Sunday, December 30, 2007

Diet Season

The New Year starts on Tuesday, and most people - especially women - will be making that ever-popular resolution to lose weight. The diet ads have already started: Weight Watchers is, actually, a diet, so don't be fooled; and the Discovery Health Channel's particularly misleading exhortation to "Get Your Health On" is just the kinder, gentler, less scientifically valid way to say "Hey, Fatties, you're killing yourselves!"

My resolution? To love my body. I highly suggest you all do the same.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

This handbasket is so cozy!


That Baby Jesus, he'll steal your birthday glory at the drop of a hat.
Happy Birthday to all the Christmas babies! (This one turns 30 on Tuesday!)

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Grocery School

I should be able to give tickets in the grocery store. Seriously, people, it's just like traffic.

I had to make a Costco trip today. I knew it was going to be a horror - five days before Christmas, I'm sure people are rushing the place to get giant tubs o' cookie dough for the office swap tomorrow. But I ask you, how hard is it to keep to the right?

I almost wrote, "You manage to do it in your cars!" - but then I remembered I'm in Colorado now, and no, they don't manage to stay to the right in their cars, either. These people are all over the road - and always at 35 mph. Always. I suppose it shouldn't shock me that they're wandering all over the Costco with the carts taller than I am at bizarre angles in all the aisles, looking at things two rows over, standing three abreast and meandering around the displays.

Don't get me started on the sample ladies, either. Getting a free sample is not a pass to stick your cart anywhere you feel like it, or to stop suddenly, either. Those stupid things weigh at least 100 lbs. when they're empty - by the time I've gotten some dairy products and chicken in there, I have to rely on friction to help me stop it, and it ain't gonna be quick. Especially since the handles are practically at my chin - and no, that's not an exaggeration. Costco cart handles are higher than my breasts. You should see me trying to get things out of the bottom - I feel like my feet are flailing in midair as I dangle over the edge of the cart, grasping desperately at my blocks of cheese and giant bags of frozen veggies.

Back to the point: Tickets. There should be Grocery School, just like Traffic School. If you fail to yield to the main aisle (thanks, Random Old Guy who just kept walking at me and almost ran me over), if you can't stay on the right side of the aisle (um, all the rest of you), if you insist on having a conversation about the relative merits of a gallon of peanut oil versus a gallon of olive oil while your child is dancing through the aisle, and then you glare at me when I almost hit him - If you do any of the above, you need a ticket and a chance to go to Grocery School, where you'll learn such valuable skills as:

- Not blocking the aisles!
- Following a list so you don't lollygag and get in my way!
- Understanding the layout of your average grocery store!
- Optimal cart-filling!
- How to replace carts in the cart corral instead of in front of my back bumper!
- How to keep your bratty children from screaming when you won't buy them candy!
- And much much more! Enroll Now!

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Do Not Want!


Oh, the joys of Christmas.

My mom has taken Bacon to see Santa and get her picture taken since birth - in other words, the last two years. Year one she sat on Santa's lap without a care in the world, smiled big for the photo, and had a grand time. Last year she was warier, but ultimately, we got the picture.

This year, however, she was having none of it.

We thought she'd be fine; we kept talking up Santa and she was all excited this morning to go see him. We made a few stops before heading to the mall, and every time I stopped the car, she said, "Where's Santa?" She waited patiently in line like a champ, and ran over to the sleigh in which Santa sat - only to stop dead and start crying. Poor kid.

We wandered around Cherry Creek's ritzy mall (with exactly one plus-sized shop, and that not suitable for anyone under age 60) and had some lunch, but Bacon stuck to her guns: No Santa.

Ah, well. Maybe next year.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Presents!

If you've looked at my favorite links list, you'll have noticed The Knot on there. It's because I frequent a message board over there, full of my favorite internet people, and it's where I spend a good bit of time even though I'm not planning a wedding anymore.

So the ladies and I did a Secret Santa exchange for Christmas, and my presents just came today! My Santa (I am sworn to secrecy until the reveal date) sent me handmade notecards, a framed Subversive Cross Stitch, and a copy of Silent Night, the story of the WWI Christmas ceasefire. Absolutely awesome gifts.

I love presents. I love giving presents and getting presents and just the whole idea of presents. Is there anything better than the sound of wrapping paper tearing away from something delightful? I think not.

Bacon also got a box full of gifts from her grandparents (my parents) today. True to family tradition, they're almost all from someone weird: Rudolph, Laura Bush, Bill O'Reilly, and Dick Cheney.

My parents must have had too much eggnog one year, because in addition to gifts from Santa and Mom&Dad, we got some from the reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and - despite being Catholic - the Hannukah fairy. The next year got weirder: there were gifts from our favorite television hosts, fictional characters, and imaginary friends. And once we knew the "truth" about Santa, all bets were off: I've received gifts from The Marlboro Man, my old station wagon, and every cat we've ever owned.

