Goodbye, 2007...

The last hours of 2007 are quickly slipping away... we're about to be catapulted into a brand new year. I just read that this year's Times Square celebration will mark the 100th anniversary of the annual ball drop. I wonder how many people showed up back in 1907? I wonder when, exactly, Times Square turned into THE place to be on New Year's Eve? One hundred years, and I've STILL never been to Times Square on New Year's Eve... oh well... it's probably more comfortable to just watch on TV, anyway... :)

So what can I say about 2007? It was the year of linguistic anarchy, when made-up words were suddenly and inexplicably deemed "acceptable." It was the year the legal system finally managed to track me down and attempted to ensnare me in its sticky little grasp. My sometimes-favorite show Lost managed to regain "favorite" status with its Tivo-worthy season finale (and I can only hope the writer's strike ends soon so the fact that we've all had to wait until 2008 for the new shows will be worth it...). And I survived another great season of fantasy baseball (although I wish the Yankees would've pulled themselves together in the post-season. 2008 -- the year of the Yankees! I hope... :)) The saga of Harry Potter was completed, and I finally found out why Salman Rushdie was forced to hide out in the Cabin in the Middle of Nowhere all those years ago. We lost our favorite coffee shop -- but I also managed to lose some weight (possibly from my switch to lower-calorie cappuccinos, since my access to Seattle's Best caramel lattes is now limited).


2007 also brought:

A Texas ice storm...

My windblown hair...

A couple of partridges in a pear tree... (okay, actually they were doves in a live oak tree...)

And a very helpful phoebe with an excellent sense of direction...

Our new furry family member, Piva...

And trips to Chicago...

And Hawaii...

And of course, Eric reminded us all why I am still mom and dad's favorite.

Happy 2008, everyone!! :)

A few Christmas pictures...

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas... or Hanukkah... or Kwanzaa or Boxing Day or Christmahanukwaoxing Day... I had a nice Christmas myself -- Eric flew down on Christmas, but he was only able to stay for a couple days (and let's face it, that's about much time as anyone can possibly spend with Eric, anyway, right?) and we all hung out at mom and dad's new house. Mom made a turkey for Christmas dinner, and apparently the new oven had a mind of its own -- after four hours (the point at which a similarly-sized turkey was fully-cooked in the old oven), it still wasn't done. After increasing the oven temperature three times, searching for a meat thermometer, researching the internet for "proper cooked turkey temperature," and waiting another hour, the turkey finally reached a safe temperature and we were able to eat without worrying about food poisoning. (And dinner was really good, mom! :))

I didn't get too many pictures while Eric was here, but here are a few:

Me on Christmas Eve... my hair looked halfway decent, which is so rare...

Mom and dad's new living room, with their super-cool TV... we need to hang out here more often...

The new kitchen...

Eric and Rick, discovering they both got everything they wanted for Christmas... or something like that...

The Christmas cookies I made that lasted about two hours... (like I told Eric this afternoon -- I should've doubled the recipe...)

Rather strange picture of me... but check out the necklace -- Rick gave it to me for Christmas. It's a piece of one of the original seats from Yankee Stadium. They look out all the old wooden seats back in 1973 and replaced them with plastic seats. And apparently someone has been saving all those old wooden seats so they could be recycled into necklaces and cufflinks and pens. I thought it was pretty cool...

This is what Kiko was doing all throughout our dinner... that cat LOVES turkey...

Friday randomness...

So this morning, I walked into the bathroom (as I do every morning) and Piva followed me (as she does every morning). As she also does every morning, she proceeded to jump onto the toilet seat, from where it was her intention to hop up onto the tank. From there, she has a perfect perch to peer into the garbage can, which she likes to peruse in the hopes of seeing some kind of interesting garbage can occurrence (I can’t say I know exactly what goes on in the mind of a cat…). This morning, however, as soon as she jumped from the floor to the toilet, she learned a hard lesson about looking before she leaps – Rick left the lid of the toilet up, so poor little Piva was met with an unfortunate splash of toilet water and then an instinctive need to balance precariously on the seat. I tossed her onto the floor, trying not to be too disgusted by the fact that she was now licking toilet water off her paws, and all I could think was, “Rick would be laughing so hard right now if he was here…” Poor Piva… poor yucky toilet water-licking Piva…

