Klassy

The New York Times generally does a good job with their slideshows, so when I saw one under the heading "Tasteful Giving," I decided to take a look. Sure enough, I was confronted with beautifully shot images of high-end muddlers and funky cocktail napkins, and then when I clicked on image 16 of 28, I got...um....well, THIS:









My first thought was: what's so tasteful about an ornament in the shape of Mr. Hankey? And then, after I read the accompanying blurb, I wondered: what's so tasteful about an ornament in the shape of a tater? Granted, Samwise and Frodo would love it, and if you were the senator of Idaho, this gift would be perfectly appropriate. But I can only imagine what my brother would say if I wrapped up this bad boy and handed it to him on Christmas morning. It would probably go something like this:

"Ummmmm. Thanks?"

Christmas Decorations!

I LIVE for this time of year. There is nothing more fun then coming home from work in December, putting down my purse and plugging in the lights on my Christmas tree while the Carpenters Christmas album plays softly in the background.

Sadly, this year the Scooby and I were planning on being away for so long (as in, he's LEAVING ME on Sunday and won't be back until the 12th of January), that it didn't really make sense to get a real, live tree. It's too bad too because I'm an expert at picking out Christmas trees. I've been accompanying my father on this particular errand since I was about 6 years old, and I've been breaking the hearts (and busting the balls) of Christmas tree vendors ever since.

The process generally goes something like this:
My father and I arrive at the tree lot and enlist the help of said vendor. We get him to pick up a series of about 15 trees off the ground, each time finding a portion of tree that just IRKS one of us somehow.
"I don't know," Dad would say. "Doesn't it seem to be missing a few pine needles?"
"It just feels empty," I'd reply. "It just doesn't FEEL right to me."
And then Dad would come back with: "But the height is good."
And I'd say: "Well yeah the height is good. It's perfect!.....BUT....can we look at another one?"

The best part is that we would often end up settling on the first tree. Then we'd take it home, realize it was too tall, and Dad would lop off the top yielding less of a cone-shaped effect and more of a Christmas tree box.

But like I said, this year the Scooby and I couldn't buy a real tree. So we did this instead:


So rather than pine needles on the ground, we're going to end up with 28 holes in our wall, but I convinced Scooby that it was worth losing our security deposit, because, hello?? It's CHRISTMAS.

Of course, what's Christmas without stockings (even if we don't have a mantle)? And more importantly, what's Christmas without an ostentatious blue and silver Christmas tree-shaped centerpiece?

Hmmm. I may have gone a leetle overboard...









But then I got an email today that made me miss being home for the holidays. My dad is going to pick out a tree this weekend, and he needs his sidekick. He suggested that I take a redeye home on Friday night and then get an evening flight back to San Fran. "I think you need to do it for the good of the family," he wrote.

I thought maybe he would appreciate that I was carrying on the tradition in my own offbeat, little way, so i sent him a picture of my Christmas tree.

Being such a connoisseur of good trees, his response was understandable:

"That's sick."

Alright Already

So after a month-long hiatus, I'm back to blogging. I know all four of you out there have been really missing me, but I have an exceptional excuse: in the month of November, I wrote a book. That's right, I signed up for National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo to us insiders, and in 30 days I was tasked with writing 50,000 words.

I can't tell you how many people asked me what I would win if I completed the book in the allotted time. I've received more blank looks than I can count when I attempted to explain that writing a book is the prize. Well, that....AND this:







Yup, it's an icon. It's alright to be jealous.

There is one problem with writing a book in a month though, which is that for 30 days, you've been valuing quantity over quality. So now I have 50,000 words, 30,000 of which probably need to be rethought. But at the advice of other, more experienced NaNoWriMoers, I'm taking a breather from the process. Maybe in January I can take another look at what I've written and, with fresh eyes, start the onerous editing process.

In the meantime, I'm just going to be blogging. And I have to admit--it's good to be back.

Nothing says Christmas like a little A.C. Slater

I was just flipping through the channels, looking for a little background noise while I update my resume, when behold! I stumbled upon a movie entitled "Holiday in Handcuffs."

And here--honest to god--is the synopsis:
(2007) A struggling artist-cum-waitress (Melissa Joan Hart) kidnaps a customer (Mario Lopez) to take home for Christmas, in hopes of impressing her perpetually disappointed parents.

These are desperate times for TV watchers considering the writers' strike, and there was a moment when I thought to myself, "don't Sabrina the Teenage Witch's parents notice that her alleged boyfriend is in handcuffs throughout Christmas dinner?"

But (and this is a very bad sign for A.C. Slater) I decided to watch a rerun of CSI: Miami instead.