A fairly busy weekend, despite appearances to the contrary.

Rob, bless his heart, took off work early Friday and came to liberate the cherubs -- who, despite their best efforts, were working momma's nerves something fierce. They went to GameWorks while I finished up my workday, then they headed to the Cinerama to get seats for Lord of the Rings. I met them there and a good time was had by all. Although he won't admit it, Rob flinched during a couple of scenes. Hah! Of course, I did too the first time I saw the movie :) And I still couldn't watch the part where Boromir is kneeling and that Uruk-hai orc leader pauses in front of him to draw his bow. ((this isn't a spoiler, as everyone of my acquaintance has read the books numerous times -- uh, right?)) It was quite heartening to hear the spontaneous eruption of applause when Aragorn swooped in and bested that orc! And there was a lot of applause at the end of the movie as well, which likewise warmed my heart. Legolas sure is yummy! Mmmhmm!

The little game's new combat system is live now. I played for a couple of hours on Saturday myself and it's very nicely done and the staff worked so hard on it and suffered much to get it done. They are amazing.

Last night, Rob and I watched "Stepmom," which I have resisted seeing since it came out as Melani's review was that I'd be sobbing throughout. I did manage to hold together most of the way, but when it finished, I could just feel myself totally drained and unhappy and wracked. Rob tried teasing me but I was too depressed. What a horrible movie...to toss and pull and pinch the heart of divorced mothers with children so accurately. I've been both sides of that coin, as the stepmother and now as the mom whose children have a stepmother of their own. It is so difficult to want the best for the children under your influence and yet thinking beneath it all that maybe what's best for them isn't what you can offer them.

We have no big plans tonight. Rob will likely be exhausted since he was up till 1AM this morning playing Final Fantasy X. Whatever plans you have for the day, enjoy yourself and may we each find joy in the new year.

My cherubs are visiting the office today. We brought along Life and Settlers to keep them quiet. Phil is sporting several labels across his forehead (made with the office label maker, naturally after I'd told them not to use it). I've separated them for the moment so that 1) they would stop being so noisy and 2) we wouldn't run out of label tape.

I love my boys. I love my boys. I love my boys. (said with gritted teeth)

I am apparently a Counselor.

Okay, it's later in the day and I am once again feeling fat. There is only one good reason in the world for PMS: it gives women an excuse to lie about their size. "Oh, it's just water weight!" "I'm bloating!"

Bah. Face it, toots, that's not just H2O you're packing. You're a bona fide candidate for lipo suction now so stop whining and head to the larger sizes.

Which is the sort of mental conversation I had with myself while cruising the Bon and Coldwater Creek. I've decided that when I'm rich, I'm going to buy all my clothes from Jones New York because they are so me. Meanwhile, I can afford their items only off the clearance rack, hence the trip to the Bon.

I will say one nice thing about gaining weight: it has enhanced my bustsize. In fact, I can't fit into the push up gel-filled bra I bought at Victoria's Secret last year any longer because I ooze right on out of it. That was a very spendy bra. I hope to lose enough weight to be able to need it to provide some cleavage again.

Back to clothes. I bought two pairs of pants. One because it has an elastic waistband and the other because it has a lovely label -- strEEEEEtch fabric! I had never thought I'd see the day where elastic waistbands were a cause for celebration. I never imagined myself wearing strEEEEEtch fabric for what it will conceal rather than reveal.

I want to be okay with this size. But I am so conditioned to being something else, and water-gain or no, I'm not happy today over it. It preys on my mind. I used to be thin without trying. Now I'm not. I feel like inside I'm trapped in another age, like those women who continue to dye their hair jet black long into their 60s because that's what they used to be before they went grey. This is something I've never had to deal with before and it frightens me that I won't be able to handle it -- by which I really mean, return to my "normal" weight. I don't know how other women put up with weight gain. I've never had to know until now.

Welcome back, Blogger. I missed you! :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend. Our company graciously gave us Monday off as well, so I had four blissful days, starting with the viewing of The Lord of the Rings on Friday night with Liz's son. This Friday, my cherubs, Rob and I will go again -- this time to the Cinerama, which has wide, plushy, rocking seats and a very big screen. I am hoping my bottom will not go asleep again. The movie was so amazing and captivating that I forgot to squirm enough to keep the blood flowing.

Poor Rob was a Christmas Victim this year. It was one shopping disaster after another for him regarding gifts for me. You know it's tough when he comments that he has no idea what to get you, and you say, "Have you looked at my Amazon.com Wish List?" and he immediately logs in to see if it's not too late to get anything from it. Hehehe!

He did get me a PS2 and Final Fantasy X. This was on Saturday. He played all day Saturday, pausing only to rush out to get a memory card. Testing, I believe, he called this. Sunday was his birthday. I'd gotten him a dart board. He rips it open, exclaims over it, then returns to FFX. I have yet to play FFX.

