Gabby's Christmas Photo Journal, Vol. 2

I fear nothing could be as good as last year's, but here we go...

Let's count them down, from worst to best. This does include some of Micah's new treasures.

10. A Jell-O mold. I have never molded Jell-O in my life, do you suppose it's fun? Do you suppose my mom has just GIVEN UP? I guess no longer being the baby of the family means I get stuck with all the stock gifts she buys for extended family.

(Please, let's not overlook the fact that these molds are indeed 3-D. The 2-D ones just don't come out right.)

9. Exhibit B: I am further relegated to the ranks of stock gifts. Ahem, broken stock gifts. Boy are you all lucky that I showed this candle now, meaning I can't surprise someone with it for the White Elephant exchange. You lucky bitches.

8. Apparently my mom doesn't want me to be struck by a moving vehicle and she wants me to be able to use my earrings for bait should I ever find myself fishing without worms. (Please excuse the poor picture, it's hard to photograph blindingly bright objects that resemble the colorful glisten of grease on a street.)

7. Mom! Stop with the hideous blankets! That sounds so terrible, but seriously. TEAL?! Couldn't she have matched the rust stripe instead? Once again she's made a blanket which can only be viewed on one side. (What, you do don't remember the cat blanket from last year?) I'm sorry, Micah. I...I...well, I have a mom who makes ugly blankets. Only the first year's were cute, and you weren't around then.

(What's really messed up is that this picture makes the teal look a lot more acceptable than it actually is. *shudder*)

6. Frango mints! Now we're getting somewhere. So yummy and so appropriate, considering they were the favors at our wedding reception. Except these have pink white chocolate coating and support breast cancer research! Thanks, cousin Lisa.

5. Magazines, dear magazines, how you excite and amuse me. My brother's girlfriend bought me two subscriptions! The gift that keeps on giving! Now if I can just learn to ignore the articles about how to get skinny where the model doing the poses is size -2. But don't you just love when InStyle goes into the celebrity's home for an interview? It's totally a sneak peak! Except all you're really looking at is the result of the celeb client saying to their decorator, "I like Rustic Mediterranean and Retro Mod. Here's 100 grand. Make it work."

4. A bottle of Kahlua for Micah and Baileys for Gabby. Because Mandy and Noel are all about gifts that rhyme with names. Such enablers, those two - giving us gifts that inspire drinking before noon. (No picture for this one, because we drank it all already.)(KIDDING! The batts ran out on the camera.)

3. You know what's really helpful? If you have a wedding gift registry still kicking out there in Targetland when Christmas comes so your exceedingly practical Aunt knows where to look. Behold, our new dishes. So square! So matchy! So ready for a dinner party! (After I wash off the styrofoam bits. I have an image to maintain.)

2. Wanna see what I got Micah for Christmas?

(It's a record player, lookin' all retro (the dial! mmm!) with a CD, cassette, and radio all up in there as well. He has a tall stack of records he hasn't heard for at least five years. This gift was a big hit. For the record -ha- old Ani mix tapes don't hold up so well. )

1. But I think what he gave me tops everything. Behold, my gigantor comfy chair, the one that rocks, reclines, coddles, envelopes, tips back, and generally makes my body feel like a million lazy dollars:

So, what did you get? And when are you coming over to make Jell-O molds?

merry merry and all that

Merry Christmas! I hope wherever you are it's cozy and comfy and there are plenty of cookies on hand. You know what I haven't had this year? Those rum ball things. Mmmm.

Anyway, the cats just wanted to say Happy Holidays (they are totally more p.c. than me). They are generally too cute for words and occasionally bad enough for some very unkind words. They didn't get coal this year. Instead they earned the right to enjoy my bad-ass new gigantor armchair recliner, which is very very gigantor, and very very cloud-like.

(Gigantor chair not pictured. That is an old nappy electric blanket. What's up with cats and nappy stuff?)

I can't imagine a better Christmas (if it's not snowing, that is) than one that has the entire first season of Arrested Development playing on G4. We've been watching all day. So funny!

I think there will have to be a second round of Christmas Photo Journal, perhaps tomorrow. The damage has yet to be done this year, as I haven't exchanged gifts with my family yet. That's harsh. In all honesty we'll probably get a lot of stuff no one claimed on the wedding registry. Awesome!

And I think I might want our Christmas tree up all year long.

