books and pictures

Today on CNN, it was reported that Barack Obama took 5 books totaling 2300 pages with him on vacation. Well, I don’t know how many pages my books totaled, but I ended up taking 12 books and 10 magazines with me on my vacation. And of course I didn’t read them all. I just wanted to have the luxury of lots of choice. And I suppose it’s kind of a poor showing that I only read 2 books out of the 12. But what can I say. The activities schedule was pretty packed.

What was weird about the books I read on vacation was that they both ended up dealing with childhood sexual abuse even though I had no idea that that’s what either book would contain when I started them. So that may also be why I only read two books. Perhaps I was scared of starting another book that somehow also involved childhood sexual abuse, because then I would have had to question why I was buying all these books that somehow featured childhood sexual abuse without my knowing. What’s up with my subconscious?

Anyhoo, the two books I read were:
--Book #15: Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith by Martha Beck
--Book #16: Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

I chose “Leaving the Saints” cause I wanted to read about some crazy Mormons, and this memoir did not disappoint on that count. It’s about how Martha Beck, the lady who I hear appears on Oprah sometimes, relocated from Cambridge, MA to her childhood home of Utah. Her father is a bigwig in the Church of JC of LDS, so she re-explores her family’s religion while trying to come to grips with her own spiritual beliefs. It’s interesting enough as a memoir of faith. But then you have to throw the aforementioned childhood abuse in there; Beck alleges that her father molested her when she was young, something she repressed until adulthood. If you look at the reviews on Amazon, they’re pretty divided on whether this book is truthful or not, which seems like kind of a weird thing for strangers to debate but oh well. I can’t say I want to hang out with the lady, but the book was interesting enough to me.

Well, after reading the Mormon Memoir, I decided to switch over to fiction. I chose “Case Histories” because I’d heard it was a real page-turner. Eh, it was okay. It didn’t wow me. Basically there are three sets of characters and all of them have a decades-old mysterious death in their past and a private investigator tries to solve everything so that the families have closure. There was sexual abuse in this one too, as well as multiple families in which one child was loved way more than another one, which is not exactly a fun thing to read about at a family reunion. It really wasn’t a mystery as described in all the blurbs, though the characters that were wandering around the book were interesting enough. Even though when perspective changed, the author’s style didn’t, meaning that all these characters expressed their thoughts in parentheses (which made it hard to distinguish the differences between people). Just alright.

Hey, are you kind of depressed after reading about these sad books I read on vacation? Me too. Let’s look at vacation pictures to cheer ourselves up.

Abe Lincoln's boyhood home:

Lincoln birthplace memorial:

Lincoln statue in Hodgenville:

ZOOOM in:

Rough River Lake:

More of the lake:

Holding Mickey Mantle's bat:

Stealing some chicken from the colonel:

images of america

As I mentioned in my last post, I went dishwasher shopping with my parents this past weekend. When we were walking up to Home Depot, on the day before the 4th of July, I was very struck by this image:
I think this picture encapsulates the American Dream, which to me, clearly, is flag + tractor. Actually, it's about owning a home with a yard that requires a tractor, and a trip to a nice American-owned business like Home Depot means you have the financial security to acquire such an item. Or something like that. I didn't have a lot of time to think about it, because taking pictures in a parking lot is quite a dangerous thing to do.

What other images of America did I capture over the holiday weekend? Well, here is a picture of a grill with all sorts of meat on it, along with some spiced pierogies:

What, you think that the grilled meat could be made more American by the addition of a beer, some french fries and a little ketchup? Me, too:

And last but not least, here is a kitten playing a video game:

You may notice that even though this is a post full of images of America, there is only one American flag. Well, that is because everyone in Candler, NC was violating the flag code, which I read up on as preparation for the 4th. You have to take your flags down at night if they're not properly illuminated, people!

sorry, God.

As I wrote yesterday, God has definitively shown me that I cannot steal the Chick-fil-a cows without risking some sort of trouble with the police. So I just want to let God know that when I pulled into the parking lot of an adult entertainment place this morning at 8:30 a.m. to take a picture of the cows, it was not because I was in any way casing the joint or planning any future crimes. These pictures are just for my records.

Here are the cows that consume me. Can't you hear them calling out to me? Because I can. I hear them begging to be taken down and put in my car (or a flatbed truck, should I decide to use one for the purpose of transportation and also for the purpose of not having my actual license plates possibly photographed).

