happy old year!

As we race into the next decade* I thought I'd give you a going away present.

A few, actually, because I'm so generous.

1. Oh Fernando, Why Are You So Eloquent?

The other day my dear officemate declared that he was listening to "poopular music," which gave us a good chuckle. And then, yesterday, when I was wearing the new fleece I got for Christmas (sort of), he told me that my fleece was very "action." "It looks like you're going to do things," he said, as I put it on.

2. That's Very Surprising!

Have you ever eaten a lot of beets? I bought and roasted a bunch of them last week, and they were delicious. However, there's a shocking side effect: purple poo.

3. I Heart My Mother

Among the many ridiculous things we all said over the Christmas holiday, here are my favorites from my mom:

me (over the phone): What are you doing?

Mom: Sitting around in our Santa hats, eating candy canes, waiting for you to come home.

Mom: (in a game, trying to come up with a verb) To be-is-am-are-were-run-fuck!

My Aunt: (describing an imaginary friend from childhood) Yahudie [pronounced "yay-who-dee"] lived in the refrigerator and turned the light on and off.

Mom: (very matter of factly) No, no, no. That's not right. Yahudie lived under the sidewalk.

(duh, everyone knows that.)

3. Oh-S0-Irritating!

You know what drives me crazy? Asterisks on product labels that lead nowhere. My mom had some disinfecting wipes, and they made a claim that it killed 98% of bacteria, which was followed by an asterisk, which I assumed meant that statistic would be explained or expanded on.

But no! They either forgot to add the information -- information someone thought at some point was important enough to highlight with an asterisk! -- or they never thought anyone would catch it.

But I did. (Call me Asterisk Watch Dog if you want to.)

4. A Lesson For Everyone

Not you, of course. You're perfect. But everyone else should look here.

* I hate it when people say this. (See? I follow up with my asterisks!)

cookie party, 2009

How does a tradition start? By doing the same thing year after year, I guess, or at least doing it enough times that people start to say, "oh yeah, doesn't Kate throw a cookie party every year?"

So, since there was a party in 2006 (which I totally forgot about until I was writing this piece!), one in 2007, and one in 2008, I guess that by doing it in 2009, I'm actually on the path to a real-live tradition!

This year's cookie party was once again fabulous, with frosting flying every which way, and sprinkles (like pine needles or beach sand) ending up in the strangest places.

The attendees this year were both new and old. Andrea and Lisa (with the boys) repeated from years past, and Patricia and Ellyn joined up anew. (Keri and Avery didn't make it that day, but were with us in spirit.)

The improvements I made over previous years -- more actual food! more presents for the children! -- were tremendous. This year I served rosemary butternut squash lasagna, garlic mint potatoes, bean soup, sugared cranberries, and apple almond quinoa. The number of debilitating sugar headaches dropped dramatically!

The OCD factor was back, as Andrea had missed last year's party, and this year, her meticulous decorating skills inspired Ellyn and Patricia to reach new heights, in an effort to reach the winners' circle. Max -- who is now six and a half -- was also driven to "make a contender." So driven, in fact, that he created about sixty five thousand contenders (not realizing, of course, that he had his own category -- the Under Seven Cookies).

The boys, in fact, had some creative decorating techniques. Max's plan of attack was to wad a glob of frosting into the middle of the cookie (for best dispersal later) and then to dump a handful of sprinkles into the palm of his hand. With a somewhat slow rotation of his wrist, 70% of the sprinkles landed on the table or floor, 5% hit the dry part of the cookie and about 25% reached the glob of frosting. So, of course, to meet with satisfactory sprinkling results, the process had to be repeated four times for each cookie.

Having just swept and mopped my floor (and knowing full well I'd have to do it again after the party), Lisa and I made valiant attempts to curb this decorating method. To no avail, of course, because a child under 7 + sugar + lots more sugar + anyone saying "no" = Disaster, Pure and Simple.

Charlie, on the other hand, had a strangely more self-contained approach to frosting. Which is to say, he frosted himself. He got some on a cookie (probably by accident) and the rest of it on his pants, hair, shirt, brother, seat... He reached for sprinkles once, but that idea was quickly squashed by the entire apartment. And he seemed fairly pleased with the prospect of merely frosting himself. (And, the rim of a volcano, as you'll see below.)

