How to Get Expelled From Hogwarts

[Puke Disclaimer: The following blog contains a barf story. More than one barf story. You have been warned. This means you, LM.]

Have you ever been somewhere where you know someone threw up right before you arrived? It’s the worst, isn’t it, to walk into a room and that tell-tale smell hits you like the wave of nausea that hit the person that got sick.  It’s bad enough in a college dorm stairwell on the weekend or at your kid’s school, but at an amusement park, well, it's hardly amusing.

To this day, I cannot ride on the Carousel of Progress at the Magic Kingdom at Disney World because once, at least two decades ago, I sat in an area where puke had happened. If you’ve never been on that ride, it is an exhibit from the 1964’s World’s Fair that features the changes in our lives through electricity over the past one hundred years. It is a traveling theater that shows six different vignettes, and the ride lasts a good 20 minutes. That’s twenty minutes of being trapped in a theater with vomit stench, which still haunts me to this day.

I’m not a big fan of puke, which begs the question, is anyone?  I will do pretty much anything to not throw up. Shallow breathing, fresh cold air, small sips of water. I don’t like to get sick at home, but the idea of puking in public is just beyond comprehension. Not that I haven’t before. When I was about nine, I went to Great America in Illinois with my grandfather, my sisters, and some other people that I cannot recall at this point in my life. I was enjoying the hell out of myself, munching on cheese puffs and downing coke after coke, when someone suggested we ride the Ferris wheel. It wasn’t a traditional Ferris wheel, more a three armed ride with little baskets that held a group of people. One arm would be on the ground loading, one midway in the air, and one all the way up.

 We were in one of the baskets with another couple, some unfortunate strangers who made the mistake of saying they were a party of two and had to join us, like when you have to share a table with strangers at a hibachi restaurant. Things were going well until we got all the way in the air, and then the combination of the movement, the height, and the cheese puffs proved too much for my system. I attempted puking in my hands, but to no avail. My orange puke went through my fingers, all over me, my white shorts, and the basket. I wonder if those people remember that day as vividly as I.

I try to limit myself from things that might potentially make me sick, such as certain rides at amusement parks and too many cheese puffs. I don’t ride roller coasters that go upside down. I don’t ride carousels or tea cups or flying elephants or free falls or anything that goes in a circle. I avoid 3-D motion simulators, and if I find myself in such a situation, I close my eyes so that the effects of the 3-D part are not nauseating. Even with all my careful planning, though, I can still manage to get sick.

As a special holiday treat, my family went to Orlando right before Christmas this year. We are all big Disney fans and go about once every two years or so.  My daughters are getting older now, and we decided to try Universal Studios instead of sticking only to Walt Disney World like we usually do. I knew there would be a number of rides we probably would avoid, but we all wanted to see the Wacky World of Harry Potter, or whatever it’s called, so we made an exception for this trip.

We arrived just as the park opened and hurried toward the rear where the Harry Potter part is hidden. I have heard from many friends about horrendous waits to see it and ride the rides, people who have waited in line for four hours for what amounts to five minutes of Harry Potter magic. We thought we might be able to beat the rush, even though gobs of people in garnet and gold striped scarves and long black robes literally ran past us to get in line first. We approached the line and asked the attendant to tell us about the ride, knowing full well that I might feel a little queasy since  motion sickness warnings were posted by the entrance. The attendant, who I’m pretty sure had never grown a pubic hair nor touched a woman’s breast, told us it was a fabulous ride and not as bad as the roller coasters, so we got in the line.

We moved through the waiting areas pretty quickly, although they were really cool for even the most casual of Harry Potter fans and almost worth the wait. The worst part was the locker room, where they require you stow your bags and belongings before entering the ride. It was a mass of people fighting to stick their fingers on a screen, which was the only way to get a small locker assigned to you. I survived the pushing and shoving to lock up my backpack before joining my family back in the line. We walked all through Hogwarts quickly, too quickly to even notice all the details, before we were ready to board the ride.We got in our seats awkwardly, the shoulder bar harness was lowered unto us, and we were whisked away into the wizarding world of Harry Potter.

