Easter at Cathedral Cove

Thought it was appropriate.

I feel fine

Happy New Year! I spent Monday night with Jon Brion and friends (mine and his) at the Harris Theater in Chicago. The show was fun, although the lines at the open bar were such that some of us only managed to get through for drinks once. Apparently other people in the crowd were more successful, judging from the general drunken chatter and embarrassing behavior from many of those around us. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the show. Jon was engaging, and requested multiple crowd singalongs. We were happy to give it our best - "Bohemian Rhapsody" was belted out with gusto, but I think we were most successful with the closer of "God Only Knows." Britt Daniel showing up to play a few songs at the start of the evening was a very nice surprise - unexpected because Spoon was headlining a New Years show of their own at Metro. The Autumn Defense was also on board to play a short opening set, and John and Pat played with Jon on a few songs - including "I Feel Fine" with Britt and a drummer Jon had just met. My favorite portion of the night came later on, when Jon, the Autumn Defense, and yet another drummer from the crowd settled in to play "Cortez the Killer" and a Springsteen song of Jon's devising, both based on crowd requests. We were also treated to some of Jon's own material, of course. Add in festivities at Hotel SnS beforehand (good job stirring the risotto, Paul) and some snow angels afterward, and it was a worthy start to 2008.

Merry

Thursday night was the Little House-themed Christmas party at my place. Very loosely themed, to be honest, but we did make fried apples 'n onions (Almanzo's favorite), and button strings, and I gave out stockings that contained shiny pennies and horehound candy and Christmas candy in pink mosquito bar bags, and a whole orange for everyone! Could one ask for more?

Tonight I finished up the Greek cookies with my mom, and then Allison came over (look for our very first double blog post soon!) and we started a new Christmas tradition. The final cookies we made, theples, are fried in boiling oil. When they were done, it occurred to us that, hey, we still had a pot of hot oil. Why not fry some more random items? We battered up some Candy Cane JoJos, a chocolate chip cookie, a piece of almond bark (that one was a mistake) and two Whoppers. The JoJos were by far the tastiest creations. Hooray for frying! I also later made sweet potato pie with a pecan and brown sugar topping. It overflowed a bit in the oven - fortunately just onto the baking sheet where it was sitting - and it's currently chilling overnight in the fridge. Final verdict on its success will come tomorrow - it could go either way, folks. This concludes the Christmas baking, though I will also be pitching in for Christmas dinner. And I'm planning a healthy New Years pumpkin cheesecake (no, really) made with stuff like Fiber One cereal and fat free cream cheese.

Tomorrow (today, technically) is Christmas Eve. I love Christmas Eve. My responsibilities are pretty much limited to the gym in the morning, 4:00 mass at church, and then hanging out with my family all evening. I wish everyone a safe, warm, and very merry Christmas. Here's hoping it's a funky, funky one too.

Kindergarten recipes

With Christmas just over a week away, many people are busy with holiday baking. I'm always eager to help my readers with tips and tricks to make your lives easier. In that spirit, I'd like to share with you some recipes for this holiday season. They're perfect for family gatherings, Christmas parties, or just fixing a delicious meal or dessert for a cold night. These were originally compiled for Mother's Day, but I'm sharing them now in the hopes of making your holiday season just a little bit brighter and tastier. Don't just thank me - thank Miss Clarke's P.M. kindergarten class of 1986.


MAIN DISHES

Chicken
(recipe from David C.)
Directions:
Put it in boiling water. Turn stove on. What we are going to do is put some barbecue sauce on it. It tastes good. Take out of oven and eat it and nothing else.

Spaghetti
(recipe from Amber J.)
Directions:
On it put sticky cheese and tomato sauce, not tomato juice. Put salt and pepper on it. Well noodles. Then you cook it cause some of it's after you cook. Then you eat it.

Spaghetti and Meatballs
(recipe from Tony C.)
Directions:
First, box of string things. Put in pan. Put sauce in pan. Take hamburger, put sauce over, then it would be done.

Steak
(recipe from Gregory L.)
Directions:
Put steak in oven, has to cook for awhile. Make corn on cob, put butter on it then. I would make more steak. Then make carrot, cut them, take off corn, cook carrots. Then ice cream cones for dessert and chocolate pudding and more steak.

