a family trip

Once upon a time, Grandma and Grandpa Surgeon had two children, Dick and Janet.*

After finishing school near Chicago, Dick Surgeon left the midwest and settled in New York, where he met his wife, Lois, and they had two beautiful, brilliant, sweet, and phenomenal girls, Priscilla and Kate.**

Janet settled down outside of Chicago and met Dick Practitioner, and they had two children who were wonderful in their own rights, but nowhere near as awesome as Priscilla and Kate.***

Right after Kate was born, Grandpa Surgeon died. It was sad, but Kate was too small to know anything about it.

When Grandpa Al Surgeon died, Grandma Surgeon (whose name was Marian, but who (for some inexplicable reason) decided that "Mar-Mar" was a better name for the grandkids to call her) drove around with the ashes of Grandpa Al in a box in the trunk. Everyone thought this was a little odd, but when Mar-Mar said that she liked having him around, everyone agreed it was easier not to argue with Mar-Mar and let it drop.

Many years later, Mar-Mar also died. This was sad, too, but Kate was big enough to know things about it.

As a result, Dick and the East Coast Surgeons inherited the enormous powder blue boat that she had been driving in her last (incontinent) years. (Yum!) While the Surgeons were happy to have what amounted to a brand new car to replace the Shithole they had previously owned, the Oldsmobile was a lateral step (if not a backwards one), and definitely did not improve their good looks. (As if anything really could...)

When the car arrived on the East Coast, Dick put the ashes of his mother in the trunk with his father. Everyone thought this was a little odd, but when Dick said he didn't know what else to do with them, everyone agreed it was easier not to argue with Dick and let it drop. (Anyway, he was going to be the ONLY family member who would be driving that ass-ugly car, so who were the rest of them to argue, really? And the other choice was putting his parents in the garage, which seemed kind of hostile, so Grandpa Al and Mar-Mar moved into the trunk of the Olds.)

Waaaaaay too many years passed, and the Oldsmobile finally died. This was NOT sad.

However, Grandpa Al (whose box, incidentally read, "Melvin Surgeon," not "Alvin Surgeon") and Mar-Mar were once again without a home. So Dick transfered them into the trunk of his new (inexplicably powder blue) car.

Many more years passed, and Janet came to visit the East Coast Surgeons for Christmas. Dick picked her up in his powdery car, with their folks in the trunk. When she got to the house, Janet sat down, asked for a drink and said how nice it was "to take a nice ride with my whole family again." And that kicked off Christmas.

The End.

*This is actually true. It wasn't until I wrote it just now, however, that I realized how close they are to Dick and Jane.

** This is also true. Really!

*** This may be editorialized a bit.

Author's Note:
We tried to get Dick and Janet to make a plan for the relocation of their parents, but I feel compelled to point out that Al's been in the trunk for 32 years, and Mar-Mar for 10, so expecting forward movement on this is kind of like waiting for pigs to fly. (They might. You never know.)

In related news, I once managed to really freak out a boyfriend by asking him if he wanted to meet my grandparents and then opening the trunk of the car and introducing them to each other. Good times!

birthday thyme

I mentioned the aftermath of my birthday, but not the party itself. Which, in my opinion, was another raging success (ifIdosaysomyself).

Here, in no particular order, except for the order my computer has arbitrarily put them in, are a few of my favorite shots from that night:

Me and my dear friends Dan and Rhonda. I don't get to see them enough.

My book group ladies (and Bill). From left to right, Alli, me, Jen, Lauren & Larissa. I don't get to see them enough, either.

My good friend (and often sole comment-leaver), Jon. Looking dapper, I may add, thanks to an office holiday party. (Not that my birthday isn't an appropriate reason to dress up, mind you.)

You know those nature documentaries where the narrator gets really, really quiet when you're about to witness something completely fantastic and almost unbelievable? Well, read this paragraph that way because this is a photo of LISA OUT OF THE HOUSE AFTER DARK! Rarer than snow in Vegas, I was blessed with Lisa's presence at my birthday party for the first time ever, I think. (Or at least since she had kids.) A total honor.

Avery, another of my rocks of gibraltar. Without her, I'd be... well, I'd be me two years ago. (And nobody wants to go back there, do they??)

It seems kind of unfair to me that Jesus has to share his stocking with Jaime. I mean, come on, it's his BIRTHDAY...

And then there were the photo series.

Like the one I did with Rob where the photographer said, "Ok, Rob, you look drunk, and Kate, you look sober."

(not so good on my part)

And then we switched it:

(very convincing, no?)

And then, somehow Kiara and I got caught up in a photographic maelstrom. We started with cute, huggy pictures, and then devolved from there...

