Round Robin: New Stuff for the New Year

Happy New Year! We're celebrating with the latest Round Robin Challenge: Something New. The topic was suggested a year ago by Kathy of Through the Viewfinder, and this seemed like a great time to use it. Here are my newest offerings:

First up, here's the church where I work and worship, St. Michael and All Angels. The building is over 50 years old, but what's that on the upper wall? Someone built a new ladder two weeks ago that complements the adobe style architecture. It leads to the roof above which a brand new Episcopal flag is flying, replacing one that was worn out.

The low-hanging clouds that partly obscured the mountains on Wednesday afternoon dumped a layer of new snow overnight, as seen from in front of my house on Thursday afternoon.

Although it's been the fourth warmest December on record in Tucson, the last few nights it's been about as cold as it ever gets here, as low as 25 degrees F. Go ahead and laugh, northeasterners, but I'm not used to Syracuse weather any more! Last night I sat in front of the tv with a bathrobe over my sweatshirt over my clothes, and wished for a pair of gloves. After a pot luck at St. Michael's early Friday evening, I stopped off at Walgreen's and bought some gloves, and a fleece throw to cover myself with while watching tv on a cold night. And oh, yeah, I bought a Charlie Brown doll that plays the Linus and Lucy theme. I'm probably going to give that to a friend of mine, Kevin, who played the lead in You're a Good Man Charlie Brown back in high school.

Partly because of the problems we had finishing my brother Steve's Christmas present (which I finally mailed today), and partly to take advantage of post-Christmas discounts, I didn't get John any calendars for 2011 until tonight. These probably aren't as cool as a Simpsons calendar or a calendar of vintage travel posters, but they were only $2.00 each.

I got a nice check from my dad for Christmas, and spent part of it on a new edition of one of my favorite Doctor Who stories. It arrived on Thursday.

Now let's go see what's new with the other Robins!

Karen


Linking List
as of 1/1/11 at 10:30 PM

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Linda - Posted!
Mommy's Treasures
http://mommystreasures.blogspot.com

Freda
Day One
http://fredamans.blogspot.com

Jama
Sweet Memories
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Halie - Posted!
My Memoirs
http://lifemomentsmemories.blogspot.com

Mary Tomaselli - Posted!
Work of the Poet
http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com

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Ruth - Posted!
The ScrabbleQueen Knits, Too
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Weekend Assignment: The Gift That Keeps On Living

Ack! I got sidetracked and missed my own Weekend Assignment deadline!

This week's Assignment is short and seasonal--again!

Weekend Assignment # 350: Best. Gift. Ever.
What is the best gift you've ever gotten from anyone?

Extra Credit: To the best of your recollection, what is the best gift you ever gave someone else?

I'm tempted to say the Chinon SLR I got for my birthday in 1986, but the real answer is this:

As I said at the time: Could be my Best Birthday Present Ever!

which led to this:

Pepper, the day we got her. We were calling her Newdog.

We had to bathe her twice in two days - the second time after

she dug her way out of the back yard!

Pepper is much harder to photograph these days. Whenever I turn on the camera she turns away! But that doesn't stop her from being a great dog and a great gift.

My best gift ever given, I was hoping, would be the one I was putting together for my brother Steve for Christmas this year. John and I have put many hours into putting it together, but we can't quite seem to get it right. It's meant to be a book, or at least a pdf file, if we can ever get the pages to appear in order with no duplications or superseded versions. The title page reads,

The Ruth Anne Johnson Songbook

Version 2.2

Songs and parodies by Dr. Ruth Anne Johnson Funk

Sheet music scanned by John Blocher

Lyrics transcribed from sheet music or memory by Karen Funk Blocher

Yes, it's a serious attempt to scan every page of surviving sheet music my Mom ever wrote, along with my transcriptions of many of her song lyrics. I've been carrying at least half a dozen of her songs in my head for forty years, more or less intact, with more fragmentary memories of her other efforts. Most of them were first performed in musical revues she wrote in the 1960s, and a one woman show she co-wrote for local stage star Bea Solomon in the early 1970s. An astonishing 20 songs of Mom's, some with original music, others with mom's lyrics set to Chopin and other composers, appeared in her show DeManleyville USA (1964) and its update, DeManleyville '65.