I made mint-chocolate brownies this afternoon, from a recipe I found on the Food TV website. You crush up a bunch of those Andes mints and mix them in with the batter. They turned out quite good… TOO good… once again I am reminded of my maddening talents as a baker. If only I was one of those people who burned everything they placed in an oven… but nooooooo. Now I’m going to have to actually EAT all of these brownies… (actually, I’m planning on giving half of them to mom and dad…)

Tomorrow is officially the first day of winter… although let’s be honest – with the 70-plus degree weather we’ve been having most of the month, it might as well ALREADY be winter, right? Freeeeeeeezing… so glad I have a closet stocked with two or three sweaters…

Speaking of the freezing cold weather – I was just watching a Christmas special with the Boston Pops and the Barenaked Ladies, and of course “White Christmas” was sung at one point. And as I listened to the song, I was thinking, “hey, it really is true – I AM dreaming of a white Christmas…” It’ll never happen here… although if it DID, it would be totally cool and way more exciting than a white Christmas in the north. People would be dancing in the streets as if the evil warm-weather dictator had finally been vanquished… The last white Christmas I had was the last time we went up to New Jersey for Christmas. It snowed so much that most businesses would’ve been closed anyway, but of course dad and I had to venture out in a quest for coffee. And fortunately the ONLY place open that day was the Dunkin’ Donuts down the street… coffee quest successful!

Argh! Only four days until Christmas! And we still need a few gifts!

Argh! Only eleven days until 2008! And I don’t have any resolutions yet!

I think I’ll go eat some brownies…

Have dental work, will eat chocolate...

Just got back from the dentist, where I got the permanent crown for the tooth of “vile-tasting goop” fame. Fortunately, there was no revolting goop involved this time… however, I am now once again reminded of how difficult it is to drink coffee with a partially-numb face. I was thinking of eating something for lunch, but I’m afraid it would prove to be a feat of much grander effort than I am willing to expend on something as minute as lunch…

So did everyone hear about that Christmas card that was mailed back in 1914, and the post office just now discovered it hadn’t been delivered yet? Since it’s been 93 years, the intended recipient is no longer alive – but they managed to get the card to a relative. Kinda makes you wonder what happens to all those OTHER things that get lost in the mail, doesn’t it? Perhaps all the things we’ve mailed – here in our own time – that never reached their destinations will find their way to descendants in another eight or nine decades… But beyond highlighting the occasional super-sluggish postal system, that story made me think of other things, as well. Like how family and true friends really ARE forever… and how the written word is so prolific and everlasting. Someone took the time to write words in that card, and even now, almost a century later, those words still exist. You can talk to someone on the phone and have a meaningful conversation, but if you write a letter, the evidence of that conversation remains indefinitely. That’s fascinating to me for some reason…

And with the Christmas season in full swing, I am reminded of why I have a sort of “love/hate” relationship with this time of year. I’ve been helping mom and dad get moved out of their old house and settled into their new one, and every time I walk into their new kitchen, another festive food-related gift has been delivered and laid out on the counter. At last count, I believe they had one container of chocolate-covered popcorn… a tin full of assorted Hershey’s chocolate… a Harry and David variety gift consisting of pears, truffles, chocolate-covered cherries and cheddar cheese… and a basket full of crackers, tea, candy, and other various edible items. So every time I bring a box of books or clothes or a lamp into the new house, I tend to automatically gravitate toward the yummy gifts in the kitchen. More specifically, I tend to gravitate toward the chocolate. That tin of Hershey’s has been no match for me… And this brings me back to that conversation I was having with Cindy a few days ago – I just could not have an entire tin of Hershey’s chocolate in my house and expect it to survive for very long. Good thing all this stuff is at mom and dad’s house… gosh, I love helping them move…

And not only that, but I’ve discovered several recipes for holiday cookies and brownies that I feel it is my duty to try out. I make cut-out sugar cookies every year, as per my childhood Christmas tradition – but Rick doesn’t like sugar cookies. (Which is fine with me, really, because those cookies are GOOD… and it just means there are more for me. :)) So I suppose I should make something that he would like. This may require much experimentation and a whole lot of baking chocolate. But I am willing to sacrifice my time and my oven to create more than one Christmas dessert this year. Even if it means a couple more pounds on the scale (which I will determinedly drop as soon as 2008 rolls around..).

Like I said, it’s a love/hate relationship…

Hey, whose house IS this, anyway?

