Let's take a minute

to think about Daniel Shaull. Do you know Daniel? I don't know him. Never seen him. Never talked to him. Never even heard his name until this weekend. He's dominated my mental space since then though. I didn't want to write about him, but he won't leave me alone. Maybe if I give him his moment, he will let me relax and think about more pleasant things.

I became aware of Daniel's existence only after his death yesterday. Daniel died because he couldn't stop knowing things. It's the same thing that drives us all to varying levels of insanity. The damn knowing. The pictures that keep running through your head while you're trying to play with your kids or watching a funny movie with your parents. The knowledge while I'm there with my family, cozy, relaxing, they are in terror and agony that is far beyond words. The knowledge that some of the people I love, who are in the room with me laughing, are directly contributing to the problem(s).

Daniel's dad didn't understand how knowing affected Daniel. He simplified and dismissed Daniel's final battle by attributing it to a mental health issue. Some have characterized him as a terrorist. Daniel realized that no matter how much he did, even if he spent every waking moment devoted only to trying to fix it, that it would never even make a dent in the suffering. The absolute despair that crushes the soul once that realization sinks in and takes hold. It hurts too much to go on. The knowing how it is, how it will continue to be is ... too damn much.

Did Daniel have mental health issues, as his father states? How could he not? Have you ever seen the terror in the eyes of the beings who are crowded in absolutely filthy, tiny cages? The noise in there from hundreds, or thousands, of animals stacked in a barn or garage or warehouse? The screams of pain as they are electrocuted and skinned (while still alive)? The screams of the other beings watching this happen, knowing the same fate awaited them in the near future? The smells? The sounds? Sheer agony. Are you strong enough to even watch a video of what Daniel knew? That would at least spare you the noise (truly not the same on video!) and the smell. Some people are able to stop knowing things like that. I don't understand that as I'm not one of those people. Neither was Daniel.

Did he self-medicate with illegal drugs? Maybe. Not really relevant, though. I'm learning slowly and painfully to accept the fact that heros don't have to be perfect. They never are. They are just people after all. I always want my heroes to be perfect. I Know they can't be, but I work hard to believe that they are. Daniel's flaws and weaknesses do not invalidate everything else about him.

I don't know anything about Daniel's personal life and issues, other than what I've read over the past couple of days. I don't need to know. I don't know Daniel's reasons for deciding to end his life at 26 yesterday. I only know he made a choice that day that he would end his life. Specifically, that he would end his life by going to Ungar's Furs in Portland, OR, dousing himself in gasoline, and lighting himself on fire. He used his voice to cry out that they're DYING--animals are DYING! I hear the pain in his final screams--not the physical pain, the pain of knowing and being unable to ever un-know.

Daniel was new to Portland and wasn't know by or "plugged in" to the AR community at all. I'm sad that he didn't have the support and friendship of those in the AR community. It may have helped him deal with some issues differently. I know that a big topic of discussion right now is who is "claiming" Daniel versus who is "denying" him. I'm not going to do either. I'm just going to say that I HEARD him. I heard that he was willing to burn himself alive in order to get attention and an audience for his message. I recognize the courage it took for him to do what he did. Daniel wanted to make his death count; I am doing what I can to help him achieve that. I'm asking you to just take a minute to think about Daniel, a courageous but tortured soul. He lived. He suffered. He took a stand. Alone. He died. He counted.

Please take a stand against fur! Don't wear it and speak out to let others know how cruel and unecessary fur, in ALL forms, truly is!

I can pretty much guarantee that none of my blog readers' wear fear--not coats or wraps anyway. I do have to interject here that the desperate fur makers, losing business in droves (because the majority of the public doesn't approve of the cruelty and it isn't too inconvenient to give up!) has started to get sneaky with their fur. It's being used in more items as trim lining (for hoods, mittens, etc.), and people don't really notice. Please watch for these sneaky fur infiltrations!

FOUR!!

I love my new shirt!

It's so much better than the hard reality!

Six

I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoy watching the little voles and chipmunks that gather food from my stray-cat feeding station by our side door. They’ve done it for years, but this is the first year that the little vole(s?) showed some real intelligence.

