I know it’s mid-January, and I’m just now getting around to uploading my holiday shots.
That’s festive Biscy snuggling with his stuffed squirrel. Well, it was stuffed until he ripped the innards out. He still loves it though. The squirrel’s tail contains a squeaker, which makes the pup happy. Prey makes us all happy, doesn’t it?
I started writing this while I was in Atlanta for the pre-Christmas party circuit, but I abandoned it because of time constraints.
The sked was packed, and unfortunately, I didn’t get to see friends, other than a bunch of my sister’s buds who came to a party she hosted at her home. Where we were staying.
I tried to go to sleep around 1:00 ish last night but vaguely remember being awoken several times over the next couple of hours by hip hop music and loud-voiced commercial realtors.
I don’t look much like my sisters, which caused some interesting confusion, as I was wandering the party with Biscuit in my arms for a good part of the night. I think people thought I’d just brought my dog with me as an accessory. A la Paris Hilton. The truth was that when I put him upstairs with the kids he tried to dig through the door, according to the baby sitter. Later, he whined, waking the kids up (even more so than the loud party-goers). And he’s so small, I was afraid he’d trip someone. Or someone would step on him. So I carried him around the party when he wasn’t busy cleaning the floor of sausage dip and cupcakes (he got in trouble for scarfing a couple mini cupcakes off a low table. Luckily, he seems to have a strong tummy).
So I found myself explaining to several people why I was carrying an exhausted Dorkie Poo around a semi-formal party. My middle sis said she overheard one guy say, “What’s with the lady with the dog?”
That said, I found that the pup was a great ice breaker. And that I like talking to people who like dogs. People who smile when they see dogs are my kind of folks. Even if I am the crazy lady wearing high heels and carrying a scruffy mutt around a party.
I’m writing here today for Mountain Xpress. This week I wrote a “Holiday Gift Guide for the Asheville Kid.” But it can apply to the kid(s) of progressive, hippie parents anywhere. Enjoy!
Everyone has headed back to their homes. Thanksgiving dinner was a roaring success. My turkey rocked, thanks to brining and stuffing with rosemary from my garden (see below–nice comments about the bird’s bush, girls). The other two dishes that everyone loved are from my family recipe archives: cornbread/sausage dressing and cranberry-apple crisp. The crisp is easy to prepare, while the dressing is a labor of love. Both were delicious. My failure this year was the gravy: it was tasty but too thin.
The day after Thanksgiving was full with our annual Christmas tree farm visit and the decorating of said fraser fir. My boy is all about the Christmas tree and did the bulk of the decorating. Unfortunately, he’s not quite old enough to put the lights on, which continues to be my baliwick, but which I managed to take on gracefully this year (in other words, I didn’t cuss the entire time at the tangles of lights). Mom’s milk punch helped (there are a couple milk punch recipes in the comments below somewhere–sorry, I never can manage internal links).
I love having a Christmas tree in my house. I love everything about it: the smell, the lights, the kid-made decorations, the gifted decorations, even the constant pine needle sluff that gets tracked all over the place. Mostly, I love that the tree sits next to my desk in our living room and I get to look at it, and hide behind it, for over a month.
In other Edgy Mama news, if you want to be entertained and learn more about penises, go back and read some of the comments on the circumcision column I wrote last week for Mountain Xpress. Most of the comments support my stance on the issue, but two of the male commenters fell into duelling penises. It’s basically: “my circumcised penis is better,” “no, my uncircumcised penis is better,” etc., etc. Damn, men are cute.
Coming tomorrow in my Mountain Xpress column, a much less controversial subject than this week: yoga pants.