Yucky Salad with Bones

December 31 '06

New Year's Eve, 8:51 pm...she sat in front of her television, wrapped in the gigantic "Starsky" sweater she got at a Kiosk featuring Native American-inspired knitwear in the winter of '91. She liked to imagine it made her look dwarfed and adorable, sort of like how Juliana Marguiles always looked on ER whenever her character was portrayed at home (remember? Always curled up in a comfy pair of jammies on her couch, a helpless little church-mouse sipping on a cup of herbal tea?) but knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she really just looked like a grizzly bear who'd stumbled into Steven Segal's closet. 'The Producers' was on cable, the movie inspired by the stage production inspired by the movie. The new one. Terrible, but changing the channel would've meant bending down and feeling around on the floor, which seemed like a monumental amount of work at the moment. Her five-year-old daughter skipped into the room, chocolate running down her chin.

"Cnfoomaymesupoforn?" The girl asked.

Well trained in mouth-stuffed-with-food-kidspeak, she recognized this request as "Can you make me some popcorn?" and answered "Yes, sweetie, as soon as this movie is over," vaguely thinking she should really put the child in bed, but what the heck, it was New Year's Eve. Popcorn sounded pretty good, which was more than she could say for Matthew Broderick's voice. It couldn't possibly have sounded that bad on the stage, could it? The show was a huge hit, fer cryin' out loud.

She thought about the year that had passed and how blessed she was to be beginning another one, even if her sweater was distinctly unflattering. No major goals had been reached, no great monetary gains had been made, a few more lines had poppped up on her face and she still couldn't figure out why her toilet kept overflowing, but it had been a good year in her own little corner of the universe. She hoped and prayed for the same in '07, and for the rest of the world to be able to enjoy the same type of peace and tranquil, non-Earth shaking variety of happiness that God had bestowed on her and her family. She started humming "My Grown-up Christmas Wish" but her gag reflex kicked in, a reminder that sometimes you just have to embrace your limitations and remember that if she got too sappy, regular readers would get confused.

December 28 '06

I got this off Mitch's page: I love this stuff!

1. Was 2006 a good year for you?

Yes. Everyone in my family is gainfully employed (it's been a long time coming), my kiddies are healthy and happy and so are all my nieces and nephews...it's wonderful to see the older ones turning into fantastic, creative, contributing adults. And we all got to celebrate my parents' 50th together, a big fat shout out to God, Yo!

2. What was your favorite moment(s) of the year?

Watching my son pass his black belt test, sitting on my folks' deck telling stories of our childhood with all the people who came to celebrate their anniversary, sailing on a catamaran in the Gulf of Mexico with Miguel and the babies

3. What was your least favorite moment(s) of the year?

The same as everyone else's, of course, Brokeback Mountain getting screwed out of a Best Picture Oscar!! No really, it's a tie between hearing that Vince and Jen had broken up and Chris Daughtry getting booted off AI.

4. What did you do in 2006 that you’d never done before?

Look, this a family blog. Let's just say there was a chicken involved.

5. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

No.

6. Where were you when 2006 began?

That wasn't me with my shirt off at the Soul Asylum concert, if that's what you're getting at.

7. Who were you with?

What are you, a cop?

8. Where will you be when 2006 ends?

Unless things improve dramatically, in bed with some theraflu.

9. Who will you be with when 2006 ends?

Miguel

10. Did anyone close to you give birth?

OMG, I was at Dreamgirls the other day? Which was awesome, by the way, and I'm sitting there trying to soak up Eddie Murphy's scorching performance when all of a sudden this chick next to me is all "I dun feel so good", and she starts grunting and groaning and shrieking "Call 911!" and she pops out a kid, right there in her seat. I was like "Dude, clean that mess up, I'm trying to watch Miss Beyonce and it smells like a slaughter house in here!" Some people.

11. Did you lose anybody close to you in 2006?

I finally ditched the Dreamgirls babyhaver, if that's what you mean. She kept asking me to hold it and I didn't shake her until I hid behind the popcorn counter.

12. Who did you miss?

I miss Star Jones.

13. Who was the best new person you met in 2006?

Jennifer Hudson. I didn't actually meet her, but she introduced herself to me in a big way.

14. What was your favorite month of 2006?

I was really close to March, but then I found out it was talking about me behind me back so now it's October, which is a total burn because March and October have never gotten along.

15. Did you travel outside of the US in 2006?

16. How many different states did you travel to in 2006?

Two

17. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?

Botox

18. What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

November 18: Tomkat tied the knot.

19. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I don't know...to quote the wise beyond his pecs philosopher Matthew McConaughey, "Jes' keep livin..."

20. What was your biggest failure?

Hands down, when I forgot to put sugar in the blueberry coffeecake.

21. Did you suffer illness or injury?

No, thank God.

22. What was the best thing you bought?

His name was Juarez...6 feet of pure latin lovin'...I didn't think of him as a thing, though, I really saw him as a man, which I like to think set me apart from his other Janes.

23. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Would it be out of line for me to say a Mr. Don Cheadle?

24. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

You've seen that Michael Richards YouTube clip, right?

25. Where did most of your money go?

The dog track. I'm not proud of it.

26. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Dreamgirls, and I tell you what, it did not disappoint.

