Time for another true I’m-not-really-an-adult-at-all-inside confession. One of my favorite descriptions of Christmas comes from The Muppet Christmas Carol: “It is the summer of the soul in December.”
And so it is! The collective decision that right around the darkest, longest night of the year, when most of the vegetation is dead, most places are colder, and supplies are running low, is the perfect time to celebrate belief/hope, kith and kin, and all the good things is one of the great cultural triumphs of mankind. Or so I think.
Hope you and yours have a whole lot of comfort and joy this holiday season, whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, New Year, or just a couple of days off here and there!
Christmas is for children. But it is for grownups too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts. – Lenora Mattingly Weber, Extension
You guys do know I continue on the back, right? No? Oops…
The world didn’t end, the zombies didn’t rise, and nothing came through any portal. Alas! We’re just getting through the last couple of hours before the Christmas holiday officially kicks of. I have girl dates with Venice and Angel (both visiting from out of town) this weekend and then we spend Monday and Tuesday being cheerfully bossed about by nieces and nephews – as the sole purpose for our existence is to amuse them, and we know it! What are your Christmas plans, my pumpkins?
Holiday party dresses are clearly on my mind. This one is honestly more my style, but this one is calling to my inner flapper with it’s sparkly siren song…
On the flight to my parents house I read a fabulous article in the airline’s magazine (an underrated publication, I feel) that I had to share! …Classic me, I wrote down the title and promptly lost it. But thanks to the magic of the internets, voila. Tell me what you think I really enjoyed the piece (I also want to befriend her so I can go to her summer luncheons).
Last minute gift that also does good? Have no fear.
Anyone else think the price tag is, shall we say, a bit much?
So, moment of shameless bragging. The other week someone said that J. looked like a mix between Jonathan Rhys Meyer and Benedict Cumberbatch. You can imagine the smugness – coupled with feeling suddenly okay with having children someday as those are some genes that clearly need to be passed on. I also have a friend (Scarlett) who is an absolute dead wringer for Alessandra Ambrosia, go figure. These are also pretty impressive.
This is very interesting to me, and I’m curious as to your thoughts, minions. There seems to be, in some spheres, a bit of a backlash against the omnipresence of media and instant availability, particularly with social media. I know a lot of people who are dialing back their online profiles and involvement, many report feeling happier and having a great deal more time on their hands. Do you guys think this is a broader trend? Good or bad? Let me know what you think!
“And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that [Christmas] has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” ― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
My deep love for traditional carols is well documented, and highly unlikely to change, but some Hipster tunes have recently been brought to my attention that I am not at all loathe to add to my Vince Guaraldi.
Hey, It’s Christmas produces an album a year with lesser known artists delivering Christmas songs, some traditional and some totally new. You can stream them for free or you can pay what you think they’re worth to download. Here are Volume I, Volume II, and Volume III.
“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.”
― Jon Stewart
Going home for the holidays is always so restful for me – sure a tiff or two might crop up, but they’re rare, usually solved with a tussle or a game, and the food more than makes up for it. Besides my house is the only place where the following conversation could take place and everyone would think it was normal:
Me, to Buddy: “You needed a fez for that.”
Buddy: “I know, but I couldn’t find one.”
Dad: “What do you mean? I have a fez.”
Buddy (incensed): “How did I not know this!”
Dad (matter-of-factly): “Not my fault. You have never asked me if I had a fez.”
A typical Autumn evening with the Small Dog clan.
This image of my brothers might provide some visual clarity to our collective mental state.
This year the turkey surprised us all by finishing a full two hours ahead of schedule (seriously, we’re baffled, we’ve only ever experienced the opposite) and we had to scramble and mobilize all the troops to get things finished and the table set for our feast. But all was well!
It is not possible that you could sense this through the screen, kittens, but these are the two best pies in creation – both recipes family secrets – and I will fight anyone who says differently.
These pies were the source of much hilarity. You see, that pie on the right is my mother’s rightly famous one, and she has always had very particular ideas about how it should be done. Namely, there is normally a piece of dough fashioned in the shape of autumn leaves that it left on top and bakes nicely into the pumpkin filling (made, traditionally, from the remains of our Halloween jack-o’lanterns). The last time we were there for Thanksgiving my mother, upon realizing that she had popped the pie in the oven without it’s customary finishing leaf, whipped up a special batch of dough just to put the darn thing on. This year I pointed out that the leaf was missing and she tossed her head with a magnificent, “Whatever!”
The road to our land, loving referred to as The Estate.
My father’s land is also the source of some hilarity for me, but perhaps I’ll save that for another post. It’s his pride and joy. When he first bought it, the handful of acres that weren’t forest were covered in brush taller than I was at the time. Now he has several cleared acres that support his berry bushes, a small orchard in the making, and plans for a pond. He was born in the wrong century, he was meant to be a gentleman farmer.
