Magma

Alas, there were so many things I was supposed to get done yesterday that I never did. I want to blame my laziness on recovering from the trip to Chicago, but I suspect it's really just laziness, pure and simple. We did go couch-hunting yesterday. One day somebody's going to have to explain to me why couches cost so much money. Especially the leather ones. I like leather furniture, sure, but I just can't imagine spending $4000 on it. In my mind, you'd have to live in a home free of pets, children and beverages to do that. Or just be really rich. Either one.

J and I have been watching lots of James Bond movies on the Spike channel since I got back. They are a kick in the pants. I hadn't seen You Only Live Twice in a while (it's the one with the volcano lair). I want to comment on its portrayal of Asian women as submissive, but then I remember that this is a Bond movie we're talking about, and you're lucky if the female characters can string a sentence together while brushing their hair. Sigh. It really makes me want to watch an Austin Powers movie. "He is the mongoose to my snake...or the snake to my mongoose...either way it's bad. I don't know animals."

We ride the blue line

What up? I just got back from a trip to Chicago with my Mom to see my brother, sister-in-law and their two boys. Those little guys are adorable. The three-year-old kept asking "Why?" to everything we said. "We're going back to the hotel." "Why?" "It's foggy outside." "Why?" "I'm your daddy's sister." "Why?" That really does tax one's brain to come up with a good answer for THAT question, let me tell you.
Right now, I'm actually feeling quite worn out from all the flying, train-riding, walking and following around a 16-month-old, so I shall just sign off and say that I had a great time, but it's also really good to be back home with the J and the Wubby. Ahh, yes.

Heartburn

Christmas Eve has arrived. Awesome. Tonight we're heading over to J's brother's house for a gift exchange and party. This is going to be a good one. How can I tell? Because we're taking the shrimp platter with 100 shrimp on it. There has never in the history of mankind been a party featuring the 100-count shrimp platter that didn't rule. You're risking a serious party foul with anything less than 50 shrimp.

I wonder if Lake Michigan is frozen?

It's Christmas Eve eve! Whoo! Oddly enough, the temperatures around here are starting to go up as Christmas approaches. The high today is about44. We haven't seen the 40's since November. Righteous. Normally I would hope for a white Christmas, but not this year. Bring on the freakish warm front.

Turns out I'm heading to Chicago next week with my Mom to see my brother and his family before they head back to Loooosiana. I'm not sure what we're going to do while we're there, but I'm campaigning for a trip to the rock'n'roll McDonald's. Yes...I'm...doing it for...the kids...

We even saw a Christmas manatee

J and I went to see the zoo lights last night and had a delightful time. Sure, it was only about 18 degrees outside and neither one of us had a hat, thus resulting in some very cold ears, but it was a delightful time. They sell hot chocolate and have fires going in barrels (we felt like hobos!), so they do their best not to have anybody go into hypothermia by the aquarium. The coolest thing was when all the wolves started howling in their pen. That was eerie.

The funniest thing was that in addition to the strings of lights in the trees and fences, the zoo also has lots of displays of lights in the shapes of animals in their zoo. As we were looking at all these displays, J pointed out that many of them weren't really Christmas-y. Like there was a bat, a couple hippos attacking each other, random stuff like that. So J started walking around yelling "Look, it's a Christmas crocodile!" and "It's the Christmas dragonfly!" One time, he said really loud "It's a Christmas spider!" and a woman walking the other way must have heard him, looked down at her toddler and said "Did you see the Christmas spider, honey?" That cracked us up.

They'll never get me alive!

Man, I'd forgotten how being home during the day requires an intricate plan to dodge solicitors and religious folks hurling pamphlets at your front door. I just completed a successful mission that required me to hide from two ladies by crouching beneath an upstairs window after belly-crawling up the stairs. Phew! That was a close one!

Yo, yo, girl. What up, yo?

Ughhhh...I'm so full of chocolate right now. We here in the library always bring in lots of treats the day before winter break, and this year it's a festival of the sweet, sweet temptress known as chocolate. We've got fudge, brownies, chocolate-covered pretzels, and boxes of chocolates. It is awesome. Even if I have no circulation in my legs because my waistband is so tight, I shall continue the bacchanalian gorging of candy. You have my word.