Since the house has been on the market, a few things have changed around here. Like what I mentioned in one of my earlier posts – many of my bottles and jars in the bathroom are now hidden underneath the cabinets, just like the small appliances in the kitchen. I try to keep the kitchen clear of clutter, because it tends to be the junk mail collection point… and if I notice dust on a bookshelf, I wipe it off right away.

I’ve also had to tweak my schedule a bit, as I’m used to working out sometime around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. But lately I’ve been waiting until at least 5 o’clock, in case someone decides they’d like to see the house. Now, when we listed the house, our realtor asked us for a phone number – this phone number, according the realtor, would be the way to “control access” to our house. When people want to see the house, they call up our realtor and our realtor calls the “control access to our house” number (which happens to be Rick’s cell phone). That way, we can set up an appointment that gives me enough time to tidy up the house, turn on all the lights and open all the blinds (as we were instructed to do by the realtor), get Echo, and vacate the premises. Then the realtor and the prospective buyer can take their time wandering around my bright, clean house, and not worry about the dog barking or about being in my way.

And my thought the last couple weeks has been, “if no one calls by 5 o’clock, then probably no one is coming by... and if someone DOES want to come by after 5, well, that doesn’t give me much time to clean up, and maybe they should just wait until the next day anyway…” So when 5 o’clock rolls around, and I haven’t heard anything from Rick about cleaning the house for someone to come by and look at it, I assume I can go change into my workout clothes and jump on the treadmill for a little while.

So that’s what I was doing today, at about 5:25 – half walking, half jogging, watching “Home Alone 2” on HBO, and noticing the quickly-darkening sky outside. When suddenly, the hall light flicked on – this has happened before, when Rick will unexpectedly arrive home earlier than usual, and surprise me while my attention is on how many miles I’ve walked or how fast I’m going. So I expected Rick to eventually walk around the corner and say hi… but instead, as I continued to jog at a 2 percent incline, a total stranger walked into the room. He immediately apologized, of course, telling me he was a realtor and he was in the neighborhood and he’d been knocking but no one answered. And I immediately slowed the treadmill down and tried to hide the fact that I was sweaty and panting and wearing shorts and a sports bra. That’s EXACTLY how I like to greet visitors to my home…

So I guess the whole “control access to our house” thing only works when people actually take the time to CALL. But realtors can just walk right up to that lock box any time they want and break into my house. I’m not sure I’m okay with that. So I think tomorrow, I may have to lock the gate on our front porch. I mean, if that “call us first” thing isn’t gonna work, then I’ll just have to control access to my house MYSELF…

Bunch o' random thoughts...

Yesterday, December 9th, it was about 72 degrees when I woke up in the morning. By early afternoon, the mercury was climbing well into the 80’s. And all I could think was, “ah, I can practically feel the icy whoosh of Arctic air, heralding the arrival of Christmas day… dashing through the snow, indeed.” Okay, so I’ve been a bit cynical about the warm weather lately. (And I have stubbornly refused to wear short-sleeved shirts, even when the weather calls for them. But I don’t care. I want to wear some of my long-sleeved shirts once in a while. I like the change of pace…) Anyway, later in the afternoon, a cold front suddenly came through, dropping the temperature from 80-something to 60-something in the span of two hours. By the time we went out for dinner in the evening, the temperature was swiftly tumbling through the 50’s, making me realize the folly of walking out my door with nothing but a light cardigan sweater to ward off the chill. I think it eventually settled in around 40 last night, and this morning it’s a lovely, December-appropriate 45. But this is Texas, so who knows how long it’ll last… I must appreciate the chilly weather while I have the chance…

So I met up with my friend Cindy on Saturday at Barnes and Noble. We were talking about how people tend to gain weight around the holidays – in fact, I’d just heard somewhere that the average person gains seven pounds between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. (Nope. Not gonna happen this year. Not if I have anything to say about it.) Needless to say, we both approached the bookstore Starbucks with caution – just a small mocha for Cindy, and a medium cappuccino for me (and quite a “dry” cappuccino, at that. Meaning it was about two thirds foam and one third coffee…). At one point during our conversation, Cindy mentioned how she’s realized how difficult it is to eat even the smallest amount of chocolate every day and NOT gain weight. And I totally understood – “I don’t even keep that stuff in the house,” I said. And that’s when we realized that we’re both in need of a twelve-step program. Chocoholics Anonymous. The way we talk about it, you’d think that the very presence of our beloved processed cocoa beans incites mindless binges… mindless binges which result in passing out on the floor, chocolate smeared on hands and happy faces… Darn it – why don’t I have any chocolate in the house right now??