27. Did you drink a lot of alcohol in 2006?

What is that, a new bar or something? I drank most of my alcohol at home.

28. Did you do a lot of drugs in 2006?

Only OTC, and only when I'm sick. Like now.

29. Did you treat somebody badly in 2006?

I hope not.

30. Did somebody treat you badly in 2006?

On my birthday, Muzz was like "C'mon, Let's go out, I'll treat!" And then she forgot her wallet. Not really, I just made that up.

Truthfully, sure I had my share of slap in the face moments over the past year, but if they seemed like a big deal at the time, they don't now. Mostly because all those people are dead now and can never, ever hurt me again.

31. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder?

Holdin' steady. Billy Joel once said something in an interview that really resonated with me: he said he felt that contentment was underrated. Then he went out and wrapped his car around a tree, and that meade me laugh. My point is, every time a celebrity talks out his ass, I feel a little happier and an angel gets his wings.

ii. thinner or fatter? Thinner or fatter what?

iii. richer or poorer? Yes.

32. What do you wish you’d done more of in 2006?

Seen Brangelina on the cover of a magazine. I can't understand why they barely got any press.

33. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Seen young starlets' coochies while they climbed out of cars. That and too many funerals. Way too many people in my life left it this year.

34. Did you fall in love in 2006?

With Dreamgirls.

35. What was your favorite TV program(s)?

30 Rock, American Idol, Entourage

36. What song will always remind you of 2006?

"Over My Head" by The Fray

37. How many concerts did you see in 2006?

Three of four.

38. Did you have a favorite concert in 2006?

Rog Clyne at the Gothic in Denver. Billy saw that they opened for Soul Asylum in CA recently, and he'll never get over the fact that he missed it.

39. What was your greatest musical discovery?

That new Wiggle.

40. What was the best book you read?
Well it wasn't Anna Karenina, that's for damn sure. I read a lot of really crappy books this year. I honestly can't think of one I liked.

41. What was your favorite film of this year?

The Departed

42. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

38. Mike took me out to dinner, we were home by 8:30, we ate cake with the kids. Perfect.

43. What did you want and get?

Another year.

44. What did you want and not get?

I'm gonna change that to "what did you not want and get anyway?" and the answer has to do with number 22. At least it doesn't itch anymore.

45. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Oh, I'm a firm believer that everything can be measured. Especially love. It all comes down to how much was spent.

46. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?

May or may not have showered.

47. What kept you sane?

That's a joke, right?

48. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

That new Bond ain't exactly chopped liver.

49. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.

I'll leave that to Aaron Sorkin.

50. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

"So I'll make a resolution, that I'll never make another one...just enjoy this ride on my trip around the sun"...

December 21 '06

From Margy:

OK, I've given that recipe out to so many people that I've learned a few things: Most people don't know what you mean by big box of milk. They'll get the ridiculous makes 4 quarts size and think "Well, that's big." Or a tiny 7 oz thing of creamer and use half. They don't know you need 16 full oz. of creamer or your cocoa is going to suck. You have to be specific. My weekly batch this week, I sprinkled a little cinnamon right into the powder before I mixed it up. BJ had some and his eyes rolled back in his head. He described it as having cocoa and cookies all at once. mmmmmmmm.

No one will eat the peanut butter cookies Jeff insisted I make, with the fork marks in the top- because they are dry and sucky. Why, if you have the choice of plopping a chocolate kiss on the top or doing fork patterns, would you choose fork patterns? Try these, you'll LOVE them:

Oatmeal Lace Cookies

1 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
3 cups quick oats
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
Beat eggs, cream butter and sugars. Mix eggs into sugar, put in the rest. Cover baking sheets with parchment paper (you must do this, or you'll never get the cookies off the tray) Use scant teaspoonfuls of dough, these spread like mad and come out paper thin. Super yummy. 350 degrees for 7-10 minutes, depending on your oven. Let the cookies cool before you try to take them off the tray.

December 20 '06

From Heather:

Where the heck is Billy's column this week?
And don’t let him tell ya he's "too busy" at work.
I sit across from him and I promise you he hasn’t done sh*t since February.
This is all I have to look forward to on Tuesdays.
If you want me to slap him for not carrying his yucky salad weight just let me know.

"Hasn't done sh*t since February"...I do believe we've hit upon a name for young William's autobiography. (And a thank you to Heather for thoughtfully protecting the delicate sensibilities of the readership with the asterisk.)

Bill's reaction:

"Is that thing still going? People still read blogs?"

Heather, you just go ahead and slap the snot outta that.

Just finished two batches of cookies, some fudgy cherry thing I pulled out of a magazine and some I sort of made up, (took a basic shortbread recipe and dipped 'em in dark chocolate, I guess I can't really say I made that up, can I?) and they are both delicious. There goes my appetite. Remember when you were a kid and your mom was all "you'll ruin your dinner"?

A) I never knew what the hell she was talking about, for some reason I always thought that meant I'd spill a glass of water onto my plate or something, and that never happened. I wasn't especially hungry at dinnertime if I ate cookies after school, to be sure, but far be it from any of us to ever refuse a plate knowing full well we had to fill up when we could. There was no, "Oh I'll just eat something later" at our house. Pity the fool at the end of the grub line, especially if Andy was at the head of it circa '83-'85. When Andy hit tenth grade, he went to bed one night a 5'2", 98 lb weakling and woke up a mountain the next day. I swear it was that fast, and suddenly the dude needed like 10,000 calories a day just to keep from becoming anemic. Yep...Andy's growth spurt was really sumpin'...we're still waiting for Billy's. Burn! You've dissed the wrong blog, beeotch!

