The worst best gift

So, obviously, one of my favorite "gifts" this Christmas was the Ms. PacMan game, but another excellent gift was the result of the Tangent Family Grab Bag (the $25 version; the dollar-store grab bag is a whole nother story that I may leave to the Smelmooo to tell. But my peacock ornament was not as big a hit as I thought it would be -- go here if you have no idea what I'm talking about with this gift exchange business, and/or the peacock).

It's hard to predict what the most highly coveted items will be in these kind of gift exchanges-- the dollar store ones seemed to be the butane lighter, which we ultimately got, and a pair of scissors. At our office party this year, the hot items were a collection of flying pigs and an indescribable...thing -- desk accessory? shadowbox? -- that features a rotating fiber optic flower in a clear box, atop a black pedestal that boasts a waterfall scene on the front. The waterfall picture lights up and the water cascades when you plug it in, but there's no noise. It was the weirdest thing ever, but everyone wanted it (I ended up with a deep fryer that we haven't used yet. Maybe on New Year's! Fried Oreos all around!).

Anyway, at my family's gift exchange, where there's lots of stealing and scheming going on -- particularly this year, I think, because we didn't exchange any gifts among the adults -- the hottest item was a Ralph Lauren robe. Less desirable than expected: the bottle of Bailey's, and the Tetris game similar to my beloved Ms. PacMan.

I think I originally picked the robe as a potential first one to open (I was the first to pick, which is the worst position, especially if you pick an undesirable gift that no one wants to steal). But the Smelmooo suggested I pick a safer option, which I appreciated. Even though the gifts are ostensibly given anonymously, it's obvious from the writing on the tags and the wrapping paper who's contributed what, and over the years there have developed some definite patterns of good and bad gift-giving. The sister who bought the robe has a somewhat inconsistent history, so as first pick, I had to go with the safe bet of my brother and sister-in-law's gift, which was a fondue set. We already have a fondue set -- two, in fact, plus a S'mores maker -- so it turned out to be a good gift, but just not for us.

My sister-in-law -- who had number 16, the last and best number -- stole back the fondue set she'd bought, realizing that we already have one, wanting it for herself, and having successfully wrangled the robe for my brother. So that left me to either steal an open gift or end the game by taking the remaining wrapped gift, which was from the same touch-and-go sister that supplied the robe this year. She whispered that I'd like the wrapped gift, so I opted to end the game, and was delighted to unwrap...a karaoke set!

So exciting! So much better than the robe, or any of the other gifts. Hours of fun on New Year's Eve! Something to cross off my list (although the spirit of it was that I'd do it in public)! It'll be like when Jen and I sang I Will Survive at Great Adventure in 1994 (the tape has outlasted our friendship by many years, but it still makes me laugh every time I hear it, and makes me miss her just a tiny bit)! I'll be a rock star in my own home!

And then, we got it home, and I discovered that it requires eight batteries (not included) and special CDs with graphics (not included), which several people have helpfully told me are sold at both Target and Odd Job, but the purpose of the Tangent Family Grab Bag is not that your $25 gift requires you to spend a hundred bucks on batteries and CDs if you actually want to use it.

But I love it so, in theory, even though I worry that it'll just suck overall. But there's no great love without great risk, right? Or something like that? So I'm going to take the plunge with a couple of the compilation CDs that have all the standard karaoke classics like "Summer Nights" and "I've Got You, Babe" and "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling" and hoping for the best. And if it's terrible, it's getting wrapped up and regifted at my holiday exchange at work next year.

My mother, my self

A couple of weeks ago, I took the day off from work to have lunch with my mom, finish up some holiday shopping, and have dinner with Sharico (I think this was the official kick-off to the eat-everything-under-the-sun-at-every-mealtime season, which will undoubtedly continue through Sunday). It was a lovely day, not too cold; I got all the toys on the list for my nieces and nephews; I wasn't at work; Shari and I got to catch up over a yummy dinner. And I hung out with my mom.