Typically, the voles always emerge from a hole behind the little house (technically a dog house) in which I keep the food dish, and run along the side, around to the front, snatch the food, and then run back to their hole. They cleverly figured out this year that if they move their hole, they are barely exposed to the cold, dangerous above-ground word at all. Now the just pop out from hole that’s directly under the opening of the house where the food dish is, stuff their cheeks, and pop back down. How cute is that?!!

Seven

Today's good news is that we finished the puzzle. It felt so great to get back to it and finish it, as the incomplete puzzle has been taunting me since Sunday night! Even better, L was dressed this afternoon when we finished, so I got pictures this time. M even took one, because L was determined that we have a pic with the puzzle, her and each of us (since there was nobody there to take a pic of all three of us). L put the last piece in.

I had my first class tonight and a full classroom. I'm excited to get to know my new group of students. I always get so lucky! I swear I get the best classes ever!

My morning was not good. It was just ridiculous. L, Chloe and I were rushing out the door (on time!), and in the process of giving Daisy & Jezebel their goodbye treats, I bent over too far and spilled my ice-cold water down the entire front of my left leg. Then it got worse. I clicked the garage-door opener and nothing happened. I pressed it a few more times, while walking right up to the door. Still nothing. It doesn't sound that bad, but here's the problem: The garage door is the only door on the garage. I repeatedly start cranking it up as hard as I can, but no luck. It was really, really cold and windy. My left leg froze.

I then spent 15 minutes or so gathering all of the keys in our house. Literally, every. single. key.

I tried each of them in the lock on the garage door handle, thinking it would allow me to open it manually if I could unlock it. I had to get it open, so I decided to take the day off so I could really deal with it, rather than working from home.

I called the husband who called a locksmith. Mark, from Aaron's Lock & Safe (based in Beloit, WI), came a few hours later. He was VERY nice and tried his best, but no success. He was able to pick the garage lock with no problem, but we still couldn't get the door open. He tried to troubleshoot and asked if he could walk around and check the garage out for ideas. He came up with my last-resort option, so that was my confirmation that we were stuck with trying to remove the window. It was really cold outside, and he was out there doing his best. He only charged me one-half the minimum service-call fee, which was extremely reasonable. I would definitely call Aaron's again in the unfortunate event that I need a locksmith (again)!

My dad came by after work, and by that time M was home, too. They worked, out in the COLD, for quite a long time trying to pound out the small wood window, with six pains of glass. It was

secured inside quite well. We lost two pains of glass, but they eventually got the window pounded out, M climbed up a small ladder and into the window and YES!! got the garage door opened! My car was liberated at last, thanks to the guys!

Then I have to jump back to this morning. I noticed Chloe was limping around, and it got progressively worse throughout the morning. By lunch time, she was holding it up and hopping around. It was her right front paw, she's chubby and has hip displaysia, so hobbling around on three feet was not easy for her. I couldn't carry her safely down the stairs. I tried, and realized quickly that I couldn't make it even half way, and it was likely to end very badly. Fortunately, she was able to 'hold it' until M got home and carried her outside. I gave her a dog inflammatory/pain pill, and that seems to be helping a bit. I can see that her 'wrist joint' is swollen. If it's not better tomorrow, we'll be visiting the vet. Again.

Tomorrow will be better.

8 days!!

I initially planned to post some pics I took of the fire and working on the puzzle. I realized when I uploaded, that my child is in her undies, so those pics will not be shared. L took these pictures (along with many, many more) over the weekend. 1.) My parents' dog, Nala; 2.) Our Ivan; 3.) Our girl.

We enjoyed a much-needed, very boring weekend. We’ve been on the go so much lately, that we were really happy to have time at home with nothing but chores to keep us busy.

Dej came over on Th & Fr nights again this week. She must be really, really bored with life lately. I’m not complaining, as it’s been nice to have her visit with us so often and so long the last couple of weeks. We both go back to school this week, so I expect she will have much less hang-out time from now until the end of the semester.

