BS (beloved spouse) – Page 9

Category: BS (beloved spouse)

lost in the supermarket

Posted on January 17, 2008 by wrekehavoc

yesterday was not my day to be a consumer.

first, there was target. my beloved target (motto: walk in here for one item. walk out with $50 worth of merchandise.) the store where there’s probably an aisle with my name on it. someone somewhere heard BC’s pleas to make the C9 running pants and shirts for girls as well as for boys. (she’s told me that she often wears the same outfits as three boys in her class.) they are great buys (compared to underarmor) and especially terrific when girlfriend engages in sports. two days ago, when jools was home with me, we had to run an errand at target (that would be before we went out to the park in the 20+ degree freezing weather and played) and i noticed that there were spring versions of the C9 shirts and pants in the girls department. in colors like pink and purple, even — which, for BC, is a major coup since she really hates trotting around in black and grey (at least one shirt is red). so i guessed at her size and picked up a few things.

only, in the words of junie b, too bad for me. i picked the wrong size. i had to make a return. when i looked at my receipt, though, that ms. target had overcharged me one extra pair of running pants. usually, i check my receipts like mrs. pathmark (mrs. pathmark is what my dad calls any grocery checkout person who checks every single item to make sure every coupon has a corresponding item. clearly, this term predates computerized checkouts.) but with jools in tow, i didn’t even get a chance to look at the receipt. i was lucky i found my keys.

so back i went to make my return. i told the lady that additionally, i was overcharged for an extra pair of pants which i did not buy. she proceeded to call security. (note to self: you really ought to start wearing makeup. you scare people on most days without it.) the burly security woman looked me over, then went into some place some where. i don’t know whether there are tapes of every single transaction made or whether they just want to see whether you’re pissed enough to wait 15-20 minutes to get your money back. but wait i did; and after 20 minutes of wasted time, the burly lady came out, pronounced me honest, and they gave me my money back.

on to sears, where a return went so much better. i never shop at sears (i was returning a lands end item); i think i might have to reconsider.

then, on to shoppers food ~~hellhouse~~ ~~house of babel~~ warehouse. i hate SFW, but BS received some giftcards there from the credit card company as a reward, so off i went to do marketing. other than the fact that the stench of their meat department makes me want to hurl, the place isn’t so bad. in fact, their international food offerings rock, reflecting the incredibly diverse population that hits this store. one pleasant moment was noticing that the middle eastern foods sit peacefully beside the kosher foods. somewhere, someone is smiling. (besides me, i mean.)

but at checkout time, i showed the gift cards to the cashier. how much they for? she asked. the cards don’t have a denomination on them. sorry, i don’t know, i replied. that’s great. just greeeeeaaaat, she replied, passive-aggressive smile gleaming. hello and excuse me, but don’t you use computers that let you know precisely what people have? all the other local stores do. or should i alert stockholders that you’re still in the dark ages of mrs. pathmark? i had to run those things through several times before peace reigneth.

ugh. home at last with just an hour to spare before i had to pick up BC (because wednesday is half-day elementary school day throughout the county. i love having extra time with my girl, but there’s something weird about the kids having a half-day every single blessed week.) i get home to a voicemail from my beloved pal, the nurse whom i adore, the one who gives me my IVIG every four weeks. please call, she says. i need your help.

the poor thing spent the entire morning trying to get the pharmacy to release my gammagard, which i was supposed to have today. it had been authorized by health insurance last week, but somehow, the people who actually release the IVIG hadn’t gotten the news. and hours of trying, in between actually helping patients, was not working. could i help?

so i started to work the phones. the pharma told me they needed prior authorization. Blue Cross told me that i’ve been authorized since last week and that the pharma needs to call, just as they always do. i called the pharma back; the woman told me that she had to ask a certain someone a question and that she was not there at the moment; could she call me back? AAAAAARGH. all she needed to do was call BC/BS and they’d tell her the news. but noooo. by about 3 p.m., you really wanted to keep me away from sharp objects. fun things i had planned to do with BC were shelved as i waited for the phone call. (we ended up making funky rice krispie treats, so all was not lost. but still.)