As I've written here before, I have a fairly uncomplicated relationship with my mom, blessedly. And the older I get, the more she surprises me and the more I grow to appreciate her. We just had the best day together -- I picked her up at her home so she could show off her Christmas decorations, which I think she's still a little uncertain about, this being their first Christmas in the new place without a boatload of moving cartons everywhere.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, my dad called -- he had been out getting a haircut, and was going to lunch with a friend -- and suggested that we meet up in a parking lot halfway between our destinations, just so he could say hi and give me a hug. I wasn't sure, at first, whether that was adorable or just plain weird, but I've settled on adorable, because I enjoy my dad's random bouts of affection.

Anyway, after our little parking lot rendezvous, my mom and I had lunch at this super-nice restaurant where she and my sister always go, but I for some reason have never been. And we ate and ate and ate and ate, from the butternut squash soup to the apple tart with fresh whipped cream, and we talked and talked and talked and talked, about everything: about her siblings, about my siblings; about her mom and dad and how we both miss them so much during the holidays; about my job, and how glad she felt that her job for most of her life was raising her kids, and how life is so different for women of my generation and her grandkids' generation; about depression and divorce; about making a marriage work for 45 years and counting; about her conviction that Matthew McConaughey has "real sex appeal," and my determination that that was really an overshare, and also that she would feel differently after reading that People magazine article.

After lunch, we went to the grocery store for her dinner party that Friday; she was having her brothers and her favorite cousin and their spouses over, and the table was already set on Wednesday, because my mom is a planner and a preparer. She was fretting over a contingency plan if the predicted snow developed late in the day, but in the meantime was intent on getting the pork loin and other accoutrements for the party, which I later found out started at 4 and ended by 7:30, which I guess is what happens when you're 66 and the youngest person of the bunch, but it made me a little sad.

Anyway, it made me disproportionately happy to be at the grocery store with my mom, because it brought back floods of memories from all stages of life: riding in the front of the cart and snacking on raisins as a kid; sullenly walking alongside my mom while getting the regular shopping done in junior high; my sisters and I divvying up the list and fanning out in different directions to get ready for a big holiday meal; running in to pick up a last-minute balloon or card or flower arrangement for a birthday or celebration.

This last one is the one that really struck me as we finished up the shopping -- declaring the tomatoes "no good" and heading through the card-and-flower section on our way from the produce aisle to the check-out. It was in that exact spot that, a million years ago, my mom laughed at me, and possibly changed my life. It's probably overly dramatic, but we were in the same place five and a half years ago, getting a card or a plant or something on the my sister's med school graduation, and I remarked that it was almost my anniversary with my then-boyfriend. And my mom said, "How many years is this?" and I told her it was four years, and she laughed.

And she tried to stifle it, and she said, "I'm sorry; it's just: four years? It's kind of...I don't know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have laughed".

And it didn't happen right in that moment, but it stuck with me, and I realized the thing that most 22-year-olds hate realizing, which is that my mother was right, about my boyfriend, of all things. I wasn't going to change; he wasn't going to change; we weren't going to get married; we were just plugging along because it was what we knew how to do. And it took my mother laughing at me in Kings for me to realize it and do something about it.

Anyway, after the grocery store, we hit Learning Express for gifts for my nieces and nephews, and then just chatted some more at my parents' place (for so long that my dad came back from his lunch date, rendering the adorable parking lot meetup somewhat unnecessary), where I feel remarkably at home. I was so sad when my parents were moving, thinking I'd feel a huge loss, not having "my room" anymore; not having the kitchen table around which we'd sat for so many years; not having the pool in the summertime. But my siblings and I all, I think, have found that the new place feels just as much like home, even though we don't all fit around the new kitchen table, and we're glad that our parents are happily in a smaller place where they don't have to shovel the snow or take care of the pool.

I think that it hits me every once in a while that my parents won't be around forever. They're both healthy, thank goodness, and they both seem young for people in their mid-60s -- they're active and they have millions of friends. I hope that they are around for ages and ages, that they'll be healthy until ripe old ages, that they'll know their great-grandchildren at least as long as I knew my own grandparents. But in the meantime, and for a lifetime, I am going to treasure these lazy afternoons, observing the small moments that make my parents my parents: sorting through Christmas cards that have arrived in the day's mail; squabbling over whether a remote control for their gas fireplace is a necessity (mom) or a wasteful indulgence that fosters laziness (dad); offering to get the other a drink or a snack; exchanging hugs and kisses or holding hands for no reason other than that they're in love still after 45 years of marriage; hanging out with the daughter they're officially done raising, but still worrying and caring and offering advice at every turn, laughing with her -- or at her -- when she needs it most.