So mom and dad are now officially owners of a nice new house. They started moving stuff into it a couple days ago – I think it’s going to be really nice once they’re all settled in. Provided the cats don’t destroy it. Up until now, Kiko and Ozzie have been sequestered from Dusty, and vice versa. Ozzie gets along with everyone, but Kiko doesn’t seem to get along with anyone but Ozzie. But in the NEW house, mom is intending to just throw all the cats in at once and hope for the best. Perhaps the shock of a sudden new location will make Kiko forget about her animosity towards Dusty, and the two will form some sort of alliance – like a “where the heck are we?” alliance. Ozzie, of course, won’t really care…

We went out to eat last night at one of the final new restaurants to open its doors in the Domain shopping center. It’s called North – mostly Italian food. And after our dinner last night, I think it’s safe to say we’ll be back again. The food was soooooooo good. I had a pasta dish with wild mushrooms, spinach, pine nuts, and a parmesan cream sauce (did I mention that I refuse to gain weight over the holidays this year??). And of course we had to try dessert – Rick and dad both ordered gelato, which the waiter said would be two scoops of ice cream. It ended up being at least three… possibly four… it was enough ice cream for everyone to share. I ordered a chocolate hazelnut cake, which was very good, but probably left in the oven just a tad too long. It would’ve been perfect had it been taken out a couple minutes sooner. But that was a minor issue, and it certainly isn’t going to prevent me from going back to North some time soon and once again ordering food that will NOT make me gain weight…

All this talk of food is making me hungry... time for lunch…

A pox on your Muppets...

I spent the morning frantically tidying up my already mostly-tidy house, so a realtor could bring by a prospective buyer. It is surprisingly difficult to run through an entire house in an hour and have it show-ready. Even when it’s already mostly-tidy. And afterwards, as Echo and I hung out down at mom and dad’s house, I started thinking about all the stuff I SHOULD have done and didn’t. Like cleaned the wood floor in the family room (although I didn’t have time this morning – it WILL be done this afternoon)… and wiped the fingerprints off the microwave… and turned the pool pump and waterfall on, so it looked nicer… and hidden those two jars of coins that are inexplicably sitting on the floor in the bedroom (WHY do we have two jars of coins on the floor in the bedroom??). But did anyone ever decide to NOT buy a house because the owners left jars of coins in the bedrooms? (Well, I love the house… but those COINS…) Maybe it’s not such a big deal… and on the plus side, I’m already up to 5279 steps today…

Anyway… right now I’m listening to the Muppets and John Denver Christmas album on my iPod. Yeah, that’s right. I’m a total nerdy weirdo who listens to John Denver. AND the Muppets. (I’m not sure which is worse…) But I bet if you asked Eric, he’d have the SAME album on his iPod – right Eric? (Right? Hurry up and say you have the same one so I don’t look like the only nerdy weirdo around here…) This album always makes me think of chicken pox. (Hmmm… I suppose I should explain that…)

It was Thanksgiving 1982, and mom and dad had invited a few friends for Thanksgiving. There was a family who lived in our neighborhood, plus mom and dad’s good friends Lisa and Tony. They all brought their kids, so there were six kids altogether – me, Eric, Gina, Craig, Megan, and Ryan. After dinner, the six of us hung out on the floor in the living room watching Mary Poppins and digesting our turkey. There was no hint whatsoever of the malady that would soon befall us…

The next day, Lisa called my mom and said that Gina had come down with the chicken pox. And, interestingly enough, chicken pox happens to be contagious for a couple days BEFORE the actual chicken pox spots start to appear. And it has a two-week incubation period. So two weeks to the day of that Thanksgiving dinner, the pox epidemic was unleashed. I got it, Eric got it, Gina’s brother Craig got it, our friends Megan and Ryan got it, and even Tony got it – he’d never had chicken pox as a kid.

The strange thing was, as far as illnesses go, it ended up being not so horrible. I mean, sure, the constant itching was rather annoying, and I’m sure we all had fevers and sore throats and general malaise… but whereas most kids with chicken pox are immediately quarantined from all their peers, Eric and I were still able to go to Megan and Ryan’s house and watch Charlie Brown’s Christmas with them on TV, and not worry about anyone getting sick – because everyone was ALREADY sick.