Obviously it was all a long time ago, and the people who performed those songs would be in their seventies or eighties by now, those who are still alive at all. I don't know if any of them would remember or care about The Ending of Desire or Come Back, G.E., or any of my mom's music from her Limestone Theater and Syracuse Little Theater days. But I care, and I know Steve cares. Now he will have everything I have in my mom's old notebooks, digitized and darkened and with some of the yellowing removed from the pages. She wrote mostly in pencil on staff paper, so it's important to get legible files out of them before the originals deteriorate any further.

Now if we can just get those pages in order on the PDF, I can get it sent off to Steve. By mail, that is. The last version of the pdf was 130 MB, and Steve's still on dial-up!

Karen

Weekend Assignment #249: Looking Back at 2009

I've been struggling over the last 24 hours to come up with a New Year-themed Weekend Assignment that isn't too lame, and wasn't previously asked by John Scalzi, myself, or the culture at large. I didn't quite manage it, but here's an Assignment that has possibilities for a range of answers from profound to silly:

Weekend Assignment #249: Today is January 2, 2010. Tell us about the most interesting things that happened in 2009, in the world and also in your life in particular

Extra Credit: How did you do on your 2009 resolutions, if any?

Here's mine.

Now that 2009 is over, I'm delighted to say it was a huge improvement over 2008. At the end of that year, George W. Bush was still in office, there was renewed fighting in the Middle East, the future of many businesses was in serious jeopardy, unemployment was rising and I personally had been unemployed for nearly four months. What a difference a year makes!

As knotty a problem as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been, not to mention the intermittent but deadly skirmishes between Israel and its neighbors, I don't think anyone expected much progress toward peace in less than a year. Secretary Clinton's dramatic "3 AM phone call" deal with Israel and Hamass in September changed all that, coupled with President Obama's roundtable discussions with the leaders of Iran and Irag back in April. The strategic redeployment of troops that President Obama promised seems to be working, various Ayatollahs and other leaders have said grudgingly nice things about the new American government, and people across the Middle East are starting to have opportunities to make a living again, resulting in fewer new terrorists. People are still fighting and dying every day, and we still hear of the occasional bombing, but overall things are much better. And we all got a laugh when Hillary threw that guy's shoes back at him.

Lee H. Brown Family Conservation Learning Center at the Reid Park Zoo.
Photo from http://www.tucsonaz.gov/energy/sac.html.

Here in the States, we still have two of the three major car makers, and it looks at though they will continue in business in the long term. I'm looking forward to buying a Ford Cloud someday. Meanwhile, I've passed all four parts of the CPA exam, and my job with Tucson GreenWorks keeps me busy, accounting for all those fixed assets Obama's economic stimulus packages helped to buy, and for the payroll of people now helping to deploy green technology across the country.

On my New Year's resolutions, obviously my biggest ones were to get a job and to pass the CPA exam. Mission accomplished! When it's not too hot, I'm getting a lot of walking in at lunch, and working out evenings, and gradually losing weight. And my new agent has high hopes of placing my novels now that I've actually finished Mages and the book market is picking up.

That was 2009 for me. How did it look to you? Write up your impressions of the year in your blog, with a link back to this entry, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll be back in a week to post the results. Meanwhile...

For Weekend Assignment #248: What'dja Get?, I asked what you got for Christmas or Hanukkah. Here are excerpts from your responses:

Julie said...

The most interesting was certainly this tablet. I asked for a tablet to use with Photoshop. Paul picked up a really cool one, that does so much more....

Becky said in comments...

While not particularly interesting, these gifts were unexpected. I received two books from my MIL for Christmas. One Patricia Cornwall and one JK Rowling (the Beadle the Bard book). I'm not going to bother to check if I've spelled the authors' names correctly. But could it be possible that after more than 20 years together as a couple, my husband's mother has finally figured out my taste/true wants? THAT is the really unexpected part. ;)

Florinda said...

The most unexpected gift I received this Christmas was one that came in a green envelope that I opened at my mother-in-law's house on Christmas afternoon. My not having a "list" this year affected her too, since she would normally get some of the items on it passed on along to her by Tall Paul, and the two of them must have had some discussions about what she could do about my gift when I had no specific requests to grant.

(Click through to see what this unexpected gift actually was!)

Karen H. (Scobberlotcher) said in comments...

I think my biggest surprise gift was a camera from my hubby. It was one of those items we both said we needed and would get around to getting soon. It was nice that he remembered and took care of it. The best thing about my Christmas was seeing pure, unadulterated joy from my girls (ages 4 and 5) who are at the age where they still see the magic. My four year old kept going back to the hearth to show everyone that the cookies were eaten by Santa, the carrots for the reindeer were also gone and half of the milk in the glass was consumed. I don't think I'll ever forget that.

