What a voluptuous mountain ash

Friends, Romans, countrymen and countrywomen: I am terribly delighted for the time being.
Vacay started out marvelously. superbly. STUPENDOUSLY. Ma mère has taken note of my obsession with food blogs and stocked our fridge full of vegetables and other such and suches and we've dug through cook books and made everyone's taste buds happy.
Christmas Eve morning mon père, mère, and I loaded the snowblower into the back of our little Stratus*. Stratuses are little cars and snowblowers are large things and the trunk just wasn't closing. Meaning when mon père drove off he spread Christmas cheer as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir gloria-ed from the speakers in the trunk loud enough for all pedestrians to hear.

And today....

I WENT WILD. I went to my ye olde gem of a thrift store. It didn't fail me, no no no no not one bit. I keep worrying that we'll run out of senior citizens who are giving their closets away, because senior citizens with London Fog coats are a nonrenewable resource. We haven't run out yet and I am going back again. I had to exercise such restraint, I can spend hours in there. HOURS. I didn't know where to look first. I went back to the dressing room quite a few times. I started out with a basket and I had to pick up a cart half way through. It was a treasurable overload. THIS IS THE LIFE! I chill at home with mes parents, watch movies, read books, thumb through records, put together puzzles, cook up storms, lay down on a mismatched couch and stare at the hand painted wooden Rudolph, sit around the kitchen table with ma mère and paint with watercolors. I make a couple of social calls a week and I go to the thrift store. My thrift store. Lovely thrift store.

Don't worry ma soeur, you are not forgotten. Te amo.

And Merry Christmas, Happy New Years, Hanukkah, Seasons Greetings, Happy December, Love to all my family, Joy joy joy to you all.

*(don't worry, no one ever sought to end an argument at the dinner table with "I DRIVE A DODGE STRATUS")

NEWS HOURS with Jim Lehr....

I'M GOING TO FRANCE!!!!! At least that's what my uni says.

Today is a bit of a big game for the football teamers I have previously mentioned feeding. On Tuesday I was working at the grill and stressing over finals when a man called in to ask if we would be having another banquet during the game like last year.
"No, I'm sorry we won't be open"
"You won't be open? You guys are naughty. It was so fun last year. You should be open."
"I'm sorry. All of the students will be gone, campus will be closed." Naughty????
"I can't believe you won't be open. You should really have a banquet again."
"I know it's terrible of us. But no one will be here to work. We'll all be done with our finals and going home to see our families."

I guess we should all be expecting coal for Christmas, though, for being so naughty.

what, what, what? He said something clever

Finishing up my finals was a bit hectic, I didn't even start packing until ma soeur was driving over to my apartment to pick me up. Despite the line of 20 people on my first flight that had been overbooked I made it all the way up to sitting on the plane for the second half of my journey.
And then I gave up my seat and went through another 24 hours of limbo. They had already pulled away the walkway that goes between the gate and the plane so I had to leave by a little stairway. Airport Grandpa (a wizened airport worker) was golden. He offered his hand to make sure I made it safely from stairway to ground as if I was a lady and he kindly offered his arm so that I wouldn't slip on the ice on our way to the little hidden door to take me back to the gate. I love to be taken care of like that. It's unnecessary but at the height of heartwarming.
I did get a flight yesterday. I always feel a kinship when I get on the plane for ye olde home. It's always a small flight and the people all have a pie shaped piece for ye olde home in their heart. When you share a piece of the same pie you've got to have some comradery. My accent from there is mainly an adopted thing. My best friend and I used to sit around and imitate all the native olde homers. (It's one of those places where you must settle for generations before you're a native.) So I notice as I get into conversation with the Grandma next to me (there were lots of grandparents in this trip. I met a Grandpa who was a stained glass artist) and we're talking about different travels and world things that I'm molding my vowels out more than I normally do.
The best part (besides having lefse in the fridge) is when I arrived home in the middle of my parents Christmas party hungry--I went straight for the cheese ball--and in clothes that I'd been living in for 34 hours. Luckily I'd worn a comfortable and unwrinkle-able dress.

And because of my trouble I have a Christmas present of a roundtrip ticket anywhere in the 48 states. Who's up for a trip?

joyeux noël

CHECK THIS OUT!!!!! WHAT JOY!!
A site where you can pick out a Swiss grandmother to knit you some socks.
Net Granny

I have three kitchens but don't go

On my cell phone box (the mobile I detest) they tried to find a picture that would make me feel like my cell phone is a real party time. What this picture really does is make me feel like I have a cheep, cheesy, and chunky phone. And what especially gets me is the large note in the upper left-hand corner that says:

FREE
Hands-free headset
with purchase.

You see, I tried to call someone yesterday. I heard them perfectly: "Hello? Hello? Hello? There's no one there." They did not hear me perfectly: "Hello. Hello! HI! No! I AM here!!"
I was about to despair, but I'm a resourceful little dear. So I plugged in my FREE hands-free headset. It may be hands free but it's not cordless. I look so cool walking around ending a phone call and then wrapping up the headset.