Were we trying to be sexy? I doubt it. Maybe. I just couldn't stop laughing.

And then, one for Where's Waldo champions around the world:

The Stripey Twins!

It was an excellent party, I got fantastic gifts, was given drinks all night and Avery brought cupcakes. I'd do it again any night of the week.

My only regret is that a girl can only turn 29 so many times...

(For shots from last year, go here)

brand new thoughts (I swear!)

I finally left the house. But somewhere in my two and a half days of moping around, whining about my gurbling innards and the severe lack of cleanliness in my apartment, I managed to have a few original thoughts I'd like to share.

(surprise, surprise, right?)

First: Fernando tried to kill me the other day. He gave me a piece of this new gum that tasted, I'm not kidding, like a perfumed ass. Sort of a cross between a bottle of hairspray or the cologne department of Macy's with a ne'er-mucked stable, this eighth inch cubed piece of death was supposed to be "Apple Raspberry" flavored. (More like "Ass-pull Rass-bury")

My advice? Stay away from any gum claiming to have this flavor. (Also: stay away from Fernando. He's evil.)

Second, suspicious of the cleanliness of my sponge and its potential responsibility for the onset of my plague (I'm seeing everything with new eyes, much like I did after reading The Stand), I started using a new one. A blue one. This is exciting, mostly because a new sponge gives off bubbles in the color of the sponge and I've never had a blue sponge (or, for that matter, blue bubbles) before.

Wheee!

(Help!)

Third: In my office, I can often be heard saying, while lacing up my shoes, "I don't want to go to the gym." I go, but I donwanna. I've stopped saying it, just to spare Fernando, but the other day I slipped on my sneaks and looked at him. "You know what I'm about to say, right?"

"Yes" he replied. "Something about the local gymnasium and your general reluctance to attend?"

Fourth, I think the Oxygen Network tried to kill me while I was sick. They showed me movies that tugged on my heartstrings, like Love, Actually or Laws of Attraction (listen, I had a fever of 102, and that makes your heartstrings very vulnerable to pulling) and then, in the commercial breaks, four out of five of the commercials showed lusty, half-naked couples running around well-appointed (enormous) bedrooms spraying perfume on each other, whispering things like "when intense is not enough" or "don't pretend, feel what's real." I'm NOT KIDDING. Innocently sitting there, rubbing my poor little tummy, I was completely happy with my singlehood. Two hours and sixty five commercials later, I'm scouring every online dating site looking for a man with a sexy neck and hoping I look good in a piece of string.

Meanwhile, I told the chiropractor that he wasn't like all the other guys I meet. Mostly, I said, because I rarely meet guys who will jab their thumbs just the right way into just the right places to make my back feel better. He told me I wasn't trying hard enough.

Touche, doctor, touche.

what I didn't ask for for my birthday

It was a great party; people came in shifts from six in the evening to well after midnight. People I see every day and people I haven't seen for years. I couldn't have asked for more! I had a huge lunch so my lack of dinner didn't hurt me too much, and I stuck to one alcohol all night, so I didn't cross the streams, so to speak.

At the end of the night I headed home with presents, pictures and happy memories in tow, and flopped on my bed as soon as I got there.

The next morning, though, I woke up and felt like ass. "You had too much wine," I argued, "and not enough dinner. And too much sugar. That's all this is. Drink some water and you'll be fine."

Yeah... not so much.

All day I moaned and wallowed, not leaving the house and barely making my way into the shower. And at around 5:30 the day after my birthday, I got the full brute force of my beastly little roto virus kicking me in the stomach.

It was NOT pretty.

I don't do sick well. I cry and whimper and think I'm going to die. I worry that I'll get dehydrated and that my feet will never warm up again. With a fever of 102, I felt every hair in every follicle on my skin. (That's VERY distracting.) And my bathroom is way too small for extended visits.

The upshot is that I'm wikkid skinny now, starting to feel better, and know that at some point in my thirty second year I'll have to leave the house. I just hope it's out of the twenties (and not snowing) by the time I do.

Now go wash your hands.

baby, it's snurshy outside

Snurshy [sner-shee] –adjective, snursh⋅i⋅er, snursh⋅i⋅est. Of or pertaining to the rainy, slushy, snowy, sleety mix falling from the sky today. At one point the snowflakes were so big we thought it was raining meatballs with alfredo sauce.

In an effort of self-diversion (I recently ended a nascent relationship and I feel, well, snurshy) I bring you the following:

1. The foley artists for Titanic, Poseidon Adventure and The Abyss have forsaken those movies and taken up residence in my microwave. For some reason, when the rotating plate goes around and around, the creaking/whining/creepy soundtrack it emits causes the rats and roaches to all head for the hills and my neighbors start lowering liferafts.