Mike said...

Well, one that kind of covers both was a game that Jenn gave me. Actually it's three games for the price of one! What a bargain! Yes, I'm doing that on purpose. Why? Well, just look here at the set of games; it kind of makes you talk like that.

(Again, click through to satisfy your curiosity!)

That's it for now! As you start in on those 2009 resolutions, I hope you'll take a little time to look back to the future with me for this Weekend Assignment.A reminder: I'm still running low on ideas here, so I still need your input. What would you like to see as a Weekend Assignment topic? Email me your suggestions (mavarin at aol.com). If I use your topic you'll get full credit and my undying thanks.

Karen

Weekend Assignment #248: What'dja Get?

Most of my recent Christmas-related posts have been of the "uplifting" variety. Let's get a little more crass for this week's Weekend Assignment:

Weekend Assignment #248: What was the most interesting or unexpected gift you received this holiday season?

Extra Credit: What was the most interesting gift you gave this holiday season?

Here's mine. It wasn't the biggest gift (that was the check from my Dad), but it was certainly the most unexpected one. One of the Weekend Assignment regulars, my friend Julie, sent me the 2008 Tor edition of John Scalzi's first book, Agent to the Stars. I've wanted the book for years, ever since reading about the original online version on By the Way and Whatever. I should have ordered the limited edition from Subterranean Press when it came out, but ah, well. I expect money was tight that year, too. I love the cover on the Tor edition, by the way; it's deliciously retro. Thanks, Julie! You brightened my sparse Christmas considerably.

It's hard to surprise people, though, isn't it? For several years now, John has needed a new iPod, because his old one has become less reliable and less Mac-compatible over time. Every birthday and Christmas I've wanted to get him a new one, but he always knew this, and told me not to do it because of the expense. Another problem has always been John's indecision over the costs and benefits of the various models. But this year there was no attempt to surprise John. When my Dad's check came we spent part of the money on an iPod Nano. The choice was partly based on how much flash memory John truly expected to need and the high cost of the IPod Touch, partly on the fact that the Classic line that he sort of preferred was sold out. Problem solved...

...except for the law of unintended consequences. When we went out to Target on December 23rd for the iPod, I wanted to look at external hard drives. John told me not to, and that was enough to tell me what my main non-cash gift this year was. It's no less appreciated, but it's always better when we don't know that it's coming.

My most interesting gift to someone else hardly counts as a gift at all. On Christmas Eve one of my last Christmas shopping stops was at Traders Joe's, where I picked up this very gothic fantasy/SCA packaged Stone Levitation Ale for John. He likes to sample a variety of microbrews, but would probably not have chosen one that was quite this silly-looking. I got it anyway because the label notes that it was a Gold Medal Award winner at the Great American Beer Festival. And it turns out that the reviews for it are quite good.

Your turn! Tell us about your recent interesting or unexpected gifts. Write about this in your blog along with a link back here, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll be back in a week with a roundup of your responses. Here are the ones from last week:

For Weekend Assignment #247: Home for the Holidays? I asked about your holiday travel plans. Three of you answered:

Julie said...

I have to admit that Paul and I now enjoy spending Christmas day at home. Back in the B.C. (Before Chris) era, I worked in retail and then in radio, which meant very odd hours. I did get Christmas off in retail, but I volunteered to work Christmas at the radio station (sometimes double shifts) because we didn't have any kids. Once we had a child of our own we decided that we would at least spend Christmas mornings at home.

Becky said in comments...

Apparently, there's no place like OUR home for the holidays this year. Christmas is here for the first time since...wait...this is the first time EVER. I had Thanksgiving here one year shortly after we moved in and that was the last time. Hmm. Maybe my cooking isn't as good as I think it is. Back to cleaning up the house in my usual insane panic mode.

Florinda said...

It seems that for much of my adult life, the holidays have involved travel for someone close to me, although more often than not, the person or people in question have traveled to me and my home, even if that wasn't really "home" for them.

That's it for now! I don't expect a big turnout this week, but I'll be thrilled if you can work in a Weekend Assignment in the midst of your inter-holiday activities. Write about the assignment topic in your blog or journal, and include a link back here. Then leave a link to your entry in the comments below. Please don't forget your links! I'll be back in a week to highlight the results.

A reminder: I'm still running low on ideas here, so I still need your input. What would you like to see as a Weekend Assignment topic? Email me your suggestions (mavarin at aol.com). If I use your topic you'll get full credit and my undying thanks.