Being the weirdos that we are, we took this little tradition and ran with it. We now try to come up with the craziest senders or the best tie-ins to the actual gifts. All my presents from my husband this year are from vampires; he got things from Garage Bands, bad Sci-Fi movies, and a particularly badly wrapped package from Thrifty, the Paper-Saving Elf.

It certainly makes for an interesting Christmas morning. There's nothing like shrieking laughter before ten AM to make for a joyous holiday.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Heh.

Teh lolcats, I luvs them. But teh lolpigs and babies - dat iz true comedies.

funny pictures
moar funny pictures

I did it!

I drove in the snow!

We got probably 2 or 3 inches over yesterday and last night; it stopped somewhere around 10 am today. But I had to go to Mass this morning, so I schlepped outside in my sneakers (I don't own boots) and cleared off the car with a broom and a board scraper. Yes, for cooking. I haven't bothered to pick up an actual ice scraper yet - I keep forgetting to put it on the shopping list. Besides, the board scraper works just fine, and I have a feeling Alton Brown would be proud of my multi-tasking tools.

So. Cleared off the car. I didn't have time to shovel a path, but figured it didn't much matter: none of the streets were clear, so why start with my driveway? Gravity got me out of my little car-divot quite nicely, and my tires have a lot more traction than I thought they did. My little Corolla did an admirable job, albeit at 10 mph or less the whole whopping mile to church. I didn't slip or skid or anything!

I was even daring enough to hit up the Taco Bell for nachos for lunch afterward. For whatever reason, I've been craving them since yesterday - it's the cold or the PMS, but either way, who am I to argue with my tummy? I may run up to Walgreen's in a bit, too - we can't find our seventy-billion rolls of Scotch tape (we think they got lost in the move, along with two bolts of silk satin, half a bolt of silver dupioni, several yards of emerald irridescent taffeta, and all the present-wrapping paraphernalia I'd accumulated at our old house.), and I have presents to wrap, so I might bundle up the Bacon and take a little field trip.

More snow is forecasted for tomorrow and Tuesday - we'll see how I manage to get Bacon and the hubby to the mall for Santa pictures.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Snow and sickness

Blargh.

Bacon came down with a cold the other night. She was wheezing all over the place, nose making a break for it in the form of snot, kept waking up because she couldn't breathe. Lovely.

Yesterday, it got my husband.

Today, it got me.

Completely inconvenient. Not only do I just hate colds on principle, but I sing in two choirs at church. I have three rehearsals and two concerts next week, aside from my usual two Sunday Masses. A cold isn't just icky: it's career-impeding. And have you tried to buy any good cold medicine lately? Freaking tweakers ruined it for everyone else. I have to sign away Bacon just to get some Sudafed.

Ah, well. At least the snow started. Not much more fell while I was sleeping, but it's steadily coming down now. I knew as soon as I planned to drive anywhere, it'd pick up. I must be psycho.

Psychic. Psychic. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Weather

I'm new to weather. Well, not new, exactly - I'm more like, reuinted with weather. I just finished my time in Phoenix - hard time, because no time in Phoenix is easy - with a wonderful move to Colorado.

Since getting here in July, I've been stalking the Weather Channel. I made my husband install the weather widget on my desktop, so I can, if I wish (and God, you have no idea how I wish), get minute-by-minute weather updates. It's like crack to me.

I was so psyched when a snow forecast popped up on Monday for last night, today, tonight, tomorrow, and Sunday. I thought, "Surely, this won't last. You've teased me with snow before, Widget, and always have taken it back within a day or so."

But no! The little cloud with the teensy snowflakes winked up at me from the corner of my monitor, daring me to believe that there might really be 4-8 inches on the ground for Bacon and me to play in come Saturday morning, 4-8 glorious inches of delicious white powder to wash away the memory of 85-degree Christmases celebrated with the air-conditioning on to keep the tree from browning (or spontaneously combusting).

Would you like to know what's on the ground right now? A dusting. No snow last night; no snow today; a measly dusting tonight. Not even enough to close schools in Nogales.

Le sigh. Perhaps tomorrow the sky will vomit snow upon us: I do, after all, have plans. And they involve driving.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Let's get this out of the way.

My child's name is not, in actual fact, Bacon. Never was, never will be. It's a nickname we used for a while, before discovering her gender, and it's an affectionate endearment her uncles still use with her.

One would think, upon encountering the name "Bacon's Mom" on teh interwebz, that it's a clever moniker designed to protect a toddler's anonymity, yes? Apparently not. I guess the stupid people are breeding even faster than usual, because the number one question I'm asked in life isn't "How are you?" or "What's your name?".

No, it's "Did you really name your kid 'Bacon'? That's dumb." Only there's always fewer apostrophes. And capital letters. And less coherence.

So, no. I did not really name my kid Bacon. But doesn't it make for a great blog name?