Fun fact about our land, American Founding Father Patrick Henry had his first job as a lawyer in our town, the road he walked to get to work runs across our property, and won his first election to represent the county locally. Also, the parents of J. Sargeant Reynolds (of the aluminum fame) are supposedly buried somewhere on our property as well, though we don’t have a lot of proof for that one. There are an amazing amount of old houses (with fantastic estate names) and many of the families have been in the area for generations (and a handful for centuries) so many properties have private family cemeteries on them – but alas for the Reynolds, they’ll only be discovered if we ever break ground for a house or something.
Dad’s latest project is bee-keeping. And those little guys are prolific, we have several pounds of wild honey stored in the basement.
That J. and I have puppy lust is already well documented, but he compounded the problem by spending the entire vacation playing with Mika, supplanting all of us in her affections by tummy rubs, sneaking her treats, and taking her for runs. The man needs a dog. We also went out to play with Maxi and Niney, the dogs on our property to keep it deer and bear free. Oh, and a bear apparently lives in a copse behind a house just up the street from my parents and likes to set all the neighborhood pets off at night by wandering around.
One of the dogs frolicking.
A week of doing next to nothing means that in the eternal balance of things, I’m now absolutely swamped at work. The continued lack of a replacement for Officer Lampost really is affecting my ability to work as effectively as I would like (which is a much less whiny way of saying that I had a twenty minute lunch break on Monday and Tuesday, and still had to stay after a full two hours on the latter to just get through my list of things to do). Vacation is over, friends, and no mistake! Luckily, I’m working on a few projects I’m really interested in and my work seems to be impressing several of my bosses, so onward towards Christmas, minions.
“I need to ask you to come over and clean my house,” Chief exclaimed when he saw my outfit today.
“Sir?”
“You’re supposed to be a cleaner, right? Or a housekeeper?”
Quoth I, cheerfully but not without a bit of spice, “I am the exact opposite of a housekeeper.”
J. managed to use that tree to “Popeye” my forearm a bit. We are neither of us photographers.
“I’ll bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.”
~Author Unknown
People really get into the spirit of Halloween on our humble campus, and what’s really valued is creativity. No “sexy Mrs. Potato Heads” here if you please, we want to see you come up with something clever! And I fail almost every time to remember my camera. Some bloggers live to Instagram, kittens, and I struggle with not dropping smartphones. C’est la vie.
So far I’ve seen:
Ash Ketchem and Pikachu (of Pokemon fame), couples costume
The Doctor (as interpreted by David Tennant)
Zombies, as a group
A spider
Robin Hood
A wizard
Snow White
A bumblebee
Far too many girls in cat ears with whiskers drawn on their face
Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz
Minnie Mouse
At least three people with name tags reading “Maybe”
A Lego brick
Dressing up is something I still love and plan on enjoying until age and infirmity take me. This year I’m Rosie the Riveter. We’ll see if we get around to documenting it. We can do it!
“Halloween is huge in my house and we really get into the ‘spirits’ of things.”
~Dee Snider
Thanks, Ned.
It snowed for the first time the other day, and I’ve had to scrape off the car two days in a row. As George R.R. Martin would quip, winter is coming! We’re less than a week away from November, which means less than a month until we spend a week with my clan for Thanksgiving! Marie and her husband James might be spending the holiday with us (you will recall that I forcibly kidnapped them and forced them to spend Christmas with us last year – or just invited them, whatever…), and Gio will be in town as well. I cannot wait! But, as I’m forever lecturing, one holiday at a time, let’s enjoy the last week of October and its black and orange drenched goodness first. I found some Halloween-ish links for you this week, minions, enjoy!
Halloween is next week, but goodness those vendors are all afire to get their Christmas decor up, eh? If you insist on skipping holidays, minions, let’s at least keep the food traditional.
I’ve been in Paris many times before…but now I must go back.
Mum lived in Japan as a girl and collects Asian antiques and pieces to this day, so I’ve always appreciated the art. I especially like the woodblock tradition…although (in the spirit of Halloween) I’ve got to be honest, these sort of give me the willies.
The National Trust has about a million Pintrest boards, but this one is seasonal appropriate, I feel.
“An inherent cultural passion for things that went boom, perhaps.” – Louis McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign
I’m at work today kittens, this is one of our busiest days of the year on account of the parades, local events, and stadium fireworks show.