It's odd.

2. I've seen too much homeless butt today. More in numbers and square footage than I care to discuss.

3. I did my first improv show in about eight years tonight and I have to say, it felt pretty good! Unfortunately, I asked too much of my deodorant (having gone to the gym beforehand) so perhaps it didn't smell quite as good as it looked.

4. So, after a whole day of eating mostly cookies and rosemary squash lasagna, I had pretty much sworn off the cookies we frosted this weekend, but tonight, I played right into the devil's hands. I ate a cookie. By tomorrow, I'll be about forty pounds heavier and missing a cookie or twelve. (Don't worry, I'll take pictures.)

5. At my office holiday party last night, I thought I might have to call the EMTs. A big mucky-muck partner was on the dance floor flailing about so wildly that I was sure he was in coronary distress. Thank goodness for the female associate drunk enough to practially perform CPR on him while his wife looked on from the sidelines! (Yay, Office Politics!)

6. Also at my holiday party, I discussed the fact that the number of fuckable coworkers at my firm are somewhere between none and zero. As a torture device, my friend made me come up with a list of five partners I'd sleep with. On that list are a couple of decent human beings, but there's also this one partner who thinks he's hot shit on the dancefloor. At the holiday parties, he likes to work it -- especially with all the hot ladies of color at our firm. (Fine by me, as it spares me the fun of dancing with him myself.)

A couple of glasses of wine into the party, I pridefully added him to my list, "just to show him what a white girl could do."

Which, I'll add, is (in my case) NOT DANCE.

No! Frosting! 'Till Brooklyn!

Third time's a charm, they always say, and after Saturday's Third Annual Cookie Party, I have to agree! (See 2006 and 2007)

This year's festivities kicked off with the corresponding arrival of Lisa R. (with her elves Max and Charlie) and the completion of the Rosemary Butternut Squash Lasagna. Which was more delightful? Hard to say. Which made me happier? Hard to say. Which smelled better? Um, no comment.

Max went straight to the tree and found his favorite non-breakable ornaments, and put them on. "Fabulous," I crooned, "just fabulous!" He then proceeded to create presents for everyone by hiding magnets from my fridge inside of two stocking ornaments on the tree. (Very creative!)

The next froster to arrive was Kiara, who had experienced some extraordinary train karma and made the trip from Washington Heights to the southern reaches of Park Slope in forty-five minutes. Yes you heard me right -- FORTY FIVE MINUTES. On a weekend. Uphill. Barefoot. (This is truly unheard of in my many years of traveling to the great northern wilds.)

Next came Lisa B. and Avery For them, I have written a song to be sung to the tune of "Ebony and Ivory":

Lisa B. and Avery

Frosting cookies for kids like you and me

Side by side at my kitchen table...

They won't look at meeeeeee

The frosting was flowing freely, and the cookies started looking great. After a couple of hours, though, we realized that Keri wasn't there. When I texted her to find out if she had been waylaid by her boyfriend in the park (see last year's adventure here), she told me that she had the flu and strep throat and a variety of other forms of potential death, and so I told her to stay home and get better, that we would frost some cookies in her honor.

So we did.

We frosted lots of cookies. (Please note the ghost in there -- that's the Ghost of Christmas Past.)

Max did a great job frosting cookies. Charlie wanted to contribute too, so he tossed his cookies. Twice. (Your favorite puke-o-phobe stayed cool as a cucumber, though!)

Here he is, handing out cottage cheese lids. With a face like this, you want twelve, don't you?

After several hours of frosting, garlic-mint potatoes and fish soup (in addition to lasagna), we were finally done. It was time to choose a winner.

DRUM ROLL, PLEASE!

Ladies and Gentlemen, the winners in the Best Non-Traditional category:

Glove (by Kate), Loving Max and Loving Kate (by Lisa R.), OCD Boot (by Avery) and Menorah Star (by Lisa R.)

The winners in the Best People Category:

I Heart NY Guy (by Avery), Old Guy in Pajamas (by Kate), Red Guy (by Kate), Lisa and Charlie (by Lisa R.), Guy in Tie (by Kate)

The best Traditional Cookies:

Christmas Tree (by Kate), Candy Cane (by Kate), Sparkly Lightbulb (by Kiara), Little Tree (by Kate) and Amazing Angel (by Kiara).

A new category was added this year to accomodate our up-and-coming frosters, which caused a little bit of confusion and a lot of asking, "Max, did you frost this one?"

