You can do it. We can help... you load it into your car, at least.

OK, this just in, in case you weren't aware. It is now a mere FIVE DAYS until Christmas. I'm not exactly sure how that happened, but I remain convinced that my house is riddled with worm holes or some such thing. Frequent stumbles into time warps are the only explanation for what on earth happened to large chunks of 2009. On a related note, it seems the Internet does not stop just because I'm too busy working, making Christmas treats, or obsessing about bathroom tile. No, I just clicked over to Bloglines for the first time in over a week, and the rest of you have still been busy writing away... It reminds me of that episode of Growing Pains where Mike stayed home from school for a day and had a really obvious epiphany that the programming on television goes on even when he turns the set off, and the day at school went on as normal even though he was not there. It's an obscure reference, I realize, but the Internet taught me that I'm not the only one who thinks of Tom Hanks as Elyse Keaton's alcoholic brother every time I use vanilla extract, so you never know, I guess. Incidentally, I also think of Mike Seaver seeing his dead relative jogging through the kitchen in the middle of the night every time I need to buy buttermilk. (Anyone? No? Moving on then.) My point is I will catch up eventually. I have very little planned socially in the week following Christmas, so I suspect it will be me cozied up with the Internet for at least a few nights there. See you then.

So. What have I been up to lately? Well, I successfully finished on time all but two of the hand-made gifts I'd planned for friends this Christmas. Here are three of them, modeled by their lovely recipients last night.



That picture was taken at my pal Lisa's Christmas party, for which she promised prizes in various holiday spirit categories, much like the Ugly Sweater parties that have become so popular in recent years. Lisa added a similar challenge to the Evite for her last Christmas party, in 2007, and several attendees stepped up to the plate. If you're the sort of person who somehow manages to remember everything I write, perhaps that rings a bell. If not, again, here is the photographic evidence from that event. Me in a ridiculous outfit? Check. But alone in the ridiculousness? Hardly.



(I hate that picture of myself, by the way. Unfortunately, it's the only one I have that serves the purpose at hand.) 

This year, however? This year I was THE ONLY ONE TO PARTICIPATE. Apparently in two short years my friends have all gotten too busy or dignified for such nonsense. People, I was just following instructions. The invitation called for holiday flair, and I brought it. I planned ahead, even. I went to freaking eBay, and I bought these silly, festive tights from a shop that I'm pretty sure deals mostly in stripper wear and "I'm a sexy [insert any occupation or person-noun here]" supplies. I bought those tights, and I wore this ridiculous outfit, like I was bound directly for my part-time job at Santa's photo booth at the mall.



I wore that outfit, and I went to the party, and I was THE ONLY ONE not in normal Saturday night gathering attire. (No, red and white striped tights do not fall under the category of "Normal Saturday Night Gathering Attire" for me. Thanks for wondering, though.) It was not unlike the year in college when my friend Sarah had a Halloween party on November 1. It was a mere DAY after Halloween, which was presumably a very logical night for a Halloween party, given that it was a Friday, and Halloween itself did not fall on a weekend. And yet, when we went out to the bars, all the usual Friday night bar-goers in their usual Friday night outfits looked at us as confused and appalled as if we had walked in wearing Halloween costumes in the middle of May. I am prone to finding myself unknowingly inappropriately dressed and out of place, it seems. Perhaps that explains a lot. On the upside, obviously I won a prize last night, given that the competition was so slim. I now have two pretty new bottles of lovely-smelling hand soap to eventually use in my soon-to-be lovely remodeled bathroom. So there is that, anyway.

Speaking of my bathroom, I bought tile today! Lots of tile. So much tile that the helpful young man loading it into my car asked, "How far are you driving with this? I'm thinking maybe you should make two trips." It turns out it's not enough to know confidently that everything you're piling onto the wheeled flatbed cart will easily fit in your compact Saturn SL2. Apparently one needs to consider the total weight of what you're piling on the flatbed cart as well. And apparently a small bathroom's worth of wall and floor tile weighs significantly more than I anticipated, because as we loaded it up, my car was riding lower than if I'd had Gilbert Grape's mother and two clones of her riding in all my passenger seats. Live and learn. Load capacity matters. Who knew? (Well, most of you, I presume.)

Incidentally, can I just say, since I fear I mention companies by name only when I have an angry bone to pick with them (I'm looking at YOU, TCF Bank; you're still ON NOTICE, as our friend Stephen Colbert would say!!) that in my humble experience, the orange-aproned personnel at Home Depot have been a bit unfairly maligned? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the Home Depot off Johnson in Minneapolis is a rare bastion of friendliness in an otherwise cold, cruel, orange-aproned world. Still. I have never gone there and not had at least two employees ask me, in a strangely sincere and earnest tone, if there was anything they could help me figure out or find. True, half the time it is a male employee who is hovering precariously on the delicate line between congenial customer service and creepy, inappropriate and awkward flirting. But today it was a 20-something woman who went above and beyond what I would ever expect an orange-aproned employee to do for me. She was the one who crawled into the cave of scaffolding to retrieve 13 packages of white ceramic subway tile for me, and she was the one to whom I first asked, "Do you think this is too much to try to haul in my car?" And instead of giving me a blank look that said, "Why are you asking me that? My job is to sell you the tile; how you get it home is your business," she replied, "What kind of car do you have? I could go Google the load capacity to find out..." Unfortunately, for once Google wasn't all-knowing, and the call she put out on her walkie-talkie ("Does anyone know the load capacity of a Saturn sedan?") didn't yield any solid answers either, and our seemingly sound math of "That's probably not more than 800 pounds of tile, and surely you could cart around four 200-pound humans without any worries" didn't exactly pan out, so I ended up leaving half my tile at the service counter and making a second trip to pick it up. But still! Helpful employees! At Home Depot! In this day and age! You may say it's a Christmas miracle, but I'm telling you, strangely it's somehow par for the course for me.

I would like to think that pleasant experiences like this bode well for the overall spirit of this project and serve as a sign that all will go fast and smooth, according to plan. I am sticking my fingers in my ears and saying "La-la-la, I can't hear you!" every time anyone tells me about their bathroom remodeling nightmares, because I am already dreading the period during which I'll be bathroom-less and I am possibly in denial, truly hoping that period will last for no longer than a week. The end result will be worth the inconvenience, and perhaps living like a resident of a third-world country will be a valuable, humbling experience for me. The baby Jesus didn't have a shower either, did he, but did that stop him from carrying out his duties as Son of Man? It's been a while since Catholic school, but I'm gonna say no.

I'm well aware Tiny Tim had a tougher row to hoe and a better attitude. What of it?

OK, seriously. December already? Could someone tell me how exactly that happened? Pipe down, smartasses; you don't actually need to explain the intricacies of the Gregorian calendar to me. Rhetorical questions are still valid ones sometimes, I say.

So it's December, and I'm supposed to be all glowy with the warmth of the damn holiday spirit, but alas, December is stressing me out. Yes, on only the second day. The whole month stretches ahead of me, and yet, all I can think about are the hand-knit gifts that I was going to start IN JULY but that remain only half finished three weeks before Christmas. Or the salted chocolate truffles that I made recently, thinking that they'd be lovely little tokens for my friends and family, but that for some reason have already grown ugly, mottled light spots like year-old Halloween candy. (Not that anyone would know what that looks like, I assume.) So at the moment, my half-finished and failure-ridden home-made gift efforts seem most well suited to the Island of Misfit Toys (and, er, Candy and Scarves). Woe is me and my dashed hopes of from-the-heart thriftiness.

So I have Christmas shopping to do, and in an instance of excellent timing, I was recently told that my company is maybe not doing quite as well as we've been told all year (read: apparently nowhere NEAR as well as we've been told all year), and instead of getting a raise on what was, awesomely coincidentally, my 12-year employment anniversary, I got a 10% pay cut. Hurrah. Mind you, it was not just a "Happy anniversary" prize for me alone. Word is we all got pay cuts. Or, all of us who were lucky enough to keep our jobs (for now). An undisclosed number were actually laid off or had their hours cut instead. Happy holidays!

[Side note/Disclaimer of sorts:  I do realize that the previous paragraph falls squarely and solidly in the category of "Things I should not blog about" (i.e., "Things I could get fired for"). At the moment and for the record, I sort of feel it's a fair breech. This is my blog, about my life, which I write on my own time, and this is what's going on in my life right now. I will never, ever mention my company's name in this space, nor give any details identifying enough to reveal said name. So I'm sorry to anyone who someday finds this blog and shouldn't, but at the moment, with all due respect, I say kindly suck it.]

