TOASTIES. Happy almost-end-of-2014. Good riddance to bad garbage and all that. In current bartender news, my place of employment ordered 1500 Krispy Kreme donuts to be eaten for breakfast. I took a whole box. And was going to take a picture of the perfect donuts lined up in it it, but someone snatched one before I had the chance to do so. Symbolic? In any case, any good memories you want to share? Excellent things that happened in 2014? Nicole brought life into the world. Bam! Open-thread like a donut-smelling wind!
Tags: open thread, the bartender
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Bartender, I am so sorry about your donuts.
Today I am doing a closet cosplay of Santa at work (hat, red dress, tall black boots) and the few people that are here in the office with me are enjoying it. I get out of work in two hours and then am going home to celebrate my sister’s birthday (Christmas Eve baby, boo) and a small family dinner, then going to look at lights with my sister and some friends because it’s tradition.
If y’all are celebrating anything tomorrow, enjoy it! If not, I hope you have a lovely day either way.
Happy holidays, Toasties! I’m going to New Orleans for a week the day after Christmas, and I’m so excited! I’ve never been before. I hope the week will be full of food and bourbon and spooky things.
I might be going to New Orleans for the first time at the end of January, so please report back!
NOLA is a wonderful place. <3 <3 <3
Be sure to check out the Faubourg Marigny! It’s a fun neighborhood that is not as intense as the French Quarter. Eat lots of beignets and muffulettas!
It’s one of my favorite cities in the world. You’ll love it. If you love Crawfish Étouffée, you’ll love New Orleans even more.
For a spooky yet solemn misandrist pilgrimage, go visit Marie Laveau’s tomb, in St. Louis Cemetery Number 1. Bring silver dimes, and something white or pink and sweet to eat, and leave it all as an offering. (You can’t miss with Hostess Snowballs, but be creative.)
Have fun in NOLA! What a great place.
We are leaving for Florida later today and will be hanging out with family in a house in Key Largo. It’s supposed to be 80 degrees every day and we are very excited, despite the fact that Boston is 55 and sunny.
Hi Toasties! As far as years go I think I’ve had a pretty decent one: I’ve done a lot of work toward getting a job in my chosen field when I graduate, plus one time John Darnielle told me he was proud of me.
But on a different note, how do y’all deal with going home for the holidays to a place you can’t stand? I love my family but this town sucks all the life and joy out of me. Anybody else have a similar problem?
Anyway, I’m sure I’ll get through it soon enough. HAPPY HOLIDAYS FRIENDS!
I have a similar problem! I moved as far away as I could, as soon as I could, and periodic visits to my hometown over the last 15 years or so were unsettling at best and messed with my emotions, and I would usually feel like I was being sucked dry of life force. Something clicked this past Thanksgiving when I went back to visit (staying in a hotel, though we’ve done that before) with M. Siniichulok and Baby Siniichulok, and I realized that my hometown is pretty wonderful in its own way, and the real problem for me is actually my extremely toxic dad (the remaining member of an extremely toxic parent set). His behavior kind of casts a pall over everything. I do find that staying in a hotel helps a lot, as well as limited interaction with the person who’s getting me down.
I don’t know how much of my hometown energy suck is family vs place, tbh. It’s no Podunk town (I fled Portland, Oregon just before the rest of the country developed a crush on it), but the energy drain is still there, every single trip, even with my partner in tow (although I definitely don’t slide as low with him around). And the perpetual dark drizzle of the winter holiday season, combined with my family living far enough in the boonies to need a car or sizable bus ride doesn’t exactly help.
If the problem is the town and not the family, just don’t leave the house! That’s what I do. Sometimes we have to go to Walmart or something terrible, and I try to hide behind my sister so I won’t have to talk to any of the people who I don’t recognize but who think we’re still best friends form 20 years ago.
Wait, my place of employment is the same as your place of employment, and I didn’t get any doughnuts…?
This seems shady to me. Maybe call OSHA?
Definitely call OSHA. This is a violation if I’ve ever seen one.
i hang out at the-toast for fun. i am employed elsewhere! toast is superior to donuts in any case!!
CHRISTMAS CAT THREAD
On friday a few people asked about Anne’s tail, so I thought I’d talk about it. I tried to get a picture, but all I could find is below this bit:
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Basically, Anne was born with what the vet calls a congenital birth defect. Her tail is all kinked up and short. When you touch it you can feel that it’s got kind of seized up towards her butt? It’s got almost no movement for most of the tail and as a result she can’t jump or balance as well as she should be able to. It doesn’t seem to hurt her, and the vet says there’s no need to amputate it, so we just let her go on being her wonky little self.
As for Bonny, her disabilities are all in the thinking department
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Look at this face, can you see any capacity for thought in those eyes?
I love wonky cats. Show me all your cats, but especially wonky ones.
OMG Bonny’s face.
I call it the ‘blankly happy’ look.She gets it when she knocks things off shelves, steals chairs or finds a box.
This is always the expression on my cat’s face when he finds me working in the kitchen. “Oh! You’re cooking something I’ll probably enjoy! And you’re definitely planning to share it with me!” Even if I’m just peeling an orange.
One of my cats gets very excited when she sees a human with food, and will come over and sit next to them, looking hopeful. Even if it’s just bread. (She really likes ice cream.)
Nina is trying to pretend she hasn’t just had a massive amount of catnip. That’s a “pretending to be sober” face if I ever saw one.
I have seen a lot of ‘im sober, really’ faces over the years and that’s a pretty good one, yes.
I have a wonky cat!
This is Bella:
As you can see, she is very soft and very lazy. She’s really a perfect cat in every way. So why did we get her from the As-Is Room at the shelter? Well, because she’s old, first of all, but also because she has some minor cosmetic damage:
Notice how you just kinda… run out of cat at the butt end there. She actually does have a little tail nubbin about two inches long, but you can’t see it because of all her ridiculous fur.
babbbbbyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Mine both have stumpy short tails, but they move OK.
This is Chloe’s wonky tail. It looks like she’s curling it at the tip, but it just does that naturally. It’s super-cute. It works fine, and she doesn’t seem to have any pain in it, but it’s short and wonky.
This is Chloe after a flea bath. It was the most pitiful thing I’ve ever seen:
Fiiiiiiiiiiinally I’m home during the day and able to share my adopted cats. Thank god for holiday open threads.
So they are two very lonely individuals who like to hang out anxiously whenever I’m in the bath. They both climb up and stick their heads over the edge, which I think is pretty gutsy.
This is their usual level of affection.
Mine both keep me company in the bath too. Saffron sits on the edge and pops the bubbles with her claws.