Here’s where things get a little sketchy. I could tell right away that this was going to be one of those flight simulator things, where you feel like you are riding a broom on your way to a quidditch match or to some mystery or whatever; I wasn’t really paying attention. What I was doing was keeping my eyes shut tight so that I couldn’t let my brain get fooled into thinking I was flying.  Then I felt heat, so I opened my eyes to find an animatronic dragon breathing fake fire at me. That I did not find nauseating, but unfortunately it didn’t last long before the seats were off in another direction that caused me to again close my eyes. There might have been some spiders too, but it was hard to tell through my eyelashes.

The movement of that ride wasn’t any movement I’ve experience in my natural life. We weren’t going side to side or up and down or back and forth. We were undulating, like a witch stirring a cauldron counterclockwise. With each tilt and roll of the ride, the granola parfait I ate for breakfast also tilted and rolled, inching up my esophagus. I tried the usual tricks, shallow breathing, closed eyes, relaxing my muscles.

It came without the usual warnings. No hot flashes or sudden sweats. No flood of saliva in my mouth. No serious stomach churning. The next thing I knew I was heaving, the total body hunching heaves, not the delicate upchuck kind. I heaved once, then twice. The third time, I threw up in my mouth.

This is what I was thinking: Keep your mouth closed. You don’t have a change of clothes. Keep your mouth closed. Swallow. You can do this. It’s 9:30 in the morning. Keep your mouth closed. They are going to have to close the ride because of you. The ride that people wait in line for hours to see. The only reason half the people are even in this park.  Do you want to be the person who shuts down fucking Harry Potter because you didn’t believe the motion sickness warnings posted on every fucking wall? Keep. Your. Mouth. Closed.

And then, as quickly as it began, the ride ended. We got off the ride, me breathing hard through my nostrils. We forced our way back to the locker room through the obligatory gift shop. I had to get a stranger to help me open my locker because I couldn’t get the system to read my sweaty fingertip.

I found my family milling around outside.

My oldest daughter said,” I didn’t like that.”

My youngest daughter said, “I didn’t either.”

My husband said, “That is the coolest ride in the world! How could you not like it?”

I said, “I just threw up in my mouth."

“Do you wanna ride it again,” my husband said.

“I need to sit down. I don’t feel very good.” I answered.

“No!” my daughters shouted in unison. “Let’s get a butterbeer.”

A butterbeer is one of those weird Harry Potter foods from the book. It’s kind of like a cream soda with a hint of cookie and a splash of butterscotch. It doesn’t go well with nausea.  I would recommend water and a saltine instead, which they don’t sell in the world of Harry Potter. For the record, I kept that down too.

I found out afterward that a number of rides at most amusement parks have a stationary seat for pussies like me who like to throw up on the the coolest ride in the world. Hm, that would have been nice to know before I decided to be a good sport and go with the flow.

Deck the Whitewalls

Is anybody else a little tired of seeing cars adorned for the holidays? I mean, seriously, the peer pressure we face from our neighbors is bad enough, but now we have to decorate our cars too? What happened to automobiles being used for transportation? I appreciate the need for a bumper sticker, but this whole one-up-manship holiday competition has to stop.

My husband prefers an understated elegance when it comes to bedecking our house. A nice wreath, maybe some garland around the door with small white lights. Occasionally he might add a strand or two of colored lights around the banisters leading to the front door, but other than that, we don’t go all out. Not like the neighbors across the street. They have no less than five holiday inflatables bobbing around their massive front lawn, which tend to overshadow the life-sized nativity scene near their garage. This year they have a two story Santa and a two story snowman, which face plant in the lawn every morning like they went on a bender the night before. Oh, I forgot to mention the icicle lights, the ones that they have a rented cherry picker truck put up the day after Thanksgiving. Compared to them, it’s like we aren’t even trying. I'm waiting for the year they fly in people from Bethlehem to enact a living nativity for the whole month of December. I wouldn't put it past them.