On top of that, I still cannot be trusted with a damn checkbook, and one measly little error has caused me TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DOLLARS in NSF fees. Good grief. As some of you may have seen me complain on Facebook this evening, I am well aware that banks need to find ways to turn a profit, but I would much prefer that TCF Bank find a way to do so without coldly bleeding me dry. Yes, that's right, I said TCF. I have few qualms stating that particular company by name. Because seriously, if you are going to punish me EIGHT TIMES for what was quite obviously one single mistake, I am going to tell the Internet (or at least, my tiny corner of it) how disgruntled I am. I am not the sort of societal and financial delinquent you might see on the likes of the Judge Judy or Jerry Springer show. I am a smart, almost wearyingly responsible girl with her head screwed on nearly entirely straight. Would I keep using my check card if I knew there was actually no money in my account? Of course not. But if my unfortunately erroneous checkbook balance indicates all clear, all systems go, I'm going to carry on as usual, and penalizing me charge by charge while your old school paper notices make their way by Pony Express to my house really does me no good at all.Gah.

Sigh. It's time to stop this futile rant, I realize. Times are lean for all of us. Or, times are lean for most of us. I suspect the president of TCF is still doing just fine. In any case, moving on.

I should note that is it not all tears over banking injustices and tight purse strings around here. I did have a lovely Thanksgiving with some lovely friends. More than two people in attendance confidently proclaimed it the Best Thanksgiving Ever, and I dare say I must agree with them. I mean, no eleven hours on the road round-trip back home, no tense conversation with family members who I love but drive me batty, and no day-old KFC biscuits or year-old apple pie! It was a win-win-win, I say. Seriously, people. Look at this spread! Tell me you don't want to have Thanksgiving with my urban family next year.



Note: Those are prosciutto-wrapped sweet potatoes in the lower-left there, people. Essentially, sweet potatoes wrapped in bacon. I know how much the Internet likes bacon. If you're not sufficiently excited about this buffet line, it's only because I failed to photograph the desserts. Apple pie and pumpkin cheesecake (courtesy of me, and both delicious, if I do say so myself). Mmmm.

On a loosely related note, not that my Thanksgiving Day wardrobe should be of any interest to you, but since I am bragging about things I made, how about I return momentarily to those skirts I mentioned making a few posts back? Shana Who Lacks a Link requested pictures, and while I still have no photos of the skirts in action (or at least, in use), I do have some flat, static, "wowsa, are my hips really that wide?" pics for you...

This is the first skirt I made, which is a lovely albeit a bit cumbersome little wrap dealie-o...



And here is the one I made in the Intermediate/Advanced skirt class, which features both a lining and an invisible (or, nearly invisible) back zipper. In other words, I rock.



That second skirt I decided should be my Thanksgiving skirt, so I actually do have a picture of it in use, albeit a not very helpful and showcasey picture at that. Still. Are you up for a game of "Where's Waldo"? Minus the Waldo and plus a skirt? All right. Here you go then.



Do you see it? If so, good work.

By the way, also in that picture? The Ghost of Thanksgiving Past. Or possibly my pal Carrie's mom's arm, at low shutter speed. You decide.

So then. How was your Thanksgiving? I know it was nearly a full week ago at this point, but dwelling on the past is what I do, folks. Timeliness is not always how I roll. So do tell. Any high points or low points for me?

Take a sad song and make it better

The radio station I listen to has been celebrating The Beatles all month, in honor of that remastered collection thing that you probably heard about, unless you've been living under a rock or perhaps don't listen to a station that decided to talk about The Beatles all month. Tonight, the whole thing culminated in a countdown of the top 50 Beatles songs, as ranked by listeners. (Or rather, as ranked by the listeners who actually took the time to vote. I did not, but obviously that won't stop me from complaining about the results.) It was a reasonably solid list... not that I am any sort of expert on Beatles discography and therefore qualified to weigh in on this, and maybe the fact that I am not a Beatles expert accounts for my reaction when they played the number 1 song. Hey Jude? Really?? The song that starts out promising enough but then ends with approximately nine and a half gratingly repetitive minutes of "Na, na, na, na-na-na-na! Na-na-na-na! Hey-ay Jude. (JudyJudyJudyJudeJudyJude!)"? That song? Better than all other Beatles songs? OK then.

It occurs to me that my dad once voiced that exact same complaint about Hey Jude, so now of course I am terrified I may be turning into my father. Next thing you know, I'll be driving as if every other car on the road is invisible, bringing my own spoon to restaurants, and spouting off about how that Rush Limbaugh really knows what he's talking about. Yeesh. Perish the thought.

In truth, I don't really have a problem with Hey Jude, but best Beatles song of all? Hardly. Of course, now I have to tell you what IS the best Beatles song, which is bound to be a bad idea, because at least 96% of you will disagree with me, and at least half of that 96% will actually lose respect for me because of my disturbingly bad choice. Or so I've been led to believe the few times this topic has come up in the past. Some people are serious about their Beatles cred. It may be on par with the pop/soda divide.

So I won't tell you what the best Beatles song is. Instead, I will tell you what my favorite Beatles song is. And then I will explain why it is my favorite, in an effort to calm whichever among you will tell me it is not a valid choice.

My favorite Beatles song is Yesterday. Not because it is lovely and sad (though it is) and not because I have a scratchy old version of it on a tape that my little sister once dubbed for me--a version that ends with Paul saying, "Thank you, Ringo; that was wonderful," which for some reason makes me smile. My favorite Beatles song is Yesterday because every time I hear it, I remember winding my way up the narrow staircase that circles the interior of Brunelleschi's dome in Il Duomo, the Florence Cathedral. I remember climbing to the top of that dome during the spring break of my semester abroad, with two German boys walking the steps in front of me, singing Yesterday to amuse themselves. Wait. Were they German? They may not have been German. All I remember is that English was not their first language, and as such, one of them mangled the lyrics into something entirely unrecognizable as English words. I know I have mangled some Spanish over the years; I once tried to sing the Tortilla Song that I learned in high school Spanish to a bartender in Cozumel, and though I was confident I was remembering all the words just right, he had no idea whatsoever what I was singing about. Mangled English I'm less familiar with. It's hard to imagine mangled versions of a language you know well. So when I heard the German teenager singing Yesterday and injecting words that were not words, my ears perked up in confusion and surprise. So did the teenager's friend's, because he whirled around immediately to correct him. "Half the man! Half the man!" he sputtered, one hand pounding the other for emphasis. After that chiding, the poor kid looked like half the man he used to be. But still, he kept on singing.

So when I hear Yesterday, I think of Florence. I think of exploring new places and learning new things and realizing the simultaneous fear and exhilaration of being in another country and knowing there is no one on the planet who knew exactly where I was at any given moment. And I think of those two boys in Brunelleschi's dome and I wonder what lyrics they are mangling these days.

Incidentally, Yesterday came in at #11 on the radio listeners' poll, so obviously I am not the only one for whom that song holds a special place. At #12 was In My Life, which is my second-favorite Beatles song (by a very close margin). I don't have a story to go with that one. I've just always liked it is all.

I wasn't actually planning on talking about the Beatles tonight. I certainly wasn't planning on talking about them for seven paragraphs. No, I was going to talk about my second vacation in the course of a month. Remember? I was so overdue for a vacation that I decided to take two? So last weekend was my long weekend in L.A., where it was ridiculously hot and where I saw more of the highways than of anything else (which, as far as I can tell, is about as accurate a picture of L.A. as one can get), but where I had an excellent time with some excellent friends nonetheless. I went to visit Darren and Heather (who some of you may remember from Look at Me... and Nabbalicious fame). I went with my friend Melissa, who lives in Minneapolis but who I had to meet through another blog friend in California (everybody's favorite tech support and car repair guru, Steve, who is the reason Heather and Darren know Melissa as well). See what a small world it is? Look at the Internet, bringing people together even after their blogs are long defunct. It's almost like... REAL LIFE. Crazy thought.