My kitten (the calico), Tessie, and my roommate’s cat Schrodinger. They are becoming friends. They play hide-and-seek and wrestle and chase each other around and ALMOST nap snuggled up now.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-UP2PL_41nGw/VJ…
Happy holidays, everybody! Finding The Toast was probably one of the things to happen to me this year, sooooo, thanks, pals! Every post I read either makes me laugh or think, and this is one of the only sites on the interwubz where you *have* to read the comments. You guys are all so awesome. 🙂
I also found The Toast and its awesome comment section this year as well. Hooray for Toast discovery!
This cannot be signed enough times.
Happy holidays, Toastfriends! I quit my current, not-much-beloved job and took up another that will allow me greater flexibility and some fresh opportunities next year. I’ve wanted this for awhile, but was greatly inspired by a number of Toast Open Thread regulars who posted similar job changes in 2014. Thanks for being company, entertainment, and inspiration on many a Friday, Open Toasters.
Waiting for the shower…. All the cousins and new babies and aunts and whatnot will be descending on my parents’ house in a couple hours and there’s still four people who need to shower.
OH THANK GOD, open thread!!! I didn’t know what to do with myself without a link roundup yesterday.
Happy holidays toasties. I dreamed it was light out at 8pm again and in my dream I was like “wow solstice sure worked fast this year! This is great.” Alas, back to reality and 4:30 darkness.
Also, I made a Seattle Toast facebook group so we can coordinate meetups and shenanigans. Join us! https://www.facebook.com/groups/1389843721308618/
I had a dream my vibrator stopped working. Horrible.
Ooh thanks for posting the link, I was just about to email you to ask you for it as i couldn’t seem to find it on my own. Happy holidays!
What about non-Facebook-using peoples…?
I don’t know 🙁 send me an email? At my username dot com there is an email address.
With my brother’s go at body-shaming this morning, my Family Bingo card is now full. Like, not just five-across bingo, but entirely full. (Other boxes on it include gender essentialism, use of the word “thug” to describe a black person, explanation of how great the unregulated free market is, baiting me with questions like ‘what do you think of gentrification?’ and more!) Family, I love you guys, but one week a year is seriously enough. Thankfully, my liberal cousins arrive on Friday.
Handy tip for surviving family get togethers when your family is populated with awful windbags! Fill some manner of vessel with some manner of booze. Begin drinking when awful windbag begins talking. Do not stop drinking until the windbaggery has ceased.
If rusalka’s family is like my own, that would land hir blacked out in the ER.
It never ceases, this calls for retaliatory awfulness. Try to sell them on Amway.
Or purchase CDs for them as gifts, preferably something you can endure which they will find exceedingly obnoxious. Then, in addition to being drunk, insist on listening to said gift loudly on repeat. Suggestions to get you started: The Donnas and a Margaret Cho comedy special.
Toastrons, I am going to my friends for christmas tomorrow. They are have coeliac and a dairy intolerance, and because I like to be a generous guest my husband and I have spend a small fortune on side dishes that won’t poison them. I have even bought special gluten and dairy free mince pies, because they love mince pies and told me so when they came round to ours last year before they knew about their intolerances.
We kind of take it in turns to host each other right now. It’s pretty nice.
You are a saint for bringing those mince pies. Mmmm.
I was hoping to make some, but I have no experience making gluten free pastry. My regular pastry is a goddamn delight, all buttery and crumbly and flakey, but I’m not sure how to properly work with gluten and dairy free pastry and I’d rather practice a few times before making something for a friend.
So, Mrs Crimbles Free From Mince Pies it is.
Fortunately, my friend doesn’t like christmas pudding (though I do) so I didn’t have to track down a gluten and dairy free pudding.
You are saint! (Says another grateful coeliac!) I am still working out the gf pastry thing, which isn’t easy. Pie crusts are usually doable, but still. If you’re in the UK, it’s actually easy to find gf/df puddings. Someone got me one for Xmas last year from Marks and I loved it.
You probably already know this, but just in case, if your friend has celiac’s (not a gluten intolerance) they probably can’t eat anything that is made in a non-gluten-free kitchen, even if you use gluten-free ingredients. I would stick to the incredibly nice option you’ve already done.
Thanks for letting me know1 I’ll check which it is they actually have, and see if I can make them food, because otherwise our hosting duties next year may be a bit trickier…
I have spent the afternoon skinning GF sausages and making more pigs in blankets than you can shake a sausagey stick at, as my sister is GF.
That is kind of cool. Yay for gluten and dairy free mince pies! Having dietary restrictions is such a shame when it means you can’t eat the foods you love so much.
Happiest of holidays, Toasties! My friend Melody made the BEST LITTLE BOOK ORNAMENTS for me and my kids:
Those are so cute! Handmade gifts are the best.
These are so cute and very tiny! What a lovely idea.
I’m at work, trying to compose a year-end email appeal. What’s going to get people to give money? What would convince you???
Also Boston Toasternators, wanna go see Into the Woods tomorrow? Unless you have to like be with family or whatever.
All of the great work your org does! Also a reminder that it’s not too late, and that every little bit counts.
[It’s such a hard thing to do and I know different people are motivated by different things, but that’s what got me this year with my donations. Also, connections to recent events, if applicable.]
Hieu’s suggestions are great! Does your work break out in such a way that you can say what each donation amount will support? Like they do here: spaffordcenter.org ? I like that and it totally motivates me to donate.
This might be too late to make plans for tomorrow, but are there Boston-Toastie meetups? I live on the Providence-Boston train line and. I would totally be willing to brave the grumpy, occasionally gross MBTA conductors to meet fellow Toasters.
Probly too late, but the thing that gets me is when orgs need numbers of donators, and say $1 or $5 is fine.
Happy holidays, Toasties! I was feeling a bit of a funk this morning but there’s a great #dessertporn thread going on Twitter if you’re interested. I’m working today to wait for gifts for family to arrive in the office, but I’m also doing some professional development reading on Knowledge Management, a field I had only learned from talking with you fine folks this year!
Thanks so much to all of you for making up such a lovely community, and thanks to everyone who keeps this place running!
Doing lobster dinner with the roommate and a couple of friends tonight. Then, the rest of the year will be spent on research and editing. I’m actually pretty pumped about this, as I’ve fallen horribly behind in all of my commitments.
High-fives to all my orphan-Christmas brethren! Avoiding families forever!
This year …. meh. Got a masters degree, got a half-decent job, lost a long-term relationship, accidentally obtained some cats. Spinster 2015 is on-track.
Orphan-Christmas high-five! Spinster high-five!…cautious lobster-claw high-five!
Hey! me too! Masters, part time job, no boyfriend, and foster cats. Solidarity!
Hey! This is my boat too. I’m Holing Up for the Holidays with food and a pile of work to do while not-watching TV. Yay!
I also recently had my first laptop-tea-cat combination moment and the little light popped in my head that said “Next Level Spinster: Unlocked”. It felt great.
Orphan-spinster priiiide!
