The Recovering Non-Alcoholic

Random musings, fun facts and innuendo galore!

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Chloe's Christmas (Xhloe's Xmas?)

This year was probably the best Christmas in recent memory! Yay!!!

Rich & I got up early Sunday morning to unwrap presents with his family at 7 am. What can I say, they're early risers. His parents got me a cookie jar with cats all over it, a "wall vase" shaped like a giant teacup with fat cat butts on it, and some wooden cooking spoons to store in the vase. The cookie jar and wall vase should coordinate nicely with the set of cat pepper & salt shakers they got me last year. (Hmmm, am I sensing a hint or two?) They also got me a beautiful aquamarine butterfly necklace with matching earrings, a big ass can of peanuts for my upcoming post-Yuletide low carb regimen, and some socks in colors I like.

The presents Rich & I gave his family were well received. Among them: A framed photo of Tedy Bruschi jumping around in the snow from that famous playoff game that got us to Super Bowl XXXVIII for Rich's stepfather, and a Maxim calendar for his brother Mike. Between the calendar and the Hooters Hot Wings cooking set I got for Rich, I'm not sure I qualify as a feminist anymore. Doh!

Later in the morning we picked up my grandma, GayGay, from her nursing home and brought her to my place. GayGay is 89 and suffers from Alzheimer's, but thankfully she still recognizes her loved ones and was very happy to see us. My brother Randy (aka Aredubya, R-Dubs, Bertrand, Alayna's Beeyotch) and his wife Alayna (aka Layner, The Wife) drove down from Londonderry NH to share Christmas dinner with my mom (aka Maaaa) and Irene (aka Maaaa's fiancée). Irene is British and Maaaa is an Anglophile, both literally and figuratively, so we had a traditional roast beef dinner with Yorkshire pudding, parsnips, peas and two kinds of potatoes. We also pulled crackers, a British tradition, and donned the requisite paper hats before dinner. For dessert we had homemade trifle, which was delicious!

NOTE: WEIRD ANECDOTE AHEAD!
We assembled in the living room after dinner to begin the gift-giving festivities. I was a little chilly so I grabbed one of our fleece throws and covered my legs with it, only to see a pair of women's underwear fall out! Randy and Alayna burst out laughing, assuming they were my panties, which they were not. They didn't belong to Maaaa, GayGay or Alayna either. A minute later Irene came back from the bathroom. I asked "Are these yours?" to which she replied "Yes, those are my knickers, thanks!" This set off yet another round of hysterical laughter as I flung the panties at Irene. I'm going to assume they were laundered with the fleece blanket and leave it at that.

The gift-giving went well at my house too. Maaaa was very pleased with the Magic Bullet (tm) blender/juicer/food processor combo Rich purchased after a long night of infomercials. We also got her a pet stroller so she can easily transport the cats to the vet when needed. Irene was thrilled with the shirts I got her from Old Navy and the Black Magic chocolates we purchased from a British food store. Randy and Alayna were very pleased with their new chocolate fountain, with which I expect them to entertain me imminently! GayGay got some new clothes, plenty of socks, and a chenille throw for her bed, all of which she will enjoy. And Rich got some nice new clothes and underwear as well as a set of Truck Nutz to hang from his rear bumper. Yee haw!

Hope all of you had a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, or whatever brand of spiritual renewal you dig. Enjoy!

And if I get lazy and don't post again for a while, Happy New Year!

Labels:

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Happy Holidays vs Merry Christmas

First of all, these reactionary neoconservative (so-called) Christians who are all pissed at hearing "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" are a bunch of morons. I don't pretend to be God or Jesus, but I believe the time and energy of Christians would be better spent performing good works in the true spirit of God's love, like squeezing in a volunteer shift at the local homeless shelter between punching matches over who gets the last XBox 360.

The other night I spent about half an hour on the phone with a very nice, very helpful tech support person who concluded our call by wishing me a Merry Christmas, and I wished her one as well. I happen to celebrate Christmas, but how did she know that? She did know my mom's last name, as the account is in her name, but my mom could have remarried or kept her maiden name. How does tech support lady know I'm not, like, Chloe Horowitz or something equally "Jew-y," as Jon Stewart would say?

Or I could be a Jehovah's Witness. There's an active and growing Jehovah's Witnesses population in Lynn, and the Witnesses I've met have all been very nice people. Last year I innocently asked a coworker of mine if he'd had a nice Christmas, and he told me he didn't celebrate it. But he didn't get all offended or anything. He just said I was welcome to get him a present anyway. Good kid.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not upset about being wished a Merry Christmas. Even if I didn't celebrate this particular holiday, I can always use a little merriment. Especially at this time of year when the days are short, the resume is getting no responses, and I spend my days watching crap TV and consuming as much whole grain as possible just to see how many bowel movements I can make in one day. (For the record, I'm up to five!)