Anyway, we had a hilarious time. Seriously, I do not remember the last time I laughed so much in a 72-hour span. We went to the observatory in Rebel without a Cause. I saw the beach club that served as 90210's Beverly Hill's Beach Club. (Or was it the beach club that everyone worked at on Saved by the Bell? Were they actually the same beach club? My memory of them is the same.) I had my first In-n-Out burger. I celebrated Guinness's 250th birthday. I lost a bar fight because I had only one arm. We had Darren's famous Cincinnati chili and Roscoe's famous chicken & waffles. We took pictures of creepy statues. And we made more terrible "That's what she said" jokes than Michael Scott has made on all five seasons of The Office thus far. Also, we learned all sorts of interesting things about each other. I learned that Melissa is an exhibitionist and that Heather hates Colonial Williamsburg. (She has a point: Why do Americans need their history safe and spoonfed, like Applebee's and network sitcoms?) In turn, they learned that I spent $18 on a bottle of deodorant, because the Internet told me to.

In short, I had so much fun that I don't even mind coming home with a cold that's left me feeling weak and stuffy for days. I probably picked it up on the plane, but since Heather was sick when we got there and Melissa was sick by the time we left, we've decided we must be passing it along to one another in batches, like Amish Friendship Bread. It is the Amish Friendship Cold. Who wants it next, folks? I've got plenty of germs to share, and plenty of Internet friends I'd love to see. Come on over!

Foodstuffs

I know most of you don't know my good friend Carrie, but is anyone curious how she fared in the Julie & Julia cooking contest I mentioned? She won! Well, she won second place, which is still awesome, of course (she got to take home an excellent set of brand-new cookware), but honestly, I was so shocked she did not win the grand prize that I almost forgot to clap when they announced her name as the runner-up. No, seriously. Whoops. It's times like that when I fear I would be a terrible parent. Or an excellent one, I suppose, depending on your perspective.

I am fairly certain it was the first place winner's sparkling Rachel Ray smile and gaggle of small, seemingly adorable children and not her any-more-stellar-than-Carrie's chicken salad that secured her the grand prize. Which, incidentally, trust me: if the judges had been sitting directly in front of those children, they would not have been deemed so precious. Little treasures, I am sure, but they could not get their high-pitched squeals and their grabby little hands away from me quickly enough. But that is neither here nor there. I wish the winner and her enormous family all the best, and I shall move on before I say anything else that would put me squarely back in that "terrible parent" camp.

After the contest, I got to accompany Carrie to an advance screening of Julie & Julia, which you really must see as soon as you are able, because it is beautiful and charming and might make even the likes of ME think it's a good idea to try my hand at French cooking. (Definitely not aspics or some crazy pastry-wrapped deboned duck, but perhaps a beef stew or pear tart. Maybe.) Meryl Streep is radiant, of course, and Amy Adams is adorable as always, and I almost don't even want to paste in the link for this movie that I just went to find, because I cannot believe Rotten Tomatoes currently deems it worthy of only a 20% rating. 20% means it is "Rotten," and that I simply do not understand. Granted, only five reviews have been counted thus far, but did those five reviewers see the same movie I did?? I'm perplexed.

In other food news, I have a post up at Allie's Answers today. That shouldn't be food news, since my assigned beat on that site is environmentally friendly cleaning products, but rules were meant to be broken and beats were meant to be veered from. Or so I decided after I got a tour and a free meal at a nearby Chipotle recently and felt compelled to write about it. Yes, my guest post is about Chipotle. I should warn you that if you click over, you may be unable to avoid taking yourself to Chipotle for lunch. Don't blame me; blame the accompanying photo Courtney found. Seriously, I need to close that Firefox tab immediately because if I look at that delicious burrito one more time there is no way I'm getting to bed without a snack. Yum.

And finally, this has nothing to do with food, but I found out today that I will be working on a short-term project with a former co-worker for the next two weeks. This project involves pretending I know how to use a tool I last saw three years and probably two software versions ago, but I am a professional! I can DO this, right? Wish me luck. This also means that instead of pulling on a pair of jeans and driving across the suburbs to my very far away office tomorrow morning, I shall be putting on a dress and going downtown! Just like a real grown-up. Actually, this means that my commute will be an awesome 4.1 miles instead of the usual 25, but given that it's 4.1 miles of stop lights and downtown rush hour traffic, I'm unsure whether the time savings will be at all notable. I shall see.

And with that, I should get myself to bed, so that I can actually be a responsible and professional grown-up in the bright and early morning hours. Is it me, or does it feel like Monday was somehow simultaneously just a moment ago and also a hundred years ago right now? This week has been a blur, and I don't even have alcohol or an unusual flurry of activity to blame. Go figure. Happy weekend, all.

And I thought the last one would have made a good imaginary "How we met" story...

People, I have a situation. It's not a pretty one. I am typing at the moment from a chair in my front yard, not because I enjoy putting myself on display for my neighborhood, all, "Hey, look at me! I am a single woman with nothing better to do on a Friday night than sit outside with a glass of wine and a laptop!" but because I am too horrified to tuck myself away unnoticed in my backyard.

It seems having a squirrel give up the ghost in my backyard wasn't a one-time thing. There must be some sort of anti-squirrel predator or force field in the area between my neighbor's fence and my back walkway, because another dead squirrel is now lying only about five feet away from where the previous one went belly up. This one is on my property, so I don't feel particularly right asking my neighbor to remove it for me. Unfortunately, it's also much more vile than the previous one. Suddenly I'm not sure why I was so terrified to deal with that first squirrel, because I realize now that I would have rather touched that one with my bare hands than scoop the scattered remains of this one up even with a ten-foot-long shovel. I'm really trying to spare you the graphic details. I'm failing, so I'd better just move on.

And oh, look at that. I left my post for five minutes to duck back in my house, and now there is a bug in my wine glass. Fantastic. Bugs in my wine, crows circling overhead, flies swarming in on a revolting target a mere 30 feet away... Perhaps outdoor blogging isn't as appealing as I thought it might be. Think I'll move this party back inside after all.

So then. Focusing on more pleasant thoughts. Last night Josh Ritter was in town, so Carrie and I went to the Varsity Theater to see one of our favorite (Carrie went so far as to say "the original") Boy Meets Guitar. Our pal Lisa was supposed to join us, but unfortunately she had a doctor's appointment earlier in the day that unexpectedly ended with a staple being deliberately put in her head (ouch), and I can't particularly blame her for not feeling up to a concert night after that. (Look at me; I have finally veered away from dead rodents and now I am talking about surgical staples. Aren't you glad you clicked this link in your feed reader today?)

ANYWAY, as usual, Josh did not disappoint. I've already told this story once, but it was two years ago, so allow me to tell you again what's so very special about this boy. The first time I saw him, it was amid a crowd of fewer than 40 people, many of whom had probably wandered into the club having no idea who they were going to see, taking the chance that their $5 cover charge would not be a bust. Lisa and I were there on Carrie's recommendation. She was living in Chicago at the time, and she emailed us to say that a dude worth seeing was coming to our town, and we should go to his show. So we went, and we liked what we heard, and after the show, Josh milled about selling CDs and handing out promotional postcards, so we talked to him for a bit. Despite the small crowd, Josh was thrilled that we were there. "Thank you SO MUCH for coming!" he gushed. "How did you hear about the show?" When we told him our friend in Chicago had recommended it, he wanted to sign a postcard for her. But he didn't just sign it; he thanked her for sending us, and he wrote, "Stefanie is gorgeous, and Lisa is the belle of the ball!" We were both smitten. "I've never been the belle of the ball before!" Lisa said. The boy was just a young pup at the time, but he knew how to charm the ladies.

Since then, I've seen Josh nearly every time he's come to town, and each time, the crowd is larger and more dedicated. He's now successful enough that there are Josh Ritter tribute bands (in Ireland, apparently), but he's still just as grateful someone's there to listen. That wide-eyed enthusiasm hasn't faded; the grin on his face has only grown wider. I suppose it's possible that underneath that stage presence, he is an insufferable diva, a volatile force I would never want to know in person, but I don't want to believe that is the case. As far as I am concerned, he is a nice boy from Idaho who says "Please" and "Thank you," who, despite his success, is still sort of awe-struck that people will actually pay money to come and hear him play, to see him do what presumably he loves best.

It's hard to watch him and not develop a bit of a crush, and Carrie and I are certainly not immune. Last night's show was at the same venue where I met the MPR reporter as a discussion panelist, so Carrie turned to me mid-set and said, "I think you should make a habit of picking up anyone you see on the stage at the Varsity."

It's a compelling suggestion, but somehow I think asking Josh Ritter out for a drink via email might be even less successful than asking an MPR reporter out turned out to be. Of course, I may not actually have to send such an email, as this is the information age, and I have had a blog and a Sitemeter account long enough to know that even on the smallest and least notable of web sites, any words you type about a celebrity do not go unnoticed. No, thanks to Google Alerts and Technorati, Josh Ritter's publicist, or perhaps even Josh Ritter himself, will likely read this within a few short days of my clicking that "Publish Post" button. I sure am glad I talked about inside-out squirrels and head staples in the same post as the lyrical genius of young Mr. Ritter. (Message to Josh: Hi there! Call me!) Sigh.