We had to run out to Target to pick up some very mundane household things, and I got a scale. We have never had one. I was hoping it would provide a little encouragement to help keep me motivated. I was wrong.

Three weeks of working out and cutting back my food intake has netted me a loss of 14 ounces. I know the weight I started with, because despite my efforts at my last doctor visit to NOT see the ugly number on the scale, my doctor felt the need to read the hideous number off my chart to me. She said it out loud. It was four pounds less than I weighed when I gave birth to Luciana, who was definitely not a small baby! Yay, me—I’ve busted my ass for three weeks to get down to 4 pounds and 14 ounces less than I weighed when I gave birth. At this rate, I may be able to get the damn dress zipped up in time for next year’s Vegantines dinner.

On the positive side, the scale has opened up a new hobby for my husband. He marched down the stairs and proudly proclaimed that he weighed himself right before and right after 'taking his dump', and wanted me to guess how many pounds he dropped. I guessed three pounds, thinking that was on the high side, even for him. I was wrong. It was 6.2 pounds. He was so proud. He drops six pounds in five minutes. I can't drop that in three weeks. He's all mine ladies. Don't be jealous. A few brief minutes later, he and L decided that the were going to get some graph paper and start keeping track. Niiiice. I guess that's one way to keep her interested in the graphing unit of her maths.

The cats have a little cold cycling through the herd. It started with Oliver, who has since recovered. Now Carrie has it. It just causes them to sneeze a ton and have a bit of a runny nose. They are fine other than that. I of course still have to worry and watch them obsessively just in case it turns into something else. The worst of it is, that since Oliver & Carrie are both among the group that spends the entire night, every night, in our bed, I have been awakened several times a night for the last week by sneezing fits.

Last night was great and would have been much better had it not been followed by a Monday. L, M and I all worked together on a dragon puzzle that she got for xmas. The plan was to play a game, but instead of selecting a game, she returned with her new dragon puzzle. We got it about half complete by her bedtime. M had a nice fire going, so we worked on the living room floor. L had enough presence of mind to start it out on the puzzle roll-up mat we recently got for just this reason.

Because we were working on the floor, it served as an open invitation to the cats to parade across the puzzle/working surface repeatedly. I watched them. They had no place to go once they traversed the puzzle area. They seriously kept walking over it just because they could. Ivan was the worst offender. I think he was going for some kind of record to see just how many times he could go back and forth.

I was hoping we would be able to finish it up tonight, but no. We only have about 30 pieces left, but they are in a difficult area (the dragon wings) and we just couldn't put bedtime off any more than we already had. We should be able to get it done before I go to class tomorrow.

a shit blizzard

Dej & Luke came over Thursday and Friday nights to hang out for a while. It’s rare that I get two nights in a row, especially including a weekend night! One of the nights we chatted and the other we chatted while we watched Trailer Park Boys (god that show is funny, and I Love Lehey!). She’s excited and ready to get back to school. She goes back on the 25^th, and I start teaching on the 26^th. I’m not quite ready to lose my T/Th evenings again, but I’ll have fun once I get into the groove of the semester. The bummer of it, though, is that I will not be able to watch L's gymnastics class on Tuesday nights, as it is during my class time.

Saturday my mom and I attended my friend’s Lia Sophia party. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to buy all of the things I admired, but it was fun to look. It was also nice to see my friend, Danelle (and her husband & baby too), as it’s been waaaaay too long. She has a beautiful family and home, and they are all happy and healthy, and it really made my day to see her in such a great place! She's another strong woman who has worked so hard for everything she has.

I squeezed that into the day between the epic weekly herbivore room/cage cleaning and moving more furniture around to accommodate L’s continuing bedroom switch. I think we have everything done and set in her new room, except the walk-in closet that is full of Hunter’s salvaged electronics equipment/parts and the computers he’s building. Once I get the closet done, the bedroom change will be officially completed.We are all done with the furniture moving at least (until next spring when we have to clear everything out again to get her floors refinished).

