Five emails I received this morning, and why I’m grateful for them.
1. A friend gave this fantastically titled book 5 Stars on GoodReads:
The 99th Monkey: A Spiritual Journalist’s Misadventures with Gurus, Messiahs, Sex, Psychedelics, and Other Consciousness-Raising Experiments by Eliezer Sobel
I’m grateful to have friends who read fun books and take the time to recommend them.
I’m grateful that I have this video to laugh at whenever I’m feeling down.
3. I received this message from my brother when I sent out an email asking my siblings if they wanted to do a group Christmas gift for our parents. Really. That is all I said in the email. And this is the response:
“Group think!!! So Obama won, but I’ll be damned (yeah right) before I fall for the Democrats’ Marxism ideas and turn my beloved country into a socialist state….
Ha ha…like you believed that total load of bull sh!te coming from me.
Yeah, I’m in for a group gift.
God only knows what they want (pun intended).”
I’m grateful that my brother, no matter how old he gets, remains the same, crazy guy he’s always been.
5. A sweatshirt for the true beer aficionado:
I’m grateful for… um… I’m grateful that… um… well, I’m grateful for the long hard laugh I had when I saw this.
And in other feelings of gratefulness, my kids are grateful that their Lola took the time to make the gluten and allergen free cookies for Thanksgiving and mail them:
When I’m not reading or writing or dealing with anxious dogs and screaming children at the vet or contemplating liniment cake, THEN I sit down and watch TV. I hesitate to say I “watch TV” since I don’t get any channels, not even the most basic of basic channels – my TV doesn’t have an antenna. Thanks to the wonders of Netflix, though, I can still couch potato it like the rest of the world. I only lack knowledge of current commercials and really, what am I missing out on? Those dumb high fructose corn syrup commercials? No thanks.
So the last 13 things I watched on Netflix—
1. Tropic Thunder. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this movie, I’d heard both good and bad things. This is what you call an Equal Opportunity Offender. Jack Black was a bit disappointing in this movie, but Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise were something else. Wow. So funny. And so wrong.
2. Get Smart. I used to love the TV show and thought Steve Carell made a good Max. I laughed aloud at a number of lines, especially the scene where The Rock staples a guy’s face for not following office policy on refilling paper at the printer. I fully believe The Rock would do that in real life.
3. Smallville Season 7. I’ve only watched the first half of this season so far. I have a Smallville addiction. Actually, I have a Superman addiction. I love watching his heroics. It’s something I picked up from my mom, who only likes watching action and fantasy (which is how I grew up watching the A-Team, Hawaii Five-O, and Clash of the Titans). Plus, Tom Welling is ridiculously good looking. He makes the show worth sitting through every agonizing scene with Lana “I look like a twelve year old and have had so many different personalities in one series I don’t know who I am anymore” Lang. Enough with the Lana. More Lois, I say, MORE LOIS!
4. Pride and Prejudice, the BBC series. I decided once and for all to watch this and compare it to my beloved movie. The TV did a better job with the book adaptation, but it’s much longer, so they had the room to do it. I preferred Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth as the main characters vs Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. They looked more the way I imagined them to look from the book. I also think the younger sisters, Mr. Wickham, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh were better in the TV series. The TV Lydia was fantastically obnoxious. I preferred the movie Jane over the TV Jane as well as the movie Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Bingley, and Caroline Bingley, even thought the TV series gave the Bingley’s more of a role. Above all, nothing tops Tom Hollander’s performance of Mr. Collins in the movie. Oh, I cringe just thinking of him. And in other news, I spent way too much time analyzing this.
5. Be Kind Rewind. I have no choice but to say this movie was not as funny as I expected it to be. Whose fault is that, do you think? They should never have advertised the movie with the Ghostbusters reenactment because that was by far the funniest part of the movie and you can only go downhill when you give us your best scenes in the preview. Props to the word “Sweded” though. And I heart Mos Def.
6. Entourage Season 4. I watch this show for three people: Johnny Drama, Ari Gold, and Lloyd. Why is E so annoying? Why!!!! And Billy, what’s with the attitude? You were funny for a while, but enough’s enough.
7. Garfield. Who believes that there is a veterinarian out there who dresses like Jennifer Love Hewitt?
8. SpongeBob Square Pants: The Movie. Obviously, I rented this for the kids. I have to admit, though, had I known that David Hasselhoff would be appearing as himself, I totally would have gone to the theatre.
9. The Savages. Look at me! I’m an independent movie! See the dysfunction? See the presence of Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman? See how I have the scenes set to music that is seemingly disconnected but muy, muy creative? Yes, I am an independent movie! Um… sorry. I actually rather enjoyed this movie. Compelling subject, good acting, good dialogue. And excellent Jimmy, the Nigerian nursing home employee. The movie just seemed to be trying a little too hard.
10. Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. I rented this and then Husband watched it while I wasn’t home and said he didn’t want to watch it again because it wasn’t that good. So I wound up returning this without watching it. How could it have possibly lived up to “Let’s burn it Pookie! Let’s burn this motherf*cker down!” anyway…
11. Sweeney Todd. I only watched the first half of this, and thought it was mesmerizing, especially “My Friends” and “Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir” but then I fell asleep and never got around to watching the second half and was antsy to get the next movie and really, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stomach any more throat slitting and blood spilling, so I’ll just buy the CD because the music was what I was really interested in.
12. We Are Marshall. Much like my feelings towards Superman, I am addicted to sports flicks, especially football (note my love for The Waterboy, The Replacements, The Longest Yard, Jerry Maguire, Invincible, even Necessary Roughness). We Are Marshall was heartfelt without being melodramatic, which is sometimes a problem with this kind of movie, but not exactly compelling either. I was glad to have seen it, but no need to see it again. And what was with Matthew McConaughey’s accent?
13. Flight of the Conchords Season 1. Abso-friggin-lutely Hilarious. HILARIOUS! Everyone should rent Flight of the Conchords. I watched so many of their songs on YouTube and worried the show wouldn’t live up, but it soooooo did. Jermaine’s David Bowie impersonation is out of control. I leave you with this, my favorite song:
I’m the new E-zine Editor for Literary Mama. You can see me on the masthead (”Jessica DeVoe Riley”). Editor. I feel very official. This must have been what Daniel-San felt like when he did the Crane Kick and won the All Valley Karate Championship.
Get him a bodybag!
Yes, I made a Karate Kid reference. It’s been on mind since reading this uber-hilarious post from Bill Simmons. (props to Lawyer Girl for turning me on to this).
But back to Literary Mama.
I started reading Literary Mama I don’t even know how long ago. It’s wonderful writing by wonderful women. My favorite drink from this well of good writing is Vicki Forman’s retired column, Special Needs Mama. Here’s the archive of it. I recommend reading all of them, from the bottom up, which is the order in which they were published. And you should know, you will probably cry.
When my niece was 8 or so, we were all together for Christmas and watched her open her gifts from Santa. They were exactly what she asked for but she didn’t seem quite so happy about it. When pressed, we discovered that she had seen the presents in the trunk of her mother’s car several days before and had put two and two together: Santa, her mother - the one and the same.
It’s a bittersweet moment to witness the realization of Santa’s true identity, no? I tend towards the notion that Santa was never a real person, but the spirit of Christmas. Call me Carol Brady, but there is something that is still exciting about going to sleep on Christmas Eve and wondering what the morning will bring.
Years ago, in 1897, a little girl wrote a letter to the New York Sun and asked the editor if Santa was real. The letter prompted an editorial with the line, “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.” Macy’s, our favorite department store of The Miracle on 34th Street and Thanksgiving Day Parade fame, is using this line to launch their Campaign to Believe this holiday season.
It’s really quite simple. Do you believe? If you do, write a letter to Santa, stamp and address it to “Santa at the North Pole,” and drop it off in one of Macy’s special Santa mailboxes.
FOR EVERY LETTER THEY RECEIVE, MACY’S WILL DONATE $1.00 TO THE MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION, UP TO ONE MILLION DOLLARS.
The Make-A-Wish Foundation grants wishes to children suffering life-threatening diseases. The group started upon hearing the words “I want to be a police officer,” from a seven-year-old boy named Chris, who had leukemia.
Have you ever wished for something?
So did Chris:
Christopher James Greicius , August 8, 1972 - May 3, 1980
Continuing on with MomDot blog party with the hopes that the police haven’t been called in to ruin all the fun…
Today, MomDot wants to know what my favorite holiday recipe, what my holiday table looks like, and what my biggest holiday disaster was. Let’s start with the easy ones: fave recipes are my crumb topping apple pie and sweet potato soufflé. I also like my mother’s lumpia, even though I haven’t been able to eat it lately and mine just doesn’t taste quite as good. Of late, one of my favorite recipes has been gluten free, rice free pizza dough, but that doesn’t scream holiday fun the way a nice bowl of red-coated Christmas caramels does. Just look at how much fun Little No Limit was having at her second Christmas with those babies:
I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
On to my holiday table. Given the above picture, I considered posting a picture of an exam table from Gross Anatomy 101. But, no. Here is what my holiday table looks like:
Kneel before Zod!
As for my biggest holiday disaster was, I recently posted on my first Thanksgiving Day dinner. I’d say that was probably the silliest dinner every, but disastrous? Not sure I’ve got anything disastrous, for Christmas or any holiday. At Little No Limit’s first birthday party, my mother dropped the cake icing side down on our pool table. This was bad both for the cake and the felt on my pool table. There was also the Valentine’s Day dance where my date stood me up. Does that count as a holiday disaster? When you’re in high school, it does. (fyi, it turned out to be a misunderstanding, like in Three’s Company, but still…).
