but can she bake a cherry pie?

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holiday recap
Thursday, Dec. 26, 2002

Now Playing -
Now Eating -
Now Feeling -
Now Tweeting - Melanie


Weird Searches de La Semaine

There's a bunch, so hold on to your hats, folks.

~ Dr. Scholl's sandals
~ buy franciscan starburst
~ michigan frog hello mah baby
~ housewife, an italian search
~ love is rare life is strange
~ h0usewife s & m
~ diary jew, a russian search
~ I just washed my hair and I can't do a thing with it
~ mollies, a canadian search
~ life as a h0usewife
~ diary of a chicken - no comment.
~ tattooed h0usewife
~ husband's bad taste in decorating (his taste is just fine, btw)
~ what does alligator taste like


Christmas at the cousins was nice. Got to see the newly-pregnant one (doing well), her sister who's building a house on 22 acres outside of Albany (who bemoaned the fact that we can't visit more often), and their parents who are in from North Carolina. Among many others. Cousin F. cooked some good Italian food, and his kids didn't exhaust The Huz too badly by using him as a Human Jungle Gym. I'm really glad I get along so well with Huz's family.

F. & S. had to put down their yellow lab two weeks ago. We knew at Thanksgiving that Amber was sick, but I expected her to last through Christmas. She just went downhill fast. But they have a new dog already. S. said F. was too depressed without Amber. I have to admit, I had my doubts, because Amber was just a love of a dog and I didn't see how they could replace her. But they happened upon an English black lab who they're calling Belle, who is just the sweetest thing. She's bonded with F. already (I think they've had her less than a week) and is really great with the kids as well. I'm no fan of large dogs, but I would get a lab in a heartbeat.

Then it was off to drop my MIL at her house and then on to Bill & H.B.'s. It took an hour-and-a-half to go the 11 exits on the Expressway to my MIL's. We were crawling at 5 mph at some points. They'd done no plowing. Oh, it was miserable. But once on the south shore of the Island, traffic was a breeze and the roads were much clearer.

And the gift exchange at Bill & H.B.'s was a rousing success.

A bit of backstory: I had previously gifted them with what was the oddest gift I've ever given anyone, and certainly the oddest gift they'd ever received. Bill gardens, and H.B. is a Sondheim fanatic, and consequently a fan of Getting Away With Murder, a mystery Sondheim co-wrote with George Furth in the late 90's ("the late 90's"...that was odd to type!) We both had the dubious distinction of doing the first regional production of it after its Broadway run, she as Stage Manager and me as a bitter Vietnamese woman, if you can wrap your mind around that one. The show's logo was a gargoyle with a gun to its head.

Now I get a lot of catalogs, and some are odder than others. Design Toscano isn't particularly odd, but it did furnish me with the gift to end all gifts. A gargoyle made of manure. Gardening + gargoyles = two birds with one stone, in my book, anyway. They were quite amazed.

I believe I topped it this year.

In this entry, Magpie talked about the evil things she likes to give to folks for the holidays. Kathy posted a link in Mag's guestbook to this site, which led me here. Still following? Okay.

Bill is a church organist. In a Lutheran Church. For Christmas, Bill was the proud recipient of a Martin Luther Bobble Head doll.

H.B. was convulsed on the couch for about ten minutes. Bill fully expects a parade of parishioners coming by his office to pay homage to the bobble-headed cleric. He expects his pastor, who is young and fairly hip and a collector of Star Wars memorabilia, to just about fall out when he sees it. Martin is quite solid, and hand painted, with a really supercilious look on his face as if to say, "Yeah, I got your 95 Theses riiiiiight here!" The best part? The website says, "Adding to the excitement of owning a Martin Luther Bobble Head doll is that every bobble head box doubles as a Martin Luther Jell-O mold. Visit the recipe section of our website for the Jell-O mold recipe!"

Oh, the parties we are gonna have!

In turn, H.B. gave us my favorite gift: an afghan she'd crocheted for us in Fiestaware colors. I'd been hoping for one since she mentioned a year ago that she was going to make them for all her friends. It's beautiful. It's in a kind of rectangular block pattern, that almost reminds me of a semaphore flag. In the Fiesta colors of rose, yellow, white, seafoam, periwinkle, persimmon and cobalt. Personal, thoughtful gifts like that really touch me.

We spent today at the home of our friends Bill & Denise, schoolteachers who make it a point of doing an intimate (usually six or so guests, tops) Boxing Day brunch each year. Bill made delicious apple pancakes, and perfectly done bacon. Mimosas flowed. Small children were squeezed, and dragged up and down the lawn on sleds.

Cramming so much into so little time is exhausting. This entry has taken almost 2� hours to churn out, and I am bushed.

In other news, the Friday Five has returned (actually last week, but I was crazed), and I'll probably put it up tomorrow.

Must...get...sleep....


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a very fine cat indeed - Friday, Jan. 17, 2014
happy new year! - Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013
this is where i am - Saturday, Jun. 30, 2012
this is how it is - Friday, Feb. 24, 2012
a very late last year's wrap-up - Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012



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