Bacon
(recipe from Marcy B.)
BACON

Chocolate Meat
(recipe from Lia C.)
Ingredients:
-powder
-salt
-pepper
-dough
-sugar
-meat
-chocolate
-chocolate milk
Directions:
First you start with powder and last is salt. You put it in the oven for 10 minutes and the rest of it is second and then you do dough then pepper. You do sugar fourth.


A fine transition to... DESSERTS

Cake
(recipe from Jesse O.)
Ingredients:
-3 candles
-put flowers in there
-dough
-milk
-different kinds of cookies in it
Directions:
Turn knob on right, put in oven. When it buzzes take it out. Candles around cake.

Pie
(recipe from Heidi E.)
Ingredients:
-strawberries
-pumpkin
-berries
Directions:
Make dough, put it in the oven, take it out, eat it.

Chocolate Cake
(recipe from Eric B.)
Ingredients:
-3 scoops of sugar
-chocolate frosting
-some of that chocolate mix in the middle of the whole cake
-with chocolate chips inside
Directions:
First you need a pan and put in the frosting first and then the middle and then spread the frosting on top and then put the chocolate chips in on the top, then bake it 20 minutes.

Apple Pie
(recipe from yours truly)
Ingredients:
-5 apples
-pie crust from the store
-cinnamon
Directions:
Cut the apples up, put them in a bowl, put the pie crust in a pan and put the apples in the pie crust. Sprinkle cinnamon. Put leftover crust (if you have any) over the top of the apples, then put in oven and bake for 20 minutes, take the pie out and eat it all yourself.

Cherry Pie
(recipe from Daniel M.)
Ingredients:
-powder
-knife
-cherry
Directions:
Pour sugar, stick a knife in it, press it down, slice pie. Cut ends of crust, put cherry in, put sugar in it, put more crust, cut square holes, then you eat it.

Cookies
(recipe from Jimmy C.)
Ingredients:
-chocolate chips
Directions:
Make round circle, put chocolate chips in it and put in oven for 6 minutes.

Chocolate Cookies
(recipe from Keith B.)
Ingredients:
-dough
-sugar
-chocolate
Directions:
Bake 'em.


Happy holiday baking, everyone!

Decking the halls

First Christmas here! Lots of snow outside! Things are decorated! Hooray!

Frozen moments

A few months ago, my mom purchased a nifty new device. This device can scan negatives and slides, digitizing them and transforming them into color photos. It seemed like a magical box of wonder when I heard the description, and it is - sort of. The quality of the output depends a whole lot on the quality of the negatives, and there's no way to adjust anything before scanning - any editing of exposure and color adjustment needs to be done after the file has been digitized. It's actually quite time consuming to get a decent finished product from an old negative.

But. There's nothing quite like scanning some mystery negatives from the bottom of an old shoebox and seeing a scene from the past pop up on your screen. Even if the quality is kind of sucky, what gets me in these old photos are the background details. I am fascinated by background details. They're things that are most likely to have been forgotten, or never consciously noticed at all. Certain ornaments on a Christmas tree. How the furniture was arranged. The dishes and appliances on the counters in the kitchen. Beyond just digitizing old negatives and photos, scanning them into the computer in high resolution allows them to be viewed much larger than the typical 3x5 snapshots that populate our old photo albums, revealing a whole new dimension of background detail. I could get lost in these photos. Here are a few from old holiday negatives:

My mom helping my oldest sister decorate the Christmas tree in 1969. Oh my God, my mom was four years younger than I am now in that picture.


With toys. I love the stuff in the back of this picture. It was taken at my parents' first apartment, but I remember that hideous puke-looking rug, so they must have brought it with them. I also remember that stereo, which may still be down the Basement o' Wonders. Classy floral arrangement, too.


A year or so later. I wish the colors were better, because that dress is adorable. Hey, how much do you think the TV weighed?

