Facebook Strikes Again!

There I was, innocently minding my own...okay no that's a lie...but I was sort of doing my own thing anyway when I received a notice on my phone that informed me that a friend had tagged me in a photo. "Woot!" I thought, and I went to see what photo they had tagged me in.

And then I was totally snuck up on by the awesomeness of it.

BEHOLD! Nes - circa 1997


I'm the short one.

**yes he was my date. no, he is not famous.

***no, it wasn't a costume party. It was a high school dance. And that wasn't just a corset. It was a dress. And though my hair is covering it up in the photo, I was also wearing a collar with three huge rings on it. And a leash.

The good news is, I got the freak out of my system young.

I've Entitled This Piece:

Self-diagnosis and Treatment: Just. Say. No.


And also from the realm of photobooth...

This was the picture I sent Sandy's cousin Jesse upon the discovery of his recent engagement.

Our reaction was only natural. We really, really like his fiancee.

p.s. yes that is my bathrobe. What of it? I hadn't had my morning tea yet, either.

Photo Post - Christmas

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

This was my first year hosting Christmas at my house for my family, and so I haven't slept in a week, I'm totally dehydrated, my fingers are chapped right down to the bone, I've got a paper cut in between two of the fingers on my right hand, I'm suffering from several nervous disorders simultaneously, and on top of everything else, I have PMS.

It's been FANTASTIC! Lucky Sandy has been nominated for canonization for his role as Comforter, Sanity Restorer, and General Rock of Gibraltar-ing - proving that in fact I contribute mightily to the good of his soul by providing him with plenty of suffering for him to look noble during.

A bit of background on my family's Christmas traditions. Christmas celebrations usually start a week or so prior to Christmas, when the Christmas tree is hunted down in ceremonial fashion, and brought home amid much fanfare*. The tree is decorated, which used to involve baking gingerbread cookies that were soft and delicious for about 20 minutes after coming out of the oven, and then after that brief window if you wanted to try to eat one you'd need a chisel, 10 gallons of saliva, and a week to gum it into submission. Since we have two giant breed dogs, putting anything edible on the tree is an invitation for disaster. Even though we have the tree wired to the wall behind it. No. Really. We do. So the gingerbread cookies haven't been done in a while.

In point of fact, this year I put candy canes on Sandy's tree, and Pooka successfully stole and devoured most of one before I caught him at it. He is wily. And for a dog weighing 160+ pounds, remarkably stealthy.

In my childhood home we had one tree, and the boxes of ornaments were brought down from the attic and unpacked with all the solemnity of a Catholic High Mass. Each ornament was a treasure remembered from the previous years and any breakage was like a little death. In THIS house, we have two trees. I started out collecting very specific ornaments - the kinds of ornaments I remembered from my childhood; little gorgeous things...but ornaments have a way of turning up at one's home that one does not remember buying or being given - strange goblinesque creatures and horrifically cheesy things and - the most dreaded of all the ornaments - plastic. I could not tuck these things in among the blessed branches of my beloved Christmas Tree with all of my treasures that I had so carefully collected! Especially since on top of the odd ornaments, Sandy actually, (and it hurts me to admit this), he actually went out and bought a strand of trout lights. Lights covered in plastic trout shapes. To put on the tree. My beautiful tree! Something had to be done. So in our home we have two trees. One is mine, and the other is Sandy's. Short of the trout lights he has cart-blanche. I still haven't been able to okay the trout lights. Some things just ought to be illegal.

Sandy's Tree

My Tree

Anyway. So once the trees are set up, decorated, the tree skirts have been brought out, etc. then the wrapping of the gifts occurs. Here that involves me wrapping them, and Sandy occasionally poking his head into whatever room I'm in to make sure I'm still alive and haven't bled out from the Death of a Thousand Paper Cuts. Once or twice it's been a pretty near thing. I have a positive genius for paper cuts.

Then there's the Addressing, Sealing and Mailing of the Christmas Cards. This is very similar to the wrapping of the gifts in that I wind up covered in paper cuts - the only variation is that some of them are on my tongue. Hurrah!