Christmas Eve...our first time together. Did we snuggle up and watch White Christmas and sip hot cocoa beside a roaring fire? Nooooo...for Rob had ordered a new case and some other thingers to make a new PC as his old one could not handle the new EQ expansion. Rob spent the day using curse words I'd never heard before as he ran into one problem after another assembling the thing. Thank goodness we hadn't bought the boys bicycles to be put together too or my vocabulary would have expanded even more.

Christmas Day, he is still not done. He wakes me with those cherished words, "Mele Kalikimaka, I gotta work on that damn PC." He worked on it all day. He remembered that I had gotten the Windows XP upgrade when I ordered my Dell system. He fished out that CD and installed it on his new computer. By nightfall, long after I had picked up my boys, we opened our gifts (which my gifts were all fabulous! Especially a coffee mug shaped like a tree trunk with an owl perched in it, made by Phil!), I'd made a milk gravy-soaked fried chicken supper and had started reading a book while the boys played their new games, Rob had his PC working enough to sit beside me on the couch and pester me while I read.

"My PC cost less than yours," he gloated. I glanced at him. "How do you figure that?" "Mine cost about $600 and yours was double that." I pointed out that when my PC arrived, I plugged it in and it worked whereas he had just spent two days fiddling with his, not to mention the aggravation of receiving half the parts on Friday and having to wait until Monday for the rest of it to arrive -- meaning a total of four days lost time. Where did he figure he'd saved anything? "Mine cost about $600," he mumbled like a mantra, "And yours cost double that."

Hah. Stubborn guy :)

Last night, he gloated over it, lighting incense and ...oh...well, maybe not incense... and when he took the boys to Best Buy for them to pick out their own Christmas goodies from him, he picked up some sort of XP add on stuff, which includes a spiffy aquarium screen saver. As I admired it from my desk, he smirked, "You can't use this screen saver but I can because I have Windows XP!" Pause. Cackle! Cackle! For of course, he only has it because I'd bought it for myself and he stole it!

More later on as I remember it. Five days is a loooooong time to store up memories for you folks :)

Love and kisses and hugs for CoreyChick, Broos, CosmicTwin and of course, Sheepy.

Yesterday, Leah and I went to our favorite Japanese store in the International District. It's on the other end of our downtown bus tunnel, so the ride to and from is free. She and I were hurrying down the steps and stairs to make it to the bus platforms when we came upon a woman staggering down the stairs. Leah and I slowed down as this tall, dark haired stranger lurched and wobbled down the steps, veering this way and that. At one point, she turned and glanced in irritation at the two of us because we had caught up to her, although we were keeping a bit of distance.

She wasn't drunk; she was wearing incredible high stiletto heels and didn't know how to walk in them.

On September 11th, one of the young underwriters formerly of our New York office was at his new office on the 70th floor of Tower Two. He and his coworkers felt the building shudder and grabbed their cell phones, heading toward the stairway. He and another male coworker were descending with two female colleagues, urging them to take off their high heels because they had a long way to walk. About five flights down, they heard the announcement giving an all clear to return to their floor. The men continued downward, the females, refusing to remove their heels, went back up to the office. When they reached street level, the air was filled with debris, smoke and dust, so the underwriter grabbed his friend and they ran to his old office at my company. Behind them, the first tower was disintegrating. When they reached the floor that he used to work at, cloaked in white from the dust, one of his former coworkers enfolded him in an enormous bear hug, crying and explaining that building two had just gone down. Of their entire staff, only those two women were among the missing.

Watching that woman wobble down the stairs at the bus tunnel reminded me of the story.

I may own a lot of shoes but none of them make it hard for me to walk.

We close at 12:30 today for the long holiday weekend. If I don't post anything twixt now and then, have a nice weekend everyone and a happy holiday. :)

A sad commentary on the state of my addiction.

I glance at the calendar. "Oooh! Thursday! That means it'sSimDay!

It is all your fault, Robert. :P

I thought I had given up younger men, especially now that I'm married. Tomorrow night, however, I have a date to see Lord of the Rings with someone young enough to be my son.

Rob and I bought tickets to LotR last night, planning to go Friday night. As we're driving away, Rob realizes he's on call this whole weekend. Tonight is my company Christmas party (and we almost screwed up and bought tickets for tonight!) so we had to switch the date. When he's on call, he usually doesn't get any calls....but you know the One Time we actually have plans, he'd get beeped.

So instead of my husband, I'm going to take Liz's son Troy, who is a wee bit older than Phil and has started reading The Hobbit. He looked a bit blank this morning when I invited him (with Liz's permission) to see "a movie." Then in the background the commercial for LotR came on and he goes, "Whoa. Are we seeing that?" and perked up.

Rob and I will go again when my boys are with us next week.

Where are Broos's thoughts on the movie? Hmm??

The Cookies.

