And speaking of passive-aggressive.

Dickens on the Strand is this weekend. A couple of weeks ago, I ordered a new top hat for the Dude because his old one is a bit worn. Extra-large head = extra-large hat. Unfortunately, the people at T–H—-.com sent a large, which, given the egg in question, simply will not work. So I checked the invoice (yep, XL) and left a lovely, friendly message last night on the company’s answering machine, including the invoice number, the problem, and the fact that I knew there was no way to get a replacement in time, so I’d just return the hat for a refund and the cost of return shipping, thank you, good-bye. Very clear. Very low-key. Very my mom. And by the way, I’m a repeat customer…

So today I get this e-mail:

Hello Ann,

I was told that you phoned and left a voice mail last night. The person that received the message said there was a problem with the size your received. I phoned and left a voice mail but thought I would follow up with an email. Can you tell me what the problem is?

Thanks,

J—

Okay. I thought the voicemail was clear (you sent the wrong size), but hey, thanks for responding so quickly. I replied:

Feliz Navidad: first blood.

It can happen anytime – after Thanksgiving. It can happen anywhere – but if you live in South Texas, you know exactly what I mean.

Perhaps you’re driving home from dropping your child at school, in a blissful haze at the resumption of a semi-normal routine. Perhaps you’re innocently wandering the aisles of a department or grocery store, idly wondering if that leftover Jello mold is still good and if you can get away with leftovers just one more night.  The seasonal deluge may have begun for retailers, but in the non-selling world one holiday is over, the next is a safe distance away. Ignore the sparkly displays of clamshell-secured happiness, glide serenely past anything red or green. Surely a day or two of non-festivity is allowed…

Then a twang. An opening note. And José Frickin’ Feliciano, dark glasses twinkling, cuatro firmly in hand, is gleefully humping your auditory canal once again and it’s Christmas in South Texas, like it or not.

Y’all.

Another thing at which I suck

is packing for trips. You know, in advance of the day of the trip – which is why I’m up doing laundry and considering the construction of what will surely go down in gingerbread history as the most breathtakingly daring amateur production ever.

The Gingerbread Train.

Since I have a feeling that once again this year Mom will veto the Gingerbread Insane Asylum.

Real post tomorrow.

Promise. This forty-year-old is POOPED.

Countdown

Approaching the great four oh – tomorrow at approximately 1400 hours.

Further bull from My Holiness: new religion

for Jason

I realize one of my previous posts may have seemed a bit anti-religion. Maybe it’s important to clarify: I’m not anti-religion. I’m anti-human-beings-as-interpreters-of-messages-no-one-else-can-hear-but-which-give-them-the-idea-that-what-they-think-is-right-should-be-what-everyone-does.

Hmm. No, there are still a couple of… well… okay.

I don’t like “con’s” without corollary “pro’s,” though. It’s far too easy to bitch and moan without suggesting a solution, an alternative or at least a palliative. So after years of research (and that part’s true), I’ve put together what I consider the most universally workable, humane, loving messages from every major religion and laboriously conflated them into a modest proposal for an entirely new creed:

The Church of Don’t Be an Asshole.

Ague and goiters and boils, oh my.

One thing I knew about walking pneumonia:

• You can sing it to the tune of “Waltzing Mathilda.” Similarly, “diverticulitis” scans beautifully to “Gary, Indiana” from The Music Man.

Two things I didn’t know about walking pneumonia:

• It is not merely a vernacular reference to an undefined group of diseases; it is in fact a generally accepted name for a specific atypical pneumococcal virus.
• I have it.

Which gives me medically-sanctioned and spousally-enforced time to rest, recover and ponder other things, like: what about all those other folksy disease names? The ones from Chaucer through Shakespeare and well into Wodehouse, a vast array with which I am casually acquainted but not intimately familiar? “Chilblains,” said the husband, and I replied, “Frostbite… maybe? Hmmm.”

School days

Soon, for the monkey. Beginning the 24th of August, just like the big kids. I can’t imagine days in a row with time to think… but they shimmer on the horizon like a domestic Xanadu.

Meanwhile, I write down how to make an armadillo while she sleeps, while Brian reads his webcomics or saves a corporate infrastructure or something before bed. Karmically speaking, even minus one beagle and plus some depressive episodes, I think that once again, I’m way ahead of the game through absolutely no virtue of my own.

And there appears to be a rather creepy movie on TCM.  Ah.

ETA: The creepy movie has just segued into creepy movie about a mom dying and leaving her seven children who pretend that she’s not dead so they won’t be separaaaa… nope. Not watchin’ that.

Playing with the new camera

Working on it, anyway.

Memed! Anonymously memed!

Well, I know who memed me, but I can’t tell ya. State secrets, national security… you know, the usual. Being this important is hell sometimes.

Here goes:

1. I can’t believe I’ve never been to London. Seriously, it’s amazing, considering that I have practically 400 years of British history memorized (the juicy bits, anyway) and have no trouble understanding any dialect even remotely like English. Damn. This sucks.

2. Every time I think about the night I got so drunk that I woke up on a couch next to someone who had been hitting on me and had to check to see if my tights were still on I still cringe. Fortunately, they were, and there was no way in hell I could have gotten them back on in the previous night’s state of intoxication. Not that I would have minded sleeping with him, really, but I would have minded missing the fun. Wait, I might have been engaged at the time. Oh well.

3. I wish I’d met Lyle Lovett when I had the chance.

4. I have never felt so out of place as when I was a bridesmaid at my best college friend’s wedding. Not only was I the only non-Christian among the wedding party, I may well have been the only non-virgin. And thank whoever is up there for that, because I was able to render an educational service involving a banana to my beloved friend that none of her more saintly companions could have. Just goes to show you, every good girl needs a go-to whore on the roster.

5. Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls are my guiltiest pleasure. I don’t have food issues, you know, the “bad food” crap, it’s just that Swiss Cake Rolls have no redeeming value whatsoever. They are the trailer trash of pastry: sickeningly sweet cheap chocolate coating over a usually stale chocolate cake wrapped around some unidentifiable white semi-solid sugar product. And they rock my fucking world. We can’t even have them in the house or I’ll eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

6. I hope my mother knows how grateful I am for her letting me make my own mistakes while always being there for backup. Although I wish she’d given me a heads-up about the batshit bipolar guy from California.

7. In my darkest hours, I secretly blame my screwy neurochemistry for my dysfunction. Actually there’s no secret about it. As far as dumb things I’ve done in my life or bad choices, that’s a hundred percent me – and that’s no secret either.

8. Being really, truly on my own and broke as hell changed my life forever. I can’t say it was completely a conscious decision, but partly, and it gave me time to figure a lot of things out – like what I wanted to do with my life, my vocation, my values, my bad habits, and the list goes on and on. It was time to just live for a while with no expectations. I highly recommend it.

Whew.

I’m tagging Lorelei, Banshee and Polly. Because I lurv them.