Those cows call my name. Even now, 15 minutes away and 15 stories high, I can hear their pleading moos.

But as I said, I AM DEFINITELY NOT PLANNING ON STEALING THEM. Even though they are located very low to the ground, as I have mentioned and as I captured in this photograph.

And yes, now that you mention it, it would be very easy to use the roof of that building as a staging area for my hijinks. But unfortunately, I am absolutely, most definitely, without a question, not going to steal those cows. No matter how good they would look in my apartment, I will not do it. Not even the prospect of silencing all the voices in my head that talk to me about cows would motivate me to steal anything off that billboard. If I say it enough times, I shall believe it: I WILL NOT STEAL THE CHICK-FIL-A COWS.

seasonal centerpieces, part two

A few weeks ago, I wrote on the subject of seasonal centerpieces. My mom is a real genius at creating seasonal centerpieces, and I wish I had taken more photographs of the seasonal centerpieces and decorations we had at Christmas. Even the piano had something beautiful on it.

Well, as I wrote in that last entry, I had been sorta wondering about what I was supposed to do after Christmas. Surely it was too early to get my spring decorations out, and too tacky to leave my Christmas centerpiece up, no matter how much I might love it.

Of course, though, Mom has thought of everything, and I got my new centerpiece for Christmas, and it is today's Picture of the Day:

Mom's idea for the new centerpiece was the giant cocktail glass with glassy stones inside. But she also gave me this shoe full of raspberry mixer to be added to cocktails, and I figured I would throw it into the centerpiece mix. It's kind of a "Sex and the City" centerpiece when you add the shoe, but I think it conjures New Year's Eve and parties very well, and I hope to take that party spirit with me all the way into 2009. Until I drink the raspberry mixer, at which point I'll just go back to Mom's original design.

I'd just like to say, there's something about the lighting around that table that doesn't capture color right. I thought my Christmas tree looked much duller in pictures than it was in real life, and so too does that shoe. It's very bright. Oh well.

In case no one figured this out, Picture of the Day was a way to rack up 31 entries in this last blockbuster month of blogging. It probably won't be a daily feature in 2009, but I will post pictures more often. Picture of the Week maybe. Though I should have the goal of posting daily in 2009, the idea of trying to take 365 interesting pictures thoroughly exhausts me. And we can't have that!

wanted poster

As I mentioned ever so briefly, a dog killed some of the neighbors' chickens on Christmas eve. I know this because when my dad and I were driving to get the beef tenderloin that was to be served for Christmas dinner, we saw that dog with a chicken in its mouth. It was crazy. I tried to get my camera out, because that scene would have made a stupendous Picture of the Day as well as a great piece of evidence for our neighbor. But the dog ran away, chicken and all, before I could get the shot. The dog got seven chickens total and I think went back for seconds on another day. Unfortunately, chickens are dumb and some of them were roosting outside, making them easy pickins for the dog. I worry most of all about the three little neighbor girls, who have created quite a little business out of selling the free-range eggs that their chickens produce. Their prices are lower than store prices, and those free-range eggs, when cooked, make for really, really yellow food products.

But here is an artist's rendition of the scene of the crime. It was a grey day, which is why there's so much grey. Think of this as a pseudo-Picture of the Day.

another Tiki post

Well, here we are in the blog home stretch. 3 days, 15 entries. As I look back over my Christmas break, I do wish I had done a little bit more in terms of writing blogs or at least finish the book I am determined to finish before the New Year. Or maybe I should have done some work so that I could do those things because my work was all done. Not that I would do that or anything. Work time is for working, I would like to say, in the event that my boss ever finds this blog.

So what did I do on Christmas break instead? Well, there was a fair amount of eating. I worked on the puzzle, as discussed earlier. Christmas stuff that included opening presents and running errands and drinking. Played games. But one thing I did almost every day is play with Tiki, the cat.

I have written about Tiki in another Picture of the Day post, but here is an update. Previously, Tiki had let me pet her a bit, but that has stopped. Now, she either hates me or sees me as a playmate; I prefer to think it's the latter. We kind of wrestle, as much as small cats and big people can wrestle. It involves me trying to pin her down by her limbs or scratch her belly, and she tries to scratch me or bite me. It's not the fairest trade-off but it's fun. I guess Tiki thinks so too, because on Sunday morning, she came to where I was sitting, licked my big toe, and then got into wrestling position.

