Christmas 2005

Well we survived. Of course, we didn't manage to decorate our tree until yesterday, but who's counting?

Christmas Eve took us to JD's house for prime rib (yummy), lots of sides, and the chocolate port wine cake I bought for my brother's birthday (yummy again).

Christmas morning was pretty mellow. Bug was most interested in chewing on the wrapping paper, but seeing as how she is 9 months old, that makes sense. Santa brought me what I asked for (t shirts and knitting books). After that, we drove to Doof's house to fetch her Christmas dinner. No more toys for her. This year, at age almost 12, we got her ipod accessories. Three hours of Christmas at BIL/W's house felt more like thirty, but that's pretty typical. Then it was off to Grandma's to exchange gifties and then home. G's sister gave me the equivalent of crack for Christmas -- a cookie jar full of small peanut butter cookies, each topped with a Hershey kiss. Yummy. They are gone now. I didn't even have to share because G doesn't like peanut butter cookies. Also gone is the Uncle Jeff famous chocolate chip banana bread. It made for quite a few tasty breakfasts.

It only got really awkward when various people decided to ask my brother and me fairly ridiculous questions since we were, as always, the only people there who grew up Jewish. For example, "if you hang blue lights outside your house, does that mean you are Jewish?" Perhaps the people with the lights just like the color blue. Perhaps the blue lights were on sale. If only we had thought to respond with, "I don't know. If you spell out your initials in contrasting tile in your bathroom, are you an idiot?" Yes, they did that in one of their upstairs bathrooms.

Otherwise, there's not much to report. We made it through the holidays and no one got hurt, unless you count G spraining his ankle at basketball on Wednesday night.

Oh and on a totally unrelated note, here is a story from today's paper that amused me.

I Don't Understand People

I really don't. While feeding the child, I turned on the television and watched in horror as Tammi Menendez told the whole world how much she loves her husband, Erik (you know the guy who, with his brother, murdered his parents) and how she thinks it's perfectly ok to bring her daughter to see him in prison every weekend. She couldn't say enough how she saw this as death to us part stuff and so forth. Yikes. Then there was this model talking about how her modeling agency told her (when she was 14) that she would be a great model if she would lose 50 pounds. So she did. And they told her she looked great when she was 5'9" and about 96 pounds. Good for her that she figured it out on her own that this wasn't a good thing and she has put on some weight and is now a plus-size model. When asked what size a plus-size model wears, she said 10-12 or bigger. Yikes again. Last time I checked, 10-12 sounds like the size of a regular, human girl. But what do I know?

But the news that bothered me most this morning was this. Who could possibly think that would be a good idea? It's just cruel.

Oh and please send warm thoughts to Wayne Gretzky because his mommy passed away last night.

Gollum Drives a Lexus

It's true. And I don't even mean my brother-in-law, although he drives one too and is apparently in the market for a new one. But I digress.

Bug and I drove north to fetch Doof on Friday so she could spend the weekend with us like she usually does. Doof and her mom live 40 miles north of us. The drive north was unremarkable. As promised, I had Doof call her dad to let him know we were on our way home. She was telling him about the party her class had thrown that day when I screamed at her to give me the phone.

Why did I do this? Because the license plate and frame on the car in front of us read:

My own...My
THE1RNG
Preciousssssss

And her dad needed to know about it. Immediately.

It's times like those when I really wish I had a camera phone.

Job Hunting Sucks

On Friday, I had an interview with a small law firm in the city. It was pretty clear that it was not the job for me. The firm agreed, because yesterday I got the ding letter, dated Friday. Well, I will give them this, they are prompt and at least they bothered to send the letter. I'm still waiting to hear from a firm with which I interviewed about six weeks ago.

So why am I annoyed? Well, this was the letter they sent:

"Dear Ms. L____.: (Please note the extra period before the colon.)

Thank you for your recent application for our associate position. Although I was impressed with your credentials, attitude, and professionalism, I believe another individual would more closely match our needs. (How nice to know that my attitude impresses people. This is not the "we chose someone else for the job" language. Rather, it's much more the "you suck and we are going to keep looking" language, as he made it clear that they had just started their search.)

I wish you all the best in your future endeavors, and success in your job hunt. (And to think that I am usually the one accused of using too many commas.)

Sincerely,
Joe A. Lawyer, Esq." (Impressed with your own title much? Most attorneys I know don't waste their time signing letters with "esq." after their names.)

Jerk.

Sometimes, I Really Hate People

Following in the footsteps of the Angry Piper, this is my effort to complain about people. I'm just having one of those days. Given that today is the third anniversary of the day my dad died, I'm not in the greatest mood. I had thought I might blog about the evils and dangers of smoking, but I'll save that for later. Instead, I'll just honor my dad in the way I have the last couple of years -- by partaking of the most disgustingly decadent chocolate dessert I can find. Or a hot fudge sundae, but I'll have to eat it the way he did. He was known for eating the ice cream first (i.e. out from under the hot fudge). I also have the head cold that won't die and I'm currently in the process of coughing up my left lung. So not fun for me.

Since I still don't have a job, I am playing stay at home mommy and watching far too much television. Today, it's a marathon of Project Runway. In the last episode, the contestants were charged with redesigning the uniforms for postal workers. While watching it, I think to myself, the mail should be here, so I'll go out and fetch. Wouldn't you know, there was the lady delivering the mail. So I tried to wait for her to just take it from her, rather than make her dodge Aragog the spider's web, squeeze through past the minivan, and get to the mailbox. See, I was trying to be helpful. Her response, dripping with disdain was "could you please try to stay away from me with your cold, ma'am." Gee, now the postal workers are talking down to me. Boy, I must be a real loser. So I went back inside, muttered some non-g rated words under my breath, and sat down to blog.

There was nothing compelling in today's mail. Drat.

Ok, off to fetch some chocolatey goodness.

My Baby Is Clearly Insane

...but that is to be expected with me as her mom. She is learning how to roll to get from one place to another. This is not necessarily crazy behavior, but it is a bit strange to find her hanging out under the coffee table. And her favorite toys as of late are my watch, an empty plastic water bottle, and a bag of potato chips. She's not interested in the chips. She just likes the sounds the bag makes when she grabs it. Or chews on it. Apparently, we don't need the living room full of toys.

But she's incredibly cute, so I can't complain too much.