Oh, and when I woke up today, the temperature was 5 and the wind chill was minus 6. I don't want to go back out there!

Did anybody else see the Kathy Griffin special on Bravo last night? I think it was called Allegedly. She was doing this bit on Eminem and how short he is and how "ghetto" he likes to talk, and I was just dying it was so funny. She's so right: whenever I get around a white person who talks like that, I feel very awkward, too. It really is disconcerting.

A mutton, lettuce, tomato sandwich when the mutton is nice and lean

Let me tell you something, there is very little that's more annoying than scanning 30 drawings for a teacher then finding out your scanner had a smudge on it and having to do them all over again. Son of a triscuit. It's not that bad though, really. I mean, I only have to work two days this week. I'm on the gravy train.

I am so mad at myself for falling asleep during Family Guy last night. It featured Stewie, and those are usually my favorite ones. Damn you, internal clock! I'm not joking, one day my internal clock and I are going to have it out mano e mano. I mean really. Why make me fall asleep during one of my favorite programs then wake me up at 5:45 a.m. for no discernible reason? There's nothing going on at 5:45, I don't want to be up at 5:45, and, frankly, I think it confuses the Wubby J. because he thinks I'm going to get up and let him drink out of the bathroom faucet. Nobody's a winner.

In good news, however, I must tell you that a nice, vine-ripened tomato makes an everyday turkey sandwich something special. Give it a try.

Loopdid

I am sitting in front of the computer at home, and Wubby is presently sitting next to me on his cat tree with a real spastic look on his face. He's going to pounce on my chair any minute now, I can just feel it.

So we watched Fantastic Four on DVD last night. That's a fun movie. And that is about all the praise I can heap on it at this point because, obviously, Jessica Alba was in it. The absolute funniest part was when Johnny played the shaving cream trick on The Thing. Ha! If you watch it in the future, be sure to check out Johnny's expression. Hilarious.

Wubby is now on the 2nd tier of his cat tree clawing the bejeezus out of it. Watching him on these cold mornings is great. He's jumpier than a toad on a hot griddle.

Speaking of griddles, I am starving. I think it's time to go upstairs and drag J out of bed so we can go get some breakfast. I got a hankering for waffles.

Fa la la la la la la la laaaaaaaaa

I took yesterday afternoon off to use up the last of my vacation time and got some good shopping done. I felt very productive. I also feel very poor now, but that's what Christmas is really all about. Just as an aside, I have noticed over my years of watching Christmas specials on tv that there are about 3942 "true meanings of Christmas." I mean, really. If I had a nickel for every time someone on a soap opera said "and that's what Christmas is really all about," I'd have a Faberge egg habit like Barney. And Christmas is never "really all about" the same thing precisely, but it does seem to fall into a few major categories: giving, family, sacrifice, parties and crying so hard snot runs out of your nose because your baby almost died and then was saved by a blood transfusion from your best friend who's secretly in love with you. Wow, this sounds really cynical. I actually love Christmas and this time of year, I promise. I guess I just find the Days of our Lives version of it to be a little over the top.

More importantly, however, I found the best sweater at Forever XXI yesterday. It's a camel-colored hoodie with a gold, sparkly fleur-de-lis on the back. Is it possible to love a sweater?

It's so cold there your eyelashes freeze together

Son of a. I just wrote a long post, but the computer couldn't "locate the server," and it just disappeared. Why I oughta. I guess this is somebody's way of telling me nobody wants to hear about the weather today. But I don't care; it's really snowy out there! The drive into work today was quite treacherous. It was that kind of snow that's really wet (as J put it, the kind of snowball that turns to ice before it hits the intended target), so it was slush central, my friends.

The city I've lived in that's been the best at dealing with snow was Rochester. They were good. I was in college for four winters there, and they only shut down school once and that was because an actual glacier moved in at 7 a.m. one day. Rochesterians have got to be some of the toughest people in the country. You'd see them shovelling their driveways in the dark, with temperatures below zero, and then walking to 7-11 for a slurpee. That's tough, I don't care who you are.