by 4:30, my favorite nurse told me that she was about to call a VP at the pharma. she called back a few minutes later. my meds would arrive Thursday (today) at noon. so let’s move the appt to friday.

ironically, the woman from the pharma company called about a half hour after my favorite nurse (who reads this blog, incidentally — so hi!!! and thank you!!!) and told me that she had been working on this all afternoon. call your doctor’s office in an hour and see whether there’s any progress. my doctor’s office closed ten minutes ago, i replied. but by that point, i was past caring. i clearly wasn’t getting the gammaguard on thursday.

some days, you shoulda stood in bed.

message to my girl (and boy)

Posted on January 14, 2008 by wrekehavoc

this one’s for you, kids. this one and this one, too.

no matter how you try, there will be days when you cannot keep the permanently-brave mommy facade up. maybe your day has just been a series of idiotic, unbelievable events that continue to pile-up in that way that some days do, like a never-ending car crash. or maybe you’re just not feeling well — you’re exhausted in a way that only other people who have a condition on top of parenthood can really understand. maybe you’re just tired of dealing with a never-ending panoply of wankers.

today was a combo of all three. and then some.

by the time the afternoon rolled around, i knew i needed to get some sleep or i would burst into a flood of tears. i picked up BC from school, told her to do her homework, and then, if she felt like it, she could curl up with me in my bed and we could watch something together. she dutifully did her work, consulting me on a few word patterns, and then we settled in to finish the 1949 version of little women (you know, the movie i had originally intended for us to watch before BC decided to pick jesus camp instead? — oh, and by the way — we’re also working on a Nova about intelligent design. that’s a laff riot, too.)

not even june allyson’s terminal perkiness or elizabeth taylor’s frightful look as a blonde could keep me awake. i dozed off until the very end of the movie. i knew the story, though, and i wasn’t sure how madame would take it when one of the characters (SPOILER ALERT!) kicks the bucket. but she was fine.

later in the evening, the sadness hit. sad. sad. sad. buzz, i said, thanks so much for hanging with me. i’m sorry, but sometimes, i suck as a mom.

oh mama, she replied, you don’t suck. you’re the best mom in the whole world!

and jools, sitting nearby, chimed in, you’re the best mama because you like to play with us! that child may not listen when i address him sometimes, but i’m always amazed at the strategic moments when his ears are open.

somehow, the clouds of the day lifted. it was an ordinary evening: BC disliking my culinary endeavor, jools wanting me to give him a bath instead of BS, stories a go-go, and then nighttime chats before bed. but there’s something so wonderful about the ordinariness of the evening, especially with little people who seem to reach me when no one else can.

doledrum

Posted on January 7, 2008 by wrekehavoc

oh, no. don’t go down to doledrum.

yesterday, i was in a foul, foul mood. i was getting a nose and ear infection. while in conversation with BS, i had a random nosebleed, which made me burst into tears (i don’t really have nosebleeds, and the last time i had a big ol’ burster was when my platelets were in the toilet. the proverbial damn broke, and there was nothing to stop the bleeding. it was scary.) my platelets can’t possibly be in the toilet, though, as i got some terrific numbers back last week on them. time for that deep breath…

anyhow, the icing on the cake: i dealt with an hysterical son who didn’t want to go to sunday school and who felt like i wasn’t listening to him even though i told him countless times i was (repeating his words, even), but that the answer was still the same. you try to teach your children to use their words, and they do. but then, there’s lesson #2 — sometimes, you use your words, but it doesn’t mean you will get the desired result.

believe me, i hated hebrew school. hatedhatedHATED it. the best part was running races in the front before class and hiding out in the toilets. which i did. all through third grade. cos the teacher and her long, pointy, chewed-on nails terrified me. but after being bat mitzvah’d, i felt like i had accomplished something. i had learned something. i want that for my kids. i don’t care if the very next day after the bat/bar mitzvah, BC decides to become a hare krishna and jools decides to become a satan worshiper. halleluyah to both of them. but i just want to share a little of their culture with them. after all, you can’t reject it if you ain’t got it in the first place, right?

