Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

String art

I recently gave somebody the unoriginal advice "You need to take care of yourself first."

The advice isn't bad, or wrong, but it is simplistic, since you can't ignore the effect that taking care of yourself first might have on others. It's those damn connections...

I was thinking of string art. We're the nails, and the threads are wound around, connected, forming cool patterns but being knotted or frayed or otherwise messed up.

I know so many people who aren't happy right now. I can't help, or don't know how to help, so I'm just worrying about them and making up stupid analogies. String art, indeed.

Happy New Year. Really. I wish you all health, peace, and happiness.

For there is nothing half so glorious

As to see our team victorious!

Terps Finish Like Champs: Defense Dominates, Offense Clicks in U-Md.'s Bowl Win

Maryland 24, Purdue 7

I don't follow Big 10 at all, so I really didn't know what to expect from the Boilermakers. I just turned on the game steeled for the worst, because, well, the Terps didn't exactly finish the season strong, and I try to avoid crushing disappointment by expecting crushing disappointment.

Instead, the Terps played probably the best I've seen them play in years. About the only thing that irked me the whole game was ESPN: did every freaking trivia question and color story have to be about Purdue? Yeah, I know Bob Griese was in the booth, but it was crazy. (Why can't they have Boomer call a Terps game once in a while?) In the fourth quarter, only six minutes or so left, Maryland clearly in control, the announcers called the play of the game as Purdue's one touchdown pass. Had I not been so pleased with the outcome, I might have thrown something at the TV.

I'm no huge Paul Maguire fan, but at least he kept pointing out that hey, Maryland was looking pretty good. (He may have just been trying to give Griese a hard time, but I'll take any love I can get.)

Anyway, Maryland's win, even if it was one of those dorky non-BCS bowl games, is another nice present for me.

Not bad/Bad

Working this week wasn't so bad. I had a few business-as-usual, poor-planning-on-somebody-else's-part-constitutes-an-emergency-on-my-part issues, but mostly I got caught up on things at a leisurely pace, I wore jeans, and I got to play the radio.

To show you what a nasty, awful, petty person I am, though...when I heard that federal offices were going to be closed Tuesday for President Ford's funeral, my first thought was "No fair, now they get an extra day off."

I am a bad person.

My next thought was "Well, at least traffic won't be so bad Tuesday."

I am a bad person.

I'm also still regretting that I was too lazy to fill out the SF-171 when I moved back to D.C. 14 years ago. No, I had to go quasi-governmental...all of the bureaucracy, none of the days off.

See?

I can not be unhappy when I'm surrounded by sock monkeys.

I do this every year

"Oh sure, I'll work the week between Christmas and New Year's."

Then it's December 26, and the rest of the world appears to be sleeping in or shopping for deeply discounted wrapping paper. I'm in my office freezing (because they turn the heat off over the long weekend) wishing I was home in my sock monkey pajamas (with my new sock monkey slippers) drinking tea and watching one of my new DVDs, or reading a new book.

I did get a fair amount done today (especially since I was interupted only once by a request from a customer). But I want to wear my sock monkey slippers.

Hmmm.

I wonder if that would be relaxing the holiday dress code too far?

As the commercials say: priceless

Had a nice quiet Christmas Eve dinner with my parents tonight, and I'm enormously grateful.

My mom spent the day at the hospital with my grandmother, who took ill late last night after the big family party. After hours in the ER being tested and CAT scanned, my grandma got to go home (diagnosed with just an infection) and mom still had time to make dinner, even.

I was plenty prepared to step in and make dinner, of course. But if my grandmother had been admitted to the hospital, I'm not sure I'd have been able to eat. It's just...she's 84, she's got a list of medical issues as long as my arm and she's on a truckload of (not conflicting, I'm praying) drugs. Last night at the party I had multiple "I'm worried about her" conversations with the aunts, uncles, and cousins...