In my sister’s old neighborhood, their neighbors also employed a cherry picker to put the lights all over their house, and I do mean all over their house. When we would visit them over the holidays, none of us could go to sleep. The amount of light coming off that house mimicked high noon. I don’t know how they slept inside their own house, unless they used eye masks or black out curtains. We get it, you love Christmas. And exorbitant power bills. Now use a fucking dimmer switch. We need sunglasses to eat dinner inside.

Some people really go all out with their houses, but it just isn’t enough for them. They have to decorate their vehicles too. Again, like home decorations, it started simply. A stylish wreath adorning a grill, or perhaps a bright red bow. That morphed into the Rudolph the red nosed reindeer car decoration. I will describe this to you in case you live under a rock. It involves a big red pompom for the grill and two antlers which attach to the front windows. Bingo! Instant car reindeer. That gave way to the elf decoration, which had a peppermint candy for the grill and elf ears for the windows. The variation of that is a wrapped candy for the grill and candy canes for the windows. Next came actual lights wrapped around luggage racks, or even garland and lights to embellish the top of the soccer mom SUV.

The more religious folks fought back against the car decoration commercialism, creating car magnets that reminded all the other drivers that “Jesus is the reason for the season” and to “Keep the Christ in Christmas.” I have yet to see a baby Jesus stuck to the grill of a Ford F150, but I’m sure the mobile manger automobile set is just a year or two away.

Enough already. When does it stop? I get road rage now when I see these vehicles in all their holiday splendor. I take joy in seeing the stray antler lying in the road, or a car driving around with just one elf ear. One day, I am going to snap and steal all the antlers and red noses I can find, and then put them all on my car. You’ll see me rolling with twenty antlers on my windows and a cluster of red pompoms on the grill like freaking war trophies.

Or maybe, instead, I’ll create car decorations for some of the other holidays. How about a red heart and little Cupid’s wings for Valentine’s Day? Or a rainbow that stretches over the top of the car, and the back of a leprechaun splatted on the grill? Easter could be bunny ears and buck teeth. Arbor Day could have a giant acorn for the grill and branches for the windows. With every holiday, I could market another ridiculous car ornament. A purple heart for Veteran’s Day. A turkey waddle for Thanksgiving. A stovepipe hat and a beard for President’s Day.  I just might be onto something here.

Until I get that operation up and running, you better guard your antlers and red noses, because I have a dream, and that dream involves hunting your minivan deer down and poaching it for its parts. Or better yet, stop decorating everything. Stick to your houses and your sweaters and your light up necklaces and stop littering the road with oversized fake candy and car antlers. Let’s leave our roadways to cigarette butts and empty beer bottles the way it was meant to be.

Oh, Christmas Tree

Do you have your Christmas tree up yet? I don’t know about you, but I hate putting up the Christmas tree. There is always a fight over it. That’s not the right corner. You’re not helping enough.  Don’t put the ornaments on like that, do it like this. Goddammit, the cat won’t stop eating the decorations. Seriously, it’s always something.

But no matter how much I hate putting up the tree, Christmas wouldn’t feel like Christmas without it. Fuck that elf on the shelf; a Christmas tree is what makes the holidays special. Hell, in my house we don’t even have a real tree. We have a better than real tree, with lead coated fake needles that shed just like the real thing to lend an air of authenticity. It’s over nine feet tall and pre-lit, which doesn’t stop my husband from stringing his favorite reproduction bubble lights. They are pretty cool, I have to admit.

I usually find an excuse to avoid decorating the tree. I offer to run errands, to make dinner, to fold the laundry, to massage the cats, anything it takes to get out of tree duty. That’s because when I was a kid, I was traumatized by Christmas trees, or maybe by my mother.

I should explain that my mother was never a big fan of Christmas. Possibly it reminded her that she didn’t have the money to buy everything we wanted. Maybe it was because she was supposed to give, not receive, which meant she couldn’t buy things for herself, things she also didn’t have enough money for.  Or it could have been that we were Jewish and shouldn’t have really been celebrating Christmas anyway. Whatever the reason, she was always more than a bit cray cray between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, and my sisters and I have had to find a way to make peace with the holiday season.