The other thing this device can do, as I mentioned above, is scan slides. This might not be as useful to most people as the scanning of negatives, but most people didn't have my maternal grandfather taking photos when they were growing up. Grandpa, as I have noted in the past, loved both photography and technology. This combination of traits was perhaps less common back then than it is today, with new tech gadgets in constant demand. Grandpa had a camera that took 3D photos. These photos had to be sent off to another city to be developed, where they were put on ViewMaster-style slides and shipped back. To look at them, you needed another special device - pretty much a really expensive ViewMaster. Except instead of showing Return of the Jedi or Thriller slides, like my red plastic one did, it showed the photos you had just taken in startling, lifelike 3D detail. It took me a long time to realize that everyone's family didn't have these. Grandpa also typed the exact date on every slide, bless him. That's so something I would be crazy enough to do.

With the new device, for the first time, I'm able to digitize these photos. As amazing as it is to have them as 3D slides, it's also somewhat restrictive. You need the ViewMasters in order to look at them in any meaningful way, and can't easily share them with others. Scanning them robs the slides of their three-dimensionality, of course, but the quality of the resulting files - at least, some of them - is breathtaking. They haven't degraded the way old negatives and photographs have. The slides have some exposure issues, which unfortunately I'm not sure how to fix on the scanning end of things. But when the composition of a shot is just right for scanning, wow. Some examples follow. Thanks, Grandpa.

My sister on Nana and Grandpa's porch, 1974. The colors in this shot may have turned out the best of any of the scanned slides.


My sisters on a car, ca. 1975. Love the outfits.


Me on Nana's couch with a racket, 1983.


In the corner of Nana's kitchen. Look at the wallpaper long enough and you'll go insane!

Twenty-eight

Last Friday I got a flu shot at work. As I filled out the form, I realized this was my last chance to list my age as 27, because my birthday was the next day. I feel like I was just 26, and now all of a sudden I'm 28? What's up with that?

But yes, Saturday was my birthday. It comprised the second portion of a four-part series of birthday celebrations stretched out over a week or so. I felt like I was being greedy, to be honest, but with far-flung friends and family (and alliteration) sometimes it can't be helped. At any rate, I'm not really complaining.

Two weekends ago, as you may know, was Maudie's birthday weekend in Tahoe. I also count that as part one of my celebration, because it was just a week before my birthday, and that's how I justified the added vacation day to myself. Plus, over the weekend I got to share (and by "share" I mean "eat three of") the chocolate chai birthday cupcakes Uyen made for Maudie.

Saturday, on my actual birthday, I got a haircut, went to the Festival of Trees in Racine, and then attended the Laurie's Planet of Sound 10th Anniversary celebration at the Hideout. Sam was kind enough to buy me a ticket, and it was a really fun night. Adam Fitz, Vee Dee, and Miss Alex White performed, and I got to celebrate with many Chicago friends. I even received my own birthday cupcakes with adorable flowers on top, courtesy of Laura. The candles were eventually lit from a candle sitting on the Hideout bar. I think that's good birthday candle karma for the upcoming year. My only regret was being too tired to hold out until Sam's late-night DJ set. I blame my age.


The next day, Sunday, was my family birthday celebration. I received a hand-colored birthday card from the older twins, a rain check for a gift from my oldest sister (who hadn't had a chance to extricate herself from minding the younger twins in the past week), and a promise of post-Thanksgiving shopping and a lovely birthday cake from my parents. My mom got the cake from a local Italian bakery; my request of a blueberry and custard torte with whipped cream frosting. A big slice of that was my main sustenance for the day, and now I can dream about it for another year.


Monday night was the finale of Birthday Week; a low-key get-together for local friends at my place. I served my guests beer and soda from Halloween, salt water taffy, three kinds of pizzelle, and local handmade chocolates that we get for birthdays at work. I figured we'll all get enough heavy baked goods later this week anyway. We played 90's Trivial Pursuit, opened presents and cards (well, that was mostly just me) and had a fine time in general.


Speaking of later this week, I really think Thanksgiving weekend might be my favorite weekend of the whole year. It's a long weekend (at least I always take Friday off to make it one) with no responsibilities except to eat, relax, spend time with family, and go shopping. Our family begins decorating for Christmas over the weekend, which I also find terribly exciting. I can't wait to decorate my condo for Christmas. Seasonal display in the over-the-fireplace box!