Sunday L reached a milestone in her Bharatanatyam class. She completed the last (step 15) of her adavus. Each of the 15 steps has many moves to it—some of them have more than 16 movements (on each side—right & left)—and the technique and execution must be completely correct. She will have a test this coming Sunday on her nat adavus(steps 8-15), so she will need to practice hard this week to get step 15 perfect. It’s not as difficult or complex as some of the others, but for some reason she struggled with it. It took a lot of work and practice, and I’m proud of her for sticking with it. And I still don’t have to argue with her to get her to practice every day. She loves it. I wish I could say the same for her daily piano practice!

I was also really proud of her tonight in gymnastics, because she finally got her one-handed cartwheel. Dej had mastered it at a much younger age, but gymnastics as a whole came much, much easier for her than for L. She has to work really hard for every skill she masters, and I really appreciate the effort she puts into it.

Sunday night was family movie night. L (or maybe Mark, I think) picked out the movie, 9. It was ummm…different. The plot was weak and full of holes—seemed like an afterthought to the graphics. It didn’t really blow us away, though L seemed to enjoy it. Fortunately it was only 80 minutes long. Truthfully, L probably enjoys the experience of family movie night moreso than the movie itself. She always has to have popcorn (even if we’ve just finished dinner) and an assortment of other snacks.

The three of us and the three dogs all piled together on the two small couches (love seats, really) down in the family room. Lots of family togetherness happening and lots of re-situating, thanks to the dogs. Chloe prefers to either have the small couch to herself or to be between M & I on the bigger couch. There wasn’t room to accommodate all six of us on the bigger couch, though the dogs kept trying. The dogs are always very concerned with having a more desirable position or toy. The more desirable position or toy is always one that is possessed by another dog. It’s a constant reshuffling of toys and location, which can get a little annoying after a while. Before it reaches the point of annoyance, it’s pretty entertaining to watch the three of them scheme, manipulate and blatantly lie to one another to get what they want.

L & I enjoyed staying home yesterday. I had the day off (state required) but she didn’t. She got her Monday homeschooling work done. When I wasn’t working directly with her, I was able to be productive as well. I got my rosters/schedules/materials for my class ready, so I’m ready to go on the 26^th. We had a pretty good day. Although almost any day that doesn’t involve me having to get up early is a pretty good day!

These are thimbles that L made for me out of her sculpting clay. She painted and decorated them after the clay dried. They were a surprise gift for me. I have a little case hanging in the hallway upstairs that contains my childhood thimble collection. My grandma thought I should collect something as souvenirs of our travels. How thimbles were selected, I’m not quite sure, but that was the decision. As I traveled, we picked up thimbles from each location. She got me a collectible case for them. Had my grandma not been so involved with it, the collection would probably have disappeared along with my other various childhood collections (there were many, but I have no recollection of what happened to them). I haven’t added to the collection for ages. L likes to look at them and we talk about where they came from and my associated memories. I love the thimbles she made and am so happy to add them to my collection. As always, she put a lot of thought and time into selecting colors/designs that I like. She’s such a thoughtful girl (most of the time anyway)!

I am holding myself accountable by publicly checking in on my fitness resolution. That way, if I fall off the wagon, I have to humiliate myself by admitting that I'm a lazy quitter. I have worked out at least once and sometimes twice a day, every single day of the new year. I don't have a scale, so I don't know if I've lost anything (though I seriously doubt it at this point), but I am definitely feeling more energetic, stronger, healthier. I like the feeling. I remind myself over and over every single day of all the reasons why I need to get off my ass and exercise, and then I pat myself on the back quite liberally after I actually do it. I'm feeling optimistic about my body and hope to be able to actually SEE results soon!

Way back

TEN

Last weekend brought us date night. We went to see, “It’s Complicated” at the Sundance Theater. It was the first time we had been there, and we went because M had won a gift certificate for the Sundance as part of his prize for winning the chili cookoff. The movie was excellent overall. There were a few parts with the ‘children’ that were a little overly dramatic, and the actor who played Meryl Streep’s son was horrible. (He’s also in Weeds, and we don’t really enjoy him in that either). That being said, I laughed a lot and teared up a few times. Meryl Streep was amazing in the role (but isn’t she always!) as was Alec Baldwin. Steve Martin was kind of bleh, and I was distracted by his weird eyes and the bad facial work he’s obviously had.