There was also a particularly memorable Christmas when I went into labor and got rushed to the hospital, oh wait… that never happened. Nope. I was due on December 21st and then the doctor suggested we might have the baby early, say, closer to the 15th, but when I passed that date with nary a change to my special lady places, we started thinking I might have a Christmas baby, and come Christmas day, we were all on edge that maybe, just maybe, I was going to have a baby. But lo and behold, The Boy held out until December 30th at which point I had a planned C-section because I hadn’t even effaced and he was a behemoth child. No mistakes with the date, btw, just a little boy who found his Mommy’s internal world the right place to chillax. Of course, I might still call that Christmas a disaster because I had just been informed that the Little No Limit I was expecting was actually The Boy. Yes, I am one of those moms who was told the wrong sex of her child. Disastrous, I say. Disastrous. (not anymore, of course - just at the time).
So anyways, thank you MomDot for these pressing questions that forced my stumble down memory lane, and thank you to Bottlewise and Glow Mama for sponsoring the MomDot Blog Party Day.
There was a free get started on Christmas party over the weekend by Prudential that included photos with Santa and activities for kids like Pin the Nose on the Snowman and face painting.
I’ve never felt right celebrating Christmas before Thanksgiving, but I went for the free Santa photos and minimal crowd. If there’s one thing I really dislike, it’s the mall. I dislike the mall in general, but I really dislike it come holiday time, yet I go every single year to stand in line to see Santa only to get to the front of the line where the kids are daunted by the big man and the photographer is unsympathetic and I wind up paying fifty bucks for some crap shots that I am also smiling like a dork in because The Boy couldn’t handle it solo and then to top it off the cashier woman has the nerve to say to The Boy that Santa won’t bring him anything if he misbehaves like that again, and I’m torn between getting arrested at the mall for punching the effing daylights out of an elf employee or getting arrested by federal government for mailing her death threats… I’m sorry, I forgot what I was talking about. Oh yes, the joy of Christmas.
The kids were both happy to talk to this mild mannered Santa and The Boy informed him he wanted Wall E (there’s a shocker), Tom & Jerry, Word World, about a dozen other movies, and then “23 cars.” I guess he really did retain every single instance he asked me for something and I responded “Maybe you can ask Santa for that at Christmastime.”
Little No Limit told Santa she wanted “a witch.” Apparently, she still thinks people are asking her what she’s going to be for Halloween. Oh well. She enjoyed the picture session anyways, and Santa complimented her hat. Little No Limit woke up with a hankering to wear her “Christmas hat.”
This is a hat she has had for over two years and has never once referred to as her “Christmas hat.” It comes with a matching purse and it does actually match perfectly with the dress she wore. I bought the dress for her last Christmas, and she never wore it but it was big enough that I figured I could save it for this Christmas, but then we found a use for it at my grandmother’s funeral, which kind of makes me look at the dress differently, and I abandoned the idea of it being her Christmas dress. The dress has since gone the way of the dress up game, and has many a paint and color spill on it, but I like to think of the dress as the one she will talk about years from now when art magazines interview her about her bold colors and graffiti style.
ANYWAYS, Santa Fest was a Santa Success, complete with a real live reindeer, brought in by a wild animal sanctuary in the San Fernando Valley. The reindeer, Olive, had been brought to them by another wild animal sanctuary and was very people-friendly, even if she had NO IDEA the size and span of her antlers. I got to talking with the wild animal sanctuary rep and have to say, did you know that reindeer are the same animal as caribou? They call them reindeer when they’re domesticated and caribou when they’re in the wild. I have the Santa Fest to thank for that information. And I can also thank them for enabling me to not have to set foot in the mall for the entire holiday season. Whoo hoo! Mall haters unite!
“You’ve got to keep your wits about you in cooking and not stop in the middle of things to let your thoughts rove all over creation.”
–Anne of Green Gables, XIII
I went to a tent sale today for Children’s Orchard, which is a store that sells used children’s clothing, toys, accessories, etc. They were doing scratch off tickets and I won my choice of any book under $3.99, which is how I came home with this:
To tell you the truth, I have never actually read any one of the Anne of Green Gables book series. I am very fond, though, of unique cookbooks, and this particular cookbook is written by L.M. Montgomery’s granddaughter. This book will fit in nicely with my Narnia Cookbook, Star Wars Cookbook, Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook, and The Ruby Slippers Cookbook.
So let’s see what Anne has up her sleeve:
Cowcumber Boats. This caught my eye immediately because of the “cow”. This recipe doesn’t actually use cow, but cucumber. It also doesn’t take much tweaking to be The Boy-friendly. And looks like a nice way to get the kids eating fish for a change. Fish. My last battlefront.