And since we happened to come down with this illness about a week before school was letting out for our two-week winter break, we ended up having THREE weeks off from school. That was a very big deal to us elementary school-goers. Eric and I made the most of our time by hanging out in our PJs and sipping ginger ale and listening to lots of Christmas music. I vividly remember listening to that Muppets and John Denver album, over and over, probably every day we were stuck home from school… we’d sing along, and pretend to play instruments, and forget all about the calamine lotion that was spotted all over our arms and legs.

As far as childhood illnesses go, it was probably the best scenario we could hope for. And like I said, I STILL think about Christmas 1982 as soon as I hear the Muppets and John Denver sing the Twelve Days of Christmas. And if that makes me a nerdy weirdo, then so be it… :)

2-4-6-8... whatever...

I would like everyone to know that I’m wearing a pair of size 4 jeans right now. This is not to say that I’m a “real” size 4… at least not a size 4 of old… not a size 4 of twenty or thirty years ago. It seems that since we Americans have been growing larger and larger, clothing manufacturers have been getting more and more generous with their sizing. But Gap says I’m a size 4, and who am I to argue? And since these jeans WERE snug when I bought them a few months ago (back when I was wearing a gigantic size 6…) I feel that I’ve accomplished something here. It seems a little silly though – if I lose a few more pounds (as I’m attempting to do) I’ll soon be buying Gap jeans in size 2. And on what planet could I ever really be a size 2??

I was also really happy the other day as we were cleaning out the closet and I discovered an old pair of pants I’ve had since I was about 20 years old. And I wasn’t happy about the pants themselves – they’re really horrible pants… blue and red plaid, with tapered legs and a high waist. I mean, I’ll never actually WEAR the things out in public again. But I’ve kept them around because those pants were in my wardrobe at a time when I felt semi-thin. Soon after I was married, they began inexplicably shrinking… within two or three years, I was no longer able to button them. Eventually, they shrank so much that I could barely squeeze into them even with the button AND the zipper undone. At some point, I decided it was my mission to fit into those pants again. Even if it took years and years and they were ridiculously out of fashion by the time I was able to do so. Over the last decade, I have occasionally pulled those ugly pants out of the closet and tried them on, with disappointing results. But when I found them again a few days ago, I decided to throw caution to the wind and pull them on, not sure if I’d be able to hike them up past my knees. To my surprise, they were easy to pull on… not only that, but they were easy to zip up… and not only THAT, but I was able to button them with no problem. I couldn’t believe it – my totally-ugly semi-thin pants fit again! They haven’t fit since I was about 22. (So, like, three years ago or so…)

Anyway… the reason we were cleaning out the closet is because our house is now officially on the market. We’ll either be moving to Chicago in a few months (I can only hope… except I don’t WANT to hope, because then I’ll be disappointed when it doesn’t happen…) or moving into a new house on the other side of the neighborhood. Either way, we needed to put this house up for sale now. As a result, we’ve been crazy busy this week. They wanted to take pictures for the listing on Wednesday, and had originally planned an open house for Sunday (which has since been moved to next Sunday), so we had to get the house ready. They recommended we pack up knickknacks and as much extra “stuff” as possible, to make the house look bigger and less cluttered. So we pretty much worked nonstop for a few days, packing whatever we could live without for a few months and cleaning the entire house and throwing away a whole lot of junk that we should’ve thrown away a long time ago.

So my house looks better now than it’s looked in a long time… actually, maybe it looks better than it’s EVER looked. But it’s rather difficult to KEEP it looking this nice – besides constantly wiping down counters and dusting tables and trying to keep up with the little tufts of dog hair that materialize on the floor, I’ve also been forced to store most of the bottles and jars in my bathroom underneath the counter so everything is out of sight, and I’ve even placed my kitchen toaster in a cabinet to make the kitchen look more spacious. This means that any time I want to make toast, or wash my face, or use some hair gel, I have to search for whatever I need in my cabinets, and then replace it when I’m done – instead of just leaving everything out where it’s convenient and easily accessible. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but things have a way of eventually migrating from their hiding places back to their handy locations, which means the cycle of “cleaning, de-cluttering, searching for needed items, leaving them out, cleaning, de-cluttering…” is never-ending…

But I have no doubt that all of the work I’ve done this week has helped me burn a few extra calories, and made these fake-size-4 jeans possible… so I can’t complain too much… :)