Boo

On Thursday night I hosted a pumpkin-carving and cupcake-eating party. It was a good excuse to get some friends together for Halloween fun, try my hand at baking cupcakes, and let people see how the condo is coming along (or meet it for the first time.) I was a bit overzealous with the invitations, but it ended up working out - I was able to scrounge up just enough chairs and work surfaces for everyone. Thank goodness I have a functional basement.

I enjoyed the motivation to decorate a little more extensively than I might otherwise have done, and buy things like cheesy Halloween table cloths and paper plates in preparation. Earlier in the week I visited a local farm to get some fresh honeycrisp apples and cider, and baked the aforementioned cupcakes. I ate one for dinner on Wednesday, and it was delicious. Frosting and decorating them was fun, too. Special thanks to U for the cupcake tips! People scarfed them down on Thursday.

I think a good time was had by my guests - and by me. I did take away some wisdom for future parties, though. First of all, when given the choice between apple cider, beer, tea, and soda, people tend to choose along these lines: 89% beer, 8% apple cider, and 3% other. They also don't eat much popcorn/pretzels/pumpkin seeds/apples. More popular: cupcakes, frosted rice krispie treats, and candy pumpkins. People apparently love sugar. Sugar and beer. Finally, there is probably a better place to store coats than random piles on the living room floor, but I hadn't really thought about it beforehand. Perhaps the guest room - it threw me off by being upstairs. Tricky!

Anyway. It was a fun night, and we wound up with an excellent group of carved pumpkins. Here are some of them:

Cleanup wasn't even bad after everyone went home - everything was spic and span and put away within an hour. I'm already trying to think of a similar activity theme for a Christmas party. Tree trimming? Wreath making?

Roman candle lightning lights up the sky

I feel like I celebrated the 4th if July a week early this year. I was in Boston last week, walking the Freedom Trail, and saw all the patriotic sites. (Well, to be completely honest, 15/18 of the patriotic sites.) We saw Paul Revere's grave, the church tower where Newman placed his lanterns, John Hancock's coat, the balcony where the Declaration of Independence was read for the first time. Being a history geek, I had a great time despite humid weather in the upper 90s. Today, then, was a quieter Independence Day. Falling in the middle of the week, it didn't leave me with enough time to travel anywhere. Instead, I spent the day continuing to settle in. I walked over to the department of public works and actually used their lobby drop box for my payment (that's 41 cents you'll never see, USPS!) carried about fifty boxes and random items upstairs, and then went over to visit Anya and Mike's new apartment. I returned to the old apartment and cleaned for a couple of hours, took a walk around the old neighborhood, bought some watermelon, came home, and used my new power drill to install a tension bar on the back door. It was a success - the door no longer slams. Although I'd say while I'm good at power drilling, I could use some work on power screwing. (Insert your own joke here.) Around 10:00 p.m., I was drawn outside by the sounds of fireworks. Walking up a couple of blocks to the top of a hill, I discovered I could see no less than seven fireworks displays from nearby towns. It was a nice end to the day.

Happy Memorial Day

Butter Lamb

I was going to start something else tonight, but then I remembered that a year ago I made a promise to you people. Never let it be said that I don't follow through on my promises. Though sometimes, as in this case, it would probably be better for all concerned if I didn't.

As a special holiday treat, I present to you a new Easter song to be sung alongside such classics as "Easter Parade" and "Here Comes Peter Cottontail." Based on Pearl Jam's "Better Man" ...

BUTTER LAMB

Racin', watchin' the clock
It’s one o’clock
She’s in the shop
Easter, guests await
The meal is incomplete
As she runs up the aisles, fears they’re sold out
May need to go home and get the mold out

She sees the baskets with purple trim
But can’t find a butter lamb
Big chocolate bunnies, small chocolate eggs
Can’t find a butter lamb
Can’t find a butter lamb
Can’t find a butter lamb

Ohh...
Walking back and forth
The other shoppers move so slow
She tells herself, oh

Memories of past years she can recall
The jaunty butter lamb that
Pleased them all
She should’ve just given the store a call

She finds the Peeps in the candy bin
Can’t find a butter lamb
Some hot cross buns and some loaves of bread
Can’t find a butter lamb
Can’t find a butter lamb (2x)

Yeah…

They’re all gone, yeah
She don’t want to leave this way
‘Til next year, yeah
That’s when she’ll be back again
Cant find a butter lamb
Can't find a butter lamb
Can't find a butter lamb
Can't find a butter lamb


Personally, I think this woman has some serious issues. Happy Easter!