In a heavy saucepan (use an iron one if you have it), melt ½ pound margarine (you can use butter, but margarine's better for this) with 1 and 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1 cup dark corn syrup and 1 cup Log Cabin syrup (over the years, Asta looked for something akin to the maple syrup she could get in Denmark and never found any, but Log Cabin was close enough; don't substitute real maple syrup either, it's not going to work). Add 1 tablespoon grated orange peel, 2 teaspoons ground cloves and 3 teaspoons cinnamon. Heat to almost boiling, then remove from the burner and drop in 1 teaspoon baking soda. Stir and do not let it bubble over. When the soda is incorporated, cover and set aside overnight. A couple of days is even better. If you stick it in the fridge, pull it out and let it come to room temperature before continuing.

Add four cups flour, one at a time. Mix thoroughly, cover and set aside to let the dough rest. Give it a day in the fridge and a day on the counter before continuing.

Add two more cups flour, this time kneading the dough by hand. If the dough is really sticky, dust the mixing bowl with flour and continue to knead until it feels right - a little sticky but mostly smooth and cool. (Rob watched me doing this part and wondered why I couldn't beat this with a spoon, and if I had a Kitchen Aid, couldn't I do it in that? Of course the answer is yes…but… I subscribe to the belief, as Asta did, that a cook's hands impart something individual to each dough. Maybe it's only germs but whatever it is, if you don't touch the dough, you don't get it.) Cover and let it sit overnight. The dough will keep indefinitely so you can put some into the back of the fridge in an airtight container and bring out only what you need to bake at a time.

Do you have a ball-bearing rolling pin? No? Then get one. It is Asta's Rule of Rolling. Her mother used to roll them out with those pins that have no handles. Asta discovered the joys of ball-bearing pins and you'd have thought she had stock in the company that makes them, she was such an advocate of them. She rolled these out on a thin rectangle of foam rubber, covered by a large floured towel. I didn't have foam rubber. Asta gave me some.

I noticed this year that it's stretching out in the middle from all the rolling - I've had this foam for ten years -- and asked Rob if he knew where I could get more. "Why do you need it?" he asked, "My grandma used to just flour the countertops and roll on that and choonk! Choonk! Choonk! Cut out the biscuits with a water glass."

"Well, I need it because Asta said so," I replied. I talked about how I figured it gave a bit of a bounce to the pin so that the dough wouldn't be squooshed too much and the cookie cutters would cut neatly, but in the end, I don't know why. All I know is that before Asta gave me this foam, I couldn't roll cookie dough to save my life, but with it, I've been a rolling queen. What it does is give me confidence and that, like the commercial says, is priceless.

The dough must be at room temperature. (Asta says the dough is tricky, but either I've been blessed or have followed her directions perfectly because I've never had trouble with it.) Roll chunks of it out on the floured cloth until they are exceptionally thin. Asta rolled hers into big rectangles then cut across them diagonally with a pizza cutter, garnishing each diamond with an almond sliver. I tried that but found that I couldn't cut a decent diagonal, or they'd get all wobbly when I transferred them to the cookie sheets.

This year, having misplaced all my cookie cutters, I used Rob's grandma's method of a water glass dipped in flour. If the dough is rolled too thick, trying to eat them could chip a tooth. Go as thin as you can. Bake on parchment-covered baking sheets until golden brown; do not let them get dark brown as they'll taste burnt. Asta never did say for how long or at what temperature. I use 350 degrees and just keep checking them. I meant to time it but forgot. It depends on how thin you got your dough, pretty much. Maybe 7 - 10 minutes.

The cookies keep indefinitely when stored in a tightly covered container. Makes a gajillion (well, at least fifteen dozen, so I bake them over a couple of days. You could halve the recipe but since these take so long to make over the course of time and last forever, might as well do the whole thang!)

And there you have it. If you make these, remember the stories that go along with the dough and add your own. That's the true secret to cooking. :)

Breaking news headlines: Sheep Posts Journal Update!

I started typing out the Danish spice cookie recipe for Broos and it kept growing because it's a recipe that is more than a list of ingredients. It's is a story of friendship and female bonding. So, first the story. Tomorrow the recipe. Anticipation is part of the holiday season. :)

When I lived in Hawaii, I led the leisurely life of a young officer's wife with small children. I stayed at home, did volunteer work and chatted with other wives who were similarly situated.

Cheryl and I bonded instantly when we met. Our husbands were in the same unit. Her son Ryan and my son Phil are only months apart age-wise so when she and I met, we were both at that carry-a-child-on-the-shoulder stage. We were adept at doing everything with only one hand, since the other one was supporting the diapered bum of one of our children. We both owned 2-door Isuzu Troopers. To strap our children in, we'd push open a sliding window and slip the baby into his seat through that; when we traveled together, we'd have Ryan's seat beside one window and Phil's by the other so we could get them in and out at the same time.