Karen

Gifts for My Invisible Kids

Half an hour from now, I'll be dropping off a present for some kid I've never met, hoping I'm not too late. It's for an Angel Tree program at St. Michael's, and the deadline was yesterday. If the person doing all the work doesn't pick up all the last day dropoffs until this morning, maybe I can sneak it in. If not, then I'll probably call and ask to deliver it to the person.

I hope Frank loves books!

The reason I missed the deadline was that I mislaid the Angel Tree paper ornament with the kid's name (Frank) for several hours, but really I was running behind on things all day yesterday. I never did get back to bed after blogging. Instead I ended up fussing with the ComicMaker application on the BBC Doctor Who web site (you can see the result here), catching up on online stuff, registering for an online orientation Friday for the CPA review course I finally bought, being upset and angry with a form letter from an HR department that said I do not "meet the minimum requirements" for the position of "Accountant," based on my application listing past jobs as, guess what, an accountant, and activating my replacement debit card, which contrary to printed instructions could not be done simply by entering my PIN at an ATM.

And I mailed Jacob's package. God bless the self serve station in the Cherrybell post office lobby. Really. It probably saved me 45 minutes in line. Off it went, the box with two proper presents, a couple of silly little mathoms (ooh, a bookmark!) and a copy of my ComicMaker story.

My annual glimpse of Jacob - now with a newly adopted sister!

Jacob is my godson. I last saw him nearly three years ago, on the occasion of his First Communion in the Roman Catholic Church. He lives in New Mexico. Every year I try to figure out how old he is now, and what's likely to go over well as a present. This year it ended up being leftovers, because last year I didn't get the physical gift mailed and resorted to Amazon. But that was supplemented with an autographed photo from Gallifrey One. I don't honestly know whether he'll like any of it, but I tried. It's hard to keep tabs on the changing likes and dislikes of a kid 400 miles away, when your only contact with him is a gift card and a handful of annual photos.

It's easier to buy presents for the other kids I never see, the truly invisible kids on the Angel Trees, and the receipients of Toys for Tots. Someone decided that Frank wants a bookstore gift card, and that's what he's getting. And last night, John and I made our annual Toys for Tots run.

John and I have been buying a selection of toys for the Toys for Tots campaign (and once, when we couldn't find a dropoff, for a different but similar campaign) for over twenty years, in good times and bad. It is pretty much the only Christmas activity we really enjoy together. It's fun to shop for generic kids, trying to guess what will go over well. Do poor kids have access to the Disney Channel shows? Will the kid like a tanned, blonde Barbie, or prefer a Bratz before they're taken off the market? Some of our choices are nostalgic on our part, and may not reflect current kiddom. Is the 64-crayon box of Crayolas with the built-in sharpener still desirable 45 years later? What about a Slinky? This year we got the Crayolas and skipped the Slinky and the Hannah Montana stuff, bought our traditional five Hot Wheels cards, the blonde Barbie instead of the Bratz, an Indiana Jones figure, a package of plastic dinosaurs, and I forget what else. And this year I had the sense to search online for a list of Tucson dropoff sites. They don't have them at Target or Toys R Us any more (we did our shopping at Target, for several reasons involving crowds and coolness), but LA Fitness up the street does have a box. They told me that it's been emptied and refilled more than once this year, and was overflowing when I got there last night. A local newspaper story said that this has been about the worst year ever for Toys for Tots donations, but I'm hoping that like us, some people are just slow off the mark, but will get there in the end, with toys for all those kids that for us will always remain faceless. Because really, they have faces and names, even if we never learn who they are, or who will get the Barbie and who the Indiana Jones. They're kids, and they deserve a Christmas too.

Karen

How Do I Know It's Christmas?

One of the Christmas boxes is finally off the top shelf of the laundry room.

You remember A Charlie Brown Christmas, don't you? Charlie Brown spends the first-ever Peanuts special feeling alienated and depressed as he tries to find meaning in the Christmas season everyone else seems to be enjoying. Snoopy is celebrating by entering a Christmas decorating contest, and the other kids are dancing, skating, and eating early winter snow as it falls. Charlie Brown eventually goes in search of a Christmas tree, and finds himself empathizing with a small, scrawny one whose needles are falling off. At the very end, Linus recites from the Gospel of Luke to tell Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about, and the other kids decorate his lowly tree and sing Christmas carols at him. This display of religious and community feeling and inclusiveness finally cheers Charlie Brown up, and he sings along.