The Best Cookies in the Six-and-Under Category:

White Blobby Guy (by Max), Y B Stripey (by Max), Bootload of Frosting (by Max) and Oops My Dress Fell Off and Now I'm Embarrassed (by Max).

And the winners in everybody's favorite category: The Ugliest!

Candy Cane (by Kiara), Glove with Bloody Nails (by Kate), Creepy Glove (by Lisa R.) and Clean-Up-The-Sprinkles-On-The-Table Boot (by Kate).

I have to say, these do not quite live up to the uglies of years past.

No longer a novice at this Shitload of Sugar thing, I paced myself considerably better this year and shoved more lasagna into my mouth than really should be legal. All of which is to say: No Headache!

Having no headache, of course, allowed me to get all trashied up and head out to a White Trash Christmas Party that night. Witness:

(You'll notice I'm pointing to some cookies that were freshly frosted that day!)

And in honor of the fact that there are only two days left to shop on Amazon.com and still get free super-saver shipping, I bring you my tree:

Feel free to send me lots and lots of presents to put in the empty space underneath it.

the online equivalent of dumping out the vacuum cleaner

Here, for your entertainment, but in no particular order are some thoughts I've collected in my brain (which doesn't lose suction!) over the last few days/weeks/eternities:

1. I used to think the Dyson vacuum commercials said "doesn't USE suction" instead of "doesn't LOSE suction." If it didn't use suction, I wondered, how did it get the dirt and crumbs into the vacuum? Gentle persuasion? Excessive compliments? Two-for-one drink offers?

2. One of the things I really like in life is being the first one to step on the freshly laid bathmat. Luckily, this is much more easily accomplished when single. Another benefit of being single? When your office won't let you bring a date to the holiday party, you can say, "Well screw you, I didn't have a date to bring, anyway!" (My company, however, is using reverse psychology on me and allowing me to bring a date, which, in a posture of strength, I am refusing! Respect my singlehood!) Although... I could bring the chiropractor. (And his girlfriend.)

3. Speaking of the chiropractor, I'm suffering from a little role reversal. Just last visit, the physical therapist (who was close to being cast off of Survivor: Chiropractic) told me that I was showing some improvement, and the chiropractor (who had previously been the sweetheart of the series) told me that I was "too far along to be showing this little progress."

Mixed messages. Hurt. My. Brain.

4. I pass a co-worker's desk at least ten times a day, and for the last month, she's had a bottle of "Chestal" on her desk. I swear to you that the first time I saw that bottle, I thought she was involved in some bizarre mammarian experiment. Apparently she just has a cold.

5. Someone at work recently threw out four quarts of milk. Full quarts. Right into the trash. With loose lids. Like that's not going to cause a mess. Don't these people throw things out at home?

6. Places where skin is acceptable: bodies, soups, butternut squash lasagna filling
Places where skin is not acceptable: jell-o, eyeballs, milk

7. There is a higher power, and I think it might be a Norse god. What's my proof, you ask? I tried to get a piece of furniture from Ikea twice, and was thwarted both times. Fool me once, etc., but after getting to Ikea and them being SOLD OUT of the piece of furniture I wanted? Well, we won't be fooled again.

(Editor's note: when I discovered that the Red Hook Ikea was out of the Hemnes Wardrobe (in white), I broke down in tears. There I was, just shy of 32 years old, weeping my little brains out in the boxed furniture department because I couldn't give the Swedes (who are my people, I'll have you know) an extra $400. It was sad. Three hours and a little rearranging later, I decided I didn't need the piece anyway. Take that, Thor!)

8. You've heard that joke, right? Thor, the Norse god, goes out to a bar one night and picks up this girl. They hit it off and head back to her apartment. After a wild night of knocking boots, he starts to feel bad and decides to tell his date of the evening who he really is. So he rolls over, gently strokes the woman's face and says, "There's something I haven't told you: I'm Thor."

"You're Thor?!?" she retorts. "I'm tho thore I can barely thee thtraight!"

And... that's a wrap.

a new wrinkle

There's a new wrinkle in my future marriage to the chiropractor.

Well, a couple, actually.

In fact, that relationship is so wrinkled, it's like a chain-smoking granny on a tanning bed wearing the blouse I ironed last weekend upsidedown and drunk. With a baby in my arms and one hand tied behind my back. Riverdancing.

Wrinkle Number 1: Meta-Relationship Goes De-Meta
My chiropractor knows about this blog. In fact, the whole office knows about it. (Well, except for the physical therapist, but that's because I've said less than flattering and fake-falling-in-love-with things about him.)

