Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Happiness is...

House is not on tonight. I'm going to be forced to put together cookie bags or go shopping. Choices, choices. I could also do neither and watch the sixth Harry Potter movie.

I'm feeling pretty relaxed because I did a census of gifts and came out as all but done, I have a couple more to get but if I don't end up getting them it won't be a major loss. Also, I love Amazon and their lists! They should just call themselves "Solutions.Com", now if you do not have a working list, I am thinking about gift cards. I like a good gift card, so I think it might be a viable option. You can make my life easy or I can assign you a trip to the store of my choice. Now, if Amazon would come over to my house and put up and decorate my tree, arrange my Santa's, create a winter wonderland in my yard and wrap my gifts, I might just end up a share holder.

I did get my tree up at work, not the tree tree but my office tree. Its  a little early for the tree, tree. I can't face that just yet- and besides my boss brought in a week old cheese plate and its taking up the space the tree would be.  I think if I had an orphan cheese plate in my refrigerator over the holiday I would have fed it to my family and not brought it to work so it could sit on a table in the hallway all day next to the printer and not get eaten. No one really wants to eat a cheese tray, its like bringing in a can of nuts and saying Look! I brought a can of nuts! Yummm! and not opening it. The can-of-nuts woman has brought the same can of nuts to every function for nine years and no one has yet to open the nuts. She brought it from her last job.

I;'m not entirely sure, but I think the cheese plate may have actually attacked our new printer.  People kept appearing in our hallway and exclaiming over the cheese plate You have cheese! Can we have some cheese!? What kind dof cheese is it! and we were all "Take the cheese! Its special toner flavored cheese, very chic! Take the platter! Move your own cheese brother!" No one asked who brought it, no one asked how long it had been sitting out in the hall way - they were just fascinated by this magic cheese tray. This gummy, toner be-speckled, two week old , left in the sun all day cheese tray. I think some people didn't have a very good Thanksgiving.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Buy one for the team

Again? Its over again?  I don't want to go back to work! On the upside, people complain less when they are shopping. There is something about greed that makes people less pissy about the poor treatment their aged family members are receiving. Last week they claimed a little less because they were cooking but Monday is going to suck because they all went to look on Granny for the first time since Mothers Day - they will be shocked!shocked! to discover that she has deteriorated in the past months and this must be abuse and neglect! They have all ready spoken with their attorney and he suggested that they call us.

It never fails. Granny doesn't have much of an estate but her lawyer promises them that she'll make them rich when she dies. They love a good dead granny.  Mean people suck. - Care givers, care non-givers, ignorant, greed family members, pissed off staff. I'm planning ahead though, I bought a new While You Were Out message book so I'm ready for the flood. Bring it on assholes, I'm not going to run out slips.

 I am not looking forward to Monday but to make myself feel better I am bringing in my Christmas CDs and lights and  my tiny tree - Tiny black tree, thank you very much! I can't be as hip as the magazines, but three years after they declared black the new green, I have a black tree. In another year I'll have my own upside down tree.

Speaking of Christmas, I have made a lot of progress towards my Santa badge and to add to my glitter, I didn't buy that many things for myself. On that note, did you know that Michael's will sell you a custom mat without making you go for the full framing? I was shocked. I got what I wanted for what I was willing to pay. I was afraid that they were going to spank me with a big framing charge when all I really needed was a better mat then I could buy OTC. It takes just about as long to get to product returned but for 3/4ths   of what I could have paid for framing? I can wait.

 Shopping for others is just about done, but I'm sure I'm going to suffer from shopping seizures for a while. I know really understand squirrels. There is always something else that would be perfect and that something is just right over the next aisle or at the mall over the hill. The desire to be a Super Consumer is all well and good for the economy but  but I need to be working on my cards and then after that, the dog cookies need to be bagged and mailed. I don't want to mail off the cookies without the cards and nothing can be mailed if nothing is prepared. I wasted time today with laundry and  dishes and of course, more shopping. I did find time to put gas in my car so I did get something checked off my list.

Right now, Dogger is making a list and apparently she has plans for me.