I also spent a good deal of time outside trying to find Tiki and get her back inside. Tiki just wants to explore outside, but that makes me nervous because we've lost cats to packs of wild dogs before, and on Christmas eve, a big dog killed seven of the neighbors' chickens. So I tried to protect Tiki, but Tiki has learned that there are certain places I can't get her, like under cars and in between bushes. So I had to chase her a lot.

Man, if I had written blogs instead of playing with Tiki, the blog would be done for the year by now. But look at today's Picture of the Day, of Tiki sitting under the Christmas tree like a little present, and perhaps you will see why she was just too hard to resist.


I don't know that we still need to put the Power Ranger on the tree, but we do:

And here is the whole tree:

a tip: do the border first

Well, Christmas break is almost over. Right now I’m sitting at my brother’s apartment, playing Yahtzee, blogging and waiting to eat some barbeque ALL AT THE SAME TIME. That is what I call multitasking, though my fellow Yahtzee players probably wish I was a little more focused on the game.

After lunch I will drive back to Atlanta. When I go, I will leave one major Christmas activity unfinished, and that is the holiday puzzle. Many Christmases, my family works a puzzle after we’re finished opening up presents. Then my dad shellacs all of the puzzles and frames them, and they form the majority of his law office decoration. Some of the puzzles that I can think of off the top of my head include a Presidents puzzle, a First Ladies puzzle, a Civil War puzzle, a Kennedy puzzle, a Lincoln puzzle and a United States puzzle.

Though Dad got a North Carolina puzzle and a Founding Fathers puzzle last Christmas, we took a bye year and didn’t do a puzzle. Which means I was only itching all the more to get a puzzle going this year. My dad got this puzzle from my mom on Christmas morning:

It’s a puzzle called “Grand Ol’ Gang” and it shows Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, T. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Bush I and II playing poker with Abraham Lincoln. When Dad viewed the puzzle, he made humorous observations, such as Nixon was likely cheating and the reason George W. Bush didn’t have cards in his hand was that he didn’t understand how the game was played. Yet despite these witty remarks, Dad remains a Republican through-and-through. So this was a pretty good puzzle for him.

We have said this about many puzzles, but this puzzle is especially difficult. The pieces are very oddly shaped, but more specifically, many of the pieces are very dark. The clothes are dark, and most of the background is dark. The more I worked this puzzle, the creepier I found this darkness. The background looks fairly apocalyptic, moreso than the picture above may let on…and 8 of the men who might know how to fix it are in a bunker playing poker? It seems extremely inappropriate. To be fair, there is a companion puzzle to this one, featuring Democrats, and I will have to go back to check to see if the Democrats are similarly playing the fiddle as Rome burns. Methaphorically of course.

I probably only need another 90 minutes with that puzzle to finish it, but I’m leaving right after the barbeque. So today’s Picture of the Day is the puzzle in progress, with my main helper man William and little Tiki Monster looking on.

Between the time that I wrote the entry and the time I posted it, I played some Yahtzee. William was slightly offended at the description of "main helper man" and I'd like to amend my comments to point out that he spent several hours working on the puzzle by himself, during which time he put together at least two presidents. Sorry William. But even though Tiki is not here to defend herself, I don't think she'd find any fault with her description.

doughboy, part 2

After posting yesterday’s Picture of the Day, I started to feel a little bad, because truth be told, there is another doughboy in my life. The Pillsbury one, of course. Here is that doughboy in today’s Picture of the Day, with Barnabas Bear and his new bear brother Chester. Chester came on Christmas day as a present from my brother William, but I digress. This story is about the Pillsbury doughboy.

This doughboy used to live at my grandmother Mimi’s house. When I used to go visit Mimi as a little girl, I would put that doughboy in a little stroller and push it around the neighborhood. We’d go off to feed the ducks or to drop leaves off the side of a bridge so that they went off to Never-Neverland because those were the kinds of things I did when I visited Mimi. Then, likely, we came back to the house and Mimi fixed us a cheese plate and some ice cream because there was always good eatin’ at Mimi’s house.