jools ended up having a wonderful time at hebrew school. he made me a cardboard tree in honor of tu bishvat and planted a little parsley seedling (the dirt kind of shifted upside down on the car ride home, so we’ll see whether there’s any parsley for the seder.) he told me that trees give us air. maybe i need to stand closer to a tree and breathe in, as it drives me insane that this child has the short-term memory of dory from finding nemo. he always has a great time, but then he forgets and carries on for the next time. and i just don’t know how to get him to remember.

ah well. the day improved. i raced with jools and played in the backyard with both kids. BC asked if we could finally make the pinecone feeder treats for the birds, the project i’ve been stalling on. see, normally, i cringe thinking about the mess this project (peanut butter and bird seeds, anyone?) would make. but i thought, aw hell. let the kid take the lead. you’re not doing a very good job with your day, so maybe this will improve things. and it did, with us covered in peanut buttery-seedy goodness. oh well. have sink and broom; will travel.

then, after we hung the pinecones in the tree, i took a deep breath again and let jools out on the street under BC’s watchful gaze. i have a hard time letting the kids out without supervising them. (it’s so different from when i was a kid and i would just leave the house and roam the neighborhood without anyone worrying i would end up in a bad place.) the two were going to see whether anyone wanted to come out and ride scooters on our dead-end street. after ten minutes of angst, i looked outside to see 6 kids, two parents, and a dog. in short, my kids started a little impromptu neighborhood scooter party. which i joined. (BC even was permitted to walk said dog. she shoots, she scores!)

my kids nearly send me down the proverbial rabbit hole sometimes, but they always know how to find me there and pull me out.

i just have to open my mind and let them.

how to be a millionaire

Posted on January 6, 2008 by wrekehavoc

BC and i are talking just before bedtime as we always do. usually, she demands that i tell her a story from my life, or a story from someone in my life’s life. i’m full of stories (among other things, an impolite but probably accurate person might say), so after some prompting, i conjure up a tale.

but last night, after imagining what BS and i looked like on our wedding day, it is BC who launches into a mini reverie.

mama, i know what daddy should dress up like for halloween next year!

what, i reply.

daddy should dress up like a millionaire.

intrigued, i pursued. and how, darling, do millionaires dress?

well, daddy could wear a white suit, with a white top hat, and a golden sash around it. his suit would have gold buttons on it.

is that how millionaires dress, honey?

yes, she replied.

do millionaires ever dress like daddy and me? i ask.

no. a very definitive no from our lady of macaroni and cheese.

oh well. there’s no hope for us, i guess.

wait til i tell BS he needs an october costume that’ll make him look like a cross between the monopoly man and a pimp.

jesus of suburbia

Posted on January 5, 2008 by wrekehavoc

recently, i TIVO’d jesus camp, an indie movie documentary that lost out in the land of oscars to an inconvenient truth. i thought it would be something BS and i would watch at some point; however, when BC got hold of the TIVO and found it, she asked what it was about (evangelical kids going to evangelical summer camp! wheee!) and whether she could watch it. i told her that the only way she’d watch this was if i watched along with her, and voila! we watched this amazing documentary. (not the mother-daughter experience i was envisioning — little women is also on the TIVO — but no matter.)

hey — you out there — you citizen who reveres the separation of church and state. the charismatic christians in this movie will make you bark at the moon. you first meet some of the children at a children’s christian conference in missouri. one child passes out pamphlets while at a bowling alley (after praying to jesus to help her bowl well. no, i am not making this up.) one child wants to dance to christian heavy metal — she’ll dance not for the flesh, but for jesus. (the subject: go-go boots. the question: what would jesus do?::snerk::) and another child wants to grow up and be a preacher. you see kids crying, speaking in tongues, squirming uncomfortably. i was especially shocked to see parents in there, just standing by, letting their children undergo uncomfortable and upsetting experiences with no guidance and little support. i felt like i was watching parents throwing young christians to the lions.

most of the kids, by the way are — SURPRISE! — homeschooled. G-d forbid they actually have to interact with people who believe in things different from the beliefs touted by their church.