Received cards go up on the mirror over the sitting room fireplace
Overflow cards spill onto the side tables nearby

And then it is time for the most hallowed and ancient of the Christmas Traditions. The Creation of the Excuses. Shortly after Sandy and I moved to NJ we were given a number of Dept. 56 Christmas Village houses of the North Pole variety. I was charmed! They were adorable! I set it up for Christmas and I just loved it. And Sandy bought me more houses, and I picked up discontinued ones in out-of-the-way Hallmark stores and we started a village for Halloween, (my favorite holiday), as well as the one for Christmas, and it was lovely! And then other people gave us houses as gifts, sometimes in large numbers, and all of a sudden it was no longer a village it was a sprawling metropolis with urban decay! And putting it up took several days and required certification as an Electrician, and bits of white fluff and fake plastic snow got into places I never want to think about fake plastic snow getting again and suddenly it was no longer charming and fun but instead a chore of a magnitude that I can't even describe. Sandy started to actively loathe the "village" and resist heavily its resurrection every year. Requests to bring up the boxes and give a hand with the assembly were met with dire threats and recriminations. And thus, the Creation of the Excuses. It is a sort of conspiracy we are both party to. It always starts as follows: "Sandy...we need to bring up the boxes for the village." "Yeah..." and yet somehow, the boxes never appear. A week passes. "San, we've gotta get started on the village." "Yeah..." Another week passes. "San - where is the folding table that we put the village on?" "Uh. I think it's at so and so's house from Thanksgiving. I can go get it later this week." The table never appears. The boxes never appear. It is but mere days to Christmas at this point. "San...we've got like, three days. Did you get the table?" "No." "Did you bring up the boxes?" "Nooo..." "Are we going to put up the village this year?" "No?" "*sigh* No. I guess not. If anyone** asks, it's because I contracted Yellow Fever and nearly died." "Okay."

Once the pressure is off re: the village, it's time to move on to the rest of the household decorations. It is here that I really spread my wings, so to speak.

My mother (the MorMor) is always telling me to "respect my heritage"
so I played a visual joke on her this year - enshrining the Helmet...

And all of this is the stage upon which the most important elements of the Christmas Ritual are enacted - Christmas Eve morning porridge, present, cooking, Christmas Eve dinner, opening of all the gifts, the collapse of everyone into over-stuffed slumber, and then the opening of the gifts from Santa Claus, (julenisse), and THEN!!! Christmas Breakfast. Where we eat from 9 in the morning until 9 at night.

That is not an exaggeration. What we do is, we set out all the foods - most of which are cold dishes - smorgasbord style, and sit down and eat until we cannot possibly eat another bite. Then we take off the dirty dishes, open all the windows, leave the food on the table, and close all the doors into the dining room. The food stays cold because the windows are wide open, the dishes get washed and replaced on the table, and we all go play with our presents or watch a Christmas movie or similar, and when we're feeling peckish again, we go in, close all the windows, and build up a rip-roaring fire, sit down again, and eat until we nearly die. Rinse and repeat. All. Day. Long.

Dining room table

Cheese Platter! You know a Norwegian invented the cheese slicer...

Platters of roast beef and smoked salmon on the sideboard

Norwegian prawns, prosciutto, hard bread

Sean giving Pooka some Christmas lovin'

Sandy in his Christmas Onesies with his two very pooped puppies

Cameron eyes the bowl of apple cider donuts and mixed berries with distrust

Seriously, I'm amazing...

I adore these little foxes with an adoration that borders on the pathological.

And so, after all the preparation, the shopping, the wrapping, the cooking, the cleaning, and the decorating...after a total lack of sleep and the loss of several pints of blood, really I think I kept it together pretty well. I wouldn't say I let the stress get to me...

*Fanfare: Where the Man of the House does a lot of screaming, grunting, and swearing heavily under his breath while attempting to wrestle the tree back to the car, onto the car, off the car, and into the house. The tree, for its part, contrives to grow a good 10 inches while in transit from the tree farm to the living room, so that you have to lop large amounts of top and bottom from it in order to fit it in the house, using the equipment which you have at home, which is usually a rusty, dull hand saw. And then, about 1/2 hour after being set up, it spontaneously sheds 50 % of its needles onto the rug.

**Anyone: In this case, my mother in law. A woman of indomitable spirit who never fails to put up EVERY SINGLE CHRISTMAS VILLAGE HOUSE SHE OWNS, (roughly 60 or 70), and whose abilities in this regard shame me every year. She actually had someone build her a custom display table because she ran out of room on the sideboard she'd previously been using. It has multiple levels. Seriously, she's amazing.

Grinching My Weather...

Bugger. Last night was magical - a winter wonderland with near-invisible flakes of snow drifting down to cover the world, and everything frosted and delightful.

This morning, it's a yellow and brown mud wasteland and it's absolutely pissing down rain. I am feeling, as a result, extremely cranky.

Living near the ocean, one gets schizophrenic weather. One minute it's 20 degrees and crisp and brilliant and the next it's 40 degrees and howling down crap from the skies and you're up to your ears in rapidly melting ice and mud. I have complained about this to Sandy quite a bit, because in my opinion three inches of snow in as many years is not sufficient, but he claims he cannot move the ocean just to suit me.

