Christmas Questionaire Extraordinaire (condensed because my attention span is quite low)

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
I’m conflicted. Wrapping presents is one of my favorite things to do, but so is saving trees.
2. Real tree or artificial?
See above.
3. When do you put up the tree?
Well, I don’t actually have a tree since I move at least once a year. So usually I hope some nice family out of care or familial obligation will invite me to their tree decorating events. This year it was Darin and Kim.
5. Do you like eggnog?
Yes, and I am resentful when vendors try to limit my heart-attack-in-a-cup consumption to one measly season a year.
6. Favorite gift received as a child?
A double-deck tape player that I used to play my Tiffany tape over and over, day after day.
8. Hardest person to buy for?
Chris. After three thousand years of dating, the only present I’ve ever given him that he liked was a pair of bike shoes. He found and bought them on Ebay, and I wrote him a check.
9. Easiest person to buy for?
Me! I always know exactly what I want.
10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Before I could read, but around the time that I was pretending I could read, I accidentally opened one of my older brother’s presents. It was a big bag of G.I. Joe action figures, so naturally I burst into tears. I like to think it was because I was anti-war back then too, but actually I just really wanted Strawberry Shortcake.
11. E-mail or snail-mail Christmas cards?
See answers to 1 and 2.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
Elf and While You Were Sleeping (you know you like that movie, too)
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
December 26. I get things for people whenever I see something I think they’ll like with the intention of saving it for Christmas. This works approximately 0.0% of the time because I can’t wait to give it to them NOW.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Grandma Dickey’s red, white, and green layered jello.
17. Favorite Christmas song?
River (Joni Mitchell)
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
I don’t have offspring, so I am generally expected to be a traveling circus.
25. Have you ever been Christmas caroling?
This questionnaire obviously wasn’t made by a Mormon.
26. Hot chocolate or hot apple cider?
Both. For those who live in the holy land, you ought to go to Cocoa Café in Salt Lake (282 East 900 South). They make home-made Italian bittersweet hot cocoa with steamed milk that is to die for. It’s worth every penny. 400 pennies, if I remember correctly.
27. Do you think Antonio Banderas is incredibly hot?
Why... yes, I do.

Tag: Joanne

Okay, this is the plan...

One of the less obvious things about me is that I've yet to produce offspring. I very much want children, so I've come to the conclusion that I must steal somebody else's child. Shiloh Pitt Jolie is the obvious choice, but I feel like she isn't very accessible on a limited income. Also I'm told she has bodyguards.

So I've decided to steal Mike and Sherene's baby, Kai'ava. She's gorgeous (see below) (or above - I'm never sure how these things will turn out) and as pleasant as a snowy winter morning. Except when I hold her. Despite my bright smiles, Mike's generous use of the phrase "Aunt Laura," and Sherene's insistence that she will go to "anyone," the second Kai'ava is transferred to my arms, her eyes fill with terror. Her bottom lip trembles, and her cries transition from whimper to wail as she looks at her parents as though they are the biggest traitors since Judas.

Nevertheless, I am determined to kidnap her someday. Any ideas on how to pull off such a feat? Don't worry, I already told Mike and Sherene about my intentions, so it's cool.

yesterday

This picture was taken by Chris's brother Mike in the fall of 2004. Mike and I (Chris and I weren't even dating yet) hiked part of the Ridge 157 trail and took photos of leaves and streams and such. I can't figure out why I look so old - what did I have to worry about back then?

Books and such

Five books I really like:
1. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
2. The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)
3. The Shipping News (Annie Proulx)
4. Grapes of Wrath (John-John Steinbeck)
5. Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri)
6. The Art of the Commonplace (Wendell Berry)

Five children's books I like:
1. The Lorax
2. Tales of a fourth-grade nothing
3. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
4. Go Dog Go
5. That one about the little boy in china who can't grow the plant and is honest so he becomes king.

Five Juvenile books I like:
1. Tuck Everlasting
2. Where the Red Fern Grows
3. Sarah Plain and Tall
4. Nancy Drew case files
5. I can't think of any more (not my favorite genre, or age-group for that matter)

Three Books I've recently read:
1. Blindness
2. Vegetarian Living (it didn't take)
3. Surviving Schizophrenia

Tag: Diana, Karen, Joanne

7 Random Things About Me (tagged by Cami... sort of)

I stock blind people. The prospect of losing my sight terrifies me, so I follow them at train and bus stations to make sure they get to their destination or connection without runng into poles, falling down steps, or tripping over other-ly afflicted persons sleeping on the sidewalks. Once, a blind man who sensed he was being followed took pity on me and said, “Why don't you tell me when that light turns green, dear.” When the light turned green with it's accompanying bird chirp, I said enthusiastically, “it's green now.” The man chuckled and said, “Thank you dear.”

I have extraordinarily sensitive skin. I can't use strong soaps or 99% of laundering products, and if an article of clothing is even remotely itchy, I will not wear it; this omits wool, angora, cashmere, lace, hemp, clothes or socks with uneven or poky-out hem lines, and actually almost everything else from my wardrobe. When I was a child, I had to bathe with a slimy, dark green cleansing agent that my brothers called frog soap (before the days of Cetaphil). It was never clear whether they were saying that I was a frog, or that my soap was made of frogs, but either way it was rude as heck.

I am still afraid of the dark.

I'm ridiculously gullible. Fell for the dictionary joke dozens of times. I believe commercials – all of them – and find myself nodding in agreement with the people behind the screen convincing me that I do indeed NEED that ultimate chopper, stove cleaner, or Quit Smoking Now program.

I can smell earwigs from up to ten feet away. This skill, which I like to classify as a borderline superpower, comes in handy since the hideous insects are my least favorite creatures crawling the face of the planet. I don't mind spiders, reptiles, or mice, but I hay-hay-hate earwigs.

I have never smoked in my life.

I don't really feel like I know a person's name or the meaning of a word until I know how it's spelled. I won the 5^th grade spelling bee (I think Karen and Cami did too, except one of them had to go and win the 4^th and 5^th grade bees), and I'm attracted to men who also spell well.