...yeah, I think I'll just leave it here. Grandma back home ok, normal dinner, best present I could get.

In which I lose it at the mall

We went to the mall this morning. It wasn't terribly crowded, and we really went just to eat breakfast at the diner (well, the restaurant is styled like a diner...I don't suppose a real diner could be at the mall). Since we were there we did end up stopping by Macy's to see if they had a kitchen thing I'm looking for.

What Macy's had, everywhere in the store, was racks and racks of stuffed Snoopy dolls. Hundreds of Snoopys, in some special holiday costume. You could not miss Snoopy.

My late aunt, I think I mentioned several times last summer, was a huge Snoopy fan. Every Christmas, this is just the type of thing that we would get her.

I stopped and picked up a Snoopy. It felt like it was made of chenille; I've never felt a softer stuffed animal. This Snoopy would have definitely had a place of honor in my aunt's collection.

And this is where I lost it in the mall.

I didn't make a spectacle of myself; I didn't wail and bury my face in the plush Snoopy, but I did stand next to the rack with tears streaming down my face.

Maybe next year the Christmas Snoopy will make me smile as he triggers happy memories, but this year all I could do was cry because my aunt isn't here to get the Snoopy.

Call me

I'm not the only one at work who's not thrilled with this year's Christmas bonus. That's not to say we aren't being productive...today we had a group project.

That group project involved figuring out how to download ringtones to my new cell phone.

I need to give more people my number, because now when it rings: Tubular Bells.

Bah, humbug

For the last several years, long about mid-December, the big boss at work has sent an e-mail saying "Happy holidays! Have an extra day of vacation on us!"

And there was much rejoicing.

This year, mid-December became later December with no announcement. A friend of mine who works in the building with the big shots pointed out to me that there are new people in some of those big positions. Timesheets are due tomorrow, and we haven't gotten the gift of the extra day, so I figure it's time to abandon hope.

The first couple years, the bonus day gave me a giant sigh of relief...finally, wiggle room. I could get the cooking done without having to stay up past midnight. I didn't have to wrap presents just minutes before gifting them. More time...the best present ever.

This year, I was stupid, and it's my own fault...I planned with the extra day off in mind. My mental agenda for Friday did not include being at my desk, and now I'm screwed.

I'm trying not be bitter. I wasn't ripped off...nobody ever promised us this extra day. I'm not sure if it's upper management's way of putting coal in our stockings 'cos we've been bad boys and girls, or if it's just a sign of belt-tightening to come (we didn't get our usual cheesy company-logo'd present, either, come to think of it).

But now I'll be up late tomorrow, fighting the nasty traffic on the way to the hockey game Friday, and up at dawn on Saturday, and it's taken some of the jingle out of my mood.

News flash

Holiday stress hits women harder

This story was on the radio this morning as Victor and I drove to work. His idea of a solution was that women should approach holiday planning more like men, so we wouldn't stress.

That would lead to another headline: Convenience Stores Implode As Millions Attempt Dec. 24 Shopping Sprees

Yeah, I don't usually resort to gender-based stereotypes...just when the stereotypes actually represent the truth in my own personal life.

I do wonder, if my grandmother-mother-aunts-sister-and-I said "Hey, you guys are on for next Christmas," what the result would be.

With my own family, my stress is minimal. (It's all delegated to my sister.) I save my stomach-knotting for worrying about whether the presents I got for Victor's family are ok and whether they are making fun of me behind my back and am I going to spill guacamole all over the rug and trip over the cat.

Well, now that I think about it, I do worry a little about whether my sister's stress or my mother's stress or somebody else's stress will cause some stressful incident leading up to or actually breaking through at the big family holiday thing. That's meta-stress.

Oh, and I'm concerned that my staff will think I'm thoughtless because all I got them was impersonal gift cards.

And the timing of the cooking for the party has me a little nervous.

And I just got a card from somebody I didn't send one to, and I'm afraid he's going to be able to tell by the timing of the mail that I only sent one after I got his.