Chris remembers Ryan as "the boy who got glass in his eye," owing to a store's stupidly placing a bin of fluorescent tubes beside the kids' toys and me and Cheryl not noticing until too late. Ryan wielded one like a light saber and it shattered, splashing him with the tube's innards. He didn't really get glass in his eyes but the way he was yowling we were sure he'd done something (this is one of the few trips I made to the ER without one of my children being the patient). Some nights, Cheryl would show up at my house after our families were asleep and she and I would eat Skor bars (I kept a stash in the fridge) and play the original Legend of Zelda. We talked on the phone for hours, stopping only when the batteries died or our husbands came home from work.

One day before Thanksgiving 1990, Cheryl told me to send Phil to a babysitter as she and I were going to Asta's house for cooking lessons.

Asta was a feisty, elderly woman who taught cooking to supplement her income. The lessons were held in her airy kitchen, which was filled with plants, pots, cookie jars and a big table that was perfect for gathering around on a cool morning to learn the art of layered gelatin molds, which is why Cheryl and I were there. For five bucks, plus bringing your own ingredients, you would go home that afternoon with a beautiful rainbow layered concoction with designs that would be revealed upon un-molding.

((For those who need to know, the idea is to make about a ½ inch layers of Royal gelatin in various colors the night before in cake pans, then cut designs out of those pans using tiny cookie cutters. On this day, Cheryl and I each created turkey designs in the bottom of our Tupperware gelatin ring molds, lightly oiled with liquid Crisco, with a Cool Whip lid instead of the one that creates a tube (Asta insisted that we could only use Cool Whip lids and fretted when my Cool Whip Lite lid wouldn't fit properly - so she gave me one from her own collection) then covered them with a very thin layer of lemon Royal gelatin mixed with cream cheese and Knox gelatin. "Do not use Jell-o!" admonished Asta, "It doesn't melt fine enough!" Take cream cheese (that's been left on the counter overnight; Asta's recipes were big on sitting things out overnight) and use a wide spatula to press and mix it gently into lemon gelatin, pressing and stirring so as not to get "fleas," as Asta called the floating, unmixed particles of cream cheese. Carefully pour this onto the cut-outs. While it sets, make clear lemon gelatin and carefully pour it onto the partially set cream cheese layer. Repeat with layers of orange, lime and finally strawberry Jell-o. The red is the only layer made with Jell-o brand and Asta would rant about it was the whole time we mixed it. The chief delight of this whole process, which takes an entire day and is best suited to two people, is the un-molding, after which you get to see the little cut out bits of gelatin like stained glass atop the mold. The rainbow layering is an added visual delight when viewed from the side. But I digress….))

When we arrived, Asta was not quite ready for our class and told Cheryl to get down some coffee cups so we could relax a moment before beginning. "You can tell how often I've come here; I know where everything is," Cheryl laughed as she headed straight to the correct cupboard to get the cups. Asta set out a plate of various cookies and as Cheryl and I praised them, Asta rooted around and gave us photocopies of the recipes upon which I scribbled notes as Asta explained the various steps. "I teach classes on these too, but it's too late in the year to make the brown ones. They have to sit. Come next year and I'll teach you."

Over the course of the day, as Cheryl and I layered gelatin, Asta talked about the cookies enough that I felt brave enough to try them at home. They do need to sit. Over time, the flavor blossoms into something like a gingersnap, although there's no ginger in these. What I remember as I make them is being in Asta's kitchen on a sunny morning with my best friend while we learned about the hardships in World War II that brought Asta to America; about her late husband who had been a cook for the Sheraton (he had made a Matson liner out of sugar that Asta kept in a glass case in her living room); about her "Wednesday ladies" that came each week and had already learned everything Asta could teach, but kept coming back -- "They're driving me nuts!" -- and about cooking. Cheryl and I were in Asta's kitchen from 9AM until 1PM. We later did these gelatin molds at my place for other holidays, but this first one is my favorite memory.

Asta passed away earlier this year. I wish I'd gone back for more classes.

Re: Tolkien, Broos, I've seen on Salon.com a sidebar where you can apparently get copies of his readings. I've not personally clicked on the link, though. It might be part of their "premium" membership that costs real live dollars. The upside is though that if they have it, somewhere, someone else does as well.

Company party today. Spent day decorating. Dana got the desserts at The Cheeeeeeesecake Factory. I wrote little labels for each one... Pecan-pumpkin...Vanilla bean... Fresh Strawberry... Dulce de Leche -- which is translated, as everyone knows, "leave a BIG HONKIN SLICE FOR TRACY' so I added that to the label.

Poor Rob last night went to Silverdale. Two ways to get there as it is across Big Water. First is by driving around and going over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Second way, and the one Rob chose, is by ferry from Seattle. It was a dark and stormy night. I fretted since I knew he'd be returning via the Narrows bridge, which even on a mildly windy day flashes warnings about Severe Side Winds Ahead.

