It's not that I'm going all bah-humbug on the holiday, just that someone had to work it, that someone being me, and so I'm in Christmas-oblivion until the 27th, which is when my celebrations officially begin.
I celebrated Christmas Eve with all the somber reverence due to the birth of baby Jesus, in a greasy spoon called Zak's Diner, home of excellent home fries and uncomfortable seating. Andrew took me there when I got off work at 7am and it's as close to Christmas dinner as I've come. And no, that's not a complaint. Although I did raise my eyebrow ever so slightly when the waitress asked how he wanted his eggs, and he said "Scrambled."
"What's wrong with scrambled?", he asked.
"Nothing," I said, "if you're 12."
Frankly, he deserved a good ribbing after I had inspected his driveway earlier and declared that reindeer had definitely been afoot (ahoof?).
"No," he said, "we just have rabbits."
Now, granted, I had just got off a night shift and I was exhausted and bleary, but that's still no excuse for him to think it possible that I might confuse reindeer and rabbits. I'm not that blonde.
"Well if you're not referring to the tracks in the snow, then what do you mean?" he asked.
"I smell them" I said.
"You smell reindeer?"
"I smell magic!"
So then we kissed goodbye and he sped off toward his hometown, an 8-hour drive he managed in just 11, which sounds ass-backwards, but this is December in Canada and all things considered, he made good time. I have it on good authority that he is currently drinking generous portions of scotch while making awkward conversation with his Nana and trying to tune out Anne Murray's screechy Christmas album.
Meanwhile, I went to work on Christmas Eve in my fuzzy Christmas jammies, ready for all manners of office antics with just a pinch of party, but instead I spent the night alone in the dark while my coworker stretched out on the yoga mat and intermittently snored and ignored the annoying ringtone\alarm on his phone. For 7 fucking hours.
Merry Christmas to me!
Christmas day meant little more to me than the rest I'd need before heading back into work, but after approximately 47 minutes of sleep I discovered that any more would be impossible. Awesome. Nothing says Christmas like a nice glass of Redbull, I've always said. Maybe I could crush up some candy cane and give that a snort for some extra energy and a brief but minty ride on the festive train.
My youngest sister, bless her little heart, has spread Christmas cheer via text. She has sent blurry images that I assume are Christmas-related along with enigmatic updates such as "Now we're playing spoons!"
When I wrote back that I hoped that meant that our grandfather was attempting something by Beyonce, she (to my disappointment) clarified that spoons were not being played musically as I had imagined, but rather, it's an ill-named card game. Or a well-named card game, for all I know. But still.
If you think I sound grinchy, then you clearly don't know me very well.
This is how I always sound.
I'm an inspired complainer year-round.
It's part of my charm. Trust me.
Actually, I don't so much mind working through Christmas. I'm a contractor, which means I work for myself, so I could have had it off, but then someone else would have had to sacrifice their plans.
Andrew and I celebrated the night before he left by feasting on thai food and watching half a movie before he stoked my fire with his yule log.
And my mother has generously offered to host "Christmas: The Sequel" upon my belated arrival.
So I might not be roasting chestnuts on an open fire tonight, but I'm making pancakes and watching Hamlet 2, and you know what?
That ain't bad.
Happy holidays to all.
xo
Showing posts with label Holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holidays. Show all posts
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Monday, December 24, 2007
Obligatory Holiday Post
So first you gotta get your ass to the Home Depot and buy the biggest, most ridiculous, most overtly-won't-fit-through-your-doorway-no-matter-how-hard-you-ram-it tree you can find (and no, that was not a euphemism).
Then you strap it to the car using nothing but odds and ends of free twine and some misplaced optimism, and hope for the best.
Then you stop every 3km and reattach until you get home (because yes, an 80 foot tree does go careening off the roof of your stupid slippery car every time you hit the gas, or the break, or sneeze), losing limbs (tree limbs, not human limbs....well, not ideally) and needles along the way.
Then you get home, curse the fact that you brought home a tree that's twice the size of your house, spend the next 7 hours sawing it down to the point where it no longer looks like something Paul Bunyan would have brought home, then make a quick trip to the ER to get some stitches and a tetanus shot because that slicing yourself with a rusty handsaw is a Christmas tradition, goddammit.
Then you get into the rum balls. And I mean, you fucking lay into the rum balls like there's no tomorrow. Because first of all, now that the tree is in the house, it's making strange noises like maybe, just maybe, there's a rabid squirrel (or two) in there, and also because now is the time where you have to decorate it using a mishmash of "sentimental" (also known as "tacky") ornaments that the family has been collecting since polyester and aquanet were considered to be in taste.
Then make a totally out of the blue phone call to make sure your insurance policy is up to date, and includes fire, and all that good stuff. Because that blinky, somewhat faulty, somewhat monstrously hot bulb is dangerously close to that brittle, dried out piece of kindling - er, ornament, I mean.
Then drink to console yourself. Eggnog is nasty, but brandy is dandy. If you drink enough, you'll forget that you're allergic to tree sap and cranberries make you gag and grandma still wants to know why you aren't pregnant yet. In fact, if you drink enough, your cheeks will turn rosy and your giggle will be enough to convince others that you're "in the spirit" when really you've just been "into the spirits." And if you drink even more, you'll find a naughty button around and instead of thinking oh, how inappropriate, you think, I'm drinking for free tonight!
Then find a karaoke bar where the people are unironically wearing santa hats and the bartender is unabashedly pouring hot toddies and let the good times roll. And by "good times roll", I of course mean get ogled by anything with a penis, and make eye contact with no one, not even the chicks, and get very prompt service at the bar.
Then continue to celebrate in a similar fashion for several nights in a row. Don't be afraid to occasionally overdose on cashews, pop the cork on half a case of champagne, very occasionally lick a candy cane in a suggestive manner, sing "alternative" lyrics to the Christmas carols you hate the most, indulge in a snowball fight (Mexican fighting rules apply), raise the heat and lose the clothes, and only extremely occasionally mind you, don some footie pajamas and curl up on the couch with someone to watch cheesy Tim Allen movies that secretly make you cry.
Then you strap it to the car using nothing but odds and ends of free twine and some misplaced optimism, and hope for the best.
Then you stop every 3km and reattach until you get home (because yes, an 80 foot tree does go careening off the roof of your stupid slippery car every time you hit the gas, or the break, or sneeze), losing limbs (tree limbs, not human limbs....well, not ideally) and needles along the way.
Then you get home, curse the fact that you brought home a tree that's twice the size of your house, spend the next 7 hours sawing it down to the point where it no longer looks like something Paul Bunyan would have brought home, then make a quick trip to the ER to get some stitches and a tetanus shot because that slicing yourself with a rusty handsaw is a Christmas tradition, goddammit.
Then you get into the rum balls. And I mean, you fucking lay into the rum balls like there's no tomorrow. Because first of all, now that the tree is in the house, it's making strange noises like maybe, just maybe, there's a rabid squirrel (or two) in there, and also because now is the time where you have to decorate it using a mishmash of "sentimental" (also known as "tacky") ornaments that the family has been collecting since polyester and aquanet were considered to be in taste.
Then you try not to cringe as you dig out some gems such as: a styrofoam ball spray painted cold and "decorated" with toothpicks, several A&W RootBears, some threadbare Bugs Bunny balls, circa 1979, something shiny and distinctly phallic, and let's not forget this little gem, a piece of construction paper older than Hillary Duff, lovingly hand-crafted (using crayons and glitter, liberally, by the looks of it) by yours truly, when I was 18. Or so.
Then make a totally out of the blue phone call to make sure your insurance policy is up to date, and includes fire, and all that good stuff. Because that blinky, somewhat faulty, somewhat monstrously hot bulb is dangerously close to that brittle, dried out piece of kindling - er, ornament, I mean.
Then check the batteries in the smoke detectors just to be safe.
Then hang the stockings with care. Or you know, alternatively, hang them haphazardly on the stair banister when a mantel is lacking; that'll do too. Then take a moment to consider how fucking old you must be when your stocking is starting to grow mould. Mould! Right on Frosty's ball.
Then drink to console yourself. Eggnog is nasty, but brandy is dandy. If you drink enough, you'll forget that you're allergic to tree sap and cranberries make you gag and grandma still wants to know why you aren't pregnant yet. In fact, if you drink enough, your cheeks will turn rosy and your giggle will be enough to convince others that you're "in the spirit" when really you've just been "into the spirits." And if you drink even more, you'll find a naughty button around and instead of thinking oh, how inappropriate, you think, I'm drinking for free tonight!
Then find a karaoke bar where the people are unironically wearing santa hats and the bartender is unabashedly pouring hot toddies and let the good times roll. And by "good times roll", I of course mean get ogled by anything with a penis, and make eye contact with no one, not even the chicks, and get very prompt service at the bar.
Then continue to celebrate in a similar fashion for several nights in a row. Don't be afraid to occasionally overdose on cashews, pop the cork on half a case of champagne, very occasionally lick a candy cane in a suggestive manner, sing "alternative" lyrics to the Christmas carols you hate the most, indulge in a snowball fight (Mexican fighting rules apply), raise the heat and lose the clothes, and only extremely occasionally mind you, don some footie pajamas and curl up on the couch with someone to watch cheesy Tim Allen movies that secretly make you cry.
Merry Christmas.
Monday, December 03, 2007
I'm Getting Fat for Christmas
The good news is, there's nothing left to stop me from taking up grand theft auto.The bad news is, when they inevitably find my bloated corpse in a ditch by the highway, they'll have to use dental records to identify me.
I'm going to miss having fingerprints, but on the upside, my laptop screen has never looked more smudge-free!
As I'm sure you've guessed by now, I've been doing a little holiday baking. You know, the kind where you bake furiously with the intention of freezing it all so you can pretend to be the perfect hostess when those annoying impromptu guests show up when really you're just thawing crap you made a month ago. Also the kind where none of the desserts ever actually make it to the freezer, because of course you can't simply trust that they're delicious, you have to taste them, and then you can't rely on such a selective sample, you have to be more thorough, and then someone comes in the kitchen and catches you furtively shoving sweets down your gullet and it makes such an attractive picture they decide to join you, and suddenly you've spent 7 hours baking and all you've got to show for it are some crumbs and a pile of dirty dishes that you're considering just chucking out because it's not like you'll need them again before next year, at which point you can claim ignorance to what's happened to them (and let's face it, you've already opened your second bottle of wine, so it's quite likely that you'll have legitimately forgotten anyhow) and besides, you just consumed several kilos worth of sugar - you need a nap, or a padded cell, or a nap inside a softly padded cell.
So yeah. I'm feeling a little queasy. I just seared off my own fingerprints via the painful but effective method of molten marshmallow - and damn if that stuff doesn't stick! And when you finally get to peel it away, off comes those identifying little whorls you wasted years of your life becoming familiar with.
Anyway. Everyone knows there's only one real reason we do holiday baking, and that's to have the opportunity to freebase some sweetened condensed milk. All year long, I fantasize about that little pop top, rolling back the lid and finding all that sweetness inside. The baked goods get sacrificed - they end up dry so that I can get my fix - but just a little of that ooey gooey good stuff dancing on my tongue, and it's all worth it. Years and years from now, scientists will find my legacy. I won't leave behind cave paintings or arrowheads or clay pots. I'll leave behind crumbly bits of dessert buried deep within a chest freezer, and when they do their experiments they'll conclude that in the year 2007 there was a frightful sweetened condensed milk shortage, and how did we all survive?
Friday, December 08, 2006
What I "like" the "best" about the "holidays".
By which I mean: "hate", "worst", "stupid holidays".
1. Holiday Driving
Everyone writes the same postscript in their greetings cards - "Be sure to stop by sometime!" which is vague and passive-aggressive at best. But at the very least you have to show your mother in law that you love the reindeer-embroidered vest that she gave you (with matching dangly earrings!) and so off you go, braving the icy roads to find drivers who have thrown peace and love out the window in favour of special holiday rage and a very merry price-gouging at the pumps. Santa's magic sleigh begins to look all the more reasonable - fuel efficient, and no need for snow tired! Amen to that.
2. Christmas Kiosks
One day, midway through November when the malls were starting to crowd with waves of shoulder-to-shoulder holiday shoppers, a little boy grew tired of walking and his mother picked him up. An astute mall manager spotted this extra 4 inches of space and decided to capitalize on it by squeezing in a small cart selling Christmas Crap, and the annoying mall kiosk was born.
Around the holidays, the number of kiosks grows exponentially because nothing says "I care" like an acne kit endorsed by a pop star, or better yet, a bunch of fake hair that claims to be "real" but feels more like "real fake hair", probably made in the same factory as plastic cutlery and jelly sandals. And of course there's the calendar kiosk reminding you that you're getting older but not wiser, that you never made good on last year's resolutions, that your womb is drying up and your turkey is drying out, and by god there are only 6 more shopping days until Christmas. But my favourite by far is the Hickory Farms kiosk - every year when I'm buying love at the Sony Store, I pass the time spent in line wondering about what kind of person is keeping these guys in business. How better to say "I love you" than with questionable cheeses and an assortment of jellies never meant for human consumption?
3. Really "great" holiday music
a) I have never in my life encountered any nut roasting on any fire.
b) Nothing says Christmas like your intoxicated grandmother getting trampled to death by a herd of prancing deer.
c) My friends do not call "yoo hoo". If they did, the next line of the song would be "Stop wasting my god-damned weekend minutes!"
d) Jingle bells do not "rock" in any sense of the word.
Oh what's the point? There has not been a new Christmas song since the Era of Lawrence Welk, and quite frankly, when every song is basically propaganda for a couple of guys no one's ever seen, well, this stuff is just too easy.
4. Secret Santa
Because obviously you love your coworkers. Even the lady with the inspirational cat posters who drinks tea out of mugs with 'clever' phrases written on them like "Born to Bingo" who tells your boss that you were 4 minutes late, and even the guy who parks his car diagonally across 3 handicapped spaces and never holds the elevator, even your boss who puts his name on your ideas and who smells suspiciously of sorority vomit on Monday mornings. Clearly you want to buy them lovely things, and trust them to buy you something lovely in return, which clearly can be done for the agreed-upon $15 limit which you exceed slightly in the name of good taste, and which your secret Santa apparently took as only a suggestion when he picked up this 2-pack of car air fresheners at the gas station his morning for 67 cents.
And the best part? It's secret, so you can't even take credit for giving that great bottle of wine to the guy who never washes his hands after using the bathroom and makes creative use of the office photo copier. Good times.
5. "Delicious" Holiday Treats
Cranberries: what the hell is up with cranberries? As if they weren't annoying enough in awful juice format (slogan: even your urinary tract would prefer a glass of oj), along comes Christmas and its damn Christmas bird. Take your pick: turkey, goose, tiny little hen....either way, who was the first person to think "I think I'll plop some of this useless little fruit on top"? And then the guy after him who couldn't even be bothered to do that, but instead a tin-can-shaped blob of red stuff in a dish that we generously called "cranberry sauce" but might more accurately be named "a middling source of dietary fiber and manganese, whatever the hell that is."
