paranoia. I usually work from home, so he shouldn’t be seeing some weird chick eyeing him in the hallways (at least not more than he normally does).
Have you been approached by any of your readers? Does it wig you out? I have been approached by people who follow my site before, but we’re a pretty tight community so it seems inevitable that I would meet them eventually.
Hey Steph – that is awesome. You should have hissed, “I’VE SEEN YER PICTURE ON THE INTERWEB” at him as you walked by. Heh. I think I’ve only met one reader at random, this very nice person who I (O THE SHAME) inexplicably handed my camera to because I thought she was offering to take our photo (we were downtown, I was taking pictures…I have no explanation for this, really); as long as I don’t make a total dork out of myself (yeah RIGHT) I imagine it would always be fun to meet someone.
Unless they stabbed me with a pen or something, and yelled “Now you know what a STINGRAY feels like!”
in that last photo, do those four candles have angels over them that the heat from the candles causes them to spin around and little metal rods hanging from them ring bells beneath them as they fly by? Man, where’d you find that? I haven’t scene one of those since I was a kid!
I jetsetted to Miami to look at art. Is it technically jetsetting if you fly coach?
I blew the Atkins diet out of the water with a steak dinner which was accompanied by lots of bread, flatbread, and potatoes.
Saturday, I baked about a million Christmas cookies with my friend and then we went to a bar that is so festively decorated it looks like Christmas threw-up all over it. While in the bar, a bar crawl of guys dressed as Santa started to come in and the door guys were going to make them stand outside in line….then EVERYONE in the bar started chanting “LET SANTA IN! LET SANTA IN! LET SANTA IN!”” It was hysterical, and they finally let every last Santa in the door (there was even a drunk Jewish Santa, with a blue outfit and a dreidel around his neck). The drunk Santas were all kinds of festive.
Oh dear. You linked to my blog that I haven’t updated in 13 days! I had a very fast internal debate when I saw you downtown. I didn’t want to freak you out, but I thought I’d kick myself if I didn’t say hi. :)
This weekend I didn’t do anything. My husband, on the other hand, was an extra in that WTO movie they were filming downtown. He got to pepper spray a crowd. He was actually there for real in 1999 because his National Guard unit was deployed after the police and demonstrators got too rowdy. He had a ton of fun “acting” and made some money. I’m kind of jealous of the experience (I was home with the baby) but I am NOT jealous of the 4:30 am wake-up call on Sat and Sun.
Parents Night… what a sweet idea! I love it! Remind me of this if I ever lose my mind and start a day care.
This weekend I hosted a scrapbooking party (out of guilt), and hence spent numerous hours cleaning, and baking cookies. The end.
Wow. We all have such different lives, and yet we gather here, on your blog. And then we all have something in common.
Personally, I’d be thrilled to get one of those KodakGallery.com holiday cards dressed up with a nice “happy family” photo… and the message “Merry Fucking Christmas” scrawled across the bottom in some disturbing font. Guaranteed: that’d go front and center on our mantle.
Well I spent friday laying on the couch because I had the flu. In all honesty the layers of dried sweat pretty much had me glued there anyway. Saturday started nice with some sleeping in, but quickly spiraled into a hellscape of shopping evil. After much isle moshing and general consumer on consumer violence I decided to go shoot a video idea I had in mind for YouTube. But when I stopped by my brothers apartment to use the john I was informed that my families yearly tree decorating tradition was in a half hour. Since I’m lucky enough to be the black sheep, no one had bothered to mention it to me. Even though the rest of those holiday cheer filled traitors had known for weeks.
So off I went to the house where I helped cook and clean and went out to fetch a tree from WalMart. And after a shameless display of gluttony I helped hang the lights, slapped up some ornaments, and headed off to finally shoot my video. Whe I got to my friends house to shoot, his monsters were out of control. I just don’t understand why some people refuse to beat their children. I never did get to shoot the damn thing, but I did watch “Taladega Nights” and drank a small childs worth of beer.
Sunday consisted of mainly surfing the internet, and hoping the sensation coming from the area between my hair and my socks was just a hangover, and not my internal organs liquifying. Turns out it was just a hangover. Now I’m getting ready to work five more days so I can do it all over again.
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Excuse, and what you think concerning forthcoming elections?
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Recently one of my friends started an obsession with the actor Nicholas Cage (mostly because their names are both Nicholas – sounds strange but he is strange and that isn’t the point). After asking around the rest of my friends he seems to be a very controversial figure.
What does the forum think? do you love the all action superhero? Or do you hate the droning voice of the man who does nothing but action shooters?
What time do you normally go to bed?
My bed times have been all over the place for the last year basically. When I was working last summer I had to get up really early (about 4.45am) because my job was an early start so I would go to bed about 9pm, 10pm at the latest. Then when I went to college and moved away from my parents house my bed times went crazy and I was going to bed at like 1am or 3am and now I’m back home for the summer but working a later shift in my job my bed times are pretty late, average about 1am.
What about everyone else?
How many times you eat during a normal … every day life?
are you the type of person who eats a bit and often?
or rarely and too much?
i usually have 3 and i’m the 2nd type of person (though it’s not that healthy)
8 am breakfast
3pm lunch
9pm a snack.
What would you do if the internet crashed for good? Would you get used to life with less communication and less “being connected” or would you be pretty bummed for the rest of your life?
This is assuming it was not fixed. Perhaps some largescale EMP attack or something that crippled it for the next 50+ years or so.