I don't have a 'B'. I did, but I forgot what it was.

Hope ya'll are ready for the upcoming holidays, I'm as ready as I'll ever be. If Santa hasn't gotten it yet, it ain't comin', you get me? This morning Meg said to me, "Oh, I have to make my list for Santa," and I looked at her and said, "Um, maybe I wouldn't bother so much if I were you", meaning not that she's getting squat but that the sleigh has left the barn, as it were. Now, let us not forget that Meg is in 6th grade and is hip to the whole Santa ruse. It's unspoken, of course, it's a very "I know that you know that I know that you know" situation, and I'm pretty sure she just said that to see if she could get me to have a panic attack.

This here is the best cocoa in the history of mankind, but a word of warning: don't let eight year old boys drink it past 4 pm or they won't fall asleep until the following Wednesday.

(I don't know where this recipe came from, I got it from my mom but I don't think it was originally hers.)

1 pound powdered sugar

1 container nestle quick

half a thing of coffee creamer (powdered)

a whole bunch of cocoa powder, depending how chocolaty you like it. I use about half the jar

1 big box powdered milk

mix all together in a huge bowl. Add to a cup of hot water to taste, use a lot. This makes a gigantic batch. Super good in coffee, too.

December 14 '06

click this. We need to get JP's IMDB score up. Just do it, for a sec, every time you read the salad. My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you.

I mentioned in a post a coupla months back that m'folks basically quit on the birthday presents early on in my childhood, which of course, made Christmas all the more important. It became the only time of year anybody got anything straight from the store shelves.

In addition to the stuff Santa brought us, we kids drew names amongst ourselves in what was commonly known as the “Kris Kringle” method, wherin we all put our names into a hat and then took turns picking them out. Whoever’s name you chose, you were obligated to present with a gift on Christmas Eve.

Kris Kringle gifts were meant to foster love and goodwill among us siblings. They’d start piling up under the tree about a week before Christmas, and if conventional wisdom tells us “The anticipation is half the fun!” then a peek into our house on Christmas Eve would reveal that crushing disappointment is the other half.

One year my sister Margy, after being told in no uncertain terms by my mother that she couldn’t open her gift until she had provided one for our brother Andy, whose name she’d drawn, went down into the basement and came back with a piece of wood nailed to an empty sewing spool. She then grudgingly shoved it into Andy’s hands and told him it was a boat. On the side of the boat the words “To Dad, Love Margy” had been hastily scratched out and replaced with a sloppy, “To Andy”.

I was Andy’s Kris Kringle for two years in a row.

The first year, I got him a plastic hockey stick from the local dime store. I thought it was a sure-fire winner, fer cryin' out loud; with the exception of Joe, all the boys were obsessed with hockey. We even had a boot-hockey rink in our back yard.

When I was in kindergarten, my parents blacktopped over the grass behind our house and sank a basketball hoop into one end. In the winter, my brothers spent hours erecting boards around the blacktopped area and then packing and smoothing the snow down until it was a perfect rink. They wouldn’t even let the rest of us walk across it. We had to go all the way around, negotiating huge snow-banks along the way, just to get to the garage on the other side.

That rink was legendary... it drew players from all over southwest Minneapolis. Every Thanksgiving the boys held a tournament called, appropriately, the Turkey Trot. Four member teams played single elimination all morning and the winning team received, as a trophy, an old toilet Joe found in our basement. Mary Louise painted a turkey on the seat cover and the names of the winning teams from year to year on the inside.

What my eight-year-old brain didn’t understand was how important it is for a hockey player to pick out his own stick, even the plastic ones used on the boot-hockey rink.

I was so excited to give Andy that gift.

I fantasized that he’d carry me around on his shoulders, chanting that I was the World’s Greatest Sister and publicly apologizing for all the times he hid my shoes three minutes before it was time to leave for school.

I imagined all my other brothers would be seething with jealousy that I didn’t pick their names.

I also decided that this gift deserved better than to be shoved under the tree with its inferior counterparts, so I devised a scavenger hunt for it instead. Under the tree I put a box that said, “go look in the closet”, in the closet another note that said “go look in the cat’s bowl,” etc., until he was finally directed under my bed, where the plastic stick lay with a big red bow on it.

Unbeknownst to Andy, I was following him, so I saw that when he pulled the stick out and examined it, a look of supreme disgust spread over his face before he tossed it back down on the floor as though he had just handled dog poo.

In his defense, he was nine. Also in his defense, when he realized I’d seen his reaction, he grabbed it back up and raved about how much he loved it. The day after Christmas it went into the giant stick-box on my folks’ front porch, where it sat, untouched, for the next ten years.

I didn’t actually pick Andy’s name the next Christmas; I secretly requested it. The stick debacle haunted me and I was determined to make it right.

I decided to get him Rodan, a Shogun Warrior action figure I knew he’d wanted ever since he’d gotten the Mazinga figure from Santa the previous year.