I love this laid-back time of year.

Christmas meme

I found this over at Ted's, and a bunch of other Munuvians have done it as well. I actually copied the questions and answered before I really read them, so I wouldn't be influenced. I'll go read the others now.

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate?
Y'know, I have never understood the appeal of egg nog. It's like drinking raw scrambled egg. I'm not a particular fan of hot chocolate either, but I'd take it over egg nog in a heartbeat.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Wrapped. I'm really not good at wrapping, though, so now it's usually gift bags. If I can find bags that become part of the present (like some colorful knapsacks I found for my niece and nephews this year), so much the better.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
Mine are all colors. The white looks classy, though.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
No. With my luck, the nitwit dog would find a way to eat it and I'd spend Christmas running up a giant bill at the emergency vet.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
Early December-ish. It's usually a progressive project.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
If I eat beigli for breakfast instead of dessert, does that count? Oh, and Victor's dad's tamales, which I have been known to eat thirds of instead of dessert. Oh, and kielbasa.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child:
I can't think of a favorite...all the holiday memories start running togther, and they're all pretty good.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I never did believe in Santa. I've asked my parents if they specifically set out to teach us that there wasn't a Santa and they said no. Apparently we just took for granted that Santa was a character like the Pink Panther or Snoopy, not a person.
(One of my theories is that even as a young kid, I saw that the various Rankin-Bass Santa stories didn't add up, so obviously they were all fiction.)
I do remember this: I couldn't figure out why the other kids in the neighborhood did believe in Santa Claus, and my parents made me promise not to tell them the truth. That's when I got the "Santa is a wonderful symbol" lecture.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
When I was a kid, we opened presents with my grandparents on Christmas Eve, along with my grandfather's birthday party. After that it varied. Now, we open gifts all month, it seems.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
Colored lights. All my childhood ornaments (the ones I made, the ones people gave me), Victor's ornaments, and the ones I've had made recently with pictures of the pets. I sometimes use the mylar strands of tinsel, but it just doesn't drape the way the old lead stuff used to. This year, we gave it up.
Overall, my tree is much more whimsical that traditional.

11. Snow! Love it or dread it?
It looks nice, I guess, but I don't like it on Christmas Eve/Christmas, because it makes travel dangerous, and I feel bad for the plow drivers who don't get to be home with their kids.
I guess the perfect scenario is snow on Dec. 21, with cold enough weather that it stays pretty on the grass until Christmas.

12. Can you ice skate?
Not very well. I did get my first pair of skates as a Christmas present, though, now that you mention it.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
I wish I could find the picture...when I was about seven or eight, I got a Bobby Clarke street hockey set. There's a picture of me in my Christmas dress, wearing my new Capitals stocking cap, holding the stick, and grinning a big gap-tooth grin.
This might surprise some people, since it is contrary to my tomboyish persona, but I also got a Baby Brother Tenderlove doll the year my brother was born. I was really into that doll.

14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Family.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Beigli and chrusciki, of course. And tamales.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Ultimately, being with my family. The specifics of the traditions have had to change over the years, but I can roll with that.

17. What tops your tree?
Usually a Tasmanian Devil with angel wings and a halo, but he didn't want to sit up straight on this year's tree. (You can see it in this picture.)

18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving?
I love it when I can surprise someone with a really good but unexpected gift. By the same token, when somebody finds something for me that I didn't request...that I didn't even know existed...but it is perfect, I am beyond touched and thrilled and delighted.

19. What is your favorite Christmas song?
Just today I was thinking about my grandfather teaching me Deck Us All With Boston Charlie.
Seriously: Angels We Have Heard on High for the religious songs, Silver Bells for the secular.

20. Candy canes:
I'm not excited about peppermint, but one year I found some that were root beer!

21. Favorite Christmas movie?
It's A Wonderful Life. And it's not a movie, but I love the Rankin-Bass Year Without a Santa Claus, because of the Heat Miser and Snow Miser.