On another note, the Onion-Cutter and I started fighting at the grill today. Normally I wouldn't argue like this. But it's as if he's my younger brother. He started it by imitating a chicken.
"Are you making fun of me?" I asked.
"Yeah! You're a chicken!"
"Well you're a turkey."
"You're a chicken leg!"
"Why am I not even the whole chicken?!"
Later on he told me I was a chicken head and maybe even at one point a chicken ear. I don't know Onion-Cutter kind of mumbles.

The children qui sont...oh tenenbaum fake tattoos

Editing labs can eat your life away.
You know, each time I make a film I think it's going to be different. As I edit a piece I realize I know nothing about what I'm doing. But I learn as I edit ten million things I can fix for next time. Next time I will show the fine cut of my film to people. Next time. This time? No.
It's like when you take a test and you think, "Wow, I'm a clever little child, I geniused that test." And you get the results back and....you did not genius the test. I am not geniusing documentary yet. I would be the film programmo's prize novice. Emphasis on novice.

I'm trying to bring the Christmas season into my life a little bit. Christmas Season Me woke up from a nap the other day and went grocery shopping so I could have fresh baked french bread with avocat au sel fumé, or in otherwords avacado, lemon juice, paprika, and radish. In case you can't tell, I'm still religiously reading food blogs. And I also want you all to know that lawyer and avocado are the same word in French: avocat. I think this means avocado is our advocate. Did you know sedan in Swedish means "then" or "afterwards"? In other words, that's an afterwards that just drove past. If we go by dear LaQuina's theory, it's like a nice Norse man saying "So then" in a funny accent.

Mainly we (C.S. Me and I) are in love with the holiday decorations. After I left the supermarché I passed a dry cleaners that was closed for the evening. There was still a little Christmas tree lit up in the office spreading cheer out onto the street. It reminded me of Mr. Krueger's Christmas not because of any loneliness, hallucinations, old people, janitors, or carolers, but because I was walking past an out of date shop celebrating without a grand reception. The out of date shop thing is kind of the season of all my Christmases growing up. Remember ye olde home has a lot of dirt roads and such.
Christmas Season Me also got Bag Clips for a friend of mine. When we were university freshmen we decided to try to start a trend. Not too seriously, but we went to a little shop walked around and picked out Bag Clips. For a few weeks we wore bag clips everywhere. He's been in El Salvador for a while and I'm thinking maybe he would like to start a Bag Clip Christmas revolution there.

(bag clips avec a note and my fingers)

i snoop into your life, you snoop into mine, lets all have a snoop dogg time

My Boss has superpowers. I don't know how he's done it, but he got me to write on a paper, "Can work as much as you need me to."
What have I done?

Alors, mon cousin is in a heavy metal band. Tydligen (that's Swedish for evidently) their band is pretty goot. I dunno, I haven't heard them, and I haven't listened to much of anything heavy since high school. I never got too deep into it then, I stuck with Metallica and didn't trap any excursions into the serious Scandinavian bands. I'm supposed to go see them perform on fridag...fridagen....Friday.... (Mon cousin loves Sweden). This could be quite an adventure lita på mig (believe me).

P.S. I'm beginning to realize how fantastic my little Swedish book is. If only I could pronounce these wonderful phrases they are feeding me:

Det börjar en socialvårdskongress där i dag. A social welfare congress is opening there today.

...har 7,5 miljoner invånare. ...has a population of 7.5 million.

Den rika tillgången på vattenfall... the numerous waterfalls...

I tried to face Sleepy Hollow but we were out of butter

Last night I went to a festival of ten minute plays put on by the local playwrights I chill with upon a few Wednesdays. They're hurrayed for a celebration because they've finally got a venue with a stage maintenant (now. pronounced....well say it six times fast and you'll be close). I was a little sad for the days when we met in an upper room of the public library and sat on quilts as they performed...but we all grow old and professional in the end.
I went by myself which means I went on foot in the pouring rain. By pouring rain I mean I crossed a few motes and hopped over a lake or two.Oh, fine, I can dress for weather, but for reasons other than what fit in this story I wore high heals. And sometimes I couldn't see the lake to hop over it.

Dear Vera,
I'm sorry, I'm much too wander-lusted, dirt under fingernails type of person. It took me a moment to realize my feet were splashing around in the puddles of water that had formed INSIDE my shoes. Your design took quite an adventure last night. But genius girl, they held up.

Love me anyway,
Marge

I was running late. Since it's a small troupe I run the risk of arriving with no one to sell me a ticket and let me in at the gate. Oh please, oh please, you know me! I tried to telepath to my troupers since they weren't answering their cell phones. I ran into one piece of luck, a boy with an androgynous voice warned me I should ford out onto the street since the corner up ahead had become Lake Como. I made my way across the muddy grass, stepped over the mote and onto the street...but I left a shoe behind stuck in that muddy grass. Oh @#$%^&*. Symbols and numbers, just like that, started scrambling around in my head and for less than a split second I seriously considered what I'd been tossing around for the last few blocks. I took my shoes in hand and ran barefoot. Barefoot five blocks, thinking HOW NUTS if someone does this at home we amputate feet (C'mere Earl and bring us the ax). Oui, barefoot five blocks evading one car full of boys who started to roll down their windows.