The movie was very timely for me, as I’ve been struggling with my changing appearance as I’ve aged and put on weight. I had a bit of an epiphany. Meryl Streep was incredibly sexy in the movie—she just glowed! I saw a woman older than me who was sexier than any of the other women, even the much younger and thinner women in the movie. She looks very natural and doesn’t appear to have had any work done, but I don't know for sure. If given the choice, I and I imagine most men would choose to be with her 58-yr old character than the young, stick women in the movie. I have had a hard time envisioning anyone chosing to be with an older woman for reasons other than they are married to her and stuck with it and/or aren’t capable of attracting the younger, thinner women. Seeing her in this role made me see, for the first time since I’ve hit middle age, that there is hope for sexiness and it doesn’t have to all be in my past. I may need to watch the movie a few more times to really make sure that little epiphany ‘sticks’, but I feel much better about myself and my changing looks than I have for a long time!

The movie was well done and very empowering to women, while not being heavy-handed or preachy. I highly recommend it for anyone, but particularly for the women. Despite being billed as a romantic comedy (which M & I usually loathe), it was far more than that and managed to escape being a “chick flick” (which we avoid at all costs).

Sunday we celebrated Luciana’s birthday. She turned ten! My baby has hit the double digits, and I’m not very happy about it. She decided that she would rather have a party in the summer for her half birthday than do it now in the ugly, cold winter. So for now, we just did the family thing. She wanted me to make cupcakes (chocolate with pink frosting) for her ‘cake’ and go out to Olive Garden for her birthday meal. Both sets of grandparents, her beloved Uncle Dan, her sister (and Luke), and Hunter joined us for her birthday dinner.

She had Bharatanatyam class before her birthday gathering, and since it was on her exact birthday, she wanted to take treats to class. I first learned of her plans last Sunday when I heard her telling Meenakshi (her teacher) that next Sunday was her birthday and she was bringing cupcakes for everyone. She was pretty excited to take treats, and the girls all sang Happy Birthday to her. Behind the embarassed little hands was her happy grin. I'm not sure why she decided to wear American clothing to class that day, as she normally prefers a salwar. I'll never figure her out!

She got many nice gifts (too many) from her very generous family and friends (again, my friend Orinda went overboard). Her big gift from Mark and I was a digital camera of her own. She loves to take pictures and make art projects with them. She has a very interesting perspective to her photography. We are looking forward to seeing her view of the world in photos.

I’m fairly certain, though, that her favorite gift was from her sister. Dej gave her a card with a note saying that L’s gift was that D was taking her shopping to spend $100 however she wanted. I tried many times over the last few weeks to get D to cut the amount, as it’s ridiculously huge, but she said L is her only baby sister and it’s her right to spend whatever she wants. L would have been equally happy with $5 to spend. Her excitement was a result of having an outing alone with her sister.

They went last night (while I was stuck at a board meeting) and L was still walking on air and talking a hundred miles a minute about her awesome night with Dej when I got home at almost 10:00pm! She was happy with the gifts she selected, particularly since some of them would never have gotten past me. They went to the mall, had dinner at Panda Express, went to Hobby Lobby, and Target. I’m so glad they had fun!

But my baby is 10!!

I'm Down with OPP

Yesterday L came downstairs wearing a tank top and miniskirt (which was actually an old dance skirt from Dej. Since we were home schooling all day, I let it go until it was time to leave the house and go to my parents' for dinner. I sent her upstairs to get weather-appropriate clothing on. This is how she came down. She added thigh-high socks and boots and claimed it was perfectly weather appropriate. It was 17 degrees and snowing.

We've had a fairly busy day today, filled with homeschooling, taking the dogs swimming, and taking Oliver to the vet. He had a sore, which of course has to be not just a sore but an auto-immune thing which I can't remember. He got a steroid shot today and a 2-week round of antibiotics. He may have to go every three weeks for a steroid shot. We'll see. I'm pretty sure he will, because that's the most expensive option and my animals always find ways to spend my money!