Kidding. Sort of.

no big surprise

My husband does not know how to have a proper Christmas surprise. Last week he came home proclaiming "I bought your Christmas presents!" and made a fuss over hiding them behind his back and putting them away. Ten minutes later, I opened them! By "opened" I mean Micah pulled them from behind his back one by one and gave them to me. Because he insisted. "You can use them right now! Why wait?" is his logic. Oh, does he have a thing or two to learn. I can't believe I gave in. Probably because he also said these were just little gifts, the big one was still to come.

Christmas is about suspense (also something or other about the babe jesus) but please. Christmas is fun as an adult because it's easy to feel the magic you felt as a child, and that magic existed because we got gifts. For free. All we had to do was exist, by golly, and Santa/our parents (does it really matter?) would bless us with New Stuff. When you're little and tree is up for weeks with no present in sight, taunting you, you're taken over by suspense. It was hard to fall asleep on Christmas Eve, so so hard. I would lie awake for hours listening to my parents clean up the Christmas party through the vents, wondering how I could possibly close my eyes for more than five minutes. When I woke up at seven a.m. I always marveled at the fact that I fell asleep at all. Yes. I was that excited.

Of course now that I'm all grown up I have no problem falling asleep on Christmas Eve because I know there isn't going to be shit for me to open at seven a.m. (also, alcohol). The excitement surely fades, especially when you stop living at home. It leaks out almost entirely when you aren't the baby anymore, the granddaughter is the baby, the bestowed upon. The darling, precocious, giggling granddaughter. Your niece. She's fabulous, though she ended the era of you being the baby. And by "you" I mean "me." Still, I will always be apeshit over Christmas. If we have kids, they will feel my enthusiasm and it will fuel theirs, because Christmas is about children more than anything.

Now, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Micah doesn't appreciate the concept of waiting until Christmas to open gifts. I bought him a record player with built in CD, cassette, and radio. Then I wrapped it and put it under the tree and Micah won't know what it is until December 25. He's going to love it, as he has a stack of records he hasn't heard for years. Because I'm a spoiled brat, I made it known that I would love to have a gift to open on Christmas morning. It's our first one together and I would love nothing more than to brew up some coffee, spike it mightily with Kahlua, and sit together on the couch for some quality Christmas gift-giving. Then he can put on some records and I'll set-up my new computer (I wish) and we'll feel ridiculously happy to have one another and New Stuff.

So Micah did in fact go get my "big" gift. And he tried to give it me early, naturally, and I adamantly refused. "No," I said, stamping my foot, "I will NOT open it. PUT IT AWAY! HIDE IT!" Still he pushed. "Come on! Do I really have to wrap it? And you could be using it right now." Such tired reasoning. Hide the motherfucker and don't show me til Christmas. THANKS. He thinks it's cute to give me fake clues, like "The kitty cats really like it. They want to eat it. It's an animal." Or "If we just had some batteries you could be using it right now. We don't have twenty-two double As in the house?" A-HA. You SOOOO FUNNY.

As of right now, I still have no idea what it is and there's less than a week until Christmas. I think I might get my Christmas morning surprise after all, though I'm 98% sure it won't be wrapped.

oh yes. yesssss.

I have a soft spot for Nintendo. Oh, you do too? Then I'll be your favorite person of the hour.

Check out "Mission in Snowdriftland," an online game brought to you by those clever Nintendo people. It's actually an Advent calendar, but rest assured ain't no mini Jesus chocolates gonna pop out at you. If you decide to skip the intro you won't be missing anything - basically the little snowman must collect all the snowflakes (and hearts = new life) on each level, and there is a level for each Advent calendar day. I'm totally addicted, and my right wrist is killing me, y'all. Carpel tunnel like a mug. I guess that's what happens when you play online computer games where the only buttons you can use are the directional arrows which are reallyclosetogether.

But really? It's so much fun! And I haven't even gotten halfway through the first level yet! (Don't laugh at me. Go ahead and play and you'll see it's not so easy, what with all the using arrows to move a slippery little guy around a slippery, wintery terrain, complete with tippy icebergs and cutesy beings just waiting for you to run into them.) Also, the initial loading might take awhile, but after that the loading is quick. I hate waiting for loading, I usually won't, so if I'm telling you it's quick, it's quick, okay?

In Other News...

The dinner party last night went beautifully, just as I'd hoped. The company was perfect and so were the pizzas. It was really, really weird to have my parents over, I must admit. They loved the apartment, the food, and I can tell they really want to know Micah better, which is adorable. In general, this dinner party thing? SO MUCH FUN.

it's a long one, folks

It's the middle of December already? Really?

This weekend was horrible and exciting in equal measure.

