How are you today? I'm superfantastic.

Christmas Photo Spectacular!

Perhaps I should not make such wild claims.  Maybe not spectacular, but Christmas photos nonetheless.

First I present my holiday baking spree.  I was asked by my mother to bring cookies and a coffee cake.  It just so happened that the frozen cookie dough and frozen coffee cake that I had purchased from coworkers for a child's softball team and school PTA, respectively, had come in last week. 

That skinny piece of raw, frozen dough on the left grew overnight into this:

I lovingly baked it and hand-frosted it using the included frosting packet.  It is important to note here that the fact that both desserts that I brought happened to start out as frozen pre-made dough should not indicate that I am lazy.  I mean, I am lazy, but I do actually enjoy baking.  No, this indicates that I am a huge sucker where school fundraisers are concerned.

But the holiday packaged food preparation frenzy did not stop there!  This final one did double-duty as a dessert item AND giftwrap.  My homage to Jim's pranking of Dwight on The Office by putting Dwight's stapler in Jello, here we have my brother's Best Buy gift card encased in lemon Jello:

Amy, look!  Your Christmas cactus is nothing if not a punctual bloomer.

I spent Christmas Eve and Day with my parents, sister, brother, sister-in-law, and our good friends Laurie and Jim.  My brother had to work too late to make it to Christmas Eve church, so he and I were prevented from getting our traditional Christmas Eve service uncontrollable giggle fits, much (I'm sure) to my mom's relief and my dad's disappointment.  He made it in later though to assist with the traditional tormenting of our mother.  In his church absence, Lisa, Dawn and I did manage to make several inappropriate church jokes.  I should not be allowed to sit by people.

On Christmas Day we ate ourselves silly with a big stuffing lunch, which also included such side dishes as turkey and ham.  Then we exchanged gifts.  I noticed some trends forming in mine.

The political trend:

For the record, I do not hate Republicans.  Hate the ideology, love the ideologue, people.

The blog trend:

Dooce and Real Live Preacher represented, of course.

Finally, the calendar trend:

When every member of your family buys you a calendar, does it mean there is a perception that you are unable to keep track of what day it is?  I'm thinking yes.  Isn't it great when your family really gets you?  Now that I live in the tropics, I regularly have to think hard about what month or even season it is, let alone day.

I learned this Christmas that if you comment loudly and regularly for months on end about how your claddagh ring is not only cheap and crappy but also a little too big, such that it tends to fall off when your hands are cold (which is almost all of the time) your parents will eventually catch on and buy you a nice new one that not only is made of real silver but also is your actual ring size. 

Seeing as how my parents had been so very intuitive (they also gleaned from my caffeine addiction and perpetual singleness that I might like a one cup coffee maker) I was really hoping that they would like the portraits that my siblings and I had taken for them.  Here they are opening the package.

Pop quiz, hotshot.  Are my parents:

a) wondering aloud yet again about how my brother got such a pretty girl to marry him?

b) laughing about how Dan's hairline is inching ever closer to where my dad's currently resides?

c) really excited about their present?

If you said c, give yourself a gold star!  Because they loved the photos which were taken by the lovely and talented Melissa, assisted by Doug of Eli Photography.  Allow me to recommend either or both for all of your portrait needs.  I mean, I showed up with unusually flat hair, an ill-chosen sweater, and eyes which squint when I smile (Melissa: More smile, Lori!  Less squint though!  Ok, but now smile and keep your eyes open.  Wait, what's wrong with your eyes?) and she even made me look good.

Photographic proof of above statement would be inserted here, were Typepad not refusing to do the same.  In fact, Typepad has been uncharacteristically reluctant to deal with any of these photos, meaning that I have spent literally hours working on this post and also possibly pounding on the table and yelling a little.  I might have given up, were I less committed to your...oh hell, it's not like I had anything else to do today except attempt to remember that I had laundry in (crap, laundry is still in dryer!) and make a quickly-forgotten mental grocery list for a trip out among the people that I failed to ever actually take.

I can't even remember now where, if anywhere, this post was going.  So I will sign off now while I still remember about getting the laundry out of the dryer.  Perhaps tomorrow I will even venture out so far as the grocery store for bread to make sandwiches from leftover turkey and also milk, necessitated by the chocolates I received, dark chocolate stuffed with even more chocolate.  And coffee!  That's what else was on the list!  If I call you from the store tomorrow, will you remind me?

The Gift

For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end...

