Stick by your words, domesticat.

Despite what Matthew will tell you, I'm generally a nice and polite person, especially in public. I let my hair down on this site more than I often do in face-to-face conversations, and every now and then I have to learn to live with the little lump in my throat that comes with speaking my mind.

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Longtime readers will remember the February 2004 entry "extracurricular eating," which until today stood alone as the oddest event we've ever dealt with while attempting to 'parent' our very large, very STUPID six-year-old cats.

Have I mentioned lately that they're STUPID?

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I give up. I've been lectured one too many times. While I don't do many gift exchanges with friends at Christmastime, there are a few friends with whom gifting does occur, and I keep hearing through the grapevine that I am The Impossible Friend to buy for.

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Email sent this morning:

domesticat + power tools + "Ballroom Blitz" == VERY SCARED EDMUND

Shortly thereafter, a phone call: "Um, dear, what power tool are you using?" "Oh, the drill. The littlest drill bit makes a hole that's just a little bit smaller than what's necessary, so it's perfect." "Ah. I just wondered what in the world you were using to hang hooks." Read the rest »

It's been one of those months, in which you start tending to long-overdue tasks just because it's easier than listening to the emptiness of the house. Not that I minded … entirely; I'm notorious for liking large dollops of privacy with sprinkles on top, but this has been a bit much, even for me.I've called it the San Francisco Project, just because I don't know its real name. It's the one that sent Jeff out to—one guess—for three weeks, and promises to possibly send him out there again come February or so. It's meant not too many dinners together, unless you count my dropping off soups and the like for Jeff at his lab, and so last night was unusual.

We have our little traditions, Friday night dinner being one of them; we go out to a restaurant we like, settle in, chow down, and talk. Not purposefully, because if it were that way, we'd be doing it wrong. Just catching up.

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I was asked recently about my Christmas traditions. Most of mine are secular, because this is very much a secular holiday for me, but one in which my cynicism is generally set aside in favor of care. The deceptive simplicity of Joni Mitchell sits side-by-side with the gospel exuberance of Earth Wind & Fire, and I sit at my computer late at night, sipping warm drinks and composing the most ghastly and maudlin of letters. Half of them, thankfully, I never send; the other half, thankfully, I do.

The words of 'September' breathe gently through my mouth, quiet so as not to wake my sleeping spouse. They are coffee-flavored with a shot of peppermint, and my sweatshirt still holds the crispness of December air. I drove to the store for a post-midnight supply run, the last I'll make until the holiday madness dies down, and I felt my mind grabbing at any unusual detail, looking, sneaky-fingered, for the right detail to steal and cement down for a place to start.

I couldn't decide.

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"Hey, Brian wants us to meet him for lunch."

(sleepy mumbles of agreement)

"I'm working on 'enthusiastic.' Right now I'm to 'awake.'"

So I guess we'll meet up with Brian after all.

I said I wouldn't become my mother, and that you would never find a rack of shoes in my closet and another set underneath my bed and another set of lesser-used shoes underneath the guest bed. I still say that. I think it's true; knowing a potential pitfall exists can sometimes help you avoid it.However, I skirted one pitfall only to discover another: the cult of Nordstrom. I get it, oh, I get it.

It was the damn makeup, see.

Back in September 2003, I wrote about my unexpected discovery of the goodness of Birkenstock, otherwise known as shoes that actually fit (the entry 'hippie sandal-wearing freaks'). Since then, my momentary $50 splurge on off-white Birks has proven to be one of the wisest $50 expenditures in my adult life. I knew I had unusual feet, but I figured I just wasn't trying hard enough to find shoes that worked for me.

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