Friday, November 26, 2010

HAPPY FRIDAY $$$$$$$

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Foggy Morning

Sunday night I was woken up twice by sirens. The second set sounded like it was coming right through the middle of the house, I thought Is my house burning down? How do they know if I don't, should I be very worried right now? I should get up. but it wasn't my house, eventually I realized the sirens weren't coming through the middle of the house and my own fire alarms wasn't going off. I have yet to find whose house was burning down.

Monday morning I looked out the window and there was nothing. It wasn't dark, it was nothing., I went outside and found the nothing was warm. I left with Dogger for our walk and as we were walking through the lot at the end of the street I looked up into the nothing and didn't see the DMV building. I thought Oh my Gawd! The DMV building is gone! This isn't fog, its smoke! No wonder the sirens were so loud and they kept up for so long. Damn. Its just gone. I pulled out my phone to to post to Facebook, because that's what you do when a building disappears over night. Dogger and got closer to the street I saw the outlines of the buildings and a light on upstairs. I didn't post about the building but I did mention the fog but  my status was much less interesting than it would have been had the DMV really been gone.

I should have known though, if it was smoke, the nothing would have smelled and the nothing had no odor.

Dogger and I wandered around in the nothing and  went home but on the way I kept checking to make sure the whole DMV complex was actually there,  as the sirens went on for days, and whatever it was must have been a really big structure or the firemen were just being assholes and playing with their toys. I cn't imagine there was a lot of traffic clogging up the road or being slow away from the light.  The last sirens were so loud and close I sat up in bed, that was when I thought maybe my house was burning or the neighbors or the whole street, maybe we were all burning.

I wish there was a a way to make the sirens less loud if they aren't coming for you. I would understand if they were coming for you that it would be very comforting to hear them on their way, and whatever it was that prompted sirens in the first place would be almost over,  but I wish there was a way to mute the sound if it wasn't for you. Its worrying.

It would also be nice if they could make it less shrill at 2am.

I drove to work looking to see if anything look like it had burned down, I walked the dog and looked for something  that evening but I didn't find anything. There was nothing in the paper on Tuesday.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Dog tired.

So, who's fault is it if my dough keeps coming out uneven when I roll it out? I blame my rolling pin. I think its developed a flat or something  Also, the dough, I think they are both conspiring against me. My upper body is getting a great work out though so I guess there is an upside to all this work. I wonder how many calories you burn making cookies? I wonder if I get bonus points for then not eating what I'm making. I deserve extra credit.

My turkeys look a little swan-like but I think they will read as turkeys because this time of year we really see turkeys and not swans. They don't offer Tips for Cooking your Holiday Swan in the women's mags I would also not want to feed my dog a swan, or ask others to do that either it helps my argument that these-are-not-swans because that you can't buy swan gravy off the shelf. I don't think I have ever seen a swan cookie cutter

On the up-side,  the relative evenness of my dough is a moot point now because I;m not making any more! I am done! Done I tell you! I did all the Christmas cookies plus Doggers' pizza cookies plus the turkey gravy cookies for the people at work and Dogger - Dogger is getting the vast majority of those so its not an entirely selfless act. My arms hurt.

Despite my sore arms I got Dogger bathed and her teeth brushed and her laundry laundered. I still need to vacuum her room but I'm not going to stress over it. Speaking of stress, I was all concerned about getting my yard raked? Well, I did that an obediently pushed the leaves to curb to wait for the city, and they shockingly, came and took them away. Super. I came home from work and the lawn was covered with leaves again. You can't even tell I raked.

Oh well. I know.

I even found time to eat dinner between dog bathing and dog cookie baking.  Its been a very dog-centric evening. Dogger is still looking at me like I'm completely ignoring her. Oh and I forgot, I also walked the dog, fed the dog and made the dogs bed. So, clearly, I'm ignoring the dog completly.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Monday, Monday


How did I do? I made three kinds of dog cookies, did the laundry, seeded the garden, raked the lawn and saw the Harry Potter movie on schedule. I am a rock star. I also think I have some sort of adult on-set ADD, but I'm concentrating on making lemonade.

That was Saturday.

