Ponderings and Musings

Earl and I are safely back at home after a day of traveling to visit the family for the Christmas holiday. It has been a wonderful day for the both of us.

This morning we were up at 8 a.m. and in front of the Christmas tree at 8:01 a.m. Earl quickly poured the mandatory glass of orange juice and then we opened our gifts from Santa and to each other. As I type, Earl is playing Texas Hold ‘Em on our new Xbox 360 that Santa brought us. I just know he’ll be ripping up Xbox Live by the end of the week. I navigated our way to my father’s house using the new GPS receiver that was under the tree this morning. We plan on Geocaching starting in the spring and the GPS receiver will definitely aid in the hunt.

We then headed up to my dad’s house, where we had a wonderful brunch (crepes and champagne-yummy!) with my dad and stepmom and my stepbrother and his girlfriend. My sister and her boyfriend joined in the fun via webcam from Russia. It was a picture perfect Christmas afternoon, complete with two cats sleeping in their little cat beds under the Christmas tree. My dad handcrafted a spice rack for our kitchen as our Christmas gift.

From there we headed to my sister’s American apartment (she’s so worldly) where my mother hosted Christmas dinner. It was delicious and had all the wonderful elements of a dinner only my Mom can put on; there was way too much food, a lot of love put into the creation of the meal and a kitchen that looked like Yucca Flats after the blast. Surprisingly, there was not a bowl of popcorn to be found. We exchanged more gifts, shared stories and conversation with family and friends and laughed and laughed.

While talking on the way home, Earl and I both agreed that we were “feeling” the holidays because we had such a wonderful time with our families, friends and with each other. There wasn’t a flake of snow to be found, but it definitely felt like Christmas. We are truly blessed by the Universe.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Over the past number of years I’ve become increasingly disenchanted with the folks in Hollywood. Now don’t get me wrong, there are still many incredibly talented men and women that take to the big and small screens that I find quite enjoyable, but on the whole, I feel that most celebrities are overpaid, whiney and lack creativity and imagination. Those that are very good at their craft are often overshadowed by those that I can’t fathom why America cares about them because I can’t figure out why they’re famous (i.e. Paris Hilton) or they are a product of some bizarre star creation machine that takes what little talent they have and tries to amplify it (i.e. Ashlee Simpson).

There has been a story running on all the cable news outlets, every entertainment show and a lot of blogs about the whole Rosie O’Donnell versus Donald Trump debate. It’s a “Bloody Hollywood Feud!” is proclaimed as thunderous, ominous music blares from the smallest of speakers, letting us know that this is serious. Dum-dum-DUM!

You’re probably aware that the current Miss USA, miss what’s her name from some state, did some very un-Miss USA type things, which reportedly include a lot of drinking, some assorted chemical illegal substances, perhaps some kissing with Miss Teen USA and a sprinkling of possibly creative sexual adventures with a random sampling of men. Donald Trump, the owner of the Miss USA franchise was going to “fire” her (because after all that’s what he does, especially on “The Apprentice” which by th way, starts very soon, check your local listings, wink wink) but then decided he’d give her a second chance as Miss USA as long as she checked into rehab. As the announcement was being shown on CNN we were watching at work, without sound and I said to my co-workers, “watch, she’s going to cry, she’s going to cry, here it comes” and then after a precalculated number of head turns and manufactured words, she made the beauty queen sad face and started crying.

Anyways, the next day on The View, Rosie O’Donnell called Donald Trump on the carpet for this whole thing. She did an impersonation of him, including a dead-on mockery of his ‘hair flop’ and basically said that this whole thing was ridiculous because of his sordid past including multiple wives, mistresses, etc. and basically who was he to be the “moral compass” for anyone. Donald fired back by saying she was a big, fat, ugly lesbian who had a big mouth and has been basically ranting ever since.

