that's not even Mexico
LT keeps giving out presents and it is not even Christmas yet. I got a new phone, because the hinge on mine was broken and if I did not hold it exactly the right way I hung up on people. Nora got a stapler, because she is a stapling fiend. She has been making lots of little books and complicated paper creations and has probably destroyed several million trees in the past month. We buy the recycled stuff but still. Slow down, girlfriend.
My new phone does a cool trick where it can open up sideways and then there is a proper keyboard for texting. So now I text and text and text. It seems so much nicer than calling people. Making a phone ring is like yakking to your friend in a crowded theater, whereas texting is just a gentle punch in the arm during the funny part of the movie. I still can't get into that Twitter shit, however. If I am in the mood to broadcast my crazy to the world, 140 characters is not going to cut it.
So. The holidays, in reverse order. For the first time in more than a decade we are probably not going to host New Year's Eve. Which of course leaves the open question of what to do? There are party invitations, but finding a babysitter on that night could be interesting. I like the idea of getting all my Friends With Kids together for a big semi-drunken party, with everyone sleeping over and the little bodies dropping from exhaustion in their own sweet time, but no one really has a big-enough house or a chill-enough attitude for such a fantasy. I guess we will either figure out childcare or stay home, and I plan on drinking ridiculous amounts of champagne either way, so all is well.
My birthday is on a weekend so I get one of each: drinking with friends, drinking with the husband (child left firmly behind with babysitter, woo hoo), and drinking with family while they give me presents.
As for my Christ-free Christmas, that should be fun too. I really enjoyed shopping for Nora this year, because her shit is still inexpensive and yet she has moved way beyond the boring baby toys—now it is all science kits, board games that involve actual strategy (go to hell, Snail's Pace Race), and art supplies.
My company just had its Christmas party and I won something in the raffle! I AM A WINNER. Did I win one of a dozen gift cards on the prize list, including Starbucks, Nordstrom, AmEx, or Borders? No. I won the holiday centerpiece “balloon art” sculpture. Hey, there are two words you don't often see together! “Balloon” and “art”! I declined to even remove it from the party location, because I am certainly not going to lug home a three-foot-tall “balloon art” Christmas wreath on the El, and it is a little much for an office decoration, especially considering that I will be interviewing job candidates all this week. Although maybe that would be an excellent interviewing technique—I could hand the job-seeker a bunch of red and green balloons, gesture to the enormous wreath thing, and ask them to please replicate that in thirty minutes or less, I will be waiting in the coffee room.
CELEBRATING DIVERSITY (POLITELY)
Nora is friends with this Indian girl we will call Anita, with whom she gets along fabulously, despite Anita being of the pink-pretty-pony-princess persuasion. They have similar crazy energy levels and Big Ideas and goofy senses of humor. Recently I heard a report of a “playdate” at Anita's house:
Nora: Maybe I will marry Anita. Someday. When I'm bigger.
Me: Hmmm. Well, maybe. That's a long way away.
Nora: I told Anita's mommy and she said that girls can't marry other girls.
Me: Oh really.
Nora: But you told me that you can marry whoever you love! Which one is true?
Me: You CAN marry whoever you love. That IS true.
Nora: Okay, I will tell Anita's mommy next time!
Me: Um.
We then had a discussion about how some people believe different things.
Nora: Not just different, WRONG! That's a WRONG thing to believe, right mom?
Me: Sure, it's wrong as in “not correct.” But we can not say anything and let people believe what they want.
Nora: Why?
Me: Sometimes it's just more polite.
And because I would rather not start lesbian-marriage wars at preschool. Call me a cowardly Establishment-sucking lapdog if you must, Nora, but I think we should let this one slide.
IT IS GUARANTEED
On our bag of Science Diet-brand “Adult Indoor Cat Food” (I love that they couldn't be arsed to come up with a flavor name) is a little bubble with the words, “GUARANTEED LESS STOOL ODOR.” I would like to know the terms of this “guarantee.” Does the stool-odor measurement have to be proven in any way? Do I send samples? Do they just take your word for it, because paying that much attention to scientific comparisons of cat stool odor means you probably deserve your money back, as reparations for your mental illness?
—mimi smartypants sniffs not the catbox.