On Sunday I was completely self involved and spent the day with family and did some Christmas shopping and then I came home and made another variety of cookies - for Dogger, I think she's suffered enough through ten other batches that are not for her. Poor baby. She, however got, I'm hopeing really nice cookies out of and I'm sure she'll be very grateful to Santa when he delivers them. If she will eat them, that is always a problem. She may not like them, in which case, my friends dogs are going to have a very merry Christmas and I will be able to mark off a possible cookie variety from the board of possibilities. Which, I guess is a good thing.

The only thing on my list that I did not get accomplished was the bathing of the Dog. I decided that I could also do this during the week Also, after rolling out and then cutting out a total of 580 individual cookies and raking the yard and seeding the garden, my arms hurt!

Do you know how much nothing I did not get done this weekend? Its shameful.

I should have skipped the sexy Christmas pizza cookies and concentrated on making the less attractive but more seasonally appropriate not to mention time sensitive Thanksgiving turkey gravy cookies that I'm going to hand out (some) at work this week. I'm still debating whether they should be turkey shaped or bone shaped, I would get more with the bone shaped but the turkey is more festive and besides, any dog getting the cookies will be getting a butt load of cookies in the very near future so its not about quantity so I should just make them turkey shaped and be done with it. I should have just made them all ready.

Surpisingly, the rock star has problems prioritizing.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Friday Cat Blogging

Its Harry Potter Day!

Yay! I have my ticket in my hot little hand and have had it since last week! No sell out worries for me! and no I'm not going to a midnight show - I have a job and I'm old and I don't have a proper costume and why would you go to a midnight showing if you didn't wear a costume? I'm also not a rabid fan, I'm a fan but I don't froth at the mouth or anything.  I was a bad fan though, I didn't reread the book and I'm sure at some point I planned to and I bet I would have liked to, I really loved reading the first time but I just haven't felt like sitting down and dedicating that much time to power reading. I  know I should have but at the same time the movies and the book exist in different universes, at least that's what they say online at least, so I think I'll be all right.

Failing to read the book my next plan was to watch the old movies the week before I went to go see the new movie. Great idea but if I can't sit still to read a single book I really can't see myself sitting still for six movies -   I'm pretty sure I was able to do that around the time the last move came out and it wasn't that long ago and as old as I am I still have a good memory - Sometimes I can sit down for hours at a stretch and sometimes I can not. I would however really appreciate a Cliff Notes version of the book though, that would be cool.

But yea! I get to start out my weekend at the movies! With a full house! Yay! The crowd goes a long way to establishing the mood of the whole thing, an empty house is dull and you might as well have stayed home and watched in on DVD. A big movie really needs a big house. You want to hear cheers and intakes of breath and just the group vibe and the thrill of experiencing it with like minded strangers.

The move is going to take me into the weekend where I have a list of stuff to do. 1) Dog Cookies, I have three varieties to make and I really want this done. I did seven the last time I did this, three should be a cake walk. 2) Laundry, laundry, laundry! 3) The dog needs a bath 4) The yard needs to be raked, 5) I want to get the garden seeded with the green fertilizer I bought earlier in the fall. It needs to get in the ground.

That looks like a long list now that its all together. The laundry and the cookies can be done simultaneously so those tasks at the very least I should be able to get done. After those probably comes the raking, a drag but the sivty is going to start coming by to collect leaves and I want to get the first batch taken care of ASAP. I have one of  the four trees on my block and I hate to pollute this whole end of the street with my leaves.

The garden seeding should be next, I need to take up the top soil and then add the soil I have in reserve to cover the seeds. I would have a lot more dirt but my flowers are still going strong and I don't feel right pulling them out yet. I could probably sacrifice one of the flowers and that  give me a lot of dirt to work with. I don't know what I'll do with the other dirt from the  still healthy plants. That is another problem for another day.

The dog can be done late Sunday. I would love to get all this done but unless I really buckle down it won't happen. Its the weekend, I'm not sure how I feel about buckling.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

The taste of cotton

Dogger is barking at me for no reason. She does not need to pee, I tried that first, she doesn't need to eat because I did that all ready, she had dinner. She does not want to play with her toys. She wants to bark at me.

