Church Ladies Yankee Swap

I got to listen more closely to that Various Artists Nettwerks' Christmas CD yesterday. Aside from the song I bought it for, there are a couple really nice ones. Dido has a good song on there, but they do this retarded over dubbing echoey vocal thing on the bridge that made me cringe. But her voice is nice. I'm not a big fan of feminine vocalists of the world, and there is a lot of that on here... but overall, it's good.

There is an amazingly sad little song on the CD by a musician named Meryn Cadell called "The Cat Carol." It is about a small cat that wants in the house, on Christmas eve in a blizzard, but no one can hear her on the doorstep. A mouse comes by and is afraid the cat will kill it, but seeing as it is Christmas eve, the cat tells the mouse to not worry protects the mouse from the cold by digging a hole in the snow and surrounding the mouse with her body.

The cat ends up dying from the cold, and Santa and the reindeers find the cat in the snow, and the living mouse, who she saved... They lift the cat up to the stars where every Christmas she is visible to remind the mouse of her love.

It is PAINFUL. So sad. So heartwrenching. I thought I was going to crash the car I was weeping so hard on. I AM VERKLEMPT JUST THINKING ABOUT IT!!! I'm all misty and schmoopy over here at my desk. Crying. Thinking about a kitty freezing on the doorstep, giving her life to protect and save a sworn life-in-the-foodchain enemy!

Damn.

If you have liquid audio you can listen to the song in full on the nettwerks website. And, if you don't have liquid audio you can listen to the Sarah McLachlan and BNL "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" thing.

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The church ladies' yankee swap yesterday evening was a rousing success. The pastor's wife started off with a selection from a CD included in a book by Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of Billy Graham. It was very uplifting and very beautiful.

[Sidebar note, you can skip this if you want...] Ms. Lotz appeared on the Early Show on CBS on September 13th to talk about the September 11th incidents. Her interview was then misquoted and sent around the internet like wildfire... In the fake email story, she was interviewed by Bryan Gumble or someone like that, and he (mind you, he didn't do the interview) snottily asked her "So, where was God on September 11th?" To whit she allegedly replied something along the lines of "We exclude God from our lives daily. We don't pray, we don't turn to him... where do you think he'd be? You only expect to hear from God or get his help when you want it... rather than daily when you need it" or something of that nature. It was a retarded email that many instantly saw right through, and if you want to read the actual discussion, here she is, as interviewed by Jane Clayson. [Sidebar closed]

But I digress. We are here to talk trash about church lady Yankee swap!

So after that moment of seriousness and reflection, the kid gloves came off and the cut throat Yankee swappin' began.

This group has a history of uproariously funny, outlandishly ridiculous juvenile behavior at these Yankee swaps. And it is a lot of fun. People hide the gifts they like, pretend they got something you don't want when you're there scoping out the possibilities for swappage.

I brought the gag gift, a talking toilet soap dispenser, and one of the boxes of chocolate I scored yesterday. Seeing as it was Hershey's "pot" of gold, and another kind of "pot," the joke was clear to everyone there.

And, it was the first present chosen. I had hoped it would make it later into the round, but no. First gift.

The woman who got it opened the chocolate first and everyone oohed and aaahed, and then she took the toilet out of the bag and screamed laughing. The woman behind her reached around and pressed the button to make it talk, and you should have seen her face as she sat there holding a toilet yelling "HEY! DON'T FORGET TO WASH YER HANDS!"

So the tone, she was set. Ha. Ha. Haaaaaaa. It was downhill from there.

The thing I like about our church group is they are NOTHING like the church lady of Dana Carvey fame. These women are certainly mindful of Christ, and supportive and Christian, sure. But, they are also great friends. They all have senses of humor that can make me blush. There was an abundance of bawdiness that you wouldn't get at say a Baptist or an Assembly of God church lady group. My sides hurt so much by the time I left.

The gift I got sucked, so I conveniently left it behind. I'm sure the hostess will realize it is mine and bring it to me. Damn.

It was lots of fun, I enjoy these women a lot. This is the fifth Christmas party I've been to with them. Some of them have been coming to this for 20 or 30 years. I hope we can keep it together after the pastor and his wife retire and move away. They are slated to go back to Australia in September 2002. She is instrumental in making sure we do this and everyone gets invited. This year there were 25 women in attendance, the most there has been in a long time according to the hostess. So I hope to be doing this with them for as long as we are with this church.

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Something I forgot to mention is that on Tuesday (the day I was listening to the Star Spangled Banner) I had taken Geoff that day to a follow up appointment with the pediatric ophthalmologist. Never gave a report.

His vision check came back as 20/25 in his right eye and 20/50 in his left. The last test was 20/75 in his left, so the doctor said that his vision is improved with the glasses. He wants to see him again in February to test again and see if there is continued improvement. The lens of his glasses is correcting his esotropia (turning) so when he has the glasses on his eyes point straight ahead the way they are supposed to. Without them there is still turning. But again the doctor states there is improvement, so we'll keep up the corrective lenses to see how things go. He stated that if Geoff's eyes continue to improve we may not need to do surgery.

Well isn't that just a relief.

So things are improving there I guess. I'd like to see it keep going. He's been amazing since that first day when he lost the glasses. He's kept them safe ever since. I'm happy to see this improvement with this rather naughty child.

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This weekend I'm going to Maine to the outlets at Kittery, along with 20 million other residents of the north east corridor, to do some Christmas shopping.

I'm meeting Marcia and we're going to hit the stores we need to hit for the kids. Our plan is to meet at 8:30 at the McDonalds, have a cup of coffee, and then shop.

Marcia wants to be home relatively early because they are going out to get their tree that afternoon.So Marcia and I both plan on our being completely done in Kittery by noon. If not noon thirty. We're going to leave our cars parked in one lot and walk up and down.

If you've ever been to Kittery Outlets, they are on both sides of US Rte 1, a rather busy street, made even more crowded and crazy by pedestrians hoofing between outlets. But it is much easier than getting in and out of the car and navigating to another parkinglot, and taking your life into your hands.

Hopefully it won't be all pouring out and nasty. I don't care if I get wet though. It ain't fashion shopping on Fifth Avenue for me, it is outlet bargain shopping, kind of down and dirty like church lady Yankee swap. It is supposed to rain and I'll be pissed if it actually does. First of all because I'm hoping to score just what I need for everyone on my list, and I don't want to have to carry all the crap around in the fucking, stinking pouring down rain. Second because people drive like complete jackasses in the rain.

They have no idea where they are going, which parking lot leads to which outlet, what stores are in which clump, so they are on the brakes, fail to ever use their signal, whip around like they own the universe and just generally act like fucking mental defectives.

I hate shopping in the first place, I really hate it when I feel personally endangered by snotty women from Manchester Massachusetts in their Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer Limited Edition death machines who are out to get where they wanna get as fast as they can.

There's a great store up there that predates all the outlets. It is the Kittery Trading Post. Has a lot of outdoorsy/camping stuff, lots of clothing, kitchy woolen stuff, and just general gobs of good quality merchandise for my sedentary lifestyle. Where I pretend to be more outdoorsy than I am by dressing the role.