This is obviously crap.

And next year we're moving even CLOSER to the ocean. Unacceptable. So I've told him he's going to need to buy me a snow machine. That's a reasonable compromise, isn't it?

What Does Incredibly Silly Look Like?

Oh look. It's me.

You guys will not believe what I did today.

So you remember that Nanook is a certified Therapy Dog, and that he and I volunteer together, right? Right.

We are scheduled to appear shortly at a local middle school to work some of his canine magic on three classes of developmentally challenged students. Usually prior to a therapy visit, I will bring him to the location to acclimate him to the sights and sounds and smells so that he is focused and ready on the day of the actual visit. Therefore, today I brought him to the location and walked him about. I had never been to the school before, so I entered the address into my vehicle's GPS and it delivered me there as it is required to do. We got there, I parked, I walked him around the edge of the playing fields, the parking lot, and around the exterior of the building. A woman came out the front door and inquired about him. I told her he was scheduled to visit on a specific date, and that I was doing a dry run. I then asked if it would be okay for me to bring him in and walk him in the hallways, and she said yes.

She buzzed me in. We walked the halls, and then another woman appeared, and was talking to me about his schedule. I mentioned the date we were supposed to volunteer on, and she exclaimed that they had two shows on that date, there must have been a miscommunication. Then she asked if we could volunteer today, instead. Nanook was in fine form and didn't seem stressed at all, so I agreed.

We visited four classes, (one of the classes was two classes that they combined because one classroom was too small for Nanook to visit). Nanook did his tricks, I answered questions, and all the kids got to pet, hug or kiss him. A few little girls were very enthusiastic about the kissing. We were there for about an hour and a half, and then I felt Nanook had reached his limit, so we said goodbye to the last class, thanked the teachers, got thanked in return, and went home.

I checked my emails when I got home, because I was confused about how the original date had been scheduled on a day the school had two assemblies...only to realize:

I was at the wrong school. I'd just done four therapy visits at a school Nanook wasn't scheduled to visit!!! My face immediately burst into flames. The school we were SUPPOSED to visit was right next to the one we'd gone to! Oh my god. Embarrassing. I was a total idiot. What to do??? I knew the principal of the school I'd just been to had been told we were there, because one of the teachers mentioned it. So I wasn't going to be in trouble, per se, but still! I called the school we had just done the visits at, to confess that I'd been lost, confused, and in general a moron. The lady in the front office listened to my humiliated confession, and then burst out laughing and said, "We're SO GLAD you got lost!!! We really enjoyed having him..."

So that was okay then.

Really?

Guess what I'm doing RIGHT NOW...

I'm brushing my dogs. Okay, you think, that's not that strange. People do that. Especially when they have really hairy dogs, like a Newfoundland for example. Hairy dogs need brushing. Fact of life.

However, the REASON I am brushing the dogs, is because in an hour they have a date to have their photo taken with Santa Claus. They won't fit on his lap, and I doubt he'll understand them when they tell him what they want for Christmas, but you know. It's all about the memories. Do you guys think that's weird?

They say the first step is admitting you have a problem...

Now, with even more picture!

And the (anti-homosexual) Christians Come Out of the Woodwork...

Alright. By some interesting freak of circumstance, this blog has become a hotbed for political pro-homosexual/anti-homosexual debate! Two whole comments!

I sensed all along that this would happen. (I kid.)

Here's the thing. We need to acknowledge that chances are, we are never going to change one another's minds. We all have our reasons for feeling the way we do, whether it is because we happened to be raised by a lesbian nanny, (and a wonderful nanny she was!), or because we were raised to believe that love of that nature is a sin against God. No matter what semantics or arguments we trot out, I doubt I'm going to change your mind, and there is, (forgive me), no F***ing way you're changing mine.

So, in short, what is the point of all of us making one another miserable over it - specifically on my personal blog? I don't particularly want to argue with any of you. I posted the Jack Black video because Proposition 8 made me angry. I posted it for myself, and the friends that I know read this blog - you know, the ones that reply regularly in the comments section. Since a significant portion of my friends think along the same lines when it comes to homosexuality, rights, and marriage, I was assured that they would likely enjoy it for the same reasons I did. I was certainly not posting it to cock a snook at any lurkers, because I had no idea that a) you existed and b) you were reading my blog and having opinions about it.