Eggnog: Friends and fellow countrymen, repeat after me: egg is not a mixer.
Fruitcake: Way to take a good thing (namely, cake) and fuck it all up. I mean, it wasn't enough to put fruit on top of your meat (see above diatribe against the unholy cranberry), you had to foul up dessert as well. And it's not that I have anything per say against fruit, but fruitcake doesn't even pretend to be good. And according to wikipedia, a fresh fruitcake has not been baked since 1913, instead the same 12 have just been circulating ever since, occasionally being wrapped in new cellophane (well, I'm paraphrasing). But there's not a lot of good to be said about a so-called dessert that's primary ingredients are not about taste but about "preventing mould" (and I'm not even making that part up). Some people claim fruitcake gets better with age, but I'm betting these are the same cranks who think headcheese from a mall kiosk makes an excellent gift.
6. Santa Hats
You know who should wear a Santa hat? Santa. And even then, I would strongly suggest he switch over to a more stylin fedora, or even a cute beenie if warmth is his main concern. But every year it seems that people go rummaging through the storage space under their trailers for their grubby, tatty Santa hats so they can wear them around all December long looking like a festive hangout for fleas and other vermin. And for some reason, every single homeless person has been provided with a pre-infested Santa hat, which the homeless person then generously shares with various mangy dogs. And people still think this is a good style to copycat - I mean, obviously a big fat man wearing a red velvet jumpsuit is a fashion icon, am I right?
7. Poinsettias
You know how right before Easter there's always a public service announcement about how rabbits don't make a very good gift because you have to be prepared to care for it for oh, the rest of its life, after the cuteness of it wears off 2 days after the holiday has passed? Well, the same should be done for poor poinsettias. They're living creatures too you know, and yet they are unceremoniously dumped right after Christmas. In some parts of Mexico it is actually referred to as "excrement flower" and this surprises me not one bit.
8. X-mas
Who agreed upon this spelling? Since when does X = Christ? Is this the "new math" or some sort of old "arithmetic" from before algebra was invented? Was Jesus an X-man? Or did chat-room illiterates come up with this along with their other ridiculous acronyms and alternate spellings which I refuse to even acknowledge (and still to this day will reject the friendship of anyone who CUL8R's me). Either way, I take offense. I mean, if you believe he died for your sins and will come again to judge the living and the dead, I'm thinking you might want to take the time to spell his name correctly, eh?
9. Schmaltzy Sitcoms
Maybe it's because I grew up in the 80s, but the mere thought of a dysfunctional TV family who spends 22 minutes week in and week out airing their "hilarious" grievances with each other Tuesday night after Tuesday night suddenly banding together on a special holiday episode where for that night only they suddenly all have pianos in their living rooms, and they suddenly all burst into Christmas carols at the exact same moment (even though just last week Steve Urkel was barely allowed inside the house, let alone to put his arms around "the big guy" and croon about their hot nuts)....well, it drives me crazy. Anything with a "touching theme" or "holiday message" or "sentimental tribute" is laxatives to me.
10. Christmas Tipping
Once upon a time, a tip was a little something you gave someone out of the goodness of your heart to reward them for exceptional service. I swear it's true. And then it became expected. And then it became demanded whether service was adequate or not. And then it was requested just because a certain date on the calendar was fast-approaching, and anyone you came within a 10-mile radius of is suddenly crawling out of the woodwork, palm up, looking for a fat envelope, to which I say: scrooge you.
1. Holiday Driving
Everyone writes the same postscript in their greetings cards - "Be sure to stop by sometime!" which is vague and passive-aggressive at best. But at the very least you have to show your mother in law that you love the reindeer-embroidered vest that she gave you (with matching dangly earrings!) and so off you go, braving the icy roads to find drivers who have thrown peace and love out the window in favour of special holiday rage and a very merry price-gouging at the pumps. Santa's magic sleigh begins to look all the more reasonable - fuel efficient, and no need for snow tired! Amen to that.
2. Christmas Kiosks
One day, midway through November when the malls were starting to crowd with waves of shoulder-to-shoulder holiday shoppers, a little boy grew tired of walking and his mother picked him up. An astute mall manager spotted this extra 4 inches of space and decided to capitalize on it by squeezing in a small cart selling Christmas Crap, and the annoying mall kiosk was born.
Around the holidays, the number of kiosks grows exponentially because nothing says "I care" like an acne kit endorsed by a pop star, or better yet, a bunch of fake hair that claims to be "real" but feels more like "real fake hair", probably made in the same factory as plastic cutlery and jelly sandals. And of course there's the calendar kiosk reminding you that you're getting older but not wiser, that you never made good on last year's resolutions, that your womb is drying up and your turkey is drying out, and by god there are only 6 more shopping days until Christmas. But my favourite by far is the Hickory Farms kiosk - every year when I'm buying love at the Sony Store, I pass the time spent in line wondering about what kind of person is keeping these guys in business. How better to say "I love you" than with questionable cheeses and an assortment of jellies never meant for human consumption?
3. Really "great" holiday music
a) I have never in my life encountered any nut roasting on any fire.
b) Nothing says Christmas like your intoxicated grandmother getting trampled to death by a herd of prancing deer.
c) My friends do not call "yoo hoo". If they did, the next line of the song would be "Stop wasting my god-damned weekend minutes!"
d) Jingle bells do not "rock" in any sense of the word.
Oh what's the point? There has not been a new Christmas song since the Era of Lawrence Welk, and quite frankly, when every song is basically propaganda for a couple of guys no one's ever seen, well, this stuff is just too easy.
4. Secret Santa
Because obviously you love your coworkers. Even the lady with the inspirational cat posters who drinks tea out of mugs with 'clever' phrases written on them like "Born to Bingo" who tells your boss that you were 4 minutes late, and even the guy who parks his car diagonally across 3 handicapped spaces and never holds the elevator, even your boss who puts his name on your ideas and who smells suspiciously of sorority vomit on Monday mornings. Clearly you want to buy them lovely things, and trust them to buy you something lovely in return, which clearly can be done for the agreed-upon $15 limit which you exceed slightly in the name of good taste, and which your secret Santa apparently took as only a suggestion when he picked up this 2-pack of car air fresheners at the gas station his morning for 67 cents.
And the best part? It's secret, so you can't even take credit for giving that great bottle of wine to the guy who never washes his hands after using the bathroom and makes creative use of the office photo copier. Good times.
5. "Delicious" Holiday Treats
Cranberries: what the hell is up with cranberries? As if they weren't annoying enough in awful juice format (slogan: even your urinary tract would prefer a glass of oj), along comes Christmas and its damn Christmas bird. Take your pick: turkey, goose, tiny little hen....either way, who was the first person to think "I think I'll plop some of this useless little fruit on top"? And then the guy after him who couldn't even be bothered to do that, but instead a tin-can-shaped blob of red stuff in a dish that we generously called "cranberry sauce" but might more accurately be named "a middling source of dietary fiber and manganese, whatever the hell that is."
Eggnog: Friends and fellow countrymen, repeat after me: egg is not a mixer.
Fruitcake: Way to take a good thing (namely, cake) and fuck it all up. I mean, it wasn't enough to put fruit on top of your meat (see above diatribe against the unholy cranberry), you had to foul up dessert as well. And it's not that I have anything per say against fruit, but fruitcake doesn't even pretend to be good. And according to wikipedia, a fresh fruitcake has not been baked since 1913, instead the same 12 have just been circulating ever since, occasionally being wrapped in new cellophane (well, I'm paraphrasing). But there's not a lot of good to be said about a so-called dessert that's primary ingredients are not about taste but about "preventing mould" (and I'm not even making that part up). Some people claim fruitcake gets better with age, but I'm betting these are the same cranks who think headcheese from a mall kiosk makes an excellent gift.
6. Santa Hats
You know who should wear a Santa hat? Santa. And even then, I would strongly suggest he switch over to a more stylin fedora, or even a cute beenie if warmth is his main concern. But every year it seems that people go rummaging through the storage space under their trailers for their grubby, tatty Santa hats so they can wear them around all December long looking like a festive hangout for fleas and other vermin. And for some reason, every single homeless person has been provided with a pre-infested Santa hat, which the homeless person then generously shares with various mangy dogs. And people still think this is a good style to copycat - I mean, obviously a big fat man wearing a red velvet jumpsuit is a fashion icon, am I right?
7. Poinsettias
You know how right before Easter there's always a public service announcement about how rabbits don't make a very good gift because you have to be prepared to care for it for oh, the rest of its life, after the cuteness of it wears off 2 days after the holiday has passed? Well, the same should be done for poor poinsettias. They're living creatures too you know, and yet they are unceremoniously dumped right after Christmas. In some parts of Mexico it is actually referred to as "excrement flower" and this surprises me not one bit.
8. X-mas
Who agreed upon this spelling? Since when does X = Christ? Is this the "new math" or some sort of old "arithmetic" from before algebra was invented? Was Jesus an X-man? Or did chat-room illiterates come up with this along with their other ridiculous acronyms and alternate spellings which I refuse to even acknowledge (and still to this day will reject the friendship of anyone who CUL8R's me). Either way, I take offense. I mean, if you believe he died for your sins and will come again to judge the living and the dead, I'm thinking you might want to take the time to spell his name correctly, eh?
9. Schmaltzy Sitcoms
Maybe it's because I grew up in the 80s, but the mere thought of a dysfunctional TV family who spends 22 minutes week in and week out airing their "hilarious" grievances with each other Tuesday night after Tuesday night suddenly banding together on a special holiday episode where for that night only they suddenly all have pianos in their living rooms, and they suddenly all burst into Christmas carols at the exact same moment (even though just last week Steve Urkel was barely allowed inside the house, let alone to put his arms around "the big guy" and croon about their hot nuts)....well, it drives me crazy. Anything with a "touching theme" or "holiday message" or "sentimental tribute" is laxatives to me.
10. Christmas Tipping
Once upon a time, a tip was a little something you gave someone out of the goodness of your heart to reward them for exceptional service. I swear it's true. And then it became expected. And then it became demanded whether service was adequate or not. And then it was requested just because a certain date on the calendar was fast-approaching, and anyone you came within a 10-mile radius of is suddenly crawling out of the woodwork, palm up, looking for a fat envelope, to which I say: scrooge you.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
I'm Getting Crap for Christmas
Welcome to Jamie's Survival Guide for the Holidays.
If you have questions of suggestions of your own, please email me.
Otherwise, no matter how or what you celebrate, good luck to you.
It's that time of the year again.
That awful time of the year when wrinkled packages sit sagging underneath a dying, be-baubled plant, and you just know they contain crap, but crap you'll have to pretend to be grateful for.
That's been my experience, anyway.
Christmas is supposed to be a time for families to gather near, but I swear, December seems to be the time that my family meets me again for the first time.
Around the first of the month, I like to ring up and reintroduce myself:
Hi, Mum. It's me, Jamie. You know, your first born, the one you named after your brother? Remember me? I slept just down the hall from you for 18 years or so. I like kitchen gadgets, literature, recycling, and Tenacious D. You may recognize me from family portraits and special appearances in the earlier photo albums. Is any of this ringing a bell? Hello? Hello?
But this rarely works. Despite my best attempts to familiarize my family with me, their gifts always seem to be the results of a last-minute dash to walmart where the first thing falling under the theme "girl, age 10-76" was purchased and labeled with my name, and if it was found on the sales table containing last year's kitsch, all the better.
So, I get crap for Christmas.
It started when I was a kid. Of course I got some lovely gifts over the years, but I also got some real head-scratchers. One year I got a puzz-3D of Cinderella's castle. Now let's consider, for a moment, that my mother had no indication that I enjoyed puzzles, or games of any kind, or castles, or Cinderella, or anything other than clothes and music. I looked at the puzz-3D, hoping it had ended up in my pile accidentally, and if against all odds it had been intended for me, that we could all move on and allow it to start collecting dust sometime very, very soon. But no, my mother insisted I at least give it a try, so I opened the box to find 8000 identical gray pieces and thought to myself Either I'm adopted, or my mother hates me. The next year my mother gave my sisters and I a joint gift, and we unwrapped a dazzling 3-storey, 4 foot tall Barbie house. I was 14 years old. As my sisters squealed in delight, I retreated to my bedroom to listen to the Smashing Pumpkins and read some Sylvia Plath. Barbie house? Hello? Do I even exist to you people? What about my Doc Martens and my 90210 posters tells you I might be interested in a Barbie house?
These days though, I would be thankful for a puzz-3D. Now that I'm an adult the window for crap is open wide and the possibilities are endless.
The kiss of death Christmas crap is no doubt stationary. Nothing says "I have no idea who you are or what you like, so I got you this inoffensive gift which was sitting conveniently in the impulse-purchase aisle for $9.99" like a box of generic stationary. I remember when I was a kid, my mother would alternate getting my grandmother (her mother in law) a brooch and a box of stationary every year, because what else do you get an old woman who has no wants or desires or personal style? But then a few years ago, I began unwrapping some stationary sets of my own. What the hell? I'm 25 years old, what the fuck do I want with paper adorned with light houses and seagulls? I'm going to write to all my white-haired, dentured, old-biddy friends to tell them which of my peers has recently died of natural causes? I don't think so.
A close second, crap-wise, is of course, the dreaded bubble bath. This again reminds me of my grandmother who always was gifted with, and as a consequence of, smelled strongly of, Fa. Apparently I do not even rate Fa; mostly I receive junk I'm pretty sure comes from the dusty shelves of the dollar store. And sometimes a capfull of the dollar store junk is missing because someone in the family has bought it, ran a bath for themselves, discovered that it smells suspiciously like burnt hair, and pawned the remains off on me, me who is apparently too dumb to notice that the seal has been broken (my sisters also gift me with clothes they no longer want, the tags cut out and the sweaters already pilling). Now, this is the same family who laughed at my hives when I came into contact with any foreign substance, who grimaced at my red eyes when they got anything as abrasive as clean water in them, who laughed when my face broke out when I so much as looked the wrong way at a jar of Noxema. The very family who ostensibly know me to be the most sensitive-skinned person in the world, and yet gift me with cheap-ass bubble bath because nothing says I love you like a bottle of crap so drying that my skin will flake off and I will be unable to self-lubricate for weeks on end! Oh the joy!
And I won't even mention the fact that I don't have a bathtub.
And how many pairs of isotoner slippers does one girl need? Answer: 0. Only old ladies wear isotoner slippers, and I'm talking long flannel nightgowns and fake teeth in a glass on the nightstand.