Yuletoasts! I started this scarf for a Christmas gift, inspired by Open Threads of yore! And now it’s Christmas Eve day and it’s still not quite long enough! And I have to sit here at work and NOT KNIT for a while longer! I can pretend to work and look at the internets, but I CAN’T KNIT! This is a travesty!
That’s lovely! The yarn looks so squooshy. I finished my mom’s hat on Monday and it finished drying from being blocked yesterday. I can never figure out whether you can download or link to pics from Instagram, but it’s here.
It is indeed very squooshy and it’s going to be a really cozy scarf. It’s slightly irritating to work with because it unravels if you look at it funny.
That hat is just amazing. I think i’m going to attempt one after this scarf, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be quite as perfect and lovely.
Thank you! If you are interested, the pattern I used to get the overall idea of how a slouchy hat should be shaped is this guy, which I’ve also made – this time I subbed in an easier stitch pattern because I didn’t feel like taking forever to make all the cables.
Nice! What’s the stitch pattern?
It’s this holding hands feeding ducks pattern: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/holding-h…
I wish I could remember the Toastron who had posted it in the first place. The execution was much better.
It was Pear! I remember only because I have the same pattern bookmarked on my browser. 😀 I haven’t knitted with it yet but it’s definitely on my to do list.
Ooh, very nice! I love some of the super colorful ones! A totally different feel than your dark one, which is also very nice. Plus it looks like it’s just made for Manos del Uruguay, which I always really like to work with.
Maybe I’ll finish up some of my long-neglected WIPs this weekend so I can start something new. Have been thinking about doing a self-imposed sock-of-the-month club like the Yarn Harlot does, but I think I’d get too burned out on just socks.
Also, let me extend holiday wishes from my (miniature) family to yours!
Nice! What type of animal is your furry friend?
Rufus is a chinchilla 🙂
Elyse, this has made my Boxing Day. THANK YOU.
I am SO happy about this open thread. I’m all alone in my office today, basically killing time until I can go to my parents house and eat a feast and get a WHOLE WEEK OFF (unpaid, but still!!!)
Same here bb. I’m waiting for my boss (who conveniently took the day off) to have a “God Bless Us Every One” Scrooge moment and let me go home early.
I am not really a present person (food, drink, and embarrassing ornaments you made in childhood are so much more central to my winter holiday experience) by my boyfriend and I exchanged presents last night before he left to celebrate Xmas with his family, and he gave me an ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WOMEN MURDERERS, from Elizabethan England through the present day. True love!
I want this!!!
KEEPER.
Oooo I hope the krispy kreme was nice and hot!
So my grandmother was a mild hoarder and my mother has had a habit of throwing out or selling some of the stuff I really wanted, but keeping every single-blade disposable razor, really cheap costume jewelry, etc. Recently, this one piece of furniture came up in conversation between my mom and me. It was a night stand made of porcelain and the ‘stand’ part was an adorable elephant. I lamented that my mom sold it at a yard sale. Well, turns out it was in the attic this whole time. However, I have not seen this elephant in over 15 years and …it’s a little offensive. I think the elephant is wearing a sari. I have no idea where this nightstand came from and I was startled to see it was so different from what I remembered. And now my mom is mad at me because it’s going back in the attic.
My mom confirmed that she definitely got rid of the pencil drawing of a naked lady that my grandmother kept in her bathroom. I haven’t found anything remotely resembling it. I really want a naked, lounging lady picture in my bathroom.
I absolutely have some friends who would be happy to take that commission! Hell, I wish my skills were up to it, I’d take any excuse to press a friend into that service XD
Update on the hard to shop for cardiac stem cell researcher gift. I quilted a heart, and I love it. pattern is from HeartsandSharts.com Thanks to all for the suggestion and support!
I don’t know how to embed a picture, so here’s a link to my project: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h_nbuAO-ZP8/VJr31VZQ4JI…
and to the original pattern http://heartsandsharts.com/anatomical-heart-pillo…
My favorite fabric in my project is the llama/dog silk, from a hideous tie my dad gave to my brother (the cardiac stem cell researcher/phd/med student) I use it in as many quilting projects as it fits into.
It looks great!! Nice work.
I love it. Again, would buy these things if you ever decided to sell them!
So great!!!
I am in a pretty good mood this holiday, because a new gentleman caller has materialized who seems to be really into me. I’m not sure if this’ll be a long term thing but it is fun so far! He came over the other night, and I introduced him to Broad City, and he liked it, and then we had a fade to black interlude, and then after I put on my fleece onesie and he liked that too. So there are positive signs all around! Merry happy!
I am wearing my onesie to Christmas dinner tonight. The theme is “sexy lingerie.” I regret nothing.
You are correct.
I like thinking that he literally materialized, like in your living room.
I love reading the open thread posts today – you all are so interesting and wonderful! <3
Feeling exceptionally grateful for my year. I can’t wait to celebrate the season with my family and my Best Boo tomorrow. I also can’t wait for Boo to open his prezzies, he was exceptionally easy to shop for (which is so nice!) and I think he’s going to love everything. He crawled into bed after his late shift last night and cuddled up to me and said the sweetest things, so I honestly couldn’t ask for anything more. He will be fully moved in to my place on the 28th as well, so that’s a pretty fantastic xmas prezzie.
We have had such an eventful, meaningful, interesting, and fantastic year here on the Toast. I’m so glad we all are here, and am stoked to spend more time with y’all! Everyone’s support and insight was so precious to me when I was going through the trenches this summer, and I (still) can’t thank everyone enough. SEASONS GREETINGS!!!
Yay for open thread! I’m working this week because it’s not Christmas in Russia yet, but I will be going home for a visit at the end of January so I’m excited about that.
In other Christmasy news, I watched Elf last night. I really like it, except it always kind of creeps me out that Zooey Deschanel and Buddy the Elf apparently end up married with a baby at the end. He has the mentality of a child. If you have to explain to someone how babies are made, which I’m assuming happened, you should probably not be having babies with them. Plus I can’t imagine living with him 11 months out of the year when Christmas is far far away. The more I think about it, the more I think Buddy is like a manic pixie dream guy. In the movie he seems like just the kind of carefree, adventurous free spirit who’s going to turn your life around, but in reality he’d be unbearable after about two weeks of dating.
Solidarity with my fellow stuck-at-work Toasties today! I’m blasting Christmas Carols to my empty office and contemplating cracking into my Holiday Bourbon that is intended for my family party this evening. I’m pretty happy though because Mr. Barmaid gave me my gifts last night – an adopted Snowy Owl from the Audubon Society and motherfucking SLEATER-KINNEY tickets!!!
I had multiple people with their fingers on the button the second those S-K tickets went on sale and I still failed. I am sooooooo envious of you, you would not believe! I hope you rock the ever-loving sh!t out of that concert!
SO envious. I want to hear all about it afterwards!!
stuck-at-work solidarity fistbump!