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling especially Charlie Brown-y this year, disconnected from the rituals and culture of Christmas. With no job for over three months now, I can't justify buying presents for anyone except my dad, stepmother, brother and husband. Even those gifts will need to be cut back. John claims not to want anything, and we've agreed to buy each other only one gift and whatever goes in each other's stockings. "No candy this year!" John warns. Fair enough, but what do I buy him? The only thing he seems to want is a new iPod, and if I get him anything that extravagant he will probably return it. It's happened before.

Jacob's box.

So I haven't bought a single present, and time is running out. The only saving grace is that I was finally able to pack up my godson Jacob's birthday and Christmas gifts. One of them I bought in mid-2007, when the local Discovery Channel Store was going out of business. The other, an autographed photo, I got at Gallifrey One in February. Jacob comes from a family of Doctor Who fans. I sure hope he likes this particular actress, and that the robot that's been sitting on my office floor, mint in box, for a year and a half doesn't seem too babyish to him now.

In looking for the right size box, I came across one with the dregs of stuff I carried home from First Magnus the day it went out of business and we all discovered we were out of a job. In it were a few things I was able to give Jacob as mathoms.

The box is packed. Now what?

Today is the last day to turn in an Angel Tree present at church for a prisoner's kid. I'll still do that, especially considering we haven't even done Toys for Tots yet. We always do Toys for Tots, no matter how broke we are. I hope it's not too late.

The vintage tree in a happier year.

And there's Christmas decorating to be done. If I put up the aluminum tree in its usual place by the sliding class doors in the den, it won't even be visible from the couch behind all those boxes. I'll have to get John to move those somewhere. A live tree is out of the question this year.

And what about Christmas music? It's been two years or more since I last found the Christmas CDs. No Robert Rheims, no Chipmunks, no Nat King Cole and Sinatra and Jingle Bell Rock. If I start going through boxes now, what are the chances of my finding the CDs by December 25th?

Yes, yes, spirit of Christmas. Jesus in Bethlehem, midnight mass, peace on earth, people smiling at each other on the street. I will try to find some feeling to go with my half-a-mustard-seed faith. But you probably won't see me smiling at strangers much except at the dog park, and my only contribution to the peace on earth part came on Election Day. Still, I'll do my best.

Okay, okay. I'm over it. On with the day.

Karen

Invisible Birthday

I don't know why it is, but birthdays are nearly always problematic for me. Today was no exception. I said yesterday that any birthday in which I don't cry is a successful birthday. March 10, 2008 met that low standard. Barely.

Fortunately it got better this evening. Much better.

There's an office procedure for birthdays at the business office of Famous Vehicle Dealer where I work. Birthdays for the month are written on a whiteboard over the refrigerator. Once a month, assuming there are employees born in that month, there is one birthday cake honoring the people on the whiteboard. Individual recognition consists of the birthday person's desk being decorated with banners and such the night before after the person leaves, possibly a card (but not always), and individuals saying a cheery "Happy Birthday" over the course of the day.

But last week, I noticed that my name wasn't on the whiteboard with the other March birthday people. Okay, fair enough: I've only been there six months, and someone hadn't yet found out when my birthday was and added it to the master list. So I asked who was in charge of such things, and watched as she typed my name into her birthday list. My name was then duly added to the whiteboard. Success! That took care of that problem, right?

Wrong.

Today was my birthday. The whiteboard said so. But I opened my office door this morning, and there were no birthday decorations within. I figured I'd probably closed the door (which automatically locks) on Friday, and the other person who has a key hadn't known there was a problem.

But no one said Happy Birthday. No one.

I decided to make an experiment of it. I didn't remind the person who wrote down my birthday info less than a week ago, or speak to my kind but busy boss, or throw a hissy fit of any sort. I simply did my job, and waited to see whether at some point during the day someone, anyone, would notice it was my birthday. They didn't. I was bummed out, and angry with myself for caring. After all, a birthday is a slippery, idiosyncratic and nebulous holiday. It generally only matters to the person born that day (and sometimes not even that), along with a few friends and relatives. Why should anyone who sits fifty feet from me care what day that shy woman who replaced Carole happens to have been born?

At 2 PM I told the mail runner about the situation, because she and I went through that one self-actualization course together and I like her a lot. If anyone heard, they ignored it. Then at 5 PM I told one co-worker, and then went home.

This is not the first time I've been completely forgotten at work on my birthday.

But okay, that's over. Shake it off. Don't be a martyr about it.