All I have to say is this. Rosie O’Donnell has s a bigger heart than any fortune Donald Trump could amass. Rosie has taken her celebrity and has given back ten-fold to the community through various charities and other efforts. She goes out of her way to help those that are in need, whether she’s establishing better housing for those displaced by Hurricane Katrina or arranging for a young girl with Cystic Fibrosis to meet the cast of Rent. Yes, she’s loud, she’s opinionated, she probably runs contrary in her beliefs than the rest of this whacked out country and she’s in your face, but my God, she has a bigger heart than most that have “lots”.

I’ve always been a fan of Rosie O’Donnell. I always will be. And there are few celebrities that I would like to meet. But I would really like to meet Rosie O’Donnell. Just so I could shake her hand and say “thank you”.

As this holiday season progresses, I’m realizing that perhaps combining the holidays with the departure from my job at the same time wasn’t such a good idea. Especially when it comes to eating healthy. Let’s take a look at today’s meals. I think it would be risky to think that I kept my caloric intake below a five digit number. I was deluged with cookies, pizza, wings, rigatoni, sandwiches bathed in mayonnaise, cookies, candy, Lindt Chocolate, mini muffins, maxi muffins and volumous amounts of Doritos all before lunch today. After grazing for a half the day, barking at a few callers who dared call the technical support center with a technical question and then trying to stifle a well-earned burp during said phone calls, the department manager pulled me aside to tell me that he was going to be out tomorrow and all next week and he’d really like to take me for a few beers after work in appreciation of my contributions to the group.

Even though I’m feel like I should be waddling instead of walking, I must say that I really enjoyed the beers I had with my manager. He’s a great guy and I look forward to keeping in touch with all the folks I worked with.

After I got home from work and the happy hour, I told Earl that I needed something to eat (?!?!?) so we went out to one of our favorite haunts. Trying to keep it light, I had a salad with chunks of buffalo chicken on it and a helping of greens. To keep in spirit with today’s festivities, I chased it all down with two more beers.

Now I’m ready to call it a night. Let’s see how I do with the leftovers tomorrow.

By the way, I thought I’d be trés creative with my contribution to the office party, so I brought our popcorn popper, some oil, popcorn and very gay movie-theatre style popcorn containers and served popcorn as an appetizer for my co-workers. I thought that would make my mother, who regards popcorn as three or four of the major food groups, very proud.

There are times when I wonder why I maintain this blog on an almost daily basis. Why do I sit down and write little snippets of our life, for all the world to read? After musing about this while watching folks walk about the mall today during a much needed holiday shopping respite, I came to a couple of conclusions. I write in my blog because I enjoy writing. And I hope that through my writing I can make the reader laugh, smile or at least not grimace.

There are times that I get a little whacky in here. It comes naturally as I consider myself to be eccentric. I don’t think I’m spooky, I don’t see myself as creepy, but I do see a lot of ‘odd’ with a dash of ‘weird’ on the side. I used to think I frightened people as I often savor a memory of the mundane and will bring up said musing in a conversation. I notice the irrelevant. I say the unexpected. I pride myself on these qualities.

Ask a published author what inspires their words and perhaps they’ll mention the works of Tolstoy or speed reading Wuthering Heights or 1984. Others may have become giddy with the thought of diagramming sentences back in elementary school. Me? I found my literary inspiration in one author back in junior high school. I couldn’t care less about Ernest Hemmingway and Shakespeare does nothing to blow up my skirt, but to this day I can read just about anything by the late Erma Bombeck and thoroughly enjoy the experience. I was a 12 year old boy and still I laughed out loud to passages from “The Grass Is Always Greener Over The Septic Tank” and “If Life Is A Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing In The Pits?”. While I was way outside of the intended audience, even at that young age I loved Ms. Bombeck’s style of writing. I may not have related to everything she was saying (as I did not have a child that held his brother captive in the broom closet, for example), but I loved the way she wrote about slices of life, as she saw it from over her ironing board or through her bay window that looked over identical houses in the housing development. She didn’t try to shock the reader, she didn’t resort to blue words, she didn’t harp on the negative. She just made the reader laugh or at the very least smile and more importantly, she made the reader comfortable.

That’s what I try to do. And I’d like to thank you for taking this little blogging journey with me. I look forward to what lies ahead.

