Present Perils

When you’re a child, let’s face it, Christmas is all about Santa and the gifts. What is he going to bring you?  Boys wondered if they were going to get that air-soft rifle they’d been dreaming of…No childhood could be complete until a boy’s mother worried that he’d shoot his eye out.  Ladies, I bet when each of you was a young girl, you didn’t hesitate to tell people what you wanted for Christmas when they asked you.  There was none of that, “Oh, I don’t know,” stuff. It was more like, “I don’t care that Barbie has the equivalent of a 13 inch wasp-waist, and I’ll probably break off one of her legs when I try to put on her ultra-suede cowboy pants so she can rustle up some cattle on her dusty mare, I’ll just DIE if I don’t get Cowgirl Barbie this year.” When you opened that last box and Cowgirl Barbie was inside, it was like you’d died and gone to heaven.

As soon as we leave the Santa stage, however, things change.  Maybe that’s because Santa just LOVES to buy us presents.  He LIVES for gift giving (It also doesn’t hurt that he lives in a compound fully stocked with free labor).  All he requires is that we are “good” each year. (His idea of good is pretty generous.)   Of course, he’ll always appreciate a few cookies and some milk, but he’ll still leave us presents even if we forget the cookies.  Other people… now that’s different.  Friends and relatives might buy us gifts, but they usually appreciate receiving a nice gift, too.  And let’s not even discuss the gifts that come with strings or messages attached, “I’m buying you this set of POTS so you can COOK more often.”  We might as well call these MESSAGE PRESENTS because actually, the gift giver is using Christmas as a vehicle to hit you over the head with some personal criticism that you’ve apparently not been able to absorb before. 

My mom frequently trots out the story of how my dad got her an electric can opener for Christmas one year.  The message was either, “Cook my dinner” or, “Hey, you might not like it, but I sure do like gadgets!” I don’t think that’s the only thing he got her, but really… an electric can opener? And oh, by the way, she already had one.     

Eons ago, when I was barely out of high school, my first boyfriend gave me a Message Present.  He was one of those annoying Scandinavians who says the weather is “great” when it’s barely touching the double digits on the Fahrenheit temperature scale.  I was (and still am) cold almost all the time.  He decided I needed a down coat.  Never mind that this is the least romantic gift you can give someone, it’s WARM, dammit, and when I got it, I could Stop Mentioning That I was Cold.  And maybe like winter.  Yeah, RIGHT. 

And this leads right into another kind of present:  The Even Trade

I found out I was getting The Coat that year, because my thoughtful boyfriend decided he wanted me to go shopping for, and purchase this coat for myself.  He thought I should pick it out, but why did he have to go with me?  I should go and pick it out, buy it, and then tell him how much it was, and he would give me the money for it.  Oh, and wrap it for myself, and bring it over his house when we celebrated Christmas Eve with his family. 

So I got myself a coat, and then I thought, Jeez, this thing is 100.00 – what am I going to get him?  I sewed a lot at the time, so I decided to make him a wool shirt.  I bought the materials and made the shirt (which came out rather nice, if I do say so myself) but I couldn’t bring myself to give him just that because I knew he had spent more on me. (Actually, I had spent more on me.)  I had to Make it an Even Trade.  I dragged my mom with me to the mall on Christmas Eve so I could buy a few more things.  I almost didn’t care what I bought, as long as I bought enough.  And you know, I didn’t really want to see him anymore, but how could I tell him?  It was Christmas, for God’s sake.  Just make it an even trade. 

There are presents that make you squirm with guilt, such as my Corsage Story.  Although it wasn’t a Christmas present, I think this story is worthy of inclusion here.  When I was in high school, my mom made me a GIANT corsage for my 16^th birthday.  Corsages had been THE thing when I was 6, 7, and 8 years old. Girls walked around sporting corsages loaded with various candies, a different candy for whatever age you were turning.  But by the time I was 16, that fad was looooonnng gone.  Unfortunately, my mom must have remembered me mentioning it years before because on the morning of my birthday, she presented me with this corsage.  It was about as big as a grapefruit, and loaded with white peppermint life saver candies springing out through the loops of blue and white checked ribbon.  It really was cute, but it was BIG.   And she wanted me to wear it to school.  Why hadn’t she made this for me YEARS ago?  I would have loved it then.  I was embarrassed to wear it.  We had an argument about it that morning before I got on the bus, and that corsage hung on a hook in my closet for years before I could bring myself to throw it out.  Years.  I talked to my mom about this recently.  She claims she doesn’t remember the episode, but I do, and I’ll remember it till I die.  My wish for you is that you never receive a gift that makes you squirm that much.   