I was stuck at work, but I’m in the UK so it’s 8pm now and I am on the sofa, under a duvet and a cat, watching Hot Fuzz. All good!
mmm…Krispy Kreme…
A few weeks ago I posted a question here about getting a dog/dog advice, and I wanted to thank everyone who responded again, it gave me a lot to think about. I decided not to get a dog for at least a few months until my housing situation becomes more settled, or at least somehow clearer. (I really want to move somewhere more permanent but have no idea when that will actually happen.)
In the meantime I signed up to be a volunteer dog-walker at a local no-kill shelter starting next month, so I hope that’ll get me some dog-time and also help out a good place. And I just found out I get to dogsit again for a couple weeks in February! DOGS.
This year my family pulled together to support a loved one who was having financial and medical troubles and it feels like we’re really united. Like any family we have our share of internal squabbles and resentments, seeing everyone put those aside and support each other has been the high point of my year. I’m also grateful that my family and I see eye-to-eye politically so I can relax and enjoy their company around the holidays. Next year I’m planning to start a business with a friend so I expect to be crazy busy (in a good way) so I’m trying to take it easy the rest of 2014. Hope you all get a chance to do the same.
I had a Toast-adjacent dream last night. First, I don’t remember why but Justin Timberlake put a fake tattoo on my knee. Then I was rushing to a book reading where I was supposed to be reading from Texts from Jane Eyre with my friend Alice. I was like running down the street, flipping through the book trying to decide which parts to read out loud. I don’t think we made it before I woke up.
I made a tactical error and accepted a 12-hour delivery window today for my new bed frame. For my sins, I will be stuck at home all day and they probably won’t call anyway. Oh well, it gives me time to clean and prep things for tomorrow – an awesome bunch of friends are coming over for our traditional No-Stress Xmas Dinner where we will eat and drink and act like goofs and the likelihood of someone saying something sexist, racist, or homophobic are beautifully low.
Happy holidays to all you sage and lovely Toasties! Thank you for creating such a wise, funny, and beautiful little corner of the net,
Bay Area Toasties! Are there any big celebrations planned for New Years?
New Years is my favorite holiday for many reasons, but having a big party is one of them. Unfortunately I don’t really have any friends where I live and no one else I know is throwing a party. So thought I’d maybe check out what’s happening in San Francisco, Oakland, whereever.
Hey – I’m in Oakland over the holidays but don’t know anyone. If you find something cool, let me know?
Bad parts of 2014: I desperately wanted to leave my job, but was not able to. I hate my job, and it’s slowly poisoning my love not only of physics, but of all science and tech. Also, the rest of the world happened.
Good parts of 2014: I learned to stop caring about MALE OPINIONS, whether pertaining to books, PC gaming, academia, etc. So thanks to the Toast for that. I started taking antidepressants so I no longer periodically cry face down on the couch. I read only SF/F books by female authors for a good five months, and I discovered some awesome stuff that I’d previously missed. Also, Dragon Age: Inquisition was amazing.
I’ve got a cat on my legs and a good book in my hands, so I’m nice and set until the New Year.
Yess!! I have been reading all the SF/F by women, and buying it too because we’re rich this year and I desperately want to support authors, but buying ebooks because we have zero room for anything in our small house. It is making me really happy. I get lots of good recs from Liz Bourke who reviews over at Tor http://www.tor.com/Liz%20Bourke#filter and I love love love when she gets snarky at commenters who are not behaving well.
Oh dang, I’ve been looking for a new source of book recommendations, and this lady looks like she’s got great taste – thank you very much for the link!
Heh, I started buying ebooks back in grad school when I realized that every paper book I purchased would have to be moved to a new house every few years. Love real books, but them boxes get heavy VERY fast.
I made some Toast-inspired (and various other obscene) cross stitch pieces as white elephant gifts! Since a couple of recipients are on my FB, I can’t brag there, but I posted them to my tumblr, and this is my favorite: http://thatwench.tumblr.com/post/105936991393/fil…
That is fabulous!
I am studded all over with cloves of virtue like a Christmas ham, so no one can say a thing to me about my alone Christmas, which will be the best one ever because I am legitimately unable to go anywhere instead of just choosing not to as is my usual.
(how did I acquire my armor of virtue: I went to visit my mother’s awful family for the first time in twenty years for Thanksgiving, which means that I spent that day with my cousin the cop, the son of the former police chief, and rooms full of his parents and relations, directly after the Ferguson grand jury decision. so, take the most uncharitable imaginable idea of what awful small-town white people would be saying, multiply it by cops and cops’ families, add gusts of laughter, and then double it. then double it again because you think maybe it wasn’t that bad because I exaggerate and am self-righteous but yes it was. then also I was only there because my mother put it to me as a deathbed wish that I show up and be nice so I could not tell anybody to go fuck themselves or whatever else came to mind. usually I have a lot of contempt for people who think it is wrong to ‘make scenes’ in such circumstances, they were the ones making the scene, but I mean the choice that was given to me was literally to be pleasant to racist monsters or break my ill and aged mother’s heart. )
so now that I have sacrificed one holiday and all of my integrity, I am keeping the other. me and my cat are going to have the best christmas we ever had. it is the greatest holiday in the calendar. I have got to eat sixteen loaves of marzipan and watch the maurice sendak nutcracker and stew some apples and watch the christmasy X Fileses and read The Dark is Rising and what not.
here everybody read the greatest christmas story ever written
http://hca.gilead.org.il/fir_tree.html
“Do you know only one story?” asked the rats.
“Only one,” replied the fir-tree; “I heard it on the happiest evening of my life; but I did not know I was so happy at the time.”
“We think it is a very miserable story,” said the rats. “Don’t you know any story about bacon, or tallow in the storeroom.”
“No,” replied the tree.
“Many thanks to you then,” replied the rats, and they marched off.
Yes! Merry unrepentant Christmas to you and your cat!
WAIT WAIT Which were the Christmassy X Files episode? I’ve already burned through all the QI Christmas specials, I need viewing.
I believe there are two but there may be more I have forgotten about — 6th episodes of seasons 5 and 6 for sure. MIND YOU I have no memory of whether they are good or bad. at least one of them has ghosts.
(I am watching from the beginning for the first time since they aired and am only halfway through season 2 right now. soon I will be skipping ahead to christmas ghosts.)
oh — “Beyond the Sea” isn’t technically a christmas episode maybe but Scully still has her christmas tree up in the beginning. plus ghosts.
“How The Ghosts Stole Christmas” (season 6, ep 6) is the one that immediately springs to mind, and it IS good — it’s in that sort of melancholy but sweet territory that x-files occupied at its best, and has Lily Tomlin and Ed Asner as cantankerous ghosts.