The symbol of my mother’s yearly holiday mental breakdown was the Christmas tree. We never managed to buy one until at most three days before Christmas, when all the good trees were gone. We had a choice of a crappy Douglas fir with a giant bald spot in the front or a Charlie Brown tree, never the nicer trees that were fresher and cost too much money. One year we actually stole a tree from an unattended tree lot, reasoning that by Christmas Eve, they should be giving trees away.  It never occurred to my mother that stealing might not have been the best way to celebrate the holiday season.

We would bring our sad tree home and my oldest sister, who operated as the family handyman, would have the daunting task of securing the tree in the stand. I would fill the basin with water, which I would forget to do the rest of the time it stood as a harbinger for the holiday. Then the fighting would begin, over colored vs. white lights, who got to put the angel on top, whether to break out the tinsel, fake snow, or pine scented air spray, who put the ugly ornaments in front, until the only thing left was lots of crying followed by the gift of silence. The tree would stand neglected for a week or two past the holiday until almost all the needles had fallen off, at which point someone, also not my mother, would put the decorations away and haul the fire hazard to the curb.

One particular year, my sisters and I decided to take control of the tree situation, sort of as a gift to my mother. Before she came home from work, we got the tree in the stand positioned in the corner of the front room. We took out all of the ornaments and lights and decorated the whole thing. My mother walked in as we were cleaning up, the boxes scattered around the room, vacuum standing guard to suck away the many stray needles. The room was perfectly silent; my sisters and I ceased the incessant bickering as we awaited my mother’s reaction.  She looked at us, and the tree, and said, “It’s in the wrong corner.” Then she turned around and walked back out the front door, and didn’t return for a few hours. She was wrong, though, it was in the right corner. She just forgot which corner we had it in the year before. She also forgot we were children, and that holidays were supposed to be for fun memories, not the other kind.

So now I let my family take charge of the tree. I tend to set up the Hanukah stuff, since we have a vast assortment of menorahs, none of which will hold a standard Hanukah candle. I will also carry boxes to and from the attic, hang the stockings, and even remove ornaments from their bubble wrap or tissue paper, but getting the ornaments on the tree is going too far from me. It’s like I’m waiting for my mother to come in and find fault with how I hung something, to complain I am not doing it right, to let me know that yet again I am the cause of her unhappiness.

 Once the tree is up, I sit back and admire it with my family. I love the Christmas tree. I love the fact that we have the oddest assortment of ornaments. I love the fact that my cat tries to eat his favorite ones year after year. I love that I give my daughters ornaments every year so that when they are ready for trees of their own, they will have a set to take with them into adulthood. I’m especially grateful that even if we all fight every time the tree goes up, they still look forward to the tree every Christmas, with its collection of owls, robots, ballerinas, and even snails. It is chock a block with things that each of us loves, and all together, it is a festive version of our family.

Piss Off

I bet you think your dog is so smart but you’re wrong. Oh, sure, your dog looks and acts like it has more than a Twinkie sized brain, but the majority of that space is taken up with cues to sniff other dogs' asses and humans' genitals. Dogs are cute and friendly and good company, but at the end of the day, they are animals who just might be willing to eat the indiscriminate piece of shit found on the daily walk. Remember that the next time you let your dog give you some open mouth kisses.

Sure, you can train your dog to do tricks. Sit, stay, play dead, roll over. Fascinating stuff really. Throw a Frisbee and your dog might leap in the air and catch it. Same with a stick, although some dogs will forget to bring it back to you, opting instead to gnaw it to splinters. You can also take your dog to obedience school, so it can learn to obey you. But really, you are just working on controlling its animal urges. Don’t chase squirrels. Don’t eat the furniture when I go to work. Don’t run into oncoming traffic. Don't crap in my bed.

I don’t disagree that some dogs are irresistibly cute, or that the companionship of a loyal and loving dog rivals the company of most humans. But cats, they are not.