The Horrible: I dragged Micah with me to the company Christmas party. As soon as we arrived I realized we were underdressed and I couldn't let it go. (In my own defense, I've never been to this company's Christmas party nor the steakhouse in which it was held, so I was kind of guessing. Poorly.) I couldn't get over my embarrassment, even though Micah tried to calm me down by saying nobody would notice my jeans (even Micah was dressier than me, he wore khakis!) because the room was so crowded. Crowded doesn't even cover it. The barroom in which we were all squished was about ten degrees hotter than it should have been. The waitstaff looked extremely annoyed about all the maneuvering. Our entire party should have been seated at seven o'clock; by seven-thirty, still no sign or word of a table.

Then a bitch-ass bartender pulled a bitch-ass move on me. Shortly after we arrived I bought two Jack and Cokes to put us in a better mood. After speaking briefly with the manager from one of our departments I realized there was a company tab open at the bar.

"So," I politely said to the bartender, "I didn't realize ___ had a tab when I paid for those drinks earlier." Then I shut my mouth to see if she'd pick up what I was puttin' down.

"Well the tab was closed ten minutes ago."

I waited, still politely, for her to continue with a customer-friendly response such as "But since I didn't know you're with ____, I can refund your drinks." (Or in the spirit of benefit-of-doubt, maybe comp us a couple drinks? Anything? Hello?)

No such response. I stared at her. Hard.

"Well, we've had our drinks for at least twenty minutes," I say through gritted teeth (but smiling lips!)

"I'm sorry. He closed the tab." At that point she was hardly looking at me anymore, ready to serve the next thirsty customer.

"So even though we've had our drinks for twenty minutes and he closed the tab TEN minutes ago, there's nothing you can do?"

"There's nothing I can do."

Now, I'm polite and very gentle with strangers. Even when I'm mad or feel unjustly treated by a company or its employees, I leave the situation with little more than a lingering look of disbelieve because I don't have much confidence in my ability to make a Scene in which I come out victorious. But that bartender made me feel violently rude, like if my boss weren't standing ten feet away I'd surely tell her what she can do with that three-dollar tip I gave her for drinks that I wasn't supposed to pay for. I was SO FUCKING PISSED.

Combined with the fact that I could not get over my misjudgment of the appropriate attire situation (it's a Christmas party, Gab! This ain't the 4th of July! What were you THINKING?) and the fact that the quarters were so close I accidently touched a co-worker's ass (oh, you think that's funny? You should see the co-worker!) and I had had enough. There was no table in sight, and it was a steakhouse. Do you know how long it would take to cook steaks for a party of twenty-five? Yeah, we left. I burst into tears in the parking lot and cried all the way to Old Country Buffet, which, as it happened, was having "Steak Night."

Did I mention I was PMSing?

Turns out my co-workers didn't get seated until eight-thirty, and they didn't leave until midnight. Don't you love it when you learn shit like that? I can't even comprehend how annoyed Micah and I would have been by that point. Disaster (somewhat) averted.

The exciting: New furniture and A LOT of cleaning! My parents and Father Gary are coming over for dinner tonight. Now, you might be wondering why on earth a priest is going to have dinner in our apartment. For one, he is the coolest, most awesomest priest EVER. He goes to Tori Amos concerts, cusses, and started a gay and lesbian support group in the church. He runs the Catholic Student Center at a local college of prestige, and let me tell you, he knows how to talk to young and old alike. He's a superstar. He's the ONLY reason I ever enjoyed going to church because his sermons are like therapy sessions. Everyone clamors for his attention because when you're with him you've never felt so special, so lighthearted, so enchanted. He's amazing, and he adores me. At least that's what he tells me, though I know I'm not the first to hear it. Anyway, he showed up at our wedding reception much to everyone's surprise (he's just that popular and that busy) and he invited himself over for dinner at our place in front of my dad, who probably shit his pants with excitement that Gary was initiating dinner with our family, which has happened before but is seriously an event to covet, Ten Commandments aside. (By the way - I've been struggling with one thing...do you call yourself a Catholic if you were raised Catholic but don't practice, believe, take seriously, etc.?)