I have also been given the task of picking a gift up for our boss for Christmas. Last year, LLP and I got her a bottle of wine. This year we're going for something a little bit more permanent and perhaps memorable. She likes silver, so we could get her a nice silver bangle for her wrist... she wears several of them and plays with them when she's thinking, and adjusts them, and I know she loves them. So to add to that from the group would be kind of cute. She also just got a nice new dining table set, 6 seater, so napkins/placemat/centerpiece would be nice... hard to decide.

Doug just called me so I have to run. Aaron & Michelle are swinging by tonight because they have a family function in Connecticut tomorrow afternoon. Initially the plan was that they were going to come to us sometime tomorrow morning, drop off their dog so we can dog sit while they go to a said Connecticut based shindig... And, seeing as we are only 90 minutes ride north of the shindig, and his parents' house is an hour SOUTH of the shindig... they'd be adding an hour to their trip back Sunday if they stayed at the parents' house. Their house is another 4 hours or more from ours, so that would suck to add another hour. Plus, we wouldn't get to hang with them. So we host them tonight and Saturday night.

I want to have the guest bed cleaned up (it has been a crash pad for a few weeks, since they were last with us) and just do some general cleaning (bathtub needs a strong wiping down) and dishes need done, so I need to hop on it. They're at least 4 hours away, so it isn't a great big deal, I've got time, but Doug will be no help because he's been sick. And then tomorrow morning I won't get to see much of them because I'll be Kittery bound before they leave for Connecticut. At least I'll see them a little tonight and tomorrow.

I'm incredibly glad to have friends. Incredibly glad to host them.

Hurtin' Friends, Yankee Swap, Fuddruckers

There is someone that I want to do something very nice for, at least I think it is very nice. Someone very close to me whom I love and hold in amazing esteem.

I want to pay this person's debts for the month of December. At least ONE of the bills that is looming overhead. But this person won't let me. He/she has NO money to pay the bills, and has a debt load that looks as if they'll be snowed under and declaring bankruptcy in a few months if things don't get better. I don't make this offer lightly, knowing that I can do it but only do it for this person for a certain amount. I think lifting a 200 dollar credit card bill out of his/her plate would help him/her deal better.

I got a "thanks but no thanks, it's my pride" thing kind of response. It breaks my heart. I may just send him/her money to do with as he/she feels. I figure he/she needs no more sweaters of Dave Matthews CDs or candles.

Debt relief Jubilee-style isn't going to come their way from a creditor, so perhaps just a helping hand from the friends at way out inn... But sending this person money without putting the creditor's name on the check is sort of problematic. The person isn't going to spend it on him/herself. The person isn't going to buy drugs or do something stupid. The problem with sending this person money is this person will spend it on other people because he/she is always thinking of other people before him/herself. Sigh.

I know this person reads this journal. If he/she will just email me and say "yes, this is how much, make the check out to xyz creditor," it would make my Christmas. I'll leave it at that.

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At the office today, we did our annual Holiday party, complete with Yankee Swap. Tess emailed me and stated she didn't know what a yankee swap was, and asked if it was like a chinese auction. Well, seeing as I don't know what a Chinese auction is (and it sounds delightfully politically incorrect) here is a brief outline of how it works:

• Everyone brings a gift, usually 10 bucks or less, and they draw numbers from a hat.
• Person number one picks a gift, opens it, sits down.
• Person two picks a gift and then has the option to keep or swap.
• This goes all the way through the numbers... with the person picking having the option to keep or swap.
• At the end, person one gets to swap with anyone he/she wants... seeing as that person never had the chance to swap because they were the beginning of the chain... so they get the pick of all the gifts for themselves.

So it is best to draw number one, or another very high number, to keep the likelihood of holding onto your gift. There is usually always a gag gift or two that NO one wants, so that is the dud that lands in someone's lap.

I ended up with two boxes of Hershey's Chocolate, one of which is going to another Yankee swap tonight (with the gag gift I bought... to 'sweeten' the pain of said gag) and the other box will stay home to my family and they will inhale it tonight.

I also ended up running out quickly to a local music store to grab some music for the party. I got Vince Guaraldi Trio's "A Charlie Brown Christmas," one of my all time favorites, "Rudolph, Frosty & Friends' Favorite Christmas Songs, A Holiday Classics Collection," featuring Burl Ives, Jimmy Durante and many others, and Netwerks Various Artists "Christmas Songs," which features BNL with Sarah McLachlan (recorded backstage at a radio station concert December 1996) Dido, Delerium and others. It's pretty decent.

The crowd here preferred to listen to a computer streaming of Spinner's Christmas selections, which were okay but they had commercials in the middle of them, and I had to listen to Ricky Martin. Meh. So we got through one of my CDs before we switched over to pop music. Sigh. I'm trying to culture these people and they don't like it. Oh well. Best to share this stuff with my kids, because I already KNOW they love the Charlie Brown Christmas, and Jessica digs on the Rankin Bass cartoons and the music therein. I'll nerd out and "culture" my own fan damily!

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Cool news in my life, the guys met me for lunch at Fuddrucker's yesterday. Ben Brian and Dan brought along a woman who used to be one of the students at the college working for our department, only now she's got a staff position, seeing as she's all grown up and working in the real world. Her name is Michelle and I always got such a kick out of her when she was a student, only I never got to see her much because she was lab attending across campus, and only stopped in once in a while to see her supervisor.

So the guys initiated her in her first week to the joys of the two hour state college employee lunch trip. How thrilling is that! I was so surprised to see her there, had no idea that they'd picked her up as an employee and now she's hanging with the cool crowd.

In some ways I'm jealous, I miss the guys painfully. But I'm glad that she's there and so cool and can hang and joke and pick on Dan just the right way. More power to her!

I also reconnected with a woman I grew up with. She lived three houses down from me when we were growing up and I haven't chatted with her in about four years. I have some GREAT childhood memories of hanging out with her and the two girls who lived directly across from her in the courtyard. When I have a second I've got a good lesson that I learned from one of the girl's moms back in the day.

Tess emailed me and told me that a Yankee Swap and a Chinese Auction are one in the same. Just regionally different titles. Sigh. I should tell my super Asian girl LLP about "Chinese Auction." See what she has to say.

Okay. I need to get some work done.

Get Freaky with the Tiki

To mark the 3 month observance of the WTC/Pentagon attacks, this morning all the local radio stations played the Star Spangled Banner. When I heard it sung/played on the Sunday after the attacks at the NFL games, it brought a tear to my eye. But this morning I was stuck in rush hour traffic taking Geoff back to see the ophthalmologist in Waltham... a harrowing drive in and of itself, and one I didn't want to be caught sitting in while feeling overtly emotional.

One of the local radio stations decided to play an a capella version of the SSB by an ensemble known as "Eddie From Ohio." When I used to manage the coffeehouse I got to see these guys and they were AMAZING. The silly name aside, these fabulous musicians blew my literal and figurative socks off.