Also see last summer's Ramones-inspired hit, "Freezy Pops"

Sláinte

I don't have any good St. Patrick's Day stories. This one time, it was St. Patrick's Day, and I got a shamrock shake. This other time, in high school, it was St. Patrick's Day, and a week later it came up in conversation with my friend Michelle and she was like, "Ohhh, so that's why the grocery store had all of those green cookies." This other time, it was St. Patrick's Day, and I was living in the dorms and working for hours and hours on a horrible chemistry lab, and then I finally took time out to go to the cafeteria and reward myself with a corned beef and cabbage dinner, and they were sold out. This other time, it was St. Patrick's Day, and I was working my third of four twelve-hour shifts at a hospital in Evanston, and I went down to the cafeteria there and they weren't sold out of corned beef and cabbage, and I had some. This other time, it was St. Patrick's Day last year, and Anya and I slow cooked some corned beef and cabbage and had friends over for dinner, and we also had a little themed cake, and during dessert Anya started alternating bites of cake with bites of leftover corned beef and totally grossed me out, although she didn't see anything odd about it.

They're all kind of like that.

Christmas vacation

I'm off work today! And I'm off Monday and Tuesday! Not to jinx things, but I think I've officially met my goal of not being too sick to move this Christmas. Granted, that wasn't aiming very high.

'Tis the season for year-end lists right now. A lot of people are doing their "best album of the year" rankings, but I kind of feel like I never buy enough albums in a year to accurately do a top five or ten, let alone more. But if I make up a category - say, my favorite two albums from 2006 by people I'd never really listened to before - the winners would be Rabbit Fur Coat by Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, and Post-War by M. Ward. When 2007 officially begins, I'll unveil another list I've had in the works for awhile. It's not music-related, but it is quite detailed. I'll bet you can't wait.

Now, it's time to go have some holiday baklava.

Nickels and dimes of the fourth of july

I failed to listen to U2's "Fourth of July" today. I also failed to listen to "Last Day of June" by the Finn Brothers on the last day of June. Being a dork, I always mean to do these things, and I think I've succeeded once in maybe ten years. Oh well.

I love Independence Day. Today there were fireworks and picnics and watermelon and ice cream and hamburgers and lemonade and lightning bugs and the smell of woodsmoke and basically everything that a fourth of July should have. My favorite fireworks, incidentally, are the ones that fall through the sky and leave trails like Spanish moss lingering behind them. I saw plenty of them tonight, and it was good.

Earlier today I was looking through a change purse that I remembered contained foreign coins of some kind, in the hopes that they were Canadian. Alas, they were all Swedish coins. But! Later, taking clothes out of the dryer, I found a coin at the bottom. Pulling it out and looking at it up close, I realized it was a CANADIAN DIME. Explain that one.

Hopefully within the week I plan to post some terrific old photos of NYC and D.C. I was hoping to have them today to celebrate our country and all that jazz, but it turned into a slightly bigger project than I'd planned. Nevertheless, stay tuned.

Grandfather's Day

Today is Father's Day. I didn't see my dad, but I will see him next weekend. Meanwhile, I thought I'd write about another dad. My mom's father, who died fifteen years ago. I was only eleven when he passed away, but I used to go to his house every day before and after elementary school. That was also the cool place for my friends and me to have slumber parties during the summer. Nana always slept in her chair in the den anyway, but Grandpa would take the couch when we slept over, leaving us the master bedroom and the bed therein.