You’re a saint, queenofbithynia, for not punching out the other dinner guests at Thanksgiving. And every single element of your Christmas plan sounds delightful. And that fir tree was a jerk who got what was coming to it.
Many happy returns, and thanks for reminding me of Hans Christian Andersen. I think I might read that to my 8-year-old who likes High Emotion.
Wow. That is a truly horrendous Thanksgiving tale and thank goodness it’s behind you! Yikes.
Your Christmas Day sounds delightful. ENJOY.
Shamelessly reposting a picture from the depths of last week’s open thread, because nothing says best holiday wishes quite like it. (For those who are curious, the flag is Goliad’s, and the reins connect to rings in the steer’s nose.) Warm thoughts and wishes to all Toastfolk!
I was planning to have such a productive day today- finish off christmas shopping, do some cleaning… then last night, my throat went from zero to oh god the pain in about an hour and I developed a fever and right now I have about as much strength as a wet noodle. Fortunately, my mom and i were already planning a low-key christmas (with the only visitors possibly being my brother and his girlfriend), because I’m way too sick to do anything that involves leaving the house.
Oh, no! You poor thing. I hope you have a restful day and feel better very soon.
Happy Holidays, Beloved Toasties! This is probably just a drive-by (I’m getting ready to do some boxing with the Burgomaster, yay!). BUT! I want to say I’m so happy to see holiday Open Thread to tell you all how much I appreciate you and that I absolutely love this commenting community. We are THE BEST and I am so grateful to everyone involved–editors, writers, commentors, and moderators. Big sexy kisses to you all.
And thanks for all the gifs you’ve given.
Toasties, how do you deal with an unexpected rather large (monitarily-wise) gift from a friend that you didn’t get a gift for? My husband’s friend/coworker and his boyfriend got us an xbox one and I have no idea what to get for them in return, particularly on such short notice. I was thinking of perhaps offering to knit them hats? Have them over for dinner?
Say thank you, and don’t feel like you have to turn around right away and even the score. Have them over for dinner if you like them and enjoy their company.
I don’t know about your friends, but when I give people presents (because I like them! and I want to! and I can!) and they then turn around with an “evening things up gift” I always feel kind of bad, because I just wanted to give a nice thing, not make them feel like they have to turn around and reciprocate immediately. I like giving gifts, no feelings of obligation- those are no fun!
Happy Holidays, EveryToastie!
I’m having my first solo Christmas Eve … ever? Maybe so. So far I’ve been to the gym, drunk an awful lot of spiked eggnog coffee, begun binge-watching Friday Night Lights, done laundry, and had a serious think about what I want to do for the next few days. I can do whatever I want! I might even go to a carol service tonight because although I am an atheist I fucking LOVE carols, and just haven’t been in years because of other people.
Then tomorrow there’s a Missy Elliot dance party, and dinner with lovely friends (not in that order) and more spiked eggnog.
This year has been very, very different from what I expected and hoped for, but I think it’s going to be ok. I love my new city and my bright apartment and I am, mostly, proud of myself for dealing with a lot of tough things semi-gracefully.
I’m alone too! I spent today buying myself some fine cheese and sausage and treats for tomorrow, and I think I’m going to go to a Carols service as well.
First Christmas all my myself too! I went to a midnight carol and candle service and it was especially lovely because it was at a unitarian church that my great-grandparents had founded but that I had never been to. I just happen to live in this same city again now, after two generations of californian family interrupted our pacific northwest-ness. I was surprised to find that I felt like I was with family because my family were the ones who had created the community that was surrounding me, at least long ago. And it had been five years since I’d been to a church and the candle ceremony with Silent Night singing was actually very moving! (I’m not at all religious, I just really like candles and singing I guess!)
Also doing laundry, also drinking lots of eggnog and champagne, also binging netflix. A very merry solo Christmas to us!
Toasties! Hello!
In living-best-life news for 12/24/14, I just killed a bottle of sparkling wine with my boss, am at work in a flannel PJ top, and am about to leave to go day-drink with MrChouffe. Have a fucking amazing day.
Happy holidays to all! I could tell that those doughnuts were Krispy Kremes just by looking at them, by their signature coating of hippo semen! Of all the ungulates, only the hippo produces such vast quantities of ejaculate that deep-fry to a sugary, krispy koating. Fun fact: ‘hippopotamus’ is Latin for ‘river horse’ due to the fact that its spermatic fluid is used to coat Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Remember to leave Santa Claus a Krispy Kreme doughnut saturated in candy-sweet hippo jism, and he will personally burn your house down. The narcotic sucrose-heavy fumes of fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts cling to fabric and skin, lingering in the memory decades after their hapless victims were forced to sell them at lunch hour to finance the high school literary journal, until those nightmare-haunted souls are compelled to lash out randomly in a futile, belated attempt at revenge. Stare at the puckered hole in the center of a Krispy Kreme doughnut, dripping with brittle glaze, until you realize that all doughnuts should be krispy and flaking with dried fluids. Merry Krispmas, and to all a good night.
I’ve never been that interested in eating Krispy Kremes (never mind that they only came to my state this year and even then are six hours’ drive away) but after reading this, I think I’ve decided I’ll go off them for life.
AHAHAHA THEN MY WORK IS NOT IN VAIN. Bless you! This is the best Christmas ever.
you’ve pretty much summed up the year in that up there description. and yet krispy kremes and their ilk continue to be consumed. and with joy.
Well, far be it from me to kill anyone’s joy. And by consuming Krispy Kremes, you are also subsidizing a comfortably erotic semi-retirement for ex-circus hippos, so there is a social benefit involved as well.
How well I remember that day when our class was invited to tour the local Krispy Kreme factory. The field trip started out inauspiciously: none of the school buses were available, so we were forced to ride an ancient, filthy Greyhound bus, in which all the seats had been replaced by clogged, overflowing toilets for some reason. Upon our arrival at the factory, we were herded through a claustrophobic labyrinth of grinding machinery and steam-spurting pipes. At last we were escorted into an area that the tour guide identified as the “extraction bay.” We edged out onto a narrow walkway of slick tiles. Below us, the entirety of the factory floor was crowded from wall to wall by the smooth gray backs of hippos, immersed almost completely in thick, translucent white fluid. On the far wall, an enormous projection screen displayed a continuous loop of the dancing ballerina hippo scene from Disney’s “Fantasia,” intercut with the image of the June ’87 Donna Edmondson cover of Playboy. The hippos grunted and surged, transfixed by the display, their bodies displacing waves of fluid that splashed up onto the tiles at our feet. Droplets of blood sweat beaded up on the hippos’ backs and mixed into the pool, giving the kreme a brief pinkish hue. The air was hot and stifling, heavy with a sweet cloying odor.