I’ve taken the day off from work for two reasons: I need to burn my vacation time before the end of the year and I really need to finish up the Christmas shopping. I might even have the gifts wrapped before Earl gets home. To celebrate the day off, I am currently installed in a corner of our local Panera. I am armed with my PowerBook and eating as healthy as one can in one of these “appears classy – really fast food” restaurants.

My observations of others during this holiday season continues. I know I go on and on about cell phone use in public, but I find it so utterly fascinating. I just watched a woman walk across this very busy restaurant, armed with her cell phone but balancing two trays of food better than any waitress named Betty that I’ve encountered. She arrived safely at her table, where I noticed that she is joining her lunch companion. My immediate thought was that he should have got up and fetched the food, but of course he is on his cell phone as well. I suspect he called her and said, “Don’t forget the salt and pepper.”

A woman just arrived in a beat up Ford pickup from the late 1980s. The truck is in final stages of rigor mortis, the driver appears to have not washed her hair in several days (unless greasy is ‘in’). I try to not to be judgmental, but the woman undoubtedly reeks of b.o. and white trash. She’s yapping on what appears to be what all the rage in cellular technology – a Motorola Razr cell phone. Apparently the soap can wait, but the phone call can’t.

You may say that I am not one to talk, since I’m typing away on my PowerBook while eating my lunch. I see this a little differently. I am alone at my table. I am stationed in the corner at a remote table in the restaurant. I’m not carrying my PowerBook around, I’m not doing extracurricular activities on a webcam nor am I yelling through the microphone over some voice chat program. I’m simply observing the behavior of others during this holiday season.

The acoustics in this corner allow me to eavesdrop on quite a few conversations. I always giggle at the guys in this area that talk with a very heavy Bronx or Brooklyn accent. I don’t know if they’ve noticed but we live over four hours from the two aforementioned burroughs. Most of us speak with an accent you’re more likely to find in Michigan or Ohio. But it’s like there’s a small dollop of marinara sauce on the spot that marks our place on the map.

And lastly, an older couple is sitting at the table directly in front of me. They have obsessed and strategized over how they are going to fetch their food when the pager goes off. Which way will they walk through the maze of tables and dining bodies? Will they have to pole vault over the guy talking about cigars? Will they have to do laps around the woman with a feather hat? Oh no, the light is flashing! The pager is vibrating! Time to spring into action. Apparently, the best plan is a simple one, walk to the counter and look over everyone’s food.

I find human beings so fascinating.

“Gotta make the cookies. Time to make the cookies. Frost me, frost me!”. These thoughts danced in my dreams as I tossed and turned Saturday night, laden with the guilt of not having our annual cookie trays made up for the folks at our respective workplaces. While children throughout the land have visions of sugarplums in their head, all I can think about are cookie trays, assorted colored sprinkles and smiling Santa shaped cookies.

Yesterday Earl and I embarked on the Holiday Cookie Assembly Project, an undertaking seemingly so large that it’s only surpassed by Boston’s Big Dig. While I measured, sifted, mixed and beat various ingredients of varying importance, Earl rolled and kneaded our chilled sugar cookie dough as he kept a watchful eye on me lest I put the walnuts in the mix before the chocolate chips*.

I am happy to say that no cross words were exchanged nor were any fingers burned, spindled or mutilated as we cranked out almost ten dozen cookies of different shapes, sizes, colors and flavors. Tonight the merriment continues, after we finish the assembly and decorating of our nine foot Christmas tree.

*Bittersweet hot cocoa mix is not a favorable replacement for baker’s chocolate. I’m willing to sign an affidavit indicating this.

Earl and I went on our big Christmas shopping spree yesterday. We have finished the majority of our shopping, though I have a few more things to pick up on my day off on Wednesday. We went to two malls in two major cities and both were jammed and chaotic.

I had the opportunity to make several observations while on this merry little adventure, and I’d like to share them with you.