In the interest of fair play, and because I hate not being well informed, I went and read the applicable new testament verses. Sarah, you forgot Romans 1:25 - 27. I think a lot depends upon your translation of the original greek. I think even if you are dead-set on interpreting the words malakoi and arsenokotai as referring to homosexuality, they are not the Word of God, they are the word of an apostle. ONE apostle - Paul. A human-being making a judgment call. I think we can agree that the NT is a really, really long piece of literature. And that era's version of homosexuality pops up in it for three...lousy...sentences - two of them a bare nod tossed among a list of sins, with no explanation, no expansion, no definition. And, most importantly, I think EVERYTHING depends upon your willingness to see God as someone who gives a damn about such a thing, and judges it more important than the other acts, good or evil, that someone does with their life. That's a super-simplistic view of the issue, I'll grant you. I'm a simplistic person. It's just how I roll. I think Love is All. Provided your love does not infringe upon someone else's rights or well-being, I call it good.

I think if you really wanted to argue the issue, the argument is as follows: Is the bible, including the bits written by the apostles, to be taken as literal truth and the Edict of God? Is there value in insisting upon adherence to specific, outmoded, outdated cultural norms and mores that appear to have little relevance in today's modern world? And if you'd like to have that argument, I suggest you find someone a whole lot more patient than I am, and with a much better knowledge of scripture!

And because I cannot stop myself...this is a very interesting, thoughtful piece of literature.

Now can we please move on?

Let's Talk about Gaydom.

I should first mention that this post is in honor of a snark named Sarah who objected to the Jack Black post of the other day in the comments.

Let's cut right down to the brass tacks, shall we? There must be reasons why, way back in the day, societies outlawed homosexual love. For one thing, it doesn't do a whole lot by way of procreation, which is - according to the religious types and evolutionists alike - the entire purpose for our naughty bits.

So let's say that at some point someone realized, "dear lord! All these men have chosen to live with other men, because women are too (insert adjective here) , and suddenly there are no babies! Our civilization will be destroyed! Bwaaaaaaaa!" Clearly this could have been a problem back in the day, but I suspect at the moment, when Humanity is overrunning our planet like cockroaches on an abandoned sub sandwich, it's not so much of a concern.

Second - the church claims that homosexuality is a problem because homosexual parents cannot teach their children to be good Christians while sharing a relationship condemned specifically by the church. Um. No offense Christians but you shot yourself in the foot on that one, and have no one else to blame if it hurts. How can you be surprised if you run around condemning people, and then they decide NOT to teach their children to be like you?

Maybe if you cooled off a little and decided to love thy neighbor the children being raised by loving homosexual parents might feel a little less conflicted about embracing the teachings of Christ...just a thought.

Finally, and my personal favorite, there's Leviticus. How I love Leviticus. But I don't love it NEARLY as much as James M. Kauffman, which is why I'm going to let him take it from here.

(On a side note: this guy made my skin crawl, and when I read the sentence "no, the opposite of Homosexuality is HOLINESS!" I saw red. Oooooh the internet is a gutter of immoral teachings, alright.)

THE GOOD BOOK

On her radio show recently, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant
Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22,
and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an
open letter to Dr. Laura.

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law.

I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge
with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual
lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly
states it to be an abomination. ... End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of
God's Law and how to follow them.

1. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a
pleasing odour for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbours. They
claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned > in Exodus
21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her
period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I
tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.

4. Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and
female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring > > > nations. A
friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but > > > not
Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

5. I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2.
The passage clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated
to kill him myself?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an
abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I
don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if > I have a
defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my
vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair
around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27.
How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me
unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different
crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two
different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse
and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of
getting the whole town together to stone them? - Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we
just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people
who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable
expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan,

James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus Dept. of Curriculum,
Instruction, and Special Education University of Virginia

Holiday Blues...

Every year around this time I get a bit depressed. I really like Christmas, and used to get super excited about decorating etc. But the past few years, (sorry honey), the husband has been a real downer. Not because he doesn't like the holidays, but because he has ZERO interest in getting the house ready for Christmas. And generally, anything I ask him to help me with outside the realm of "could you get me those boxes from the basement," he gets snooty about. This bums me out, hardcore.

Maybe I ought to blame all the holiday movies that show the Man o' the House putting up lights and getting into competitions with the neighbors - for giving me unrealistic expectations about what guys are like during the holidays. And it isn't a stretch to assume that because his mom takes care of all the decorating at his childhood home, he doesn't think it's his responsibility to contribute here either...but it definitely takes a bit of the ho ho ho out of the holiday for me. I know for a fact that if I weren't leading the charge, this house wouldn't have a single sprig of holly or mistletoe in it by December 24th. And he'd look vaguely surprised, but totally unconcerned, to find there wasn't a Christmas tree in the place. It's Christmas! It should be a pleasure, not a chore.