The tour guide explained how the kreme was siphoned away and squirted, still hot, onto the fresh doughnuts. He had no face, but his voice was somehow transmitted from a crackling speaker high up on the wall. As he gestured, we noticed that his many fingers were abnormally long and multi-jointed. I don’t recall who asked about those fingers, but the tour guide acted as though it had been me. He leaned close, his face a glistening mass of featureless flesh, and held up his twitching elongated fingers, coated with flaking, sugary kreme. “They are to probe the holes,” the distorted voice whispered, clotted with static. The air was oppressively thick; the machinery roared; the hippos bellowed in ecstasy.
I don’t remember how the tour ended, or if it ever really did. All I know is that if you stare into the glaze-slicked center hole of a Krispy Kreme doughnut for long enough, sooner or later you will see a flicker of motion, and the tip of a finger will emerge, probing. Always probing.
I am super looking forward to my family’s get together tonight. I made a cake last night, there’s spinach dip waiting to be popped in the oven, and my mother just texted me a picture of the roast beef she made. It’s been a rough year and also our first Christmas without my grandmother, so I’m hoping my mother has an especially good time.
(Also, many thanks to everyone who answered my question about handling unwanted invitations from my brother’s fiancee last open thread. Your suggestions were all quite helpful.)
Roast beef! I wish my family did roast beef! It’s always turkey or ham and I’m SO OVER THEM!
Anyway, all your food sounds delicious. Have a lovely time!
So… I have come into the possession of a stranger’s Christmas cookies, and I’m not sure of how or whether I can get them to their true owners. At 10pm yesterday the doorbell rang, and as I got up to answer, I heard a car door slam and the car speed away. Left on the porch was a plate of homemade, frosted sugar cookies with the note, “Merry Christmas from your friends at [local middle school]!”
I did attend that middle school, but I’m likely at least twice as old as the person who baked the cookies, so I’m 99.8% sure they aren’t for me. (The 0.2% uncertainty is probably just my naked rapacity for sprinkles.)
I guess it wouldn’t be very Christ-like to just eat them, so I’ll hold off until after Christmas. If any embarrassed preteens show up in the meantime to reclaim them, I will certainly give them back… while wearing my tackiest holiday sweater and a pair of antlers.
What stories do you have of accidentally-recieved gifts, Toasties? What did you do? Have you every accidentally left a plate of cookies at the wrong house?
Never happened to me but you should eat them.
Seconded.
Thirded.
So moved. Eat the cookies.
Seriously. Eat them.
I am slightly suspicious that they are not meant for someone in particular, but rather a Random Distribution of Christmas Cheer as brought to you by Rambunctious Youths Who Enjoy Sneakiness.
People don’t usually ding-dong-ditch with cookies if they’re planning to give them to you in person and you know them. Especially if they’re not signed.
Eat ’em!
This is a shameful, but we once received a whole cake. No idea who it was from or to who. There was no note or anything. It could have been an arsenic cake for all the Boyfriend and I knew. But we ate it. And it was delicious.
Half an hour until work is done & I don’t have to come back until next Monday! Hurrah!
I hope to do a whole lot of nothing over the next few days, although I’m still finishing a (holiday) present for my ex and a (birthday) present for a gentleman friend. I might bake gingerbread loaf tonight again as I didn’t like the first one I made, it was too molasses-y.
I met Mallory this year which was a Pretty Excellent Thing in a year full of mostly-difficult stuff.
My mother, you guys, my mother is driving me to distraction about Christmas and the WORST PART is that her father drove HER to distraction about Christmas and so someday I will be the one making my children anxious and stressed in the desert hellscape California will be by the time I have children old enough to be driven.
“I need you to send me a list of links to get you for Christmas!”
“But I hate shopping. The thing that’s keeping me from getting these things is freaking out about going into a store or making decisions on the internet.”
“A list, Least.”
“Well then, I need a list of gifts from you.”
“Oh, just get me whatever. I’m easy to shop for.”
“No. No you are not.”
I got her a resin Homo erectus skull. Let’s see if I get that list next year.
That’s A-Game gifting. Another option: thigh-high socks. I have explicit requests to not purchase gifts from three immediate family members thanks to past gifts of thigh-high socks. I cannot imagine why.
I would happily wear thigh-high socks and would laugh my ass off if I got a resin skull. What does that say about me??
That you are awesome. Obviously.
And you have fantastic taste.
That you are brilliant.
A literal giant amongst peasants.
The pre-eminent philosopher warrior of our era.
And finally.
You are totally killing it while living your best life.
Title: What does that say about me? An Ode to Es Petal.
Hahaha! That is brilliant.
Ha! That is just too funny.
Thanks to super holiday slowness at the office, I have finally given in and begun to play Fallen London (thanks to you fine folks). Anyone want to be my friend? Username is Oneirographe.
I will send you a calling card as soon as I’m done being insane (again 🙁 )
I am also currently insane, but you can send me a calling card. I’m Renata Mangiafuoco.
My kingdom for a krispy kreme!
I’m home with my parents for a few weeks in a lovely spot with sun and beaches and two naughty kittens. Very lucky, am I. I invited my mister along but he decided to stay back to do general life maintenance things and catch up on lots of tasks while he’s got some time off since he was feeling very overwhelmed. But every time we talk, he’s just relaxing and hanging out with friends and I can’t help but feel a little hurt. I know that’s time well-spent too and far be it for me to begrudge anyone their layabout time – but I sort of wish he’d at least pretend to be a little busier?
I’m sad I’m not home, because ALL of my friends that I’ve kept in touch with since high school are there this year, and it’s been about, um, 16 years? since we’ve all congregated in one place at one time. But I get to go watch my sister’s kids tear shit up in the morning. As a GREAT thing that happened today, a water main burst in my work building so I don’t have to work! First Xmas Eve off in YEARS!!
Also I think I need to break up with my boyfriend because I’m starting to hate him.
sounds like a legit breakup reason to me… good luck!
Tell us about HATE
Ukrainian/Polish xmas eve. So much vodka. So much tradition. So many ghosts. So little meat.
I would love to hear more about the ghosts!
Polish Christmas Eve is the best!
Were there pierogies?
I’m working today AND tomorrow. And New Year’s Eve + Day, too. *sigh*
Eat/drink everything in sight for me, Toasties.
I am home for THREE WEEKS and yet every second of it that I do not spend with family in some way (divorced parents, so I’m really always making someone unhappy) I feel guilty. I just want to go visit my friend from college for a weekend but then the guilt of leaving for two! whole! days!
Ugh help.
My tactic: everyone will be happier if I get a little time to myself instead of trying to be 100% on. Maybe friend time is how you recharge and emerge refreshed and ready for more family time?
seconded, you deserve time for yourself, and bonus! pissing off everyone at once saves time and energy!
Toasties! Merry Christmas!! It’s already Christmas morning here in Australia, and we are getting ready to drive to the husband’s family a couple of hours away with our dog.