Of course, it’s entirely possible that you will GIVE a gift that makes you squirm, such as when I gave my cousin a puzzle car when he was about 5 years old.  Here we were, cousins, grandparents, etc assembled for the holiday, and he opened this present, took one look at it, and his lip started to quiver.  Someone asked, “What’s the matter, don’t you like it?” and he yelled, “I HATE it.” “You hate it? Why?” and he said, “LOOK at it!”  I suspect he hated it because he was a bit too old for that sort of present, and he thought I was making a statement that he was a “baby.” In reality, at that time, I just had no idea what to get for a boy that age.  We still haven’t lived it down, though.  Just mention the words “I HATE it, LOOK at it!” in my family and everyone knows EXACTLY what we’re talking about.

I know everyone had present horror stories, so please, I invite you to share them! 

Here’s a quick story to end this on a positive note: Today, is Friday.  My little friend at school had a good week.  She did not get written up or sent to the office all week, so in the morning, I told her that if she had another good day today, I wanted to give her a little present at the end of the day.  Well, she came down to the office at the end of the day, and I gave her two Mint Ghiradelli Chocolate squares.  She said, “Thank you SOOOOOO much,” and stuffed them in her pocket.   That present trumps all of the above.

Merry Christmas to me...

"I always like to start Christmas shopping with a generous round of personal shopping first," a relative and friend said to me years ago.  "What a riot!" I thought at the time, but she had such a great point.  I buy things for myself now and then, but I am not a huge shopper.  Still, at Christmas time, it's hard to go out and buy large quantities of stuff without slipping in a little self-serving purchases, too. Who better than me will know EXACTLY what I want this year?  WOW, and in just the right color, too!  Even better, everything is on sale!  Best (or worst?) of all, I don't even have to leave the house to shop.  So, Merry Christmas, everyone! And uh, Merry   Christmas to me, too.  



(my new Tignanello handbag in "brass" - a Today's Special Value from QVC - isn't it nice?)

Going out on a limb

I've had this idea for a couple of weeks, and today I just decided to give it a go.

We have a student at school who is, shall we say delicately... edgy.  She's been suspended several times and was out of the building for several months last year - I can't remember exactly why.  She seems to have a hairpin trigger of a temper, and she seems to be very sensitive (as we know, that can also sometimes be a hinderance in life), is easily offended, but is very smart.  Schoolwork comes easily to her when she decides to do it.  Let's call her "Rose." 

Rose is in the grade that the AP I work with is in charge of, so she has been in my office a few times both when she's been in trouble or when she's serving a detention, and we've had some pleasant conversations.  The last time she was in, she told me, "See, I can have a conversation with you, and you give me respect, and I give you respect, so why can't these teachers give me respect?" (I thought, if I tell her I'm actually a teacher, too, will she turn on me like a rabid dog?  I kept that piece of information to myself for the moment.) I tried to explain to her that they weren't meaning to disrespect her, but they are very focused on getting their job done, which is trying to teach her and others, so it's possible that she perceived disrespect when none was intended.  I said that they were trying to get her to do her best work.  I'm not sure she was ready to hear that, but I think my comment got scooped up for possible digestion at a later time.

Since then, I've been thinking, this girl needs to see herself do really well at something.  She needs to take pride in something she's done... see herself in a different role.  I am going to be the set designer for this year's school  play, and it occurred to me that she might be interested in working with me to create my sets.  I've rolled this around in my head for a while...  She might be interested, but then again, she might rank on me and think I'm trying to buy off her good behavior.  (Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained). Worse, she might accept and then behave attrociously when she's under my watch.  The could be a problem, but then, that would be the last day she'd be helping me. 

Today, as typically happens with Rose's freak-outs, I heard her from way down the hall.  Imitating the adults who were trying to talk... cursing like a sailor... refusing to come in the room or sit down. Other kids were in the office at the time, so they finally sent her to sit down and cool off in another location. 

About 15 minutes later, I thought, well, it's not like I'd just LOVE to hang out with her now, but if she has something to look forward to and maintain good behavior for, maybe she'll be able to get herself together.  I proposed my idea to my AP, and he brought Rose over and put the idea to her.  "You know, we want to see you have some positive experiences, be successful at things.  You know my secretary," he gestured to me, and she nodded.  "She knows that you're interested in art, and she wants to know if you want to work with her to make the scenery for the play." She looked stunned.  Almost speechless, actually.  Did I detect some wateryness in her brown eyes?  "I thought you might like to help me.  If you're interested."  I said.  She nodded yes.  "Great!" I said.  This should be a learning experience for both of us. Wish me luck.