Happy Golden Days

I feel as though the holidays have come and gone more quickly than usual this year, for some reason, even though New Year's is still ahead of us. But Christmas was over in a heartbeat, which made me a little sad, even though I enjoyed it enormously. It felt a little like a transition year, or maybe last year was the transition year, and this was the first year of the rest of our lives.

Christmas is largely about traditions, of course, and during the past few years, we've seen the end of some traditions, some false starts with new ones, and maybe a couple that will stick. It's hard to keep up as families grow and change, as people get married and merge their lives and try to squish everything together that was once separately maintained.

Probably 35 years ago, my parents and their best friends and their kids went to a special Mass a few weeks before Christmas where Santa Claus would show up and collect toys for what are now called "underresourced families" but at the time I'm sure where just poor kids. That year, and every year after, everyone -- which ultimately included eight kids, eight kids-in-law and 11 grandkids, long after Santa stopped going to the church -- would gather at my parents' house for the annual "Santa Brunch," which usually coincided with Santa's visit to the neighborhood on a firetruck. When we were kids, we saw these family friends all the time, but as time wore on, the Santa Brunch was the only time we'd see our "cousins" and their kids all year, except for weddings, so it was a huge treat to see them and see how their kids -- the oldest is now in high school -- were growing up. But last year, my parents moved to their new home in mid-December, it was too hectic and probably too small a space, and just like that, gone was our decades-long tradition. No one really brought it up this year; it was just sort of an unspoken agreement, I guess, that the three generations' lives were too crazy and scattered to continue it, so Poof. Done.

Which makes me a little sad, but part of me is like, "Phew! One less thing to deal with over the holidays." Maybe we should do a Christmas-in-July pool party instead. I like all the people we see over the holidays, but because it's the holiday season there's just pressure and angst and it's one more thing and it sort of defeats the whole purpose of kicking back and enjoying each other's company.

Last year was also the start of some new traditions: with my parents' move, my brother and sister-in-law took over hosting duties for Christmas day, and it seems like this one is sticking. They have a huge, huge house with a giant kid-friendly basement; my brother's an amazing cook (and it turns out my sister-in-law makes a great mac-and-cheese); they're centrally located. This year, the kids actually took turns opening their presents, rather than just running into the living room and attacking the piles and wreaking such havoc that no one knew in the end which gifts belonged to which kid. But they're suddenly at these perfect ages where they're well-behaved (mostly) and patient (mostly) and open (almost) every gift with wide-eyed gratitude and enthusiasm. Our nephew Jake was as excited about his dollar-store gift -- a crappy plastic game with some of the pieces already broken) as he was about his new microscope and his dinosaur set. Julia opened a dress from my mom, immediately abandoned her pile of unopened gifts, and returned two minutes later wearing the new dress, having discarded her beloved American Girl outfit so she could show off the new outfit from her Gram. And it seemed, in fact, to be more about showing her appreciation than just reveling in something new. To some extent, these kids are spoiled like mad, but they're grateful for everything, and they're genuinely good, generous kids, which warms my heart and makes me proud. It's wonderful to spend Christmas with those kids.

Someone I work with just said to me, entirely seriously, "I think that my husband and I are going to have a baby this year, just so we don't have to run around so much during the holidays. If we have a kid, we have an excuse not to try to get everywhere and please everyone."

The Smelmooo and I did our own work-around of the running in a million directions this year. His family came to our house for Christmas Eve, which was quiet and mellow and lovely, and we did Christmas day with my family, with the kids and the chaos. We got to spend quality time with everyone, and I really enjoyed it, the not having to rush to leave my brother's place or to feel so exhausted at the end of the day that I can't keep my eyes open at the Smelmooo's parents. It's hard, letting go of the old traditions, but I'm enjoying some of the new ones, and I hope this Christmas Eve/Day split with the families will stick, at least until there are Smelmooo nieces and nephews running around, at which point maybe we'll flip it.