Cats might not have the same number of tricks, but that’s because they aren’t just sitting around thinking of ways to make you happy. They have better things to do. Cute backyard animals need to be stalked. Naps need to be taken. Shoelaces need to be eaten.  Fetch the paper? Ain’t nobody got time for that!

I’m not saying all cats are smarter than all dogs, although in some ways, they might be. When you get a kitten, you bring it home and show it where the food bowl is, then sit it in the kitty litter. If it steps out of the litter, you pick it up and set it back in the litter box. After doing that three or four times, Bam! Your cat is litter trained. Compare that to a puppy, with its puppy pads and newspapers on the floor and nose rubbing in piles of excrement and so on and so forth.

I suppose the argument can be made that you also are litter trained since you are the one who has to clean out the box. But how is that any different than walking around the neighborhood with a little grocery bag of feces that you picked up in said bag moments after it left your dog’s intestines? When I scoop the litter, it’s all nice and buried and litter covered like an Almond Roca. When you pick up your dog’s crap, you can feel the heat and the texture of the bowel movement through the plastic bag on your hand.

Some cats can even be trained to use the toilet. They sell toilet training kits at pet stores and online, and through a series of steps, your cat can learn to perch atop a toilet seat and do its business in an efficient and tidy manner. Isn’t that a better trick than catching a tennis ball?

My cat has taken her ability to learn valuable life skills even further than the average cat, which exhibits more intelligence than the average dog. Nay, I would put my cat up against your potty training toddler. Not only is my cat toilet trained, but she TRAINED HERSELF. She has observed her human owners using a proper western toilet for years, and she decided one day that she could do that too. Since then, she hasn’t looked back, turning her nose up at relieving herself on clay pellets to opt for the clean experience of peeing in the porcelain god.

I was folding laundry early in the morning the first time I witnessed my cat’s amazing skill. There I was, bent over the dryer searching for socks, when she stepped into the laundry room, hopped up onto the toilet seat, and urinated. I woke up my husband and told him, “It’s a miracle! The cat just peed in the toilet!” He didn’t believe me and rolled over to go back to sleep. A few weeks later, my younger daughter and I were again in the laundry room when the cat peed in the toilet in front of us. “I told you so!” I shouted indignantly, since no one in the family believed me.

Since then, we have all witnessed the cat in the act of number one. In fact, if you are sitting downstairs, you can hear her peeing in the upstairs laundry room john, which we now refer to as the cat’s toilet. No, she does not wipe, nor can she flush it herself. She has not decided to test out her shitting abilities either, opting instead for the burial method in the litter box. I’m not complaining. She can pee in the toilet, and she learned purely from observing humans. That’s some good shit right there.

I’m sure you don’t believe me, so here you go. Video evidence. Watch it, watch it again, and then go tell your dog I said to suck it.

 

 

 

Careful With the Balls, Girls

I can’t believe I am saying this, but I don’t mind talking to my children about sex. I am very direct and matter of fact about it. I use the real words like penis and vagina, and I even explain why they too should use them (who wants to be the person who tells her doctor that her hoo-ha itches?). I’m glad I am so open and honest with them because I know they will bring their questions to me. I’m also glad because the public school system in our state covers abstinence thoroughly and sexuality marginally. They tell you about the parts and then tell you not to use them. They should call it asexual education.

My teen got in the car on Monday morning, and as usual, she was running late.

“Did you get your lunch and your gym uniform?” I asked her, as I do every Monday morning.

“Yes to the lunch, but I don’t need my gym uniform this week. We’re doing sex education so we don’t need them,” she said.

“What, you just take off your clothes? Wear your birthday suits? They just jump right in, don’t they?” I said.

“Jeez, Mom, gross. No, we just sit in the gym and get lectured. We don’t have to change clothes and we don’t sit around naked. Only they separate us for sex ed, so it’s not like our usual groups.”

“Separate you? How? Do they pair you up? ‘You go with you. You go with you. You with you.  You and you. And you’re left, so you’ll be with me.” I mimicked a gym teacher pairing up kids, pointing my finger at imaginary students.

It took the teen a minute to understand what I meant, and then she laughed. It’s so cool she gets all the jokes now.

