Yucky Salad with Bones

December 5th '04

I’m sitting here watching “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers” on HBO, actually it’s that bit in between the end of Sex and the City and the beginning of the feature, you know that 15 minute long commercial they run for the show you’re already tuned in to? It’s that part. Anyway, hell knows why I’m even watching since I’m so FARGIN’ SICK OF BIOPICS. Cheryl Hines just said something about how much she loves Geoffrey Rush, who plays Pete Sellers. Well You’re in luck, Cher….since “The Life and Times of Geoffrey Rush” starring Glenn Close as Mr. Rush will be airing on Showtime December 17^th! STOP THE MADNESS.

I just changed the channel to something called A Very Married Christmas. Now heartwarming made for t.v. Christmas movies I love. It’s nice to know that at least once a year, Jean Smart will have a job. Man, she’ got freakishly thin legs for a gal who’s so…top heavy. Not to mention old. That wasn’t very nice, I meant elderly.

We had a pretty Currier-and-Ivesish evening here at Casa McCollow, I have to say. The kids and I put a fire in the fireplace, Donny Osmond’s Christmas album on the stereo (don’t even laugh because it’s completely great) and made these things called mocha pecan balls. You wrap a Hershey's kiss in chocolate cookie dough, bake it, and then roll the whole thing in powdered sugar. YEEEEEGAWD, I could barely get down one without gagging. The kids loved ‘em. OK, I need to interject something here about this Very Married Christmas thing: Joe Montegna just poured himself some cereal out of a glass canister. Aaaaaand……you’ve lost me. No one transfers cereal out of the box into a pretty canister.

No one I know, anyway, and if they do I don’t wanna know about it. This movie stinks, I’m going back to Peter Sellers. Sorry, Jean. Anyway, then we read a story under the tree and the kids went to bed. And Finbar has come down in tears three times since then, so all is well and normal.

Another family tradition has been observed already this year, also; I’m referring to one or all of the children finding the very poorly hidden presents. IT HAPPENS EVERY DAMN YEAR. This time, I transferred all the gifts into the garage, thinking everything in there was shelved until April so it was a pretty good spot, and forgot about them. Well, it was 45 degrees yesterday so Finny goes out to play football…and comes running back into the kitchen with a huuuuge grin on his face.

“Mom!! What’re all those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle things in the garage?!”

Fer cryin’…….I mean for the love of Pete. I swear, at moments like that I can just feel years draining off my life. The good news is those were the only things he saw.

Why’d Mattel or whoever bring those stupid things back anyway!! So I did what I do every year, I said, “That’s what dad and I got you for Christmas, you know how we get you something and Santa brings the rest?” and he said, “And every year you hide it really bad!”

Went out to dinner last night with Liz and Mary Louise, it was very fun and festive. We ate at this dark ‘n swanky place downtown that was right on Nicollet mall, which is all decked out for Kwanzmas so it looked super pretty. We drank sidecars, completely ridiculous. One sidecar is delicious. Two are….(cue sound effect of all my teeth falling out) quite sickeningly sweet, to say the least. Bleeaaaaaaggggh. Speaking of Mary Louise, she needed a night out because her beloved mutt Hoover was put down a few days ago. Hoover was the replacement dog for the golden retriever puppy she had who got mowed down on Christmas day. Say what you will about my badly hidden gifts, offing the dog is a way worse holiday ritual.

Upon hearing of Hoover’s demise, Molly, who never got along with him, said “Yay!” Poor Hoover, he was a totally spastic puppy who morphed overnight into a wheezing, puffing whining old fart of a dog and never really had a good stage, but I thought Molly would at least feel a little bad now that he’s gone. Poor Josie was just grief stricken and she and Meg were practically saying Novenas for his doggy soul and there’s Molly, pocketing his gold fillings and wondering if she can turn his pelt into a coat.