She stopped.

Prior to getting rudely barked at, I made the cake and the frosting. Made. Myself. By hand. The gluten free cake had an odd texture. A bit like grits. Grits. Not much like cake batter, not like the cake batter I'm used to, you know creamy and batter-like you know, like cake batter. Grits aren't like cake batter, I don't have much experience with grits because I was raised in civilization. With cake batter.

Cake batter with gluten.

Cake batter with gluten makes a larger cake, like a full sized one! I had no idea. The gluten free cake makes a little cake. Its almost a cup cake but a cup cake would be fun and this cake is depressing. And weird. And gluten free. Glutenus minimus.


Nummy right?

It looks cakey, like a  real cake? Like a cake with gluten right? It acted more or less like a regular cake in the oven, kinda but not and when I took it out of the oven it looked a lot like a cake - it doesn't have much cake smell though. It kind of gives off an odor but its not like cake, more like food? It is clearly edible maybe? It smells like my oven I guess. Hot and kind of metallic but with a light vanilla under tones. Kinda.

And while it was baking  or whatever, I made the frosting. Do you know what sugar free cream cheese frosting tastes like? Cream cheese! Do you know what cream cheese tastes like?  Like  white air, thick, sticky air. But with a little bit of apple juice and some vanilla. But mostly cream cheese. Nummy.



Numby.

But earnest . Gluten free cake with sugar free cream cheese icing is the soul of earnestness. This is what political correctness tastes like. Earnestness. I didn't even put those little decorative thingies on it in case those were some how objectionable, I also forwent food coloring less it could be actually liquid gluten - because I don't know what food coloring is made of, maybe sugar and gluten. I bet it is just to be mean. Not in my cake no sugar or gluten . Numby somethingness.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Two days until Harry Potter!

The 15th was baby kitty's second birthday and I forgot to announce it. In honor of his birthday I fed him a tiny can of cat food I picked up free somewhere and presented it  to him on a nice plate and let him eat the whole thing. On the table. It took him a couple of hours to clean the plate but clean the plate he did. I also sang him Happy Birthday twice.

I think he was touched. I think he should also be grateful I didn't try to make him wear a hat like I did last year, so we've both grown. I do think I need to find a new nom de blog for him though, he really isn't a baby kitty any more and at two years I think he's reached maturity as a cat.

Man Cat? Sexy Kitty? Mr. Fuzzy Butt?

What really sad is I didn't even remember it until I got an email from Catster wishing him a happy birthday! Bad, bad cat Mommy! The first person to wish your cat a happy birthday is a web site? You suck!  Cat Person  FAIL.

Tiny Guy?  Tweety? Fluffy Bunny?

This makes me dislike the woman at work even more. I was all about her birthday and I didn't properly celebrate my own cats big day! I am a bad cat mother. And speaking of that cow at work I was out shopping for her again, I decided that I should get some nice seasonally appropriate napkins for the party and I knew that Poverty Barn would not let me down.

Baby Rabbit? Tiny? Angel Kitty?

And they didn't! I scored some very nice, very taste napkins that I'm going to keep for myself and some cheaper and slightly less tasteful napkins for her. I also was able to pick up some almost kind of matching plates and some el cheapo plastic utensils. This far we  at her party we are going to have a vegetable plate, a nugget platter and a gluton free birthday cake plus a couple of bottles of soda and whatever else the people I haven't heard from yet are going to bring. One of the girls bitchily scheduled a vet appointment for her dog so she could miss out on the birthday fun. I both hate and admire her for this.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Non-Passive Aggression

At work we have parties in the months that team members have birthdays. Its lame. What we should do is buy a Happy-Birthday-From-All-Of-Us card, get it signed and leave it at that. It would be tidy, nice and mostly trouble free. That would be great.

But we can't have that. We have to plan  a party. We don't really like each other and we don't really want to spend our free time together. We drew last winter and I got November - which at the time made me very happy because November seemed very far away  and I was happy I wouldn't have to deal with this for a long time. Time flies when you are not having fun too.