“You’re so weird, Mom.” She doesn't know the half of it.

“I didn’t know what you meant,” I said. “First you don’t need clothes, and now they are separating you into pairs. I thought maybe you had, like, partners or something. The buddy system. What’s the test like? Is your grade based on your performance?”

“No, Mom, stop it.” She made her squeamish face. “They don’t teach us how to do it. They only tell us not to do it. And we’re not in pairs. They separate boys from girls.”

That afternoon, I asked her what they covered.

“Oh, you know, the most important thing to remember is to not have sex until you are married and that way you won’t get any diseases.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “You can still get some STD’s through oral contact.”

“Well, they don’t talk about oral contact, Mom. Gross. They just spend a lot of time on AIDS and herpes and how you can have it for the rest of your life.”

“Did they talk about the shots you got for HPV virus?” I asked her.

“No, besides, that’s not as bad as the other ones. And if everybody has the shots, what’s the big deal?”

“Not everyone has the shots, honey. And probably fifty percent of our population has it. And it causes cervical cancer, so you can die from it. It’s a big deal too. And what about chlamydia and gonorrhea? They are becoming resistant to antibiotics. Did they talk about that?”

“Of course not.”

“What do they talk about?”

“Really just the anatomy of the guy’s organs. And the baby and stuff. It’s not much different than last year.”

I quizzed her a bit more, and what I found out is that the public school will tell girls all about penises and testicles, even about the sensitivity of the glans, but girls still aren’t supposed to know they have a clitoris. Orgasms are not mentioned, nor are condoms. Sex is either for procreation or for ruining your life or both.

I almost wish I had a son, or at least a friend with one in the seventh grade, because I am really curious what the boys learn. Are they learning about how fabulous their penises too, or are they covering the mysterious clitoris? If girls are learning to not kick boys in the balls, are the boys learning that against her will is against the law? Is abstinence covered for both genders, or is virginity  just stressed with the girls?

I suppose I could read the syllabus, but that kind of takes the fun out of asking my teen on a daily basis: And what did you learn today? Did your coaches demonstrate it? Did they ask for any volunteers? How do you get an A? Can you earn extra credit?

When I was at the grocery store today, I heard a baby crying when I walked by the dairy aisle. That baby continued to cry for the entire time I shopped for groceries, even while I was waiting in line to check out. It stopped briefly, but then started again while I swiped my credit card. All I could think was never shake a baby, but I’m telling you, I wanted to make that baby stop crying in the worst way. All the people waiting in line to check out behind me commented on the baby too. Poor thing, it doesn’t feel like shopping today.  It must be tired. I'm glad that's not my baby.

If the public schools want to focus on abstinence, they should teach sex education with the soundtrack of a crying baby in the background. I’m telling you, those kids would be so frazzled, they’d never even touch their own parts, let alone someone else’s. That’s what abstinence education needs, a lot of crying babies. But why stop there, why not some crying babies with herpes and syphilis and shit? If you want to put the fear of God in them, then make it something worth fearing.

One Woman Ranting

I knew when I didn’t wake up early to pee today that something wasn’t quite right. My sister usually chalks up days like these to Mercury being in retrograde, but I don’t know what that means, nor would I believe in it if I did. I do believe in Murphy’s Law and bad luck and when it rains it pours. Except sometimes it doesn’t pour, it just gets misty and starts and stops and is generally irritating. That’s how today was.

My massage I had scheduled for today was cancelled. I know, I know, first world problems. But still, it was my massage. The italics are to let you know to read that sentence as a whine. My massage therapist had some bullshit reason like a scheduling issue, and cancelled my appointment with about two hours’ notice. Can you imagine calling off your massage with two hours’ notice? I’m sure you’d have to pay for it anyway, just like you would at the doctor’s office. If Starbucks fucks up your coffee order, they will occasionally give you a card for a free drink. I should get an extra fifteen minutes tacked onto my rescheduled appointment.