Shogun Warriors were expensive. I think they retailed for about 30 dollars, and this was the late seventies.

I hinted to my mom, “I really want to get Andy the Rodan doll, so, you know, hopefully Santa won’t bring it for him…and mmm, it costs a lot, but I’ll get the ten bucks from Uncle Woody and then maybe, I don’t know, I could earn the rest or something…”

She got the drift and I was hired to dust our enormous banister every Saturday for 50 cents. I wouldn’t make all the dough by Christmas Eve, so I’d have to owe her the rest.

A week or so before Christmas, my mom took me to Clancy’s, the same dime store where I’d gotten the hockey stick the year before, to do my shopping.

Oh happy day! There, on an end-cap, was Rodan in all his glory, and he was on sale for $7.99. That, and the fact that this Rodan came in a rather small box should’ve been a red flag for me, but I was so excited at the thought of out-doing Santa while pocketing all my dusting money for myself, I wasn’t thinking clearly. Even my mother was skeptical.

“You’re sure this is what he wants?” She said, flipping the box over and giving it a quick look. It rattled in her hand.

“Yes! It’s Rodan! That’s the one!”

“OK,” she said absently, tossing it into her basket. We brought it to the checkout.

I was walking on air. When we got home I immediately wrapped it and stuffed it under the tree. Then I found Andy and spilled the beans.

“I got you again this year. For Kris Kringle,” I said.

“You did? Why’re you telling me? You’re not supposed to tell!”

“But I got you a really good present. Really, really, good. Seriously, it’s really good.”

“Is it under the tree?”

“Yep.”

We ran into the living room and he found the small box, picked it up and shook it. It sounded like a box of nails.

“It sounds like a model. It’s not a model, is it? ‘Cuz I hate models.”

“No it’s not a model,” I sneered. “Who would buy a dumb model?”

“Nobody. I hate models. I’m glad it’s not a model. What is it, though? ‘Cuz it sounds like a model,” he said, shaking it again.

I felt a heavy ache developing in the pit of my stomach. It did sound like a model. But it couldn’t be a model! It was Rodan! I saw the picture!

“It’s not a model. It’s Rodan.” I blurted.

“It’s Rodan? No way,” he said, but he looked excited. “Are you sure? It’s not a very big box,” and we both looked over at Mazinga, standing a proud 18 inches on the coffee table. It was obvious Mazinga wouldn’t fit in this box. The truth hung, unspoken, like a heavy cloud over our heads.

“It’s…it is. It’s Rodan.” I felt sick.

“Seems like it’s a model,” he said. “I kinda like models.”

It was a model.

What began as an exercise in goodwill had devolved into one of suspicion and hurt feelings, not to mention Andy continually getting screwed over. The ‘Kris Kringle’ idea clearly needed some tweaking.

We siblings finally came up with the idea of all of us giving each other gifts, but since none of us had any money, they had to either be homemade or cost less than a dollar. We appropriately named them “Greed Gifts”.

Over the years, this idea simply became a contest to see who could give the worst gifts.

One year I gave out plastic pens shaped like vampire bats that had to be squeezed in order to get the blood-red ink to come out. Andy gave us all paper plates with the faces of our favorite celebrities glued on them. J.P. bought a six-pack of beer and gave us all one, even though most of us were underage and had to give it back to him. Billy gave out sandwich bags filled with the fat he’d trimmed off a corned beef. Somebody gave out cans of tuna once.

Greed Gifts have become one of the highlights of Christmas. Now that we're adults, we don't really try to give crappy trinkets anymore, we give out actual, useful things sometimes, maybe batteries or gum or something, unless you hit upon something particularly amusing. Ironically, they taught us not to be greedy. We all loved watching each other open them and react. My mom and dad didn’t like feeling left out and demanded to be included in Greed-Gift giving.

Of course, I quit giving greed gifts a few years ago, just too busy trying to feed my own kids insatiable hunger for material goods, but doesn't giving nothing at all really embody what greed is all about? I like to think so.

But I'm gonna give them this year. Maybe.

December 12 '06

The following is Part Three in the series "Tuesdays With Billy":

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition, and gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves acursed. They were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks, that fought with us upon St. Crispin's day!"

With apologies to Herb Brooks and Knute Rockne, Shakespeare's version of Henry V's pre-game speech remains, over 400 years later, the most inspiring of it's kind. It doesn't matter if you're about to do battle with France in the fields of Agincourt, take on the Big Red Machine on the ice or just working through the daily skirmishes life throws at you-- it's about being a man. Everybody strikes out sometimes, but when you do, it better be swinging and not looking. Be a man.

I bring this up because I've had a pretty emasculating last couple of days. Let's just say that when Henry V was giving his troops goose-bumps, I was not only abed, but I was abed in the grips of a double shot of NyQuil.

Running late for work (funny how I'm never running late on my way to play hockey or to go to a movie), and I turn on the water in the tub. Flip the nob over to "shower" and nothing happens. A couple of drips are all that comes out of the shower head. You've got to be kidding me. I turn it back and forth a couple of times and still nothing. I even try the old, "leave the room for a minute, then come back in and try again method"-- nothing. Now I'm angry, and not just because it appears I'm going to have to take my first bath in 30 years. I'm mad at myself, because if I was a real man I'd simply grab some tool out of my tool box (gotta get one of those one of these days) and monkey with the shower head for thirty seconds and I'd be showering. That's what my brother J.P. would do. Unfortunately for me, the Olsen twins could fix that fucker before I could. My penance was immediate-- taking a bath. Real manly of me.