Two years ago I got a real piece of crap, in the shape of gold and diamonds. It was a "pendant" and it came in one of those cute little boxes from the jewelry store. And I hated it. I mean, truly, did not like it. Because am I a yellow-gold and diamonds kind of girl? No, I am not. I hate dainty. I hate anything that hangs on a "chain'. I own nothing of the sort, have admired nothing of the sort. Anyone who knows me knows I would much prefer a $10 necklace of glass or wooden beads. Anyone who knows me knows that I think yellow gold is repulsive. Anyone who knows me knows that diamond pendants don't really go with a wardrobe consisting of Ramones t-shirts and Converse. But I have long ago accepted that my mother quite simply does not know me. Sure they say it's the thought that counts, but when the thought behind your gifts seems to be "You probably won't like this, but hey, it was on sale!" and "Woops, we sure did forget about you!", then screw the thought and demand for cash.
My mother-in-law is great for that, she gives gift certificates, and even if some think them impersonal, I can tell you this: her thank-you-note is the only one that doesn't make me weep to write. My other mother-in-law seems to forget my existence every single year, and so I get something out of her "stock" pile, usually things she's bought from various candle parties over the years. I mean, how many dorky candle holders that don't match my decor (or my age bracket) can I really fit underneath my bed? Not many more, I can tell you that.
So to keep the peace, I unwrap these gifts and cart them home where I will dutifully assign them a corner space in my cupboard until I do my spring cleaning, when I will then throw out the crap with relief. And in order to survive the holidays, I have learned this:
Fake the most sincere gratitude that you possibly can, and treat yourself to the gifts you deserve.
If you have questions of suggestions of your own, please email me.
Otherwise, no matter how or what you celebrate, good luck to you.
It's that time of the year again.
That awful time of the year when wrinkled packages sit sagging underneath a dying, be-baubled plant, and you just know they contain crap, but crap you'll have to pretend to be grateful for.
That's been my experience, anyway.
Christmas is supposed to be a time for families to gather near, but I swear, December seems to be the time that my family meets me again for the first time.
Around the first of the month, I like to ring up and reintroduce myself:
Hi, Mum. It's me, Jamie. You know, your first born, the one you named after your brother? Remember me? I slept just down the hall from you for 18 years or so. I like kitchen gadgets, literature, recycling, and Tenacious D. You may recognize me from family portraits and special appearances in the earlier photo albums. Is any of this ringing a bell? Hello? Hello?
But this rarely works. Despite my best attempts to familiarize my family with me, their gifts always seem to be the results of a last-minute dash to walmart where the first thing falling under the theme "girl, age 10-76" was purchased and labeled with my name, and if it was found on the sales table containing last year's kitsch, all the better.
So, I get crap for Christmas.
It started when I was a kid. Of course I got some lovely gifts over the years, but I also got some real head-scratchers. One year I got a puzz-3D of Cinderella's castle. Now let's consider, for a moment, that my mother had no indication that I enjoyed puzzles, or games of any kind, or castles, or Cinderella, or anything other than clothes and music. I looked at the puzz-3D, hoping it had ended up in my pile accidentally, and if against all odds it had been intended for me, that we could all move on and allow it to start collecting dust sometime very, very soon. But no, my mother insisted I at least give it a try, so I opened the box to find 8000 identical gray pieces and thought to myself Either I'm adopted, or my mother hates me. The next year my mother gave my sisters and I a joint gift, and we unwrapped a dazzling 3-storey, 4 foot tall Barbie house. I was 14 years old. As my sisters squealed in delight, I retreated to my bedroom to listen to the Smashing Pumpkins and read some Sylvia Plath. Barbie house? Hello? Do I even exist to you people? What about my Doc Martens and my 90210 posters tells you I might be interested in a Barbie house?
These days though, I would be thankful for a puzz-3D. Now that I'm an adult the window for crap is open wide and the possibilities are endless.
The kiss of death Christmas crap is no doubt stationary. Nothing says "I have no idea who you are or what you like, so I got you this inoffensive gift which was sitting conveniently in the impulse-purchase aisle for $9.99" like a box of generic stationary. I remember when I was a kid, my mother would alternate getting my grandmother (her mother in law) a brooch and a box of stationary every year, because what else do you get an old woman who has no wants or desires or personal style? But then a few years ago, I began unwrapping some stationary sets of my own. What the hell? I'm 25 years old, what the fuck do I want with paper adorned with light houses and seagulls? I'm going to write to all my white-haired, dentured, old-biddy friends to tell them which of my peers has recently died of natural causes? I don't think so.
A close second, crap-wise, is of course, the dreaded bubble bath. This again reminds me of my grandmother who always was gifted with, and as a consequence of, smelled strongly of, Fa. Apparently I do not even rate Fa; mostly I receive junk I'm pretty sure comes from the dusty shelves of the dollar store. And sometimes a capfull of the dollar store junk is missing because someone in the family has bought it, ran a bath for themselves, discovered that it smells suspiciously like burnt hair, and pawned the remains off on me, me who is apparently too dumb to notice that the seal has been broken (my sisters also gift me with clothes they no longer want, the tags cut out and the sweaters already pilling). Now, this is the same family who laughed at my hives when I came into contact with any foreign substance, who grimaced at my red eyes when they got anything as abrasive as clean water in them, who laughed when my face broke out when I so much as looked the wrong way at a jar of Noxema. The very family who ostensibly know me to be the most sensitive-skinned person in the world, and yet gift me with cheap-ass bubble bath because nothing says I love you like a bottle of crap so drying that my skin will flake off and I will be unable to self-lubricate for weeks on end! Oh the joy!
And I won't even mention the fact that I don't have a bathtub.
And how many pairs of isotoner slippers does one girl need? Answer: 0. Only old ladies wear isotoner slippers, and I'm talking long flannel nightgowns and fake teeth in a glass on the nightstand.
Two years ago I got a real piece of crap, in the shape of gold and diamonds. It was a "pendant" and it came in one of those cute little boxes from the jewelry store. And I hated it. I mean, truly, did not like it. Because am I a yellow-gold and diamonds kind of girl? No, I am not. I hate dainty. I hate anything that hangs on a "chain'. I own nothing of the sort, have admired nothing of the sort. Anyone who knows me knows I would much prefer a $10 necklace of glass or wooden beads. Anyone who knows me knows that I think yellow gold is repulsive. Anyone who knows me knows that diamond pendants don't really go with a wardrobe consisting of Ramones t-shirts and Converse. But I have long ago accepted that my mother quite simply does not know me. Sure they say it's the thought that counts, but when the thought behind your gifts seems to be "You probably won't like this, but hey, it was on sale!" and "Woops, we sure did forget about you!", then screw the thought and demand for cash.
My mother-in-law is great for that, she gives gift certificates, and even if some think them impersonal, I can tell you this: her thank-you-note is the only one that doesn't make me weep to write. My other mother-in-law seems to forget my existence every single year, and so I get something out of her "stock" pile, usually things she's bought from various candle parties over the years. I mean, how many dorky candle holders that don't match my decor (or my age bracket) can I really fit underneath my bed? Not many more, I can tell you that.
So to keep the peace, I unwrap these gifts and cart them home where I will dutifully assign them a corner space in my cupboard until I do my spring cleaning, when I will then throw out the crap with relief. And in order to survive the holidays, I have learned this:
Fake the most sincere gratitude that you possibly can, and treat yourself to the gifts you deserve.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Halloween: Now
The first time I attended a Halloween party that was not sponsored by the Brownies, I was in high school and dating a much older man who, embarrassingly, had gone to high school with my mass communications teacher. I did jello shots until I couldn't stand, at which point I switched to my first-ever shots of Goldschlager, which if you don't know, is a liqueur with tiny slivers of pure gold swimming in it. Unfortunately, I didn't know, and in my jello-shot-state of inebriation, I was led to believe that they were in fact tiny fishes, that were now alive and swimming lustily in my stomach.
The next Halloween Jason and I signed up for a Haunted Tour of Ottawa - basically, a guide wearing a silly cape (drama students, all of them, you can be sure) walks you through the city, by light of a lantern (I know, can you stand it?) pointing out all the spots where ghosts are said to reside and recounting the "spooky" sightings - more basically, 90 minutes spent trying not to pee my pants. At each site, the group would stand in front of the building (one of which was Friday's Roast Beef House - I mean, what the fuck is scary about roast beef, besides the obvious?), and we would all squint trying to make out the ghosts in the upper windows (ghosts never hang out on the first floor) and we would all become hyper-conscious of the hairs on the backs of our necks, which is the only real way to detect the presence of a supernatural being, despite what you may have been lead to believe by the Ghost Busters.
The Halloween after that we were invited to a party, and though we are not accustomed to turning down an invitation, we strongly considered it since this one was extended with a caveat - you must wear a costume. Good gravy. No, I am not an adult enjoyer of costumes. But we went to a big box store in Gloucester anyway, in an effort to appease our hosts, where we encountered what I can only describe as The Thing That Is Most Wrong With Society Today. As I flipped through the catalogue of potential costumes, this is what I saw: sexy nurse, sexy cop, sexy angel, sexy devil, sexy maid, sexy cheerleader, sexy witch, and then a whole section entitled pimps and hos. A fine example of the human spirit, if you will. Clearly, Halloween has become a misnomer, and should henceforth be called "The Trampiest Day of the Year".
And so that's when I quit Halloweening.
Except Jason has this delusion that he's hosting a party tonight that will involve beer drinking and scary-movie-watching. I'm not normally what you would call "anti-social", but if it involves anything scarier than say, The Lion King, then count me the fuck out.
The End.
Halloween: Then
The next Halloween Jason and I signed up for a Haunted Tour of Ottawa - basically, a guide wearing a silly cape (drama students, all of them, you can be sure) walks you through the city, by light of a lantern (I know, can you stand it?) pointing out all the spots where ghosts are said to reside and recounting the "spooky" sightings - more basically, 90 minutes spent trying not to pee my pants. At each site, the group would stand in front of the building (one of which was Friday's Roast Beef House - I mean, what the fuck is scary about roast beef, besides the obvious?), and we would all squint trying to make out the ghosts in the upper windows (ghosts never hang out on the first floor) and we would all become hyper-conscious of the hairs on the backs of our necks, which is the only real way to detect the presence of a supernatural being, despite what you may have been lead to believe by the Ghost Busters.
The Halloween after that we were invited to a party, and though we are not accustomed to turning down an invitation, we strongly considered it since this one was extended with a caveat - you must wear a costume. Good gravy. No, I am not an adult enjoyer of costumes. But we went to a big box store in Gloucester anyway, in an effort to appease our hosts, where we encountered what I can only describe as The Thing That Is Most Wrong With Society Today. As I flipped through the catalogue of potential costumes, this is what I saw: sexy nurse, sexy cop, sexy angel, sexy devil, sexy maid, sexy cheerleader, sexy witch, and then a whole section entitled pimps and hos. A fine example of the human spirit, if you will. Clearly, Halloween has become a misnomer, and should henceforth be called "The Trampiest Day of the Year".
And so that's when I quit Halloweening.
Except Jason has this delusion that he's hosting a party tonight that will involve beer drinking and scary-movie-watching. I'm not normally what you would call "anti-social", but if it involves anything scarier than say, The Lion King, then count me the fuck out.
The End.
Halloween: Then
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Halloween: Then
Oh the excitement of bolting down our hotdogs almost unchewed so that we could get out to the business of collecting candy all the quicker. My sisters and I each took a pillow case around our plentiful suburban neighbourhood, and once the first pillow case became too heavy for our little arms to carry, we exchanged it for a second one. Chocolate and chips were favourites, but the motherlode of treats was a can of soft drink (preferably orange crush). True, a soft drink dropped into the pillow case would crush almost all the little bags of chips as it sank to the bottom, but there was nothing better than getting 2 or 3 cans, and lining them up in the fridge to enjoy an aluminum parade of bright colours and tooth-rotting goodness (my sisters and I weren't really allowed soft drink until we were the age of majority).
We usually started the trick-or-treating before the sun had officially set, shortly after 5pm. The kid across the street, Andre, was always the first to make the rounds (his father was anal that way), and once he'd rung our bell, it was a free-for-all.
Our costumes, if they can be called that, were nothing special. Poverty meant no store-bought costumes, so we were never anything recognizable, like cartoon characters or movie stars. Every year my mother would drag a dilapidated cardboard box out of storage and have us salvage costumes from its contents. There were no actual costume pieces in this box, mostly just discarded clothing of my grandmother's, so inevitably one of us would dress up as "old lady". Year after year we recycled the same costumes, never winning any prizes at school, not even any pity prizes. And each costume had to be short enough to fit a 6 year old, but wide enough to fit a 400lb woman (Canadian Halloween meant being able to stuff a snow suit under your costume). Inevitably, our neighbourhood would be overrun by fat witches, tubby princesses, chubby cowboys, and so on.
Personally, the whole point of Halloween was not the dressing up or the candy, but the exciting organizational process that would take place later on. I loved to dump out all of my candy, and after reveling in the sheer abundancy, I would take inventory. I would group them into categories: gums, chips, chocolates, salty, sweet, chewy, melty, hard, soft. I would carefully extract all purple candy, and dump it in the garbage. Then I would remove the candy corn, raisins, tootsie rolls, rockets, and grandma's fudge. These were a waste of valuable candy sac real estate, as far as we were concerned. Shame on all of the houses that gave out such crap (it was pretty much only my grandmother who gave out grandma's fudge, of course). And I would donate these items to my father, who apparently would eat anything. Then I would arrange my grouped candy into ascending order of goodness and badness.
Sometimes my cousin would join us, and she would always confess that after eating 4 or 5 pieces of candy, her bag would get pushed to the back of the cupboard, forgotten, until it was found months later and thrown out. At my house, that was never the case. My sister and I ate every damn piece of candy that came in the front door, even if it killed us, which it very nearly did. In fact, that first night I'd say nearly half the candy was consumed on the spot, which is an amazing feat for 4 little girls. But the fact is, we did not often get treats at our house. If my parents had bought one chocolate bar, they would have to buy 4, and 4 chocolate bars were beyond their means. We did get cheesies on occasion (usually as a bribe to be good when a babysitter was coming over), but one bag of cheesies to share amongst 6 people means your fingers don't even turn orange. So Halloween was a delicious anomaly to us, one that we took advantage of, belly aches be damned.
We usually started the trick-or-treating before the sun had officially set, shortly after 5pm. The kid across the street, Andre, was always the first to make the rounds (his father was anal that way), and once he'd rung our bell, it was a free-for-all.
Our costumes, if they can be called that, were nothing special. Poverty meant no store-bought costumes, so we were never anything recognizable, like cartoon characters or movie stars. Every year my mother would drag a dilapidated cardboard box out of storage and have us salvage costumes from its contents. There were no actual costume pieces in this box, mostly just discarded clothing of my grandmother's, so inevitably one of us would dress up as "old lady". Year after year we recycled the same costumes, never winning any prizes at school, not even any pity prizes. And each costume had to be short enough to fit a 6 year old, but wide enough to fit a 400lb woman (Canadian Halloween meant being able to stuff a snow suit under your costume). Inevitably, our neighbourhood would be overrun by fat witches, tubby princesses, chubby cowboys, and so on.
