Christmas Past

So, this is just a quick one. We had a nice Christmas, but there are things I would do differently next year:

1. I will take my own advice (see earlier post entitled "Christmas is Murder....").

2. I won't give Comet so many gifts at once. It's too much for a kid to absorb, let alone appreciate. Some of his current haul could leave the house right now and he'd never miss it. Next year, a few presents on Christmas day and "gift certificates" for a couple of toys later in the year.

3. Comet's stocking was too stuffed, so less stuff next year.

4. It will be a gift card Christmas for people who don't live in my house. I tried to cool it down this year, but I still ran around too much.

5. I will buy gifts that are nearly weightless for my mother-in-law and those who live far away and wouldn't appreciate a gift card. Then I can mail the gifts from my very own mailbox. Also, the gifts will be small and easier to wrap.

6. I will try e-cards, except for my older friends and relatives who are not on the internet. I am not an e-card fan, but I'm going to try it. All that writing and stamping. Oy. It was a bit much this year.

7. I am scheduling a trip during the loooooooong holiday off from school. We can visit the mother-in-law in Florida, go to Spain. I don't care. Mama Gusta is wore out from all the kid time and play date scheduling. Gameguy to the rescue!

8. I will stick to my rule to only bake the important cookies: Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread cookies and Fruit and Nut Cookies. The other cookies I made this year (macaroons, chocolate shortbread, anise drops) were good, but no one needs five kinds of cookies in the house and I'll also save time on clean up.

9. I will sell my very soul not to get snowed in! We had about two feet of snow and it really threw off my holiday game, which is easily thrown off in any case.

10. Most importantly, I will take more naps and go to bed earlier all year long so that I will be fresh when the Festive Holiday Season rolls around once more.

That about sums it up. Peace out.

2009: The Year in Review

2009 was a pretty good year for Mama Gusta:

Comet is a super kindergartener and continues to delight (most of the time). He is growing and growing up.

GameGuy has remained his own sweet, handsome, extremely witty self, and I still think I got the best one (of the men).

Except for continuing saga my sassafrassin' burst disk and the chronic pain in the (nearly) ass of it, plus a few bumps and bruises and occasional vomit, we had our health! Most important thing.

We moved to house that I LOVE in the same city/county that I LOVE! Our old house was lovely, but I did not LOVE it. Also, we have a community pool here and that spells daily summer activity for Comet!

I kept off 25 big ones (pounds).

I started volunteering a Comet's school, and I really like it.

The cats are still in good health and seem to like their now homes.

And, I don't want to say "best of all" but it often feels like it: We can mix our recyclables in with our trash because there is a new plant the separates them on site! I bless them every time I toss something in the trash or don't have to contemplate washing out a peanut butter jar! Hey, a gift's a gift!

So, adios, 2009! Thanks for the memories!


I don't do resolutions because I'm too rebellious to even follow my own advice, but here's what I'd like to see happen/do in 2010:

I want to be back pain free, through exercise, witch doctory, or even surgery. This is too much already. I am also going to get a few personal training sessions to strengthen my gol darned core which is letting me down!

I want to go to a foreign country. I have never been. I think I would like to go to England, but a Caribbean cruise would do nicely. I wanna go, go, go!

I want to have myself hypnotized and take the GRE--okay, I'll study, too. This will help me toward becoming a kindergarten teacher or at least and aide, plus, I will have taken the GRE. Just typing the letters makes me start to hyperventilate.

I want to be happier about what I have to be happy about.

Welcome, 2010! Let's have a good one!

the peanut gallery

My friend, Globetrotter's mom was a substitute teacher for many years and she says that when children are in school "parents have no secrets." Let's extend that maxim to a play date Comet is currently enjoying with an ultra-cool kid I'll call VH:

VH: My Dad did the funniest April Fool's thing.
Mama Gusta: Oh, yeah? What did he do?
VH: He made fake candy!
Mama Gusta: What did he make it out with?
VH: Poop!