I now know why women all think they're fat-- they take baths. If you really want to come face to face with your own body (you don't), just take a bath. Things fold and crease. I even made up a "I'm not very sexy" song as I bathed. Herbie would have benched me. I would have told King Henry, "Sorry man, I thought we were taking the holiday off-- I thought the fight was going to be the day after!" Not a man.

Next day I'm driving home from somewhere (freshly showered, thank you-- some guy with a tool-belt fixed it, or maybe it was Mary Kate and Ashley, I'm not sure, I wasn't there) and my oil light blinks on. That's never good, but not a big deal, I've got this one. I pull into a gas station and buy a couple of quarts of oil. I get home and pop the hood to check my oil gauge.

At this point I have a flashback to being a lot younger and watching my dad and older brother change the oil on our car in the backyard. They'd set the car up on those ramp things and have at it. Rolled up sleeves on their lumberjack shirts, with oil rags hanging out of the back pockets of their ripped jeans, they'd get under the car and soon oil would be spilling out into an empty Folgers can. Three hours later they'd finish it off, drink a beer and eat some steak. Manly men.

Come to think of it, maybe it's Jiffy-Lube's fault I'm taking baths. I want to be a man, but I'll gladly spend 16 bucks and flip through a 3-month old People magazine for 20 minutes while three stoned greasers change my oil for me. My favorite part of those trips is when one of the stoners comes into the lobby holding my oil filter and starts talking gibberish. This is one of the few chances I get to act, as I nod my head at what he's saying. He could be reciting Russian poetry for all I'm understanding, but dammit, I'm not gonna let this punk know I take baths. I love that sometimes I say "change it" and sometimes I say "nah, it's fine" as if I have the slightest clue. My little way of at least pretending I'm a man. Sometimes as the kid heads back to the grease pit, I like to say after him: "It is all about
ball-bearings these days, isn't it?" Then I throw a glance to the woman sitting with me in the waiting area that says, "ah, you wouldn't get it, you're a woman".

So anyway, back to my car. I've popped the hood, BUT (read this next line with clenched teeth) ICAN'TGETTHEDAMNTHINGOPEN. What the hell? When I pull the hood trigger on my car, it pops a little and a slide-thing creeps out. I pull the slide thing left, right, up down every damn which way and nothing. I've opened this stupid hood many times before and now it just isn't happening. I'm not a tall person to begin with, but right about now I feel like I've shrunken down to about Prince height. But I'm betting he doesn't ever have to add oil to his car. And I swear I can feel my jeans turning into a skirt as I fail time and time again at getting the hood up.

How can it get worse? Easy. I get to work and there's a cluster of people around my desk and a sort of buzz in the newsroom. I get to my desk to find: five feet away is Matthew McConaughey holding court, here to promote his new movie, "We Are Marshall". Now, he's not wearing his Stetson hat or anything, but I'll go ahead and admit it-- he's a damn good looking guy. There are at least 20 women in the newsroom who I've never seen before, all here today to get a glimpse of Wooderson himself. (By the way, if someone doesn't do a Jimmy Buffett biopic soon and cast this guy as the lead, we're all missing out) So I'm left sucking in my stomach like one of the fat kids at the pool when Lacy Underall walks by and I swear as McConahotty saunters out of the room I hear a woman say sneeringly as she looks my way, "Now that's a man."

So in summary, I took a bath, couldn't get the hood of my car open and I'm not an unfairly good-looking actor. Why am I admitting to all this? Well, I started this post out with a Shakespeare quote, so I'll end it with some of the best writing since then, from the brilliant minds that penned "Freaks and Geeks":

Bill Haverchuk: "Remember that time in civics when I had to fart and it came out, well... a poop? And I had to flush my undies down the toilet? Do you think I wanted to tell you that?"

editor's note: OMG be gayer for McConaughey, why don't you!

December 11 '06

My bra Joe's birthday today. Happy Birthday, Jofey! It's also Mitch's b-day, and they went to the same college, WEIRD! That is so freaky!!

So let's see...a heartwarming story about growing up Joe's lil' sisty...um, when our folks would go out for the evening, I'd hide in my closet cuz he'd immediately start looking for me so he could sit on my face and fart. Then he'd gather all the neighborhood kids around and we'd watch Billy and Margy beat the snot out of each other, while he acted as ringmaster...good times....good times. I'll write more later, but now I have to load my dishwasher.

December 9 06

So I go into Kinko's yesterday to pick up our Christmas cards...several years ago, we started a tradition that the kids would alternate designing ours, and this is Molly's first year in the rotation so she's pretty excited to see the final result. Yes, she is five, so you may be wondering why this is her first year when any fool could tell you that three divided by five is, um...whatever, but the reason is that this is the first year she could draw something resembling anything. (Baby fish mouth!)