It did, however, allow me an evening of Sims! Muahahahaha!

Tonight, following in the footsteps of Iron Steph, we are going to finish cookie dough. I'm making a Danish spice cookie. This intricate recipe takes about a week to make as you need to let the dough rest and meld on the counter overnight more than once. Rob peered into the pan the other day and thought he could get me to bake them right away but they were at the stage where they still didn't have any flour in them.

Two more cups of flour tonight. Rest overnight. Roll, roll, roll tomorrow. Makes a gajillion cookies that last forever. I'm supposed to put a little almond sliver on each one as garnish. After doing this recipe a couple times previous, I'm leaving off that garnish. It takes too long and a gajillion cookies takes a while to bake.

I miss keeping up on everyone, too, Broos. I'm not sure if Melissa is on vacation or not either...which I used to be able to determine by looking into her journal updates. If you're out there, Melissa m'dear, your inbox fills with emails from me :> ((which of course, now that I've said that, I'll go check my email and she'll have already written back to me; it's the power of suggestion))

Suz had given me the link to Mooville when she first started doing her journal but I couldn't bring myself to read it. And I know it's stupid but it just seemed so personal. In a way, I was worried because this is someone I know and like. I don't think I'd have had any qualms about it if I didn't know her. Reading someone's relatively anonymous thoughts, like a newspaper editorial, didn't seem as invasive as reading the publicly private thoughts of someone I admire so wholeheartedly. When I finally got over my imaginary concerns/qualms about it, I found even more to admire and to enjoy because it is the public/private thoughts of someone I know personally.

Then when I got married and Rob wasn't able to move out here right away, he and I finally took the plunge that Suz had been gently suggesting and we both did up our own journals. For me, it's fun and I like retelling stuff (like the oddball story I'll get to later ) and it also enabled us to share things with our friends. Now Rob's an old married sheep and his computer is dedicated to EQ and Ebay and other things starting with the letter E.

I miss reading up on everyone's adventures, too.

And now, the other story.

Last night I brought Rob a sticky gooey caramel chocolate cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory for his dessert. The nights I work in the little game, Rob cooks dinner so I wanted to give him a little treat. I walk in, and there's no dinner. He's playing golf. I hand him the cheesecake. We discuss what we can scrape together for dinner as I'm turning on my computer and getting my notes for the class I'm teaching. Rob stands up and we snuggle a bit. He's laughing at me. I look at him. "What's so funny?" He looks different. "Did you get your hair cut again?" He collapses, roaring with laughter. I pout. He looks at me and gestures toward his chin.

"Oh. You shaved your beard."

"'Did you cut your hair?'" he mimics, still roaring until I start laughing too. I felt pretty bad, not even noticing exactly what was different. After all, I'm the wife! I'm supposed to notice these things! ((Although like a typical wife, I did notice all the hairs in the bathroom sink, which is now clogged, and grumbled about it but didn't put two and two together till that moment))

We had a good, long laugh about it though. He said I shouldn't feel too bad as he'd shaved it before he went to sleep the previous night and he was already asleep and buried in pillows before I got to bed anyway and of course in the morning, I don't wake up when he does. Only one guy he worked with noticed, which of course had everyone else looking at him, but it took that guy a couple hours to catch on. Still. "Did you cut your hair?" is going to be one of those triggers for the giggles with us, much like "Dry up."

Thoughts on Cigarettes and a sidebar passing thinger to Corey. :)

I don't like smoking. My sister caused this when she was in high school. She would send me to the store to buy her a pack of "ciggies" and then as she's lighting up, would tell me that she would personally kill me if she ever caught me smoking. She threatened my life many times over the years but this one threat was the most scary.

Like the devious little sister I am, I'd wait till she was at her most desperate (and lazy) and when she'd demand I do her tobacco shopping I would hold out for incentives, mostly cash in small unnumbered bills. In those days, a pack was about fifty cents or so but she'd have to fork over close to five bucks and I'd get to keep the change before I'd go get them for her. And this is the thanks I got? She'd kill me? Sheesh.

I smoked myself for a few years, menthols thank you very much but I consider usage more social than committed. Everyone in my office smoked at their desks (see how long ago this is?) and so I had my own ashtray as well, although in my case I tended to light one up and then walk off to do something, forgetting about it till I came back and saw that neat line of ash across the tray slumping up to the filter. When the price of cigarettes was up to about a dollar a pack, I stopped buying them. My thrifty soul (I must've been Scottish in a former life) could not bear the thought of spending that much on an item that went up in flames.

Still, when my sister visited me wherever I've lived, I would always have at least one cigarette with her as we sat around chit-chatting. As adults, my sister knew that I indulged and didn't follow through on the threats to my life, although I admit it was a couple of years into my habit before I dared light up in front of her. Old fears die hard!