Remind me not to accept any Spring dinner invitations from the VH's! GameGuy can't believe it's true and since I don't know the people, I can't render a judgement/guess. But it makes you wonder. It also makes me wonder what little out of context tidbits Jules is sharing with his classmates and what kind of impression we are making on their parents. The fair thing to do would be to chalk the anecdote up to VH's fanciful, five year-old brain and give the dad the benefit of the doubt.

All I know is that when VH's dad comes over to pick him up, I won't be shaking hands.

My holiday music hit list and sh*t list

Lately, I find I have many strong opinions on a variety of topics and I need to eon express them. Since I am currently either choosing to listen to or being bombarded by Christmas music, I feel the need to create my own hit/sh*t list for music I like and music that I want to have banned.

Mama Gusta's 2009 Hit List:

1. Deck the Halls - I'm always happy to hear this one, no matter who sings it, no matter how they decide to sing it. It just makes me feel festive.

2. The Twelve Days of Christmas - I used to sing this with my mother in the car and now I sing it to Comet until he tells me "don't sing that anymore, please."

3. All Christmas songs sung by Lou Rawls. He just seems to be having so much fun. I want to his Christmas party.

Mama Gusta's Holiday Sh*t List:

1. The (frickin') Carol of the (frickin') Bells. Oh.My.God. There's nothing like a rousing rendition of this carol when you are in a crowd and feeling the holiday tension. If anyone runs amok at a mall this year, this will be the song that will be playing when it happens.

2. A Charlie Brown Christmas. The whole album. Downer. Charlie Brown, himself, is a big downer. Even I wouldn't be able to be nice to him.

3. All songs sung by children or the childish, including:

-I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas. (Just shut up)
-All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth. (Merry Crith-muth, indeed.)
-Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (Try explaining the lyrics of this winner to
a five year-old while trying to drive in traffic.)

And if that's not enough, I have two more categories:

Funniest holiday song title: For Christ's Sake It's Christmas (This tune is on "Merry Christmas Strait to You," by a great country performer, George Strait. Does he know this is funny? Does he know my mother said this every year, and she was wasn't singing?

Best cd to laugh to: Bob Dylan's Christmas in the Heart. It's so awful that it's hilarious. Imagine if the demon from the Exorcist crashed a Christmas album recording session. My friend Globetrotter read a review that said Dylan's "I'll be Home for Christmas' sounds like a threat." It really, really does! Also hilarious is that the deluxe version of the CD comes with Christmas cards. What the???

And if I haven't done enough for you already, I have two brief CD reviews (opinions):

Sting - Winter: Three lively tunes and many draggy songs with weird-y vocals. I also never got over the liner notes that began, "Sting's favorite season is Winter..." Thank God I know for sure, now. What about his favorite color? Of all the! Just thank me for buying the CD and liven it up a little, Gordon (Sting's real name is Gordon).

Straight No Chaser - Christmas Cheers: Lively and fun acapella. That's all I want from Christmas songs. "Make me happier, and don't antagonize me," I say to them. Don't bring me down, Sting.

Down in Mary's Land

I don't want to brag, but my town has its share of famous people. Over the many years I've lived here I've seen Jessica Lange, Sam Shepherd, Wallace Shawn, Dave Matthews (before he was famous) and Boyd Tinsley (after). I've seen Sissy Spacek numerous times. Once I was standing behind her in line in the restroom at a movie theater (yes, apparently movie stars do, too). The Virginia Film Festival also brings many celebrities to town. I've seen Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, Ann Margaret, Robert Duval and the girl with the gorgeous, long red hair from "Head of the Class." To name just a few. What I'm trying so hard to say is that I can handle seeing a celebrity. I have never asked for an autograph or said one word to any famous person I've seen in the flesh (except one). If we made eye contact I would smile and nod politely. If I was in the audience while they were introducing a film, I clapped politely at the appropriate times.