I have to go to bed now, but I’ll leave you with this: I was driving to Batteries Plus to get new batteries for my phones and thinking how a person could’ve made a killing with bumper stickers that said ‘Minnesota…Thanks for Kerring’ and as I’m congratulating myself for being the most clever person in the whole entire universe, I realized I’d driven past where Batteries Plus should’ve been but I couldn’t see it, so I pulled into a parking lot and called them to find out their location. I was in their parking lot.

By the way, I'm catching a lot of grief for the "y'all come back now y'hear" bit, and in my defense, I was listening to George Strait's 50 number 1's at the time. Which is awesome, although I was shocked that Amarillo By Morning isn't on it. Wha?? Did that never go to number one?

December 7^th ‘04

“Jingle Bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…Old McDonald hit the sleigh and Jesus ran away!”

These are the lyrics, Molly-style. But this is the same girl who, when told Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, responded “Oh, Mommy, Jesus isn’t real!” The three-year-old family rebel.

My dear friend Melanie informed me today that people do indeed transfer cereal to glass canisters, that it is in fact commonplace in large urban areas such as Brooklyn or Chicago. (Both places Melanie has lived.) She also noted that saying you live in the city when in actuality you live in a leafy green suburb of the city is false and you should stop doing that. Whoever you are. Anyway, the reason for the transfer is on account of bugs, and if you’ve never battled bugs in the Cheerios you should count yourself lucky for living a blessed and bug-free life.

That reminds me of the ‘good times, noodle salad’ line from As Good As It Gets. Speaking of Jack Nicholson, I watched Something’s Gotta Give last night.

I thought it was a little over-rated. It was cute for the first seven hours or so, but it seemed like it was never gonna end.

Back to the bugs; so I was wrong about the cereal, egg all over my face, I assure you this will happen frequently. Mostly I feel bad for so harshly judging A Very Married Christmas when clearly, the whole film was factually accurate and the props guy will certainly win an Emmy for thinking of the canisters.

Mike is home, just for the day, to scout the ‘wolves game...Molly and I picked him up around noon. He was standing on the curb outside the terminal wearing his puffy black coat, skin-tight skull cap and a three day growth of beard. He looked like one of the dog-nappers from 101 Dalmations if the dog-napper hadn’t slept in two months. He told me the team’s nickname for him is Serpico. Whether this is because of how he looks or because his high ideals are slowly crumbling under the weight of a deeply corrupt system, I don’t know.

When I asked him which it was, I was answered with a loud snore.

We came home, made Christmas cookies, played charades and ate fajitas, and then he had to shower and get down to the game. Just before he left he asked me, “Whaddya think would happen if I just wrote on my scouting report, ‘we don’t stand a chance of beating either team, so I went to the movies’?” He was kidding. I SAID HE WAS KIDDING.

Must get the kiddies to bed now, Mike is gone again at the crack tomorrow…I apologize that nothing on this site works yet, but I’m workin’ on it, I swear.

December 10 '04

My thoughts on last night's episode of The Apprentice:

Jen is horrible. Understanding that the show is edited to reap maximum entertainment value, she comes across as a robotic drone who has zero people skills. I'da gone with Sandy. Real world experience trumps (pun intended) all the fancy degrees you can muster. Jen even looks like she's made of plastic; fake hair, fake face, she's also freakishly thin, probably because she doesn't need to eat; she just plugs into her energy source at night. Kelly's gonna win.

Having said that, hey Pamela, how 'bout instead of nit-picking every move Jen makes you shut your hole and do your damn job?? The whole world is watching you not be a team player. Jen's gonna fail and it's YOUR fault. P.S.: Halter-tops, particularly green ones that bring out the enormous bags under your eyes, are always the wrong choice for work and for women who bear more than a passing resemblance to Big Bird.

Signed,

Your Friend Katie

The person who has been most exposed as a do-nothing waste of oxygen is Carolyn. Has she done anything but sneer and roll her eyes? Her pattern is to say something stupid, to which Trump will say, "No, the exact opposite is true," and then she agrees with him. Terrible.

Lastly, kudos to Robin the receptionist. Watching her grab on to her split-second of camera time each week and try to parlay it into probably some sort of game show hostess job has been a real pleasure. Who knew there were so many ways to say, "Mr. Trump is ready for you"? I predict she'll be in Playboy by March. (Headline: Look Who's Ready For You Now!)