If we judge by history, at least one police officer will be hit by a car this evening – due to the fact that people turn into jerks when told they can’t jump the line to get out of the parking lot ahead of the fifteen thousand other cars. Seventeen people will try to bring their firearms into the stadium and throw a fit when they are turned away. Five thousand mothers will try to bring outside food in and their children will throw fits when we tell them they cannot. Four fistfights will breakout twixt fans of different sports team persuasions. Twenty five people will be arrest for public intoxication. Three small fire will be started from poorly monitored firecrackers.
And a partridge in a pear tree.
Actually, I love July 4th. I like picnics with friends, getting out in the summer sun, the local fairs and parades that spring up everywhere, getting to a park early to claim a comfy spot of grass with blankets, and watching fireworks. But I’d be lying if I said that July 4th didn’t bring out some unfortunate behavior that I wish didn’t get slathered with a veneer of patriotism. Drunk and disorderly is still drunk and disorderly, and slurring, “You carn arressssst muh, ‘s a frey country!” is not a legal defense.
On a more practical note, be careful with the fireworks, kittens. Half the country is already on fire.
“New Year’s Day – now is the accepted time to make your annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.” – Mark Twain
Hello and Happy New Year, kittens! I have missed our little chats, and I’m sure I should be sorry for neglecting you, but the truth is, I’m not. Not in the slightest. I spent nearly two weeks in Virginia with all my siblings (for once!), my parents, Marie and her husband (who spent Christmas with us, aren’t I lucky?), and my husband. Marie took pictures, and thank goodness because I never remember to, go check them out. There was shameless amounts of cuddling, lots of games, and way too much food. Perfect.
The boys went shooting, J. and I spent a couple of days helping Dad clear the land (our “estate” is looking more impressive all the time) and playing with the dogs, and the girls baked up a storm. We watched movies, slept late, and dined when we damn well pleased. The Christmas Eve roast was perfect, as were the pies. J. was conscripted for some heavy labor in moving some furniture around for my parents, whose collection of Asian antiques still is Not Quite Right, even after two years of shuffling it all around (to say nothing of that tiny little earthquake a while back), and helping Dad hang the two deer he and Buddy bagged from the rafters of the garage. It was lovely.
On New Year’s Day Gio drove us to D.C. and we had a lovely evening out on the town with Peregrine, who graciously put us up for the night and took us to the airport the next morning. Seeing her always does me good. She’s a city girl extraordinaire who took us to one of José Andrés’ amazing restaurants, who she claimed spiritually “communes with Brussels sprouts,” and as usual, she was right. If ever you get the pleasure of dining there, try them roasted. Trust me.
Now I’m back at home, again husbandless but still happy. You know it’s been a good vacation when going back to work after a day spent in the airports doesn’t seem entirely like drudgery. I have a refrigerator to stock, friends to see, and things to do. My life, for all that I complain about it is very, very good and I’m lucky to have it.
So, here’s to good holidays, good friends, good times, and hopefully a good year in 2012. And here’s to you, ducklings. Better, cleverer, funnier, lovelier minions there never were. Small Dog and Co. wish you all the best. Let’s keep up the adventures in 2012.
“I’ve got the brain of a four year old. I’ll bet he was glad to be rid of it.” – Groucho Marx
Apparently, without my knowledge, consent, or approbation, my brain has thrown up its metaphorical hands and decided it’s going on holiday now, the next five days be damned.
My Christmas shopping is done, the presents are (mostly) wrapped, many of them have gone out in the mail, the place card holders for Pieter and Sadie’s wedding are done, and the list of things for her bacherlorette party is done. “Therefore,” my brain thought decisively to itself, “I am done. There is nothing else that I am taking care of until January, and you can’t make me!”
The symptoms of this revolt have been acute and worrying. I tried to do some last minute shopping in Barnes and Nobel the other day when I suddenly felt tired. Spying one of the rarely vacant armchairs was unoccupied, I sat down for a second. Five minutes later I woke up (gasping and clutching my purse in belated panic), but unscathed.
Yesterday I got a quick lunch with a co-worker, which I couldn’t finish so I decided to save in the department fridge for lunch today. This morning, I woke up thinking I’d forgotten to pack a lunch the night before and dashed around the kitchen trying to throw things together at the last moment. Only to get to work and remember that I have a lunch date with Savvy today. So I have a carton of Chinese food and a tupperware of chicken soup sitting pretty in the break room that will just have to come back home with me today.
I’ve lost my keys in my own hand and my glasses on my head. I’ve gone to the library to return things, only to to realize I’ve left the books on the kitchen table. I walk into rooms and completely space why I entered them in the first place.
It’s grim, possums. A vacation is clearly required. Two more days of work, one wedding, and I can check out. In the meantime, is anyone else sliding into a holiday coma, or have I just well and truly shorted out?
Small Dog Syndrome 