Personally, the whole point of Halloween was not the dressing up or the candy, but the exciting organizational process that would take place later on. I loved to dump out all of my candy, and after reveling in the sheer abundancy, I would take inventory. I would group them into categories: gums, chips, chocolates, salty, sweet, chewy, melty, hard, soft. I would carefully extract all purple candy, and dump it in the garbage. Then I would remove the candy corn, raisins, tootsie rolls, rockets, and grandma's fudge. These were a waste of valuable candy sac real estate, as far as we were concerned. Shame on all of the houses that gave out such crap (it was pretty much only my grandmother who gave out grandma's fudge, of course). And I would donate these items to my father, who apparently would eat anything. Then I would arrange my grouped candy into ascending order of goodness and badness.
Sometimes my cousin would join us, and she would always confess that after eating 4 or 5 pieces of candy, her bag would get pushed to the back of the cupboard, forgotten, until it was found months later and thrown out. At my house, that was never the case. My sister and I ate every damn piece of candy that came in the front door, even if it killed us, which it very nearly did. In fact, that first night I'd say nearly half the candy was consumed on the spot, which is an amazing feat for 4 little girls. But the fact is, we did not often get treats at our house. If my parents had bought one chocolate bar, they would have to buy 4, and 4 chocolate bars were beyond their means. We did get cheesies on occasion (usually as a bribe to be good when a babysitter was coming over), but one bag of cheesies to share amongst 6 people means your fingers don't even turn orange. So Halloween was a delicious anomaly to us, one that we took advantage of, belly aches be damned.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Mashed Potato Gravy Time
The first time I ever cooked a turkey, I was 19 years old. It was a gift from work, and it rode the bus home with me, a chilly companion who rolled gently between my legs.
I rather bravely dealt with the giblets, and my knees only buckled once or twice trying to heft it into the oven. I'm pretty sure that damn bird outweighed me, and it certainly had a nicer complexion once I got done slow-cooking it to a goldeny-brown perfection. I'm pretty sure I over-basted that first year, but the over-basting produced such an incredibly moist and delectable turkey that I have adopted it as my new (and only) turkey tradition.
I don't know how many equally perfect turkeys I've turned out since (last Christmas alone I cooked 5 - I for us, and 4 for a homeless shelter), especially considering that I refuse to regard turkey as sacred holiday fare. I have often made turkey and all the trimmings just for the sheer extravagance of it. I mean, there's something about shopping for this meal that makes me a little punch-drunk: 1 heaving grocery cart, 300 dollars, 2 bellies, 1 day. Where else do you get those kinds of logistics?
But as much as I adore delighting Jason with more food than our modest dining table can support, my fondness for preparing the traditional fare is often compromised by the itch to always try something new.
I remember the first time I interrupted my Nanny's impressive holiday spread with the dreaded "something new." I brought dessert, or rather, a dessert selection. I do damn good desserts, or so anyone who'd ever eaten them had been telling me for months, so I thought I had a sure thing going. But when my Nanny's tried and true dinner was over and my desserts presented, I heard grumblings to the tune of "Where is Nanny's apple pie?"
Now, I will be the first to admit that Nanny's apple pie is very good. Maybe even the best. But the fact remains that we have had this pie at every Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving since time immemorial. And not just at holidays, but at any given Sunday dinner, any casual visit, or any time she visits you. In fact, I would wager that right now, every single one of my relatives, including my uncle out in Vancouver, has no fewer than 4 of my Nanny's frozen apple pies sitting in their chest freezers right now. So it's not like there's an apple pie shortage.
But that was the year I learned that there is a very fine line between tradition and boring.
Nanny's 'traditional' holiday meal includes, and does not deviate from: turkey, ham, meatballs, tourtiere (meat pie), mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, carrots, and dinner rolls. She usually has a platter with her homemade pickles and beets, and of course, cheese. There is usually one "grab bag" item - a chicken dish made expressly for my finicky sister - to Jason's amusement, it has often been a bucket of KFC, but can also be chicken pot pie or "crowd pleasing" dish.
Nanny is a cook of the variety of "plain but good." And I mean that in a flattering way. Plain, but good. But plain. But still good. But still plain. I don't even think she seasons things.
So, I brought "Nanny alternatives" to family functions and learned that to them, variety was the same as family tension. Oh sure, they ate my "hip" frozen desserts, the kids loved my beautifully iced cakes, people cried over the cream cheese frosting on my incredible carrot cake, and they inhaled my sumptuous cheesecakes like they hadn't just collectively eaten 24 pounds of turkey. And then they divided up the leftovers to take home and enjoy all over again. But they didn't like it.
Oh no, they didn't like it.
So it wasn't until I moved away from the family thing and started putting on the whole holiday myself that I really got to play around with things. Not only do I mix up the menu, but some holidays I stray from it completely. Last Easter I made a Greek feast, complete with rack of lamb. I'd never had lamb before, neither had Jason (he comes from similar non-imaginative white bread stock). It was to die for. This Thanksgiving (that is, Monday), I was going to eschew the whole turkey thing and make ribs and lasagna instead (these being Jason's favourite foods, Thanksgiving doubling as Jason's birthday this year). But Jason mulled it over, looked deep inside his heart, and decided that turkey would hit the spot.
So turkey it is. But not with mashed potatoes.....no, we dare to make sweet potatoes. Now, if this sounds less than shocking to you, congratulations. But up until 9 months ago, neither Jason nor I had so much as laid eyes on such a thing. Imagine our surprise when they were...well, good! And get this: instead of the ubiquitous corn, we're having asparagus (in bacon-cheese sauce, at Jason's request). Asparagus is among my favourite veggies, but again, no asparagus had ever passed through my lips until I moved away and started cooking for myself.
I guess what I'm getting at is this: what is tradition anyway? To me, tradition is not just the thing that you always do. That's called a habit. To me, tradition needs to have some sort of significance, or meaning.
But now that I have my own family and my own holidays, I realize that we have no real traditions to carry forth - we have no culture, no religion. Maybe all we ever had was Nanny's apple pie, and maybe we only had that because it's all she knew how to make.
But who needs tradition, anyway? Is it an antiquated concept? Is it mandatory for successful holidays? And if so, how do you go about making traditions, anyway? Is simply liking something enough to call it a tradition?
Last Christmas Jason and I drank champagne in bed all morning. It was good. I can see doing it again. If we do, is that a tradition? Do 2 consecutive years qualify for instant tradition status? Or do we have to wait 20? And what if next year we decide we'd rather have coffee spiked with Godet white chocolate? What happens then? It's not really tradition unless you commit to doing in the same way over and over - and to tell the truth, "same" is not really a concept I'm comfortable with.
But if we have no tradition, are we really celebrating? Are we doing it wrong? Are we being disrespectful? Is having turkey enough to call it Thanksgiving, or do we have to make horn-of-plenty centrepieces and watch football to call it a holiday?
Everyone who breaks off and starts a family faces this same problem: follow old traditions? make new ones? scrap it all and go to Chuck E Cheese? Are traditions even still relevant, or do you have to know someone from "the old country" for them to mean anything? But are these celebrations just shallow and perfunctory without tradition? Can our generation even tell the difference? And if the turkey is good enough, does it even matter?
I rather bravely dealt with the giblets, and my knees only buckled once or twice trying to heft it into the oven. I'm pretty sure that damn bird outweighed me, and it certainly had a nicer complexion once I got done slow-cooking it to a goldeny-brown perfection. I'm pretty sure I over-basted that first year, but the over-basting produced such an incredibly moist and delectable turkey that I have adopted it as my new (and only) turkey tradition.
I don't know how many equally perfect turkeys I've turned out since (last Christmas alone I cooked 5 - I for us, and 4 for a homeless shelter), especially considering that I refuse to regard turkey as sacred holiday fare. I have often made turkey and all the trimmings just for the sheer extravagance of it. I mean, there's something about shopping for this meal that makes me a little punch-drunk: 1 heaving grocery cart, 300 dollars, 2 bellies, 1 day. Where else do you get those kinds of logistics?
But as much as I adore delighting Jason with more food than our modest dining table can support, my fondness for preparing the traditional fare is often compromised by the itch to always try something new.
I remember the first time I interrupted my Nanny's impressive holiday spread with the dreaded "something new." I brought dessert, or rather, a dessert selection. I do damn good desserts, or so anyone who'd ever eaten them had been telling me for months, so I thought I had a sure thing going. But when my Nanny's tried and true dinner was over and my desserts presented, I heard grumblings to the tune of "Where is Nanny's apple pie?"
Now, I will be the first to admit that Nanny's apple pie is very good. Maybe even the best. But the fact remains that we have had this pie at every Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving since time immemorial. And not just at holidays, but at any given Sunday dinner, any casual visit, or any time she visits you. In fact, I would wager that right now, every single one of my relatives, including my uncle out in Vancouver, has no fewer than 4 of my Nanny's frozen apple pies sitting in their chest freezers right now. So it's not like there's an apple pie shortage.
But that was the year I learned that there is a very fine line between tradition and boring.
Nanny's 'traditional' holiday meal includes, and does not deviate from: turkey, ham, meatballs, tourtiere (meat pie), mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, carrots, and dinner rolls. She usually has a platter with her homemade pickles and beets, and of course, cheese. There is usually one "grab bag" item - a chicken dish made expressly for my finicky sister - to Jason's amusement, it has often been a bucket of KFC, but can also be chicken pot pie or "crowd pleasing" dish.
Nanny is a cook of the variety of "plain but good." And I mean that in a flattering way. Plain, but good. But plain. But still good. But still plain. I don't even think she seasons things.
So, I brought "Nanny alternatives" to family functions and learned that to them, variety was the same as family tension. Oh sure, they ate my "hip" frozen desserts, the kids loved my beautifully iced cakes, people cried over the cream cheese frosting on my incredible carrot cake, and they inhaled my sumptuous cheesecakes like they hadn't just collectively eaten 24 pounds of turkey. And then they divided up the leftovers to take home and enjoy all over again. But they didn't like it.
Oh no, they didn't like it.
So it wasn't until I moved away from the family thing and started putting on the whole holiday myself that I really got to play around with things. Not only do I mix up the menu, but some holidays I stray from it completely. Last Easter I made a Greek feast, complete with rack of lamb. I'd never had lamb before, neither had Jason (he comes from similar non-imaginative white bread stock). It was to die for. This Thanksgiving (that is, Monday), I was going to eschew the whole turkey thing and make ribs and lasagna instead (these being Jason's favourite foods, Thanksgiving doubling as Jason's birthday this year). But Jason mulled it over, looked deep inside his heart, and decided that turkey would hit the spot.
So turkey it is. But not with mashed potatoes.....no, we dare to make sweet potatoes. Now, if this sounds less than shocking to you, congratulations. But up until 9 months ago, neither Jason nor I had so much as laid eyes on such a thing. Imagine our surprise when they were...well, good! And get this: instead of the ubiquitous corn, we're having asparagus (in bacon-cheese sauce, at Jason's request). Asparagus is among my favourite veggies, but again, no asparagus had ever passed through my lips until I moved away and started cooking for myself.
I guess what I'm getting at is this: what is tradition anyway? To me, tradition is not just the thing that you always do. That's called a habit. To me, tradition needs to have some sort of significance, or meaning.
But now that I have my own family and my own holidays, I realize that we have no real traditions to carry forth - we have no culture, no religion. Maybe all we ever had was Nanny's apple pie, and maybe we only had that because it's all she knew how to make.
But who needs tradition, anyway? Is it an antiquated concept? Is it mandatory for successful holidays? And if so, how do you go about making traditions, anyway? Is simply liking something enough to call it a tradition?
Last Christmas Jason and I drank champagne in bed all morning. It was good. I can see doing it again. If we do, is that a tradition? Do 2 consecutive years qualify for instant tradition status? Or do we have to wait 20? And what if next year we decide we'd rather have coffee spiked with Godet white chocolate? What happens then? It's not really tradition unless you commit to doing in the same way over and over - and to tell the truth, "same" is not really a concept I'm comfortable with.
But if we have no tradition, are we really celebrating? Are we doing it wrong? Are we being disrespectful? Is having turkey enough to call it Thanksgiving, or do we have to make horn-of-plenty centrepieces and watch football to call it a holiday?
Everyone who breaks off and starts a family faces this same problem: follow old traditions? make new ones? scrap it all and go to Chuck E Cheese? Are traditions even still relevant, or do you have to know someone from "the old country" for them to mean anything? But are these celebrations just shallow and perfunctory without tradition? Can our generation even tell the difference? And if the turkey is good enough, does it even matter?
Monday, May 22, 2006
Kissing Cousins
Happy Long Weekend, Canada
Ah, Victoria Day. Despite Google's best efforts to convince us of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legitimate claims on the day, good Canadians spent the day saluting the monarchy.
Or not.
Actually, I'm thinking very few Canadians even remember Queen Victoria, for whom the day is named. This is understandable since her reign ended upon her death in 1901. She was born to the King of England, but he died when she was just 8 months old. The crown was passed on to her uncles, but "luckily" King William IV had 10 bastard children and none fit for royalty, so Victoria became Queen just after her 18th birthday.
So what exactly did she do to deserve a rare stat holiday in her honour? Well, one of the first things she did was marry her first cousin. Apparently, this was a "happy" marriage, and if "happy" means "gross", then I'm sure it was. There's nothing like a little royal incest to prompt celebrations in May. They had 9 children, and as we all know, the poor bastard children are tossed out on their heinies, but the children of inbreeding are bowed down to and revered. Fair is fair.
Four assassination attempts were made on her life the first 2 years of her reign, but sadly, this was not the lowest level her popularity would see. Next, she would be dubbed the Famine Queen because of her perceived inaction during the potato blight, when over a million Irish people died, and a million more were forced to emigrate.
Her husband died and left her a widow when she was 42. She wore black for the rest of her life, and became reclusive, although some say this isolation was not so much due to grief as to a secret love affair with her Scottish manservant, John Brown. Her popularity climbed and fell periodically. Still, she kept her claws on the crown and didn't relinquish it until her son had to pry it from her cold, dead fingers after 63 years on the throne.
Victoria paved the way for future royals to act as symbols instead of politicians. Proudly, the future monarch generations would accept generous wages for the taxing duties of waving, smiling politely, and occasionally eating tiny cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. She also marked the beginning of the royal emphasis "morality and family values" while laughingly, any sign of these things is ironically lacking between the castle walls.
As she got older, her popularity increased, and during her last days she was known as the "grandmother of Europe". She did get her face on a stamp, making her at least as cool as Bobby Orr and Elvis Presley. But does that make her worth celebrating?