Mimi died when I was in the fifth grade, and it fell upon us to clean out her house. We took a fair share of stuff but there was no way everything could go. As my parents remember it, I said goodbye to the doughboy and put him in the pile to go to the dump. But dad said I didn’t seem quite convinced, and when he took that load to the dump he pulled that doughboy back from the edge of extinction. When he got home, he gave me the doughboy and said that he’d heard the doughboy saying, “Save me! Save me!” This is a situation where the written word really fails to convey the essence of the story because my dad does a perfect Pillsbury doughboy voice.

So legend has it that the doughboy can never be thrown away, because he will cry out and pierce your heart. And that is the tale of the other doughboy in my life.

doughboy!

If you type “doughboy” into Wikipedia, there are a few possible entries you might be directed to: Doughboy as a slang term for American soldiers, the Pillsbury Doughboy advertising character, a band called the Doughboys (originally from Canada, they have now broken up), the fictional movie character Darin ‘Doughboy’ Baker, and Doughboy Island, which is in Tasmania.

But if you are me or one of my brothers, there is only one thing that you think of when you think of the word doughboy, and that is this thing:

This is my dad’s doughboy. It is on a counter in the kitchen. He keeps various papers in it and every few months he has to clean out the doughboy. If you are ever looking for spare keys or paper that might be located on the counter, then “to the right of the doughboy” or “next to the doughboy” is a perfectly acceptable direction to give. The doughboy is a well-known landmark in our house.

And apparently it was in my dad’s house growing up, as well. I asked my dad about his doughboy, and he said it was just something that was always in their house and his mom gave it to him when he went to law school, or thereabouts. Dad said a doughboy gets its name from its original purpose, which was to knead dough.

Well, flash forward many years, and picture my little family sitting around our Christmas tree. We had opened all our presents, and there were three gift bags left. Normally, we open our presents one at a time, so that Christmas lasts longer and so we can all enjoy seeing what everyone else got. But these bags, said mom and dad, all needed to be opened at the same time.

We dove into our bags and what do you think was there?! A doughboy! We all got a doughboy! We took out our doughboys and raised them above our heads and we were all saying doughboy over and over again. And the happiness of three kids getting doughboys is today’s Picture of the Day:

Now we all have a doughboy and don’t have to fight over who gets Dad’s doughboy. As my brother said, there probably wasn’t any other home in the world where three kids got doughboys and experienced the same kind of happiness we did.

I should probably note that before writing this entry I did approximately three minutes of internet research, and if the internet is to be believed, the proper term is dough box. But you can try all day to talk me into that, and I will insist on calling my present a doughboy. That’s just the way it is.

unto us a president is given

Alright, so the Christmas Picture of the Day is a bit late. But certain circumstances, such as alcohol consumption, a lack of internet at my house and general holiday merriment prevented me from posting a blog yesterday. It is just too hard to blog on Christmas, even if you are trying to reach 200 entries by the end of the calendar year.

Anyways, I had a very nice Christmas. I got a lot more than a painted wagon and an apple, I can tell you that! If I were to put a theme on my Christmas gifts, that theme would be Barack Obama. Apparently I have mentioned quite a few times that I am extremely fond of Barack Obama, and so many people in my family chose to use that as a guiding principle in gift-giving. I got an Obama sticker in my stocking. I got a framed Obama poster. My brother and my sister-in-law gave me the children’s books telling of the life story of our president-elect, each of which have the most darling and beautiful illustrations. And if real pictures are more your thing, I got the Time Magazine and the Life Magazine commemorative Barack Obama editions. I even got an Obama t-shirt from the cat.

Even though I got many wonderful things in addition to my Barack Obama gifts, those things are what I am choosing to highlight as today’s Picture of the Day:

"Who is Barack Obama? Contrary to the rumors you may have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet Earth."--Barack Obama

apple cart

This morning, I headed out with my dad to the Fresh Market, to pick up the big hunk of meat that my family will be enjoying for Christmas dinner. Dad wanted to go early since the Fresh Market is not the kinda place you want to be at the last minute on Christmas eve. So in return for getting up so early, I wanted Dad to get me some breakfast. We decided to go to the downtown location of the popular franchise Jersey Mike’s, because they started serving breakfast and we figured we’d see what they offered.