It did gall her that our mom never knew and would harp on my sister but not on me about this habit. I suspect that all that harping led my sister into the deep, deep addiction she has today that she cannot and does not want to shake. For me, "quitting" was a financial choice and easy to make. I don't understand the craving. Maybe I crave entire sleeves of Oreos from time to time but I don't have to have them the way an addicted smoker needs a smoke. Indeed, since I quit smoking, I've developed that anti-smoking zeal that I believe is even worse among ex-smokers with the unconverted (albeit in my case, I was never strongly addicted to begin with). I developed an allergy to cigarette smoke as well, which leaves my eyes puffy and my nose sneezy when I'm around it for too long.

Rob used to smoke. He still bums from the guys at work although he doesn't smoke in front of me. When we went to visit Suz and Broos, Suz was lighting up and Rob looked so forlorn I said he could indulge with her. I'm thinking he'll have one. What little insight I have, since the poor man had been smoking for years before he came west...that craving is still there, just buried a bit. When I walked out onto the fabulous back 40 at Mooville West I was surprised to see him smoking with Suz. He looked confused surprised because I looked disapprovingly surprised. "You gave me permission!" he objected. "Just for one!" I countered.

So there I was and I thought, "Wow. I'm being really narrow on this issue. How much trouble is it for him to have this little bit of enjoyment while we're on holiday?" I've been trying not to say anything and push my anti-smoking agenda with him. It's really hard for me because I love him and I don't want to end up watching him get like emphysema and have to carry one of those oxygen thingers everywhere. When we grow old, he's supposed to be the one wheeling me around Walmart; I have it in writing.

And now the Corey sidebar. What was your aide thinking, especially after presumably doing your shopping for months. Although I must admit, I fret that some night a lit one will slip into your bedcovers and you won't be able to find it and that scares me. Can you send your aide to get you one of them water pipe things instead? Those don't catch on fire, do they?

You know, sometimes folks can really hurt your feelings without meaning to and you want to hurt theirs back because you can't beLEEEEive anyone could be so mean to you but then your better self speaks up and you tone yourself down so as not to alienate the world.

But that doesn't mean that you aren't thinking evil thoughts.

On a happier subject, I was thinking last night in the car about songs that I never get tired of hearing. This is even after replaying them on my little CD thing (before Rob's spiffy CD changer arrived, I had a walkman plugged into my boom box, so repeats were frequent). Some songs are toe-tappers and others body-undulators (not sure what sort of word applies here! :D) and others little bits of sunshine or heart-wrenchers.

Smooth by Santana... Let's Get It On, Sexual Healing and What's Going On by Marvin Gaye... Night in Tunisia by Ella Fitzgerald... the entire Songs of Sanctuary CD by Adiemus... the sound track to Living Out Loud... Sex by George Michael... The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats... anything by Sting... or Natalie Merchant... or Sarah McLaughlin... Take Your Time by The SOS Band :)

I've found that I'm an R & B person. I've been listening to jazz for the past four or five years and really enjoy it but recently we got a new radio station in Seattle that plays R & B and Old Skool and it's my new favorite.

So may music soothe your savage beasts. I will need some to tame mine.

Ways to disclose yourself as Secret Santa....

Send an email to the office letting them know that there's some treats in the lunchroom (leftovers from a party at Liz's house and she asked me to let the office know about them). Your Santa Victim sees you and says, "Oh, hey! Thanks!" You immediately respond with, "For what?" and try looking innocent. S/he replies dubiously, "Er, for the treats?"

Doh.

More Evil in the House of the Sheepsters. In the form of expansion packs for The Sims.

For Christmas, I'd bought Rob a copy of Livin' Large. One night he and I were in the mall and he sees it on the shelf and lunges for it and I shriek, "You can't have it because...er...er...." and he laughed at me, so I tried to pretend I'd really gotten him Hot Date, but of course I hadn't. Rob's really good at figuring things out from shards of clues and figured which one I'd bought which sort of takes the fun out of entirely. Friday night, however, we were in another store when he saw the EQ expansion and rushed to get it, so I handily tossed in Hot Date as he's paying for stuff. "Oh, so do I get my copy of Livin' Large when we get home?" he smirked.

He did.

Hot Date is fascinating. I need to get him a copy of it so that I can borrow his Livin Large. The other night we were both playing and I whined when I saw all the cool new items he could buy that weren't available in Hot Date. He wants Hot Date because he thinks it's cheating to play the other neighbors just to make some friends and so wants to go downtown to meet people. Unfortunately we can't just swap CD's. Once you install Hot Date (or so the package says) you must always play using the Hot Date CD. Therefore, he cannot use mine. Therefore, I must get him one of his own.