-Isaiah 9:6-7

In this world of chaos and uncertainty, may the peace of Christ rule in your heart this holiday season and on without end.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

All I Want for Christmas

1. A job where I actually get to use my brain and perhaps do something that matters to me and/or the world at large.

2. Good health insurance.

3. Sleep.

4. For my left boot to stop squeaking.

5. Jeans that actually fit.  (Hello, The Gap.  Could you please bring back the style of jeans that I loved?  Please?  I promise, I will buy enough of them to make it worth your while.)

6. George Clooney.

7. One of those books that is so good that you can't wait to finish it but almost don't want to because then it will be over.

8. Fat free eggnog not to be so horribly bad and non-eggnoggy.

9. Self-discipline.

10. An exterminator.  If I find one more giant roach in my shower I will absolutely lose my shit.  (I have not discovered any of the four of them while actually in the shower or this would have happened long ago.)

11. To get to see all of my friends around the country who I miss.

12. The time and money to accept gracious hospitality offers in England and Japan.

13. No more mountain cedar pollen.  Ever.

14. An end to war, poverty, suffering, disease...you know, all of that bleeding heart liberal crap.

15. Ten straight days off from work.  Oh wait, I already have that!  Starting Saturday!  If you need me, I will be sitting on my couch in my flannel pajamas reading one of the six books I picked up last night at the library.  You can stop by if you want.  Just don't expect me to be wearing make up or shoes or pants that don't have an elastic waist.  (I got a head start on my reading last night with the beginning of Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, which I already adore, just like everything I have read by Anne Lamott.  You should read her stuff too.  You'll thank me.)

And you?  What's on your list?

Google me this

I started using gmail sort of recently and ever since then I have been fascinated by the Google Ads.  It chooses them based on your email conversation and in many cases, they make perfect sense.  For example, the most recent conversation between my sister and me comes with ads for shoes.  I didn't read back through to see where that comes from, but it doesn't surprise me.  I was also offered, next to an email containing political content, the opportunity to get Ann Coulter's column emailed to me every week!  For free!  Tempting, but no.  Or I could buy Why Mommy is a Democrat, The book the George W. Bush doesn't want your child to read!  Yeah, I bet the President has put a lot of thought into what your child shouldn't read.  Probably he doesn't recommend Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad War in Iraq either.

Sometimes though, it is hard to get a handle on what Google Ads is thinking.  Such as the time they offered Katie and me ads for romantic mountain cabin rentals.  This seemed rather presumptuous of Google Ads, assuming that we were more than just good friends.  FYI, Google Ads, we're not each other's type.  Not that there would be anything wrong with that.

Most recently, I have been getting an ad for your1love.com at the top of my gmail.  The funny thing about this is that it is always preceded by some word or phrase that changes.  Again, sometimes these make sense:

Romance: your1love.com - we can predict the name of your true love

Love Poems: your1love.com - we can predict the name of your true love

But sometimes, not so much.  Actually the first time I saw this ad, it looked like this:

If they are a virgin: your1love.com - we can predict the name of your true love

Huh.  So I guess if your true love is no longer a virgin, you are out of luck.  You can still pay $9.95 a month to get a name texted to you (Why every month, your1love?  If this is my true love, shouldn't I just need the one name?) but I suppose you'll never know whether it is your real true love or if that person's name can't appear since he or she is no longer a virgin.  Tricky.  But still totally worth the ten bucks a month, don't you think?

But that's not all.  My favorite occurrence looked like this:

Death: your1love.com - we can predict the name of your true love

Umm...on second thought, I think I'm going to pass.  Because while we all know that death cannot stop true love (all it can do is delay it a while) it hardly seems worth the $9.95.  Thanks for the offer though, Google Ads! 

Also, did you guys know that there is now less than one week before Christmas?  Despite the holiday soundtrack in my car and the large tree in my living room, this seems like an astounding piece of information to me.  Good thing all of those copies of Why Mommy is a Democrat I ordered for my friends and family already came in!  Whew.  And Katie...see you in West Virginia?

Intolerable Acts

I make no secret of my unabashed love of Christmas music. I think it’s a real shame that we only get to listen to it for one month a year, but I suppose that therein lies much of its allure. It’s just such happy music and fun to sing along with. All of that said, there remain certain Christmas songs that I will not tolerate. These seem to be proliferating every year. The current list includes:

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer – Just when my faith in humanity was restored by the canceling of OJ’s book and TV deals, this song returns to remind me that things are indeed pretty bleak.

