Life is a catwalk

Right now I'm getting ready for our trip to Paris. This means that starting tomorrow, you can expect a week of radio silence. Drink spiked eggnog to comfort yourselves.

I'm such a big honking girl when it comes to packing. I always pack way too much even as I lament that I have nothing to wear. And traveling to Europe only exacerbates the problem. A week in Paris can kill the fashion ego.

(Dan just chastised me for fretting about what I was going to pack, saying that we aren't going to Paris to enter a beauty contest. Oh, aren't we, Dan? Aren't we?)

Anyhow, hope everyone has a great week.

They put the que? in lobster bisque

A few people have written me marveling over the fact that we got lobster bisque at our holiday office party. I should clarify: That's, like, their one thing. The one thing they do for us that proves how much they care. "My salary is below the national average and my benefits suck." "But, we give you lobster bisque!"

I should also add that the bisque is vomitous.

One if by land, two if by next-day air

We have lousy mail delivery service. Our carriers seem to operate on island time: some days the mail comes in the early afternoon, some days the mail arrives at 6 pm, and some days the mail never comes at all.

So it wasn't that much of a surprise to get home around 6:30 pm last night and see that there had been no mail delivery. We went about our usual Monday evening business, eating dinner, watching football. Then, at 9 pm, we see our mailman trudging up the walkway, sporting what seemed to be a miner's flashlight strapped to his head.

I'm of two minds. On the one hand: wow, way to persevere. On the other: dude, play to our lowered expectations. Go to bed.

At least there was lobster bisque

No drama at this year's office party. It was an underattended affair for starters. And university settings aren't conducive to dramatic party antics. Everyone operates in their own worlds, separated not by different floors or cubicle partitions but by buildings spaced a half-mile apart. There's no consummation of the longtime, unrequited lust between Bob in accounting and Susie in HR, because it's likely Bob and Susie have never met before.

There was also no Christmas song singalong his year (causing Meaghan to wipe her brow in relief). Instead we had the International Children's Chorus or something like that. All the participants represented a different nation and were decked out in traditional garb. They were pretty cute. The German boy bummed me out though; he was really overweight and his lederhosen were two sizes too small. He looked like Ren's Cousin Sven.

(I am going to hell for that last comment.)

All I want for Christmas is a Bogle

A Bogle is a beagle/Boston terrier mix. It may be one of those new-fangled crossbreeds in the vein of the Labradoodle, I don't know. But what I do know is that I held a Bogle puppy today and now I need one more than I need anything in the whole world! And when I get one, I think I'll name it Bogle.

Tis pity I'm a bore

I have to say, I have nothing to say. I'm boring, and bored. I seem to have entered into some sort of cerebral latency period. Or maybe it's the true beginning of the mental atrophy I've long feared.

You know, I mean, what have I done this past week? I've worked. I've gone to the gym. I've done a little Christmas shopping. I've tracked baseball trades. I've consumed a couple of eggnog lattes. I've watched too much TV and read too little of my book. Nothing of import.

So listen, I'll try to live a more involved, more intoxicating, more examined life this week. Maybe the office Christmas party this year will provide a bit of drama. Why, last year I was almost forced to sing the "four calling birds" portion of "Twelve Days of Christmas" in front of 300 people before finding a last-minute sub! Really, the possibilities are limitless.

A Tale of Two Parties

Today I had a work wedding shower, which I was dreading beforehand. It was coming on the heels of a baby shower for a far more entrenched and more popular employee, who had also received a very generous gift certificate, so I figured mine would be a strained event with a minimal gift involved.

Five years ago I had a goodbye party at my first post-collegiate workplace, which I was really looking forward to. The farewell parties there were typically raucous affairs, with a specially designed card and gift always given to the departing employee. As I was pretty well-known in that office and had given the place a few formative years, I figured it would be a memorable evening all around.

Guess which party was the greater success?

Answer tomorrow. No, wait, answer now. Today's party, duh. Let's just say that when I left the five-years-ago party, an underattended affair from which I emerged card-less and basically gift-less, I wanted to kick dogs. And I really, really love dogs.

Waiting until the spring thaw and beyond

I saw my jaw surgeon last week. He said I'm still quite swollen and can expect the swelling to take another eight months to disappear completely. Nice.

I should have known my face would seize upon any opportunity to blow back up into its preadolescent state. It's a relief in that I was afraid this nuts-in-the-cheeks puff was my permanent new look. But by the same token... this is the wrong town in which to suffer from fat-imbedded cheekbones.

Eh, I'm just cranky because my multiple chins destroyed many otherwise great wedding shots. I have to pick and choose carefully what photos to circulate.

Next week: Shake 'n' Bake chicken

Dan and I are beginning a new Sunday tradition: nostalgia eating. Each week we'll trade off preparing a favorite meal from our respective childhoods. Right now he's off buying the makings for potato latkes while I sit in a pool of anticipatory drool.

Wish it were Monday

For as long as I can remember, Sundays have been a day of anxiety. When I was younger, the day meant packing up at my dad's and being returned to my mom's (cue divorced-kid violins); when I got older, it was about finishing the approximately 60 hours of homework we were assigned every weekend (thanks, souless, corporate, college-obsessed prep school); in college, it meant reading five social science books while recovering from a hangover; and lately it's been about wrapping up some work assignment or finishing a freelance project.

Today I have nothing to do save watch a few important football games, yet my stomach still churns with stress (a condition exacerbated by a couple of ill-digested egg bagels).

My salad is very tasty today, thank you

Like myself, it seems as if most of my blogging comrades have taken little leaves of absences pre- and post-Thanksgiving. (Save for my blog-happy hubby, who continues to post as if he were, well, paid by the post. Good thing his talent matches his prolificacy. And extra-good thing that he's my hubby, because I love him and love being married to him! [Yes, there may be the periodic post-wedding gush appearing on this site.])

But this friend silence allows me to troll the Web for blogs and Websites of more casual acquaintances, always a rewarding endeavor. I've learned that roughly half my high school graduating class went into law, that an old friend just had a baby, and that an odious blogging ex-friend of mine, now well into his 30s, still seems to think "irony" is a personality trait, and a laudable one at that. (I bet he was one of those post-9/11 discomfited "humorists" who wrestled with the most haunting of questions: How long do I have to wait before I can start joking about the terrorist attacks?)

Still, I'm waiting for the Big Hit, that one piece of undiscovered information about a friend or foe that will blow me away. Does this make me a muckraker?

Call me Battleax

I'm back, from Thanksgiving, from Key West, from.... getting married. Yes, I've finally taken one of those big lifetime plunges. Soon I'll be putting my hair in curlers and threatening Dan with a rolling pin.

I won't be writing about the wedding itself, as I consider it a wholly private affair. But I will say that it was perfect and wonderful and made me a hearty advocate of forgoing traditional wedding extravagances. When your wedding guests number in the single digits, all stresses go out the window.

Oh, but try this on for size: I am now the only married person in my immediate family.