I had sausage, egg and cheese that was served in wrap form, and it was delicious. Dad had an everything pork roll, which the guy working at Jersey Mike’s said was unique to Jersey Mike’s located below the Mason-Dixon line. It was basically summer sausage with egg and cheese on an everything bagel. Dad said it was good. The guy who waited on us also said that the veggie omelet was good, but it sounded like that was the only thing he’d tried there because he was vegetarian. It must be hard to work at a sub shop if you’re vegetarian. Though maybe it eliminates temptation.

Anyways, while we were waiting for the food to be prepared, I noticed a box that had a sign over it that said “Free—take one—happy holidays.” I got up to see what they had, and when I returned I said, “Oh, it’s just apples.” I want to clarify here that it’s not that I dislike apples. I think I just had my hopes set too high, because I was hoping the box had cookies or something. But when I got back, and when I exhibited derision regarding the apples, my dad told me the saddest story ever.

Here is the sad story: Apparently when my dad’s dad was little, the family didn’t have any money for Christmas. And this was before the Great Depression, so I can only imagine what the Depression-era Christmases were like. So for Christmas that year, all they got was an apple or an orange in the stocking, and my grandfather’s dad painted a red wagon that they already had green so it would seem like new. An apple and a painted wagon, and that was Christmas. Boy oh boy did I feel bad about mocking the apples then. I felt like the worst person in the world. So I went up and took an apple and got one for my dad, and it is today’s Picture of the Day:



This story and picture will hopefully remind us all that even if we don’t get everything we want for Christmas, we’re probably getting a whole lot more than an apple/orange and a repainted wagon.

hap-hap-hap-happy holidays

Today's Picture of the Day was approximately one year in the making. Last year, right around this time, I had just accepted a new job, the one I have now. Right after Christmas, my mom and I came down to Atlanta to find an apartment. When we first got into town, I drove her by my office, so she would know where that was, and would keep that in mind when we were thinking about commute times.

The office building was still decked out for Christmas, by which I mean that there were these giant ornament balls outside the building. As if the building were a Christmas tree, and these ornaments fell off, I guess. It made it easy to point out the building to my mom, and because she likes things like that, she was pretty impressed. "We should get a picture of you with those ornament balls before we leave," she said.

Then we went into the mad dash of apartment hunting. Finally, I found one, signed the lease, etc. On our way out of town, we decided to drive from the apartment to the office to time my commute, and to get a picture of me with those Christmas ornaments.

So we drove to the office…and the ornaments were gone! It was only a few days after Christmas, and it was like Christmas had never ever happened. At that point, I started to have a few doubts. I had only seen my office building with those Christmas ornaments in front, and without the ornaments, things looked a little less shiny, a little less attractive.

Okay, I made the part about having doubts up. I just wanted to give my story a little dramatic tension. But anyways, it was sad to have missed my chance to get a picture with the Christmas ornament balls, but it taught me an important lesson. Don't postpone your chance to take pictures with large seasonal decorations.

That's why when my chance came around again this year, I didn't hesitate. Well, I kind of did. Instead of getting my picture taken with the holiday ornaments during the unseasonably warm December we've had, I waited til the day before vacation started, when the temperatures plunged to 20 and 30 degrees. That means that in the Picture of the Day below, I am so so cold. And as a result of being cold, my photographer and I didn't really want to play around and figure out the best angle for these pictures. We just took two and ran back inside where it was warm.

One sad thing that you learn when you're up close and personal with the ornaments is that they're all scratched up. But here you go, Mom. Here are pictures of me with those ornaments, one year later.

welcome to the working week

Today's Picture of the Day is my view for at least 8 hours a day--the view from my cubicle at work.

Okay, so let me tell you a little about what you're seeing here. Obviously, there's my computer, where I work on my brilliant little ideas. Now, to the left. My left. Next to the computer you will see a cup of office coffee mixed with hot cocoa mix AND water, because that's how I roll. Two beverages. At afternoon the coffee turns into soda.

I have a Peanuts Page-a-Day calendar to my left. Charlie Brown starts my day off right. Some of the ones that I've liked over the past year are on the wall, including one where Charlie Brown says "YOU LOOK CUTE TODAY!" and I always pretend C.B. is talking right to me if I need a self-esteem boost.

Also on my left is my writing frog. Sometimes if I get writer's block or feel lazy, I look at that smug little frog over there, just writing away, and I get mad! But he's so adorable that I can't stay mad at him long.