We've come a long way since the Flowbee

It was brought to my attention on that last post that many of you are not familiar with Mates of State. Let's remedy that, shall we? Yes, yes, I know you all hate video posts, but take a quick look when your coworkers aren't near enough to notice you're not working, OK?



I had other things I was going to tell you this evening... like that the new-to-me laptop I've been so excited about seems to have become possessed already but that I lack the techno-prowess to know what to do about it and hence, am attempting to solve it like I solve so many problems in my life: by ignoring it in the hopes that the problem goes away on its own. Or that my pal Carrie and I went to an MPR & Citizens League event tonight and both simultaneously developed a crush on the MPR reporter who was a panelist for the event, and that we are considering inviting him to our next party (or even perhaps planning a party solely so we can invite him).

I was going to tell you these things and possibly more, but I spent the time I would have spent typing that talking to Lara instead, and now it is time for bed. Lara fully supports that party idea, by the way, and even went so far as to suggest we call it an M-P-R-ty. Heh. Lara may have been inhaling fumes from her Ukranian egg decorating supplies when she cracked that joke, but I have to admit I lack any similar excuse for laughing at it.

Do you remember in old movies, when a long distance phone call was a major event? When people scheduled calls and had operators put them through, and a hush fell over the entire house because "Mr. So-and-So is on the phone, from NEW YORK! LONG DISTANCE!"? I don't want to imply that a phone call from Lara is not an event, but I do appreciate the fact that the air of formality over a long distance call has long since dropped. I mean, while we talked, Lara was dyeing Ukranian eggs, and I decided to read her the questions on Mental Floss's "SkyMall Product or Rejected Invention Patent?" quiz. It was probably exactly what we would have been doing if we were chatting in the same room together, instead of several states away. Ah, the wonders of technology.

Speaking of technology, allow me to present my favorite answer on the "SkyMall Product or Rejected Invention Patent" quiz. Mental Floss pitted the "Cool Steps" self-cooling footwear against the "The NECKpro over-door cervical traction device," and it nearly stumped both of us. I mean, a miniature air compressor in each shoe does sound a tad ridiculous, but so does an at-home traction device. Aren't there some things that should not be do-it-yourself ventures? I would have assumed cervical traction fell solidly in that category, along with at-home dental work and chiropracty. Alas, no. Behold: the NECKpro...



It's no personal mini-donut maker, but every product has its niche, I suppose.

I wonder if he'd wanna be a manta ray

So then. I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. I hear there was a holiday of some sort yesterday, but it's hard for me to get particularly worked up over any holiday that does not involve a free day off of work, so it was pretty much just an average Sunday to me. Well, average except for the late morning brunch with friends, which perhaps should be a routine part of every weekend, but is not, given that it conflicts with both my desire to stay in bed as late as I feel like on weekends and my desire not to spend any more money than I already spend on social plans with friends.

Regardless, I had a fine time yesterday. Our urban orphans and heathens Easter brunch gets a little more top shelf every year. The whole tradition started four years ago when my sister and I were at Nye's Polonaise (best bar in America!) with some friends for my birthday and she spotted the Easter brunch flier on our table. Neither of us planned to go home for the holiday, and we decided it would be fun to gather our friends for the sort of traditional old school supper club buffet we would be partaking in if we were making the six-hour drive to attend church and dinner with our parents. In my mind, it was exactly what a holiday meal should be (or rather, for better or worse, what a holiday meal always has been, and as such, it had a homey and nostalgic appeal), but a certain foodie friend of mine who shall remain nameless (ahem) to this day cannot get past the cheese cubes and deli slices served on the appetizer table, and hence, we've sought out swankier digs in the years since.

This year took us to Vincent (sorry; Vincent: A RESTAURANT! That subtitle is obviously important, as it is everywhere, including in the outgoing voicemail message that plays when you call to modify your reservation), where I correctly predicted all of the choices the aforementioned foodie friend would make from the prix-fixe menu, while I, on the other hand, thwarted the efforts of anyone who might have attempted the same guessing game for my selections by choosing both eggs(!) AND fish(!) with my meal. If only I had ordered the mushroom-heavy buckwheat crepes as well, my entire table might have passed out from the shock (or at the very least, examined the base of my skull for evidence of some type of alien implantation). Alas, let us never assume I am always a creature of habit, too set in her ways to entertain the idea of trying new things. Despite my life-long hatred of eggs, I discovered last summer that Eggs Benedict is actually quite tasty, so I chose that over the fruit-topped waffles for my second course yesterday. And for my third course, I bypassed the safe-sounding spring vegetable risotto and went out on a limb and ordered the pan-seared skate wing instead. Skate is a fish, in case like me, you didn't know that. And no, fish don't have wings, but apparently skate is a member of the ray family, so essentially I ate something akin to the wing-like fin of a stingray or manta ray for brunch. According to my friends, it was spectacular, but apparently eggs and skate in the same meal is a bit too far out of the comfort zone for me, because for the rest of the day, my stomach felt a bit off. You know, sort of like I'd just eaten runny egg yolk and rubbery manta ray. No long-term harm done, of course. We'll call it a learning experience. Yesterday I learned I don't like skate wings. Knowledge is power, friends.

All that said, for the most part, our entire brunch was delicious, and I really should revisit Vincent (A RESTAURANT!) for their much-hyped happy hour sometime soon.

A few hours after brunch, I was off to the Varsity Theater to cap off the final part of my three-concert week. Both Lily Allen and Mates of State put on an excellent show, by the way. I still sort of can't believe the latter played to a sold-out crowd in a respectably sized venue. I am about to sound like one of those high and mighty music fans who says "Well I saw Nirvana back when they opened for... [whoever Nirvana opened for when no one had heard of them yet]" (See? Totally not that kind of music snob at all. And yet...) The first time I saw Mates of State was over another Easter weekend, probably close to ten years ago now. I'd made plans to go out with my friend Kristina that Saturday evening. If I remember correctly, we were headed to First Avenue for a Mason Jennings show. (Mason Jennings, by the way, married a girl who was at several of the same parties I attended my senior year of high school. That would be a more impressive bit of trivia if it were Mason himself and not his now wife, or if there were actually any chance whatsoever that said wife might actually remember who I am, and yet for some reason I bring it up anyway.) We were headed to see Mason Jennings in First Avenue's main room, but the band playing later in the much smaller adjacent 7th Street Entry was one Kristina had heard on a new music sampler that came with a magazine she subscribed to at the time, and she decided that for an extra five bucks, we should check out that show while we were there as well.

I remember an inordinate number of strange details from that evening. I remember Kristina bargaining with the door man, who insisted we were not allowed to leave and re-enter once we'd paid, and yet who let us leave for an hour to visit The Saloon anyway. The Saloon is a gay bar, for those of you not in the Twin Cities and therefore not aware, and I remember that while at The Saloon, we saw a promotional performance by the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus of their newest production, which was an all-Abba review. I also remember using The Saloon's computers and free Internet access to drunk-email the friend who would later become my boyfriend, because I thought he would find the whole evening entirely amusing. And after we'd done all of that (and likely also used the completely empty women's restroom at the gay bar), we went back to the 7th Street Entry, where we saw Mates of State perform in a room barely larger than my living room, to a crowd of fewer than 30 people. They were good, and I wondered if I'd ever hear of them again, and lo, here I am, years later, spending another Easter weekend with the Mates of State, but doing so with a whole lot more company than last time. Also, doing so entirely more sober than last time, as one more thing I remember about that evening was crashing on Kristina's futon and waking up on Easter Sunday very glad I didn't have to rally myself off to church with my family that day.