22. What do you leave for Santa?
Interestingly, since we never believed in Santa, we still had the tradition of leaving a plate of cookies out for my father Christmas Eve. We knew that Dad would eat them, and we left a note reminding him that his choice of milk or beer would be in the fridge. We did this until I was nearly an adult. I can remember being in the kitchen and calling to him in another room of the house: "Hey, Dad! Do you want just the chocolate chips, or should we put out some of the sugar cookies too?"

Lights are good

Happy Hanukkah!

None of that stinkin' root beer

Actually, I love root beer, which is probably why I laugh so hard at that "stinkin' root beer" line from Slapshot.

I drank an ocean of it as a kid. If you'd've blindfolded me, I still could have told you if I was drinking A&W, Hires, Fanta, Mug...or even Sioux City sarsaparilla or that Pennsylvania Dutch birch beer that came in yellow cans with hex symbols. (That was probably a regional brand.)

When I was eight, we moved to a house with a big sassafras tree in the yard. I was ready to brew our own root beer, but my parents quickly vetoed that idea. Instead I'd sit outside pulling leaves off the tree, then running my fingernail down the leaf stem and inhaling deeply. It smells just like root beer.

It wasn't just the soft drink, I love the flavor. Anytime I found root beer candy...the penny sticks, root beer barrels, even Bottlecaps...I'd buy as much as my mother would permit. Root beer popsicles were a gift from the gods.

So imagine my delight when I saw this in the Post Food section this week:

Root Beer Cookies

I haven't got time for the cookies. I haven't the need for the cookies.

But they taste like root beer, so I must make these cookies.

Little kids, rockin' out

You know what YouTube is, right? You've clicked on the "suggestions" that come up after watching a cute little squirrel or a favorite 80's video or even a Ukrainian grunge band covering I Like to Move It, haven't you?

Sure you have. But if you don't, you risk missing something like these kids.

Don't laugh at the Piccachu on the mike stand--these kids will kick Devo 2.0's collective butt.

Thanks to Tom T. Hall

I was thinking about his song I Love today. Maybe you know it...I love little baby ducks/Old pickup trucks/Slow moving trains/And rain.

It's because I'm walking around thinking

I love twinkling Christmas lights
The smell of paperwhites
New cookie recipes
And trees.

I'm also a huge fan of Sneaky Snake, but that's beside the point.

Temptation

If I'm going to buy people gifts from igourmet, I should really have them delivered directly to the recipients. I've never had the urge to watch peoples' DVDs or wear their gloves, but cheese?

Odds and ends, holiday edition

We put up the Christmas tree this weekend. My father and I made our annual trip to the tree farm, where we made a beeline for the part of the field where we found such great trees last year. This year the trees were still great, but they were twenty feet tall.

The one I ended up with is actually smaller than usual, but it had a bird's nest. (Since the nest was full of dried needles, I'm assuming the bird has flown south.) I hear a nest is good luck. I need a smallish tree, because this year I couldn't just throw the usual contents of the living room into the basement for a month. We're trying to get the basement empty in preparation for the remodeling. This project is one of the reasons I decided on the auspicious bird's nest tree...can't turn down some free good luck when you are about to embark on a major home project.

I don't have an outside electrical outlet, so I've never put up Christmas lights. I love lights. This year I found solar LED Christmas lights, and I was quite excited. Unfortunately, with the weak winter sun and my westward-facing house, the panels only get enough juice to power the lights until about 8:00. At least I'll look a little festive, unless it rains.

Next week we do the beigli and chrusciki. Counting up how many beigli we need hammered home the "first Christmas without" aspect of this holiday...the beigli was a very big deal to my aunt. One of her old cookbooks actually had her beigli distribution lists from 1966 to the mid-80's.