And I love the other traditions that I've married into: Mickey G's annual holiday party, where I eat better than I do all year, and am consistently awed by her mad hostessing and cooking skills; wrapping up fun presents for our stockings (Santa always brought my family very practical gifts -- lip balm, socks, a toothbrush, hand lotion -- for the stocking, and never bothered to wrap them. Imagine my surprise -- and the Smelmooo's immense disappointment -- when I got tons of chocolate and fun gifts, all individually wrapped, on our first Christmas together, and the Smelmooo got hand sanitizer and crap, albeit in a lovely hand-decorated stocking); lugging our tree alllllllllllllll the way across the street from the YMCA lot where we buy it; saving our change all year to buy ourselves a present at the end of the year; cooking and having people over on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, and listening to holiday music while we prepare. And this year, adding a Good Dog stocking to the mantle, and watching our newest addition enjoy the wrapping paper and the company and the many treats bestowed on him.

So yes, the holidays are pretty much over; the Insight Bowl is over (you almost pulled a win, guys! I was a proud pseudo-fan last night even though you lost it in the end); and I'm already seeing summer clothes at the mall as I return gifts and look for good post-season sales and tableware I never realized we don't have (a proper water pitcher, for example, and a serving bowl for smallish side dishes), and the rush to the next thing -- bring on the Valentines! -- is dizzying. Today, my first day back to work, my office is dead, dead, dead, but I know it's the calm before the storm, and that it'll be frenetic again next week. But for now, there is peace on earth, or at least in my little corner of it.

The Silent Bob Theory

The other day, Minnams and I were talking about Silent Bob (well, sort of. Minnams actually said, "Wait; who's Silent Bob?"), and how powerful it can be when you're quiet, quiet, listening, listening, and then finally, when you open your mouth, everyone's like, "Whoa. When she says something, we'd better pay good attention, because she doesn't talk just to hear herself talk, and wow! That was brilliant, what she said just then!"

For those not in the know, Silent Bob is a character in Kevin Smith's New Jersey Trilogy, and he's actually played by Kevin Smith. And everyone, please shush about how he was also in those other movies, because Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back just a bad, dumb movie. Dogma was okay, but Silent Bob there feels qualitatively different from the Jersey Trilogy Silent Bob.

Speaking of Jay and Silent Bob, my college boyfriend was actually an extra in a never-completed movie where I think Jay was the central character, and another of our friends had a fairly substantial role in it. I totally forget the name now, but I think it never went anywhere because the lead was in that classic E! True Hollywood Story downward spiral where he was doing so much cocaine that he couldn't function on set, so they scrapped it. (I may have just made half of that up; don't sue me for defamation or libel or whatever! Fuzzy memory based on secondhand, years-old information.)

Anyway, I tend in many work settings to use the Silent Bob approach, which sometimes gets me into trouble, particularly when I don't get those flashes of brilliance that inspire me to open my mouth or, conversely, when I chuck the Silent Bob theory in favor of a Tourette's-like compulsion to blurt out whatever random thought is in my head, in which case people are like, "Oh, dude, she is so not Silent Bob; she's just kind of not very bright." So you have to walk a very fine line there.

Which, Walk the Line! The Smelmooo and I saw it on Tuesday night, because that's free popcorn night at our theater, except because we used free passes to get in, we didn't get the free popcorn, so it was sort of a wash. Anyway, I am totally in love with Reese Witherspoon, and even moreso after this movie. There were a couple of moments where I felt like I saw Reese, or Tracy Flick, and even Dani (the scene when she runs across the woods to get Johnny after his tractor accident? How could anyone not have flashbacks to "COOOOOOOOOOOUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTT!!!" during that scene?!), but for the most part, she just was June Carter, and I was very impressed. Although part of me can't help but wonder if June Carter could possibly have been that perfect. But I really liked the movie, and Joaquin was fantastic, as well (although I occasionally had the, "Is there a frog on my head?!" thing in my mind as I watched his performance). When I was really too young for such a thing, I went to see Great Balls of Fire -- the Jerry Lee Lewis story -- with my sister and her college friends, but I never really thought of Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis as being contemporaries, so I was sort of startled to see that they toured together, along with Elvis. I think I'd have been at home in the late '50s, somehow.