[note to self: the day will come when i will rant a HUGE, SUPERCOLLOSAL RANT about homeschooling. but not today.]

anyway, you end up at camp in ND, at a megachurch in colorado springs (which looks more like a concert venue — with diamondvision), and driving around scenic missouri with the camp organizer, pentacostal minister becky fischer. oh, and lest we forget washington, DC, where the children have tape on their mouths with the word LIFE scrawled across it as they pray outside the supreme court. (they wanted to make sure judge alito replaced sandra day o’connor. which, unfortunately, he did. today, a justice. tomorrow, abortion rights.) for me, the film is punctuated with occasional bouts of sanity from radio host mike papantonio, who even duels with fischer on the air over how children should be learning, not indoctrinated, at young ages.

anyway, i tried reallyreallyreally hard to keep myself quiet and available to BC should she have questions. we ended up talking about abortions, we ended up talking about heaven and hell, we talked about creationism. i carefully pointed out that this is a specific group of christians, that not all christians are like this. i did my duty for Dog and Country. (you’re welcome.)

but girlfriend couldn’t help but be creeped out by it all. mama, she pointed out, these people are terrorizing the kids! they’re making them scared and they’re making them cry! why are they doing that to kids?

because, i replied, it’s kind of like brainwashing. you have to break people down and then build them up again — but this time, with your ideas getting planted in their brains. they want them to not question the ideas but to just believe them. and then, make everyone else believe them, too.

we were both horrified. it’s one thing for parents to teach kids about their religion, to share their core beliefs. i support that 100 percent. it’s another thing to train them to be soldiers for G-d. these kids are not learning about tolerance. i’m not christian, but i always thought jesus was a pretty tolerant kind of guy — he hung with people like mary magdalene, right? i wonder how many of these people would go within ten feet of her now?

and when they started praying for george w bush… and when they started to smash mugs, which represented government, with hammers — well, my bullshit detector went off. i could barely stand this. hello, division of family and youth services? anyone out there? anyone home?

you don’t have to be a grownup to realize just how effing perverse this all is.

give blood

Posted on January 4, 2008 by wrekehavoc

one of my oldest friends, wah, has moved back into the area from scenic wisconsin (motto: hey look — another cow!) i am so thrilled beyond belief that she’s in chevy chase (even though i’m not.) today, we were going to try an exercise class together — something called nia, a sort of meditation, stretching, and dancing kind of experience which my friend adores, especially since it relieves some of the agony and pain she has from a condition. i’m all about that earthy-crunchy old fashioned spirituality stuff, so i’ve always wanted to join her. and we were going to go this morning but alas! wah had a flare up and the poor girl was in serious pain. another day. (feel better, wah!)

so back i went to the community center to do my BFL workout. as i walked in, i noticed that there’s a red cross blood drive going on. i looked at the woman at the sign-in table. she looked at me. i continued to look. she continued to look back at me. i finally snapped myself out of it and walked over to the locker room. damn, i thought, one more thing i can no longer do.

see, BS and i used to give blood all the time, so much so that you’d think we were deeply concerned about the vampire community. i gave at my workplace, he gave at his, it was just something we did. something easy that really helped people. i always loved talking to the people i’d meet when i went at work. once, while i worked at ED (motto: education is a state and local policy area, but somehow, here we are!), i ended up giving blood and chatting with Senator Rockefeller’s daughter, Valerie, in the cot beside me.

we gave blood on our anniversary. (i figured we were happy and this was one way to share it with someone who needed a little happy in his life.) the funny thing about giving blood with your spouse is that you pretty much are forced to have a conversation. it’s hard to hold a magazine (though believe me, BS tried), and you can’t exactly walk away while it’s happening, so it’s actually a perversely solid bunch of uninterrupted couple time. and you get to toast each other afterwards with oreos.

i even remember when we had a day off, the day after hurricane katrina. we were going to go to six flags, but OOPS – it was closed. so we figured, what the hell — we’ll donate (cos they’ll probably need more blood thanks to the hurricane) and then go out to lunch. there we were at PF Changs afterwards. the server noticed that we had bandaged arms. he asked us if we had just donated because of katrina. we said yes. he excused himself, then came back a few minutes later. my manager and i would like to thank you for your public spirit by giving you a free appetizer. well, woowee! that’s better than the free cookies and juice the red cross gives out!