Grrrrrrr...

Signed,

One seriously cranky decorator.

Happiness is Jack Black as Jesus.

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Beyond Thunderdome...

Last evening I went to see Tina Turner at the Garden with my husband, and his extended family. There's a lot of them, and they do not muck about. So we got a Party Bus to take us from home to the concert and back.

Now, anyone who has ever been involved with a family trip of any kind knows that they never, absolutely never, go smoothly. This is an Immutable Law of the Universe and no matter how carefully you plan, it will bugger you in the end because that's what Immutable means. Look it up.

In the case of the Tina Turner concert, the embuggerance occurred almost immediately upon our leaving the house in the Party Bus. We were pulled over by the police. Not the band. No one boarded the bus and started crooning Every Little Thing She Does is Magic to us. Or Roxanne. Or Every Breath You Take. If they had, it wouldn't have been an embuggerance, it would have been an Amusing Anecdote. So. Not the band. The other kind. It turned out, our Party Bus was defective. It hadn't started out defective, it had BECOME defective while we were on it. The tail lights were totally non-functional in many important ways, and we were, from behind, wraithlike and invisible. Although how a gigantic freaking white bus could be invisible when illuminated by another car's headlights is beyond me. The police, (not the band), were afraid we would be rammed from behind and killed by other drivers upon the road who could not see us despite their headlights because of our lack of rear lighting. Finally, in a fit of goodwill, the officer let us get on with things after obtaining a promise that we would a) drive with our hazards on and b) switch to a different bus as soon as possible. There was much rejoicing.

The original party bus

Party. Bus.


Sandy offers refreshments...on the Party Bus

And so, just outside the bounds of New York City, we departed from one bus, and embarked upon another. The gentleman who handed the second bus over casually mentioned that there were only 5 other buses left, so could we please be careful with this one?

Salute! Yes Sir!

We swapped buses in the neon glow of a nearby Party City.

Brilliant! We were safely aboard the new, (although slightly reduced in size), Party Bus - and once again barreling along the road towards Tina Turner. And apart from some adventures in attempting to use a bus restroom in stop and go tunnel traffic, all was well. Well, and with brilliant musical accompaniment and dancing!

We reached the concert slightly late, but of course no concert starts on time so we were able to reach our seats well before the lights went down and the curtain, (red), went up. Tina was amazing. She was so very amazing, and she mesmerized me so thoroughly, that I had absolutely NO IDEA that Tom Cruise, and Katie Holmes, were sitting in the seats directly behind me, for a significant portion of the first half.

Yeah, I'm not kidding. Point of order: we had better tickets than Tom Cruise. Rock.

And I'm going to interrupt this running monologue to interject some moralizing - I freaking hate the people who gawk, or take surreptitious photographs, or otherwise beleaguer celebrities. I mean, yes okay they're famous. But they are still human beings just trying to enjoy a concert so keep your bloody camera to yourself and quit craning your neck to eyeball them every five minutes, you're making me nervous.

I have been guilty, once, of taking a photo of a celebrity. It made me feel slimy and weird and guilty for days afterwards. I have absolutely no idea how the paparazzi* do what they do for a living. So anyway - in the immortal words of Chris Crocker...leave (the celebrities) ALONE, people! Among other things, you're ruining my ability to watch the concert because I'm standing in front of them and you keep pointing your damned cameras in my direction.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that after one quick double-take, I kept my eyes pointed forward toward Tina and I tried very, very hard to not be an utter dick. I'll say this though: Katie Holmes is tall, ridiculously thin, and has fantastic skin. Tom Cruise is tiny, and looks batshit insane, even in person. The "I Love This Woman Oprah Couch" smile was very much in evidence. He must really, really like Tina Turner. Then again, what's not to like?

She sang Proud Mary, which was all any of us were really praying for, and so we left the concert very content. The aunts, who have been known to sing and perform Proud Mary at weddings, took lots of notes on the backup dancers' moves.

Whoever the next couple is to get married has got a lot to look forward to...



*My favorite description of the paparazzi ever: "Yes, you knew where you were with the Royals. The proper ones, or course, who pulled their weight in the hand-waving and bridge-opening department. Not the ones who went to discos all night long and were sick all over the paparazzi**.

**Footnote: It is possibly worth mentioning at this point that Mr. Young thought that paparazzi was a kind of Italian linoleum."

From: Good Omens

New Home Page

At long last, I'm figuring out my mac.  Okay that's a total lie, but I HAVE figured out a small portion of the iWeb/MobileMe situation, and I've created a home page. Primarily for photos.  Y'all might be tickled.

New Site

Enjoy!