And quelle chance! I didn't miss a bit of show.

I bit of tarnish on that silver tea set and I might drink out of it. tarnish! tarnish dagnabit!

Don't worry guys, I found my ring. You might not have caught that (j'ai perdue ma bague). Je ne sens encore nue. I don't feel naked anymore. It was terrible to look down at my hand and see my right ring finger instead of a large black ring.

I've had trouble deciding what to wear lately. With the onslaught of snow and rain (it's attacking me!) it took me over an hour last Saturday before I finally decided to just go ahead and do the awful, lazy, ski bunny, trendy, "I spend too much money on tasteless clothes" look of tucking my sweatpants into my boots. Thankfully my sweatpants were not Victoria Secret or Juicy Couture. I hate looking like a name brand. I wouldn't even do that for Balenciaga no matter how much I love you Nicolas Ghesquière. Nor was there fur or fake lamb's wool anywhere on my boots. I even put my voodoo love chain on to feel a little better about myself.

The chain is really an odd piece of necklace passed down to me from my Aunt Milly. I have one distinct memory of her. I was très jeune and she was baby sitting ma soeur et moi. I was eating fries from McDonald's watching the news with her. McDonald's! What a treat! And the news! World affairs! Vistas never seen before! Important events! Aunt Milly is magical! She had fantastic dresses fit for real parties not church potlucks and she let ma soeur and I dress-up in them. She had feather dusters (how romantic, a feather duster instead of an old rag!). She worked in the White House as a secretary. She'd been places. Her shoes weren't from Payless, they came in beautiful boxes. I was too young, but I bet she even had hat boxes. Hat boxes! She would dip pretzels in white chocolate and sprinkles in her little bungalo kitchen and lay them on waxed paper. I've got a dream of Aunt Milly's life. She must have seen great things, had lunch at the Smithsonian everyday, been to cocktail parties, typed on a typewriter. There must have been unrequited love, foreigners, three piece matching dress suits made out of wool.

I thought it was magical to live in a little brick bungalo all by yourself.

Hat Boxes! Imagine!

j'ai perdue ma bague! Je sens nue.

You know those University decals you put in the rear window of your local vehicle? Here's a new one:

Poupon U

Hmmmm....How about these ones:

Poupon Snow
Poupon Rent
Poupon analyzing films
Poupon lack of sleep

Can anyone tell I'm ready for Christmas vacay? Sighhhhhhhhhhhhh...I might be going downhill fast.

I watched Tender Mercies in the Great's class. It was as if I had gone home for an hour and a half. The terrain was flat and it always looked like late fall or early spring. The sound of wind was always present, the people kept to themselves fairly well, and there were cowboy hats and country music. Now I know what to watch when I'm feeling homesick.

I feel inspired to channel my late 1970's/early 1980's small town hick. How can I resist? Tess Harper was inspiring in her knee-high boots and cotton dress.

oh yeah yeah

I've got this theory that I've proved right time and time again. No one, OK, I never go very long being sure of anything. This is partly why I keep one foot in the pool of existentialism. If I'm sure of something it becomes essence. But essence is a vaporish thought.
Mainly I have no idea what I'm doing in documentary. I still can't believe they let me into the film programmo. Do they have a quota of novices they have to fill? A quota of one? A quota of me?

One thing I can be sure of though: I am not good at the orange game.

i've got lists i could throw at you from here to new zealand. so watch it pluto!

Coworker One and I always do the banquets scheduled at the grill. Last night was fairly calm. There was no rush to set up the banquet. Alors this is how Coworker and I spent the later part of yesterday afternoon (aka: look how delinquent we can be):
1)We snuck outside and threw snowballs at each other and at the grill.
2)Boss told us we could take these triple chocolate cheesecakes home. So we locked ourselves in the freezer and munched on them a little. Not our brightest idea. It was a freezer and the cheesecakes were frozen.
3)For some reason there is a mini goal post upstairs in the banquet area. We played a mini rendition of football. It consists of one person holding the mini goal post in the air and dancing around and the other person trying to make a goal.
4)We also started composing a new song. (I like long backs and I cannot lie. You other sisters can't deny. When a guy walks in with an itty bitty head and a hairy back you have some fun! braiding pieces of it...)

We missed out on two of our favorites we had this past August:
1)When everything was said and done and the hurricane of football teamers was gone, we'd stand in front of the large projector screen and act out ESPN. I'm not quite sure why this is fun. But it is.
2)Our other proud favorite, when there would be just one football player left eating....forever... we'd stand where they couldn't see us and whip out our mad dance skills. I kept thinking over this idea to pick up extra money: we could set out one of our uniform required baseball caps (they go great with everything and you look so professional and sporty! woo!) to collect cash in and provide entertainment for the teamers. You know, I bet my running man could rake in some mulah.

Sigh....yes this is how I spend my life. Maybe this explains a lot.