Ah, the irony...

Ok, the last post was just slaving for mturk again. Still catching up since the holidays. The title of this post refers to my in-laws. They got me the book A Year Without Made in China, which was a surprisingly appropriate and thoughtful gift, considering my Buy American leanings (are liberals allowed to have those? Ah, another topic entirely. Anyway.) and my complaints about how so many things today are such junk, and so on.

Then they gave my daughter a doll, whose leg broke off with very little prompting right on Christmas Eve. There was an amazing trauma and they promised to take her to the doll hospital and get her fixed (ie secretly replaced). Apparently they mucked with it so much, rather than just return it, that they figured the store would blame them and they, amazingly, bought a whole new one instead. THEN, the day they gave it to us, right after we got home, gosh, what do you know, its leg broke off, just like the first one. More child traumas. I wanted to break some legs and I don't mean the doll's...This was beyond ridiculous, so we promised to get her crutches or some such and taped her leg back on and she has mostly laid in the doll bed since then, ignored.
At least stuffed animals don't break so easily but people could really lay off giving those, too.

Time to break out that sewing machine and make the memorable sort of toys and clothes that my grandmother made us....

Great new job listing site

Hey, check it out--SellingCrossing aka Employment Crossing. They have over a million sales-related and other job listings free for the browsing. The search options seem pretty helpful, too.

Christmas Eve and missing my Dad...

He was the fun one to buy for, detective novels, the latest Craftsman tool gadget...
We lost him to cancer 7 years ago, a year before his granddaughter was born. I so much regret that he could not be a big part of her life. These are those supposedly magical years for her and it feels so lacking in so many ways. We can hope she doesn't notice I guess...

Everyone else must like this more than I do...

Sending Christmas/holiday cards, that is. It was far easier when I was just the name after the ampersand on my parents' cards. I have been sending my own since, I guess, living on my own before getting married. I think I enjoy it less every year but keep it up because it's expected and seems Scrooge-like not to. Some aunts are more thrilled by getting our child's picture than we are, I think.

Mostly it reminds me how so many people who used to be classmates/friends/drinking buddies are reduced to a yearly piece of paper and no personal contact at all. We mean to call, but everyone gets so wrapped up in their own lives I guess...

It depresses me how it's still just the three of us while everyone else seems to have another rugrat on their card every year. We are still hoping that will change before it's too late, but who can say.

It makes sad how many cards I don't send, but used to, to all the now-departed relatives. And how many of the cards are to just 'Mrs' instead of both now.

"Happy" holidays...?

Alcohol Acquisition Interlude

A bout of Christmas shopping brought to my notice Bundaberg Ginger Beer at Cost Plus. Yes, the non-alcoholic kind, like strong ginger ale. We first had Bundaberg Rum in Australia in '94 and still have a few precious drops from the bottles we brought back. (Mix those two beverages for a Dark and Stormy, yum). I hadn't recalled that they are Australia's biggest sugar producer.

I have wondered on occasion if/when they'd ever export to the U.S.. No rum so far, but anything is a start. That required one of our occasional pitstops at Sam's. No rum yet. But we did find Tooheys Beer, another Aussie product we hadn't had since being there.

And also two newly available offerings from Abita Brewing, just on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans (which merits endless blogging on its own)--Christmas Ale and Jockamo IPA.

And since the spouse dude has a cool Belgian beer glass for our quality tastings, I picked up a gift pack of Tripel Karmeliet, which I really like, with a really cool glass in it. (They have a website registered in with an ISP in Belgium but not active yet. That's ok, you can make beer for a couple centuries and don't have to be on the cutting edge of technology, too. :)) Again, much yum.

Fish First Aid

After the recent bunny crisis, I am even more paranoid than usual about our remaining pets (Rascal the rabbit and Nemo and Donkey th goldfish; yes, you can guess who named the latter two). We are watching the neighbor's two goldfish, also, while they are away and the one was having trouble staying away from the top of the water and swimming hard. I suspected swim bladder problems and reminded myself of the the suggested remedies. That consisted of adding some salt to the water, raising its temperature a little bit and feeding non-flake food. I did all that and went to bed with fingers crossed. This morning Brownie is fine, and trailing a poop as long as his body. Yes, constipation can also cause those problems. Another minor crisis averted. Now back to our regularly scheduled life. No wait, this IS that, I forget...

Life is what happens while you're making other plans, for sure

7.30 Get Up
7.45 Eat cereal standing at kitchen counter
8.00 Do computer work at home
9.30 Surf web for Christmas ideas for child
10.30 Play with child
11.00 Get child ready for school
11.15 Walk child to school
11.3o Go to place of volunteer computer work
2.30 Realize quick hour or two of network silliness isn't so quick
4.00 Drive home
4.15 Snarf roasted red pepper dip and pretzels, realizing there was no lunch
4.30 Drop child off at karate class
4.45 Stop by mother's house with gifts bought for her to give husband.
5.15 Back to karate
6.00 Bring child home
6.15 Make dinner for child, snarf food again
6.30 Check email to find out 8:00 nature group meeting is cancelled.
7.00 Read new work email requiring work on unexpected project that is due Monday. Rant about boss.

8.00 Post this. Surf for more Christmas gift ideas. Debate whether to start on work project or open wine. One guess as to the winner....