Another thing I remember about that Easter Saturday so many years ago is that I received a birthday gift from Kristina that night. She bought me a house plant that, in the tipsy ridiculousness that followed three gin and tonics (which were also a new introduction to me that night--I insisted that gin tasted like pine needles, and Kristina insisted that I give it a chance anyway), we decided should be named Menos. Menos. As in, the Spanish word for "minus," which I believe came up only because Kristina asked me what time it was, and for some reason, I decided to answer her in Spanish. "Son las diez menos quarto," I said. And suddenly, "Menos" was the funniest word in the world to her. "Menos! Menos!" she cried. "You should name your plant Menos!" And so I did. And because not too long after that, Kristina moved away and essentially fell out of my life, that plant is still alive and growing atop a shelf in the corner of my kitchen today. I've realized, you see, that plants from friends who aren't particularly important to me are the only plants I can successfully keep alive. The peace lily from my good friends Dale and Jenny (the one that came with a Last Will and Testament, such is my reputation for bad luck with plants) died within a matter of weeks. The flowering plant my former good friend Julie gave me? It met a similar fate. But the mish-mosh of breeds in a planter from an old coworker of mine? (The strange many-in-one plant that I aptly named Clusterfuck?) That one is still thriving, as is Menos, even though sadly, my friendship with Kristina is not.

I had to mention Dale and Jenny by name in that last paragraph, by the way, because I sent Dale an email last week, wherein I was hesitant to rattle on about any stories from my life of late because I knew there was a chance he'd already read those stories himself. I don't know how regularly he checks in on my blog, but I know he stops by from time to time, and I wasn't sure how recently he'd done so. "I still read your blog," he said in his reply. "But mainly I'm just looking for stories about me or your dad's snack cabinet." No snack cabinet in this post, obviously, but at least you got your mention, Dale.

Speaking of Dale, he really should get his own blog, as I'm certain he has ample fodder for it at home. The other day, his two-year-old apparently proclaimed, "I don't wanna be a robot!" That's a story I'd want to hear the rest of; wouldn't you?

As if I'd ever really consider gnomes "optional"

I've realized that ever since I started a blog, I almost never write in a private journal anymore. It's just as well, I suppose, because when I page back through the journals I've kept over the years, I find that nearly the only thing I ever wrote about was this boy or that boy and the sorts of emotional roller coasters each one put me through. It's valid in some way to get that out, I suppose. Perhaps it does help to make sense of things a bit, or if not that, at least to purge thoughts from such a place of immediacy in my head. And while it makes me feel like a vapid high schooler, I do think I'm probably not alone. I remember Liz Gilbert writing in Eat Pray Love about Cambodian refugees, who talked to the therapists they met with not about torture or starvation, but about relationships and lost loves. "This is what we are like," Gilbert said. "Collectively, as a species, this is our emotional landscape.... There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? and Who's in charge? Everything else is somehow manageable."

Right now the only things I feel compelled to write about are things best kept to a personal journal, rather than one that anyone on the Internets can see. It's not even about privacy so much as about committing thoughts to finality. Typing something in a public forum makes it so; it's harder to change my mind the next day. The problem is, I don't even want to waste the pages of a private journal on the mess that's in my head, because the things I need to write about are things I already filled a full journal with eight years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same, I suppose.

I hate when people vague-blog, so I'll stop that soon. My point, it seems, is I got nothin'. Or, nothing I'm ready to type about here just now.

Meanwhile, then, let's talk about books and movies, shall we? (Answer: we shall. What, you thought you had a say in this? Ha ha.)

Perhaps my favorite thing about a beach vacation is the luxury of spending essentially an entire day doing nothing except lounging in a chair reading a book. Yes, yes, I know I could do this at home as well; it's certainly not as if I do anything more productive than that every Saturday of my life. The point is, I don't do that. Instead, my reading is typically relegated to a half hour or less before bed, which is why it takes me a month or more to finish nearly any book I start. (Yes, even crazy Mormon teenaged vampire books. Which I am finally DONE with, by the way!) Not so with vacation reads, though! When I was in Mexico last week, I had the luxury of plowing through Who By Fire in its entirety in a day and a half, which is exactly how Lara (who originally told me about this book) would have wanted me to read it. Unfortunately, I didn't bring a highlighter or my Post-it flags to the beach chair, so while there were several passages I had to stop and read twice, pondering why I've never crafted a sentence quite so spot-on or beautiful, I can't actually share any of those passages with you right now. In fact, I don't think I'll even try to summarize just what it's about or why I enjoyed it, as Lara already covered that in her initial review and her follow-up interview with the author. That's right. Lara totally takes the train into The City and has wine with authors like it's no big whoop whatsoever. Then again, I have had wine with Lara. It is a good time, if you ask me. Who wouldn't want in on that? Anyway, thumbs up on Who By Fire is what I'm saying. Even though I'm saying it three months after this book made the rounds in the blog neighborhood.

While I'm recycling other people's reviews in place of my own, how about I let Metalia tell you what she thought of Revolutionary Road? It's fair, you see, because she covered pretty much every single comment my friends and I made over wine after our budget theater viewing of it last night, as well as a few comments we didn't. (Vinnie Delpino was in it? Really?? How did I miss that??)

Revolutionary Road was one of three movies I saw this weekend, actually, and while I didn't hate it, I can't decide if it was my least or second-least favorite of the three. It's a toss-up between that one and Lovely and Amazing, which Netflix assured me I would enjoy but which had me rolling my eyes and yelling at the TV for nearly the full hour and a half. Rotten Tomatoes' 85% "Fresh" rating will have you believe it is a "finely observed comedy," but I found very little to laugh at throughout. They also say it is a "smart and perceptive female character study," but I'd rather not study those particular characters. If I wanted to watch insecure, self-sabotaging women drive every person in their lives away from them, I would watch... Hmm... Actually, I don't know what I would watch. No one I know in real life actually lives their life as a constant stereotype of everything that is wrong with the way women interact with men (and with each other). Exactly where do these stereotypes come from, again?

And that brings us to Wristcutters: A Love Story, which was a strange bright spot by comparison, given that it's actually about an alternate universe inhabited solely by people who've killed themselves. (Cheery stuff, no? Maybe I'm not in a funk about some silly boy. Maybe it's my weekend's movie viewing I have to blame!) Anyway, it starred Patrick Fugit, who you probably remember from Almost Famous, and who was almost likable enough to make me forget I sort of hate Shannyn Sossamon. (All right; maybe I don't actually hate her. Maybe I just hate the impossible-to-remember way she spells her name and the fact that she named her son Audio Science. Yes, really.)

Except wait! I nearly forgot! I actually watched four movies this weekend. Saturday was the latest in the series of "Foreign Movie Night" gatherings my girlfriends and I have begun as a way to pretend we are getting some culture in lieu of forming a book club. (The real point of a book club is just to chat and drink wine, right? We decided we can do that just as easily at a foreign film night without any requisite prep work first.) Anyway, this month we decided to pull out a familiar favorite and re-watch Amelie. I'm sure you've likely all see it, but I nearly forgot how charming that film is. It is even more charming when you preface it with brie and prosciutto on baguettes and cheese-filled, berry-topped crepes. And more charming still when you bring your very own garden gnome as a centerpiece to set the scene for the evening. In fact, I recommend you re-watch Amelie at your earliest convenience, crepes and gnome optional.

Weekend update on a Tuesday (but fully bullet-free!)

So it seems I'm on the one-post-a-week plan now, which I suppose would be fine, if I were spending those several days between posts mulling over amusing little anecdotes to share on my next login. Instead, in the intervening time it seems I not only forget I have a blog, but also forget how to write. Maybe it's not entirely my fault. I am still reading that damn Twilight series, after all, so maybe Stephenie Meyer is to blame. Maybe I could craft clever, poignant sentences, but thanks to Bella Swan, the only adjectives in my head are "impossibly beautiful" and "dazzling," and unless I am writing about eternally 17-year-old vampires or Julia Roberts's teeth, neither of those do me much good.

Fear not, however. I am a mere 200 pages away from saying goodbye to the Cullens for good, at which point I plan to cleanse my mental palate with something of substance. Or at least something more charged with the pointless, light-hearted frivolity we've come to expect around here. Maybe some Jane Austen, so I can have my light-hearted frivolity under the guise of heady literature. Win-win!

Meanwhile, I could at least try to tell you what I've been up to lately without resorting to the quick and lazy bullet-point form... Let's see. Last night, I listened to a Presidential address without heckling for the first time in eight years. The night before that, I scored a prime, two-feet-from-the-stage spot at a surprisingly sparse Rhett Miller show, putting me in clear, up-close view of one of my very favorite imaginary boyfriends and his not-so-imaginary shiny rock star hair and ever-bendy rock star hips. We were close enough for him to sweat on us (though if you've ever seen Rhett perform, you know that you could probably be a good fifteen feet from the stage and still make that same claim). It would have been even better if the very sloshed girl and her even more sloshed husband in front of us hadn't thought the fact that they got engaged at a Rhett show two years ago entitled them the right to command Rhett's attention for the duration of his set, but hey, there's one of those at every concert, is there not?