The answer is: who cares?
Canadians don't. Very few of us sent birthday wishes to the current royal highness, or have ever had a thought to spare for our first Queen, Victoria. But we are thankful to have the day off work, and if Vicky and Liz are to credit, then we tip our beers to them.
Because let's be honest: Victoria day is all about the beer.
It's not called May 2-4 for nothing. I mean, sure it takes place on or before May 24...but is it just coincidence that a two-four is also a case of beer? Hmm?
I don't think so.
And beer is not a bad way to toast the monarch.
A bad way to toast the monarch: fireworks.
What's with fireworks anyway? I mean, when a city puts on a show, I get it. Oooh, fire in the sky. Pretty colours. Big noises. Entertainment for the masses. A bit dull and repetitive in my book, but I get it.
Fireworks in the backyard, I don't get.
And yet for the past week I have witnessed an embarrassing number of Canadians spending their hard earned cash on stupid little fire crackers that never work the way they're supposed to anyway, unless they're supposed to fizzle, crackle, produce smoke, and do little else but cause accidents.
Ah yes, the great tradition of Victoria Day accidents.
The average number of fingers per Canadian drops significantly the day after May 24.
I mean, clearly, you have to be a little, um, imbecilic, to think that backyard fireworks are good times. Unfortunately, this is just survival of the fittest crapping out again, leaving us with maimed dullards in our population instead of eliminating them completely.
Thanks a lot.
I mean, obviously these things are accidents waiting to happen.
And the fact that Toronto has made it illegal to set them off doesn't seem to stop anyone from doing it, and it certainly doesn't stop them from calling 911 when something does go wrong, which it will, inevitably.
Because when you mix dim-witted people with explosives (and probably a case or two of beer)...of course it's going to suck.
And so the ERs will be overrun with morons tonight, and someone or someones will wake up tomorrow without their thumbs. At the taxpayers' expense.
And according to the newspaper, there will be a dozen fireworks-related blazes around the city tonight. As I am writing this, I hear the distinct whistle of failed fireworks sizzling around me, a product of ignorant neighbours, thankyouverymuch, and all I can do is hope like hell they don't accidentally set my house on fire.
But on a day that pays tribute to the Queen of all kissing cousins, what else can you expect?
Ah, Victoria Day. Despite Google's best efforts to convince us of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legitimate claims on the day, good Canadians spent the day saluting the monarchy.
Or not.
Actually, I'm thinking very few Canadians even remember Queen Victoria, for whom the day is named. This is understandable since her reign ended upon her death in 1901. She was born to the King of England, but he died when she was just 8 months old. The crown was passed on to her uncles, but "luckily" King William IV had 10 bastard children and none fit for royalty, so Victoria became Queen just after her 18th birthday.
So what exactly did she do to deserve a rare stat holiday in her honour? Well, one of the first things she did was marry her first cousin. Apparently, this was a "happy" marriage, and if "happy" means "gross", then I'm sure it was. There's nothing like a little royal incest to prompt celebrations in May. They had 9 children, and as we all know, the poor bastard children are tossed out on their heinies, but the children of inbreeding are bowed down to and revered. Fair is fair.
Four assassination attempts were made on her life the first 2 years of her reign, but sadly, this was not the lowest level her popularity would see. Next, she would be dubbed the Famine Queen because of her perceived inaction during the potato blight, when over a million Irish people died, and a million more were forced to emigrate.
Her husband died and left her a widow when she was 42. She wore black for the rest of her life, and became reclusive, although some say this isolation was not so much due to grief as to a secret love affair with her Scottish manservant, John Brown. Her popularity climbed and fell periodically. Still, she kept her claws on the crown and didn't relinquish it until her son had to pry it from her cold, dead fingers after 63 years on the throne.
Victoria paved the way for future royals to act as symbols instead of politicians. Proudly, the future monarch generations would accept generous wages for the taxing duties of waving, smiling politely, and occasionally eating tiny cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. She also marked the beginning of the royal emphasis "morality and family values" while laughingly, any sign of these things is ironically lacking between the castle walls.
As she got older, her popularity increased, and during her last days she was known as the "grandmother of Europe". She did get her face on a stamp, making her at least as cool as Bobby Orr and Elvis Presley. But does that make her worth celebrating?
The answer is: who cares?
Canadians don't. Very few of us sent birthday wishes to the current royal highness, or have ever had a thought to spare for our first Queen, Victoria. But we are thankful to have the day off work, and if Vicky and Liz are to credit, then we tip our beers to them.
Because let's be honest: Victoria day is all about the beer.
It's not called May 2-4 for nothing. I mean, sure it takes place on or before May 24...but is it just coincidence that a two-four is also a case of beer? Hmm?
I don't think so.
And beer is not a bad way to toast the monarch.
A bad way to toast the monarch: fireworks.
What's with fireworks anyway? I mean, when a city puts on a show, I get it. Oooh, fire in the sky. Pretty colours. Big noises. Entertainment for the masses. A bit dull and repetitive in my book, but I get it.
Fireworks in the backyard, I don't get.
And yet for the past week I have witnessed an embarrassing number of Canadians spending their hard earned cash on stupid little fire crackers that never work the way they're supposed to anyway, unless they're supposed to fizzle, crackle, produce smoke, and do little else but cause accidents.
Ah yes, the great tradition of Victoria Day accidents.
The average number of fingers per Canadian drops significantly the day after May 24.
I mean, clearly, you have to be a little, um, imbecilic, to think that backyard fireworks are good times. Unfortunately, this is just survival of the fittest crapping out again, leaving us with maimed dullards in our population instead of eliminating them completely.
Thanks a lot.
I mean, obviously these things are accidents waiting to happen.
And the fact that Toronto has made it illegal to set them off doesn't seem to stop anyone from doing it, and it certainly doesn't stop them from calling 911 when something does go wrong, which it will, inevitably.
Because when you mix dim-witted people with explosives (and probably a case or two of beer)...of course it's going to suck.
And so the ERs will be overrun with morons tonight, and someone or someones will wake up tomorrow without their thumbs. At the taxpayers' expense.
And according to the newspaper, there will be a dozen fireworks-related blazes around the city tonight. As I am writing this, I hear the distinct whistle of failed fireworks sizzling around me, a product of ignorant neighbours, thankyouverymuch, and all I can do is hope like hell they don't accidentally set my house on fire.
But on a day that pays tribute to the Queen of all kissing cousins, what else can you expect?
Monday, April 17, 2006
The Bunny Has Left the Building
Jason was lucky enough to procure himself a nice 4-day weekend, and then generous enough to give it away. I had suggested that since we would not be visiting family, perhaps one of the other managers would appreciate the opportunity. Of course, someone was all too eager to accept...but not for actual Easter purposes. Turns out, he had a hot date. His first hot date in 8 months.
"Oh, so you won't be going to church, then?" Jason inquired of him.
The guy paled "Er...no."
"Well then I don't think you should get the day off," Jason admonished.
The guy blanched before Jason admitted he was just fucking with him.
So instead of a holiday weekend, we dealt with this mess: Tuesday on, Wednesday off, Thursday on, Friday off, Saturday on, Sunday off, Monday on...whew. It's not so much the hassle than the fact that I can never remember if I should be waking up alone in bed or not.
The first Easter Jason and I were together, I got jewelry. The next 6 netted me nothing. "Except," Jason reminds me, "for the joy you get seeing me discover hundreds upon hundreds of chocolates." Oh right.
This year I hid 281 pieces of chocolate: big ones, small ones, caramel ones, peanut butter ones, slightly obscene ones. All the good hiding places were taken after the first 13, and I quickly morphed from the happy hippity-hop of the Easter bunny to the evil clop of the 3-horned devil woman. Meanwhile, Jason slept in bliss. Fucker.
Running solely on Diet Pepsi fumes after a solid 32 hours awake, the last 5 of which were spent kneading dough (ow, my freakin ulnas), I finally grabbed Jason's hunting bucket and headed for the room.
"Wake the fuck up" I told him, pleasantly. "It's Easter, goddammit, get your ass in gear."
He hunted like a trooper, I tell you. And in the end, 278 chocolates were found; 2 are still missing, one rolled under the furnace where it is probably meeting a bubbly fondu-like death as we speak.
And then, for the rest of the day, Jason repeated his 4 favourite words over and over and over and over:
"Can I eat this?"
"Can I eat this?"
"Can I eat this?"
"CAN I EAT THIS!?!?!?!"
So my new Easter tradition involves allowing him to burn the roof of his mouth severely on the first loaf of bread that comes out of the oven, and then secretly relishing his tears for the rest of the day as he contemplates all the delicious food he is too sore to eat. This may not catch on in other families, but I think it's a keeper at our house. An alternative to this tradition may involve raw lamb, but something tells me that puddles of chocolatey vomit all over my kitchen floors may deaden my appetite as well.
After supper, Jason's Momma called. She has a knack for calling as we're about to crack open a third bottle of wine, with hillllllllllllllarious results. Jason has the uncanny ability of chatting inanely with his mother while communicating with me via increasingly enthusiastic eye-rolling. Jason recounted the blow-by-blow of our herbarific Easter meal, which Jason's Mom found to be very non-traditional. Of course, her idea of traditional includes ham, potatoes, and macaroni salad, to which Jason shouted "A fine feast for the plebs!"
Hehe. Plebs. That's like, practically my favourite word. I taught him that. I also taught him to be a snob. It's tough to teach a boy who will wear buckets on his head to be a snob, but he's learning. In fact, it's illegal for me to publish the word he called her when she confessed that she was reading a Danielle Steele.
All told, it was a fun, funny weekend, barring that one incident with the new neighbour whom we've not yet met but who now knows where and how I wanted Jason's penis "in the next 5 minutes or else." And after we sizzled, we baked. Baking with Jason is an exercise in patience; baking for Jason is an exercise in futility. No matter what I bake, or how much, it may as well not exist because it's already gone. I baked an apple pie on Thursday. He ate half for dessert, and half for breakfast the next morning. For Easter we baked a white chocolate raspberry swirl cake. It's too bad I liked it because I sure as hell will never get another taste.
"Can I eat this?"
"Yes, Jason, if you can find room for it in your tummy, you can eat that."
Even after 8 pounds of chocolate, 4 lamb chops, and a loaf of bread, he found room not just for a piece, but for two. And if I'm not mistaken, I can hear the familiar noise of someone raiding the fridge right now...and I doubt he's in there for the cauliflower.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Easter: Not Just For Kids Anymore.
Two summers ago, my mother desperately needed my help and she didn't even know it. Her kitchen was calling, no, crying, for a clean sweep. As it happens, I am a fabulous clean sweeper, which means I can ruthlessly assess the usefulness of every item in my or anyone else's house, and mercilessly throw out every last thing that serves no real purpose. My mother's kitchen served no real purpose.
Since the dawning of ages, mankind has mocked my mother's cooking. She knew how to make 2 things: charred black crap, and boiled potatoes. And that's what we ate every single day until my mother discovered the frozen food aisle, and then we feasted on the likes of chicken nuggets and tater tots. The frozen food aisle was for a long time the best thing to ever happened to our family.
I had a sneaking suspicion that underneath the burnt stuff, my mother might actually be harboring the likes of chicken, steak, or pork chops, and I strongly suspected that these things, - called meat, as it turns out - might be unearthed if only my mother stopped using the warbly pots that were too warped to sit straight on the burner and had no less than 30 years worth of accumulated scorch marks on the bottom and no handle left except for a nub that was too hot to handle and too weak to even try.
So I clean swept her kitchen, starting with those pots, and including jars of NutriSystem milkshake powder that expired in 1993; pieces of tupperware that were lidless, stained, and disfigured from too many micro-waves; dusty mugs featuring gouges so large they had been mangling the lips of coffee drinkers for generations; 7 out of the 8 sugar bowls I found scattered throughout the cupboards, reasoning that since my mother appeared not to keep sugar in the house, she probably didn't need all 8; and no less than 37 knives that came in varying states of disrepair: some were so dull they couldn't slice through water, some had lost their handles, some were so rusted I believed them to be ancient artifacts unearthed from the backyard, but no, my mother assured me they dated from no further back than my great-grandmother's wedding shower.
My mother, for some reason, was particularly attached to the 37 knives she no longer used, and I had to fight tooth and nail to have them tossed. However, the one thing that my mother did see fit for the garbage I immediately plucked back out. It was this:
Okay, okay, it's nothing special to look at. It's a piece of 80s artisan crap. It's ugly and it's hand made and I would never look twice at this thing because it's the kind it kitchsy crap I'm allergic to. BUT, it was made by my mother's hands. She painted it in her early 20s and it has been a part of our family's Easter since as far back as I can remember. My mother was always very generous about hiding chocolates around the house for us kids, but every year, this egg would sit on the kitchen table, and on Easter morning it would be filled with candy that my mother assured us was the Easter Bunny's concession to grown-ups and was to be eaten by adults only.
So ugly or not, I remembered this egg fondly and was appalled that while she had held on for dear life to a motor-oil sponsored calendar from 1988, she had so cavalierly thrown out the closest thing our family has to an heirloom. And then I found this:
For more than 2 decades that egg sat filled with parents-only chocolate, and I never looked too closely at it. But the day it ended up in the garbage was the day I discovered that it had been a very early present from my mom. Since there are only 2 names on the egg, that means it is probably circa 1983, which dates it back to the Easter-bonnet picture from yesterday's post. I don't ever remember having seen the inscription before then.
My mother would have been 22 years old, which is a few years younger than I am now. It gives a small ache to my heart to picture this young woman at pottery class making a present for her 2 babies, who were probably spending the evening at grandma's house. It's hard to imagine that your parents were ever young, were ever anything like you. But this egg reminds me of how young she was when she had her kids (she had 4 kids under the age of 5 just weeks after she turned 26). Certainly, she spent her early 20s differently than I am. She was pregnant most of the time, she changed diapers (and washed diapers...she didn't use cloth exclusively, but she did use them), she nursed 4 kids and 1 husband through the chicken pox, she made bland boiled potatoes every night, and went to PTA meetings when she could.
I see myself hanging on to immaturity as best as I can, romping about in puddles and hiding eggs for my husband, and it contrasts violently to my mother, thrust into maturity. That little egg on the table was the only tie to her young womanhood. While she spent time find 4 dresses, 4 pairs of frilly socks (or white tights, depending on the weather), 4 pairs of dress shoes that didn't pinch our toes, 4 Easter bonnets in colours we wouldn't fight over, I am spending the same time in my life doing things far more self-indulgent.
