5th Annual Blog Cookie Exchange: An Invitation

Yes! We are doing it again! Five years now! And thank you for the hundreds dozens OK, none, really of inquiries unspoken vibrations sent in this direction, wondering whether we would have it this year. That does mean SO much to me! (You know, that I could just FEEL that so many people were thinking about it.)

(Just an update, for anyone wondering. I’m getting better, healthwise. I am better than I was at this time last year. I’m just not “well.” And in some ways (not complaining, truly), life is a little tougher, because the weller I get, the more I try to accomplish, and the more I look to other people like I’m just fine, and then I overdo or overestimate and wipe out. So, my absence here doesn’t mean I’m not OK; it means I’m adjusting to the next phase of my recovery. Or something like that.)

So, yea, back to the Cookie Exchange, which will be held next Wednesday, December 23 (borrowing from previous years’ invitations):

Start with some variation of:

Favorite holiday recipes
Special traditions
Favorite gift to give
What you wear when you don your gay apparel

and/or anything else you’d like to tell us about your holiday celebration. As is the custom here, there aren’t many rules. Whatever you’d like to share is fine — carols, stories, decorations, a favorite holiday tradition or memory, something new that you’re trying this year, whatever. Here it’s Christmas, but all holidays are welcome. If you don’t celebrate ANYTHING, then your grinchy scroogey ass can just fake it for one day, for goodness’ sake! Make something up! And you don’t HAVE to include cookies, if cookies aren’t your thing. It’s just that “Cookie Exchange” has a nice, Christmas ring to it. Better than, say, “shindig” or “hootenanny,” although it may turn into either or both.

If you don’t have a blog (what?! why not?!), stop in next week and leave your contributions in the comments. If you DO have a blog, leave a comment here next Wednesday on the Cookie Exchange post, and we’ll all come to your party, too. You won’t gain any weight, and you won’t need a designated driver! So here’s the deal, again. We wanna come to your place and eat your cookies and rummage around in your things and stuff next Wednesday. (Oh, and do post an invitation at your place, if you’re so inclined — everyone is welcome, the more the merrier!)

Last year, I had an ambition to show you photographs of my town — Pretty City — which really is glorious at this time of year. I wasn’t well enough to get out and take the pix. I’m going to attempt again. That’s something you might like to share, too — does your hometown have some holiday decorations or events that we should not live our whole lives without seeing?

I’m so, so far behind in holidaying. I almost scrapped the party this year. But truth is, it does help get me in the spirit. I hope you’ll post at your place or come by here

The Annual WWIT Turkey Trot, #5

They’re baaaaaack! It’s turkey time! Here’s the deal:

Across the hall from my office is what I believed to be a daycare center. Turns out, it is some sort of work-release program for 3- and 4-year-olds, from which they operate a turkey farm. As you can imagine, it’s been a busy place this week. I’ve dealt with a turkey or two in my day, so I thought I’d take a moment to offer some last-minute turkey selection guidance, with a little help from my turkey-raising friends across the hall.

Do look for:

A plump, confident bird that will look you right in the eye. All parts should be . . . “in the ballpark,” so to speak.

AVOID:

A bird that appears intoxicated, or just effin’ goofy. You don’t want that.

The upside-down turkey, with crossed legs and shifty eyes. May also exhibit a paranoid demeanor. This bird will NOT digest easily.

Watch for the inbred turkey. Its feathers and legs tend to grow inward. Also be leery of turkeys with excessive glue or other miscellaneous white liquids dripping from their beaks. You just don’t know where a turkey like this has been.

This is the “WTF” turkey. Any bird that elicits, as your first response, a startled “WTF?!” is to be avoided. Just say no.

**********
Happy Thanksgiving, friends. I hope your turkey is in fine form.

Sunday Post

“No accurate thinker will judge another person by that which the other person’s enemies say about him.” — Napoleon Hill

Romans 14:10-13

Biscuit Friday: Art Imitates Bad Dog

I think Biscuit approves of the new portrait. It’s a print I’ve had my eye on
here at Ballard Designs. When I got a coupon the other day, I thought I’d go for it. It tickles me as much as I thought it would — it really does look like the VBD.

and the dog, he’s nuts too

We were moving some stuff around in the family room and vacuuming tonight. This ottoman is out of its usual place and blocking Biscuit’s path into the kitchen. He first bumped into it (remember, he’s blind), then decided it was a spiffy new resting spot put there for him. He’s been like this, back feet on the floor, front half chillin’ on the ottoman, for nearly an hour now.

Indicentally, this is the same dog who, when he was let out into the backyard to pee late last night, returned to the house with a whole loaf of French bread. I have no idea.

Belly Flop

There’s a little “pub” near here where we go quite often for dinner. Nothing fancy, usually a salad and soup on those nights when I work a little late and we’d rather sit and talk than hurry up and cook something. You enter this pub through the bar, then make a quick turn through another door into the restaurant part.

One night last week, as we were leaving the restaurant, stepping into the bar, I felt a chilly sensation across my front middle. To be more specific, I felt a brisk breeze across the approximately 1.5″ swath of belly skin (fat) that was inadvertently exposed. See, the good news was that I have lost the tiniest bit of weight, so that the jeans were slipping down. And the bad news was that my shirt was too damned short and my gut was busting out.