This time of year always has the slight dark cloud, since both my grandfathers had Christmas birthdays. The cemetery visits are part of the routine. We take a bouquet with cuttings from the trees, and for my Polish grandfather, a piece of chrusciki. They liked lights, too...I wonder if the cemeteries have good sun exposure. I can see it now, I'd end up on somebody else's blog for the tackiest holiday grave decoration.

Health: mine, the dog's, New York's

I don't have Lyme disease. I was actually started to think: hey, if I do have Lyme, that gives me a handy explanation for the fatigue and the joint pain and the other unexplainable crap that's wrong with me...but no. The Magic Cream hasn't helped the rash, either. I'm still hoping it disappears by Monday, or else I'm supposed to go to a dermatologist.

I was going to write this up yesterday, but when I got home from work I found puddles of dog puke all over the house, and eventually found the dog shaking in a corner where she doesn't usually sleep. Long story short: all I did last night was nurse and worry about the dog, except for the few minutes of nursing the toothless rat.

Regarding the dog, Victor said "Well, she is getting old." I'm really not liking that people keep telling me this. I know she's old, and I know what they are really saying is "Get used to the fact that she's going to die soon." I'm not ready to get used to that just now.

So what I was really interested in yesterday before getting distracted by dog puke was New York City's ban on trans fats. I'm wondering if it will hold up in court (I am assuming that somebody's going to mount a legal challenge), but I'm in favor of anything that pressures industry to do the right thing and quit using partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

(As an aside, I shuddered when I saw something about how restaurants prefer partially hydrogenated oil for frying because they can leave the same oil in the fryer for weeks. I wonder how many rodents they scoop out of the fryer in the morning when they turn on the burners?)

I'm also laughing over the "but it's my personal freedom of choice!" argument. Nobody's taking away your doughnut, fat boy, they'll just be frying it in a better oil.

I have trouble understanding why anybody not connected to the trans fat industry wants to keep it in food.* Maybe there are still people who prefer lead paint and asbestos insulation, too. (Ok, the asbestos was good, except for that damn lung cancer...but what tastes better than butter?) But my interest in the health of others extends only to the cost of my insurance premiums. I'm happy about trans fats bans because I don't want to eat it, and sometimes (I'm recalling a particular week of training where I was locked in a hotel conference room for breakfast and lunch) you don't have much choice over what you get to eat.

*I have an article here from the New England Journal: Trans Fatty Acids and Cardiovascular Disease. It concludes that

On the basis of evidence from in vitro experimental studies, dietary trials, and prospective observational studies, the comsumption of trans fatty acids from partially hydrogenated oils provides no apparent nutritional benefit and has considerable potential for harm.

I tried to find articles that countered this, but at least in the medical literature (I searched via Medline) I found nothing.

Hanker for a hunk gram of cheese

A long, long time ago, before we had the internet and Google and YouTube, a group of us at my office were chatting one afternoon and the old "Hanker for a Hunka Cheese" PSA came up.

I remembered, vividly, most of the little song (I hanker for a hunka, a slab or slice or chunka, I hanker for a hunka cheese!) and could picture the little yellow guy with his "wagon wheel." (I still think of that, actually, if I eat cheese on a Ritz cracker.)

Somebody thought it was Schoolhouse Rock, but we corrected her. One guy called a friend who knows way too much about tv, and he actually knew that the spot was "Time for Timer."

A few of us had vauge memories of another Timer where he made little popsicles in ice cube trays.

It would have been great, that day at work, if we'd been able to just search for "Hanker for a hunka cheese" and then sit back to watch the video...and the rest of the Time for Timers, while we were at it, including that one about eating leftovers for breakfast, which I'd totally forgotten, but it's a concept I still employ.

Anyway, once I'd watched Timer about forty times today, I remembered another '70's PSA that's been semi-stuck in my head for thirty years. It was a jingle about the metric system, and the verse that I know (and that I recall way too often):

A gram?
A gram!
About the weight of a single raisin
About the same as a paperclip
Now isn't that amazin'?