And then I lost track of what they were up to. I floated out of folk music listening circles, got back into Metallica and they might be giants (bwa, what a combo) and other bands. The coffeehouse closed, and my connection to the wider Boston Folk scene lessened with a few exceptions.

So, intrigued by the band as always, I stayed on the station to listen to the tune, instead of cruising over to the classic rock station in hopes they'd play Jimi Hendrix' version just to be wicked cool.

It made me cry.

I sat in the car, in bumper to bumper traffic on the highway near Lexington, MA, bawling. Crying my fat ass off. I knew all up and down the dial that stations were playing everything from stuffy old brass ensemble versions to (shudder) Whitney Houston. I knew in cars all around me people were making the choice to put in a CD or turn the radio off. How they missed it. Oh, they sure did.

I knew I'd made the right decision to listen to the dulcet beauty of Julie's soprano (she hit the high note, yes she did) combined with the layered and creamy harmonies. Simple, tasteful, contemporary yet somehow timeless and classical. This was a wonderful thing to hear. I felt broken inside, and then felt healing. From the first note to the last. It was redeeming.

I knew one person who died in the WTC. I went to high school with him. I haven't seen him since we graduated. We were in homeroom together for four years. But aside from that, the impact on me in the human toll column has been minimal. The impact on the collective spirit of my nation and on my inner New Yorker has been staggering.

If you want to support EFO (which is so cool, it's like ELO -- Electric Light Orchestra -- only more folkie and less British and synthy) please do so. Swing by their 9eleven page, buy the CD.

By the way, the Classic Rock station played Boston's version of the SSB. How lame. So I'm glad I stuck with the River and EFO.

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Why are the AbFab women at the top of my screen, you may ask? Well, for lack of a better little picture I guess. And the fact they have put out 6 new episodes of their raunchy silly britcom. I enjoy it greatly. Running on Comedy Central, Eddie and Patsy indulge in all the sins and behave poorly Mondays from 9pm to 11pm. Yes, cheers sweetie.

My sister does a really funny Patsy imitation. She pulls her hair up and puts on sunglasses and stands posed in her best aloof fashion with a bottle of vodka. Funny shit, y'all.

I'm more of a big fan of Dawn French, who is a writing partner to the woman who plays Eddie, Jennifer Saunders. Dawn was in the Vicar of Dibley (as the Vicar) and "Murder Most Horrid," both of which are great shows. If you get British Comedy, they're both must sees. Dawn is amazingly funny. I wish I could see more of her work.

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This just came to me via instant messenger in a discussion with Smitty... Had to share it:

"I was supposed to go to an anger management training today but I forgot to register and they were over booked. The instructor was mad that so many people kept showing up. I guess that's ironic."

A little too ironic, yeah I really do think.

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The big news is temporary news. The weather here in New England has been unseasonably nice. The banner at the top of the page is clipped from a picture I took of Geoff coloring in the driveway on December 1. We were out in shorts and Tshirts. Geoff had on his favorite flannel and baseball cap. Jessica was scootering in her favorite BNL tshirt and had no socks on.

It was December 1st .

It was 75 degrees.

Unseasonably pleasant weather in New England is rather nice. I went to our Holiday party (through the office) and didn't wear a coat so the coat check boy didn't get a tip. We've been walking to and from church, which you don't get the chance to do after say November 10th. But all good things do come to an end, don't they. Eventually it snows.

When I went out on Saturday night to C's surprise birthday, the forecast called for snow changing to freezing rain. I got home at 8pm and there was nothing falling from the sky. I figured that once again the local crack smokers at the local big news affiliates were hallucinating... there would be no snow whatsoever.

But lo and behold, ten minutes before I went to bed, we had this much snow...

It was still snowing lightly. And I figured it would do just as they said it would, and change to sleet and freezing rain in the night. Well, they were wrong. We got our first substantial snow. At 7am, Geoff was so excited he tried to run out of the house in his shorts, an unbuttoned flannel shirt, and his snow boots. We had to stop him... there was about 7 inches on the ground and it was still happening.

I love my yard in winter. The hemlocks in the back of the house are like a strong green wall that stands guard, and that wall is unfailing even when covered in feet of fluff. The street becomes quiet. The stairs make a good place to slide down on with your snowpants on. The dog pen mesh fence holds the snow and turns into a nice enclosure... until the wind blows it all off.

So this is the first snow.

Geoff eventually was dressed warmly and well and went out to play. It was a very fun day. But it is not 50 degrees again. What snow is left is quickly retreating. I think of the Frosty The Snowman cartoon and how he needed to hop a train to stay alive, flee to the north lands where it is always cold... Spring wants to come here and come now. I drove past a hedge of rhododendrons yesterday and they were in full bud. The apple tree in front of our church is showing pink flowers.

It's been pretty messed up for mother nature.

We've had later snow, but never in my memory this long a stretch of fine warm weather this late in the year.

I'm dreaming of an hawaiian christmas...

Speaking of which, A&M are coming down for New Years, and Doug and Aaron decided they wanted a South Pacific kind of theme. Tiki mugs and tiki torches, polynesian foods, mai tais... Hawaiian shirts. The whole nine yards. Our last big get together was the Equirox, for which I made engraved invitations. Seeing as only A&M come, it is odd that I go through the effort of making these invitations. But what the heck. Makes it seem more official.

So here are the two invitations I made. I like both of them but feel free to let me know which one you like. I'd love the feedback.

I like them both. I like the top one because Doug made me take art from someone for the second one and then alter it to our needs. I added the tiki glasses, straw and text... and I feel guilty. At least the first one is pretty much all mine except for the tiki guy.

This should be a fun gathering. I hope we have shitloads of snow out there so it's extra worth it to have a grilled porkroast on the weber in the yard. Aaaah.

Okay. Must work. Must get some caffeine. Must move along.

Office Party & Christmas Shopping

In case you are wondering, I found this nice picture of the cover of the Naked Chef's new book. Who is the Naked Chef, you may wonder... Well, he's Jamie Oliver ... British, tasty, and fun to watch. He has two shows on The Food Network. He has this little lisp from tongue thrust (my speech therapist husband diagnosed him) but it's kinda sexy and he's so much fun.

Geoffrey sort of looks like him in his earlier series when he just has this rampant bed head... blonde hair all akimbo. So we call Geoff "Naked Geoff" instead of Naked Chef, and he gets mad.

I love Jamie's shows, the Naked Chef and Pukka Tukka. I learned a lot from him and bought his first book. Perhaps will buy this one as well.

Speaking of learning from a TV show, I also LOVE "Good Eats" with Alton Brown (pictured here manly like with Weber Grill). He is by far one of the most amusing anal retentive I've ever seen. And he's very educational. I learned how to build a fish smoker. How's that! I haven't done it, but I can also go online and read about it to refresh my memory. My mom got turned on to him recently, and enjoyed the episode he did on roasting Thanksgiving turkey.

I highly recommend both guys and their shows if you are at all interested in cuisine, or just like to watch two guys cook. It's kinda sexy. To me at least. Seeing as most the guys I know just eat... they don't cook. Anyway.

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I was reading James Lileks the other day and he was recounting the fact that someone had emailed him some nastiness.

