Toodles to 2007

Well another year has come and gone. Is it just me, or does this happen much faster than it used to?

In my 20s, New Year's Eve was a night of getting drunkity drunk drunk, and having the excuse to kiss multiple boys at midnight without being tarty. Aside from the year of getting locked in an elevator for most of the evening, those were pretty good times. Man, times have sure changed.

This New Year's Eve will be about eating pizza (gotta get in those greasy carbs before my new diet tomorrow!) and watching movie in my jammies with my husband, stepson, and 2 doggies. Since I don't really drink anymore, there will be no drunkity drunk drunk. And since my husband I'm sure would frown on me kissing a buncha boys at midnight, I gotta find something new to mark the evening. Got any suggestions? I'm thinking it's a toss up between streaking through the new development section of our neighborhood (make those fools regret paying what they did for their homes), or maybe I could go old school (a'la 7th grade) and prank call some boys (that was also good times!).

Whatever you decide to do this New Year's Eve, may you find your own definition of "good times" in a way that is safe and enjoyable!

Happy New Years!!

Christmas Movie Musts

Below is a list, in no particular order, of my favorite Christmas movies/tv specials:

* A Christmas Story (campy yet classic)
* How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the cartoon, not the suckfest of a movie with Jim Carrey)
* Love Actually (awwww, romantic and sweet)
* Bad Santa (get the unrated version - Badder Santa)
* A Charlie Brown Christmas (classic)
* National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (dorky goodness)
* Any of the Rankin Bass-produced stop-gap animation TV Christmas specials (especially the one with the Burger Meister)


Honorable Mentions (good every 5-10 years):
* Elf
* Scrooged
* Home Alone

Happy viewing!

Smarter than...

Smarter than your average Target check-out clerk. I'm just sayin....

So this is Christmas....

...and what have you done?
Another year over,
A new one just begun.

Man that John Lennon was kinda depressing, eh?

Why is it, though, that there is a depressing aspect to the holiday season? Is it that each year you try to outdo yourself? Creating an unrealistic self-imposed expectation for yourself that nobody could possibly live up to, but you feel that you must, or everyone will have a miserable holiday because of you? Hmmm or is that just me?

Is it that everywhere you go, everyone around you seems to be frenzied and cuts you off in the parking lot and flips you off (if you are reading this, you know who you are).

Hmmm....or maybe, just maybe, it is that the holidays only come once per year and there is that brief moment in time when you finally feel everything is "done" and you sit back and enjoy all of your hard work and decorations and feel what the holidays are truly about. I guess I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Happy holidays!

Sex in the Old City!

This is toooooo funny!

Snarkiness

More and more you hear about the world's fascination with gossip and the need to keep tabs on the exploits of various celebutards. Why does this fascinate us? For me, I get a good chuckle out of reading the snarky tabloid blogs that poke fun at the self-induced misfortune of others. Is this wrong? It's not that I care whether Britney Spear's kid sister is knocked up, or Orlando Bloom painted his house black, or the heiress of the month forgot her panties again, but I do believe it to be mildly entertaining. I don't have any real life friends that go on drunken car chases or are in and out of rehab, so it not for Lindsay, how would I know how hilarious some of that could be?

A few of my favorite snarky fixes include:
1. Evil Beet - superbly snarky blog!
2. The Soup - a weekly show that catches me up on all the shows I'd be too embarrassed to watch regularly. Somehow just viewing the clips of these trainwrecks makes it acceptable.
3. Chelsea Handler - Her nightly show Chelsea Lately is a Tivo must. Snarky wit at its timeliest.
4. Jezebel.com - Fun blog with fashion too!

Pups

Is it wrong that sometimes I like to decorate my dogs?

They kinda like it, though.

Although, sometimes I do fear they may hatch an evil plan for retaliation.

My dogs (well, one of them, at least) may be smarter than I give them credit for. I got an email the other day saying it was Izzie's wishlist from Petco. Had about $200 dollars of merchandise featured, including a heated dog bed.

Regifting

In an effort to support global warming trends that seek to reduce the effects of mass consumerism, I'm wholeheartedly in support of regifting....provided you aren't retarded about it. Let me explain.

1. If you receive a gift that you hate so much that you don't want it in your home, then decide you rather inflict it on a loved one than give it to Goodwill, then you are retarded. Why? Gifts reflect on you and your personal style. Tacky, fugly, bullshit gifts don't become any better when you are the giver versus the recipient. Remember how you felt when you got the item? Yep, now someone else feels that way too.

2. If the item is mildly nice and just not your thing, remember who gave it to you. Do not regift it to any members of their immediate family, or you are retarded. Chances are the gift may have actually originally come from one of their family members.

3. As thrifty as it may seem, if the item is a book, dvd, cd, etc., do not read/watch/copy it then pass it on to someone else. This isn't really retarded, it just shows you are cheap.

4. If going to a party where the gift will be opened in front of many others, you have to consider where this regifted item has been. Sort of like back in the day when you had to worry about where your date had been, and all they people they had been with, etc. Yep, a badly regifted item is like a venereal disease that could make the rounds if you don't know where your "package" has been.

5. Brilliant regifting involves taking a wonderful item from your home and passing it along to someone who has commented on how much he or she liked it. My sister is a master at this! Her talent for this comes more from her graciousness and giving nature than her lack of planning. However, if you have a friend that is a bad planner and always a last minute shopper, it may be in your best interest to occasionally point out crap in their house that you'd love to have. This could pay back in spades.

Happy regifting!

Festivification!

I've been busy as of late getting ready for that holiday thing that is coming up on December 25th. Besides shopping, baking for a cookie exchange, waiting in line at stores and post offices, I've been (according to my husband) decorating everything that will stand still with something festive! It's all about the festivification!

Something about this time of year reminds me of being a kid and making green and red construction paper chains until my fingers were blistered from the scissors and all possible means (staples, tape, etc.) of fastening the chains together in the house were used up. You then got to drape them over anything that would stand still. Man, my mom sure was a good sport about those sorts of things.

Apparently one's tolerance of the decorating process only goes so far. Yesterday while out and about I picked up a small magnetized snowman and put it on the back of Jeff's Touareg. From the look on his face, I might as well have spelled out "happy holidays" in dog feces on the car's bumper. The magnet now resides on the fridge, where apparently it isn't as offensive.

The fans have spoken...

Courtesy of the fine folks at ImageChef.com

Ooooo Snoooowwww!

Ooooo it snowed! Grab your parka, get your earmuffs and buy a snowblower because it might get up to 3/4th an inch! Ooooo Brrrrrr.

Living in the midwest for part of my childhood (condolences can be emailed to me directly), I grew accustomed to walking to school over a mile (uphill both ways, I swear!) in 3-4 FEET of snow! And while my subsequent California years left me completely snowless, I still have a hard time getting as frenzied as people around here do about a mild dusting of snow. I mean they abandon their cars on the road, they close schools and towns, etc. It is crazy.

With that said, the snow IS prettier when you are inside and using it as an excuse to stay inside all day and have cocoa.