Since I had a block of free time, I decided to make a coffee cake from scratch to take to the gym in the morning. One of the fitness instructors has been out for a long time following one of those freak accidents that you hear about on the news: Woman injured as SUV rolls out of driveway is expected to make a full recovery. Well, tomorrow’s her first day back to torturing us at the gym after her ribs knit themselves back together, and what better way to commemorate it than a coffee cake?

So I baked a beautiful cake from scratch with a ribbon of cinnamon, brown sugar, and walnuts through the middle. I set it on the counter to cool for ten minutes before taking it out of the cake pan. I placed the wire rack on top of the cake pan and flipped it. Instead of setting the cake down on top of the rack, I dumped the whole thing on the counter. The cake cracked open like a delicate piñata, spilling its cinnamon walnut layer all over the counter. I picked up the salvageable pieces and put them back in the pan, then swept the rest into a giant crumb pile which then went in the garbage. Then I said some bad words and went upstairs to shower.

 

 

 

During my shower, the doorbell rang. It was UPS! I had five packages waiting on my doorstep, the bounty of my Cyber Monday activities. I opened four of the packages without incident, but the fifth one was a doozy. It was one of those thick plastic bags that doesn’t have any perforation, so you just have to hack at it with scissors hoping to force an opening somewhere. I hacked all right, right through one of the shirts. Merry Christmas, kid! Don’t look at the back of your shirt where I cut an extra hole. What makes it even worse is that I spent literally two hours on that website, the most user unfriendly website on all of Al Gore’s invention, trying to buy a goddamn t-shirt. A one of kind t-shirt, as in cannot be reordered or replaced. I sat down immediately to email the company to complain about their packaging. After I sent it, I checked over the rest of the shirts and realized I ordered the wrong size on a different one, which is for the same person as the shirt that I nicked.  

The best part of the day, stolen from me. My cake, nay, my talent for baking, lay in so many hunks on the counter. My carefully planned and chosen gifts a tattered and missized reminder to check my order before placing it. Is the universe trying to tell me something?

Perhaps it was all coincidence. Perhaps it’s time for me to slow down and take my time. Perhaps I am getting old and less careful. Perhaps I am losing my touch. Or maybe, perhaps today just sucked, and it has nothing to do with me.

Son of the Twelve Blogs of Christmas

It’s that time of year again, when I treat myself to an extra helping of stress. Some of you are busy fretting over planning the perfect Christmas, or at least a passable Hanukah.  Some of you are just now recovering from your Thanksgiving overindulgence, and some of you are still working your way through Halloween candy.  A few of you might even care about making New Year’s Eve plans. That’s four or five holidays all packed together in just a matter of a few short months. What were those pagans and early Judeo-Christian types thinking??  In my house, we like to sandwich the holidays with birthdays in November and January, just to add to the nonstop party rock in the house. Whee!

I’m no Martha Stewart; in fact, I’ve never built an empire on doing everything better than you and then going to prison. But I do like to outdo myself in some arenas. I take pride in baking. I excel at gift giving. I make my daughters’ birthdays a holiday to celebrate their births, much like Christmas is for Jesus. And I will challenge you to a snowflake cut a thon any day of the week.

I might make it look easy, but truth be told, it’s a lot of work. I have been known to wake up at five in the morning to think about the best place to find junior pajama bottoms in tall sizes. I have a mental list on loop in my head that includes chocolate chips and shirt boxes.  I organize my present receipts by date and cross reference them by recipient. There’s not a lot of rest and relaxation going on.

In addition to trying to do everything, which we all know is impossible yet can’t stop ourselves from trying, I want to write too. Normally, I find time on a monthly basis to knock out about four essays. The holiday season is all about excess, though, so why not aim high?

Thus, I present to you, the reader, the Third Annual Twelve Blogs of Christmas.  Between sometime near the beginning of December and the arbitrary date of Epiphany, like that means anything to me, I will attempt to find twelve blog worthy topics and write about them. Will they all be fascinating? No. Will they all make you laugh? Not necessarily. I can’t promise you entertainment, joy, poignancy, or insight. I’m only promising twelve.

 It’s my gift to you, because I care. And it's free.