He writes in his entry:

"It had to happen: finally got a complaint about my Deathwatch plot here in the Bleat. Never fails. Stop talking about your daughter. Stop talking about your dog. Enough of the war. No one cares about what you think of movies. Finally: stop talking about being sick, already! No one cares if you have a *$%# cold!

"If I took these things to heart, I would be paralyzed on a daily basis, wondering what I should and should not write about - but the fact is I can’t think that way, or nothing gets done. I know I’ve dwelt on the matter these two weeks, the same way I would dwell on a second head that sprouted from my shoulder."

The thing that boggles my mind is someone taking the time to first of all READ someone they don't want to hear from, and then take the time to RESPOND nastily. I just don't understand.

There are tons of journals I read for a bit and then just abandoned... because I didn't enjoy what they were talking about. Who the hell shows up to read again and again and again stuff they don't want to hear about?

Human nature boggles my mind. Well. I got good mail, it warmed the cockles of my stony sarcastic heart, and I appreciate it.

I personally think the world is a better place because of James Lileks, by the way. I enjoy his writing and I think his daughter is lovely. And his photography of his Jasper Dog is WONDERFUL. If I hated it, I wouldn't visit. Ever.

And this one is my ABSOLUTE favorite of the whole damn doggie picture bunch. Jasper Rules.

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Okay, okay, it's the time you have been waiting for... I come here to report that I've lived to tell of the debaucherous acts of my co-workers at the annual holiday party. Lots of drunken sexual harassment, intercourse on the golf course, fist fights and moonings. Naked women in the backs of minivans... It was astounding.

Actually, I lie.

It wasn't at all like the cliché office party scene where someone gets unbelievably tanked and curses out the boss, or people end up in the pantry of the restaurant getting their party on. No white boys stood on a table and yelled "Can a Nigga get a Lap Dance, Heay!"

The employees here are pretty low key. It being a tech company, there's a serious amount of geekiness, nerdiness, and outright weirdness. And then there are departments like mine where it's all about the party and the fashion.

I don't really fit in this group, but they seem to accept me fully. I feel like Jane Goodall among the primates -- someone accepted by a group unlike her, but with similarities. I feel like I'm on an episode of "The Real World" a lot of the time I am here.

I think I make them laugh. I got them going at the table when we were sitting down to eat the meal (unbelievable food by the way, kudos to the chef(s) who prepped the garlic shrimp and the chicken!) We have three totally unattached girls in our group, one of which is always scoping the guys out. She was going around the room targeting guys, assessing them, and we would argue with her. She was kind of harsh on the guys there... accusing our company of being filled with ugly guys. I kept pointing out people and mentioning their good points, thus ruining her fun. She said to me "you think everyone is beautiful, that's your thing. And it's wonderful that you do. I wish I could see people that way." I'll take that as a compliment. Everyone was laughing... and I got everyone just off the hook ridiculous with my critique of the single girls' picks, telling her how mean she was, or how absolutely spot on she was.

I suggested she look to my buddy FL for an example of Hotness Personified, and she had totally forgotten him. He's an Info Tech guy, not a high flying super powerful strategy/business development/legal guy, the kind she spends all her time with... so she'd skipped over his area. She asked where he was and I pointed him out and she outright died.

There he was in the whole dress shirt/tie/fancyass mode and looked unbelievably gorgeous. Usually he has on a baseball cap and shorts and a Tshirt. But last night -- he was dressed to thrill.

So I nominated him to be "hottest guy there tonight" and everyone at the table agreed, and started cheering for him. Raising glasses in the air for a toast, hailing him as king. We were out of control.

I ended up spending the rest of the evening off and on with the newly elected "totally hot" FL. My friend LH who works in my group decided she wanted to liberate him from his shyness and totally latched onto him to play and act silly and get him going.

It was a riot--by the end of the evening, she had him out on the dance floor bumpin and grinding and burning up the hardwood with the fancy body movin' movements. His best friend RvA said that he hasn't seen FL have so much fun in a long time.

All told, the evening was a blast.

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In the end, it got a little weird. I went to say goodnight to my boss, and she grabbed me and hugged me, telling me she loved me and thought I was the greatest... (which is a relief because I sometimes feel like I am not living up to her expectations or my own potential). I told her she was the best boss I'd ever had and she said "NO! We're friends!!! I'm so happy to have you as a friend!"

That can be dangerous sometimes, because it hurts less when you disappoint an authority figure than when you disappoint a friend. So now I feel forever compelled to live up to friend expectation. Until she forgets we're friends, of course. Actually, I've ragged on her here for the Jon Bon Jovi lust she harbors, but all kidding aside, she really is super.

This past year has been hard for everyone here. Lots of people have been let go, we've shut down entire companies and parts of companies. She's constantly trying to build infrastructure surrounded by people who just have no morale or drive. I do not envy her job and try to give all the support she needs... when she says jump I say how high. But it still has been kind of strange to be here.

Part of me says to just quit and move on, the other part says that this is the funnest-est job I've had in many years and to stop being down on the whole dotcom thing, mostly because of her and my pal FL. So to have her embrace me and tell me she thinks I rock the world (even though she was drunk and I'm sure she totally forgets telling me these things) it made me feel good.

She is the type of person that gets so much done... when other people sit around letting office politics hold them back, she just says fuck it and she goes for what she knows is best and right for the company. It's refreshing to see a woman in that kind of role. A lot of people respect her fully, some people are totally scared of her and threatened by her, and I'm glad to be her underling.

It has been an incredibly long time since I've had a boss that I fully respected. My last set of upline management at the college couldn't keep their lies to me straight... and I got to the point where I wasn't sure who was lying to me and who was telling me the truth, the direct supervisor or the one above her. So this place is a relief. If anything, all I know is that my boss is forever honest with me. And even though I'm very unlike my co-workers and once in a while one of them in particular makes me so mental I could throw myself off a bridge, this is the best job I've had in years.

So huzzah for the holiday party. It was all over at about 10. People mulled around talking for a while after and decided to hit the bars in Andover. I opted out to go home and see if my family was still awake/asleep and assess the damage done in my absence. The night seemed to have gone fine and Doug was happy to see me home.

this picture cracks me up... a BMW with a tiny tree. Is the driver/owner cheap? did he spend all his money on a car and now doesn't have a big enough residence to house a nice big tree? or is this just funny for funny sake... i think so. hell. made my happy as laugh...

---

I started my Christmas shopping today, finally. Jessica needs a new backpack for school and so does Geoff. I bought one for him that is way too big for him really, but, it isn't like he won't grow into it. I bought them from LL Bean instead of buying from Wal*Mart because I wanted something that will last them a while. I got them monogrammed too, and Jessica's is purple. She'll be thrilled.

We bought her last backpack for school last fall and one of the shoulder straps ripped off this past month. So she's been using the Eastpak one Doug used for Grad school. It doesn't have a lot of pockets so she loses stuff in the bottom... little things that she needs like pencils and her house key. So the new backpack has two nice little pockets on the front, and she'll be able to keep her little things safe. Hurray.