The drawback in Hot Date is that while you get new neighborhoods to build in, they don't connect to the same downtown so that your new neighborhood guys can meet any of the folks from the old neighborhood. Yeah, yeah...this is all mindless drivel unless you too have been sucked into the Sims void. :(

We went to Liz's party Saturday (from whence the leftovers came) and had a nice time. It was a wine tasting and we'd forgotten our bottle of wine in the fridge. Rob noticed a 7-11 on the way to Liz's and wondered if we should stop to get something with a screw-top. At the party, I say something like, "Rob and I think corks are so pretentious." ;) This morning Liz tells me her dad distinctly remembered Rob telling him that he had played football in college. I blinked at her. "Well, Rob didn't say two words to your dad and he didn't play football anywhere." Then we started giggling, trying to think who else in the party her dad had mistaken for Rob. It's not like there were other tall dark and sheepish men there!

Addendum: For the adopted family, I bought a thick cotton velour robe requested by the 28 year old on the list. The list just said "robe" and I thought about me and those hand towels that made me feel so rich and figured that she might like one that weighs a ton by itself and feels so luxurious. Indeed, wandering around the store carrying it, I probably rubbed a hole in it from touching it so much myself. It's a pretty ivory color, too, which should go with anything.

And it's cotton. A must have around here if you don't want to slip out of your gown and have your hair standing up from static electricity. The other day, Rob and the boys were passengers in Rob's cars as I drove us around and Rob's head was touching the car ceiling, making his hair stand straight up. It was really funny. :)

Linda and I were talking about grade school boyfriends. Then I see that Steph, too, had remembrances of someone she had a crush on a long time ago, in a galaxy far away.

I never had a boyfriend in grade school. I was a tomboy. When the guys wanted play cards with or to wrestle, they picked me. The idea of "going" with any of them was a pretty rancid thought.

Except for Kip. I was maaaaadly in love with him. He'd been in school in school all along but I'd never noticed him before fifth grade, when he was switched from the other class to ours. With two classes of between 35 and 40 kids, we knew everyone in the other class but we didn't mix together. We were rivals in all the sports, in the speech contests and so kids usually didn't transfer between classes. It was like being traded to the enemy. Why they switched him back again, I don't know. But there he was, sitting across from me and I was smitten.

From that moment through eighth grade, I nursed my secret passion for him. He was different from the other boys in our class who had dark hair and dark eyes. Kip had honey-colored hair and dark eyes and the combination was so unusual. He was also one of the only boys taller than me at that point in time (the other two, Stuart and Kimo, specialized in tormenting me). He was shy and didn't talk much to any girls. He didn't speak up in class. But sometimes when something funny happened in class, our eyes would meet and we'd break into a big grin as though it were our secret.

For four years, to hide my feelings, I pretended to have a crush on Kip's older brother instead. Not one of my friends knew. My sister knew and she was uncharacteristically kind enough about it to never tease me about it. Probably she could look at him and see why I liked him, he was that dreamy.

Our eighth grade graduation party was at Danny's house. There was music and snacks and a lot of horsing around. I danced with Kimo, the first boy I'd ever danced with. I was having a good time. Even though I didn't have a crush on him, Kimo was a cool guy and I appreciated the aura of dancing with him.

Then I saw Kip, standing off at the edge of the patio, talking to Darcelle and the world stopped turning. I had always assumed, from the shy glances we'd exchanged over the years, that when Kip got around to girls, he would have picked me. Instead, he was with the most popular girl in school. They were holding hands. I was devastated.

It was devastating in so many ways...mostly because I hadn't been popular (I was classified with the 'intellectual' crowd) and suddenly, in eighth grade, I had somehow become fairly popular. Not totally with the in crowd but friends with members of it. I had gotten confident and when he picked someone else in the end...well... it hurt.

And nobody knew. I went home from the party with my girlfriends chattering like nothing was wrong. And cried to sleep for nights afterwards, my little heart broken with no one to share it with. He went on to be a star high school football player and I went on to four of the most miserable years of my entire life.

Had to dash to go to the drawing for our office Secret Santa thing. I drew a guy's name. Now what will I do with all those cutesy things I bought after last Christmas on sale on purpose for this year's exchange? A dilemma.

This morning I awoke to the reports of the two soldiers who died in Afganistan. Folks from my old National Guard unit are on active duty right now, but mostly at the airport doing security. I know other folks who have gone to other places, including my exhusband who came back from six weeks in an "undisclosed" location.

Later on this year, there is a movie coming out based on the book "Black Hawk Down" which is the story of the mission gone wrong in Somalia. Many of you may recall the lowlight of this sorry episode being the bodies of U. S. servicemen being dragged through the streets by rioters.

This isn't the type of story I like to read. I like my books escapist. I started reading Black Hawk Down because I was dating a Special Forces guy and he was installing a new clutch or something in his truck and there was the book on his desk, so I picked it up (being useless around car parts) and started to read it. I ended up having to buy my own copy of it when he went to Ft. Polk on an assignment, just so I could see how it turned out. I mean, I know how the operation turned out overall, but the book is gripping and draws you into it.