December 17th '04

"Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat! Please put a penny in the old man's hat....if you haven't got a penny, a blah blah blah blahhhhhnnn mmmm hrunphumph....sound of someone crying...."

This was the version of the old tune as sung by Finbar and his first grade class at last night's annual Christmas concert. It was so darn cute....I only got there fifteen minutes early, though, so I didn't get a seat. Which was actually fine since I could see better standing up anyway, plus I wanted to videotape Finny. He was part of a little group who sang this spanish song about a pinata. More accuratley, he was part of a little group who shrieked "PINATA!" into a microphone a bunch of times.

What struck me the most when I looked at my poor child through the camcorder was how tired he looked. All this activity is just keeping him up waaaaayyyyy too late. I almost let him stay home from school today, but he cried at the thought of missing the big all-school party. I promised them a big fat game of Monopoly by the Christmas tree tonight, then we're all going to bed early. I myself look like I've aged ten years in the last month. It's bothering me to the point I stopped in to Ulta yesterday to buy some new makeup. I just read in Instyle that I should be using primer under my foundation, which I only ever wear for special occassions but I wanted to look less gross than usual at the big concert, so I got that and new foundation since I bought mine for my wedding 12 years ago and it was basically just a jar of scabies anyway. Went home to prime and paint myself in the privacy of my own bathroom.... hmmm..... now I look like that Ukranian guy who got poisoned. WHAT THE HELL?! Spent the rest of the day thinking about all the other things I could've spent 30 bucks on.

I'm slowly asphixiating as I write this, by the way. I put my oven on 'self-clean' this morning and within four minutes my entire house was filled with the most noxious, eye-stingy smell imaginable. No, I didn't know that would happen because I've never done it before. There, I admitted it, ya happy? Like you clean your oven every week. Anyway, I've got the windows open and it's stinky and about 30 below in here.

So there's lots of new stuff to read in the archives now, I've at least figured that part out but I haven't been able to get any new drawings on here because I'm an idiot. When Jason, the fella who designed this whole thing and who has been very patiently helping me with it, explains stuff to me it seems clear but the minute he's not around to hold my hand all my brain remembers is "SCIENCE SCIENCE MATHMATHMATH!! and I was never very good at either of those things.

"Why Katie, it's seemingly endless, the things you're not good at." Har.

Awright, well, I've got a column in the RedEye today... the RedEye is this cool daily paper put out by the Chicago Tribune, it's kind of like the Mtv version of the big paper and sometimes I write columns for it. You can kind of read them online, if you put my name into the search engine of the big paper it'll say 'no matches' but then if you click 'archives' they'll pop up. But if you go to www.chicagoredeye.com, you won't see me because I'm just a freelancer, not a staffer. But it's a hugantic thrill for me to do it and they actually pay me a little, which is unreal. I wasn't even gonna write that but Mike said I should 'cuz he's proud of me. Love you Mike! Little back story about Mike: He's back in basketball...got a job with the Toronto Raptors this year, so he's been gone a lot which is getting kinda rough but I'm proud of him too.

December 19th '04

I didn't sleep well at all actually, thanks for asking. It's Sunday morning, I'm on my third cup o' joe, my head is still pounding and my Look-like-the-Ukranian-guy-who's-cabbage-was-spiked-with-Dioxin-itis is still here. Chronic sleep deprivation is aging me at the speed of light.

Last night I stayed up 'til midnight wrapping all the Christmas presents, then of course I had to take inventory and make sure each kid got the exact same amount of gifts worth roughly the same amount of money. Laugh if you want, they notice. Even Molly. This year, all the big-ticket items (air hockey, another acoustic guitar since Finny smashed the last one) are for everyone and the individual gifts are all small. A commie Christmas. And past midnight, it's like my body misses it's go-to-sleep window so then I was up 'til three.