Geoff will be thrilled to get a new "packpack" as he calls them. His Blues Clues one doesn't hold nearly enough stuff for his needs in winter at school. They require a change of clothing and an extra set of shoes and socks in the winter for the kids... and none of that shit fits in his current bag... which is great for summer, swimsuit, towel, one change of clothes and a pair of socks. So he'll be stylie.

My kids are really hard to shop for. Geoff wants one thing -- Pop up mister potato head. That's all he wants. I keep asking him do you want Santa to bring you some hotwheels, a game, some football clothes? He says no -- just Pop up mister potato head.

Jessica is the same. She told me all she wanted was the backpack and a couple Game Boy color games... I asked her if she wanted some computer games, or more books... she said she was "all set."

How is that possible to be nine and be "all set?" Are my kids that unmaterialistic? I'm amazed. We try to emphasize not to be, but it might be working. It makes it hard to decide what to get so I've made some educated guesses as to what to get them. And have shared that info with family.

Jessica:
Jessie likes science and astronomy. I told my mother to look down that route. She has been complaining that it is hard to practice her saxamaphone so my sister is getting her a music stand. We've covered the backpack situation. Thank you LL Bean. And she likes this series of books called "A Series of Unfortunate Events," so I told my mother in law to pick her up some more books in that series. Jessie has books 1-4, and so my mother in law got her books 5-8 I think. She has a Game Boy Color, but only has one game, so she hinted that she was getting sick of that one game, so I told my mom and sister about that. She likes dorm pants and pyjamas, and she needs a new pair of slippers, so as the mom I will cover those bases and viola, Jessie has a bevy of gifts.

Geoff:
He's an enigma. I have very little idea on what to get this kid. He likes hotwheels, so I'll put some of those in his stocking. He likes this aforementioned pop up mr. potato head business. He's probably ready for a board game like Hi Ho Cherry O or something, so that's an option. There's always a need for him to get another pair of PJs or a CD game, but he's so bad with CDs. He doesn't know how to take care of them, and we've had to throw 3 away that we got for Jessie when she was his age. So I'm wary of spending the money. I think he's learned his lesson on how to treat them because he was apeshit freaked out about throwing away the ruined "Trudy's Time and Place House" in the trash (I made him put it in the garbage so he'd understand that it was over... and he didn't like that). So we'll see. If there was something very inexpensive and good quality education wise on sale, I'd buy it. But I don't know.

Doug:
He's like having another kid, and again, I'm at a loss. He hinted that he wanted some nice cutlery... which I think is odd. But our knives suck and we could use more, but the ones I'm looking at from J.A. Henckels or Wusthof are obscenely expensive... for a block with 5 knives, I'd be spending like 200 bucks. Last year I got him 4 wicked nice martini glasses, 4 margarita glasses, a bartenders "bible" which he enjoys reading and making concoctions from once in a while. It's kind of a hobby thing. I'm not into encouraging the art of alcohol consumption for the most part, seeing as too much of a good thing lands your ass in rehab. Neither of us are anywhere near that though, which is good. But he likes this kind of chi-chi brandy glass/liqueur thing lately, and if it tickles his borderline unticklable fancy, why not. I figure a couple pairs of dorm pants, some cool knives... trying to think of something else that's cool. Any suggestions? Let me know.

I'm going shopping at lunch with my Super Asian girl LLP, so we'll see if we find anything. More later.

---

Okay, it's officially later. LLP and I went to Marshall's where she didn't find a thing and I scored. I love shopping for other people... hate shopping for myself. I got 2 books, one for each kid, a toy and a suit for My Niece Elyse, and a toy and suit for my friend Bonnie's Baby Chloe. So we're off and running. I only have a few people to really get something for...

How can it be Christmas in New England when it is 76 degrees out

Today I was out in shirtsleeves. I put a coat on this morning when leaving the house and immediately regretted it, ditching it into the way back of Rudy the Saturn.

This, after all, is December 6th, so I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the concept that Christmas eve is less than 3 weeks away.

I've done no shopping for gifts, have displayed no lighting or other festive stuff on the exterior of my home. Although it probably would behoove me to get out there and hang some stuff while it is 50 degrees in the evening. Beats the crap out of stringing lights in a bitter biting wind with frost gathering on my fingernails and dripping from my nose. I'd always wondered what it was like to spend Christmas in temperate climes, like the Carolinas or something. This time last year we had snow. And it didn't stop until March. We had snow for St. Patrick's Day. So this is odd.

I get the feeling though we're going to get our asses kicked when it comes to the snow, once it decides to come down. We shall see. Until then, it's no wonder I have this cold, and it is a beautiful thing to not need a jacket.

The only thing I wish right now would be that it would be light out when I got home from work. I'd love to be able to take the kids to the park after work in this weather... before the cabin fever sets in and we're climbing the walls when it is -10 out.

By the way, it is rarely -10 out here in this part of New England. If it gets to Zero, that's odd. But colder than 50 with wind I don't like being out to play... I'm not a big fan of snow sports, so I'm not looking forward to it being fucking cold and snowy.

---

Okay. I decided that Christmas music on the whole sucks. Mariah, Celine, whatever... it bites. I mean, look at this picture. She is so much a waste of space in my book (apologies to any fans, but ... c'mon kids... C'MON!!!!)

I'm sick of the "Very Special Christmas" rock and roll format. Stevie Nicks groaning and moaning her way through "O Holy Night" makes me weep, but not for the reasons she wants me to cry. It ain't pretty -- it's pretty horrid.

I like Sting's "Gabriel's Message," and listen to that often, even in July. I listen to Anne Murray only because the girl next to me does... and she's not half bad but I feel that by liking her I declare my elderliness (aside from the very cool fact that Barenaked Ladies wrote a song about the farmer who stalked her, I'm not a big fan of hers).

So I've got no good Christmas music. I suppose that's okay... the radio is going to be shoving everything from the Waitresses to Don Henley down my throat any day now, so I should just relax and ready myself for it. Sigh.

Any good recommendations. No Kenny G. Please. Email me with your favorites.

My friend GPJ gave me a Bruce Cockburn (again with him! what is with me!!) CD a couple years back of Christmas music. On the whole it is pedestrian, for an artist and guitarist I hold in such high esteem... but it has one song on it that I will listen to all the time. Iesus Athionia, the Huron Carol. Amazing.

---

Oh, and get this shit... I just went to log into my Winamp Locker, where I store all my MP3s, and get this message welcoming me:

We'd like to apologize for the inconvenience, but Winamp Lockers have been shut down due to a plethora of reasons. What it comes down to is that the locker service is no more and the music you had stored in your locker, if any, is not inaccessible. We hope that we haven't caused you to lose valuable data and that you don't hate us for this, it was really just out of our hands. Thank you and we hope you enjoyed using the locker service while it was still around. - The Winamp.com Staff

Forgive me in advance, cover your ears and eyes. For lo, I am about to lose it old school. Mother fucker!!!!!!!!!! What the fuck is this shit. Oh my aching HEAD!!!!!! My goddamn MP3s, which took me 2 years to gather, rip, hunt down, find, FUCKING GONE!!!!! BLUGH!!! ARGH!!! MEH MEH MEH!!!! FAJSD:Fasiofna;sdofn; adlkfmal'djr[w4ur5[0234hji5nlnb ldmfla

asdklfn;aklsdfn !!!!! FUCK!!! (aneurysm).