Anyway, I get into Kinko's to OK the proof, which seemed a little excessive to me, just print the damn thing, right? But it's a good thing I did, because they totally botched it. So they say they'll fix it, come back tomorrow, they were super nice about it and everything but c'mon. This is one errand I thought I had finished and now I have to make another trip tomorrow which doesn't exactly make me feel like opening fire, but it didn't exactly make me feel like dancing, either.

Go in today, they look great, pay, leave, go to my car, pick one up, oh, so cute, open it up, and instead of "Merry Christmas, The McCollows" it says "May the Spirit of Giving Stay With You All Throughout Year".

Uh...what?? I didn't sign off on this, this sounds like a thinly veiled scolding.

"Hey, you selfish jerk, maybe you could do a little more than just toss change into the bucket at Target every December. Why does George Clooney have to do everything, you bastard? Sheeesh!"

They're fixing it, but now I gotta go in again tomorrow.

Biggest doinker of the day: A young man around 19 years old comes running up to an older gentleman standing next to me and says, "Excuse me, sir, did you drop a glove?" and holds out a brown leather glove. The older man looks at the kid and says gruffly, "Why would I wear brown gloves with a black coat?" The kid ignores the rude rebuff and runs after a different man to see if he dropped it.

If only Mr. Blackwell's inside were as dapper as his outside.

Watching Rudolph with the kiddies. I'm a firm believer in watching all the specials on TV, with commercial breaks, on the appointed night. Watching on DVD just doesn't count, in my book. If the kids watched Frosty on DVD any ol' time they wanted, it wouldn't be a "special", it would be a "mundane".

After Kinko's, I hit Toys-R-Us. I'm done with the older kids, they're both easy. Molly is a different story. Now, you would think she'd be the easiest, wouldn't you? Get her any of the thousands and thousands of pink toys out there created just for her demographic; it should take three seconds.

If only it were that easy...Molly has never liked toys. I've got rooms full of the proof of that statement. She likes baby dolls, I'm guessing because they don't talk back, but she already has ten thousand of those. So I'm there at the toy store, wandering around aimlessly, waiting for inspiration to strike...

Things I know Molly would love:

A bullwhip

A megaphone

The stage of Radio City Music Hall

A rickshaw

A dresser (not a chest of drawers, an actual dresser. As in someone to help her with her costume changes.)

Complete creative control

A fat contract

Have you ever seen the movie Being Julia starring Annette Bening? Now you're getting the picture.

I'll probably just end up getting her more costumes. At least I know she'll be happy on Christmas morning.

December 7 '06

I invented something in my kitchen last night that is just too good not to share. Now, some of you may read this recipe and say, "Hey, you didn't invent that, my Granny Bea did!" or "Oh, Baloney, she read that in a cookbook" but I didn't read it in a cookbook and I've never even met Granny Bea, but I heard she's an old whore. Sorry. That just kind of slipped out.

Anyway, I was in my kitchen wondering what sort of Christmassy treats I could make, and I got a hankerin' for some fudge. No marshmallow creme, though, so that was out. Nutgoodies, maybe? No powdered sugar. OK...But I did have peanut butter n' chocolate chips n' butterscotch chips, so I melted them all together and dumped in some peanuts and then, just for fun, a bunch of Rice Krispies.

OH YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!

So that's it:

1 bag semi-sweet chips

1 bag butterscotch chips

2 c peanut butter

1 bag spanish peanuts

a bunch of rice krispies; just dump til it looks right

melt chips and peanut butter together, add peanuts and cereal, dump onto kitchen parchment lined tray, freeze and cut into pieces.

Again, this might be the most famous recipe in all of Nashville for all I know, but I'm still calling them "Katie's Fart Chunkies" because they gave my whole family gas. But it was worth it.

Mike just read that last graph over my shoulder and said, "You're pretty childish", to which I replied, "Ooooo, I'm Mike! I'm on TV!"

Who's he calling childish?

I tease. I tease at his expense, which just goes to show what a good sport he is.

OK, last year I did a list of my top five least favorite Christmas tunes, so it seems only right to give a list this year of my five favorites. Unless I did it already. I can't remember. But I have a new number one, anyway...I tried to find a file I could link to so ya'll could just click here and listen, but no luck, but honestly, do yourselves a favor and have a listen to Fredrica Von Stade and Kathleen Battle sing "Mary's Little Boy Chile" from the Carnegie Hall Christmas CD. It is such a spectacular celebration of the season, if it dun make you a believer, nothing will.

December 5 '06

I'm at the mall yesterday looking for one of the five things left on Earth that you can buy that has absolutely, positively nothing to do with an I-Pod, and a life flashed before my eyes. Not my life, thank god, but the life of an eight-year old boy walking in front of me with his parents.

Now I hate to say this about someone so young, but the kid has no chance. I hope he lives a long and happy life, but from what I surmised in the two and a half minutes I walked behind them, this kid's life is going to unfold like a super-extended episode of Cops.

I probably shouldn't assume they were both his parents-- the guy was definitely his dad, looked just like him, but stats say that there's now a fifty percent chance that it wasn't his mom. Probably some woman his dad met at wherever 40ish, divorced, dirtbally people meet these days: MySpace, maybe a dog park-- but these people looked sort of old school, so I'm gonna guess it was at the local dive bar or maybe it was a former girlfriend that he hooked up with at his 20 year high school reunion. The wife found out, divorced him (she was just dying for a reason)-- and here they are at the mall living out their John Cafferty and The Beaver Brown Band "Things Are Tough All Over" video of a life.