I am a little hesitant about the trip this year because I am now 8.5 weeks pregnant (yay!) but right in the middle of the puking and tired stage, ugh. I am going to be a bundle of fun, ha! We’re telling husband’s family at lunch, so at least I won’t have to make excuses for not drinking and resting, I’m sure they’ll all be super excited.
I hope everyone has a safe and happy Cjristmas and New Year, and that 2015 brings only good things to all you lovely Toast-folks!
Congratulations on your pregnancy! I hate that part – hopefully it will pass really soon and you’ll be into the ‘feeling great’ stage before too long.
Thanks! I hope so too 😄
I work at a grocery store and got out ten minutes early (the shift was a semi-nightmare, people are so rude even on Christmas Eve), but I’m now sitting in my driveway waiting for the rest of my family to get home because I forgot my house keys! 🙂 I would go get cocoa from a Dunkin Donuts or something, but I’m broke 🙁 Still, looking forward to Christmas!
Excellent. I'm gonna cast Maggie Smith as cantankerous great aunt, Kelly Bishop as stir-crazy invitation-giver, Janet McTeer as your constantly eye-rolling mom.
Toastières! I am spending this year working in a country that is not my home country. Until recently I had no plans for Christmas because flying home would be too expensive and I didn’t want to go back anyway. But last week, a wonderful gentleman heard that I had nothing to do and invited me to come visit him and his parents for a few days!
I’m nervous but thrilled. This is going to be fun! Even if he doesn’t share my wish to get romantic (we dated the last time I was in this country and only stopped because I had to leave the country), we’ll have fun. We’re going to go running together and eat traditional holiday foods and I’ll meet his 4-year-old nephews! I’ll make hilarious gaffes in my second language, which is what I’ll be using to talk to everyone! I Skyped with the gentleman two nights ago and made him draw me a family tree of the people I’ll meet during my visit. He is one handsome, thoughtful, kindhearted son of a gun. Reader, I am excited.
That sounds like a whole lot of fun! Yay!
I finally finished all of my presents that aren't my SIL's Christmas stocking, which I plan to finish while sitting in the Charlotte airport. We're not doing Christmas until this weekend, so I have time. I got almost everything wrapped, and the glue has now finished drying on my brother's paintbrush stand, so I'll be able to get that wrapped and into my luggage. Then it's off to church for the late service, back home to pack, and off to Cleveland in the morning.
(I plan to get Chinese food at an airport restaurant, because I can.)
“That’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown” – A Charlie Brown Christmas (plus the making of the show). . . .
http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2014/12/thats-what-…
Late to the open thread, but happy Christmas to those celebrating (my family is watching that PBS thing on the first Christians and some of the scholars are talking about what prissy jerks the first Christians were to the comparatively tolerant Romans and all I can think is, “Oh, dear, we’ve actually *always* been the problem, haven’t we?”) and I am thankful for all of you and wish you all good things in 2015.
Toasties, I want to thank you for all the kindness you showed me when I said my mom needed heart surgery. The surgery was today, and according to the doctors, it went very well! She wasn’t awake when I saw her afterwards, but she looked about as good as you could expect someone who just came out of open-heart surgery to look.
If you’re celebrating Christmas, I hope Santa brings you your heart’s desire. If you’re not, have an egg roll for me.
So glad to hear it went well!!!
Thank goodness it went well. My mum has had to have a few (comparatively) minor operations recently and even though I know they’re routine, I always, always worry. I hope she has a really quick and uncomplicated recovery.
Good news! Hope her recovery is smooth and swift.
Best wishes to you and your mom. Everyone recovers on their own timeline, but my aunt had an aortic valve replacement in early November, and you’d sure never know it now. Back, and 110% better than before. So I wish your mom an easy recovery and also that she really feels the improvement in overall health.
Yeah, I think she’ll be feeling much better when her heart doesn’t have to work so hard. She already wanted to walk further than the PT had in mind, so I think the challenge will be keeping her from pushing too hard.
There’s a Chicago Toasties FB page too! Meetup to come in January!
And if you’re casting about for something to do on New Year’s Eve, consider Rogers Park Social. I will be there, and will welcome any stray Toasties to my table! But make your reservation now, before they fill up.
Ha! That is just too funny.
Congratulations on your pregnancy! I hate that part – hopefully it will pass really soon and you'll be into the 'feeling great' stage before too long.
That sounds like a whole lot of fun! Yay!
Thank goodness it went well. My mum has had to have a few (comparatively) minor operations recently and even though I know they're routine, I always, always worry. I hope she has a really quick and uncomplicated recovery.
Merry Christmas, Toasties!
We went to bed just before midnight (I foolishly decided to henna my hair and after I got children in bed and tidied up, etc, it was later than I expected and so I had to stay up… but hey, my hair looks great today!)
The children woke first at 3.30. Then 4.30. Then finally at 5.30 we got up. Damn this idea to have a celebration which involves getting up for presents at sunrise, when sunrise is about 5am. So I’m a little tired.
All kidlings seemed to like their gifts and then my parents came over mid-morning and stayed for a while. I put two little roasts in the oven when they got here and we just ate about an hour ago. We hardly ever eat roast meat so it was kind of special. Of course, the oldest child didn’t like the pork or the turkey so he got vegetables and a jam sandwich (the constant battle against his picky eating doesn’t take a break even at Christmas).
Now they’re watching a Pokemon movie and I’m trying to stay awake with tea and chocolate. Might go out and water the seedlings soon and get some fresh air, plant some seeds I got as a gift. Yay for lazy Christmas Day.
Hope you all are enjoying yourselves, whatever you’re doing!
Are you in the Southern Hemisphere? Because the sun definitely does not come up at 5:00 AM in December round these (North American) parts…
Yep, south coast of Western Australia. Christmas Day is a LONG day…
Merry Christmas, Toasties!
We went to bed just before midnight (I foolishly decided to henna my hair and after I got children in bed and tidied up, etc, it was later than I expected and so I had to stay up… but hey, my hair looks great today!)
The children woke first at 3.30. Then 4.30. Then finally at 5.30 we got up. Damn this idea to have a celebration which involves getting up for presents at sunrise, when sunrise is about 5am. So I'm a little tired.
All kidlings seemed to like their gifts and then my parents came over mid-morning and stayed for a while. I put two little roasts in the oven when they got here and we just ate about an hour ago. We hardly ever eat roast meat so it was kind of special. Of course, the oldest child didn't like the pork or the turkey so he got vegetables and a jam sandwich (the constant battle against his picky eating doesn't take a break even at Christmas).
Now they're watching a Pokemon movie and I'm trying to stay awake with tea and chocolate. Might go out and water the seedlings soon and get some fresh air, plant some seeds I got as a gift. Yay for lazy Christmas Day.
Hope you all are enjoying yourselves, whatever you're doing!