But these dickless pieces of shit like Bill O'Reilly who are calling for boycotts of any retailer whose employees wish customers a Happy Holiday instead of a Merry Christmas are not being politically courageous. They are STUPID! I can think of many reasons to boycott WalMart, but being wished a Happy Holiday instead of a Merry Christmas isn't one of them.

Once we get past the crass commercialism of the season, Christmas is supposed to be about Peace On Earth and Goodwill Toward Men. And Goodwill toward Women. Unless we're trying to fill a prescription for emergency contraception at their local WalMart. Then we're sinful, uppity, man-hating, baby-murdering Jezebels. Right, Pat Robertson?

I kinda dig Chloe Horowitz. Maybe I'll just take that name when I get married instead of taking Rich's name. Mazel tov.

Labels: , ,

Random Conversation of the Day


So I'm standing in one of two lines around 9:30 last night at Shaw's, waiting to purchase my grocery items. I'd gone to the store seeking a junk food fix and ended up getting some fruit and whole grains as well. Go figure.

Out of nowhere I hear the Lynn Police detail officer talking to someone about Patty Hearst, the newspaper heiress-turned-convicted bank robber. He was trying to remember the name of the group that had kidnapped her in the 70's. Ever the know-it-all, I called over to him, "Symbionese Liberation Army." He thanked me for providing the answer and we both went back to minding our own business.

A few minutes later, grocery bags in hand, I headed for the exit. The nice policeman caught up with me and asked "How did you know about Patty Hearst? That was a little before your time." I replied that I had read about the case, and asked the nice policeman whether he believed Hearst was a brainwashed victim or a willing participant in the hold-ups that led to her arrest and conviction on armed robbery charges. He thought she was just a wild rich kid having a good time with her machine gun. This led to a brief but interesting chat about countercultural values, and how the seventies were a reaction to the sixties.

We said goodnight, and I walked home to eat two english muffins covered with melted cheese and half a bag of brownie bites. Those things are yummy!

Labels: ,

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Weird Dream

This week I've been filling in serving breakfasts at one of the elder housing properties managed by my mom (aka Maaaaaa) because the girl who usually does breakfast is out with strep throat. Poor girl! I sincerely hope she gets better, and not just because it means I have to work early in the morning.

Anyway, I was exhausted this morning. One woman asked for cinnamon raisin toast and I accidentally gave her cinnamon toast crunch! When my shift ended at 9:30 am I headed straight home and went to sleep. Didn't even stay up for the 10am Daily Show rebroadcast...

Next thing I know, I'm transplanted to a teen melodrama series, a la Degrassi: Next. Except we weren't in Toronto, we were in Danvers or Beverly or somewhere on the North Shore, but different than in real life. You know how dreams are...

So in my dream, I was one of several high school students in a regular middle-class American (or perhaps Canadian) town. Suddenly my town became an Islamic extremist theocracy, and I was Jewish. I'm not actually Jewish, but in my dream I had just converted and was learning to cook kosher meals when the town was taken over by the Muslim equivalent of the Third Reich. Jews like me were subject to a strict curfew, were not allowed to drive or ride bikes, and our homes and business were broken into by Gestapo-like forces. We could attend the same schools as Muslim students but were taught in separate classrooms. Violence regularly broke out between Muslim and Jewish students, many of whom were previously good friends. Families were torn apart. It was awful.

Then somehow toward the end of my dream a Gandhi-esque gentleman came along and got us to reconcile. I'm not sure how that happened either, but you know how dreams are. Then we were back in time during the Nixon administration, although Nixon looked a little different than he did in real life - once again, you know how dreams are. President Nixon himself caught the Gandhi-esque character in bed with a young woman who had blown him off for a date, and he became furious and killed the guy. I witnessed the crime but was powerless to bring the President to justice without putting myself in danger.

Then the dream turned into having to run to CVS or a similar store in the middle of a college basketball game - I think it was BC vs UGA - and not being able to find the item I was looking for while missing a game I really wanted to see, which was deeply frustrating but nowhere near as bad as the previous two dream sequences.

Then I woke up.

Anyone want to tell me what it all means?

Labels:

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

WTF Moment of the Day

After two hours of schooling me in the fine arts of backing up, parallel parking and three-point turns, my ambiguously gay and much-older driving instructor called me "babe" when he dropped me off.

WTF?!?!?!?!?

Usually I'm the one who accidentally says things like that...

Labels:

You Know You Love Your Cat When...

you take a piece of paper towel and yank a dingleberry off his butt because he's too damn fluffy to groom himself properly.

Time for a trip to the vet's for a "sanitary clip."

Labels: ,