This elf is already tired and the official Christmas Season of Shopping hasn’t even kicked off yet. Working 10 days in a row with no end in sight makes for a very sleepy elf.
Maybe I’ll watch “A Christmas Carol” tonight and cheer on old Eben.
For your holiday enjoyment, I suggest the following two movies: Love Actually and Elf. I actually love them both.
Of Love Actually, and without giving anything away, let me just type that Emma Thompson is genius, I want to raise children with Liam Neeson, and Rown Atkinson does not disappoint. I saw this movie with three gal pals and we all loved it. (Judy is still crying happily…)
Robby and I went to see Elf last night and loved it, too. Will Ferrell is one of the funniest men of our generation… His wide-eyed innocence makes for perfect Elf casting and some great line deliveries (“I like whispering, too!!!”). We immediately called my sister with our report to take the girls (we still can’t figure out the PG rating. All we caught was “son of a nutcracker” and “piss”)– both neices have enjoyed it already.
Both are worth the $7.50. Heck. Get a box of MilkDuds, too. Go all out. Woo! Woo!
TiVo has changed my life.
Let it change your’s.
It is as friendly as it’s happy little TiVo logo suggests.
I would marry TiVo if the opportunity arose.
As it is I will just sigh happily in it’s warm glow.
The skies were bright blue in Gettysburg this weekend. I went out for the annual “Remembrance Day” observances and was treated to a John Pagano tour of the battlefield. Sue and I chose the 24th Michigan monument as a starting point and John led our merry band through the 4 phases of fighting in the woods to the edge where the General Reynolds (yay!) monument stands. He filled our heads with facts and figures and anecdotes about the regiments involved and the men leading them. It’s as hard to imagine that peaceful ground littered with carnage as it is to take in the news reports from Iraq.
So mostly I tramped near the tail of the group and kept my ears peeled to John’s tour while my feet tentatively felt through the brush for steady footing and mittened hands were occasionally flung out to find balance again. And for a brief interlude before the sun set and the woods around us absorbed the quiet there were the strangest little rustlings here and there as though others might also be making their way through the undergrowth. On the edge of the woods while John painted images in our heads of the scene in 1863 I caught the strangest play of light where the trees crowded in to each other– little openings moving here and there along a line of quickly darkening shadows. I’m not a ghost hunter. I know that it was a trick of the eye that comes at dusk. I know it was the little gray squirrels that live in Gettysburg that crunched through the fallen leaves and made the slightest branches move. And that John’s vast understanding of the battle allowed for our imaginations to catch hold of bits and pieces…
I will take away the new things I learned and store away this happy memory of our camraderie in the woods as we each leapt over the stream and worked our way through the boggy low areas. I will be grateful for another opportunity to reap the benefits of having a friend like John. And hope for another Gettysburg day where the blue skies turn smoky gray and then black with a ridiculous amount of stars and there are dear friends to notice them, too.
I am the luckiest girl in the world– the Boy gave me TiVo for our anniversary!
as in “I have to TiVo 90210″ or “I have Survivor TiVo’d…”
Just say it. TiVo. It makes my mouth happy.
It fills me with glee and power. I can set this puppy up to catch every Kellie Martin Lifetime TV movie ever made (not just the “Girl on the Milk Carton” which is, by the way, a classic) or Jimmy Stewart or Katherine Hepburn.
TiVo TiVo TiVo.
Of course, now we have to set it up. And when your husband is an engineer and he looks at the wiring diagram and blanches… well, it is a fearful thought indeed. (That and his plan to TiVo sporting events. Ugh.) Soon I will have TiVo. Soon I will use it as a verb. “I TiVo’d the Oscars– “
TiVo TiVo TiVo.
Sigh.
Our marriage is nine years old today. So it’s been sweetly precious (before we could crawl and get into mischief) and then learned to toddle and walk… Went through an ornery stage in the middle years of testing authority and now is on the cusp of the ugly, awkard years when it’s too young to do all the grown up things and too old to play the old games anymore.
At nine this marriage can express itself. So sometimes we are pleased to find it very agreeable and downright touching. Other times we have to send it off to its proverbial room until it can act nicely…
Sigh.
What do you get a nine year old?
Happy Anniversary, Boy. Thanks for proposing that we do this way back when and thank you for proving that I have wonderful taste.
I love you.
The best part of going anywhere is the returning back to home again– or pretty darn near close.
Chicago had me in her clutches for the better part of last week. It was a packed set of days– much laughing, a little singing (!?), and a circle of dear, good people… It did me good to quit thinking of myself and to hear their stories. I drove away, in the shadow of the lunar eclipse, towards Michigan with a head full of images: Friend Jon dressed as a creepily cheerful pig; a 19th century Springhouse turned into a nightclub complete with twinkling party lights; Pete and Betsy diving into the pool in their bathing costumes; RobM’s near barfight; the Gordy’s usual witticisms (his) and kindnesses (hers); the morning routines of Ericka and I– long versed at traveling together; a waltz with tall weaver Rob; Rick’s stories (told in a deep drawling voice that defies incredulity); — the usual conference images I suppose. I drove back with the usual exhaustion– partly because my very small brain has been taxed with new information and because I have dozens of things to tell Robby.
And when I finally arrive there are small trinkets to show him and little presents. A rambling tale of the week’s adventures and all of his questions to answer about the people he’s met. And it is good to have his attention and for puppy to finally exhaust his tail wagging and welcoming licking to lie on my lap… but it is best to finally stretch out in our bed with pup at my feet and husband spooned against me.
Away is good– But home is best.
I’m heading to Chicago tomorrow for a Museum conference. It will afford me the wonderful chance to see some dear pals and learn a new thing or two– the sessions are usually quite good. I usually come away fired up about something or other and revived a bit. Mostly I am looking forward to the vast quantities of laughing. Not that I lead a laughless existence here– but where that group of friends is it is assured that we will laugh our fool heads off… and I could use a little of that. November has me feeling a little glum.
So the week’s checklist of pro and con has for the pros: Baileys, copious amounts of laughter, period clothing, dear friends, three days away from work, new found knowledge, and fabric shopping. The cons have only the lack of husband and pup. (Neither of which, by the way, will care so much that I am gone as it will mean more ESPN time and Coneys for the former and more frenchfries for the latter.)
And did I mention the promise of a corn-themed interpretive dance and epic poem?