I, too, have got legs

Did anybody else see Bones last night? I was pleasantly surprised to see the guitarist from ZZ Top in it as Angela's father. It was so random...so odd yet so cool. All I can figure is that one of the writers, producers or actors must actually know him and they talked him into appearing in the show. ZZ Top. I used to love them back in the 80's. I liked the music, the videos were cool (I especially liked the one where the three ZZ Topettes gave the girl a makeover), they could twirl their guitars in circles, but what I always remember the most is that silver keychain shaped like "ZZ" from the one video. See, I have always been distracted by shiny things.

March of the Wubbies

Alisa, you asked for it. Wubbiss!! He's awful cute but these pictures where his eyes turn glowing green kind of freak me out. Lately he's been sleeping on the bed down near our feet, so he's sustained many an inadvertent kick to the head lately. Poor cat. On the up side, however, he's been eating like a king. We have discovered he's a big fan of turkey neck and Arby's roast beef. Mmm...I'm getting nauseous.

Waking up with Whiskey would be a cool name for a band

I have begun a new habit of whipping up an epicurean delight each morning when I get to work. No, seriously. It's really not fancy or anything--just making a cup of low-fat hot chocolate (to ease the guilt of having what is essentially candy that early in the day) and throw some French vanilla coffee in there. It's my mocha. It's delicious. I never used to drink much coffee when I was younger, but it was like the minute I turned 30... WHAMMO!, had to have coffee every morning just to get my eyelids propped up. It sort of disturbs me that I'm dependent on the coffee now, but then I think about the people who drink 2 pots of coffee a day and wash each cup down with a cigarette, and I don't feel so bad.

Return of the mack...once again!

Did The Brothers Grimm stink? Cause I'm intrigued and am considering renting it on DVD, but I would hate to waste $4 on it if it's completely terrible. I saw that Matt Damon got married this weekend. And I find that I really don't care. In fact, the more screen time an actor had in Ocean's Eleven seems to have an inverse proportion to how much I like them now. Curious.

"But, Dad, I'm Jesus Christ!"

J went out last night and shovelled the driveway figuring that when the sun came out today, it would all melt away, leaving the driveway in pristine condition. But guess what? It's snowing right now. He's going to be so mad when he wakes up.

I saw that Richard Pryor died this weekend. That's too bad. I never really got to see any of his wild, edgy work when he was all coked up back in the 70's. I'm a child of the 80's, so I remember Richard Pryor in things like Brewster's Millions and that one where he's blind and Gene Wilder is deaf. I don't know if the studios toned him down or if he just got calmer as he got older, but when I hear these things about him being really avant-garde at one point, I'm like "Whu?" To me, it would be like hearing Bill Cosby used to beat up hobos for fun. Incongruous!

Baby otters are surprisingly fluffy

I am very, very thankful today that my Mom and I decided to not visit Chicago this weekend to see my brother and his family. Don't get me wrong, we still want to go, but as my Mom and I were both sick this week, we decided to put it off until a later time. And then I turn on the news this morning and see that a Southwest (airline we were going to fly) plane slid off the runway at Midway (the airport we were going to fly into) and smashed into a car (we probably would have been in a car at some point). I'm sure it was all the snow and sub-freezing temperatures they were having at the time, but I still don't like the idea of being anywhere near a plane that eschews landing at the airport and opts for residential areas instead. Not good!

As I was telling Arisa this morning, I had an interesting dream last night that I was watching a young, Armenian man find an apartment in New York City. He found a place above the grocery store where he worked bagging groceries. So then he came home from work one night and found that his closet was actually magical and wizards were popping out left and right, shooting purple sparks everywhere and causing all sorts of trouble. And they were having a horrible time because the poor guy only spoke Armenian and the wizards were British. What a pickle.

It's Friday! Rejoice!