I am fairly new to my new UK city so I did not get to sing ALL THE CAROLS as I wished. But I got a very good Messiah in, plus some street carolling. Next year I must midnight mass! Hope yours went very well!
I Google Imaged it and found this on Wikipedia: "The left-hand group shows eight fair haired angels wearing crowns and gathered in front of a music stand singing, although none of them looks towards the score on the stand. As in a number of the other panels, here van Eyck used the device of the open mouth to give a sense of life and motion to his figures. Borchert writes that the emphasis on the open mouths is "specifically motivated by the desire to characterize the angel's facial expressions according to the various ranges of polyphonic singing. To that end the position of the angel's tongues are carefully registered, as are that of their teeth."[39] Art historian Elisabeth Dhanens notes that "One can easily see by their singing who is the soprano, who is the alto, who is the tenor and who is the bass".[32] The panel deviates from common performance practice, however, with its wave-like order in body height, and the orientation of all eight faces in different directions. A number of scholars have written on their physiognomy. Their cherub faces and long, open, curly hair are similar but also show a clear intention by the artist to establish individual traits." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghent_Altarpiece#Mus…
Yes. Individual traits. That is clearly what is being established. Angelic angels, singing angelically. A+ art happening here.
Buuuuttttt yes actually this picture is amazing, I can't believe someone painted this before the invention of photography or the invention of awkward group pictures when the photographer accidentally pressed the button at the wrong moment. I also can't believe that they're supposed to be heavenly angels, like, at all.
Best wishes to you and your mom. Everyone recovers on their own timeline, but my aunt had an aortic valve replacement in early November, and you'd sure never know it now. Back, and 110% better than before. So I wish your mom an easy recovery and also that she really feels the improvement in overall health.
This last year can SUCK IT but everything is set up to make next year amazing. I’m celebrating Christmas by hiding in my room on my laptop while my dad watches movies downstairs and rants about ‘revolting pig’ Melissa McCarthy making appearances. SIGH. Families, why???
Self-care and pedicure update: I got myself a little pedicure foot-sander machine on Amazon and it is AMAZE. My poor dog hates the noise it makes, but I love it. It arrived yesterday and two seconds later I had no more foot calluses.
I got this one: Emjoi Micro-Pedi Nano (yes it is both micro and nano apparently!)
Hello pals! I’ve been on my own since Sunday afternoon (roommate left Friday night, Mom visited for just under 24 hours which is the perrrrrrrrrfect amount of time) and have been hanging out with the cats and watching horror movies and HGTV collections on Netflix. Sweatpants and couch and cat snuggles are the best way to spend Christmas. No bickering about church services or presents or meal preparation or serving or politics or whatever else. Just cats bickering because they BOTH want my lap at the SAME TIME. Cats.
Yep, south coast of Western Australia. Christmas Day is a LONG day…
Thanks! I hope so too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpYTkavEt20
Toasties, I am just going to leave this here. I hope you all got what you wanted this year. Especially if it was cha-cha heels.
You’re my new best friend. I haven’t seen Dawn in ages.
You're my new best friend. I haven't seen Dawn in ages.
Happy boxing day. Flew home today. The parental part of the holiday was nice, the other parts ummm less so. Went to aunt and uncles for dinner. The dogs got in multiple fights, but no one thought to keep them permanently separated, and at present opening time it was discovered that everyone had a gift but me. In additon we had dinner with parent’s friends twice. They’re all perfectly nice people, but so loud and so tiring for my introvert self.
Working all weekend what with all the people too. Why isn’t there a holiday post holidays where you celebrate by staying in bed with chocolate?
Vanilla orange/ chocolate pinwheels! They are delicious but I had to give most of them away. When it comes to cookies I am very much in the spirit of keeping, not giving. Hrrumph.
Phew! I'm really glad to hear that she's doing well. I've been thinking of you both. Have a wonderful new year!
I have been yearning for a bit of peace and quiet by myself for the past two days! I like all the people I've seen, but I like them in small doses with lots of space between each dose, not all at once.
May your work go swiftly this weekend so you can retreat to your room with chocolate, Christmas tv, and a hot drink!!
Have fun in NOLA! What a great place.
We are leaving for Florida later today and will be hanging out with family in a house in Key Largo. It's supposed to be 80 degrees every day and we are very excited, despite the fact that Boston is 55 and sunny.
Happy Holidays, Toasties! I hope those of you who celebrate had a Merry Christmas – the Bittersweet family did.
2014 was a mixed bag. On the minus side: too busy at work, ongoing mom relationship challenges, health issues, biopsy. On the plus side: busy at work/got a raise for next year, my husband and daughter, Toasties, fun vacations, and biopsy was negative. Suck it, cancer!
So for me the year was a net positive. Let’s hope 2015 will be better for more people in the U.S. and around the world. Cheers, everyone.
Happy Holidays, Toasties! I hope those of you who celebrate had a Merry Christmas – the Bittersweet family did.
2014 was a mixed bag. On the minus side: too busy at work, ongoing mom relationship challenges, health issues, biopsy. On the plus side: busy at work/got a raise for next year, my husband and daughter, Toasties, fun vacations, and biopsy was negative. Suck it, cancer!
So for me the year was a net positive. Let's hope 2015 will be better for more people in the U.S. and around the world. Cheers, everyone.
Help me remember something!!
I have “I am the key to every lock” stuck in my head, but all uncle google gives me is locksmiths and creepy things about house locks, and then I found “a star to every wandering bark” which I’m moderately certain is Shakespeare, and the internet seems to agree there, because at least I can find it… Together they make nice poetry but I do not believe they are related at all, and I can’t remember if the first piece is from a piece of prophecy or part of a riddle.
I thought it might be Susan Cooper, or something from Narnia (although I don’t think Narnia even if there is a strong x-tian vibe to that first fragment).
Anyone know where that came from??
You can do a Google search by putting quotation marks around a phrase so that you get exactly that wording. I did and got a few strange sic-fi results — Andrew Pyper, The Demonologist? So you might want to keep searching but put smaller bits in quotation marks, or alternate versions of the phrase, and you will probably find something. Good luck!
thank you!! I’ll try those. I think it might have something to do with Harry Potter – “I am the key to every lock — Alohomora” but my brain is an odd place these days!
You can do a Google search by putting quotation marks around a phrase so that you get exactly that wording. I did and got a few strange sic-fi results — Andrew Pyper, The Demonologist? So you might want to keep searching but put smaller bits in quotation marks, or alternate versions of the phrase, and you will probably find something. Good luck!
Oh, I just saw this! My dad had a valve replacement two years ago (well 2 years and 2 weeks ago, I think the date will be seared in my brain for all eternity) and he has come out the other side with flying colors and a bitchin' scar on his chest. It was so horrible and scary for me at the time and his recovery definitely took a while, but he is back to his old self and has been for some time now.