Oh MAN I'm rather irked right now.

These jackasses at Winamp didn't send a message out alerting me that the lockers would be shutting down. I have 300 MP3 files that I was storing on their service. That's less than some people I know, but a lot of them were songs I've legally obtained from artist websites, a couple are rare live bootlegs that I doubt I'll ever find again.

What the bloody fucking hell?! Is this a Napster related fall out thing? Artists Against Storage!!!!! A lot of people did indeed rip off artists and do the MP3 instead of buying the CD thing. A lot of times I downloaded the MP3 to hear the song and then bought the album. Hell, since Napster's demise I've bought more CDs than I did the 2 years previous. A lot of stuff that I was buying was upgrading of old vinyl as the stuff was released onto CD.

But not to send out a warning. That's just fucking classless bullshit. So damn unfair.

Goddamn.

Okay, I'm better. Thanks for hanging in there with me while I shit the proverbial bed.

---

Well, everyone here is shuffling out the door to go get themselves prissied up, I mean prettied up, for the Holiday Party. Which is tonight. One of the girls here lives across the road and a ton of people are going up to her place for some wine, and some getting dressed and listening to music stuff... I'm opting out. I don't like the idea of dressing in a group, or messing with hair/makeup like school girls before a Sadie Hawkins dance. I'm going to ready myself at home. The party isn't until 6pm, so I will bolt home, play with the kids a bit, feed them, and then come back over here. The shindig is at the Andover Country Club, which is cool because the last couple of years they did it in Boston. I don't like going into Boston, due mostly to the traffic nightmare that the entire North Shore and City are, so I'm relieved to be doing this locally.

I should be home by 10.

The cool thing is that last year all my buddies from the Info Tech group blew the party off. This year, they're coming. So we'll be nerding the joint up real good. My buddy FL will be there... he's awesome. He and I are the original Portal Wonder Twins, and recently merged with 2 people in marketing to do WebDev stuff for the internal and external sites. He's the only thing that kept me here for a long time, when things were feeling pretty iffy. I'm glad I stayed because compared to last Christmas this is a great place to be. Simply HAVING a tech job that I've not been laid off from in 18 months is nice.

Well, off to the races. An update with perhaps some pictures if the participants are willing will be your reward for sticking with me so far. Maybe.

Festivus and Northern Lights

One of my favorite shows is Seinfeld. I used to watch it the dutifully dedicated way most people now watch Buffy or Friends. I grew up with people LIKE the people on Seinfeld... I knew someone like George. I knew someone like Kramer. So the characters resonated with me.

One of my favorite episodes has always been the Festivus episode where George's mentally deranged dad, Frank, starts his own holiday on December 23 as an irate response to a bad shopping experience when George was a child.

There are certain mandatory aspects of Festivus. There is the Airing of Grievances, where you sit at a table and let people know how badly they disappointed you in the last year. After dinner, there are the "Feats of Strength" where Frank (or the head of the household where the Festivus is taking place) picks someone to physically fight with. There is no Christmas tree or Hannukah bush, there is a metal pole. It is a very bizarre episode, rife with the dysfunctionality of the Costanza family, and painful at times to watch.

Ben and Jerry's even made an Ice Cream for Festivus. How cool is that?

You can visit their website, learn more, and find out where in your area you can buy Festivus Ice Cream, and decide if it disappoints you so you can invite Ben and Jerry to NEXT year's Festivus dinner so you can Air Your Grievances" against them.

You can also send Festivus Cards to those who disappoint you. There's a lot out there about Festivus.

When I worked at the college, one of my co-workers is Jewish so we would steer clear of the commercialized Christian/pagan "Christmas" aspects of the holiday season for his comfort and because it was a State School and we wanted to play politically correct (plus, he loves to complain about stuff like that so steering clear didn't give him the opportunity as often). We decided that it'd be fun to do a Secret Santa, but calling it a Secret Santa was politically incorrect and prime for Brian complaints.

So, we called it Secret Kramer. Named, of course, for Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld, as most of us did indeed enjoy the show.

For a couple of weeks before our Holiday Party gifts would be bestowed upon "Victims" by their own Secret Kramer. And hilarity ensued. The students got involved too. We did it the traditional way, where you pick a person's name and then you have to give that person a gift every or every other day, and the 'revealing' of the Secret Kramer was the day of the holiday party.

Some of the co-workers were particularly mean spirited and naughty. Well, not mean spirited really... "evil sense of humor-embodied" would be better to classify them. One Kramer "Victim" got all kinds of insane gifts. I remember being given a gift by the Kramer for a "victim" and told to put it in the Ladies Bathroom in my office area. The victim was male, and he had to go in and retrieve it.

It was his own license plate, removed from his car, wrapped beautifully with ribbons and bows.

It was drop dead funny. I honestly don't think I've ever laughed harder than at the two "Festivus" Secret Kramer periods of my life. Oh man I'm laughing now just remembering Jarodious' reaction to having to go INTO the women's can to get his gift AND opening it to find his own license plate.

The whole thing was too funny. I was there to Secret Kramer in 1998 and 1999. We didn't do it in 1997, my first holiday season there. Brian hadn't joined our staff and certain relationships hadn't been forged yet to make it so. But those two "Festivus" holiday years will be long remembered by me.

Pictured here is my buddy Phat Dan-nay (the one who just got married, the one who owns the dogs...) with one of his fabulous gifts that first of the Festivus years -- a Mac II that someone pulled out of the surplus closet and put a bow on, just for him. Priceless. Thing is, he looks thrilled to have it! (photo courtesy Brian).

---

Work was incredibly busy yesterday.

We have a new thing we're rolling out program-wise and all the communication to the employees will be smack dab on our intranet. Seeing as I'm the intranet goddess, I spent most of my day having paragraphs sent my way to put on a site, tables, forms, and other items to organize, storyboard, and layout. A lot of hurry up and wait, and hurry up and do it.

We want to announce the program to the employees before Friday. I stayed until about 6:30 ironing some bumps and links out, my boss took home a draft of the content, and I am sure today will bring a wave of edits, and then off to have my buddy in marketing proofread/content check the stuff, then FTP-o-Rama, and viola. New area of the portal done.

I like to run stuff by my girl there in marketing ("mad props" out to CB, she rules, I like saying "mad props." It makes me laugh) because she looks at the content we're given and says "this is departmental lingo. HR lingo may not translate to the common UNIX administrator. Can we re-word this sentence so it makes sense in English?" Coming from her people take it more seriously.

There is a lot of HR/Finance Speak that gets thrown my way, and I bristle when I get it. Usually I flag it, but as of late I've been letting CB or someone else do the language/content edit. My suggestions usually are received strangly, as if it is the program itself that is being challenged.