Yesterday, Jason and I decided to try our hand at decorating eggs, something neither of us had done before. I bought a kit that promised "swirls of dazzling colour" but actually netted "blobs of baby-shit green." First we emptied the eggs of their contents via the very interesting blow-the-egg method. Then we bobbed some eggs into the disappointing dye, hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but instead being incredibly unsurprised by the less than dazzling results. Then we abandoned the dye (well, after bathing in vegetable oil to rid ourselves of the water-soluble mess), and used markers and paints instead. We made margaritas and laughed all night long at our lack of artistic skills, and it struck me how differently this night was for me than it must have been for my mother at her pottery class.
It would have been a rare night off from the kids, but it was not spent with her husband. Married 4 years at this point, I don't ever remember my mother and father laughing together, or going out of their way to share time together. If you've read this blog for any length of time, you'll know that my father isn't my (or my mother's, or anyone's) favourite person, but even in the days before divorce and disaccord, I don't remember them as a happy couple.
She was 22 years old. She must have had hopes and dreams. She must have wondered about her future. As she hid eggs for us to find the next morning, I am certain that she loved her kids, but I wonder if she loved her life. I wonder if she felt like she was living for herself, or for her kids. I wonder if she ever felt regret, or if she felt trapped, or if she ever cried alone, frightened of what she'd gotten into. We spend an awful lot of time living in very close quarters with our parents, but do we ever really know them?
This Easter will be just for Jason and I. I haven't spoken to my mother in 15 months, I think. Some days I really miss her, and some days I remember why we aren't speaking and I hurt all over again, and some days I don't think of her at all. But through the marvels of garbage-picking, the egg has been salvaged and sits in my house now. I look at the egg and I remember what it meant to my family, and I feel closer to her now than I have in years.
Since the dawning of ages, mankind has mocked my mother's cooking. She knew how to make 2 things: charred black crap, and boiled potatoes. And that's what we ate every single day until my mother discovered the frozen food aisle, and then we feasted on the likes of chicken nuggets and tater tots. The frozen food aisle was for a long time the best thing to ever happened to our family.
I had a sneaking suspicion that underneath the burnt stuff, my mother might actually be harboring the likes of chicken, steak, or pork chops, and I strongly suspected that these things, - called meat, as it turns out - might be unearthed if only my mother stopped using the warbly pots that were too warped to sit straight on the burner and had no less than 30 years worth of accumulated scorch marks on the bottom and no handle left except for a nub that was too hot to handle and too weak to even try.
So I clean swept her kitchen, starting with those pots, and including jars of NutriSystem milkshake powder that expired in 1993; pieces of tupperware that were lidless, stained, and disfigured from too many micro-waves; dusty mugs featuring gouges so large they had been mangling the lips of coffee drinkers for generations; 7 out of the 8 sugar bowls I found scattered throughout the cupboards, reasoning that since my mother appeared not to keep sugar in the house, she probably didn't need all 8; and no less than 37 knives that came in varying states of disrepair: some were so dull they couldn't slice through water, some had lost their handles, some were so rusted I believed them to be ancient artifacts unearthed from the backyard, but no, my mother assured me they dated from no further back than my great-grandmother's wedding shower.
My mother, for some reason, was particularly attached to the 37 knives she no longer used, and I had to fight tooth and nail to have them tossed. However, the one thing that my mother did see fit for the garbage I immediately plucked back out. It was this:
Okay, okay, it's nothing special to look at. It's a piece of 80s artisan crap. It's ugly and it's hand made and I would never look twice at this thing because it's the kind it kitchsy crap I'm allergic to. BUT, it was made by my mother's hands. She painted it in her early 20s and it has been a part of our family's Easter since as far back as I can remember. My mother was always very generous about hiding chocolates around the house for us kids, but every year, this egg would sit on the kitchen table, and on Easter morning it would be filled with candy that my mother assured us was the Easter Bunny's concession to grown-ups and was to be eaten by adults only.
So ugly or not, I remembered this egg fondly and was appalled that while she had held on for dear life to a motor-oil sponsored calendar from 1988, she had so cavalierly thrown out the closest thing our family has to an heirloom. And then I found this:
For more than 2 decades that egg sat filled with parents-only chocolate, and I never looked too closely at it. But the day it ended up in the garbage was the day I discovered that it had been a very early present from my mom. Since there are only 2 names on the egg, that means it is probably circa 1983, which dates it back to the Easter-bonnet picture from yesterday's post. I don't ever remember having seen the inscription before then.
My mother would have been 22 years old, which is a few years younger than I am now. It gives a small ache to my heart to picture this young woman at pottery class making a present for her 2 babies, who were probably spending the evening at grandma's house. It's hard to imagine that your parents were ever young, were ever anything like you. But this egg reminds me of how young she was when she had her kids (she had 4 kids under the age of 5 just weeks after she turned 26). Certainly, she spent her early 20s differently than I am. She was pregnant most of the time, she changed diapers (and washed diapers...she didn't use cloth exclusively, but she did use them), she nursed 4 kids and 1 husband through the chicken pox, she made bland boiled potatoes every night, and went to PTA meetings when she could.
I see myself hanging on to immaturity as best as I can, romping about in puddles and hiding eggs for my husband, and it contrasts violently to my mother, thrust into maturity. That little egg on the table was the only tie to her young womanhood. While she spent time find 4 dresses, 4 pairs of frilly socks (or white tights, depending on the weather), 4 pairs of dress shoes that didn't pinch our toes, 4 Easter bonnets in colours we wouldn't fight over, I am spending the same time in my life doing things far more self-indulgent.
Yesterday, Jason and I decided to try our hand at decorating eggs, something neither of us had done before. I bought a kit that promised "swirls of dazzling colour" but actually netted "blobs of baby-shit green." First we emptied the eggs of their contents via the very interesting blow-the-egg method. Then we bobbed some eggs into the disappointing dye, hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but instead being incredibly unsurprised by the less than dazzling results. Then we abandoned the dye (well, after bathing in vegetable oil to rid ourselves of the water-soluble mess), and used markers and paints instead. We made margaritas and laughed all night long at our lack of artistic skills, and it struck me how differently this night was for me than it must have been for my mother at her pottery class.
It would have been a rare night off from the kids, but it was not spent with her husband. Married 4 years at this point, I don't ever remember my mother and father laughing together, or going out of their way to share time together. If you've read this blog for any length of time, you'll know that my father isn't my (or my mother's, or anyone's) favourite person, but even in the days before divorce and disaccord, I don't remember them as a happy couple.
She was 22 years old. She must have had hopes and dreams. She must have wondered about her future. As she hid eggs for us to find the next morning, I am certain that she loved her kids, but I wonder if she loved her life. I wonder if she felt like she was living for herself, or for her kids. I wonder if she ever felt regret, or if she felt trapped, or if she ever cried alone, frightened of what she'd gotten into. We spend an awful lot of time living in very close quarters with our parents, but do we ever really know them?
This Easter will be just for Jason and I. I haven't spoken to my mother in 15 months, I think. Some days I really miss her, and some days I remember why we aren't speaking and I hurt all over again, and some days I don't think of her at all. But through the marvels of garbage-picking, the egg has been salvaged and sits in my house now. I look at the egg and I remember what it meant to my family, and I feel closer to her now than I have in years.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Easter comes but once a year, but the chocolate you eat will stay on your hips forever.
What the hell ever happened to the Easter bonnet? When I was a kid, all 4 of us little girls (my sisters and I) would line up in our fancy dresses, with our little white socks with the ruffle trim folded down over our patent leather shoes, and my mother would curl our bangs just so, thus ensuring that our hair would be worthy and do justice to our Easter bonnets.
This picture was taken in 1984 when there were still only 2 of us, and only 1 of us had hair enough to curl, but by god we wore our bonnets, with all the frills upon it. We were the grandest ladies at the Easter parade. I sometimes think that my sisters and I were the last kids to ever wear the Easter bonnet because I haven't seen it since.
Another Easter staple of my childhood was the poncho. The Easter poncho (hand knitted, of course) was especially exciting because we certainly didn't get to wear it just any old Easter. No, it had to be a very mild Easter indeed where we would be granted permission to wear the Poncho instead of the dreaded "dress coat" that we'd been wearing to church all winter long. You see, my mother was one of those militant types who strongly believed that if we didn't wear coats, we would all die messy, phlegmy deaths. So the poncho was a treat. It meant spring, and relief, was here.
We always hunted for eggs in the morning, even when we were all cranky teenagers and we didn't wake before noon anymore. This being Canada, we only hunted indoors, but my mother must have hidden hundreds of eggs around the house, some of which were never found, and are probably still rotting in dark crevices of that old house today (don't worry - we never used real eggs as some families do; we were strictly into chocolate). I never found as many eggs as the others because I am not a morning person and not particularly industrious either. Not to worry; my mother always insisted we dump the eggs into one communal basket and "share". Hah.
We often would receive small presents in addition to chocolate.
In 1990, as you can see, we received neon sunglasses. What you can't see is that we also got neon sandals to match. Styling. Often we would receive some "spring" toys, like bubble wands, skipping ropes, sidewalk chalk, and butterfly nets (which, though we never caught any butterflies, we often came home with toads, much to my mother's dismay).
This was also the Easter that my baby sister, then 3, caught the chicken pox and generously gave it to my father. While the rest of us ate ham, the two of them soaked in a baking soda-bath that didn't do much to relieve the itching. The rest of us tried to feign sympathy as we strutted about in our ponchos, caught toads, and pretended to eat all the chocolate.
When I was a teenager, I began to think that perhaps 13 lbs of chocolate was not the best thing for my waist line. Ingeniously, my mother took it upon herself to hide fruit that year. Of course, it's much harder to hide a watermelon than a tiny chocolate egg, and the results were as preposterous as you are imagining. I also had little use for frog-catching paraphenalia and my bonnet days were over (as I was then going through a bit of a mohawk phase), so my mother started me on my Easter purse collection.
It's so fuzzy and pink, could it be anything other than an Easter purse? I think not. It's also so impractical that if I didn't limit my usage of it to 2 or 3 days per year, it would either drive me mad, or turn into Easter garbage. It didn't come with money, it came with "cotton candy" pink hair dye inside - just the perfect colour to for ushering in spring.
This is my best-loved Easter handbag. The pastel beading reminds me of an Easter egg. This one I "inherited" from a deceased woman who had no further use for it. I've since seen other antique Goldco bags on ebay, but I've yet to see this exact one...and yes, I do wish I had the Easter bonnet to match.
These days I have relinquished my role as Easter egg hunter because I have become the Easter egg hider. No, I don't have children, but I do have a husband who missed out on some key elements of his childhood and as long as they involve chocolate, he is more than happy to relive them. If we're brave (or drunk), we may even try our hand at dying some eggs, because frankly, the stain-to-furniture ratio has been appallingly low lately, and let's face it, now that I've posted the neon glasses, what's left for next year? I'll turn out my famous Easter cakes and keep none for myself, watch Jason blow up Peeps in the microwave, and maybe, just maybe, I'll go outside without my coat.
Please feel free to share your own Easter memories/plans/traditions in the comments section.
And remember, real men hunt with a bucket, not with a basket.
This picture was taken in 1984 when there were still only 2 of us, and only 1 of us had hair enough to curl, but by god we wore our bonnets, with all the frills upon it. We were the grandest ladies at the Easter parade. I sometimes think that my sisters and I were the last kids to ever wear the Easter bonnet because I haven't seen it since.
Another Easter staple of my childhood was the poncho. The Easter poncho (hand knitted, of course) was especially exciting because we certainly didn't get to wear it just any old Easter. No, it had to be a very mild Easter indeed where we would be granted permission to wear the Poncho instead of the dreaded "dress coat" that we'd been wearing to church all winter long. You see, my mother was one of those militant types who strongly believed that if we didn't wear coats, we would all die messy, phlegmy deaths. So the poncho was a treat. It meant spring, and relief, was here.
We always hunted for eggs in the morning, even when we were all cranky teenagers and we didn't wake before noon anymore. This being Canada, we only hunted indoors, but my mother must have hidden hundreds of eggs around the house, some of which were never found, and are probably still rotting in dark crevices of that old house today (don't worry - we never used real eggs as some families do; we were strictly into chocolate). I never found as many eggs as the others because I am not a morning person and not particularly industrious either. Not to worry; my mother always insisted we dump the eggs into one communal basket and "share". Hah.
We often would receive small presents in addition to chocolate.
In 1990, as you can see, we received neon sunglasses. What you can't see is that we also got neon sandals to match. Styling. Often we would receive some "spring" toys, like bubble wands, skipping ropes, sidewalk chalk, and butterfly nets (which, though we never caught any butterflies, we often came home with toads, much to my mother's dismay).
This was also the Easter that my baby sister, then 3, caught the chicken pox and generously gave it to my father. While the rest of us ate ham, the two of them soaked in a baking soda-bath that didn't do much to relieve the itching. The rest of us tried to feign sympathy as we strutted about in our ponchos, caught toads, and pretended to eat all the chocolate.
When I was a teenager, I began to think that perhaps 13 lbs of chocolate was not the best thing for my waist line. Ingeniously, my mother took it upon herself to hide fruit that year. Of course, it's much harder to hide a watermelon than a tiny chocolate egg, and the results were as preposterous as you are imagining. I also had little use for frog-catching paraphenalia and my bonnet days were over (as I was then going through a bit of a mohawk phase), so my mother started me on my Easter purse collection.
It's so fuzzy and pink, could it be anything other than an Easter purse? I think not. It's also so impractical that if I didn't limit my usage of it to 2 or 3 days per year, it would either drive me mad, or turn into Easter garbage. It didn't come with money, it came with "cotton candy" pink hair dye inside - just the perfect colour to for ushering in spring.
This is my best-loved Easter handbag. The pastel beading reminds me of an Easter egg. This one I "inherited" from a deceased woman who had no further use for it. I've since seen other antique Goldco bags on ebay, but I've yet to see this exact one...and yes, I do wish I had the Easter bonnet to match.
These days I have relinquished my role as Easter egg hunter because I have become the Easter egg hider. No, I don't have children, but I do have a husband who missed out on some key elements of his childhood and as long as they involve chocolate, he is more than happy to relive them. If we're brave (or drunk), we may even try our hand at dying some eggs, because frankly, the stain-to-furniture ratio has been appallingly low lately, and let's face it, now that I've posted the neon glasses, what's left for next year? I'll turn out my famous Easter cakes and keep none for myself, watch Jason blow up Peeps in the microwave, and maybe, just maybe, I'll go outside without my coat.
Please feel free to share your own Easter memories/plans/traditions in the comments section.
And remember, real men hunt with a bucket, not with a basket.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Famous Last Words of 2005:
"My penis smells like cheesecake."
-Jason
"I'm only drunk at 9am because I haven't slept yet. Otherwise, I'd just be hungover, which is more socially acceptable. Let's listen to Rhinestone Cowboy again!!"
-Jamie
-Jason
"I'm only drunk at 9am because I haven't slept yet. Otherwise, I'd just be hungover, which is more socially acceptable. Let's listen to Rhinestone Cowboy again!!"