That's all in the past because today at Whole Foods I saw the BEST celebrity! I heard she had moved here but I forgot. I was practicing my weird, circuitous shopping style, having to backtrack to get a product I forgot (again), and I looked up and saw a woman who looked very familiar to me. It took me a few minutes to realize that a.) I had never worked with her and b.) she was not the mother of some Comet-aged kid that I'd seen in a million places over the last five years. No. It was Mary Chapin Carpenter! The idol of my late twenties/early thirties. Many of her songs were my personal theme songs. Oh, how I loved her!

So here's where I diverged from my usual Cool Hand Lucy approach to the famous. I think I was actually wringing my hands while I was trying to get up the nerve to approach her and say something like "I love your music" or "you are so great!" I even had an insane moment when I thought, "I know, I can catch her eye and just mouth 'I love you!' It was an internal tug-of-war between the oh-my-god-it's-M-C-C me who wanted to touch her and the be-cool me thinking, "Let the woman buy her chicken....is she buying the free range?" and "She deserves to buy her layered Mexican dip in peace just like those of us who don't have gold records." I was a mess. The whole time I was in the store, I was aware of her presence. I even watched her check out, which isn't as creepy as it sounds because I was checking out at another register at the time.

But I really am cool about celebrities! Remember I said that I talked to one celebrity? Once, about fifteen years ago, I met Peter Frampton. He was performing in town and a friend of mine was writing an article on him for the local paper. She invited me to come along and when we went to interview him on his tour bus, he held out his hand and said, "Hello,(my name here), I'm Peetahh Frahhhhmpton." I shook his hand and was totally cool about it. So cool. (In the interest of full disclosure, however, I must say that it had been nearly twenty years since he made my heart throb and also, I was starving and there was this amazing platter of sandwiches right behind him. Also, he was much tinier than I ever imagined. But I was cool.)

P.S. An hour or so after my celebrity sighting, it occurred to me that maybe I had just seen someone who *looked* like Mary Chapin Carpenter. I haven't seen a picture of her in years. I laughed out loud in the super store aisle I was prowling. Can you imagine if she was just a person who resembled MCC and she noticed this crazy lady, frozen in her tracks by the frozen food, staring at her expectantly? Then to look up from signing her receipt at the checkout and notice that the SAME nut was standing on tiptoes trying to get a look at her? What if I had mouthed, "I love you" to some regular person? Oh, how I amuse myself. But I swear to God, it really was her!

It's not easy being green or how I'm saving the world frog by frog

A month or so ago, Comet attended a program at the local children's museum about frogs. He went into the activity room with all the kids and a frog expert and when he came out, he presented me with a card listing a number of ways to save the frogs (savethefrogs.com). Frogs are in desperate need of saving, it turns out. Ironically, the card was laminated. I can't remember what all of the points were, and I haven't looked at the website, but I do remember three:

1. Don't eat frog's legs (duh!).
2. Don't buy exotic frogs to keep as pets (right on).
3. Don't buy water in disposable plastic bottles (I'm not sure why, but okay).

It turns out I am ahead of the game. I have never eaten a frog's leg or any other part of a frog, as far as I know. I never have, nor do I ever intend to keep an exotic frog in my home. Looks like I've been saving frogs all my life, effortlessly! The third point, regarding the disposable plastic bottles, involvw occasional personal sacrifice. Since the frog lecture, I have been making an effort to bring a reusable water bottle to the gym and keep one in the car. Today, when I thought of having a delicious fizzy spring water with a hint of lime and raspberry at the grocery store, I restrained myself because it comes in a big ol' plastic bottle. Save the Frogs is a cause I can wrap my head around. I'm not supposed to save the whole ENVIRONMENT, which is just too big to think about and makes me want to forget the whole thing. No. I'm helping to save one type of cute amphibian. To simplify it even more for my overtaxed brain, I like to think I am saving one frog each time I bring my own water in a Nalgene bottle.