Its not far away now. Far away has turned into Thursday and I had also thought that it was going to be at the end of the month, its not, its this week. Super. The birthday girl this time around is my very least favorite co-worker. Of course it is! I couldn't get a month with someone I actually like, that would be too easy and I might actually enjoy doing this. We can't have that.

I dutifully presented myself at my co-workers door and asked her what she would like for her party. She replied that because she's on Atkins and can't have gluten any way,  that she would just watch us eat, because she can't have chips ort salsa or any of those things. Sigh . So I said Okay! and asked her if she can eat chicken, she can by the way and I made a note to get to Chik Fil A  ASAP and order her a tiny platter . I decided that that cow will eat at her own party and made another note to investigate my cake options. I then went to ask what everyone else wanted to bring.

I do have cake options. They make gluten free cake mixes available at your local market and I looked up sugar free frosting to frost the cake with. By  the way, if you were curious, Vanilla Extract is gluten free - Score! So I can include it in my sugar free frosting as well as the cake! So that it will not taste entirely like cardboard.

 I was so excited about this because because the cake mix called for gluten free vanilla which I looked that up and learned that it is very expensive and while I am all about making a point  a point  which incidentally  involves  making a home made birthday cake my bitchy co-worker. Which is kind of cutting off my nose to spite my face. I dislike her so I am going out of my way for her? I hope Santa is watching, I want credit for this. But do I get credit for spiteful do-gooding? I'm only doing this to cut her passive aggressive bitchiness off at the pass. No, I still want credit.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Home Again

I had such a good time in Asheville! Who knew it was like that? Gallery after gallery after gallery, terrific food, entertainment on every corner and fab people watching. If you haven't been, you must go.

On the downside, I feel very poor and untalented . They market "crafts" that are really museum quality art and they charge accordingly. Its all worth it though. Everything is beautiful and I can't afford any of it and I certainly can't produce anything like it myself. I suggest if you go there that you bring a u haul with you because even with the prices on the art, there are still plenty of  wonderful stores and galleries selling one-of-a-kind finds to loosen the purse strings of even the smallest purse.

And? MOUNTAINS! Lots and lots of mountains!

And?  the storied Blue Ridge Parkway!

And? No Wallyworld!

What I took pictures of.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Friday Cat Blogging

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Today is Armistice Day,  The eleventh day of the eleventh month at eleven  in the morning marking the official end of World War 1, the war that did not end all wars.

Today is Veterans Day.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

ADDiana

I sat down two hours ago to start this but then I said Hmm.The dog needs a bath... and if the dog  needs a bath her bedding needs to be laundered and before I can bath the dog I need to strip the bathroom and I should change clothes

And post bath I decided that  the dogs room needed to be vacuumed and  post dog bath the the bathroom was now going to need to be cleaned and then I took a look at the kitchen and it looked a little a little ragged and then I had to look for these keys that lived once upon a time in one of the kitchen cabinets - the Tex Cat Memorial cabinet because that was where I stashed all the things that he used to get my attention when he decided his food wasn't fresh enough or later on, he forgot was there and he needed me know his pain so he tore up or pitched to the floor or put down the disposal  all these little things that needed a new home now so it got a little cluttered.

I needed to clean out that cabinet. The keys weren't there but I did find my old cell phone and a couple of good Happy Meal Toys and  for some reason a collection of Holy Cards and the key to my screen door.

So.

Two hours later here I am and I'm thinking I should walk Dogger and I should be packed for the road trip I'm taking with my Mom this weekend to IKEA!! and  then Asheville, in that order, I'm sure Asheville is also ASHEVILLE!!! but I've been to Ikea and I know its an all caps kind of place while I haven't been to Asheville and so I can't comment on its all caps worthiness as yet. And I'm not packed at all, for a four day trip out of town. Nada. I also haven't put away the hoses from the garden yet either so I should also be doing something about them and I can't remember what I did with them last year so I can't just put them back so that is another thing I should be doing.