-Jamie
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Live From Toronto - It's Christmas 2005!
(Jason writes in BLUE)
3am So when I wrote earlier about "just 2 more sleeps", I was being optimistic. Stupidly, doggedly, optimistic. No such sleeps, but lookey, Christmas came anyway. It's a little sad to be up all alone at 3am in the wee hours of Christmas day; I suspect that even Santa is back home and safely in bed at this point.
Zzzzzzzz.......zzzzzzzz........zzzzzzzzzzz
The house looks beautiful. Superficially, it actually looks clean and orderly (if you keep the door to the spare room shut tightly). The garlands are hung a little crookedly (that's what I get for delegating them to Jason and his staple gun) but let me tell you this: I bought some beautiful tumeric plates that offset my new chili red ones, plus a new table runner and bold gold napkins that are to die for...seriously, my table settings will make you cream. It almost seems sacrilegious to eat on this table!
So I am up, alone, and contemplating getting a head start on my meatballs which will have to slow cook for 8 hours. Jason is in bed having wet dreams after I assured him that Sugar Plum Fairy was just some big-titted girl's stripper name. I just want to shake him awake and pile his mountain of gifts on top of him. We are so bad at keeping secrets from each other that keeping presents a surprise is a real challenge. Already he's given me a few: a fleece hoodie, The Penelopiad, and the collector's edition DVD of A Christmas Story (seriously folks, if you haven't seen it, do - it's a holiday classic).
4:31am The tedious part of meatballs is done. Now when I get up (for real this time), I'll just have to make the sauce and then throw them in the crockpot. Oddly, even the smell of two meats frying away in heaven did not rouse Jason from his sleep.
Zzzzzzzz.......zzzzzzzz........zzzzzzzzzzz
5:55am Okay, pie's done. Looks delish. I put it in the bar fridge where hopefully it won't get poked at. I had to use the mix master 4 separate times, and Jason still sleeps. What a kid. We'll both be glad to have such a good jump on all the food prep later, but I guarantee Jason will say something to the effect of : But I didn't get to lick the beaters!
Zzzzzzzz.......zzzzzzzz........zzzzzzzzzzz
8:58am After tossing, turning, and reading another 50 pages of The Cunning Man, I decided sleep was not for me, so I woke Jason up at 7:30 and we had Christmas right there and then. I poured strong mimosas, and he opened his stocking impatiently, eager to get to "the real presents." By 8, he was drunk, sugar-high, and half-buried beneath a mound of wrapping paper and bows. Now that, my friend, is Christmas.
I fought off the challenges of both champagne on no sleep, and one-handed unwrapping (someone has to yield the camcorder, right?) to reveal my bounty - among which, I found the Chuckies that I asked for one million times!
Wholly Crap! It's Christmas. The one day a year where no one calls me a "gourmand" because I had thirds and fourths of dessert. Also, the presents rocked! There was everything I asked for and stuff I didn't even know I wanted. From an iPod to Booze to Simpsons DVD Seasons to PS2 games, it was awsome. There wasn't a package of socks or tighty whities anywhere. Thanks Jamie!!
Mother-in-law called to say she fought off tears opening her gift. After I basked in the warm glow of giving a good gift, I realized: she's coming for 5 damn days. Shit.
Meanwhile, Jason really got into the Christmas spirit by playing one of his new video games, where I witnessed some carjacking, cop killing, prostitution, and bmxing all rolled into one. Lucky me.
She's just jealous it's not a two player game.
10:05am Tired. Very tired. Going to bed for nap. Jason insists on staying up so he can "play with his toys."
Figured out the iPod and downloaded crappy music. Well, crappy according to someone I know.
1:45pm Up, but still tired. However, el turkey beckons. Must give him intimate bath in all the right places. Oh my!
Now I'm jealous.
4:52pm Chez my grandparents, we always had Christmas dinner at about 4:30pm. They're seniors, you see. Once we had to hold dinner until almost 4:45 and my grandfather nearly fainted from hunger and anticipation. Today we'll eat on our terms, when our bellies are ready for it. And as for 4:30pm, well, that was a great time for sex.
Enough said.
7:33pm Realized that Jason neglected to remove the turkey's neck.
8:06pm All told it took about 7 hours of hard labour to cook the meal, and about 20 minutes to consume it, 15 minutes of queasiness over not having made even the slightest dent in the mounds of food, and 4 hours to groan about having over-eaten before I started eating again. I parched myself in the kitchen, so I gulped down wine a little too enthusiastically. I dirtied my new hoodie. Wished my Nanny a merry Christmas. Indulged Jason. Had to remove my pants because the fridge just didn't have enough room for all the leftovers. Had to admit a certain satisfaction since the meal turned out perfectly, all seventy kabillion courses of it, and not even any lumps in the gravy, thankyouverymuch.
10:23pm Drunk. Still full, probably because I'm trying to give the leftover curds a good home. Decided mountain of dishes will still be there tomorrow. Dessert has not been attempted (well, at least not by me). Watched Jason play with some of his new toys. Must go to bed soon - so much hard work, so little sleep. Between the drunkenness, the bellyful, and the exhaustion, my body has become dead weight. Earlier, I worried that I might have to live out the rest of my natural life sucked between the sofa cushions.
6:13am Ah, welcome boxing day, day of boxes, day of dishes and leftovers and hopefully rest. I dropped into bed just after 11, fell almost immediately asleep (which I have not done since I was 7), and slept like the dead for 2 solid hours before overheating (winos sweat a lot in their sleep, but the sweat is sweet like wine). Left the bed and have not been back since.
I think it's safe to say that Christmas was a success. Coming from a large and boisterous family, I am unused to such quiet celebrations, but I must say that I rather enjoyed it. We made our own schedule, we unbuttoned our pants without fear of recrimination, and best of all, we left the mess until later. It was a cozy day and predict I will be tempted in the future to keep all Christmases to a party of 2. But towards the end of the night, with food for 20 more piled high in the fridge, at least half a dozen loads of dirty dishes piled in and around the sink, wads of discarded wrapping paper still crinkling underfoot, and delicious sweet potato still undigested in our stomachs, we couldn't help but turn to each other and ask, So, what are we doing for New Year's?
3am So when I wrote earlier about "just 2 more sleeps", I was being optimistic. Stupidly, doggedly, optimistic. No such sleeps, but lookey, Christmas came anyway. It's a little sad to be up all alone at 3am in the wee hours of Christmas day; I suspect that even Santa is back home and safely in bed at this point.
Zzzzzzzz.......zzzzzzzz........zzzzzzzzzzz
The house looks beautiful. Superficially, it actually looks clean and orderly (if you keep the door to the spare room shut tightly). The garlands are hung a little crookedly (that's what I get for delegating them to Jason and his staple gun) but let me tell you this: I bought some beautiful tumeric plates that offset my new chili red ones, plus a new table runner and bold gold napkins that are to die for...seriously, my table settings will make you cream. It almost seems sacrilegious to eat on this table!
So I am up, alone, and contemplating getting a head start on my meatballs which will have to slow cook for 8 hours. Jason is in bed having wet dreams after I assured him that Sugar Plum Fairy was just some big-titted girl's stripper name. I just want to shake him awake and pile his mountain of gifts on top of him. We are so bad at keeping secrets from each other that keeping presents a surprise is a real challenge. Already he's given me a few: a fleece hoodie, The Penelopiad, and the collector's edition DVD of A Christmas Story (seriously folks, if you haven't seen it, do - it's a holiday classic).
4:31am The tedious part of meatballs is done. Now when I get up (for real this time), I'll just have to make the sauce and then throw them in the crockpot. Oddly, even the smell of two meats frying away in heaven did not rouse Jason from his sleep.
Zzzzzzzz.......zzzzzzzz........zzzzzzzzzzz
5:55am Okay, pie's done. Looks delish. I put it in the bar fridge where hopefully it won't get poked at. I had to use the mix master 4 separate times, and Jason still sleeps. What a kid. We'll both be glad to have such a good jump on all the food prep later, but I guarantee Jason will say something to the effect of : But I didn't get to lick the beaters!
Zzzzzzzz.......zzzzzzzz........zzzzzzzzzzz
8:58am After tossing, turning, and reading another 50 pages of The Cunning Man, I decided sleep was not for me, so I woke Jason up at 7:30 and we had Christmas right there and then. I poured strong mimosas, and he opened his stocking impatiently, eager to get to "the real presents." By 8, he was drunk, sugar-high, and half-buried beneath a mound of wrapping paper and bows. Now that, my friend, is Christmas.
I fought off the challenges of both champagne on no sleep, and one-handed unwrapping (someone has to yield the camcorder, right?) to reveal my bounty - among which, I found the Chuckies that I asked for one million times!
Wholly Crap! It's Christmas. The one day a year where no one calls me a "gourmand" because I had thirds and fourths of dessert. Also, the presents rocked! There was everything I asked for and stuff I didn't even know I wanted. From an iPod to Booze to Simpsons DVD Seasons to PS2 games, it was awsome. There wasn't a package of socks or tighty whities anywhere. Thanks Jamie!!
Mother-in-law called to say she fought off tears opening her gift. After I basked in the warm glow of giving a good gift, I realized: she's coming for 5 damn days. Shit.
Meanwhile, Jason really got into the Christmas spirit by playing one of his new video games, where I witnessed some carjacking, cop killing, prostitution, and bmxing all rolled into one. Lucky me.
She's just jealous it's not a two player game.
10:05am Tired. Very tired. Going to bed for nap. Jason insists on staying up so he can "play with his toys."
Figured out the iPod and downloaded crappy music. Well, crappy according to someone I know.
1:45pm Up, but still tired. However, el turkey beckons. Must give him intimate bath in all the right places. Oh my!
Now I'm jealous.
4:52pm Chez my grandparents, we always had Christmas dinner at about 4:30pm. They're seniors, you see. Once we had to hold dinner until almost 4:45 and my grandfather nearly fainted from hunger and anticipation. Today we'll eat on our terms, when our bellies are ready for it. And as for 4:30pm, well, that was a great time for sex.
Enough said.
7:33pm Realized that Jason neglected to remove the turkey's neck.
8:06pm All told it took about 7 hours of hard labour to cook the meal, and about 20 minutes to consume it, 15 minutes of queasiness over not having made even the slightest dent in the mounds of food, and 4 hours to groan about having over-eaten before I started eating again. I parched myself in the kitchen, so I gulped down wine a little too enthusiastically. I dirtied my new hoodie. Wished my Nanny a merry Christmas. Indulged Jason. Had to remove my pants because the fridge just didn't have enough room for all the leftovers. Had to admit a certain satisfaction since the meal turned out perfectly, all seventy kabillion courses of it, and not even any lumps in the gravy, thankyouverymuch.
10:23pm Drunk. Still full, probably because I'm trying to give the leftover curds a good home. Decided mountain of dishes will still be there tomorrow. Dessert has not been attempted (well, at least not by me). Watched Jason play with some of his new toys. Must go to bed soon - so much hard work, so little sleep. Between the drunkenness, the bellyful, and the exhaustion, my body has become dead weight. Earlier, I worried that I might have to live out the rest of my natural life sucked between the sofa cushions.
6:13am Ah, welcome boxing day, day of boxes, day of dishes and leftovers and hopefully rest. I dropped into bed just after 11, fell almost immediately asleep (which I have not done since I was 7), and slept like the dead for 2 solid hours before overheating (winos sweat a lot in their sleep, but the sweat is sweet like wine). Left the bed and have not been back since.
I think it's safe to say that Christmas was a success. Coming from a large and boisterous family, I am unused to such quiet celebrations, but I must say that I rather enjoyed it. We made our own schedule, we unbuttoned our pants without fear of recrimination, and best of all, we left the mess until later. It was a cozy day and predict I will be tempted in the future to keep all Christmases to a party of 2. But towards the end of the night, with food for 20 more piled high in the fridge, at least half a dozen loads of dirty dishes piled in and around the sink, wads of discarded wrapping paper still crinkling underfoot, and delicious sweet potato still undigested in our stomachs, we couldn't help but turn to each other and ask, So, what are we doing for New Year's?
Friday, December 23, 2005
Just 2 More Sleeps.
I've mostly been too busy to notice that Christmas is coming. As per usual, I managed to get my holiday cards out in good time, but it's all down hill from there.
I blame the move, mostly. I couldn't put up the decorations on the 1st (following tradition) since it didn't make sense to put it all up for a few days, tear it down, pack it up, move it across the hall only to unpack it, put it up for a few more days, and then tear it back down and pack it away until next year. So I elected to only put it up in the second apartment...only...once I got here, I just kind of plunked down boxes willy nilly and then plunked down myself in complete and utter exhaustion.
The decorations are still not up.
I did some holiday baking, when I was able to uncover both the ingredients and the oven (oddly, the oven was the harder one to find). Also, I managed to get my Christmas shopping done well ahead of schedule, with gifts wrapped and in an ugly pile (NOT UNDER A TREE) for Jason, and the rest shipped off to family many kilometers away.
So I wondered to myself what I could do to put myself in the holiday mood. When I was a kid in school, we would colour pictures of the baby Jesus, and glue macaroni to green construction paper and call it an ornament (my mother still hangs these mouldy offerings in her tree faithfully each year), and learn songs that irritatingly still occupy mucho space in my head today (au petit trot s'en va le cheval avec ses grelots....). My mother would attempt to pile her 4 daughters on Santa's 1 little lap for the classic family photo and then she'd tell us how Santa really doesn't like milk and cookies nearly so much as he likes Doritos and daiquiris (coincidentally my mother's favourites also).
But, it's safe to say that none of these things were doing it for me this year. So I did what any sane person would do: I bought a colouring book, a box of 96 crayons, and I rented Tis The Season to Be Smurfy. It was just like I remembered it. Smurftastic.
Last night (or rather, earlier this evening, as it is 4:41 am and this little girl has still not seen her bed, except for a brief romp which was completely sleep-unrelated) Jason took me to the Lindsay Lights, a smurftacular display of lights and music which is actually just the work of 2 dudes with some time on their hands and their parents' sprawling yard at their disposal. For some reason, we actually drove half an hour outside of the city to see that, which meant that we then had to use the all-night grocery store to get everything but the turkey (the butterball has been defrosting all week), and then we had to go on a fevered search for booze because apparently we're both unwilling to face the holidays sober.
So now we are set to encounter the great unknown: Christmas for 2. Oh, we'll have food enough for 12, and liquor enough for 20, but there'll just be me and Jason. What, oh what shall we do?
If we don't hit the mimosas too hard, we may attempt to blog the day (otherwise we'll never know how we spent it). But there's also a high probability that Jason will incur yet another severe beating thanks to his knack for getting me "practical" gifts, although after last year's lashing, you'd think he'd understand that hair products are not smurfaroonie for Christmas.