In other movie news, I've now crossed Rosemary's Baby and It's a Wonderful Life off my list. I really liked both, and I'm surprised how much they've both stuck with me. I think that Rosemary's Baby proved to me that I have zero maternal instinct. At the end, I was like, "Stab them all! Kill the baby! Get the hell out of there!" and just could not fathom that she'd be like, "This is my kid [no matter that it's also Satan's], so how could I kill him?"

And I was figuring that It's a Wonderful Life would be overrated and schmaltzy, and I wasn't expecting a whole lot, and it was a little schmaltzy, but I loved it anyway and I don't care, and I teared up at the end even though it was a little silly, but it's Christmastime and it's a nice story, so pbbbbt if you think I'm a big sappy wuss (even though you're probably right).

So there it is; I've probably just proved the Silent Bob theory wrong by such inane ramblings after a long hiatus from blogging, but I'm back in the saddle, so the Smelmooo will maybe get off my back now :)

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Someone got here by searching: What makes a narcisstic tic
This reminds me of Judd on Survivor talking about being "a good sportsmanship."

Raisin the roof

I've finally gotten into the holiday spirit. The Smelmooo and I got our tree and decorated on Saturday, and took Tucker for a picture with Santa Claws (ha, ha). Then, yesterday morning, while the Smelmooo did some last-minute shopping, I pulled up our iTunes holiday song list and sang Christmas carols while I baked for Jenny's care package to Africa and did a test run of the main course for our Christmas Eve dinner.

I'm not doing so well on shopping, still: I've somehow run into problems with every online purchase -- even on Amazon, which is unheard of, but they're telling me that all of my "usually ships in 24 hours" items will not arrive for another month -- and found wholly unhelpful associates for my in-person purchases. But I'm taking the day off from work on Wednesday to do some serious shopping, and to have a lunch date with my mom and a dinner date with Shari, so all is well in the world.

And the baking! It continues tonight. I just love it once I'm in the zone of it, and I couldn't just send Jenny and her family a bunch of bald chocolate chip cookies (this is one of the few areas where Jenny and I don't see eye-to-eye: no chocolate?! what?!). So I decided to make some oatmeal raisin cookies tonight to throw into the mix (and I learned last year that you're also supposed to put a slice of bread in when you package the cookies, to keep them fresh -- apparently, the bread will be hard as a rock when it arrives in Africa, but the cookies will be good as new. I'm easily fascinated.).

I think that Dole raisins might be the perfect food (and the box tells me that they're a "superfood." I'm not quite sure what that means, but I agree they're a super food). They are perfectly plump and just the right texture and there are very few stems mixed in with the raisins, and it fills me with joy to open a new box. But if a box has been sitting around for too long -- even unopened -- it's bad news. It's like the Diet Coke I inadvertently drank a couple of weeks ago that was several months past its expiration date (damn you, convenience store that only sells liter bottles for $2, and me, for being an unobservant junkie before my early morning train ride). Heaven when it's right; awful when it's off.

But the raisins tonight have brought me much joy, and the cookies are turning out beautifully, and it makes me so happy to think of Jenny putting them into her little pregnant belly and thinking of home.

I think part of my fondness for raisins comes from a childhood where so many other foods were off-limits because of my allergies (which, holy crap, did you see the People article on that girl in Canada who died when she kissed her boyfriend who'd eaten peanut butter nine hours earlier? I whine and whine about how deprived I was as a kid because of all my allergies, but really I was pretty lucky), but raisins were a nice sweet snack. And they were the only things that kept me quiet in church -- my best friend and I would share boxes of Sunmaid raisins (which are nice for the memories, but tend to be dry and shrivelly, especially compared to my beloved Doles).