Christmas Decorating

I hate decorating for Christmas.  When I was a kid, decorating was fun, but now, it seems like such a painful chore. First, there's the lugging of the boxes from all corners of the Earth.  Then there's the rearranging, and the inevitable thoughts of "How did I ever accumulate so much stuff?"  (Don't tell my husband I've had that revelation.)  Next, the unpacking of breakable items, and inevitably, more things get broken.  You can't sweat it, it happens. Someone, maybe an underage someone, grabs some tissue paper and realizes too late that is contains something breakable...you can just imagine the ornament flying up... and the lunge... both in slow motion, like a collasal spill in Bounty commercial, upsetting but unstoppable.   Of course, if you're lucky, someone will break that ornament that you secretly hate, but feel too guilty to get rid of - YAY! There IS order in the universe.

You can't worry about the broken stuff, though.  I remember my Italian grandparents always had a beautiful tree, but from what my parents told me, they argued every year when they set it up. I loved them dearly, but that must have been the perfectionist in each of them. There's something hyporcritical about fighting while you're putting up a Christmas tree, isn't there? 

This year was pretty painless, though.  The kids assembled the artificial tree (they like the assemble-by-color system), my spouse put the lights on (a stroke of luck for me - I was out drinking Starbucks with my two best buddies) and then the kids put on most of the ornaments.  All I still need to do is put some festive ribbon around it, give it some kind of crowning glory, and then sit and with the family and admire our handiwork.   Ahhhh... that's the best part. 

How do I love thee, recorded books? Let me count the ways...

     I want to say a few words about my love of… recorded books.  “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May…” alright, alright.

     But seriously, before you go thinking, “only old, blind, or people who have a 2 hour commute listen to recorded books,” think again, my friend!  I’m a recent convert to the recorded book arena, but I was an instant addict. There were looooong stretches of my weekdays (my weekdays... yes) in which I was listening to the radio.  I very quickly got sick of the top 40 rotation.  I tried other stations, but to no avail.  I even tried NPR (INTERESTING, mixed with long stretches of BOOOOORRRIIING!!!)  I started listening to my CD collection, but even that became old very quickly.  One day in the library, I had a “eureka” moment.  I saw a shelf marked "Playaways."  These little digital recordings take AA batteries (as I quickly discovered, because EVERY time I borrow one from the library, the batteries are dead), and your own pair of headphones or ear buds.  I liked the idea – they were cute, easy to operate, and best of all, inconspicuous!  

     I started with The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.  I was immediately hooked on Playaways (and by the way, the book was great, engaging and beautifully written, if I little gut-wrenching).  I can’t think of anything bad to say about Playaways, except, there just aren’t enough of them. I can’t afford to buy these things so I borrow them from the library, and there’s just one scant shelf of Playaways in my rather large local library.  But hey, there are books on CD, and those are great too.  Their only real drawbacks are sometimes scratched CDs and the more obvious fact that when you listen to them, everyone can hear what you’re hearing.  "Duh!" you're thinking.  Well, give some consideration to the fact that since everyone in the room can hear what you're "reading." You might not want to have your narrator reading an R rated paragraph while a G rated audience is in the room with you, so if you don't want to limit yourself to G-rated books, keep the volume faily low and position yourself within easy reach of the volume and pause buttons.  

     There are still times when an actual printed book can be indispensible, such as when I was learning the French names of the characters in The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.  I had to replay the first chapter of the book about 4 times before I got the important details of the main characters.  Once I had it straight, though, it was easy listening.  I've given up (for now) on the recorded versions of The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask because of those French names.  I may start each of them at home with the actual books as well as the recordings, just until I get the characters straight. 

     I had no such issues with these books, though: Angels and Demons, and Deception Point, by Dan Brown, Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, World Without End by Ken Follett, Helen of Troy by Margaret George, Atonement by Ian McEwan.   Pride and Prejudice, Lady Susan, and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austin may have been a bit difficult if I hadn’t read two of the three of them in the more traditional way years before (and seen the movies, too).  Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt was hysterical at points, even though his poverty was harrowing.  And I just LOVED that Frank McCourt was the narrator.  I loved his oft repeated line, “they didn’t give the steam of their piss,” especially when I heard it in Mr. McCourt’s wonderful Irish accent.  The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns was also narrated by its author, Khaled Hosseini, and his accent lends a certain authenticity to the descriptions of places that held no appeal for me whatsoever until I listened to these two books.   Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey was fun, easily digestible fluff, as was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith, and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austin Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler.

     I just borrowed two more recorded books (on CD) and I’m already well into the first one.  They make boring chores like folding laundry and cooking dinner much more tolerable, and sitting in traffic is almost a pleasure.  Almost. 