I just read in the paper that some government agency or another recommends that people take this holiday season as an oppurtunity to gather family health histories. What fun. I was thinking Boggle or maybe one of the new Cranium off-shoots but why not have everyone give a depressing run-down of all their aches and pains? Then we can reflect on the fact that we're all going to die, some of us more painfully than others.

JP's here, which is the official Christmas kick-off in Hubbellville. He's the one all the kiddies flock to, the 'fun uncle', if you will. It's soooo great for those of us who've grown immune to all their so-called cute tricks, anytime JP's around we don't see our kids for hours. He's like a one man travelling Disneyland. And once the out of towners arrive, we all get together constantly and stay up too late and have one too many cocktails and it's really more of a festival than an actual day. Billy comes home Tuesday, only for a couple of days but it's better than nothing. Mike gets here thursday, three cheers!

I mentioned how last weekend I was basically Hag, Interrupted so to stop my flood of tears Miguel told me he's taking me to NYC in February. YAY double yay.... I think he just blurted it out on the fly in a desperate attempt to get my head out of the oven but it worked and we're goin'. Non too soon, either, since I've lately wondered if Finny's karate teacher is flirting with me. Check it out-- yesterday, here's what he said to me: "Hi Finbar!" HAH?? TOTALLY FLIRTING. My God, it's practically The Ice Storm around here.

Biiiiiiiiig front page o' the Variety feature on local-boy-made-good Steve Rushin, totally cool, it's on our fridge. Here's to your book being a YUGE bestseller.

And all right, let's just address the big fat elephant in the room, the trade of Vince Carter. It's a good thing. Vince is not a bad guy in person, according to my source, but in the words of Pope John XX111 at the second Vatican council, "We must open the windows of the church and let the winds of change sweep out the cobwebs." Something like that. Anyway, it's practically the same thing.

I have to go get dressed.

My cousin Kevin works for Catholic Relief Services...he spent last year in Afghanistan, Congo and Sudan, and Christmas day he was telling us all how his new assignment, though he'd only been there for a month, seemed like a cakewalk in comparison.....India and Sri Lanka. Time to get back to work, Kev. So as I sit here licking the crumbs off the cookie platter, watching Bridget Jones' Diary for the fiftieth time, I ask God to watch over him and his wife Dominique, out there doing all the good work I'm too lazy to do.

Mike came home on the 23rd, and we went straight from the airport to the Marshall Field's display downtown. This year it was Snow White. Or rather it was Snow White if she had been a fag hag, the prince had been Carson Kressley's gayer little brother and the evil queen had been an evil queen. Look, I'm not Rick Santorum or anything but it was completely ridiculous. We're talkin' about the Marshall Field's annual Christmas display and it was as if Ecstasy took Ecstasy and then puked up Studio 54. The seven dwarves were little Rip Taylor clones who worked at the Diamond Mine, the "hottest dance club in the land!" The thing is, that's not really what bugged me about it. I think it was that the whole 'isn't it ironic' vibe it had just felt so damn played, you know? (Yes, I know the gay retelling of Snow White is slightly less ridiculous than the fact that I just used the word 'played' to convey the tiredness of said re-telling, I'm just too exhausted to think of any other way to say it.) Maybe that's it, maybe sincerity is the new irony... maybe it's time to forgive Bob Greene for being a gross pervert and start reading him again.

Sincerity is the new irony

Eastern Europe is the new Western Europe

Topher Grace is the new Toby McGuire

December 27th is the new December 22nd

That last one is because I'm having such a nice day and evening today, doing absolutely nothing at all, unlike last week which, while fun, was pretty nutso. The kids went to bed at 7:30 tonight, all just bleary, teary-eyed little basket cases.

Christmas Eve we went to our 4:00 church service, this year we could actually hear the mass, which was strange. Did you guys know that kid was born in a stable? I had no idea. Rough. Afterward we had the usual suspects over for dinner; my parents, any siblings who wanted to come and my two uncles. Uncle Pat actually called sick with a headache, but Uncle Mickey seems like about five people so it all worked out.