Whatever December 25th means to you (and even if it means nothing at all), I wish you love and peace and pie.
And remember: syphilis is not a Christmas gift.
Be good; Santa's watching.
I blame the move, mostly. I couldn't put up the decorations on the 1st (following tradition) since it didn't make sense to put it all up for a few days, tear it down, pack it up, move it across the hall only to unpack it, put it up for a few more days, and then tear it back down and pack it away until next year. So I elected to only put it up in the second apartment...only...once I got here, I just kind of plunked down boxes willy nilly and then plunked down myself in complete and utter exhaustion.
The decorations are still not up.
I did some holiday baking, when I was able to uncover both the ingredients and the oven (oddly, the oven was the harder one to find). Also, I managed to get my Christmas shopping done well ahead of schedule, with gifts wrapped and in an ugly pile (NOT UNDER A TREE) for Jason, and the rest shipped off to family many kilometers away.
So I wondered to myself what I could do to put myself in the holiday mood. When I was a kid in school, we would colour pictures of the baby Jesus, and glue macaroni to green construction paper and call it an ornament (my mother still hangs these mouldy offerings in her tree faithfully each year), and learn songs that irritatingly still occupy mucho space in my head today (au petit trot s'en va le cheval avec ses grelots....). My mother would attempt to pile her 4 daughters on Santa's 1 little lap for the classic family photo and then she'd tell us how Santa really doesn't like milk and cookies nearly so much as he likes Doritos and daiquiris (coincidentally my mother's favourites also).
But, it's safe to say that none of these things were doing it for me this year. So I did what any sane person would do: I bought a colouring book, a box of 96 crayons, and I rented Tis The Season to Be Smurfy. It was just like I remembered it. Smurftastic.
Last night (or rather, earlier this evening, as it is 4:41 am and this little girl has still not seen her bed, except for a brief romp which was completely sleep-unrelated) Jason took me to the Lindsay Lights, a smurftacular display of lights and music which is actually just the work of 2 dudes with some time on their hands and their parents' sprawling yard at their disposal. For some reason, we actually drove half an hour outside of the city to see that, which meant that we then had to use the all-night grocery store to get everything but the turkey (the butterball has been defrosting all week), and then we had to go on a fevered search for booze because apparently we're both unwilling to face the holidays sober.
So now we are set to encounter the great unknown: Christmas for 2. Oh, we'll have food enough for 12, and liquor enough for 20, but there'll just be me and Jason. What, oh what shall we do?
If we don't hit the mimosas too hard, we may attempt to blog the day (otherwise we'll never know how we spent it). But there's also a high probability that Jason will incur yet another severe beating thanks to his knack for getting me "practical" gifts, although after last year's lashing, you'd think he'd understand that hair products are not smurfaroonie for Christmas.
Whatever December 25th means to you (and even if it means nothing at all), I wish you love and peace and pie.
And remember: syphilis is not a Christmas gift.
Be good; Santa's watching.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Happy Turkey Day
It's great to give thanks and gorge one's self on pumpkin pie, but this long weekend also brings a celebration of a different kind...
happy birthday to the biggest turkey of them all,
my husband.
To Jason on his birthday:
I know you are WAY TOO LOADED to read this right now, but I sincerely hope that your second quarter-century is as fun-filled as your first was.
Enjoy your special day, and I'll see you later about your spankings.
p.s. Sorry the streamers were so crappy. I couldn't find the tape.
Love,
Jay
xo
happy birthday to the biggest turkey of them all,
my husband.
To Jason on his birthday:
I know you are WAY TOO LOADED to read this right now, but I sincerely hope that your second quarter-century is as fun-filled as your first was.
Enjoy your special day, and I'll see you later about your spankings.
p.s. Sorry the streamers were so crappy. I couldn't find the tape.
Love,
Jay
xo
Friday, April 01, 2005
The Origins of April Fools
On the first day of April, many, many moons ago, a young man named Joseph set forth from his home at the first cock's crow. He walked quickly along the gravelly path, eager to reach his destination. In just a few hours' time, he would be making the purchase of his first herd of livestock. Just 50 head, but it was a start. It would make him a man in the eyes of the village, and he would finally be able to propose to his long-time love, Rosa.
He met the vendor at their prearranged meeting place, and with the exchange of Joseph's entire stock of coins and a brief hand shake, Joseph became a man of means. His chest swelled with pride as he walked to the pasture where his herd awaited him. But, when he got there, no cattle could be found. He searched in vain, soaked his clothes in mud, but all to no avail. He walked home, dirty and disappointed.
Back in his village, word spread quickly. The entire village was laughing at him - April's Fool, they called him. Everyone else knew better than to trust an unknown vendor in April. Early spring always brought disreputable businessmen through the area, and Joseph had given all his money to a stranger without even first seeing his herd. Of course this dishonest vendor had since disappeared completely.
Joseph became the joke of the village. People taunted him as they walked by, laughed in his face, and worst of all, his dear Rosa was married off to a more worthy man.
This continued on for a year, and with the anniversary of his gaff rapidly approaching, he knew things would only get worse. So, for the first time in his life, Joseph began to plot and scheme.
On the next April 1st, Joseph got up early once again; this time, even before the rooster or the sun. Under the cover of darkness, Joseph went around to all of the neighbouring pastures and herded the cattle together. He drove them to a pasture hidden from the village by a hill. By the time the villagers woke up, they found their pastures to be empty. Joseph happily let this deflect the attention from him all day long before finally telling his neighbours where to find their cows. The villagers realized they'd been tricked, and took it good-naturedly. And every year after that, they played tricks on each other in good fun, each taking a turn to play April's Fool.
Other famous April Fools pranks:
April 1 1840: It is reported that a secret buried treasure has been found in Boston Common. People flock to the site.
April 1 1877: A New York newspaper reports that Thomas Edison has invented a food machine capable of turning soil into cereal and water into wine. People rejoice at having cured world hunger.
April 1 1957: A BBC show shows spaghetti being harvested from Swiss trees; getting rid of the dreaded 'spaghetti weevil' has resulted in an abundant bumper crop. People phone in, wanting their own spaghetti tree.
April 1 1965: the BBC airs an interview with the inventor of 'smell-o-vision', who chops onions and brews coffee on air to show its effectiveness. Viewers call in to marvel at its success.
April 1 1985: Sports Illustrated publishes an interview with Sidd Finch by George Plimpton. Finch is a rookie pitcher newly signed to The Mets, able to pitch 168 mph, but surprisingly has never even played the game before, having learned 'the art of pitching' in a Tibetan monastery. Mets fans rejoice at their luck.
April 1 1992: My mother tells my sister there's a horse in our pool. Sister believes her to this day, despite evidence to the contrary, and its physical impossibility.
April 1 1998: a nerd magazine announces that Alabama has changed the value of pi! State legislature voted to change it back to its 'biblical' value, 3.0. Nerds around the globe are outraged.
April 1 2001: Jamie and Jason announce their engagement. Oh wait. That one turns out to be real, although no one believes them.
April 1 ????: Please regale me with the tales of your best pranks, whether you were the perpetrator or the victim.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Kiss Me, I'm Pretending To Be Irish
Last month, throngs of nay-sayers poo-poohed an inoffensive holiday dedicated to love and lust. This month, they'll embrace a holiday dedicated to wearing green and barfing up Guinness because their pansy stomachs can't take it. In short, people are stupid.
So what's up with this holiday? Well, as you may have guessed (and if you didn't, you've got problems), it's an Irish one, and it's in honour of Saint Patrick. That's right, Saint Patrick. Don't forget the Saint part. In Ireland, it actually means something. You may be surprised to learn that today is not simply a day to 'get your drink on'. In Ireland, where they know what they're doing, today is a religious holiday. They stay home from work and go to mass where they pray for missionaries around the world. It's a day for spiritual renewal. In North America, we piss on people's religious holidays like there is no tomorrow. Christmas is offered up to the gods of consumerism. Easter is a tribute to oddly-shaped chocolates. And now we've taken St. Patrick's day, highjacked it from the Irish, only to put on curly green wigs and shout drunken misgivings at parade floats. No, it's not respectful. We don't do respectful around these parts.
Saint Patrick wasn't always a saint. In fact, he wasn't always Irish either. As a young boy, he lived on the British Isles and was kidnapped from there and brought to Ireland where he was forced into slavery for 6 years. Then, he heard the voice of God telling him to escape, and he did. When Patrick came back to Ireland, he brought christianity with him. He went from town to town, preaching the word of God and using the shamrock as a metaphor: its three leaves represent the church's holy trinity (The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit). An Irishman who is wearing shamrocks is signifying his closeness to God. I fear that on this side of the water it signifies something closer to "Wee, look at me, I am sooo drunk!"
Then, Saint Patrick drove all the snakes from Ireland (although, it is improbable that Ireland ever had any snakes, so snakes are probably a metaphor for pagans). So in a way, Saint Patrick was to Ireland what Billy Graham aspires to be to Australia. Who knows, maybe in a few years Australia will be celebrating St Billy's day, and we'll all get pissed in his memory. Or not.
It is believed that Saint Patrick died on March 17th. His people were devastated. They have taken the day to mourn his death. We have taken the day to torture our livers.
As you know, I'm all for almost any excuse to throw a party and drink to my heart's content. But, I'm not Irish. Nor am I catholic. I don't plan on mourning anyone's death today, but by this evening, I might be enticed to celebrate his life. Or life in general. Green is not just the colour of Ireland, but the colour of spring and new growth. In the spirit of "A Festivus for the Rest of Us", I am accepting suggestions for renaming this holiday more appropriately. 'Happy Drink Day' perhaps, or 'Snake Day' (since I most likely would have been one of the snakes St Pat got rid of).
Meanwhile, the well-intentioned and misintentioned are partying on. Green dye #38 is being consumed in mass quantities, and somewhere in a small room, its inventor is hoping like hell it'll prove to be non-toxic. Irish stews are bubbling on stoves. Blarney stone substitutes are being smooched like crazy. Bar patrons are trying to convince each other that their slurred gibberish is really Gaelic. And the Chicago River is reverting back to its natural colour after its green showing at the parade.
(For 40 years, city officials have dyed the river green. No one else can replicate it. Officials won't divulge the secret, saying it would be like a leprechaun revealing where he buried the pot of gold. The river is dyed the morning of the parade, and is back to its normal colour by the evening's close.)
What kind of shenanigans are you up to tonight? Do tell. And, if you're up for any kind of shindig, then you might want to pop on over to Sweet Jay's, where a great recipe for an Irish brownie topping is currently posted. A word to the wise: if you're one of those pansies who can't hold his Guinness, pass this one up. It'll knock you on your ass.
So what's up with this holiday? Well, as you may have guessed (and if you didn't, you've got problems), it's an Irish one, and it's in honour of Saint Patrick. That's right, Saint Patrick. Don't forget the Saint part. In Ireland, it actually means something. You may be surprised to learn that today is not simply a day to 'get your drink on'. In Ireland, where they know what they're doing, today is a religious holiday. They stay home from work and go to mass where they pray for missionaries around the world. It's a day for spiritual renewal. In North America, we piss on people's religious holidays like there is no tomorrow. Christmas is offered up to the gods of consumerism. Easter is a tribute to oddly-shaped chocolates. And now we've taken St. Patrick's day, highjacked it from the Irish, only to put on curly green wigs and shout drunken misgivings at parade floats. No, it's not respectful. We don't do respectful around these parts.
Saint Patrick wasn't always a saint. In fact, he wasn't always Irish either. As a young boy, he lived on the British Isles and was kidnapped from there and brought to Ireland where he was forced into slavery for 6 years. Then, he heard the voice of God telling him to escape, and he did. When Patrick came back to Ireland, he brought christianity with him. He went from town to town, preaching the word of God and using the shamrock as a metaphor: its three leaves represent the church's holy trinity (The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit). An Irishman who is wearing shamrocks is signifying his closeness to God. I fear that on this side of the water it signifies something closer to "Wee, look at me, I am sooo drunk!"
Then, Saint Patrick drove all the snakes from Ireland (although, it is improbable that Ireland ever had any snakes, so snakes are probably a metaphor for pagans). So in a way, Saint Patrick was to Ireland what Billy Graham aspires to be to Australia. Who knows, maybe in a few years Australia will be celebrating St Billy's day, and we'll all get pissed in his memory. Or not.
It is believed that Saint Patrick died on March 17th. His people were devastated. They have taken the day to mourn his death. We have taken the day to torture our livers.
As you know, I'm all for almost any excuse to throw a party and drink to my heart's content. But, I'm not Irish. Nor am I catholic. I don't plan on mourning anyone's death today, but by this evening, I might be enticed to celebrate his life. Or life in general. Green is not just the colour of Ireland, but the colour of spring and new growth. In the spirit of "A Festivus for the Rest of Us", I am accepting suggestions for renaming this holiday more appropriately. 'Happy Drink Day' perhaps, or 'Snake Day' (since I most likely would have been one of the snakes St Pat got rid of).
Meanwhile, the well-intentioned and misintentioned are partying on. Green dye #38 is being consumed in mass quantities, and somewhere in a small room, its inventor is hoping like hell it'll prove to be non-toxic. Irish stews are bubbling on stoves. Blarney stone substitutes are being smooched like crazy. Bar patrons are trying to convince each other that their slurred gibberish is really Gaelic. And the Chicago River is reverting back to its natural colour after its green showing at the parade.
(For 40 years, city officials have dyed the river green. No one else can replicate it. Officials won't divulge the secret, saying it would be like a leprechaun revealing where he buried the pot of gold. The river is dyed the morning of the parade, and is back to its normal colour by the evening's close.)
What kind of shenanigans are you up to tonight? Do tell. And, if you're up for any kind of shindig, then you might want to pop on over to Sweet Jay's, where a great recipe for an Irish brownie topping is currently posted. A word to the wise: if you're one of those pansies who can't hold his Guinness, pass this one up. It'll knock you on your ass.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Valentine's Dinner
A romantic dinner for two.
After many requests, I have provided the recipes to this dinner over on my cooking blog, Sweet Jay's. Enjoy
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Fair Warning, Ladies
Listening to: Heart-Shaped Box, Nirvana
Fair warning, girls: If any of you were planning on getting a Valentine's themed bikini wax, time is running out. No need for fancy panties if you've got a heart-shaped coochie. And for you do-it-yourselfers, these kits offer heart-shaped stencils and instructions for how to "prepare the area with style." Don't say I didn't warn you.
Pubic primping: it's not just for hoors anymore.
Fair warning, girls: If any of you were planning on getting a Valentine's themed bikini wax, time is running out. No need for fancy panties if you've got a heart-shaped coochie. And for you do-it-yourselfers, these kits offer heart-shaped stencils and instructions for how to "prepare the area with style." Don't say I didn't warn you.
Pubic primping: it's not just for hoors anymore.
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