Tonight we are staying in having a quiet family night. I will get to join my family after I spend a couple of hours cleaning & feeding the herbivore room. I, out of habit, have always called it the birdroom, but herbivore room is a more accurate title. I don't want to leave out the rabbits, guinea pigs or gerbil, and herbivore covers all of the residents. Well, crap, sort of. I guess the three doves aren't technically herbivores, as they eat bugs/worms. But they eat an herbivore diet here, so I guess that's still good.

M & L are having fun playing Prof. Layton and the Diabolical Box on her Nintendo DS. It's a very challenging educational game, and she loves it. I'm happy to let her play that! So far, we haven't had any problems with overusing it or displacing reading, drawing, or other activities for it. We haven't even had to put limits on it yet. I'm quite happy about that and pleasantly surprised by her moderate, mature usage.

Here's Tica in a Tutu, just because she's so damn cute!

Feeling chatty

We took the kids through the Olbrich conservatory yesterday after L's dance. They were little turds and wouldn't cooperate with my picture taking efforts. I got a few pretty flower photos, though.

It’s been tough getting up early and going to work this week! My body is not happy about the early waking or about the ridiculous cold weather. So far, I have stuck to my only New Year’s resolution of working out every day. It hasn’t been long, but it’s so hard for me to get up early, let alone get up earlier to work out, that I’m pretty happy with myself for every day that I stick with it.

Now that L has moved into her sister’s old (and much bigger) bedroom, I have an exercise room. Well, it’s actually the cats’ room, but they have agreed to share it with me if I keep my stuff out of their way. J I have all of my equipment neatly organized in one spot and have enough room to comfortably work out. That removes one more barrier for me, and it all helps. Previously, we had the weights in one room, the exercise balls in another, my yoga stuff elsewhere, and the treadmill on a completely different floor.

I’m sore today, but in a good way. I love the feel of a good burn after a workout! Despite sleeping poorly the last two nights and returning to work after a long vacation, I am still feeling in a better, more energetic mood as a result of exercising. So why the hell am I unable to stick with it on a long-term basis?!! I’m feeling positive right now, and this is the year I will finally get my healthy body back! I’m so sick of being a big slug!

Yesterday I got a little Monday bonus when I left work. Sometimes when the weather is super cold, the payment machines in the lot in which I park do not work well. The machine couldn’t read my ticket yesterday, and the dispatcher couldn’t find anyone in the vicinity, so she just let me out with no charge. And of all days, on my long day (which is the most costly). It was an unexpected little gift of $11.50 that I didn’t have to spend to park my car! It’s a little strange that things like that make me so happy!

Over the holiday break, I started re-reading one of the best fiction books ever written—I’d put it in my top five for sure: House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. It’s extremely original, multi-layered, and the way he uses language is powerful, artistic, and shows that he loves each individual word and all the nuances that accompany it. I can’t recommend this book highly enough! I will be finished in a few days and will be happy to loan it out. I’ve loaned it to many, many people through the years, and all have loved it! One even loved it so much he kept my battered copy and gave me a new one as a ‘thank you’ for sharing such genius. I’m enjoying it as much (if not more) my second time through and am already planning another re-reading fairly soon. There’s so much going on that I think you could read it endlessly and keep discovering new, interesting things.

I started listening to God is Not Great during my work commute this week and am greatly enjoying it. It’s been on my short list to read but I haven’t gotten to it yet. I saw it available on CD, read by the author, on our last library visit, so I checked it out. I’m loving the book, and it’s even better listening to Hitchens read it himself (with his very dignified British accent). He’s a writer that I respect quite a bit. Anybody who insists on being waterboarded as research for his story on torturing POWs certainly deserves my respect. Beyond that, though, I find him an intelligent and impressive human being. (Who also happens to be a vegetarian, as are all truly intelligent and compassionate people. Yep, I’ve said it and stand by it. If you’re not vegetarian/vegan then you are lacking or deficient in one or both of these traits. You can decide which.)
____________________