I'm a lot like him. I didn't understand that as much at the time, but I see it more and more as the years go by. He wasn't a talkative man, but he was hilarious and sarcastic if you knew him. He loved thought problems. He loved typing and photography, and tried to keep up with the latest technology in both. I remember being vastly impressed when I saw the special "cursive" disc for his new typewriter. He loved music, and taught himself to play the guitar and piano. He was a master woodworker and metal worker. He built me a set of shelves for my "clubhouse" (a.k.a. the garage), a doll bed and a doll chest, all the shelves in our kitchen, TV trays we still use, windchimes, wooden initials for my window (he let me draw them myself, actually), a workbench, many chess sets, and a telescope through which we used to look at the moon. Although he only had a couple years of high school himself, he used to tutor kids in calculus. He taught me enough math to be years ahead of my grade in school - and it was fun.

Grandpa kept careful and extensive records, something I'm also a touch obsessive about. I recently found a datebook from 1983 that belonged to him (yes, Basement o' Wonders) and it's full of entries such as "Renewed license for passport. $7.00. Money order No. 43858" and "Got a $22.88 refund on my Wis. income tax for 1982" and "Made appointment with Granger Mot. to have car fixed (rough idle) Thur. May 5 8:00 A.M." All written in his neat, straight, blocky printing and cursive. Within the datebook, though, I found something else. Three small sheets of scrap paper - paper he used to cut up himself and store in a particular slot I can still envision in his basement shelves. On one sheet he neatly wrote out his signature seven times. On the others, he wrote the following:

I'll set here and practice my penmanship for a little while because I need the practice. It seems to me I never write anything anymore, I always type instead. So from now on I'm going to write a couple of paragraphs every day and see if that improves my writing. Today is Friday May 31, 1991. I'll be able to cash my pension check tomorrow because it will be the first of the month. June. We'll get our Social Security check the third. That will be Monday. I think I'll quit now and do something else.

I'll set here for a little while and practice my penmanship. When I was younger I used to be able to write with a firm steady hand, but now when I'm old my hand is unsteady and my writing is very shaky, and I can hardly read my own writing, but if I do this every day it keeps my hand more steady and it's more like it used to be. Today is Tuesday May 28, 1991. I'm going to be 75 years old this coming November if I live that long. I think I have practiced enough now so I'm going to quit and do something else.

As it happened, he didn't live that long. He died on September 23, 1991. His birthday fell the day after mine in November. If I had been a boy, my name was to be Robert, after him.

These momentos make me miss him something fierce. I don't think about him all the time, of course, but when I do it always takes me by surprise. I wish I hadn't been so young when he died. I wish I hadn't taken so much of his kindness and generosity for granted. I wish I'd been able to have a conversation with him, even just one, as an adult. I wish my mom still had her dad in her life.

Well! I'm sure that brought cheer to everyone! At any rate, I hope today was a very fine one for all the dads out there. And all those who have dads, too.


Meta-Father's Day - my grandpa in the arms of his grandpa, Nels.

She hides the basket with purple trim...

It's too late this year, I suppose, but next year I plan to compose a poignant Easter song based on Pearl Jam's "Better Man" ... it will be called "Butter Lamb."


It will be an instant classic, so watch for that one.

I suck

After having read New York Magazine's article about Grups recently, and mocking them along with Anya (especially Neal Pollack telling his son that the TV shows he watches suck - though he did post a rebuttal here) - I did the exact same thing this afternoon. Totally unintentionally, too.

The family Easter meal was over, and my nephews (the three-year-old twins and the four-year-old) insisted on watching, for the second time, the videotape they'd brought from home: a truly cringeworthy collection of Mary-Kate and Ashley birthday party shorts. The stories show the Olsens somewhere between the ages of 8 and 10, singing insipid songs at various themed birthday parties with their fake friends. As Mary-Kate and Ashley clutched their faces in "horror" while their slumber party guests chirped about scary monsters, I was driven to comment, "Okay, you guys really need watch Mary-Kate and Ashley at home."

"Why?" demanded Nate, the four-year-old.

"Because this is the worst video ever made in the history of the world," I replied.

"No it's not!"

"Yes, it is."

"Why?"

"Because it's incredibly cheesy, poorly acted, predictable, and extremely uncreative."

"What does that mean? 'Uncreative?'"