On the wall to my left, amidst the post-its that try to remind me little details about my job are my Washington license tag, my Sgt Peppers calendar my brother gave me Christmas last year, and some beautiful notecards with illustrations of Japanese seasons that are in a museum somewhere. There's also this thing with an American flag that has three boxes, where you can check off if you're a Republican, a Democrat, or a Cosmetologist. Apparently cosmetologists make a lot of money and my editor thinks I need a career change, as she's the one who gave it to me. I try not to take it as a statement of how I'm doing my job. The cosmetologist part is covered up with my Advent calendar, which has dangerously little candy left inside.

The whole right side of the cubicle is devoted to postcards of old Nancy Drew book covers. They inspire me to constantly look for clues in this mystery of life and to dress a little better. That Nancy always looked sharp.

The things you really can't see in this picture are my phone that never rings and the shelf space, which is mostly just filled with papers, a dictionary, a style guide and my big bag.

So that's where I work. If ever want to feel like me for awhile, stare at this picture for 8 or 9 hours and you'll have an idea of what it's like to be me during the week.

skylines and bylines

Atlanta doesn't really have much of a skyline, which used to bother my Emory classmates who came from the "big city." There's a moment when you're getting on Freedom Parkway, which leads to the interstates, and downtown kind of unfolds before you in a way that makes you think there's a skyline. But that's about it.

Today's Picture of the Day is my own personal skyline. I don't really know what any of the buildings are, other than the well-marked W, and this isn't downtown Atlanta, it's Midtown. I don't know if that matters or not. But anyways, I drive by this scene every morning on the way to work. The buildings that make a skyline over Piedmont Park. It's a beautiful scene with the sky is gray and cloudy, and it's a beautiful scene when the buildings sparkle against a clear blue sky. This picture was taken just as the sun began to set today.


It's a scene that reminds me that I live in a city, even though the place I live is more neighborhoody. And even though I'm happy to live in a city, I've never had to go to any of those buildings down there, and that kinda makes me happy too. I want to be close enough to touch a skyline, but not so close that I have to deal with the hassle. If that makes sense.

When you're driving by, you don't notice all the power lines.

naughty or nice

Guess what, everyone? I decided to put up a Christmas tree! It's today's Picture of the Day:


Ok, I am just joshing. That's the Christmas tree at the mall. It goes all the way to the second floor of the mall, because it sits atop all these presents. Santa Claus sits at the bottom, kind of amid all the big presents. The thing I noticed about Santa's set-up this year is that it's very pink and purple. I think it's extremely beautiful, but a tad girly. Perhaps I'm very traditional and prefer for Santa to sit amidst red and green shades.

I snapped a few pictures of Santa in action, which was hard, because he had a long line of children to entertain. I knew I had to get Santa minus kids, because no one wants to dial up a blog from someone they don't know but find a picture of their child. That's the kind of thing that could get me arrested. So these were hard-won shots, of Santa without a kid on his lap.




I watched Santa interact with the children for awhile, and I feel like you get a lot of insight into family dynamics and certain kids, but I don't feel comfortable writing about it. It seems to personal. Also, today, I saw the Chick-fil-a cow dressed up as Santa Claus. The weirdest place I have seen Santa Claus this year was at the pet store. He didn't seem to be there to take pictures with pets or anything. He was just hanging around as a greeter. Or waiting for the magic reindeer to get groomed, maybe.

work week in review

As many of you may know, one of my cardinal rules for the blog is not to talk about work. At least not too much. No matter how much one's work is interesting to him or her, it is likely boring to other people. Plus there are too many stories about people losing their jobs for something on their blog. Plus I like to maintain some mystery about who I am and what I do everyday. The world doesn't need to know every time I exhale.

But I must digress from that rule as briefly as possible to relate a humorous anecdote. In the past week, I have been working on some articles about death. Dying. The cessation of life as we know it. In order to do this, I scouted out the local libraries for books on the subject, and I ended up checking out quite a few.

At the first library I went to, I checked out eight books on death. Perhaps I am projecting, but I really feel that the library was judging me. She gave me such a sad, pitiful and frightened look. It was more judgment than I expected from a librarian, but on the other hand, it really wasn't enough outright concern for whether I was about to go home to a dying family member or about to die myself. I kinda wish she had said something so I could have allayed her fears. "It's for work!" I could have said. "I have to learn about death for work!" And if that hadn't worked I could have said something like, don’t blame me, you're the one who works at a library that has all these books on death for me.