Santa Baby – Sex, greed, and Santa.  Sounds like a Dateline expose. 

Do You See What I See – A star with a tail as big as a kite? That doesn’t even make sense.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town by Bruce Springsteen – I will listen to this song for the first five minutes. The next forty minutes of Bruce repeating ever more loudly and vehemently how Santa Claus is coming to town, not so much.

The Christmas Shoes – Has there ever been a song, nay ANYTHING as maudlin as this? I can’t imagine it, but if there were it would certainly run on the Lifetime Movie Network and star Valerie Bertinelli.

The Twelve Days of Christmas and any of the assorted novelty versions – I do make an exception for the Muppet version. It’s Muppetastic. 

That’s all that comes to mind at the moment, although I certainly do not approve in general of girl or boy bands that add a crappy beat and their own verses to real Christmas songs. But otherwise, I’m down with the carols. Good thing we now have two all Christmas stations so I can flip when one of these crimes against Christmas music comes on. Because I am in need of extra holiday goodness seeing as how it is going to be 80 degrees here today. At least it’s beginning to sound a lot like Christmas. In my car anyway.

And in related holiday news, Happy Hanukkah, everybody!

Let's uh...call this a post, ok?

How about a picture of me dressed for the party last Friday?  One where I am standing awkwardly and also sort of appear to be wearing the Santa hat that actually lives on top of our tree?  Ok?  Ok.

The reason why my hair looks like that instead of how it was supposed to?  Well, it was a tragic accident, but one that could have been prevented.  Let this be a lesson to all of the kids out there: wine and curling irons do not mix.  Whatever you do kids, don't drink and style.

Yes, I burned the heck out of my finger attempting to curl my hair while slightly tipsy.  But obviously we are going to have to think of a much better story to go along with the giant scar that I'm about to have.  Let us put our heads together.  I'm counting on you, Internet.

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1979

It's that time of the year again, folks.  That's right, company holiday party time!  This year was exciting for me since it was my very first fancypants big deal office holiday party.  Twice I went to work for companies that had previously had huge and legendary bashes every year, right up until the year that I started working there.  Then both instituted cost-cutting measures that led them to scale back to an on-site during the work day wine/beer/appetizer event.  So we got to leave our desks for a little while and socialize on company time, but it's not quite the same, is it?  Then for the past couple of years I was working at a business so small that our holiday party was a potluck held at the home of one of my coworkers.  Which was nice, but you know, lacking in fancypants accoutrements.

Then I got my invitation to this year's party: dinner, casino tables, a live band, FABULOUS PRIZES!  And the attire was listed as cocktail/holiday, giving me an excuse to finally wear the little black dress that had been passed on to me by my sister.  (One of two that she gave me, actually.  Need another fancypants event.)  I was also looking forward to the annual tradition of watching someone make a drunken idiot of himself, possibly by repeatedly embracing the CEO or by engaging in frequent and extensive PDAs with a date who was generally assumed to have been paid for her services.  Unfortunately, this year was drunken embarrassment free.  I considered filling the void myself, but the two drink tickets I was issued didn't quite do the trick there and I did not even see the CEO around.  Nor did I have the foresight to bring a prostitute to the party.  Foiled again.

But I did have the chance to practice gambling just in time for my rapidly approaching trip to Vegas.  I won big, Internet!  And let me tell you, if only my winnings had one single thing to do with skill or luck on my part, I would be feeling very confident about my ability to gamble my way to financial freedom.  But no.  The thing was, these dealers were being exceptionally generous to all of us, it not being actual money and all.  I, in particular though, could not lose with the one dealer.  And he possibly also dropped some extra chips in front of me when he walked by later.  Yes, the theory was advanced that perhaps he could see down my dress, but I don't really think that was the case.  Maybe he was just hoping that I would amend the drunken humiliation scene to insert "blackjack dealer" into the role of "working girl".  Sadly, I don't think just being the blondest girl at the table or the only one in a strapless dress is going to have the same effect in Vegas.  Not that it did me much good anyway because I still did not "win" enough to get any fabulous prizes at all.

Then there was the live band.  Oh, readers, the band.  I will say this for them: they committed.  They were doing cheesy covers of unfortunate 70s music but did this stop them from dancing around and really getting into it?  It did not.  Even when covering Air Supply.  Now that is showing some dedication to one's craft.