On the upside I did remember to buy Baby Kitty more food as he had completely run out, not that he would complain and I have a couple of bills I started to pay but didn't finish up with and really need to do something about them and I should take a shower to get rid of the eu de dog bath I've picked up and then maybe I could vaccum the living room...

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Tuesday

Well. That was disheartening. I found something I thought was perfect for Alphagal. It practically screamed her. I got ready to get it or even maybe, two its for her, Merry Christmas! Well, then I looked at the price and said Okay. One it and then I went all the way through the process and got to the shipping part and had a stroke.

$13.74 for two oz's?! My God! and it wasn't even addictive or a felony. If I have to pay that much for that little, I want to get high. I had to step back and rethink. Sorry, Alphagal.

Then I moved my eye to Broskey. I thought this would be easy. It was allegedly available on Amazon for Gawds sake! This should have been a slam dunk - my magazine told me it was going to be there!  Lying magazine... I whiffed. I decided to move on to other things, like reading Face Book.

Where I got into an interesting discussion with a friend about if the horns of a deer get larger every year like a tree. Do they have rings? Does it matter how old the deer is or is it tied to nutrition and environment? Don't does  favor bucks with big racks? Are racks genetic? My friend is a lawyer and they didn't cover deer life cycle in torts class. My major was equally lack in deer info as well. Are deer ungulates or is that cows? I like the word though. Un Gu Lates. I also like Cachexia.  It means malnourished.

 I decided  that perhaps I might try to shop the old fashioned way, brick and mortar, perhaps even embrace buying local. Until I find the right thing cheaper online. I said "might" and "perhaps".

Monday, November 8, 2010

Yo, my dad just popped a cap into Bambi!
Aaaannnnddd I'm back.

I just needed to relax, reflect and re-home all  my incendiary devices. I am happy to report that I did not have a stoke and as an added bonus for local rethuglicans  the local GOP headquarters is still standing. The Democratic headquarters is also still standing although they probably deserved a good firebombing for being so damn stupid.

Relaxing and reflecting, relaxing and reflecting

Part of my therapy has been actively thinking about the future. I found and bought my frame cards for Christmas and while they cost a leetle more than what I have bought in the past, upside, I don't have to continue driving around shopping for them and I bought strictly what I needed as opposed to last years cards that were cheaper but I way over-bought. I also now have five Christmas gifts! Yay!

Next on my list is getting hard copies of the pictures themselves.

While I'm thinking about the future, I started on my doggy Christmas cookies. Thus far I have made : chicken and beef broth flavored, pumpkin/molasses, peanut butter, mint/parsley, banana, and turkey gravy . Hmm. That's only seven, I had thought it was eight. Damn. Well, then I have three left, cheese, bacon and  green,milk flavored trees. There are going to be a lot of those little green trees.
 Hundreds of tiny green trees. They will look nice and act as filler and the tiny dogs on my list will really feel included.

Speaking of cookies, I was paging through my dog cookie cookbook, yes, they make them. In fact. I want another one that doesn't feature as much brown rice flour, oat flour, garbanzo bean flour and amaranth flour .I have no relationship with a local artisanal flour mill  and most of these ingredients leave me in a state of acute pique. I  did however, find what I'm going to make Dogger for Christmas:

Pizza flavored dog cookies!  I can't wait! They have tomato paste,  grated mozzarella, grated parmesan cheese , dried: oregano, rosemary, basil and  more than a bit of garlic (I'll add more)! They are going to be so awesome. Dogger hopefully will like them and she no doubt won't think they are as cool as I do, but the idea is very exciting! Did you know rosemary is very good for us? Its a natural antibiotic and an antiseptic and it increases blood flow to the brain. I might add a little of it to all my cookies . A little rosemary, a little garlic - at the very least my kitchen will smell divine.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Friday Cat Blogging

Yay! A movie of The Devil in The White City!
Nope, still kind of pissed, By Monday I'll have recovered. I am supposed to be making dog cookies. Aren't. Currently troubled by the idea of using chunky soup as anything other than as a soup as when it is not used as a  soup it looks like high end canned dog food.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

I'm taking the day off. I'm waiting until my vitriol cools and my rage becomes less violent. I;m also avoiding Facebook and media sites because they give me the choice of commenting and I don't think anyone really wants me to comment on anything right now. I'm deleting all emails from political groups without reading them. I don't want to feel their pain while I am wallowing in my own.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Santa


Hello children. Halloween is officially over, the pumpkins have been thrown away the kids have thrown up and the costumes have been discreetly tossed.