At home, it all turned around immediately. My email was fully of happy birthday greetings from many of you wonderful people. Howard came through with his usual Amazon gift, which is more appreciated than he realizes. My brother called. Borders sent me a 25% off birthday coupon. And before he took me to dinner, John gave me this:

Hey, nice box. Tres moderne. What's in it?

A stuffed toy dog? Umm, okay. Look under the lid? Oh!

Fantastic! Could be my Best Birthday Present Ever!

That even makes up for the fact that I haven't heard from my dad yet.

Karen

Plastic Christmas

This entry isn't about the commercialism of Christmas, the tension between the religious and secular aspects of the holiday or even our keen artificial tree with the color wheel and all. I'm talking gifts here. Specifically, I'm talking about the kind of gifts that I would never have condoned back in high school or college, but now rely on almost exclusively.

I'm talking plastic. And, by extension, digital gifts as well.


Here is the bulk of my Christmas spoils this year. Clockwise from top left:

1. Cato: a gift card for a store that sells larger sizes in women's clothes. Last year I had it in my car, and it fell on the floor. John picked it up and set it on the dash, where it promptly slipped through a crack and was hopelessly out of reach. This year John opened up a spark plug access hatch and retrieved it to give to me again.
   
2. Barnes & Noble: I'm sure this was intended for one of my friends, but when I'd given everything out I had this one left over. Did I buy one too many? I specifically remember presenting to TS and J and M, and sticking one in the envelope for my estranged friend. I even asked someone at work if she got her gift from me. She had, and so had my other two bosses. So how did I end up with this one? Oh, well, it's spendable!
3. Wal-Mart: A Christmas Story: only worth five bucks as I recall, and it's from a year ago. It never occurs to me to spend it.
4. Wal-Mart: A Christmas Story: same as #3, but a different scene from the movie.
5. Starbucks: probably a Secret Santa gift or somesuch from a year ago. I hate coffee, but I could find something to buy, if I remembered at the right moment that I have this.
6. Barnes & Noble: from my godson's parents, and very welcome it is, too.
7. Toys R Us: I bought this for an Angel Tree kid, but the Angel Tree at church mysteriously disappeared (no, really), and I was unable to turn this in. Poor kid! It will either go to my godson or be spent by me. Supposedly they've got Doctor Who toys.
   
8. a check from my dad: honorary plastic!
   
9. Barnes & Noble: this year's Secret Santa gift. Perfect! These I do spend.
   

On John's side of the couch are the remains of two gift cards I got him, one from Best Buy, the other from B&N. I meant to buy one from Home Depot, but somehow I didn't. Good thing, too, because I had to do some creative packaging to get down to the "five" gifts we agreed on.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing, this reliance on plastic cards instead of creative gifting? It's both, I suspect. I try, I really do, but most of the time I have no idea what's likely to go over well with someone. And last year I think it cost me as much to send my godson's stuff as to buy it, which strikes me as a waste, and horribly inefficient. If I give the gift or Amazon or B&N, the shipping isn't an issue, at least not for me; and I'm in effect giving books and media. That seems like a much worthier gift than a cheese basket or toiletries. And nearly everyone I know is a reader; that's part of why they're my friends in the first place!

Karen

And the Only Disaster Was on TV

It's horrendously late, so I'm going to try to dash this off in five minutes. It seems unlikely, but that's the goal.

As John pointed out several times, it was a brown Christmas here - brown as in the color of the boxes from Amazon.com. Dad & Ruth pretty much saved Christmas for us with their generous selection from our wishlists. The ones shown here were on John's side of the tree. He did really well considering he claimed not to want anything. The only disappointment was that the iPod dock/clock radio I bought him wasn't compatible with his elderly version 3 iPod.

My side had only two brown boxes. I gather there's at least one more on backorder. It's not a huge hall so far, but I don't care, and what I did get was mostly all good stuff.


I went to church again, mostly because I was asked to serve at Mass. It gave me a change to reshoot the decorations by day. Some of the photos still aren't good, and I'm not sure why.

Tuffy wants to know what's in it for her. Pupperoni, perhaps?

Well, yes, but she has to submit to another photo op first.

We saw Enchanted, which was good, and Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned through the usual mysterious means. It wasn't my favorite story ever (think Poseidon Adventure on the spaceship Titanic), but it has its moments. Dinner, which I cooked, came out well. No tears, no traumas, no complaints.

19 minutes. Phooey. Good night!