For instance, we had a sentence come through in a policy update that said "Company will not pay the gross-up for the employee." I have NO idea what gross-up is, although I had visions of someone being paid to vomit. So I mentioned it to someone in HR operations and they acted as if this is common knowledge... I told her I honestly doubted that 60% of the population considered it common knowledge. So she explained it to me (it has something to do with pre-tax reimbursement or something. The definition went straight through my cranium, in one ear...) and I told her I felt that needed changed.

She said she'd rework it.

Whatever.

---

I got mail from someone today out of the blue, my second "stranger" email ever. Only this time it was amazingly favorable and she gave me her journal to check out. Her name is Tess, so rock on and drop by her journal too. She lives in friggin Alaska of all places. Alaska... I have visions of Northern Exposure, or, cold expanses of wilderness blanketed with snow, spiked with conifer, and kind of ... hilly. In one of her entries she goes to the airport to pickup/dropoff someone, and she says she gets to see the Northern Lights.

My sister and I have been talking about our shared want to see the Northern Lights, not the way that they are sometimes seen this far south but up in say Labrador or Newfoundland, a full blown sky-wide acid-tab rendering of them. The way Bruce Cockburn (again, with the Bruce references. Lately if it isn't BNL it's Bruce) describes them in a song he wrote in 1978 near Medicine Hat:

"Sunday night and it's half past nine
I'm leaving one more town behind.
Mirrors are showing the day's last glow
As we're spit out into the jigsaw flow.
Ahead where there should be the thickness of night
star are pinned on a shimmering curtain of light.
Sky full of rippling cliffs and chasms
That shine like signs on the road to heaven.
I've been cut by the beauty of jagged mountains
And cut by the love that flows like a fountain from God.
So I carry these scars, precious and rare,
and tonight I feel like i'm made of air..."
-Northern Lights, (from "Dancin' in the Dragon's Jaws)

I can see us, parked on the edge of a large field, with a tree line off about 700 feet in the distance, scratching up into the colors of the sky with their piney black edging. We're on the hood of a car, drinking something warm and fulfilling. I am not sure what season the Northern Lights are best viewed in, but for some reason I feel it is warm enough to just be out in pants and a shirt, no need to coat oneself in polartek fleece or down. And it is just she and I (or is it her and me!) enjoying this celestial display. We'll do it one day. Get in the car. Drive for hours. Hours. Go up there. Camp? Bed and Breakfast? Who knows. Logistics aren't important. All I know is one day we'll do it. This picture, lifted off some website, was taken in March 2001. it looks so lovely. Stars are pinned on a shimmering curtain of light...

When we do this, either somewhere deep in Labrador/Newfoundland or up the globe in Saskatchewan, I hope my husband won't be too jealous that I leave him behind with the kids for once. Of course, I'd go back a second time and take him. But the very first time, that has to be with Linda. Just has to be.

---

I've been using "rock on" a lot lately for some reason when I talk. A few months ago I had re-connected with a friend of mine from our semester at the Oregon Extension, his name is Matt, and when we were updating each other about our lives, he kept saying "Rock On!!!" when I'd tell him something. With such sincere enthusiasm. Rock on! So I sort of adopted that in the past week. It just seems so much nicer than, 'Gee, that's swell.'

Speaking of rocking on, I heard a new song on the way to work by Neil Young. It's called "Let's Roll," the famous last words heard by cellphone from Todd Reamer on flight 93 on September 11. Neil took the concept of "let's roll," and applied it to what needed to be done on the plane and what needs to be done now. I'm not sure if the song itself embodies Mr. Neil Young's personal sentiments regarding September 11 or if it is just a character sketch, but knowing Neil's writing, he writes from himself most of the time, his opinions, his feelings... so chances are this is Neil's personal opinion.

The song pretty much is an anthem against the terrorists and how we have to rail against them, before any more of "us" die. It gave me the chills. It has more of a Pink Floyd feel to it, rather than that Neil Grunge "Weeerrrwerrr weeeeeerr weeeeerrrr rre re reee" guitar sound he does. Echoey, dark, plodding, angry. Brrr. I need to find the lyrics. There is one section singing about "Let's fight Satan on the wings of a dove" or something like that. I thought it was going to be corny at first, but leave it to Neil. Whether or not you were there in Ohio when there were four dead, or on flight 93 you really get a taste for how he feels about the situation the circumstance and the politics, and what needs to be done next.

---

This past weekend I got to visit for 20 minutes with my friend who is in Rehab. He looks great. The program let him leave the area unsupervised, with one housemate as a travel partner, to come up by train to our area and get his guitar.

He's been longing for his guitar for months now, since he went in program, and as a reward for doing so well they let him go up. He told me the house is incredibly strict. He's not allowed to make phone calls or have visitors. They let him call me to make the meeting arrangement, and we had to be off the phone in five minutes.

Sidebar rant here -- I can't understand why the program doesn't let people in recovery be in contact with a select few people from the person's past who genuinely care and want to help and provide support. I mean, his mom sets him off sometimes, pisses him off to the point where he wants to go use. But he's told me that without me and Doug over the last couple of years he'd have died by now. His sister is also a great influence of strength and stability. Why they don't let us at least write him letters, which THEY CAN READ AND SENSOR for all I care, is beyond me. I long to see him come out the other end of this, and not being in contact with him hurts him and hurts me. Shit. But it was good to have 20 minutes. 20 great minutes.

I got the genuine feeling he's doing really well... and now that he has the guitar, the first addiction and love of his life, he'll hopefully do even better. I'm going to buy him some sheet music for some songs I want him to learn how to play, specifically "When I Fall" by BNL. He had some great stories to tell, and the guy with him (a recovering alcoholic) was a riot. I asked him if living in the house setting was like being on "The Real World," and he laughed, "Yeah, only we don't have any fun and no sex with hot college chicks."

Too bad there buddy. His program is a lot longer than I thought it was going to be. He's been there three months already, and he'll be done in March. March 30, 2002. Hopefully the day he'll walk away from the life and never ever need to walk back in.

The big news of the Monday is that "Ginger" has been unveiled. On the Today Show or something this morning, Manchester NH (right up the street!) Inventor Dean Kamen showed the planet his cool new transportation device, which is actually called the Segway. Kamen states will hopefully cause the car to go the way of the horse & buggy. At least for urban use, the Segway (I'm constantly tempted to spell it Segue, the way the word is actually friggin spelled, but hey -- it's the age of modern business and tech spelling. Screw English, right?) could change how people commute.

Interesting.

But it doesn't hover. IT, as Segway was known for a long time, is still earthbound and I'm pissed. I wanted something that hovered about two feet off the ground that you could thrust up above car height. Something Jetsons-esque, with a soft mechanical putter-putt noise. I wanted this big frigging announcement to blow my socks off, that a hoverbike is here in my life time. Eah, ye Gods! A Hoverfuckingbike!!!! I wanted to pass out from the anticipation, froth at the mouth. Realize all my nerdy girl dreams, all that science fiction, all the hopes, the promises of an untethered bike ride come to fruition!!!

Hoverbike! Hoverbike! But no.

Earthbound.

With wheels, and I'm sure some cargo space.