Working backwards, that brings us to Saturday. And what did I do Saturday? Oh, nothing special. Just watched a couple of dear friends get engaged in a snowy, candle-lit downtown park. In all seriousness, it was magical, which is only fitting given that the man who was doing the proposing is the one I long ago referred to as The Magical Boy. He wanted to propose to his lovely girlfriend at Peavey Plaza on Nicollet Mall, and he enlisted me and Carrie to set the scene for him while they were at dinner. We arranged ice luminaries around the frozen fountain and placed flickering candles inside, then queued up a stereo to play a love song from La Boheme when the couple arrived. She said yes, of course, after which Carrie and I (and The Buddhist, who, though he'd never met The Magical Boy, was happy to come along for the ride anyway) popped out of our hiding spots on the other end of the park and joined in an impromptu dance party on the skating rink.

If we are keeping track of checkmarks in The Buddhist's "plus" column, by the way, we can add two more to the list. First, that he was fully OK with changing our plans for the evening when I told him this very special task had come up, and second, that, after meeting The Magical Boy and his new fiance', he summed up his first impressions with, "It's hard to say which one of those two is cuter." My thoughts exactly. They truly are the most non-sickeningly adorable couple I know. So congrats, Aaron and Colleen. Can't wait to attend the undoubtedly fun, creative, and uniquely environmentally friendly and socially responsible party you're sure to throw when you tie that knot.

Yet more proof that this city is shrinking and every man on Catch dot Mom is in some way a blast from my past

Word has it that it's a whopping 19 degrees outside at the moment, and while that may not feel particularly balmy to you, it is in fact 39 degrees warmer than it has been for the previous two days. Thirty-nine degrees. In one day. I am glad swings like this generally happen only in the winter. Even in Minnesota I doubt we'd adapt well to a lovely 71-degree day followed immediately by an unexpectedly brisk 32-degree one.

Despite the welcome warm front, I haven't actually ventured outside yet today. I should, of course. I should be determining how to reattach my license plate, since the so-called self-healing Saturn doesn't seem to be taking the initiative to do so itself. No fewer than three people have now helpfully pointed out to me, "You know, you can get a ticket for driving without a front license plate, even if the plate is in your car." My excuse to the undoubtedly kind and understanding officer was going to be, "But it's negative-20 degrees outside, and I don't have a heated garage! Sir, do you really want me outside testing my resourcefulness in weather like this? Do I look particularly hardy to you?" Successfully batting my eyelashes at officers of the law has never been a strong suit of mine, but surely that excuse would work. No? Right. Best get myself out of these yoga pants and off to my tool chest before the sun goes down.

I promise I will stop talking about the weather now, though. Why? Because I have far more interesting things to tell you. Namely, that I am having dinner tonight at a local Buddhist center. With an ex-boyfriend whom I have not seen in eight years. Who is now a Buddhist. Living at a Buddhist center. Where he is making me dinner tonight. Did you get all of that?

Somehow I always sort of assumed I would run into Jimmy again eventually. (You remember Jimmy, don't you? He is the reason I get approximately 17 search engine hits a week for search strings such as "pothead boyfriend" and "dating a pothead.") While I always thought I would see him again someday, however, I never actually thought it would be on Catch dot Mom. And yet, there he was in my Inbox earlier this week, in one of those confounding "Daily 5" messages. "[Insert user name here] noticed you in his Daily 5. And he's interested!"

I almost didn't even click through to the profile. The photo was a tiny, from-a-distance full-body shot in which I couldn't even see the guy's face. The user name was an annoying combination of letters and numbers spelling out a cheery, optimistic message to potential dates. My automatic reaction was to hit "Delete" without clicking through for any more detail. Besides that, my energy for this nonsense wanes regularly, and after the defeated, deflated feeling that followed what I (one-sidedly) deemed my best date of '08, I haven't felt much renewed motivation to log in. But for some reason I clicked through anyway, and my jaw dropped as I realized who'd found me.

I've been trying to recall exactly what I've done in the past eight years, and whether my life is notably different now than it was then. Every time someone I haven't seen in a while asks me what I've been up to lately, I draw a blank, generally replying with something meaningless and far-from-clever, such as, "Oh, you know. Same old, same old. Nothing new, I guess." But surely something must be new. In eight years? Certainly. Yes, I am still single (or rather, single again). Yes, I am still at the same job. But I bought a house. Fell in love. Had my heart broken. Fell out of love. (The order of those last two is questionable.) Went to Mexico, Jamaica, Austin, Philly, Boston, and various other locales. Made friends. Lost friends. Unintentionally dented a few hearts. Finally acquired salt and pepper shakers. Learned to knit. Read lots of books. Gained ten pounds. Met a depressing number of men on the Internet. Didn't like most of them. Made some strides toward figuring out who I am and what I need.

Eight years. Eight. It sort of baffles me that someone I dated in my mid/late-twenties was eight years ago at this point. I sound like a trite movie cliche, all "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "Sunrise, Sunset," but tell me, where on earth does the time go?

I don't know exactly what Jimmy's been up to the past eight years, but somehow I feel like his list might be a little more interesting than mine. Got married. Got divorced. Became a Buddhist. Oh yeah. And apparently stopped smoking so damn much pot.

In any case, we greeted each other online with enthusiastic friendliness. "Stefanie! I thought that was you! It would be great to catch up," he said. And you know what? It would be great. We always got along well and had fun talking, and besides that, I'm terribly curious. Every woman has a few unanswered questions in her past, and he's been one of mine. Hence, the get-together this evening. A get-together that started out as "let's meet for a drink" and then turned into "how about dinner first," which then became, "I'll cook for you over at my place." His place being the Buddhist center, of course.

I relayed all of this to Carrie via email. "You're having dinner at the Buddhist center? Delightful!" she replied. Almost as delightful as the time her late-middle-aged Bohemian woodworker friend invited her to his century-old home for spaghetti and martinis. At two o' clock on a Sunday afternoon. "Where do we find these characters?" I asked her. I don't know, but I do appreciate the odd little details that make our humdrum lives seem worthy of a scene in a movie or a sitcom. "It's all going in my book," she said. It's a book we could probably write together, pooling our material seamlessly. It worked for those girls who wrote The Nanny Diaries, and we are at least as clever as they are, I say.

I'll get right on that, of course. Right after I fix that damn license plate.

Of course, to be considered for membership, I'll probably need a cat.

Well now see that? There I go again. Has it been a week already? Let's see. What have I done in the past several days, aside from not click that "New Post" button, obviously? Well, I attended two parties, one decidedly fabulous and the other not quite so much. One was a New Year's Eve party hosted by my good friend Carrie and financed by Food Buzz. (What's better than a party with all your friends? A party with all your friends, paid for by someone else!) The other was a retirement party for my mother, a potluck affair held in the basement of my parents' church. Are you having trouble guessing which one was the more fabulous affair? Well good, because even though as far as I know, my parents will never read this, I still feel a wee bit guilty implying that party wasn't the event of the year. No offense to my mother or her fellow parishioners, of course. But when you consider that one event involved well-crafted cocktails with specialty infused vodka and the other involved driving 11 hours round-trip on ice-covered roads (a mere week after making that same trip for Christmas, mind you), I don't think a fair comparison is possible.

What else have I done? Well, I finished my friend Lisa's baby shower gift, six full days before the shower. This might not be notable, if not for the decidedly weak track record I've built where hand-made gifts are concerned. Lisa and her husband's wedding afghan, for instance? Presented three and a half months after the ceremony. My friend Carrie's felted messenger bag? Still sitting on my dryer, lining-less and strap-less, four long months after her birthday. Oh, and then there's the pair of socks a dear friend who no longer reads this blog requested when I first told him I learned to knit socks. He does not know that he's still getting them, but I assure you, they are on the needles and are now half-done. He should receive them just in time to pack them for his move back to LA. As in, California. You know, where wool socks are totally useful. Sigh. Photos of Lisa's baby shower gift will be in this Flickr set shortly, by the way. Can't go ruining the surprise on the off chance that she actually pops in here in the next few days. I promise you, though, it is adorable. Lisa, you damn well better like it, I say.

Speaking of baby showers and wedding gifts and the like, our friend Flurrious has a cause I need to get behind. Well, actually, her cause labels me middle-aged and aims, primarily, to get herself a free Prius, but as usual, I am taking the idea and running with it in a way more beneficial to ME. What cause is this? I'll let the badge Flurrious created for us tell you.