Halloween Idiot

I am what you might call, a Halloween Idiot.  I invented the term approximately a week and a half ago, as I was frantically arranging my schedule to accommodate trips to the fabric store and to block out time on the sewing machine.  This year we were invited to a Halloween party, and as I was madly sewing one night, I thought, “I’m going through all this crazy effort to sew the PERFECT costume, and everyone else at the party is just going to buy theirs. What’s wrong with me?  I’m a Halloween idiot.”

I blame the start of this costume obsession on my mother because when I was a kid and all of my peers were wearing ugly plastic jumper costumes with plastic face masks and emblems on the chest of what you were supposed to be, my mother sewed us homemade costumes.  We’d walk up to each door and wow the neighbors. 

My costume obsession was cemented as soon as I learned to sew.  First, I was a mermaid (revisited with gusto and success a few years later), Cleopatra, Catwoman (a little risqué I must admit, even though I was completely covered), a Wild Thing (from the children’s book - complete with paper mache head), a medieval lady, Miss Spider (another children’s book and another paper mache head) which won me a gift certificate to dinner, by the way, and most recently before this year, 5 members of the cast of Jimmy Neutron, each with his or her own very large paper mache head.  What can I say?  I like to sculpt, and my medium is paper mache.

So this year, when we were invited to this Halloween party, I was kind of excited to flex my costume-making muscle.  But I don’t have a lot of time (this writing is subtracting from my snooze time, for example).  My dear spouse suggested we be Sonny and Cher, and I said,

“No way, I’m not going to be Sonny.”

Why do I think like that? 

I decided to be a pirate.  It could be a nice mixture of creativity and found items.  But of course, I tend to get obsessed with costumes.  I found a jacket in the thrift store and sewed lots of pirate-like trim on it.  I cut down some velour sweatpants so they would show my boots (I really liked that sweatsuit, but you know, sacrifices had to be made).  I made two necklaces, and then I made the lace-up vest from scratch, which came out great (thank you dad, for helping me with those grommets!) but was a pain in the ass with boning and lining and 3 broken sewing machine needles.  And here’s a secret that hints at my obsessiveness… I truly considered making the sword out of wood, then sanding and painting the blade silver and gluing large rhinestones on the hilt… wouldn’t that have been AWESOME?  But ultimately, I’m just not THAT nuts.

So in the end, the costume really did come out great.  Lots of people said so.  I hate those times when you have to explain what you are…  I always want it to be PAINFULLY OBVIOUS what I am.  The irony is, in my pride and glory I drank ONE nice, large Cosmo and had to be taken home by my husband after only about two hours.  Some pirate, eh?  I am truly a Halloween Idiot.

I love my new phone.  I now text.  Texting took so long on my old phone that I tried never to do it.  My old phone looked like this:

My new phone is a “slider” with a full, QWERTY keyboard.  I can take pictures and send them with ease.  I can upload pictures to Facebook (they’re usually upside down or sideways, but still).  Get this: I actually cut my thumbnails shorter the other day so they didn’t interfere with my texting!  I have begun to really appreciate my phone’s calendar (I’ve entered new appointments while standing still standing in the vicinity of the counter where I booked them – AWESOME) and I’ve used the Memo tool for my Costco and Wal-Mart shopping lists.  Plus (and this is very important) my phone is a nice color pink and it has decorative squiggles on the back

– the only way I might like it better is if it was a nice periwinkle blue with sparkley squiggles and it talked to me throughout the day when appropriate like a positive personal assistant.  “Don’t forget you have physical therapy for your shoulder this afternoon and by the way, that new ring of yours is GORGEOUS!” 

Still.

I have a limited number of people who call me on the cell phone and I still do NOT want to be accessible all the time.  I know that some people do this.  Kids especially.  How do they do it?  Better yet, WHY do they do it?  It must take forever to do everything…  “morning. What r u wearing?” “IDK yet. im taking a poo right now.” Well, maybe it’s not that bad, but it’s got to be close.  I remember in high school, spending HOURS on the phone with my friends, and we were in the same classes as well.  My dad always knew where I was because all he had to do was follow the long phone cord (We had 2 twenty foot cords connected together. YES, those were the days before cordless phones.)  He sometimes had to yell at me to get off the phone at 9:00 p.m. because I had been talking since dinner ended, but at least when that happened, there were no midnight consultations, no comparing and contrasting of gossip when I should have been sleeping, no "he said" "she said" at the bleary eyed hour of 2 a.m.  I remember reading an article a few years ago that said that most teenagers are sleep deprived because they send text messages into the wee hours of the morning.  It can’t be THAT bad, I thought.  I asked a class of 9^th graders, just for curiosity’s sake, how many of them regularly stayed up past 2:00 a.m. sending and receiving text messages, and HALF THE CLASS raised their hands!  Yikes.  Did their parents know?  I wondered.

I love my new phone, but not that much.