"It means ... you know exactly what's going to happen. They didn't think very hard when they made this movie. They didn't come up with any new ideas." I was already starting to regret this conversation.

"Yeah they did!" Nate exclaimed.

"Not really," I replied. "They're just at a sleepover. They want to stay up all night, but soon they'll all fall asleep. Now if they all turned into dragons or something, that would be awesome."

"Well, yeah," Nate conceded, climbing onto the couch. "But they had to think of all the words to all those songs!"

"Yeah, but I'll bet they rehearsed them earlier! They didn't just think of them on the spot!" was my lame-ass reply. That was when the "oh my God, I'm actually arguing with a four-year-old who just wants to watch the little girls sing songs about birthday parties" realization fully kicked in. So I didn't bother pointing out that they were actually not singing at all, or to explain the meaning of the word "trite." In my (weak) defense, it wasn't like I wanted to turn on Adult Swim instead or anything. I wanted to watch Old Yeller.

And a happy new year to you - IN JAIL!

What can I say; I'm just fond of the "It's a Wonderful Life" line. Happy new year to all, in jail or not. It's funny to think that last year on New Year's Eve I was in Manhattan, wearing glittery 2005 glasses and pajamas, being all sorts of loud and crazy and social. This New Year's Eve, I was finishing up recovery from my virus-from-hell and bonus cold, sitting on the couch with my family enjoying the drunk comedic stylings of the ABC Chicago news crew. (Best Mark Giangreco line: "Did you see Mariah Carey earlier? Linebacker Barbie!") I was, however, wearing pajamas again.

I was going to include an amusing scan as a new year's present today, but it looks like it will have to wait another week or so while my sister finds the photo. Don't get too excited, but it should be at least mildly entertaining.

Okay, I need to go put pillowcases back on my pillows now. Happy 2006, everyone! Here we go.

Update from the sickbed

Well, my mommy came on Sunday and took me back to Kenosha. I just called this week of work a wash. (I was scheduled to be off Friday through Monday the 26th already.) Since Monday I've been feeling slightly better, but not a ton better. And since all my insurance-related doctors and clinics are in Madison, in order to see a doctor I had to get authorized ... to go to the emergency room yesterday morning. Wooooo! It wasn't as bad as the first time. I went to the new hospital here, and everything went pretty quickly. I was apparently STILL a little dehydrated, despite my best efforts. (Do you know how hard it is to drink 10 glasses of water a day while sick?) So they gave me another liter of fluids, but this time they only took 2 tries for the IV. Bonus! They also took a CT scan of my head, and a nasal swab for the flu ... oh my lord. Have you ever had one of those? Here's my advice - don't. "Nasal swab" is such a misnomer. It's more like jamming a long wire into your brain through each nostril. Anyway, the doctor thinks I'm recovering from something like viral meningitis. Yikes. (Bacterial is the "it'll kill ya!" one.) Basically I just have to ... keep on recovering ... but he gave me a prescription for some different anti-dizziness/nausea stuff, and something for the headache. Meclizine and Tramadol, I think? The Tramadol, though, made me really dizzy and nauseous, in a slightly different way than usual. For awhile. But it also totally knocked out the pain, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I don't think I'll be taking 2 at a time again.

Besides that, I don't think I have anything interesting to report. Christmas is close. Very close. The only person whose present I didn't manage to finish buying before being struck down (well, the only person I'll actually see before Christmas) is my mom. I think I'll just tell her what the rest of her present is and cut her a check if she's going shopping. She won't mind.

Turkey, pie and snow

I hope everyone had a pleasant Thanksgiving. Ours was nice, complete with some homemade Greek foods among the turkey and potatoes and ham. Plus our family's traditional one-two punch of pumpkin and banana creme pie. The only thing missing, I think, was cranberry sauce. We didn't have any cranberry sauce. I may need to pick some up at the store so the universe will once again be in order.

Last night in the spirit of the holiday I was reading a great review of the 2005 Jones Soda Holiday Pack. Do yourself a favor and go take a look. The most horrifying flavor, to my ears, would have to be the "Brussels Sprout & Prosciutto." Although all of them would be about 40% more horrific for me anyhow, because I don't like soda.