Slouching Toward Midnight Mass

Time is rushing forward, and I can't keep up. But I have gotten a few things done:

I bought the rest of my offline gifts for people not named John. They were all flat pieces of plastic with the words Barnes and Noble on them.

I finally wrote my letter to the friend who dumped me by mail two weeks ago. Be proud of me: I kept it under a page. Be ashamed of me: I stuck it inside a Christmas card with one of those B&N cards, taped it to his door and walked away without so much as ringing the doorbell.

John and I bought the rest of what we needed for Christmas dinner. It took two stores to finish the job.




I emailed my godson's mother, asking whether she received my shower gift from Amazon a month ago, and advising her to check her spam filter for it. I also explained that his birthday present (above) hasn't been mailed yet. Then I did an Amazon e-card and gift for his Christmas.


I made this Christmas graphic, which is probably as close as you're going to get to a Christmas card from me.


I got out the vintage aluminum Christmas tree and its ornaments, but I won't be putting the tree up tonight as planned. It's far too late, and I work in the morning.

Karen

To Days to Come / All My Love to Long Ago

The subject line is a quote from the Doctor Who charity scene "Time Crash," starring Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor alongside David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. After seven minutes of frenetic banter and offhandedly saving the Universe from a hole "the exact size of Belgium," the two versions of the Doctor each pay tribute to the other, and to the portion of the Doctor's long life that each represents.

No, this isn't a Doctor Who entry. It's just that those two lines of dialogue make a nice hook to hand this entry on. More than any other holiday, Christmas resonates through one's personal past, and can be a foundation for building one's future as well. Well, maybe. Well, bits of it anyway.

All I'm willing to show you of the Christmas pot luck

As I reported last night, today was the Christmas pot luck at work. I rushed over from my seminar and discovered that the party had hardly started, and that nobody had heated up my rutabagas. I ate them cold. Judging from how full my Jadeware bowl was afterward, I don't think more than about one other person even tried them. Ah, well. Rutabagas are a bit of a tough sell, especially when there are a few dozen other food choices set out, most of them much more familiar-looking. It's just a link to my childhood, meaningless to everyone else in the room.

In my office today was a china Christmas stocking full of candy, three Christmas cards and I forget what else. I gave out my three individual gifts, but it seems I really need to do something for everyone in the room. So I've edited my Christmas party photos, and will be distributing them by email tomorrow or Friday. Best I can do, I think. I spent most of tonight asleep with one of my periodic naps (5 hours!) and I've got the seminar again tomorrow, and I don't get paid until Friday anyway. But meanwhile I'm slowly catching on to names and faces and personalities around the office. That's a big step forward for shy old me!

And it occurs to me that I've forgotten to mail a present I bought my godson months ago, when our local Discovery Channel store went out of business. I'd better find it and get it sent out. 'Cause the future we build from these Christmas rituals is more than getting to know co-workers and corporate culture, or picking up a few random gifts. It's mostly about the people we care about. And I've been neglecting them lately, I think.

Karen

Christmas as a Social Obligation

Even if you're a total slacker, as I've been this year, this Christmas stuff is hard work! I've shopped for a grand total of about two hours, and I'm exhausted already. I'm also belatedly remembering that shopping within a week of Christmas is less than optimal in terms of selection. Can I just say "Amazon for everyone!" and leave it at that? Heck, even my Dad does Amazon, as the picture below will attest:

But of course, for the people at work, Amazon was not an option. Tomorrow is the pot luck and the Secret Santa. So tonight I went looking for an appropriate gift for this particular person. I'm not even sure which one she is, but I've got a cheat sheet. I hope she likes what I found at Walgreen's for her. I know I do.

The Secret Santa thing is relatively painless, and I was happy to do it. But what about the other 15-or-so people in the office? Just yesterday I contributed a pittance to an alcohol-based gift for my boss. I don't really approve of the choice of gift, based entirely on my own hangups, but my boss seemed to appreciate it. I'd rather have gotten her something myself, but I didn't want to be socially awkward about the whole thing. It's a little hard sometimes to gauge the local norms when you're the new person. So I chipped in, and that was that.

Until this morning. That's when one of my supervisors handed me a nicely wrapped gift pack, one of those fun food-plus-drink-plus-mug things. It was much appreciated, especially since I've been wanting a new mug for work that has never had coffee in it. I hate coffee, and I'm on a tea kick at the moment in my cold office.