but now, i can’t do it anymore.

see, i had a transfusion when my platelets decided to run off to brazil. without that blood, i might not be here, annoying you with my blather. (no one say yay about that. i’m lifting weights now, and i’m strong enough to smack you silly.) and now, i get IVIG infusions for CVID, which are ::drum roll please:: gammaglobulin, a blood product. so no one wants my blood anymore. it bums me out, because this is one of the easiest public service things anyone (over 110 pounds!) can do.

so think about it today. (not you, dee. you’re about to drop two puppies.) and hell, find a blood drive here, at your workplace, or through your local hospital. you’ll be doing a good deed. and maybe your blood won’t be the blood that saves my life, but you can damn well be sure it will save someone else’s. i’ll never know who gave the blood that saved me from total brain bleed-down. but i’ll always be eternally grateful.

and maybe i’ll have to find a new way to contribute… maybe organizing something like this.

new year's meme

Posted on December 31, 2007 by wrekehavoc

it just seems like a good thing to do.

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? 

start monthly IVIG therapy. i never would believe that i would voluntarily sit for 5+ hours with a needle in my arm every four weeks (for the rest of my life). i hatehateHATE IVs. but you do what you have to do, especially when you’re a mom. and staying alive and healthy is what it’s all about for me now.
take ice skating lessons. i know how to skate, but i never learned, for example, how to stop. i learned other things, too, which led to another question answer…

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? 

i started to until i was derailed by a knee injury, thanks to the new ice skating lessons 😉 but i did lose a little weight. not all that i wanted, but a little. and that’s better than nothing.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? 

nope. not a one.

4. Did anyone close to you die? 

sadly, our little friend mason died. but he lives on in our hearts, and every time we pass key school, we think of him with his cool bike, his batman paraphenalia, and, of course, a soccer ball.

5. What countries did you visit? 

grand cayman, mexico, and the republic of new jersey. oh, and the happiest country in the world, disney world. (does that count?)

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? 

better health
happier, rested children and spouse
time and focus to write

7. What was your biggest achievement of the year? 

getting a short story published for the very first time!

8. What was your biggest failure? 

allowing BC to linger in a class where she was not only not learning enough but where she was terrorized by a person in authority. i will never forgive myself for this. ever.

9. Did you suffer illness or injury? 

ha ha ha. very funny. besides the usual panoply of sinusitis and bronchitis, let’s see:

a torn PCL
a torn meniscus (both leading me to arthroscopic surgery)
CVID diagnosis
a gallstone
a request by my doctor to elect to have my gallbladder out (this will be a 2008 experience. i can’t have all the fun in one year)
and lest we forget the zillion CT, HIDA, and other scans i had this year, plus endoscopies and the like.

on the bright side, my platelets remained stable the entire year, which is more than i can say for 2006… ;-P
10. What was the best thing you bought? 

hmmm. a year membership to the thomas jefferson community center. the workout equipment is ancient, but the people-watching is priceless.

11. Where did most of your money go? 

chocolate. mortgage. computers. money market funds. probably not in that order.

12. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 

springsteen going back on tour. the who going back on tour.

13. Compared to this time last year, are you:  a) happier or sadder?  b) thinner or fatter?  c) richer or poorer? 

a) happier

b) thinner (but not by much)

c) probably dead even.

14. What do you wish you’d done more of? 

exercise. get my kids to read instead of being read to. spend more time and attention on my kids. write.

15. What do you wish you’d done less of? 

house cleaning. hands effing down.

16. What was the best book you read? 

the tale of despereaux. a children’s book, but an awesome read with BC.

17. What did you want and get? 

tix to see springsteen.