Since I wrote the above, my spirits have dropped considerably. I've been waiting for a dress I ordered to arrive, and it arrived today. I've been trying to find a "little black dress" that fits and will work for dressy events until I lose weight. I found one online that I LOVED and ordered it. I knew it would be close, because the chest measurement they had listed was very iffy, but I figured (or hoped, more accurately) I would be able to scrunch the girls in. I LOVED the dress in person--it's gorgeous! I put it on, zipped it up, and as soon as I got to the bustline, the zipper stopped and refused to go any higher. From that point down, the dress fit great and looked great. I called M to bring a goddamn shoehorn and get the fucker to zip whatever it takes. He was afraid to rip the dress, and wouldn't force it the rest of the way up. Fuckety fuck fuck (yep, I'm so annoyed I'm cursing like a small child)!

I have to lose 1" from the girls to get into that dress, and I have 31 days to do it. I'm so flipping sick of having pointless, heavy, huge breasts. I want to shrink them. I have to find a way. I mentioned the term, "reduction", and after my husband spun his head around 360 degrees and said "Nooooooo" in a Satan voice, I thought I'd better try to eat next to nothing, take all the supplements I can find, and workout everyday. If they don't start shrinking the old fashioned way, I will revisit the discussion. I've just had enough of them--they are impossible to shop for!

So then I decided to investigate shapewear. I have never worn any type of shapewear and vowed that I never would. I HATE tight clothes. I feel like I'm suffocating. But I'm also desperate. So I'm checking out the Spanx options online when I saw these pictures and got really irritated. It's shapewear for god's sake! Why do they have 80 pound stick women modeling it? Seriously, who wears shapewear--not the anorexic chics! Are real women with curves so scary that they can't even model the clothing that is made for them? WTF! Then I start to notice that all of the pictures, the models have on this red necklace and they are smiling and laughing. Yeah, because we all walk around socializing in jewelry, heels and fat hiders. Who the hell needs a dress when you have shapewear with red necklaces red hooker shoes.

the holidays

We enjoyed a fairly quiet, lowkey holiday season. The reality of heading back to work and life as normal tomorrow is slapping me in the face tonight. I'm not at all happy about having to get up early again. It's been so nice to have so much family time over the last couple of weeks!

The kids got many nice gifts. L especially was thrilled to receive a pink Nintendo DS from my overly generous friend, Orinda. She was so surprised, as we've held a hard line on the 'no video game' line. O. checked with us first, and we decided to let her get one but to get only educational games for it. O also got her a game to go with it, and she's been loving it! It is a very educational game with lots of puzzles, and she's had so much fun trying to figure each of the puzzles out.

She was also really happy on xmas morning to find that Santa had yet again gotten her a gift her parents had told her she couldn't have--a 'sea monster' set. So far we have a few of the little buggers swimming around in there, but she put a ton of eggs in there that didn't seem to hatch. Their life cycle is only around 16-20 days, though when Dej used to do sea monkeys, they didn't seem to live nearly that long. We were careful about following all of the directions, but they RARELY lived past two weeks.

We stuck with all of our standard holiday traditions, with one slight alteration. Instead of our usual xmas eve butterballs, I decided to go wild and make grasshoppers instead. It's been probably 20 years since I've had a grasshopper. They were as good as I remembered them, and they were fine with soy ice cream (I wasn't totally sure it would work).

Dej had her first 'grown up' xmas this year. The vast majority of the gifts we got her were household items. She seemed happy with everything. I know it was all stuff she needed and will use, but I hope she wasn't disappointed by getting almost all practical gifts.

I think we are all (the B side of the familly) really happy with doing something fun together instead of buying/accumulating more stuff. Last year we all went to see Stomp. This year we will be going to an event together next month. I can't say what it is yet, because M wants it to be a surprise for L.

We got together on NYE as usual and ate, hung out, and played games.

Whenever we got the chance on NYE/NY, the girls and I watched the Twilight Zone marathon. That's always been one of our favorite parts of the holiday!