Segway is yet another penguin in my world of dreams of personalized vertical and horizontal non-airplaned flight. Sigh.

It's still kind of cool from what I read. It responds to your movements... adjusts, turns, speeds up... now if we can take it up in the air next... Mr. Kamen, you've got your work cut out for you in Segway Two.

---

In other news, this weekend it was December 1, it was 72 degrees. We did gardening. The boy was out in shorts coloring on the driveway. Doug cleaned out the garage (or as Moe Syzlack calls it, the "car hole") and now it looks quite tidy and roomy. One could park a damn car in there.

The Grinching in church went incredibly well. I read by myself at the 8am service... I haven't been up at 7am on a Sunday in a Dog's Age. So it was good to get up and out. There are a lot more people at our church at 8am than I initially thought. About 20 people. No kids. So I read to them, talked my spiel about the redemption of the Grinch. And they applauded.

Applause in church. Holy cow. That doesn't happen often in the Episcopal sector.

Doug and I read to a packed house at 10. We had the little kids and any parents who wanted come down and sit up front. We stood between the choir and the children's choir. Geoff was so excited to have the Grinch read that he got up and stood between us and "read" along. Jessica refused to play Cindy Lou Who, so she told her best friend (the one who had been bitten by Missy back in April) to play her. M got up and stood beside us when we went to read and we figured it out pretty quickly. The bargain that the two of them struck was that M would be Cindy Lou and Jessica would read the Psalm with her when we did the lessons. I think it is cute when kids bargain for stuff like that.

Anyway, the reading went phenomenally well. Doug and I do such a good job together. We had the entire congregation hanging on our words. When I was reading and he was standing beside me, he made Grinch faces and movements, mockingly, it was great. With his first Grinch speaking line he boomed out vocally and everyone jumped. It was hysterical. All the kids were so thrilled.

More applause. It was a message that was received with glee, with open heart, with joy. And after service people came up to us and were just bursting with thanks, and so happy that we shared that in that way. It felt really good to hear, "I never thought of it that way! How absolutely brilliant!"

Sweeeeet.

One of the moms, whose son is a month younger than Geoff, thanked us because all week her son has been talking about the Grinch. She read him the story and all week he's been concerned saying, "How can someone THAT bad change that fast? It isn't possible." Weird how sometimes 5 year olds can see. She kept telling him that it was possible, just believe. So when I explained my thoughts, it became very obvious to him. He was thrilled, and he turned to his mom and smiled and said, "I get it now."

How's that for amazing. I hope that the kids can carry that thought. We had some prayer time, I told them to pray for someone that they thought was Grinchy. Hopefully their prayers will be answered.

And we found out yesterday our pastor is retiring. His last day preaching will be January 27th. He's been at odds with the vestry for a while on a number of issues, and I guess is just sick of it all. He turned 65 recently, which makes him of retirement age. His wife does a lot of speaking engagements to women's groups. They will be all set financially with his church pension. They'll just have to find someplace to move to eventually, because the parsonage will become someone else's. Not sure when. Not sure how this all works in the Episcopal church. We shall see.

The Pats and the Steelers both won. The Steelers almost blew it; the Pats came from behind to win by one. Damn good weekend of football for those who care.

---

A few weeks ago we rented a couple of movies. I don't remember what one of them was (how pathetic is that?) but the other was a French subtitled ditty called "The Dinner Game" or in it's native French: "Le Dîner de cons." A group of stuff shirted Parisian businessmen have dinner weekly and each of them have to bring one complete moron, a world class idiot, and they compare notes afterward to see who had the bigger idiot as his guest.

Pierre Brochant is the despicable businessman who finds his class A moron in François Pignon. A man who builds things out of match sticks, takes pictures of them, and is so pleased with them that he talks about them incessantly. He works in the tax office, and is a moron.

The night goes horribly, starting out with Pierre wrenching his back and needing to cancel the dinner date. His "idiot" is on his way over for pre-dinner interview. Pierre's wife Christine, whom he stole from his very best friend years ago, is so outraged at the fact he does this every week and finds it amusing, that she lets him have it. She insists he not go through with it in the future and he laughs her off. She departs, then calls back to tell him she is never coming home. The "idiot" is there, and Pierre realizes he needs the "idiot's" help. What ensues is a ridiculous tour de farce of mistaken identities, foot-in-mouthisms, and slapstick and hijinks that are almost Seinfeldian in nature.

I won't give away what happens, but it was a really enjoyable movie that I'd watch again. The man who played Pignon was genius as the idiot. And even though it was subtitled, (normally I shy away from that because reading the screen you miss a lot of the facial expressions...) it all made sense and was perfectly hysterical. I highly recommend.

---

Today I had a lunchdate with one of my former co-workers from the subsidiary of this company, at which I was employed for just under 6 weeks. He was in my group, customer support, and was recently laid off from the third job he's had since leaving The Sub... as I'll call it.

He lives in New Hampshire, just over the border from here, and has free time on his hands. So two other guys who work here in Corporate who also worked for The Sub joined us. We had a great lunch. Even though I only knew a handful of the people they discussed while trying to figure out where everyone ended up, it was fun to be out. I don't go out to lunch too often, it's expensive, and time consuming (I could be writing in the journal). But to have some fellowship with people is cool too.

On the way back, my buddy was driving, and we were detoured by a local cop. The road we wanted to drive down was blocked off and he had crime scene tape that he was pulling from one side of the road to the other.

Crime scene tape? Isn't that a tad.... over reactive? I mean, what kind of a crime scene could there be? All four of us thought that odd. So we drove down to the next intersection that could cross over to that street, and we were diverted through a parking lot of a doctor's office on the corner that has an entrance and exit on each road.

There was a car flipped over in the middle of the road, north of the intersection. All four of us where actually aghast. There were at least two other cars there damaged. As we drove through the Doctor's Park, we were trying to figure out how someone could end up UPSIDE DOWN when there was construction, and one lane, and a cop directing traffic. I mean, you've got to have some speed, you've got to hit something that can put your car up, there has got to be some physical umph there to get it up and over. So we thought maybe they were evading the police and cut through the area, hit the construction, lost control.

Regardless, that's gotta suck. And I didn't have my camera with me. So I have no proof that a little white car is flipped over in the middle of the road. There were tons of cops and fire trucks and ambulances there. It was quite a scene.

Lunch and a free show. Must be a Monday.

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What else... I have three projects burning at work. So I have to focus and take care of them. One has to roll out this Friday. This Thursday is our company Holiday Party. It's local this year instead of in Boston, as it has been for the last three years. Two holiday parties ago one of the finance or legal department employees gave her keys to what she thought was a valet. The guy had on a jacket and everything. Gave her a stub from a ticket thing so she could claim her car. He was a car thief. Drove away with her brand new car, her briefcase, her laptop. Lots of company documentation. It was horrible.

I don't ever use a valet service at a restaurant. I'd much rather park it at a garage and walk over. In the chaos in front of a chi-chi Boston city restaurant, this kind of thing is fairly common.

Well. to work. Must be productive.

Photos from December 2001