18. What did you want and not get? 

perfect health. i’ll never get that. but i am going to keep trying anyway 😉

19. What kept you sane? 

my friends. my BS. my parents. and even sometimes my kids. see, my kids have a way of driving me crazy, but sometimes, i realize how incredible they are (especially when i see other kids in action.) sort of like my parents and husband, now that i think of it 😉

20. Who did you miss? 

my gram and gramps. but i always miss them. i miss amy and jen-jen, and i never see them. i always miss my family in NJ. always always always.

but they're cousins…

Posted on December 29, 2007 by wrekehavoc

we’ve been having a wonderful visit with my BIL, his wife, and their two DDs, one an extremely sweet girl a few months older than BC and the other a seven-year-old firecracker. they were finally asleep in the living room, the three girls and jools, at their second slumber party of the weekend. last night, BC stayed with them in their hotel room. jools was mad because he couldn’t have a sleepover like the girls. and PRESTO! four kids in the front of my house.

[the night before last, little miss firecracker apparently drove her sister and everyone nuts and ended up sleeping in her mom and dad’s room. she drove her sister crazy enough to make her sleep on a couch! so tonight, i knew we would take no prisoners.]

welcome, as i might say, to auntie wreke’s police state 😉

seriously, though, i had no fears about people getting to bed. see, today, we took them on a walking tour of the National Mall. we walked through FDR’s memorial. we walked through the WWII memorial. we walked through the jefferson memorial. we walked all the way over to mr. lincoln’s place. we did the whole circuit, which, for the uninitiated, is quite a feat, especially if you’re jools and have the 4.5 year old shorty mcshortshort legs to go with it.

after a whiny (jools) cup of hot cocoa and chats about why you shouldn’t touch the water in the fountains (answer: they’re sadly places where homeless people sometimes bathe) and bird shit (all the kids were freaked out about sitting on chairs with tiny blobs of white), we walked back to the car. we had a nice lunch, dropped off my poor BIL, who needed to rest because he has a terrible cold coming on, and spent a few hours letting the kids run around the house while i had a nice chat with my SIL. (BS hid out in the office on the computer.) we then fed the kids and packed everyone in the car for the light show at the national zoo, an incredibly lame light experience. all the lights were sponsored by businesses; all the treats cost ridiculous sums. i don’t know why we had to pay for tickets for this underwhelming extravaganza. i sure hope the national zoo earned some money outta this one.

and then back for brownies and ice cream. BS stopped and bought vanilla ice cream (plus cookies and cream) because the sweet girl doesn’t care for chocolate. why can’t we have chawwwwklit? cried jools, who has been raised by a mama who knows no other flavor. why are there white chocolate chips touching my brownies? cried little miss firecracker, even after i surgically removed them, leaving a faint white (unacceptable) trace. BC, bless her pointed little head, has never met a chocolate product she didn’t like. she ate it all gladly and taught miss firecracker about the wonders of cookies and cream ice cream (the other aforementioned flavor BS actually purchased for himself but which of course ended up with the kids. my poor Beleagured Spouse.) and then bed. a fold-out couch. an aerobed. and a blow-up sleeping bag that jools adores and which is ripping apart.

my sweetgirl niece got homesick and went back to the hotel with my BIL and SIL; BC is sleeping in her room because the living room is apparently too dusty for her. so the talley in the livingroom now stands at jools (in the blow-up sleeping bag) and miss firecracker, who has the entire fold-out-couch to herself. i just hope she doesn’t freak out in the morning when she sees her sister AND her beloved BC are not there with her.

we’ll see.

for jewish girls who've considered suicide when christmas cooking was enuf

Posted on December 23, 2007 by wrekehavoc

with apologies to Ntozake Shange.

some friends are coming over for christmas eve. i’m pretty excited, as i have not yet hosted either family over my house. it’s kind of amusing, really, that the nice jewish girl is hosting a christmas eve ‘do, but i just consider it another occasion for celebration. as i said so sweetly to BS this morning as he was getting cranky because of cleaning duties: get ahold of your holiday spirit, dammit.

it’s clicheed, but it’s true: my dream of christmas day has always been a movie followed by chinese food. for the many years of our marriage, i went without those, deferring instead to BS since this annual ~~trainwreck~~ holiday belongs to him and i wanted it to be as he would want it to be. i love to see his face, all happy and thrilled 🙂

but last year, i got my dream of chinese food: to be clearer, crappy, overpriced, but still chinese food. we were surrounded only by dressed-up chinese people who all seemed to know each other and who ordered stuff emanating from animal parts which i, a borderline vegetarian, probably don’t want to contemplate. this year ~~in jerusalem~~, BC would like to have vietnamese food instead. BS and i (embarrassing history geeks who should no longer be allowed to watch the history channel) have already spent actual time contemplating whether certain southeast asian nations have had significant numbers of christian missionaries invading (thailand? india? cambodia?), as this might determine whether they would actually be open on christmas day. do normal people talk like this? i don’t really know. [note to self: just call the damn vietnamese restaurant tomorrow to find out whether they’re open and forget about seeing whether the history channel has an answer for you. they won’t.]