On a lighter and extremely local note, Gameguy has been saving frogs and he never even heard about Save the Frogs. As the keeper of our tiny pond, Gameguy learned the hard way that we have tadpoles. He was scooping the fall foliage out of the pond and noticed that he was also scooping out tadpoles. He saved the ones he could and even stopped scooping out the leaves. Go, Gameguy! Also, there is a frog that resides in the pond filter, and Gameguy always makes sure to help him get back into the filter area after he cleans it out. Talk about keeping it local! My man is saving a particular frog. I'm naming that filter frog. Jeremiah, I think.

My Minifesto

Anyone who knows me is probably not surprised that its come to this. I have decided to write down my not very negotiable beliefs and nail them to the Internet's front door. Being adverse to anything long winded, I'll be brief:

1. Everyone residing the U.S. should have enough to eat, adequate clothing and housing, access to education, medical care and medicine. Even, gasp, illegal aliens or other ostracized groups who are not living as they *should* live. I believe that our country's worth is measured in how well we treat everyone who lives here. We could even throw in a capitalistic spin and allow people with more money to enhance the goods and services they receive by paying extra. (Did Obama already say this about health care? I try not to read or hear the news beyond the weather and fun upcoming events, so my ideas are usually fermented from things I see in vitro and my own personal feelings about what I think is fair.)

2. I'm willing to go even further! All feminine hygiene products, toilet paper, diapers, baby wipes, soap, shampoo (feel free to add more), and anything that all or half of the populace have to use at some point in their lives should be provided free or at an extremely low price to all persons residing in the United States. Why should someone have to work for three or four hours just to take advantage of the lower price per diaper of a large box of diapers? It's unjust! Again, those with more money could upgrade to Pampers Ultra or maxi-pads with "wings." Knock yourself out!

So, all who agree, lets' get on this!

Disclaimer: Though I grew up in poverty (minus hunger), now I am a white, middle-aged, middle class, educated woman who lives in a house that is too big and is sucking the life out of the earth even as I type. I have way too much stuff and seem to accumulate more every day and I'm even considering plastic surgery to lift up my eyelids so that I no longer resemble the bald eagle from The Muppet Show. I'm pretty frivolous. That said, I'm entitled to my opinion, so there.

Snow Day!

People kept telling me it was going to snow today, but I didn't believe them. Maybe that's because it almost never snows around here. Except today! The woods are beautiful and Comet has boots that fit! Lovely!

Of course, skeptic that I am, I didn't buy any milk yesterday when it was less treacherous, so I had to go out and brave the elements. Driving down the road, I was trying to decide whether to cut my losses and go to Food Lion and deal with the possible "get outta my way lady, I've got five kids at home and they're not going to beat themselves" vibe or take a chance and drive up the highway to Whole Foods and risk the "inorganic apples are okay for people like you/kiss my natural fibers" looks you can get there. Actually, I like both stores on different days and mostly all of the people are courteous and kind and I'm just trying to be funny, anyway. It is true, however, that the checkers at Food Lion are often teenagers who move like sloths trying not to break a nail. Today I chose Food Lion and they had everything and my checker was fast, though surly. She was a grown woman with things on her mind. She had her reasons.

We braved the snow so that Comet could attend a classmate's birthday party and he had a good time with all of his buddies. We came home and made a Christmas town and power bracelets (not *real* ones) and all in all, had a nice day. Tomorrow, it will probably be and "ice" day, and by afternoon, the snow will scattered patches in the woods.

Cheer up!

There's a new song to accompany the downward spiral of depression! This year it's an extremely draggy and morose version of, "Daydream Believer." I heard while I was shopping at Tuesday Morning and it made me want to kill myself with a deeply discounted Waterford crystal candlestick. It was that painful. Somebody besides sleepy Jean needs to cheer up or at least pick up the tempo. The Monkees called and they are not amused.