All in all, quite the evening.  You just can't beat some free wine, easy gambling, and the chance to watch your coworkers stuff themselves into dresses and dance around to the dulcet tones of a Carpenters cover.  Here's to you, office holiday party!  May your bands always be cheesy, your casino dealers dishonest, and your pants extra double special fancy.

Personality: Do You Have One?

Well of course you do.  And chances are, you have taken some sort of "test", "inventory" or "eHarmony Personality Profile" to determine what kind of personality you have.  It is also likely that this test was quite lengthy and required rather a lot of thought on your part.  Well no more!  I can now test your personality using one and only one question.  A question that will probably provoke a knee-jerk response and require no thought whatsoever.  Which is how we like things here at Superfantastic.

Here is the scenario:

You and a friend have rented a cabin.  You want to go hiking but it is pouring down rain, so you start a large jigsaw puzzle instead.  You go to sleep that night, intending to finish the puzzle in the morning.  But the morning dawns bright and beautiful, perfect for hiking.  You have to check out of the cabin before you leave to hike, which means that you must now pack up and put away the puzzle.  Unfinished.

Does this bother you?  Just answer yes or no and you are finished!  Read on...

Personality One: No, this does not bother you.

The puzzle served its purpose.  It gave you something to do, allowed you to interact with your friend without staring blankly at each other, and it challenged your mind and fine motor skills.  Moreover, each piece that you successfully connected was a victory in and of itself.  Life is a journey, man, not a destination.

You are one easy-going and laid-back individual.  You don't let the little things bother you.  The process is more important to you than the outcome in many cases.  You take life as it comes, live in the moment, and can be easily diverted from a task by a friend in need, a great idea, or something shiny.  People really like your ability to go with the flow, get along with everyone, and generally enjoy life.  Unfortunately, they hate that you are never on time and always forget their birthdays, anniversaries, and names.  Probably you don't finish a lot of things.  Maybe you live in your parents' basement.  Grow up already, you lazy good-for-nothing slacker.

Personality Two: Yes, this bothers you.

The goal of doing the puzzle was to finish it, thus completing the picture.  Each piece successfully placed was a means to that end.  The result of this puzzle experience was failure.  Quitters never win and winners never quit.  You like to be, nay MUST BE a winner and your friend and Mother Nature herself have robbed you of your victory.

You set goals for yourself and do whatever it takes to achieve them.  You make small goals along the way, checking them off as you make steady progress toward ultimate success.  You are driven and successful, a leader who does things right.  People like that you can be counted on to come through and respect your dogged determination.  Unfortunately, they hate that you are rigid and unable to deviate from the plan, even if the plan exists only within the hyper-organized filing system that is your brain.  Probably they also wish that you'd stop yelling at them to use a coaster.  Take the giant stick out of your butt already, you uptight know-it-all.

Personality Three: You wouldn't have done the puzzle in the first place.

You are a party pooper.  This is why you have no friends.

So have we all learned some valuable lessons about our personalities today?  I certainly hope so!  Because I had to rewrite this entire post after Typepad ate the first version!

Also, many thanks to Lisa and Holly (personalities one and two, respectively) for the scenario.  I promise to give each of you an equal share of the proceeds of this free personality assessment!

Jingling (Ring Ting Tingling Too)

So on Saturday, I voluntarily went to Walmart.  During Christmas season even!  Why on Earth would I do such a foolhardy thing?

To ring a bell for the Salvation Army of course!  Which is an experience that I highly recommend, by the way.  You get to watch all of the uncomfortable sideways glances of the shoppers who have no intention of giving any money.  You get to see parents try to talk shy children into coming over to you with the money or watch very excited children drop a big stack of coins in one by one while their embarrassed parents try to encourage them to just drop them all in at once, honey!  I even had one little boy come over to ask if we took change.  Adorable.

You get to discover which is your dominant bell-ringing hand and whether or not you have sufficient motor skills to continue ringing the bell with one hand and use a stick to shove money down in the pot with the other.  (I don't.)

You also get to hear some good stories.  I had an older gentleman come over to tell me about when he used to ring a bell at a Target and how people were constantly coming up to him to tell him how the Salvation Army had helped them.  He even got to dress up once in Target's Santa suit and got hug-tackled by children from all directions.  That sounds fun.  The woman who was there before me had a lady come up and tell her that the Salvation Army had saved her son's life and it is only because of them that she has grandchildren today.