consequently, i have no earthly idea what one eats on christmas eve beyond the cookies and carrots one’s child has dutifully left out for st. nick. (oh, and by the way, for any of you kids out there reading this — auntie wreke wants you to know that those are only the cookies and carrots that santa and his reindeer left behind. they get kind of full on christmas eve, you know.) so we’re going with modified thanksgiving. i can hardly wait to taste the brined turkey that kellyo is bringing over; and i’m full of thanks that nylonthread’s AJS has something with which to actually carve the bird — and he’s not afraid to use it.

i found a recipe for sugared cranberries. heaven knows why i decided this, but i’m making said cranberries, which apparently create a lovely sugar syrup that’s appropriate for mixing with vodka. i added some orange peel to steep in there — i like my cranberries with orange whenever possible. i’m not entirely sure what the hell to do with this, but kellyo assures me that she does. i think i might welcome that sort of drink after the cleaning and cooking i’ve been doing.

additionally, i’m making ginger-orange carrots (a modified tzimmes, for you red sea pedestrians out there), some sort of garlic mashed potatoes, plain peas (because there will be 6 kids there), hummus, some sort of challah rolls (haven’t decided yet, but i guess i better get on the stick) and dessert. one dessert has turned out well — red velvet cupcakes topped with white chocolate peppermint cream cheese frosting (say that 10 times fast). in fact, the kids helped me decorate many of the cupcakes with lots of colored sugar and frosting, so if people haven’t started out in a diabetic coma, they will definitely end up nearing one.

dessert #2? well, that’s a different story. the gingerbread in question started out life with a different purpose. (a special purpose.) i made gingerbread cupcakes from an online recipe source and was all set to make the lovely frosting to go with it. people swore up and down, 5 stars, amazing recipe. so i made it. only, too bad for me. the cake, while delicious, ended up quite fragile and fell. the batter was quite thin. no way in hades would this stuff stand up to a stiff wind, much less frosting. i had to come to plan b.

or, in the words of my hero, winnie the pooh, think, think, think.

and sha-ZAAM! it came to me. a trifle. when G-d gives you lemons, make lemonade. the cake tastes fine; it just won’t be a pretty thing. i found a recipe and i’m modifying it by using my gingerbread. if nothing else, people might like pumpkin pudding, which tastes fine.

so what have we learned, boys and girls? stick with recipe sources where you can stick it to them via the letters to the editor section, if need be.

and when all else fails,we’ll always have kung pao chicken.

thank you, mr. hoffa

Posted on December 22, 2007 by wrekehavoc

tonight, as we started the joy known as wrapping the presents, BS discovered one of the two missing chanukah presents — HIS chanukah presents. the ones i somehow misplaced and which i have been obsessing over for the past two, maybe three weeks. fortunately, the one he discovered was still in it’s sturdy Amazon.com cardboard. clearly, it wasn’t a basketball, but still, he doesn’t know precisely what particular rectangular object it would be. strangely, it was right there in front of the washing machine, a place where i genuflect several times a week, prostrate to the laundry gods. how i missed it i cannot even begin to guess.

but still, gift number two was M.I.A. i knew i had held them together when i had last seen them, so there was no way on Dog’s green earth that it was missing. so when some of the presents had cleared, i did the unthinkable — i climbed to the dusty side of the dryer. and there, for reasons i cannot fathom, was gift #2. BS claims he didn’t look cos he didn’t know that was a present. i believe him.

damn that jimmy hoffa. guess he was done with them and decided to give them back.

it leaves me wondering the imponderable, though: is it regifting if you didn’t get presents during the holiday for which they were originally intended?