Does my imaginary love affair have to crumble when he knows I know he knows about it?

I vote no.

(Come on, the man still jabs his thumbs in some very important places and I am NOT willing to give that up yet.)

Wrinkle Number 2: What My Future Holds
Every Thanksgiving, when we go to Boston, we go to see the psychic. There's a whole tea room full of them near my sister's house, and we make it a practice to see what our future holds whenever we eat turkey. (Or non-turkey, as the case may be.) In the past, the psychics I've seen have told me that my current relationships wouldn't work out (which, surprise, surprise, they didn't), that I should stay away from "the man in uniform" (which I heard twice and found more than slightly creepy the second time around), and one, when I told her that I teach adults, asked me if the adults I teach are retarded. (I had a hard time saying no.)

Anyway, this year the psychic told my mother that I'd be marrying a doctor. (I was too busy asking my psychic about what to do with my job to think about who I was going to marry.) She also said "the family would be growing" which I think my mother hopefully interpreted as my sister having kids. (I had to remind her that it might just be my doctor...)

Now, I wonder this: was the psychic a) telling my mom something guaranteed to make 90% of mothers in this country happy, b) picking up on the vibes I've been putting out on my blog, or c) telling me something... special?

I'm voting somewhere between b and c, but that's just because I'm the author of the whole imaginary romantic kerfuffle to begin with, and I pretty much get to determine how it goes.

Wrinkle Number 3: The Prescribing Doctor
There's a new doctor in the office. Well, he's not new, but he's new to me. (He's the one who legally has to write my prescription for physical therapy.) And boy is he pretty (for a not particularly tall guy)! I'm thinking he's probably at home alone right now, despondently moping around his apartment, wishing I was there with him to warm up this clammy winter's night. A bottle of wine, a crackling fire in the fireplace, and me in my sexiest outfit -- a big, bulky sweater that makes me look like I weigh three hundred pounds, some truly sexy medical shorts that I'm pretty sure will be released on the Victoria's Secret runway next season, and my barefeet in my shoes.

Oh, no, wait, that's the outfit I was wearing when I met him. (Awesome.)

He, too, says really romantic things like the chiropractor used to. Like "I'm going to push on your head now. Tell me if it hurts." (Sadly, I found this exceptionally funny.) (I blame the shorts.) Ever the epitome of lashing wit, when he rubbed my brainstem and asked how it felt, I replied, "You could do that all day and I wouldn't mind a bit." (Great.) He pulled on my knees, yanked my legs over my head, poked me in the hip and didn't even break a sweat. I, of course, was spouting out charming witticisms the whole time like a fucking idiot.

He did mention my boobs and how luscious they were. (Well, ok, he told me to move my bra strap out of the x-ray so the metal wouldn't show up, but that's kind of close, right?)

*sigh*

With my luck, he's probably gay and only wants me... to shop for less ugly clothes.

the dirty license plate game

The Bronco in front of us was trying to turn left from the right hand lane, and Mom and I were having none of it. We were tired, hungry, and teetering on that dangerous precipice between hilarity and disaster.

“Come on,” I moaned, sorely tempted to lean on the horn. “We just want to go home.”

“Yeah,” said mom, reading the license plate in front of us, “get out of the way 3-4-7-P-D-T. You… poddy… doodoo… turd!”

And silence descended on the car for precisely 2.5 seconds (the exact timing used by famously hilarious Norwegian comedians) before mom and I broke into laughter that eventually brought tears to our eyes (and pee almost to our pants).

“That’s the worst you could do?!?” I gasped.

“Well, it’s what came to mind.”

And thus, the Dirty License Plate Game was born. Obviously, the point of the game is to come up with the dirtiest, foulest, most offensive combo that can be made from the license plates of those around you in traffic. You can warm up, as mom did, with some “offensive” language and then work your way up to the more obscene, lewd, and generally reprehensible combinations we’ve created over the years.

As many of you, I’m sure are aware, Thanksgiving Day traffic provides ample dirty license plate opportunities, and we were not ones to miss out on that. However, we grew weary of flinging swears willy-nilly, and mom and I found ourselves much more successful when we limited ourselves to a theme – you know, poop, sex, butts, bestiality, whatever.

And that’s when we came across a pickup truck with the simple license plate “CCSS.” Before our new themed version of the game, that could have been any variety of things – C*nty Clit Shit Sauce, for example, or Creamy Crappy Scrotum Squirt.

With the theme, however, it was merely “CRAP CRAP SHIT SHIT!”

Which, I’ll argue, is considerably funnier. (Especially when shouted out of context and apropos of nothing at the dinner table.)

Ah, family...