So all weekend we've been cleaning like mad. I feel like we've been cleaning like mad a lot lately, getting rid of trash, paring down, adult-ing up. I've been trying to keep in mind that this is all not just for one evening of entertainment, it's a general upgrade that will last long after the last pizza crust is consumed tonight. I am honestly very proud of our apartment and the amount of time we spent making it gleam. On Saturday we spent SIX HOURS running errands and looking for The Perfect Chair for the living room. We ended up with two things we didn't know we were looking for: The Perfect Rug and The Perfect Coffeetable, but the elusive Perfect Chair never materialized, not for lack of trying. When did furniture get so damn expensive? I suppose it's worth it if you find something classic and well-made, but nothing under 300 bucks fit either description, and excuse me, but we don't have that kind of money to be dropping on a chair just so a priest will be impressed with us. Ok, fine, it's not all for the priest, I want my parents to be proud as well, and we really do need an armchair of some sort. I can't believe it, but my parents have never stepped foot in any of the places I've lived since high school. I actually feel terrible about it because they open their home to us any damn second we decide to visit. All the meals my mom has made over the years? All the spoiling and such, never reciprocated? It all ends tonight. I am so excited.

Except I won't be able to smoke a cigarette when I get home from work because I don't want it to smell like smoke at all (poor Micah, at home today, under a strict smoking inside ban). And my parents are coming like forty-five minutes earlier than the priest, which means I have forty-five minutes less to chain-smoke cigarettes on the balcony in between dough-kneadings and forty-five less minutes to inspect every surface and harass the cats to get off the damn dinner table, already!

Can you tell I'm a little nervous?

Gamer

Micah loves to play video games on his PS2. He desperately wants me to play with him and enjoy it as much as he does, but I just can't get down with most of what's out there to play. I don't like shoot-'em-up games, I don't like anything that's too chatty (like pausing every five minutes to talk to some elf or tree that will warn me about something in an infuriatingly vague way) and if I have to learn more than five moves to be successful, chances are I'm going to give up on my first try.

Prince of Persia was the first PS2 game that I could really get into. The Prince can run along walls, swing and jump from poles like a gymnast, climb a wall by stabbing his sword into metal plates, walk along skinny beams, and jump great distances. Now that is fun. I let Micah do most of the fighting scenes until he realized he didn't get to do any of the fun platforming stuff and then I had to start sharing. There are three games in the PoP series, and we've completed all three together. Awww.

Because I'm so extremely picky about what video games I'll even try, I've completely frustrated Micah. He tries to convince me I'll like The Suffering even though I know I won't simply by the title. He tries to show me how very funny Psychonauts is, but to me it's all chatter, no action. If I wanted to watch funny animation I'd rent Nemo or flip to Adult Swim. He just doesn't understand my gamer needs, which were developed on a Gameboy back before games went 3-D.

Until yesterday. Wanna know what I did for four hours last night? Played Tetris. Yep. Go ahead and swoon with jealousy. TetrisWorld, to be exact, courtesy of Micah and a Game Stop employee who told Micah how very lucky he was to obtain a copy. They've expanded basic Tetris so you can play up to 4-player arcade mode, or choose story mode which requires increasingly better play to make different landscapes come to life.

People. The joy is no longer only in the hands of Nintendo owners.

Tetris and I go way, way back. It came free with the Gameboy I got when I was ten, and playing Tetris once on my cousin's big screen tv (which, come on - to a ten-year-old it might as well have been the whole wall) is still one of my favorite memories. Crazy how a giveaway game can cause such an international crush. I didn't know anyone in fifth through eighth grades that couldn't play the shit outta some Tetris. The Gameboy era was the heyday of my video gamer experience. I've gotten to the end of only one game all by myself - Super Mario Land - and I could do it faster than my brother. I don't recall ever beating Tetris which probably means I never did. I have been given a second chance.

Because you know what? I'm fucking good, better than I remember. Know what else? Micah had never played Tetris before last night. I don't even know how that's possible considering he was consistently the top scorer on the local 7-11's Ms. Pacman by age eight. Watching Micah play Tetris is a gall-dang RIOT. He totally and completely sucks. He really likes to watch me play, though, which I must admit feels great. He is marveling at MY game play? Micah? The one who endures 30-minute showdowns with the biggest, baddest video game villians and comes out victorious every time?

Nope. He can't play Tetris. We both had a massive laugh attack at his expense last night, laughed harder than we have in months, and I'm glad he can find humor in his own incapabilities. However, I don't expect this to be the case for long. Because of the cold weather he isn't working today and he has nine solid hours in which to develop some talent without me "helping" over his shoulder. I predict he'll make great strides today, and by the weekend it'll finally be a competitive experience. We'll see.

My husband, he knows just what it takes to make me happy. And yes, you can play Tetris the next time you come over. You know you want to.

let it snow

(I should note these are from a significant snow last year. I was inspired by our recent weather to post them. I should've taken pictures of all the ice a few days ago - shiny goodness! Anyway, enjoy the wintery bliss of Tower Grove Park...)