But enough talk, already, Kate! Let's see the winners!

In the Under Seven Category, Max was the all around winner!

The best traditional cookies:
Clockwise from top: "Jew" cookie by Lisa, "Glove" by Ellyn, OCD Tree by Patricia, OCD Bear by Andrea, and Self-Strangulating Snowman by Yours Truly.
In the Best Non-Traditional Category:

Clockwise from top left: Awkward Teenage Bear (complete with acne and the ugly outfit his mother made him wear) by Andrea, Creepy French Manicure Hand by Kate, The Shitting Dove of Peace by Ellyn (note the poop in the crack of the cookie), Festive Lederhosen Guy with Big Package by Patricia, and Almond Coat Bear by Ellyn.
And everybody's favorite category... The Ugliest!!

Clockwise from top left: Cracky Bear by Lisa, Flickery-Vagina-y Lightbulb by Kate, Amoeba by Patricia, Plaguey Pig by Ellyn, Clean-the-Table CandyCane by Kate, and Max's contribution to the Ugly field, which really isn't all that ugly, actually...

I feel eternally grateful to these women for making my life, my home, and my kitchen all the friendlier and warmer. It is starting to feel like without the party, it might not be Christmas.

now that I'm older and wiser, my posts will be, too!

Yeah, that's a lie. I have absolutely no plans to up the quality of what you find here, even though I'm now 33.

Do I feel bad about that? Yeah, kind of. To use a phrase Fernando employs when he does something really stupid and feels awful about, "I'm sorrytarded."

So here are a few of my observations since we last saw each other.

1. I saw a fabulous dance piece recently, called Nut/Cracked. Unfortunately, it's closing today (I knew I should have posted sooner!) but it's a more modern version of the Nutcracker. I'm not a big modern dance fan, but this piece was terrific! My favorite moment was a solo where this woman walks on stage, unrolls a sheet of bubble wrap about three feet wide by five feet long and then spends the next six minutes NOT stepping on it. Flailing herself over it, wiggling around it, I'm-not-touching-you-I'm-not-touching-you it, until finally, she can't stand it any longer and then just flings her body, full force, smack into the middle of the sheet with the most gratifying POPPOPPOPPOPPOPPOPPOP of all time! Like a pig in shit or a kid in frosting, there is no way around the fact that this was orgasmic.

In truth, it made me want to go home and get some bubble wrap.

2. At work the other day, a woman stopped by my office.

"I have a problem I need you to look at in my email," she said.

"Ok, what is it?"

"It's Sarah."

"Who's Sarah?"

"I think you should come and see."

So I got up, walked over to her desk and looked at her inbox. She was drowning in emails from Sarah. All 87 of them had the same subject: "Sarah has added you on FuckBook!"

"Who is this Sarah?" asked my co-worker, "And what, exactly, does she think I'm going to do on FuckBook?"

The best part of all this? Not my co-worker hounding Fernando with stories of FuckBook for twenty minutes in a row (although that was really funny). No, it was having to forward the message to the head of IT, asking for help to block the emails from Sarah from FuckBook.

Wheee! Legitimate use of the word Fuck at work!

3. I would like to take a moment to thank all the cute guys of the world who actually look good in tight pants for wearing them. And, while I'm at it, to send a reminder to the not-so-cute guys in the world, who don't look good in tight pants, to go out and invest in some lovely khakis. You know, the ones with AMPLE room in the seats...

a cure for holiday loneliness

The holidays can be tough -- causing some people to feel despondent, bummed out, and just plain lonely. If you fall into that last category, perhaps you should spend more time with quality people online.

Visit your pals at Hot Chicks with Douchebags. There, you can mix and mingle with fine examples of humanity (and the nasty-assed guys they allow themselves to photographed with).

Like your friend, Cheeto-Man and his girlfriend:

If they don't lift your spirits, how about a visit with People of Public Transit?

The "Pole Polisher" should cheer you up a bit:

No? You're still feeling lonesome? Head over to your local Walmart and visit with the People of Walmart...

And yeah, you're welcome. Go ahead and happily hide under the bed for the rest of the season. We'll come and get you in the middle of January.