As we all know, Christmas is that mystical time of year when the ghost of Jesus rises from the grave to feast on the flesh of the living!

This photograph of Terzo wearing a onesie given to him by Hungry in LA has been set as my desktop at work. So appropriate, no?


Segundo in work garb (or so he informed me…) Is that what I look like when I leave the house?

I will post my favorite ornament for a show-and-tell tomorrow but I just want to say RIGHT NOW that I have green glass pickle envy.

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The director of the library stopped by the reference desk on her way out. She wanted us to know that if the library were to close early, that had her blessing. We are NOT closing early, regardless, but I had just come in so told her that the roads were not too bad – messy but not bad. “They’ll be much worse when the temps drop. So if you’re careful and watch out for all the other idiots on the road, you’ll be ok.” Oh. My. God.

There have been three requests for a journal called Heterocycles at the library today. You can only imagine where my depraved mind went. The library catalog offered up this tome: Tellurium-Containing Heterocycles. What? You really want to know what they are? Heterocycles are organic chemical structures containing non-carbon elements. Epoxides (oxiranes), aziridines, pyridines, thiophenes, many other structural classes are heterocyclic. Happy?

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Has anyone else heard that godawful Christmas song, “The Christmas Shoes”? Whoever gave that song the green light should be taken out and SHOT. Also, there is a special place in Hell reserved for the producer who okayed the children’s chorus singing at the end. It was SO BAD I couldn’t even turn it off, I was paralyzed with horror. I was truly afraid that if I moved, I would vomit. (And I have to ask – is it against the rules for poor people to be CLEAN? Are they too poor to buy soap? I want to know. Forget the shoes, kiddo, buy some Ivory. That’ll really make your mom happy.)

I got to hear one of my favorite Christmas songs today on the radio, “O Holy Night.” Gives me goosebumps. Every time. Also goosebump-inducing is this line from “Mary Did You Know?” “Did you know…when you kiss your little baby, you’ve kissed the face of God?” Don’t we all feel that when we kiss our babies? Kissing my little Terzo is just like that. Even after he’s spit up on me for the gazillionth time. (I know you're wondering, but I am indeed serious. The holidays bring out my schmaltzy side, apparently.)
Of course, I also got to hear a charming little ditty to the tune of “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” called, “The Restroom Door Said Gentlemen,” which wasn’t half so bad as “I Saw Daddy Fondle Santa Claus.” Which honest to God I heard the other day.

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Snippets:

Because it’s really important to know when there’s a Volcanic Ash Advisory.

This AA Milne Christmas story is just cool. With his clever wordplay, I enjoy reading his Pooh stories as much as, if not more than, Primo does. I’m looking forward to reading this.

I want this. And I may just buy it for myself.

I want one of everything, please.

Bumper sticker spotted on the way home from Toys R Us today: (accompanied by a graphic of the state of Florida) “Electile Dysfunction.”

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Near my dentist’s office (I had my teeth cleaned this morning – the hygienist commented that she was so happy I had “taken some time to do something for myself.” Sorry, but having my teeth scraped and prodded and flossed is NOT my idea of pampering myself, babe!) is this great little store called Snow Lion Imports. I had exactly three minutes to browse – they had gorgeous raw silk Tibetan wrap skirts, and even gorgeous-er patterned wool wraps from Nepal. And some great jewelry, especially necklaces, especially one in onyx and silver, with several layers of beaded neck stringeys. And cute little gilt-trimmed bags. And a gradated-blue scarf with deep blue fringes. And a lovely blue mandarin-collared silk shirt. And lots and lots of great textile-y stuff I WANT.

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Good googley moogley, I actually FINISHED a whole book. (Two, in fact, if you count the first Magic Treehouse book. Which I really don’t. Except that Jack and Annie are working to solve these riddles so they can become Master Librarians – how cool is that? I only had to complete a graduate degree.) Anyhoo, I finished Ayun Halliday’s Job-Hopper: The Checkered Career of a Down-Market Dilettante - she reads very much like Sarah Vowell, another nasal-voiced chickie I enjoy a lot. I am one of a very teeny-tiny minority of people who has NEVER waitressed (my people skills are lacking…hard to believe, eh?) and this book merely reinforced my belief that that may have been my smartest-ever career move.

There was a typo on the back cover of the book though that is driving me nuts – how can any editor worth her salt let a typo on the BACK COVER get by her?? During her time in the paid job market, Ayun Halliday has managed to rack up a terrifying array of short-lived stints, including ersatz costume designer, belligerent artist’s model, bain of professional secretaries everywhere (a.k.a. “temp”), and Bert of Sesame Street for enthusiastic department store crowds. Inexcusable! Lynne Truss has nothing on me, I tell ya!

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Primo and I had to go to Toys R Us today to exchange the duplicate engines he had received for his birthday. He already has Toby and Percy. He could not make up his mind. He dithered and whined and whimpered and couldn’t decide.

I told him that he’d have twenty dollars of store credit and then that he had ten dollars from Grandpap’s money game. (This money game is this tense little exercise in which Grandpap holds out two fists, and the unfortunate child picks one. If he picks correctly, he gets the dollar in Grandpap’s hand. If he picks incorrectly – nada. OK, now here comes the stressful part for our little gamblers – he can go for a fiver with his one, but if he guesses wrong this time, he loses both. And Primo guessed wrong this time, which, to be honest, almost NEVER happens. He manfully joked, “That’s never happened before,” and then came to me and buried his head in my lap. Grandpap decided to salvage the situation by offering him a special birthday opportunity to go for a ten, and God knows how he rigged it, or if he rigged it, but Primo got his ten. So things were ok again. I hate this game but apparently I am the only parent that does. But then I have all *sorts* of bizarre opinions, like my kids have to eat dinner if they hope to get birthday cake, and they are not allowed to drink soda. So who will listen to me?) At any rate, Primo had his ten to spend too. So he picked out Henry and James. I happen to know that he is getting Henry and James for Christmas from his aunt but decided that I’d let him get the engines he wanted now and deal with returning the duplicates (again) later. He’s five, and it’s his birthday, and sometimes that trumps all other considerations. We were walking out of the store when Primo stopped to play on one of those ride-on thingeys that you put the quarters in and they move – only he doesn’t like them to move so he’s a cheap date – when he remembered that we had bought Terzo James for Christmas, along with a video. So we go back into Toys R Us, and he decided to return Henry as well, and he gets Trevor. Who is much cheaper than James or Henry. So I tell him to pick out another, and he gets Alfie and Jack, who are also way cheaper individually than Henry or James. OF COURSE I wind up kicking in extra money because I have forgotten to factor in tax and whatnot, but considering I have been filching his money to fuel my peppermint mocha habit for the past week, I can’t deny him, and he was so happy and excited by his purchases that he even said he’d share them with Segundo right away. And I don’t have to set foot in Hell Iz Us – er, Toys R Us - till after Christmas when I have to return the duplicate James engine. Or maybe the boys can learn to live with two Jameses – Jamii? – maybe he can be re-dubbed James the Schizophrenic Engine.

See, sometimes I am a good mother.