At another library for a second go-round of books, I decided to cut the librarian off at the pass by putting a non-related book on top of the pile. I chose the Stephen Colbert book "I Am America (and So Can You!)" but I did have doubts about this choice as I stood in line. Was I saying, hey, this Stephen Colbert book better be funny or I am going to want to die? Stephen Colbert makes me want to die? I have a family member or friend extremely close to death and I hope Stephen Colbert can pull him or her out of it?

I'm probably worrying about it too much. Maybe I know I would judge someone if they came to a check-out counter with an armful of weird books, but maybe they teach you how not to do this at library school or in bookstore training or what have you. Who can say. But today's Picture of the Day contains all my death books as well as my Stephen Colbert decoy.

holiday parties and freight elevators

Today is the office holiday party, which has me reminiscing about office holiday parties gone by. There was one place I worked, however, that did not have a holiday party, and that was Old Navy. Now, granted, work in the retail field doesn't immediately scream "holiday party!" or "holiday bonus!" the way that working in some other fields does. And to be fair, if you work retail at a place like Old Navy, you've been listening to holiday music for approximately five months by the time December rolls around, so you're fairly zapped of the Christmas spirit. Also, there were very few people I actually liked at Old Navy; indeed, there were a fair amount that I had to actively avoid, and so I don't know that I really needed an additional event where I might have been forced to make small talk with them. All the same, some snacks in the breakroom or a gift card might have been nice.

I just had a horrible thought that maybe Old Navy did have some sort of holiday party, and they only invited people who opened a certain number of Old Navy credit cards each year. Just thinking about having to ask people to open up an Old Navy credit card gives me the hives. It's a pretty big measure of performance at the ON, even if you're just stocking merchandise, which was my job. A few times I worked the cash register and I had a principle that I wouldn't ask people if they wanted to open one unless they had spent more than $100. I'm not the asshole that asks you if you want a credit card if you buy $10 worth of flip-flops.

The number one question I'm always asked when I tell people I once worked at Old Navy is whether I had to wear a headset. The answer is, you're supposed to wear a headset, but I never did. If you wear a headset, you have a ton of people trying to motivate you to get someone to open up an Old Navy credit card. There are also things like price checks, people announcing that they're going on their break or coming back off their break, and…that's about it, actually. Mystery solved if you were wondering. But as a member of the stock/shipment team, there was one crucial reason to wear a headset.

That crucial reason is today's Picture(s) of the Day.

The freight elevator.

The freight elevator at Old Navy is weird. It was a three-level store, and the elevator would only open on a given floor if someone on that floor pressed the button from the OUTSIDE. So you couldn't get on the elevator on the third floor with a cart of clothes, push a button for the first floor, and expect to go anywhere. Rather, you had to use the walkie talkie to ask someone on the first floor to push the button for you, and then you had to get on the freight elevator before it actually left and hope that everything worked out okay. If the button never got pushed on the first floor, but the elevator moved somehow, then you were stuck on the freight elevator until someone pushed the button to call it to another floor and actually open it. This happened somewhat frequently.

The first time it happened to me I was stuck for 30 minutes and scared shitless. When I finally got off the elevator, the first question I was asked was, "Are you okay?" and the second question was, "why weren't you wearing a headset?" I didn't learn my lesson, though, and kept shirking headset duty, and I got stuck a few more times. As it happened more and more, though, I started to relish it and even enjoy it, because it was a legitimate excuse not to work and at some point the button always got pushed again before the end of the night.

When I went back to Seattle in August, my Old Navy coworker (and friend and Bev Night Buddy) Matthew and I went back to see the ol' freight elevator. My picture reflects the potential terror of getting stuck in the freight elevator, while Matthew's reflects the "I don't give a shit about headsets, and I hope I get stuck in the freight elevator" sorta feeling. Or at least that's my interpretation of it.

Matthew, we totally should have had a holiday party in the stock room. I just thought of it. Dammit.