And one of its heroes reminded me of the man I was dating -- resilient, intelligent, street smart and take charge.

The other day I was cleaning up Liz's old email for her and found in her sent box an email to a friend of ours from this time frame wherein she said she thought I was falling in love with this guy. I was surprised. I didn't think I was, but maybe, looking back...maybe I was.

If there is such a thing as "Mr. Perfect," he'd have been it (up until I met Rob, of course, which didn't happen till later). He was thoughtful, funny, goofy and also tenderhearted. When is grandmother died, he flew home and arranged the funeral; when he returned he brought back the one thing he wanted while everyone else was arguing over the estate -- her old ice cream scoop because it reminded him of summer at her house.

I met him, the only guy I'd ever met this way, at a club when I'd gone out dancing. Our eyes met across the room and he wandered over to stand near me and Christie. In a lot of ways, he really was perfect -- except that he's twelve years younger than me. To me, that was a gap too large to be spanned and so I wrote off this soldier as someone with whom I enjoyed going dancing or hanging out. There was no future in the relationship, I told myself. It's hard to feel long term about someone who was still in Little League by the time you'd already had a baby. When I mentioned to Chris that I was dating someone who was 26, Chris blinked at me: "You are? Whoa." That only made me more sure that I was in the midst of a fling and not a relationship; how could my children meet and accept someone who isn't that much older than they are?

Now whenever I hear that a solider somewhere has been killed or that Special Forces are involved in something, I wonder where this guy is and if he's okay. Even if he and I weren't meant to be, I hope he's found someone who deserves him.

Hmm. Must remember to change to a December motif. Didn't think about that.

I saw a reissue of The Princess Bride at the bookstore today, the actual book by William Goldman (or S. Morgenstern, as the case may be). So I bought it.

I used to watch the Twylight Zone when I was a kid and it confused and frightened me. Same thing with The Outer Limits. Theoretically, I enjoy both shows, but they work my nerves and I don't really enjoy them but I do like the twisted-ending views contained within them.

Friday night I picked up my boys for the weekend. It's a mid-entry style house with a living room at the top of the entry steps. A tall Christmas tree fills the room now and decorations abound.

Nearly all of them were mine.

It felt like walking into a Twylight Zone alternate universe. I stared at that tree, seeing ornaments I bought for my boys, one apiece each year. The "12 days of Christmas" set I'd had since the original wedding nearly twenty years ago. Ornaments from every year of the marriage, except for the one my boys brought to me last year as it was covered in kittens and they knew it was mine. A set of coffee mugs on a table nearby, handles shaped like elves, spelling the word "Noel."

Philip was excited because he had found, while they were pulling out these relics, his "shakey Santa" that I'd bought him years ago. Shakey Santa shakes (duh) and has a robust, jolly laugh when you hit him. Phil loved it and would spend hours smacking it on the head and laughing along with it until you had to laugh, too.

The mugs caught my eye, though, because they were prominently displayed like a treasured family heirloom. I got them the year Dave was a company commander and as his wife, it was my duty to host the company's party. I ordered all the toys and door prizes from Oriental Trading Company and Lillian Vernon, and the mugs were some sort of bonus offered since we spent so much with them. I never particularly cared for them, but they were free and festive. And there they were! The centerpiece of a table beside a tree covered with my own Christmas Past.

I have a footlocker that held some of the mementos from those same years. It holds my meager collection of porcelain and resin Santa figures, my collection of Christmas plates, candlesticks and crystal ornaments I won when I sold Princess House. I've added a lot of decorations since the divorce and now my holiday holdings don't even fit neatly into it any longer and are in little boxes tucked beneath the stairs.

Seeing all the old things in a new setting was like going to your mom's place and seeing how she's kept that cheesy melamine plate you made for her when you were in fourth grade (which my mom did have and sent home with me this year; it's in my bedroom now). Nostalgic, maybe? But also a bit weird, knowing how I spent so much time picking out all those ornaments each year to reflect something that had happened in my family and now seeing these tokens in another context.

We put up Rob's computer hutch this weekend. He groused because I wouldn't let him put the printer on the very top of it. "It's a desk!" he cried. "It's in the living room! That hutch top is only for decorative items!" I cried, flailing. "You can see little red arrows shooting WAY down in my room indicator!" I hollered, sending him and the boys hooting as it's an indicator that Mom's been spending WAY too much time playing Sims.

Rob bought a network thinger and hooked up our computers. We played Worms Armageddon against each other. He won both times. Then he said we'd be able to play Sims with each other too, except we'd have to buy another Sims game. hehehe!

I guess it's a good thing we're so pokey about switching to cable modems. About 130,000 folks in Washington lost their internet access when @home shut down. We were considering AT&T which I guess had some issues as well as far as switching folks off the @home service. At least we didn't lose cable TV, huh?