So, you finished your Christmas shopping? The clock is ticking! Its down to weeks now, mere weeks. Remember last August when you were sitting around being hot and bored? You know what you should have been doing? Christmas shopping! Its even air conditioned at the mall. Sweet, sweet a/c!

Have you even started? The mall is all ready decorated its been that way for months! You know, its there and the stores are ready and everyone of them is full of stuff, stuff your friends and loved ones may very well want but don't know it yet and you can be assured that you will not find the same thing at Marshall's until next July when you can't use it and your friends and family have found other things they want more, for full retail. Good going cheap-o.
Or you could wait until December 15th and just buy the first things that look like they might be okay and while you;re there, spend $25 on it. In July you wouldn't spend $15 for the same thing but last July you weren't this desperate yet and you had lots of time. Guess what? Tick, tock.

 So give it up, you are going to spend the next two months breathlessly rushing from one climate controlled environment to another. If you're smart, you might spend the same amount of time shopping online at work, a fun if not exactly sexy experience where you can peer at endless 1x1x1 images and hope for the best.

I plan on spending lots of unsexy time shopping online at work. My goal is to not enter a mall for anything other than recreational people watching. For my part I have two gifts in the bag thus far which means my list has been whittled down to a mere three or four pages, per family member - or not, I may need to edit my list a little , but have you tried to not buy things for tiny children? Especially tiny children that could conceivably be naked or actually have no toys?

Or they have only lame toys or they only have toys that only appeal to children. How sad is that? Children need toys that also appeal to adults, like a Pixar movie or the Toy Story films, so that they can look cool and you can play with them while the children are napping.

All children need tiny leather jackets and irony drenched tee-shirts because there is no group more sensitive to ironic messages on tee shorts than tiny children.

I mean poor tiny children, what are they going to do? Naked, toy-less children! No clothes! No toys! Tiny, tiny children with no clothes and no toys! Do you have any idea how many clothes and toys are on the market?And what percentage of those toys and clothes are absolutly adorible? Almost all.


Oh, yeah and there is Thanksgiving in the middle. The opening day for shopping.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

GO VOTE. DON'T TAKE ANY CHANCES, VOTE A STRAIGHT TICKET FOR THE DEMOCRATS. A NATION OF COLLEGE GRADUATES IS DEPENDING ON YOU.

IF YOU DON'T VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRATS ALL THE CRAZY TEA PARTY CANDIDATES ARE GOING TO WIN AND YOU AND I WILL HAVE TO MOVE TO CANADA BECAUSE THOSE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO OUTLAW SMART PEOPLE AND/OR ANYONE WITH ABOVE A FOURTH GRADE EDUCATION.

LIKE THE CHINESE DID DURING THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION. BUT PRETEND YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS BECAUSE IT MARKS YOU AS A SMART PERSON OR SOMEONE WITH ABOVE A FOURTH GRADE EDUCATION.

TO DISGUISE YOURSELF, LEARN TO MAKE CONVERSATION ABOUT NASCAR AND COMPETITIVE REALITY SHOWS THAT AIR ON TLC AND MTV4.

WE SPENT THE WEEKEND VOWING TO LOVE AND HONOR WHILE THEY SPENT THE WEEKEND GETTING LESSONS ON HOW TO STOMP ON OUR HEADS.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Jon  Stewart said jump and we said...

And we said, how high?  (my pictures) He promised a day of sanity and reason and he came through, big time. Cat Stevens and Ozzie?  The Peace Train, the Crazy Train and the Love Train.

 A fab time was had by all. All  215,000 of us.    Peaceably, reasonably and happily. No bad thoughts, no nasty messages and no mean words. We came, we saw, we came to an agreed we prefer to be nice.

More discussion:

Time Magazine

Salon.com