I served a beef tenderloin. Never done that before. I know you're not supposed to try new things for company, but it wouldn't be Christmas if I cooked a decent meal. Overheard at the dinner table: "It's so tender, it's almost like mush!" "It squirms around like a fat girl every time I try to slice it." By the way, that wins hands down as the strangest thing uttered this holiday season, and that's saying something. To go with the squirmy meat I made a dipping sauce, the recipe for which was given to me by Mandy, who can cook. While I was making it I couldn't remember the difference between a bulb and a clove of garlic, even though Mandy had told me several times, made a pie chart and left me an emergency phone number. Sampled the sauce...GAAAAAAAAA!!! Tasted like someone had put his chipotle-pepper-laced cigar out on my tongue. It never made it to the table.

Mike's sister Patty and her daughter Kristin stopped by to say hello, and Patty was treated to one of Micky's famous shoulder rubs. I thought Kristin would pass out laughing at her mother being felt up by my gin-soaked uncle. The next day at mom's house, my sister-in-law Kathy asked how it had been to have Mike home for a few days. I said "It was good," and Mickey leered up from the homemade batch of moonshine he carries around in an old steak sauce bottle (you think I'm embellishing, I'm NOT) and shouted "I bet it was, heh heh!" Then he went in to graphic detail about what he'd meant by that comment, in case anyone had missed it. I share this tidbit with you so you don't think I'm just being mean when I tell stories about ol' Mick. Thirty six years of those kind of jokes, I've earned the right to make a few cracks of my own.

Christmas morning was its usual orgy of comsumerism, although as I mentioned before most of the big presents were for everyone. That is, except for the ones I recieved...it happens every year, I get out-gifted. Hmmmm, let's see....Miguel gave me a mini ipod and a Canon Digital camera....I gave him a sweater. I gave everyone else books, and in return I got a box of steaks, a weekend at the Hudson Hotel in NYC... my brother Woody gave me some fancy bath lotion and I gave him bupkis.

We dropped Mike at the airport after a feast of eggs benedict and cinnabuns, then went over to my mom's to play with the gang. Ate too much. Muzz gave a hilarious blow by blow of what was happening in her digestive tract.

Muzz:(lying back on couch) "Ughh...nope, can't lay back, either...feels like it's coming out my back...man..."(grunts into sitting up position)
Her boyfriend Kent: Says nothing but look on face clearly says "She can eat her body weight in cranberries...I love her."

Not that Muzz was doing anything the rest of us weren't. I haven't been hungry in a week, I just wait until I'm not achingly full anymore and I re-stuff my face.

We tried to play a game but there are just too many in that crowd now, so every game-playing attempt devolves into a cacophony of people blurting out whatever they think will get the biggest laugh. Finally went home around 10 pm, kids fell asleep in the car, faces smeared with chocolate and hands clutching whatever loot they got. I tossed them into bed in their clothes, teeth unbrushed and bladders unemptied. I don't even think I took their boots off.

The next day was the McCollow Christmas over at Tim and Jen's house. Jen is one of those girls who intimidate me a little because she's always done up, you know like she always has a fresh manicure and never has black roots and I'm sure she showers consistantly. They have two darling kids, Morgan and Bennet...Bennet is so damn cute, he's just the happiest kid I've ever seen. He never cries or fusses and he always has a huge grin on his face. He's two. Oh, and he snorts lint. He picks lint off his blankie and hoovers it right up his nose, I kid you not. Tim was telling us how he's got this raspy cough they can't figure out, the doctor says he's got no allergies or anything. Could it be his lungs are 90% cotton? But he seems happy.

My mom took to her bed with a cold the next day, and over the tacos JP was telling us all how he spent the day following my dad around the house keeping him from harming himself. It's really pretty cute, how helpless dad is whenever my mom is gone or sick in bed... he can't make toast without setting off all the fire alarms. Apparently he was trying to use his new juicer, failed to attach the receptacle thingy on the back of it and shot pulp all over the kitchen. Mom's fine now, I just talked to her on the phone. It's JP's birthday which means it's time for another feast.

Time to go, Merry Christmas everyone!