Saucy Chicken. You saucy chicken, you. I’ll make this for the name alone.
Diana Barry’s Favorite Raspberry Cordial. I totally expected to read a recipe for an alcoholic beverage in a kids cookbook, but to my simultaneous disappointment and parental approval, it’s just sugar and fruit.
Poetical Egg Salad Sandwiches. More than your average Humpty Dumpty variety, this is Ode to a Grecian Egg.
Miss Ellen’s Pound Cake. Guaranteed to harden the arteries of all ages.
Anne’s Liniment Cake. When I read this title, I immediately thought – what? Muscle massage? After reading the description, it seems Anne made a similar mistake in one of the books. All I can say is, any girl who accidentally cooks with anodyne liniment is a friend of mine. A virtual high five to whoever tells me which one of the series contains this escapade (my money is on Beck).
Over at MomDots, the Blog Party rages on. All around the internets, I hear the virtual refrain of “It’s getting hot in here…” It actually is getting hot over here. I took unexpected trip to Urgent Care last night for The Boy and the Curious Case of the 102 Degree Fever. No worries - he’s all better now, even if I am still hyperventilating (FYI, I don’t normally freak out over a random fever, but until all MRSA is eradicated from this house, all digressions in health receive Alert Status: Red treatment).
The Day Three question has to do with buying presents and such: “Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? Do you budget for the holidays? Do you always stick to your budget? Share with us any budgeting tips you may have!”
Let’s see… no, no, no, and sure, why not!
I have not started my Christmas shopping yet unless you count the purse I won in a raffle that I was thinking about giving to Lawyer Girl for her Christmas gift because she’s into cool bags (she won’t care whether or not I won or spent money on her present, so I have no qualms announcing that here).
Before I had kids, I did my Christmas shopping in October because I wanted to avoid the crowds. I couldn’t shop any earlier than October, though, because I would get too excited about the items I purchased and wind up giving them to the recipients (“I bought this for you for Christmas but I just couldn’t wait!”).
My entire gift-giving ritual these days is this: around Thanksgiving, I’ll write out a list of people we will be buying presents for (family, friends, coworkers, teachers, etc) and then cross them off as the presents are bought. I tend to lose that list and rewrite it several times throughout the holiday season. I always put ALL the people back on the list, just so I can cross off the ones I’ve bought for already to make myself feel accomplished. Ah, the tricks we play on our minds.
Some Things That I’m Doing This Year That The Budget Savvy Might Approve Of:
1. Gift exchange. We’re doing a white elephant gift exchange for Christmas gifts for the adults this year (the kids still get presents). There’s between 10-15 adults, which is a good number for that kind of gift exchange. Plus, it enables me to clear a few things out of my house that, while lovely, get little use here.
2. Baked Goods. I hope to bake/cook presents for some of the people on the list, the teachers, the bus driver, my neighbors. My mother used to make plates of lumpia for all our neighbors while another neighbor made BBQ ribs—that sauce was unstoppable. My friend Brassy Girl is the Queen of Baked Goods. I am always so excited when her cookie package arrives. I love food presents. Possibly a little too much.
3. Gift Wrap. As for gift wrap, I reuse old gift bags and whatever is left gets wrapped in paper grocery bags that the kids color. In the case of small presents, I also use the kids’ preschool artwork as wrapping paper. It’s always a good conversation piece. “What’s that? An orange? A balloon? Oh, A seven-legged spider (because the one leg got bitten off by a bird) playing the drums? I can totally see that!”
So. What are you big plans for holiday gift giving?
There’s a party going on at MomDot and you’re all invited. They’re posting a Christmas question every day from Nov 12 – 27th, and even though today is the 13th, I am starting with the original question (which is sponsored by La Belle Toile and This and That by Randi:
“Introduce us to your family and share Holiday pics of years past.”
I think you all know my family by now, but just to recap, there’s me, Riley, the witty and beautiful writer of this blog (did I mention I’m conceited?); Husband, the hard-working vegan who puts up with me (did I mention I’m a know-it-all?); and my wild wide eyed children The Boy and Little No Limit. Here they are putting on a show of their new presents at Nana and Papa’s house last Christmas:
Like how warmly dressed they are? That’s what Christmas in southern California is all about, baby.
Santa gave the kids bicycles and while they are riding them outside in the above pictures, they have a different place to ride them at home:
That’s right – I used to let the kids ride their bikes inside the house. I have all wood and tile, and they were just getting the hang of it, so why not? It was fun for a while, but nowadays, they’re more interested in riding their bikes outside, where they can get in better speed and distance than one could ever hope for in a hallway or living room where the random dog or toy or parent’s foot might be in the way. I guess it’s time for the training wheels to come off!