Christmas fun in the sun

I have written about my love for inflatables before. If you ever want to see me transfixed by something kinda ridiculous, take me to a place where they got inflatable things. I will look at those things forever and ever. I don't know how you can not be jolly if you are looking at an inflatable. The scenes they depict are so joyous and whimsical, and the characters in the scenes are so precious and adorable. Oh man, inflatables are the bright spot in any Christmas shopping extravaganza. Sadly, I don't see as many lawns as I would like sporting inflatables, and my apartment complex has decided to go with "wreaths" as their decorating motif this year. By which I mean they put wreaths on the awning around the main office. But imagine how happy you'd be if you turned into your apartment complex and saw an Inflatable Santa in a sleigh? You'd be so freaking happy to get home!

Anyways, the best place to see the largest assortment of inflatables come Christmas time is a store called Garden Ridge, which is a home decoration mecca that has very few locations. It's truly a gift to have one nearby. Garden Ridge starts putting out their Christmas items around, oh, August. It's the kind of store that devotes about one-quarter of their retail space to seasonal items. They still haven't gotten rid of all their fake pumpkins.

I headed up to Garden Ridge this past weekend to do a little Christmas shopping. Because of the proximity to Christmas, all the decorations were massively on sale, and since all the stuff has been out for months now, it's all a bit picked over and sad looking. If you want to feel like Christmas is truly over before it's even begun, head to a Garden Ridge about now. What used to be like six aisles of crazy hilarious holiday inflatables is down to just one lousy aisle. There was a Winnie the Pooh Christmas inflatable, a Simpsons Christmas inflatable, and the following inflatable, which is today's Picture of the Day:

I guess I can see why no one would want it. It is a bit confusing that the snowman can survive in a tropical climate. And Atlanta is fairly warm in the winter so it's not like you need something to remind you of a temperate climate. And people tend to think Christmas tree more than palm tree this time of year. But still…it's so adorable! Why haven't shoppers lined up en masse to take this delightful and affordably priced item home? If I had room for that inflatable, I would get it and name the snowman Winky and the penguin Martin.

now that's what I call Christmas decorating!

Recently I wrote about the Christmas decorating I did this year. I made it a simple affair, with a jingly tree wired Christmas decorations, which was more than enough to get me into the holiday spirit. But lo, I have added another decoration to my apartment, and it is awesome. For a mere $2.24 (all holiday decorations are on sale now, if you need any), I have brought life-size wise men into my bedroom, and they are today's Picture of the Day:

Here are the three wise men presenting Barnabas with their gifts of frankincense, gold and myrrh. While I put Barnabas there because the wise men all appeared to be looking at someone down there (and I didn't have any Baby Jesus's hanging around), I hope that he will also be useful in terms of scale. These guys are well over five feet tall.

I put the wise men up in my bedroom, because there's a corner that as of yet has no furniture or wall hanging or the like; my mother, also known as my interior decorator, has thrown out a few ideas for what we could do to decorate that corner. But I'm kind of glad we haven't gotten around to it yet, otherwise there would be no room at the inn for these wise men. Best of all, they can stay around until Epiphany! But probably even longer because I like having them around. Probably until Mom and I decide what to do with that corner.

Now, this is the corner that faces my bed, and I will say it's a little creepy to wake up and see three guys in the corner. And I have woken up in the middle of the night and wondered what the shadow on the wall was. So it may not be the best Christmas decoration for my sanity. But it's still a great addition to my Christmas decorations, nay, my apartment decorations. I like having three men bearing presents around.

reason for the season

Today's Picture of the Day is a great stocking stuffer idea from the Dollar Tree! It's also something that I probably shouldn't find as funny as I do. I find it funny in the same way I found Santa riding Noah's ark funny.

It's a cross made out of chocolate, flanked by praying hands made out of chocolate.

As with the Santa on Noah's ark item, I'm not quite sure who the target audience is. It's gotta be people who are religious enough that they won't be offended to receive chocolate crosses and praying hands, but not so religious that they will be offended at the idea of consuming these items of faith. Maybe they're for a person with religious feelings who also likes to eat their feelings.

It's the little details on these that tickle me as well. Like, both the praying hands are made out of double crisp chocolate; I like to think that the crisps represent sins. Or blood clots. And I like how the Window of Faith shines on a milk chocolate FLAVORED cross. Balmer couldn't even spring for full milk chocolate for God. Oh well. These are my recommendations for children's stocking stuffers this year. You can look forward to watching their little eyes light up with a mix of delight, confusion and horror, the proper reaction to any good religious item.