Something about the breeze on my belly, and the shock of my exposure, and the wondering how many fools at the bar had noticed, tickled my funny bone and I started to laugh. Without pulling down my shirt. Which sounds odd under the circumstances, but there was a method to my madness. Jif and LG were slightly ahead of me walking out. I wanted them to see that this hysterical thing was happening, but I didn’t want to shout ahead, “Hey! Look at my belly!” (Because that would be gauche, and as you’ll see, I am anything but gauche.) So I thought, if I’m laughing (as I was) and lagging behind (as I was), when they turn around to see where I am and what’s so funny, and they see my belly hanging out, they’ll find it just as funny as I do.

So, soon they turned and saw and heard me laughing. And they grinned a little, but that really was not what the occasion called for, so I had to raise the stakes. I bent backwards and stuck my belly out, and pulled my shirt up more, and went after them! Then they started laughing like they were supposed to.

I chased them down the sidewalk and out into the parking lot, as they laughed and yelled things about how terrifying the situation was…

::tangent::Here, there was a drama within the drama. Since LG was little, our rule, in fact her very first rule, was WE HOLD HANDS IN A PARKING LOT. Now, this started when she was barely toddling, and as she got older, of course we relaxed the rule. But for some reason, it’s been revived. Just to torment her, we remind her of THE RULE. And we chase her down in parking lots and grab her hands while she screams and laughs hysterically and tries to escape from us, and we go on about “YOU KNOW THE RULE!” and people stare at us like we’re idiots or like we’re abducting her. So, yea, not only are Jif and I chasing LG down to enforce THE RULE, but my big fat belly is shining to light the way.::end of tangent::

… and I laughed so hard it’s a wonder I wasn’t peeing (because I’m not QUITE bizarre enough yet, this fat almost-50-year-old woman wielding her belly like a weapon in the parking lot of a strip mall), until I finally corner them at the car.

And they lock me out. So, I do the only thing I can do in that situation. I pull my shirt up even more and stand on tippy-toes to press my belly up against the passenger side window.

We are all laughing like hyenas when Jif finally lets me in. Sitting there in the parking lot before we pull out, in the sighing afterglow of the hilarity, I can’t help but think, “Oh. my. GOD, I hope none of my clients were here tonight.”

Why buy steal the cow when you can get the milk…?

I took a phone call at work this week that flitted from one unbelievable utterance to another. The mother was calling to arrange counseling for her family, and I took the application over the phone. After getting the basic demographic info, I invited Mom to tell me her story. Stories. This is just one.

It seems that young Damocles, 16, had stolen a check, a gift given to his older sister upon her high school graduation. Although he denied the theft, the family had suspected him all summer. And now they had proof.

The uncle who had given sis the check, called Mom to say that his bank account was being charged monthly for membership in an online pornographic site, and did she know anything about this?!

Yes, Damocles had stolen this sister’s check, with his uncle’s banking information, and had used that information to become a bona fide member of a porn site.

As the mother told this woeful tale, I was ready to empathize with all the “issues” raised — the family betrayal, the deception, the lure of internet porn, the loss of innocence, the humiliation when her brother discovered what her son had done . . . on and on.

I gently asked the now agitated Mom, “What did you say to Damocles when you found out what he’d done?”

Her reply was quick and firm. “I said, ‘You idiot! Don’t you know you can get porn online for FREE!!!?’”

The Family that Denigrates Together

One of the exercises I sometimes have couples do in counseling is to create a “relationship vision” for themselves. Their instructions are for each of them to make a list, independently of one another, of statements that they would like to be true of their relationship, whether or not those statements are at all true today.

These statements are to be stated in the present tense, cover every area of their relationship they can think of, and most importantly, they are to be stated in positive terms, i.e., the statements are about what the couple does, not what they don’t do.

Some things that might appear on such a list would be:
“We agree on how to spend and save our money.”

“We treat our in-laws with respect, while maintaining our family’s boundaries.”

Sometimes something that really belongs on the list will have to be tweaked a little bit, to make it fit the “positive” criteria. For example, “We don’t scream at each other,” may be changed to “We resolve our disagreements respectfully and creatively,” or “We can disagree without harming our relationship or one another’s feelings.”

Last night I heard a new one. On one of my clients’ lists was, “We do not mock each other.” Between the husband and wife, they had maybe 30 items. We compared, combined, discussed, until they had merged their lists into a relationship vision on which they could both agree.

When they left the session, the couple’s merged list included, “We only mock other people.”

My 9-11 Post

It’s still the same. It’s here. Have a safe and thankful day.

Bitch, don’t make me cut you in church

(How’s that for a Sunday Post?)

Due to WTF-medicine-related nausea, I did not attend services today. But Jif and LG did, as they often do without me.

First thing LG tells me when she gets home is that “Miss Ginger doesn’t like my new haircut.”

“What? How would you know that?”

“She told me. She said, ‘Did you get a haircut? I don’t really care for it. I liked it better before. But if you like it…I guess that’s what’s important.’” Thank the good Lord, my daughter has a sense of humor, and was telling this whole story in the context of laughing at the wacky and clueless Miss Ginger.

I ask LG what occasioned this unsolicited commentary, and she tells me that Miss Ginger told her this during the “passing of the peace”, when we are supposed to be sharing loving, encouraging greetings with one another.

On what shamar-moore planet is that a proper thing for a 50-something woman to say to a 13-year-old? ‘Bout to lose my religion…