So that was great, but a little embarrassing, because I wasn't expecting to exchange individual gifts other than the Secret Santa one and the group gift to my boss. But within five minute of receiving the mug, I was also given Christmas chocolate, a candy cane and a homemade knitted Christmas wreath pin by two other co-workers.

Whoa! Should I buy a token gift for everyone, then?

Tonight I decided that my pot luck contributions will have to be sufficient for the office at large. But I bought a similarly-themed gift for the mug-bringer, and a gift card for my other supervisor, and a different gift card for my boss. If I overdid it, I don't think anyone will mind. I'm pretty sure I'm not underdoing it now. Much.

So guess what I'm contributing to the pot luck, aside from cranberry relish?


Got it in one, didn't you? In case there's a reader out there who has missed my October and November rants about this obscure yellow vegetable, these are rutabagas.

And look! I scraped my thumb peeling them!

And you want to know the ironic bit about all this last minute preparation? I'm probably going to miss most of the office party. I've got part two of that self-actualization seminar all day. Who knows when it will break for lunch!

Karen

Oh! Thank you!

Weekend Assignment #186: Talk about an unexpected gift that you've received. That gift could be anything big or small -- just something that you didn't see coming and/or from someone you would not have expected to get a gift from. Holiday/Birthday gifts can be included here, but gifts at unusual times are particularly good too.

Extra Credit: Have you ever given an unexpected gift?

I've been ransacking my memory off and on all evening about this, and come up with a number of incidents that fit the criteria. Oddly, however, none of them are around at this point to be photographed. Drat!

1. A picture of Jesus. When I was in about third grade, I attended "Religious Ed." at St. Ann's in Manlius. Actually I did so from second through eighth grades, but the incident I have in mind took place the year that the curriculum was some version of the Baltimore Catechism. I read through it hungrily at home, genuinely interested in the answers given to such questions as "Why did God make you?" I got way ahead of the class and retained what I'd read, but couldn't show it off because I kept leaving my book at home, and wasn't allowed to recite unless I had it. (Ultimately I lost the book, and Mom bought me a different edition at the Catholic bookstore downtown.)

Anyway, about the third week, I finally had a book with me and was called on to answer the questions. I think the nun took me through a whole chapter, and I remembered it all. She was so impressed that she gave me a gift, sort of a prize for doing so well. It was a printed painting of Jesus in a plastic oval gilt frame. I kept it for years and years, and remember having it as late as ninth grade or so. Maybe it will turn up in a box someday, but more likely it was either thrown out by the housekeeper who came twice a week, or disposed of in the infamous yard sale at the time of my parents' divorce, when my dad sold off a lot of my stuff in the mistaken impression that if I didn't take it with me to Florida for the summer, I must not want it any more.

2. A picture postcard. I've told this story before, so here's a link for the full version. Basically, a man who lived across the street from Pleasant Street Elementary School gave away a large number and variety of picture postcards to every child who was outside at recess at a particular time on a particular day. I don't remember what mine was, but I think it was a religious one, or lenticular, or both. The postcards were all confiscated by the school principal an hour later, on the excuse that it wasn't fair to the kids from the other "noon hour" recess, who didn't get a postcard.

3. Butter mints. My next door neighbor in Manlius, Sue, borrowed a couple of my high school yearbooks to look over, got drunk with a friend, and cut a few pictures out of one or two of them. She was apologetic afterward, and I don't recall being particularly angry, just bemused. Anyway, in the tradition of mothers and the suburban ethos, Sue's mother insisted that Sue give me a present by way of apology. It was a large round tin the size of a fruitcake, filled with pastel-colored dinner mints - or "butter mints," as they were labeled. I found the gift as odd and unexpected as the incident that occasioned it, but I ate the mints over a period of a week or two.

I'm sure that there have been more recent unexpected gifts - the writer dragon from Sara comes to mind, and the blue dragon from Eleanor, and the Tutti doll from Linda - but I've written about those before, too, and posted pictures of each. Nothing else is coming to mind at the moment, so let's move on to:

Extra credit: sherbet! The United Whovians of Tucson used to meet on Fridays at the homes of various members, a practice that dwindled later on so that we often ended up meeting in coffee houses and such. One night when I hosted, probably the Wholloween or Christmas party, Trevor brought an odd choice of desert: a couple bags (or one large bag) of those little containers of sherbet, similar to what I used to buy for 5 cents as part of the school lunch program circa 1965. There were about a dozen of them left over, so the next day I went driving around Tucson, and handed them out to the homeless. Most were grateful, but one of them said that he didn't eat sugar, and asked whether I had anything else!

Karen