These are the days -- when stuff is turning out well in the kitchen; when the house is decorated; when all I want to do is wrap presents; when I'm frustrated with my real job -- that I think maybe I could just toss the day job and be a scrapbooking consultant or something and mostly be a housewife, trotting along with the Smelmooo to all of his exotic work trips instead of just one or two a year. But I think I'd hate it after a couple of weeks; I still suck at cleaning; I'd be bored out of my mind; and tropical vacations get expensive even if you're not paying for airfare and hotel. But it's fun to think about it when the house smells like vanilla and brown sugar and pine and looks all twinkly and dreamy, and the fireplace is all crackly, and it's the only place in the world I want to be, just curled up with my best guys. And a little box of raisins.

Four irritants and an observation

1. People who sneeze without covering their mouth and nose.
2. People who begin their sentences with "As well."
3. The phrase "value-added."
4. The phrase "in lieu of" when someone really means "in light of" (e.g., "In lieu of the snowstorm predicted for Friday, we've developed a contingency plan for our scheduled meeting.").

Last night, the Smelmooo and I went to a fancy work-related dinner at a country club. I loved all of the food, and was particularly excited about the apple cobbler dessert, which they served during some of the closing speeches. It was a really tiny room, so I felt kind of weird eating while people were speaking, but I looked around and pretty much everyone was digging into dessert. And every single woman I observed was using a fork for the cobbler, and every single man was using a spoon. I'm not sure what that's about -- Smelmooo offered a theory about most of the men being engineers and therefore using the "logical" utensil, whereas I find the fork to be more logical -- and I don't usually give much credence to the Mars/Venus thing, which I think is overly simplistic and reinforces ridiculous gender stereotypes, but what's up with this?

Bon Ladies

So last night, while the Smelmooo and Jenni were working their front-row seats at BNL, two of my sisters and I were rocking out, two rows from the back, at the Bon Jovi show. I have to say, I was a little jealous -- I love BNL, especially live -- but it was a good bonding time with my sisters, and those Jersey boys put on a good show themselves. Plus, I got to cross another thing off my list.

My sisters and I discussed the possibility of teasing our hair and wearing stirrup pants, but we didn't feel like putting forth the effort in the end and, really, plenty of other people at the show went down that road (most of them, I think, not as a joke for the one night). But it was quite a mix, from teeny-boppers to senior citizens snoozing during the final encore (Dead or Alive, with Jon wearing his Philadelphia Soul jersey -- the fourth top he wore, all with caramel-colored leather pants).

I loved the chemistry between Jon and Richie (wearing his wedding band, for those of you gossip-mongers); I loved how much fun those guys were having and how much energy they had, even though they're all getting up there, even after more than two hours straight of playing and dancing. And Jon was running around through the crowd, singing the opening song and Blaze of Glory from different parts of the arena while the band stayed onstage. And every time he ran through the crowd to get to his new spot, I held my breath a little and got a little knot in my stomach, because I was sure he was going to get mobbed or that something bad would happened. I'm totally neurotic, I know, but I just breathed a huge sigh of relief every time he made it back to the stage unscathed.

After the show, once we finally made it downstairs from the nosebleed section, everyone had to pee before our 90-minute drive home. The woman in front of us on the bathroom line repeated about every 45 seconds the following story: "He walked right past me, and I grabbed his leg, and the security guard punched me in the ribs! But then the guy behind me punched the security guard! Can you believe it? Punched me in the ribs! But I got to touch his leg."

Reason #423 that I could not be a rock star: unwanted touching.

I love my sisters and rarely get to spend quality time my second-oldest sister, who has three kids, so it was tons of fun to take a brief little road trip to Philly and a longer trip down memory lane as we sang along to Bon Jovi CDs in the car, reminiscing about the Siblings Weekends the three of us enjoyed at Villanova in the 80s, dancing around in Kathy's dorm room to Livin' on a Prayer (I had a very fancy rhythmic gymnastics routine). And it's nice to catch up on who we are now -- I think there's a tendency -- for me, anyway -- to put my family members into nice little shorthand buckets that are largely holdovers from the roles we played growing up. So I'm always happy for a reality check during grown-up time, to reconnect and get to know these women today even better, for all our history. And to dance like a fool to '80s music.

And who knows...maybe next time, we'll get lucky as lucky as the Smelmooo, and be close enough to get punched in the ribs.