As it turns out, I'm not so much riddled with the expendable income, making me maybe not the best target for Toyota's future Flurrious-centered marketing campaign. I would, however, like free stuff. While I know that showering the mergers and the breeders with gifts is a social convention it's not up to me to unseat, I can't help feeling a wee bit cheated when I add up all the bridal shower gifts and wedding gifts and baby gifts I've purchased for all my married friends over the years with no hope of gift reciprocity in return. I love these friends dearly, of course, but when will somebody throw me a party to celebrate my life path? When do I get to create a registry at Target and Crate & Barrel to replace my worn linens and warped skillets and finally acquire a damn crock pot? Mark my words, friends. The spinster shower and gift registry is an idea whose time has come. Yes, yes, I realize it is an idea whose time came when Carrie Bradshaw mentioned it somewhere around nine years ago, but my life is feeling more and more like a bad, cliched sitcom lately, so my proclaiming it now is only in keeping with a theme. Barring this spinster shower plan, however, free gifts from corporate sponsors sounds like an excellent scheme on which I'd like in. Flurrious, I trust you'll keep me posted on your progress on this front, correct? I thought so. Thank you.

I suppose I still have a few hours to make that "Soul Mate in '08" thing happen, but I'm totally not holding my breath.

At the risk of starting a routine wherein I begin every post with a claim that time is slipping by suspiciously quickly, I still need to say, "Was Christmas already a week ago?" Whoopsie. Still want an update on that?

Actually, I thought perhaps we were all taking a little break between the holidays, but the 300+ unread posts I saw in my feed reader last night suggest that's not the case. I don't know how the rest of you found time to post during the past week. Me, I was far too busy with impromptu little experiments, such as "Let's see how many movies in a row I can watch on my parents' couch before I actually have to get up and check for muscle atrophy" and "Let's count how many consecutive days I can go without eating a vegetable." Oh, and of course, there were those couple of days in there where I actually had to go in to WORK, because apparently not everyone is in agreement that regardless of which days of the week the holidays fall upon, the last week of December is for lounging with a cookie in one hand and a wine glass in the other. Rest assured; I plan to write my Congressman about this immediately.

Today, however, I am off, and at 3:17 p.m., I am still sitting in my pajamas, drinking the last glass from a bottle of white I opened earlier this week. What? Is 3:17 in the afternoon too early for wine? Come on; it is NEW YEAR'S! Surely that warrants a pass. Besides that, the cork on this bottle was stamped with the letters "Rx" after the winery's web address. I'm sure that is some sort of registered trademark-related indicator, but I prefer to believe this wine is a prescription! Just yesterday I joined the Facebook group titled, "A glass of wine solves everything." It's a remedy worth trying, I say.

The fact is I've been feeling a bit low lately. I was attributing it to my uncharacteristically irrational disappointment over the vanishing act played by my supposed best date of '08. I realize it was just one date, and for me to feel so defeated and deflated after it is really not in keeping with my usual cynicism and guardedness where dating is concerned. Still, I have spent the past week and a half wallowing about, crying "I don't get it; I don't GET IT!" and "It's not fair. How is this fair??" Is it not my freaking turn already? Have I not paid my damn dues? I sound like a goddamned Lifetime movie. I realize this, of course. And I'm also ashamed to admit that a good portion of this disappointment likely stems from what that stupid psychic told me in 2007. When I met someone I actually liked right at the end of the year, I wanted to believe that she was right, and I actually would find my soul mate in '08. It's silly, I know; you don't have to tell me that or chide my naivety. It's not that I truly believed her, of course, but that I just really wanted to. Sending positive vibes out into the universe is all I thought I was doing. Who knew it would send me into such a bleak place.

It's not only the afore-nicknamed Bachelor #3, however. Rereading my New Year's-adjacent posts from the past two years, I've realized end-of-year melancholy is nothing new for me. We're supposed to think of new beginnings and starting overs, of the things we accomplished and gained in the year past. Instead, I dwell on things lost or never found. I think of things I didn't do, goals I didn't meet because I didn't set. This time of year puts me in a weird place. Surely that's not just me, right? Sadly, I have a feeling that a cheerful New Year's spirit isn't the norm for many of us.

All that said, I do have to acknowledge that 2008 was not all bad. I have good friends who I love dearly. In this scary economy, I still have a job and a home and a meager savings account balance. I even accomplished two and a half of my five resolutions for the year. I could do worse than 50%, don't you think?

The end of the year is a time for wrap-ups and summaries, of course, so to review, here is my list, my year-in-review, my Stefanie Says clip show for 2008.

January: Foolishly proclaimed it the Year of Stef, hoping luck in romance would follow. (Ha.) Discovered a new way to Internet-stalk old friends and love interests. Grew a Chia Elephant. Discovered the pack rat gene is dominant. (Also, learned my grandma didn't like lima beans.)

February: Won my city's first (and only) Drunken Spelling Bee. (The bee lives on, but with the decidedly less fun-sounding "Grown-up Spelling Bee" label.) Coined the term "Venn Diagram of Snobbery." Lost my grandma.

March: Celebrated National Grammar Day. Realized I shouldn't be trusted alone in my own house. Cleared 50 years of clutter from my basement. Celebrated my 34th birthday and my third blogiversary. Tested my domesticity by taking a quilting class.

April: Finally met Lara! And NPW! And Red! And got to hang out with Noelle again, too! (Spring vacation in Boston and Philly was a definite highlight of the year.) Played along in the first Choose Your Own Blogventure story game. Discovered I can find things to eat in the Produce section (and ate those things for eleven-plus days in a row). Learned to knit socks.

May: Brought our friend Darren back to the Internet. Injured myself while cleaning my shower. Gave my newly refinished basement a coming out party. Got yelled at by a fellow motorist.

June: Played with that nifty Flickr mosaic tool (and promptly forgot about it until now). Had my very first fifteen-cent meal of Ramen noodles. Ran into a past meMarmony match in a crowd of 8,000 people. Was reminded that I really should wear a helmet and knee pads in daily life.

July: Started reading those crazy teenage vampire books. Summed up my life in Someecard format. Considered the possible merits of attending my first National Night Out block party.

August: Fixed my car's air conditioner, all by myself (well, by myself with help from the Internet and a fellow blogger). Got massaged by a giant middle-aged black man. Ever-so-unoriginally was brought to tears by traffic. Wrote my first [part of a] science fiction story, for CYOB 2.0.

September: Watched St. Paul turn into a police state. Infiltrated the Republican National Convention (or something like that). Realized I have no idea how to effectively tell a guy "Thanks, but no thanks." Finally caved to peer pressure and joined Facebook. Learned how to make a coffee cup of cake in the microwave.

October: Enjoyed a lovely fall weekend in the woods. Brought our pal Nabbalicious back to the Internet. Played the field a little bit. Photographed giant gourds and scary antique store finds with good friends.

November: For the third year in a row, posted every day for a damn month. Realized that writing about dating isn't nearly as fun when I force myself to do it daily. And hmm... I swear something else happened that month... What was it?... Oh yeah! Obama! Sigh.

December: Had fun with poll tools (and profile pictures). Fed my coworkers liberal cheese. Unintentionally insulted a man who had just bought me dinner. Spent another Christmas evening at the emergency room. (This time, to have my dad's frostbitten fingers reexamined. He is fine, but I fear a trend is starting. We could use some family traditions, I suppose, but can't the movie and Chinese buffet be our new tradition instead?)

Also, I saw 75 movies, went to 20 concerts and shows, and read a measly 12 books.

All in all, I suppose it was a fine year, soul mate or no. Scouring my archives to summarize all of that has taken considerably longer than I intended, however, and now it's high time to ditch the teacup-printed flannel pants and gray hoodie and get myself ready for tonight's New Year's Eve festivities. I hope everyone has a safe and happy evening. To reuse a joke that certainly never gets old, see you next year!

Clearly this post was just one more excuse to use that "Hobos" label.

Is it really Sunday night already? How did that happen? More important, is it really only four days until Christmas? Tell me, is my house the only one subject to time warps, or do you guys have that problem as well?

First, let's review what I did do this weekend. I did manage to...

• Clean and ready my house for a Christmas party last night.
• Shovel six inches of snow.
• Host a holiday party for several of my friends.
• Get pictures from said party online within 24 hours of the event.
• Write my Christmas cards.
• Eat my weight in guacamole and layer bars.
  