And if you are very lucky, luckier than I was, you get to see a man attempt to flee Walmart with a stolen flat screen TV and be chased down by Walmart patrons after the greeter woman who was chasing him has fallen down.  This happened just before my shift.  Curse my rotten luck!

Except not, because for the price of only one hour of my time (it was supposed to be two, but the man from Salvation Army had to come early to pick up the buckets) I received my very own free copy of A Christmas Story You've Never Heard.  I highly recommend this book.  I do not, however, recommend that you decide at a time of night when you really ought to be sleeping that you will pick it up and just read one or maybe two chapters.  Because you will not.  You will stay up entirely too late and read the whole thing.  Trust me, I know.  I hear it makes an excellent Christmas gift.  Unless the sister for whom you purchase it goes and rings a bell and gets her own copy before it is even Christmas.  Then it becomes a treasured personal keepsake, right Lisa?

We also bought our tree yesterday!  It was honest to goodness and I kid you not the very first tree that we looked at, but the price was right and it looks and smells quite wonderful in our living room.  Tonight: decorations!  We might even have to put on a little Perry Como Christmas music.  Why yes, Perry, I would love to accompany you on a sleigh ride and/or walk with you in a winter wonderland.  Thanks for asking!

No Mo WriMo

I have had things to tell you, Internet, but no time or energy to write them. 

Things like my dad's response to having the concept of text messages explained to him.  Namely "what do they say, 'howdy y'all'?"  (Get it?  Tex messages?  What, not even a pity laugh?  Whatever.  Maybe THIS is why I don't write to you more often!  Did you ever think of that?) 

Or that this occurred while my sister and I were trying to cram all forty million of my mother's ornaments on her tree due to my dad's What Doesn't Go on the Tree Goes to Goodwill edict.  Score: Mom 1, Dad and Goodwill 0.

Or that I was only decorating my mother's tree because I was tricked into it with the offer of free lunch, which was hamburger casserole, which if you are turning your nose up at, it is clearly because you have never had my mother's.  Then I arrived for my lunch to find the tree assembled and sixty bins full of ornaments on the floor.  She is a sneaky one, my mother.

Or that we had to explain the concept of text messages to my dad because he knew that it was my sister's man on the other end of the phone and he kept offering to answer it.  Because since we both lived so far away, he has not gotten to do his scary dad routine since we were in college.  Which, come to think of it, doesn't really involve him doing anything scary except, I suppose, just generally being a large man.  I mean, come on, he doesn't even own a gun.  In Texas!  He does have a pretty intimidating phone voice though.  His phone messages always start with "Hello, Lori.  This is your dad."  Well yeah, I pretty much figured it was you.  Or Johnny Cash, but he hardly ever calls anymore.

But I could not tell you any of that because I had to finish my novel by midnight yesterday.  Except I, in an uncharacteristically overachieving move, finished at noon!  Twelve entire hours early!  Meaning that I could have written a post last night, but I didn't want to.  For the first time in a month, I didn't have to go and sit in front of my computer all evening.  I was not entirely sure what to do with myself but I knew that it was not going to involve writing anything.  It did, however, involve a bottle of champagne that I bought, as per NaNo suggestion, last weekend.  This way if I hadn't finished, every time I opened the fridge I would have had to face down the $11 champagne of my shame.  Instead, Amy and I got to drink it out of free Lutheran wine glasses.

Amy asked whether it felt like a big accomplishment, having finished an entire novel in less than a month.  But it doesn't feel that way to me.  It feels like I had been writing it for all eternity.  I actually finished the story with about 4,000 words to go so I wound up just going back through it repeatedly adding paragraphs, sentences, phrases, or even words where I could.  I discovered that I use A LOT of contractions, even apparently when I mean not to.  So a lot of sentences that would have started out like, "I don't think I saw her in there." became something like, "No, I do not think that I saw her in that room."  Four thousand words later, I was done. 

And now I have no intention of even looking at that thing again until probably January, so many times did I reread it this week.  I do think that there may be potential there, but it will require a lot of editing before I can even think about doing anything else with it.

But either way, I am still glad that I did this, despite how much, at times, it sucked.  The major accomplishment for me here is completing an entire plot.  A plot where things happen!  See, my writing professors in college were always giving me notes like "I like your characters.  Maybe they should do something."  So I tend to get stuck on the plot and then quit, but this month I couldn't!  I had to just keep making stuff up and hope that somehow it worked out.  And you know what?  It did!

And I cannot tell you how glad I am that it is over.

A little perspective: This entire ridiculously long post?  Only 746 words.