#3 on my list of good reasons to have a man around

I had to run to the store last night to get a couple things, and as I was leaving, J offered to come with me. My senses were immediately on red alert because J hates grocery shopping, so I asked him why he was offering, and he said he thought I might need some help. I replied that I actually only want him to come shopping with me when I buy lots of stuff so he can help me carry the bags. Now, that may have sounded mean, but I realized as I was perusing the Christmas candy at Kroger that it's also very honest. Back when I was single, I would seriously buy things at the store based on their weight because I didn't want to have to carry them myself. Back then, I always bought the smallest box of Tide (even though I knew I was getting a worse deal), bananas instead of apples (they're lighter!) and a maximum of one 12-pack of pop because I couldn't figure out a good way to carry two from my car to my apartment. But nowadays, I buy the big boxes of everything. If J doesn't come with me to the store, I will pull up in the driveway, grab the bag with the chips and paper towels from the trunk and pull him away from his computer to carry the heavy stuff inside. I know it's not very liberated of me, but there you go.

My brain has a mind of its own

I'm having one of those days where everything I say seems to come out in the wrong tone of voice. In my head, it sounds normal before I say it, but then when I open my mouth, it's like neurons are misfiring left and right. For instance, I was talking to my coworker about the forecasted snow for tomorrow night, and I said "3 to 6 inches!" in a very accusatory tone when I meant to sound amazed. And when I told J that I was going to fix our cereal this morning, it sounded as though I was devastated about it. What the? Is my uvula paralyzed? The good news is that nobody's said anything to me...I assume because people sort of expect me to say bizarre things, so they're not even noticing. This eccentric reputation I've built up really has its advantages!

I have reached my Stefani saturation point

I read yesterday that Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck named their daughter Violet. Which is, oddly enough, the same thing my coworker named her pet hamster. Huh.

And I'm flummoxed because Fox isn't showing House or Bones tonight to air the Billboard Music Awards or some such nonsense. Didn't they already show this on tv? Or was that the American Music Awards? It's the same thing! Can't they just meld them together so I can watch my programs? C'mon!

Don't get on the treadmill drunk, people

I'm scared. We're planning on going to the post office over lunch so I can mail a package to Poppy. Last time I went to the post office near Christmas, I had to wait so long that my blood pressure actually made my eyeballs pulse. I just wish somebody would do a study to determine why lines at the post office and the DMV are so stinking slow. Maybe one day Microsoft will buy the postal service and then it'll all be computerized and take about 3 seconds to ship a package to Norfolk. That would rule.

I'm feeling much better today. I believe I have a slight inner ear infection because Saturday and Sunday was spent with the room spinning every once in a while. Gnarly. I went to the gym yesterday and did a leisurely pace on the stationary bike, but I made the mistake of looking up at the tv quickly, and that made me get dizzy and I almost fell right off the back of the seat. Which would have been really funny to somebody watching, I must admit. Makes me think of the time I was at the gym at my old apartment complex, and a guy got on the treadmill and started to jack up the pace really high. Well, he apparently set it way too fast, because once it really started going, he couldn't keep up and zoomed off the back of it and crashed into the wall. He was fine, but I had to bite my lip off to keep from laughing. I am so mean.

I'm not a witch, I'm your wife!

Didja miss me? Anyone? Bueller? I had to take a sick day yesterday. The throat is getting ugly. I won't go into more detail than that, but suffice it to say that I asked J to take a look at my throat last night, and when he shined the flashlight down there, his first reaction was "Oh man." That is not reassuring. But I rested a lot yesterday, read about 450 pages in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (I fly through those books like a hot knife through butter!), and talked to the Wubby J. about pressing international matters such as Canadian politics, depletion of natural resources in South America and why Hello Kitty is so popular in Japan. Wubby didn't understand that either. Today I am going to rally and try to get some more Christmas shopping done. Let us hope that Easton doesn't kill me.

Return of the Black Stallion

I don't know what it is, but the episodes of Lost that center around Kate never seem as good as others. It's probably because the more I find out about her, the less I like her. What the heck was she doing making a shishkabob out of her stepdad because she didn't like him "being a part" of her?? Uhh...I don't like it that I'm nearsighted, but I'm not going to gouge out my parents' eyeballs about it. Geesh. Way to overreact, Kate. I actually thought it was kind of funny seeing her flip out in the jungle like she did. I'm still maintaining my theory that something on the island is trying to drive the survivors crazy.

I liked the scenes with Michael, Mr. Eko, Locke and Jack however. No, Jack, not all women are crazy. Just the ones who go around shooting people. You might want to reconsider dating chicks who have killed a minimum of two people. I'm just saying.

What did you guys think of it?