Hints one, two and three that junior will be arrested multiple times before he's sixteen: new mother-figure had on acid-washed jeans AND had her hand in dad's back pocket. (Which goes a long way towards proving my "girlfriend he used to make out to Journey with back in the day" theory-- if they were married there's zero chance she'd have her hand in his pocket, but it does show a comfort level of two people who've known each other for a long time). Dad was wearing a Patriots jersey.

An aside here (this should probably be a footnote, but screw it): did anything come and go faster than acid-wash jeans? They were "in" for four days, 6 hours and 23 minutes in the fall of 1987. It was a time when we were all jamming to "Pour Some Sugar On Me" un-ironically. And for those four days and change, acid-wash jeans couldn't have been more hip. Nerds could instantly vault up in the social stratosphere by showing up with acid-wash jeans on. And then-- boom-- they were out. Whoever got to decide what was cool back then woke up one day and pulling them on thought, "Oh my god are these gay." Some people (those who bought a lot of pairs, I assume) tried to keep the dream alive and it was just comical. Acid-wash jean jackets? Never in. Not even close-- in fact, they rank only behind Members Only jackets on the "Never Hip" scale. So then the people who tried to keep wearing the jeans thought that if they cut holes in them, they could keep them hip. Nice try, not happening. Maybe if you're Vince Neil, but definitely not if you're a white kid from the suburbs trying to look sweet at Fowl Play. (Come to think of it, acid-wash jeans had a remarkably similar life-span to Mississippi Live).

So anyway, back to this kid. As if walking with hand in dude's back pocket wasn't bad enough, suddenly slutty-old-high-school-flame and dad stop and start kissing. I don't know, maybe he had been quietly singing "Faithfully" to her as they walked and she was caught up in the romance of it all. Public affection is always a slippery slope. There's very few instances I'll sign off on as admissible, and 40ish dirtballs wearing acid-wash jeans and replica NFL jerseys in front of Mrs. Fields Cookies at the mall, in front of junior, certainly isn't one of them. (Although I'm not sure what it says about me that I couldn't stop watching them).

Hints four, five and six that the young lad will be a "baby-daddy" long before he gets his GED: He was a decent enough looking kid, BUT, he had a buzz cut, with a 12-inch long rattail. Ugh. Who on earth let's a kid do that? Or does that to their kid? I'll tell you who, people who still have "Faithfully" playing in their head and feel comfortable making out at the mall, that's who.
Final hint why this young kid will one day explain to his own offspring that, "You're not really a man until you've done a little time": His cell phone went blaring off to some insanely foul, obscene rap song and he began talking on it as if he were doing a Snoop imitation.

So there you have it. In two and half minutes of walking behind him, I was able to deduce that this kid would:

drink his first beer with his dad by age 10, get caught smoking dope in the school bathroom by age 11, be arrested for something by age 14, knock up his buddies girlfriend by age 16 and be in and out of rehab eight times by the time he's 30.
Good luck young man, but I'm telling you, rattails are a gateway decision.
(And I was only kidding about "Pour Some Sugar On Me", that song rocked then, it rocks now and it will rock in 2030.)

Also December 5 '06

I hate re-reading stuff I wrote in the middle of the night and seeing all the typos and misspellings and run on sentences. I know I shouldn’t post anything until I’ve proofread it, but I’ve always felt that proofreading is for suckers…not really. It’s just that double checking the spelling of some small town in Poland at 11 0’clock at night seems like a whole lot of bother when my bed is calling me so sweetly.

Back to the story.

So naturally, I thought it was Meg.

“Meggie?” I whispered into the darkness.

“Meg? Is that you?” I sat up. Nobody there. I hear it again…a little girlish voice, singing something I can’t understand. Just sing-songy.

You know how in movies the heroine is really plucky and strong and she grabs a golf club and prepares for battle with the intruder/demon or whatever, especially when her kids are involved? I’d love to be able to say I leaped out of the bed, grabbed a crucifix and commanded whatever malevolent entity was in the room with me to return to its dark pocket of the netherworld, and I did, if by that you mean I sat frozen in the bed, willing my heart to resume pumping its contents through my body and my bladder to stop pumping its contents into the sheets.

Look, ya’ll, this is the same person, who when I was a completely-obsessed-by-the-fear-of-demonic-possession kid, used to actually perform sound checks on myself to make sure my voice hadn’t gotten deep and growly. I have no interest in going head to head with the dark side, that’s what the guardian angels are getting paid for, you know what I’m sayin’? Which one of them dropped the ball and let spooky-singing-kid-ghost into my house, anyway?

Finally, I have no idea how much time passed, but I got out of bed and went to check on Meg, hoping against hope I’d find her skipping through the hallway in the dark. She was sound asleep in her bed.

“OK, well, maybe she was singing in her sleep, and for some reason it just seemed like it was coming from the foot of my bed. Maybe she can throw her voice all of a sudden. Maybe she’ll be in the circus someday,” my logical brain tried to tell me.