It was called something along the likes of "Take 10 America." In my searches, all I was able to find was a Gene Weingarten chatter (not me) who was also looking for the rest of the lyrics.

Anybody remember that one?

Hockey night

Outwardly, I'm not a terribly emotional sports fan. Watch me watch a hockey or baseball game in person, and you might think I was watching a Powerpoint presentation. Seasons are long, I need to conserve the emotional energy.

On the way to the hockey game tonight, I was saying that with an 8:00 faceoff, I'd likely be asleep by the second period. But a funny thing happened on the way to the arena.

The place was packed with Buffalo fans. As a Washingtonian, I've grown used to the fact that we will always have more than a fair share of fans for the visiting teams...people from elsewhere do live here in large numbers. (And they bitch about how much they hate it, too, which mystifies me, but that's another post.) Tonight, though, we had Sabre fans in Pittsburgh-like abundance...and with Pittsburgh-like obnoxiousness.

We had Sabre fans in front of, behind, and to my left, and I think beyond the little girl in the Caps jersey and her dad sitting to our right were still more people from Buffalo. When the Caps took the ice, the fans in front of us stood and booed, loudly. I hate booing, regardless of who is doing it. Cheer your team, don't denegrate the opponent. Poor sportsmanship.

Then during the National Anthem, which was being sung by a grade school chorus, the guy behind me starts yelling "Go Sabres, woo!" It irks me when people aren't respectful during the anthem, too.

So before the puck even dropped I was on the edge of my seat, wishing, hoping against hope, really, that we could shut those assholes up.

Wow.

Ovechkin Is Ejected In Capitals' Big Win; Capitals 7, Sabres 4

(By the way, the hit? I didn't see it live because it happened behind the play, which had me thinking that it wasn't exactly clean. And yeah, it wasn't. I've seen dirtier plays, but we can't be pulling that kind of crap. Last thing we need is a reputation as a cheap-shot team.)

But back to the fun part, like the two quick goals inside the first three minutes and the slow-motion empty-netter. It didn't quiet the Buffalo fans as much as I'd have liked, but it made me more animated than usual. Like I said...you don't boo the other team, you cheer your own. So I made sure to jump high and cheer loudly.

The cost of recapturing youth

When I was in high school and college, I went to concerts all the time*. Tickets ran about twenty bucks, once you factored in the "service charge;" t-shirts were about the same. Pretty ridiculous, $20 t-shirts. I have a footlocker full of them in the basement. Sometimes I think "If I had only put that money into a mutual fund..."

It was late in the game when I finally got to see my teenage favorite, though: The Who, 1989, RFK.

I can't remember for sure the last concert I saw...the National Symphony Orchestra, I think. I guess I'm a grownup.

The Who are going to be in Washington this spring. In an effort to recapture my lost youth, I decided to go.

Tickets: $55-205. Service charges: About what I used to pay for the actual tickets.

I think I'll skip the t-shirt this time around.

*off the top of my head: ZZ Top, Van Halen, AC/DC, Judas Priest, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Chicago, Robert Plant, Sting, Moody Blues...I suppose I could go look at the shirts for a better list.

World AIDS Day 2006

Why do I care? See 2003.

Why do I keep beating the same drum? See 2004.

I'm going to try something different this year. Instead of the stats and the public health campaigns, I'm just going to point out a couple of links.

The first is Product(RED). I admit, when I first heard about it, I rolled my eyes...trendy red ribbons writ large. But when I read more about it, I agreed it makes sense. If I'm gonna buy an iPod, I might as well buy an iPod that will help fight AIDS.

Closer to home, how about some holiday shopping at Crate and Barrel? Use this link from December 7 - 14, and 10% of your purchase will be donated to Food & Friends here in D.C.

If anyone knows of other efforts like this that benefit AIDS-related causes, please let me know.