What I didn't do, however, was everything else on my list, including wrap my family's Christmas gifts, pack for my trip home this week, and answer the several neglected emails waiting in my Inbox. Oh. Also, I did not hear from the aforementioned Bachelor #3, despite that aforementioned last-date-of-the-year being, from my perspective, one of my best dates of the year.

That's right, folks; you heard me. I had a GOOD DATE. Or, I thought I did, anyway. Apparently either the two of us were on entirely different dates or my instincts are way, way off. It is frustrating and more than a bit disheartening and frankly I have little more I want to say about it than that. I actually liked this one, people. Really. I don't even know what to do with myself over that.

So it seems I will be ending 2008 just as I began it, which I suppose is fine, really. The single life usually agrees with me anyway. I have my own space and make my own schedule, and I celebrated my singlehood today by sending not at all husband-friendly pretty pink and brown glittery Christmas cards. I am now covered in glitter, as is my kitchen table, but all that sparkling should only serve to get me in the holiday spirit, don't you think?

But back to my party. It was a warm and festive evening in my cold but charming basement, and I think I can confidently say that a lovely time was had by most. Menu props go to The Pioneer Woman, who (unlike Bachelor #3) has yet to let me down thus far. I made her goat cheese with fresh dill and paprika rolls (which were fine but actually taste much better when the goat cheese you pay $10 for actually tastes like goat cheese and not like strangely tough Brie) and also her spicy molasses cookies, which happily were a much greater success than the unintentionally rock-hard molasses cookies I tried to make last year. Also, if you read Mighty Girl's post a few weeks ago and wondered, "Should I really put pears and pomegranate in my guacamole?" the answer is YES. Yes you should. I love avocado in nearly any form, but never has guacamole been so delicious.

Also, I received several excellent presents from my fabulous friends, including a knitting book with at least twelve patterns I want to make immediately, a lovely blue glass necklace, and a pair of knit wrist warmers that are much more awesome than the pair I was never going to get around to knitting myself. I am currently typing away in toasty-knuckled comfort just like a modern, techno-savvy urban hobo. Yay!



And with that, I'd best shut down and get some sleep, as the few hours I got after the last of my guests left in the partying-like-a-rock-star wee hours of the morning simply did not suffice. I'm looking forward to two short weeks in a row before the drudgery of January, with its gray bleak days and its cruelly long five-day work weeks, begins. If you are already on vacation until 2009, kindly suck it. I kid, I kid. That wasn't particularly warm-hearted and holiday-minded of me. Happy Christmas week, all.

It's a wonder a corn grits beverage never caught on

So here I am on yet another Sunday night wondering where on earth my weekend went, wishing I had just another four hours or so to unwind and attend to the various things I didn't accomplish in the last 52. This happens every weekend, of course, and I'm finally starting to realize: Oh yeah. If I would simply get UP at a reasonable hour on Saturdays and Sundays, I would have an extra four hours in each weekend. Of course, if I did that, I'd just deem myself deserving of a nap by mid-afternoon, so let's just say that weekends are inherently too short and perhaps it has nothing whatsoever to do with my laziness or poor time management and leave it at that, OK?

In dating news, I have no news. I do have a question, however--you know, for those of you who are happily coupled off or have ever been happily coupled in the past. (You like those, don't you? Doesn't everyone like to help?) Tell me, if I have not seen either of the two men I'm not-so-scandalously dating since this past Monday and Tuesday, respectively, and if I have not given either of them more than an idle passing thought here and there since then, is that a sign that perhaps I'm not so into them, or does it just mean I am busy and popular and they are new and still foreign and relatively unimportant to me and perhaps I will warm to one of them and soon be genuinely excited to have him in my life? As I mentioned last week, I'm trying to do this thing where I actually keep an open mind and reserve judgment instead of saying, "Um, thanks but no thanks" after three dates. Mind you, I have had a good time with both of them. There's been nothing so odious or unpleasant as to warrant an obvious "I'm out" decision. But neither is making me say, "You! Yes, YOU! I want to date you and only you!" either. Three-to-five dates in, what do you think: is that portentous, or could it still go either way? I know no one else can really answer this for me, but it still annoys me that I can't figure this stuff out by now.

As I said, however, I haven't gone on a date since Tuesday, so I can't even blame my so-called player lifestyle for my absence from the Internet of late. I would say I've been busy with many other things, but in reality, I think several time warps were involved. This evening, however, I did have plans. I went to see David Sedaris read at a theater downtown, and naturally, rather than leaving feeling inspired to write something myself, I left realizing I will never craft witty sentences anywhere near as artfully and hence, I should not even pretend to try. Instead, then, how about some pictures?

Pictures of pumpkins...



And apples...



And my friend Amy with a mutant gourd...



And me and several friends outside an antique store...



Bearing treasures untold inside...









And I guess that about covers the highlights of my weekend... How was yours?

FYI: Jane Austen books and Jimmy Stewart films don't count either

I picked up the third of the Twilight books last night. So much for Web-based library reservation systems allowing me to indulge in the ridiculousness of teenage vampire love in private... When I scanned the shelves of the "Holds" area, there was a decidedly Eclipse-sized gap in the section of the alphabet where my book should be. I looked; I looked some more; and then I went to log in to my account on a library computer to make sure I hadn't remembered the date wrong and in fact, Eclipse was supposed to be on hold for me through September 11 at closing time. After verifying all of the above, I finally went to the circulation desk and casually jingled my keys to get the librarian's attention.

Me: Um, I'm supposed to have a book on hold through today, but it's not over on the Reserve shelf. There seems to be a gap right where it should be, though, so...

Slightly sketchy-looking male librarian: Can I see your library card?

I handed over my card, and he scanned it in their little system. Then he smiled and handed my card back to me.

SSLML (chuckling): That's a special book. It's so special, in fact, that we keep it... (pause while he hunts around the shelf behind the circulation desk) ...back here!

I'm not sure what the slightly sketchy-looking beady-eyed librarian was actually telling me. It's feasible, I suppose, that those ridiculous Twilight books are in high enough demand that they need to keep the reserved copies out of the general public's eye to avoid theft or angry jealous revolt. But I saw a copy of New Moon hanging out seemingly peacefully in the "F"s of the Reserve shelves, so I highly doubt that is the case. More likely, they'd just removed it from the hold shelf already, assuming I wouldn't come to get it before closing time. Or maybe Slightly Sketchy Librarian is reading the Twilight series himself, in fits and starts as reserved copies are returned temporarily to the shelves.

Either way, I refused to be embarrassed about it. Hello, my name is Stefanie; I am 34 years old, and I am reading a young adult vampire series. I am not the only one, clearly. I see no reason to hide in shame.

Still, the incident brought me back to a conversation at the Pizza Farm Tuesday night. The topic was "Guilty Pleasures." I thought it would be a fun game for everyone to play. Unfortunately, while some people came out with "Ludicris" and "Talking to oneself in a Sean Connery voice" (which is really more "secret single behavior" than "guilty pleasure," but it's amusing anyway), the best answer a particular too-refined-for-her-own-good friend of mine could come up with was, "I really enjoy popular fiction... you know, things like The Time Traveler's Wife."

The Time Traveler's Wife? Are you kidding me? John Grisham or James Patterson I'll give you. Harlequin romance novels? Certainly. But The Time Traveler's Wife? I'm gonna call that fully valid modern fiction and claim there's no shame in adding that title to your reading queue. Dear, dear Carrie. Lovely Carrie. You are brilliant and fabulous and good at lots and lots of things, but I'm sorry: you suck at this game.

I haven't done a Friday Five in a good long while, so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to enumerate something at my own expense. The problem is I actually have very few secrets here. I've probably already admitted each of these somewhere within my archives before. Also, I'm sure I could come up with more shameful admissions if I'd just give it a bit more thought. Off the top of my head, though, here they are. Five guilty pleasures o' mine.

1. Kraft Singles (straight from the fridge, or torn in pieces and scattered on a tortilla--microwave for 30 seconds and then roll up like a yoga mat. Um, an edible yoga mat. Mmm.)
   
   
2. Linkin Park
   
   
3. McDonald's Filet-o-Fish
   
   
4. Various long-canceled hits from the WB: In particular, What I Like About You, Reba, and yes, Dawson's Creek
   
   
5. Wham! (Seriously. Every time I for any reason think of them, I vow I will buy this on CD. In fact, fuck it. I am adding it to my Wish List right now. Come on, don't you want to buy it for me?)
   

You know what would make this game a whole lot more fun, though? If all of you played along, too. Come on, spill it. What's your guilty pleasure? And none of this valid modern authors nonsense.