What else? So, now I have over-shopped and have returns to make. I should keep it simple. Comet asked for a transformer motorcycle thing and two tinker toys (to replace the two I accidentally stepped on when he left them in the middle of the floor). I now have an argosy of plastic riches hidden away in my closet. Now I have to do my least favorite thing (one of my least favorite, anyway). I have to go back to sassafrassin' Toys R Us and return things!

Maybe I'll just sing a dreary round of "Daydream Believer" and call it a day.

Hum and Bug

I do this every year. I decide to get a jump on Christmas by shopping early, getting the cards, beating the rush. I'm all Christmas-y and buying trinkets and planning how I'm going to decorate and what I'm going to bake. Then on say, December 3, I am so over it. I say to myself, "Ugh! Is it still frickin' Christmas? When will it EVER END! Why must "they" torture me?????" I really need to chill out. (I should point out that I'm not traditionally religious, so I have no real anchor for my holiday beliefs.)

I have been trying to exercise more and eat less sugar to keep my mood in check. I'm acing the exercise, but the sugar just keeps sneaking in, right behind the salt and grease. How can you pass up pumpkin ice cream, ever? Must....be...more....vigilant!. Hey, there's a cookie in my mouth and I don't know how it got there! And so it goes.

Time for some sappy old Christmas movies or, and I'm embarrassed about this: re-runs of holiday-themed TV shows. They make me so feel so happy and filled to the brim with yuletide cheer! How ridiculous in a grown woman! Maybe it's the encapsulated nature of TV holidays. They have a holiday dilemma, they fix it or the live with it and laugh about it, and it's all over in a half an hour. What am I saying? It's over in twenty minutes without commercials! Now that's my kind of holiday.

I'm sure I will rally, shortly, but until then, just call me Scroogette.

Stuff

I have been wondering about something. If we split up everything in the world equally between all the people in the world, would there be enough for everyone? I'm talking food, clothing, shelter, medicine, the works. I wonder what each person would end up with? Who would get my cat?

Comet (the five year-old boy) went off to school this morning without incident. Before he left, he said "I need two cans of food to bring to school so that we (his class of 20) can reach forty and be finished." Charity thrives on competition in kindergarten. He wanted to know if the chicken soup and canned pineapples I gave him were good for you and what they gave your body. I'm sure he is proudly displaying his contribution even as I type.

I have been feeling disturbed lately. More than usual, about people who don't have enough to eat or wear or whatever. It seems so real now that I see children in these circumstances when I go to my son's school. I make my little contributions, but I am still very bothered, as I should be, about people, especially kids, going without the basics. I don't think that should be possible in the United States, even during a recession. I really don't.

The bells! The bells! The bells!

Yes, it's the Christmas season again, and it's a good thing the Salvation Army bell ringers are out in force because I never would have noticed what time of year it was without the ear-splitting clanging of those bells from hell. I mean, I know the Salvation Army does good things, at least I think they do, but could they lay off with the mad bell ringers? How about a little soft Christmas music and the guy/lady at the kettle saying, just audibly "please support the Salvation Army, if you feel like it." That is my Christmas wish!

Actually, I've come up with quite a few things for my Christmas list, but when it gets down to the real chestnuts of the matter, it's the opening of the gifts that's the fun part! I want for nothing, but the thrill of tearing open lavish packages, ooohing and aaahing and then moving on to the next beribboned box! I playfully suggested to Gameguy (husband) that we have a "unwrap it and return it" Christmas. He was (playfully) in favor of it. Anyone could "have" any present they wanted as long as the giver kept the receipt! I'd be popping on over the the local Lincoln dealership and picking up a Town Car for my baby. He could drive it when we were taking it back to the dealership on December 26th.. Hmmm...I wonder if this is really possible? If my "unwrap it then return it" plan caught on, can you imagine the economic havoc? "Black Friday Sales Up 1000% from 2008!" Followed by "Economy at Point of No 'Return' as Shoppers Rush Back With Their Presents." Okay, bad idea. And also, I lied. I want to keep my presents.