1. Unless you have a cell phone up to your ear and you totally ignore any and everything around you as you walk through the mall, you’re a nobody. I often called time and temperature just to fit in with the crowd. Perhaps I should have called Dial-A-Prayer, because I had the urge to go to postal.
2. Dangly earrings apparently increase the reception of the Borg like device many wear on their ear now to engage in the aforementioned incredibly important cell phone calls. Said earrings allow the wearer to carry on conversations regarding important items such as incontinence, child custody battles and inane phrases such as “what are you doing” at high decibels in the far reaches of the jewelry, domestics and intimate apparel departments.
3. All holiday wishes should be set aside when vying for a parking space. The handicapped spots should be reserved for the foolish pedestrians (such as myself) that didn’t join in the joust and parked in remote parking lots; these remote location people shall pay by becoming targets and being reduced to “points” status.
4. If a parking spot within 30 feet of the front door is not available, it is perfectly acceptable to parallel park between the Salvation Army bell ringer and the gift wrapping service table.
5. The sensibility of using the elevator to transport the baby buggy is completely discarded during the holidays. The buggy shall be jammed onto the escalator and there shall be complete disregard for others trying to escalate or de-escalate as well, even if it’s a senior citizen that has not seen in the inside of a mall since the Bicentennial celebration.
6. Baby buggies are for transporting packages, barrels of half eaten popcorn, Big Gulps, purses and the wide variety of incredibly important cell phone accessories. At no time shall a child be sitting in one of these vehicles, the child is to be roaming free, screaming at the top of it’s lungs, accessorized in a saggy diaper and tripping up other mall patrons. If you can get the child to yell “mor-mor” even five to seven seconds at peak volume, you earn bonus points.
7. Since the holiday season is the busiest for retailers, it’s important to completely replace the cash register system during this joyous time. This keeps clerks on their toes by keeping them in the dark on how the new software works.

Next year, it’s point and click all the way. Starting in July.

In an valiant effort to ready myself for full-time domestic status (we full-time students get elected to clean house full-time as well), I went crazy the other night and sprayed oven cleaner all over the front of the radarange microwave. It seemed like the sensible thing to do. I didn’t want to sit there with a chisel and scrape the goop off the front of it and since it was stuff that had splattered from the stove that sits right below it, I figured the Easy Off would work beautifully since it did such a fabulous job on the cooktop.

It took the pads right off the buttons.

But it looks so shiny and clean.

Luckily, there was enough goop on there that I was able to save the actual writing on the pads, but the non-slip surface is gone and now we run the danger of our fingers sliding wildly from “preheat” to “burn” or from ‘9’ to ‘6’, running the risk of over boiling our water by 30 seconds.

But it looks so shiny and clean.

I’m wondering if I should clean the inside of the beast by using the same method, but then I wondered if something would catch fire or end up converting our next dish into a Taco Bell special with some sort of weird disease.

Maybe I’ll get a radarange microwave for Christmas.

It was officially announced at work today. My co-workers found out that I have resigned from my position, effective December 29. I’ve decided to go to school full-time starting in January and I don’t feel that I can fulfill my work obligations and my personal goals simultaneously. I had tended my resignation on December 3rd, but kept it quiet from my co-workers until the management team could figure out what to do.

I’ve been in this position for about 2 1/2 years, though it feels as if it’s been a lifetime and I mean that in a positive way. I hope to maintain friendships with many that I worked with. With the internet, instant messaging and whatnot, it’s easier to do that these days.

I’m more excited than ever of the road that lies ahead.

The madcap rush of the holidays continues tonight as Earl and I join my sister and Mom in Syracuse for dinner. My sister is leaving for Moscow tomorrow, where her Canadian hockey player boyfriend is currently located as he plays hockey for a Russian team. So tonight it’s a little bon voyage party and we’ll do Christmas as we did last year: over the webcam.

I am finally on my way with Christmas shopping. One of my gifts for Earl arrived yesterday, piquing his curiosity as the box is quite heavy. This is really our “together” gift that I bought for both of us outside of my allotted budget. I look forward to more packages arriving up until the holidays, because nothing says “Merry Christmas” like some well-placed pointing and clicking.

I had a big meeting this morning with the manager of the department I work in. It was a good meeting. I’m looking forward to what the future holds.

Now, back to the holiday rush.