I went into the gigantic pink marble bathroom and sat there for a good long time, since it was the only room in the house with bright lighting. This big old house was full of tiny lamps that gave off no light at all, adding to everything’s shriek factor. Anyway, I was sitting there, leafing through the worn out copy of “Beautiful Big Black Woman” I’d found in the upstairs apartment where Mary Jeanne was sleeping (the previous season, the mansion had housed the team’s star American player, and he’d kindly left behind some of his porn collection. It was the only English-language magazine in the house) when right next to my ear, as if she was reading the magazine over my shoulder, I heard

“siiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhhh.”

Now I moved. I moved like a comet. Ran into Meg’s room, scooped her up, yelled up the stairs for Mary Jeanne to grab Finny (he was in a crib) and we all met back in my bed, all the lights in the room blazing. The kids quickly went back to sleep and Muzz and I sat there, wondering what in tarnation we should do next.

“Put thirteen pennies over the door. I heard if you do that, a ghost can’t come into the room.”

“What kind of pennies, American pennies? It’s a polish ghost right? But maybe not, how do we know what kind of pennies it recognizes?”

“Just do it! Whatever kind of pennies you have. Just do it.”

Neither one of us was willing to get out of bed and round up thirteen pennies. The night passed without further incident, though neither of us got any sleep.

The next day, I went up to get Meg for lunch. She was playing in her room, which was on the third story of this place. When I went in, she was standing in her window on the big wide sill, banging happily on the glass. She had just turned three, mind you.

“Meggie! What in Heaven’s name are you doing? Get down from there!” I shrieked, and grabbed her.

“I wanna play with that girl,” she said.

“What girl?”

“That girl out there,” she said, pointing out her window.

“Where is she, honey?”

“She’s right there….she’s not there anymore.”

*some of you may be thinking Meg was looking at her own reflection. Perhaps, but she had seen herself in a mirror countless times before and knows what she looks like, and I don’t really appreciate your insinuation that my kid is a total numbnuts.

I went down and told MJ, and we decided the best way to spend the day was doing anything that didn’t involve staying inside, and took the kids for a long walk. (Walks in Pruszkow were terrifying. Between the violent drunks who tended to pop out of nowhere and demand money and the abundance of wild dogs, you really took your life in your hands…but it beat battling ghost girl, at least that day.)

When we got home, the light was on inside the locked room where the home’s owner stashed all the stuff he didn’t want us messing with. None of us had a key.

Well, it seemed to be too big a coincidence that all this would happen right after the four of us returned from the death camp, so MJ and I decided she must’ve followed us home from there. Lest you think the place had been crawling with tourists, it hadn’t been; besides the four of us and our tour guide, there had been maybe six other people there at the same time, I don’t know why. Is there a slow death camp tour season? Anyway, Meg and Finny of course didn’t know Auschwitz from Linden Hills Park and had spent the day running around giggling. Maybe little girl ghost found that attractive. This is all conjecture, of course, and you can call me cracked if you want to, but that’s what I think happened.

We prayed for her that night, and didn’t hear from her again.

December 4,'06

If you were sniffin' around here earlier today, you may have noticed the salad had mysteriously disappeared into the ether. Domain name lapsadge is what that was, but it's all fixed now like a Christmas miracle.

I'm feeling the spirit, ya'll, I am. I've shaken the Holiday Dreads I was feeling a month ago and am fully embracing the love: the tree is up, the halls are decked, the cookies are making themselves a warm and welcoming home on my hips and I am a happy girl. I am a little tired, truth be told, on account the son hasn't slept well for a several nights in a row. He's decided his bedroom is no longer a little boy haven of sports paraphenalia and tinker toys but a chamber of unspeakable horrors he must describe to me in teary detail at three a.m.

The fact that this has all come up so suddenly makes me think he watched something he shouldn't have sometime this weekend, but he won't cop to anything. The biggest problem is that I am the last person in the world who should be in a position to comfort someone who is scared by things that go bump in the night, being a bonafide fraidy cat my own self. There were times as a kid that we were certain a ghost was making its presence known, but the most vivid experience I ever had with the other side happened when Mike and I were living in Poland.

He was gone, actually, travelling with the team he was coaching at the time. Mary Jeanne was with me, staying for a month to keep me company and help me with Meg and Finny, who were just babies then. We decided to take the train to Krakow for the weekend and tour the city, which all our Warsaw friends assured us was "The pearl of Europe", and see Auschwitz prison.

The city didn't disappoint, it is indeed breathtaking. The countryside likewise was beautiful, which made the prison camp even more horrific; this awful, brutal place nestled into such a bucolic setting is disturbing, to say the least. To say the camp was haunted is an absurd understatement...not haunted like hey-the-kitchen-chairs-are-suddenly-all-piled-up-in-a-pyramid way, but haunted like the dread feeling in the air is practically tangible. I swear, it was harder to breath inside those gates.

I think a ghost followed us home.

A little kid ghost. A girl.

Our house in Pruzskow was this huge, ornately beautiful four story beast choc-o-bloc with scary dark corners and creepy woodwork to begin with, so it was easy to let our imaginations run riot anyway, but when we got back from Krakow some weird stuff happened. The first night, I was lying in my enormous king size bed in my enormous gold gilded bedroom, and in the dark, I heard the sound of a little girl singing coming from the end of my bed.

I gotta go to bed, I'll finish this tomorrow.