I WOULD marry him all over again

My sister is one of a small handful of people I know who might possibly be able to drink me under the table.

Not bragging; that's just a fact, in the same way that I'll be 48 years old on my next birthday is a fact.

So, today, a Christmas package from my sister arrived at my front door. I felt very excited to open it: one never knows what my sister might send.

She collects freebie stickers from innumerable charities & non-profits throughout the year and passes them along to me -- sometimes there is a glossy yet melancholy-ish panda among these stickers (a real prize!) but usually the stickers are patriotic or cartoon-floral-butterfly-kitten-puppy-cutesie and pretty much not very useful to me, bless her heart.

To her credit, my sister's palate for artisan cheeses rivals [insert something clever here before posting], so sometimes she sends me some kind of stinky-moldy curdled dairy shit I 1) don't have the sophistication to appreciate and 2) am allergic to, and therefore won't touch, let alone eat.

Let's be clear: I love my sister, even though she has no idea who I am. My sister tries harder than anyone to please others; and, on the rare occasion when I send her a gift, her thank you note is hand-written and the Forever Stamp ensuring the delivery of her gratitude is secured with her very own spit. She's kind of Victorian like that, which is how I can be absolutely sure she is not reading this post.

I opened the box my sister sent and read the note within, which was about 250 words in length and, mysteriously, conveyed no message at all beyond "thinking of you, it's the holidays, family ties and all that, you know."

Then, I unwrapped her gifts to me:

1) Curel Life's Stages Menopause and Beyond Skin Fortifying Moisture Lotion

2) Smooth Contours Thigh Cream

3) Lubriderm Skin Renewal Anti-Wrinkle Facial Lotion

4) two Duracell "AA" batteries (not in their original packaging [???])

5) a soft, fabric-wrapped, 4" x 5" lima bean-shaped personal massager (in its original packaging, thank God!)

So, I called out to my husband, "MrZ! Check this shit out! My sister sent me anti-wrinkle creams and a vibrator for Christmas!"

MrZ called back, "Cool! Why don't you reciprocate with a case of non-alcoholic beer?"

Too late for that: I sent her the Zingerman's Experienced Cheeses of the World Gift Box.

Fast food porn, tsk-tsk

A lesbian I know is boycotting Burger King, and for all the wrong reasons.

A right-ish reason might be that food from Burger King, like food from most fast food establishments, is toxic, nutrient-deficient, fiber-free crap laden with sodium, sugar, and saturated and trans-fats.

The lesbian I know, though, has little interest in nutrition; she is merely offended by BK's recent advertising campaign.

"Oh, my GOD!" she exclaimed while showing me an ad similar to the one above. "Have you ever seen anything so obviously phallic?"

I know: there is nothing wrong with penises in general, and there is nothing offensive about phallic symbols in general. It does require noting, though, that the penises I've seen have all been much prettier than the above sandwich.

As I mentioned, she is a lesbian, so I thought at the time that maybe she thinks penises and phallic symbols are ugly, which is why I responded to her outrage rather nonchallantly. "Hm," I said, barely raising an eyebrow.

"It is so obvious," she elaborated, "that the image portrays a woman 'giving head.'"

I understand and accept that at least some lesbians might find the idea of fellatio repulsive, but that doesn't mean that other people, such as straight men and women or even maybe gay men, might actually enjoy it.

Even if it's better for lesbians (and for anyone else) to avoid fast food, it's sad to think that Burger King may be losing their share of the lesbian market because of a silly ad campaign featuring hot women hungry for seven inches of sweet, juicy meat.

It's sad because it means that too many lesbian women, a demographic that has been campaigning for acceptance and equality, is not yet ready to afford that level of acceptance and equality to straight people of either gender, or even to gay males.

It's always sad when good civil rights karma is blocked by a bad attitude built upon a double standard.

I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth

So.

I was short of a few items while prepping Christmas dinner.

For the butt-of-the-midwest-joke known as "green bean casserole," I was short a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup. Worse: the only mushrooms I have on hand are shiitakes.

Where one finds shiitakes, one might also find kudzu root, a popular Asian thickener.

I buy mine from the local food co-op's ethnic section. It ain't cheap.

I like kudzu root for thickening better than I like flour or corn starch because I'm basically insecure and dismissing corn products and wheat products as "the devil's ingredients" is one of the many tactics I use to maintain my own illusion of superiority.

(I can't beLIEVE you used soup from a CAN to make YOUR casserole!)

What I want to freakin' know is, why is the kudzu root I buy imported from Japan (compared to Clabber Girl or Argo, kudzu's NOT cheap) when our very own southern states are all but choked to death by Kudzu vines?

WHY?

This shit not only thickens, it contains a number of useful isoflavones, including daidzein, which is an anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, cancer-preventing agent; and genistein, an anti-leukemic agent. AND kudzu root compounds seem to affect neurotransmitters, including serotonin, GABA, and glutamate, and has helped some in treating migraine and cluster headaches, as well as allergies and diarrhea.

It thickens, and it MIGHT BE GOOD FOR YOU!

Why is the South not cashing in?

Christmas Eve Eve Cautionary Advice-vice

Okay, so, if you're sitting in the passenger seat of your husband's hybrid vehicle outside of PetSmart because Christmas just is NOT CHristmas if the dog doesn't receive a brand new fuzzy yellow squeeky football, and the heat in the car is turning the moist lining of your nasal passages to adobe, do NOT pick your nose, because if you do, the screen of the iPhone belonging to the woman seated on the driver's side of the Landrover parked next to you will light up her face and you will see that she is truly disgusted as she texts her BFF: OMG, teh bitch in teh hybrid next 2 me just picked her nose!

WinterSilks, Friendships, and an Amazing God Thing

Years and years ago, between husbands, I had a brief tryst with a very tall, exceedingly slender red-head whose arms were covered with freckles in fabulously thick clusters. His over-all appearance was that of a reticulated giraffe.

There is no accounting for my taste in men.

Well, that's not true.

I just like 'em smart's the thing.

So, this guy was an artist and a businessman and he was becoming successful enough in art that he could entertain the notion, realistically, of one day selling his business and working at only his art, and you've gotta be pretty smart to accomplish that.

Smart and confident and disciplined and willing to risk failure and rejection and able to pick yourself up and try again and again and again until you've succeeded.

He tried to teach me to juggle.

I failed.

So.

So, because he knew me as a words-person rather than an images-person, he called me one day complaining about the inadequacy of the words synchronicity, happenstance, and serendipity. He wanted a word to describe, within a system, all of those things indicated by the above words plus the wonderment he felt while experiencing all of those things.

No such word.

So I studied my latin roots (everybody's latin roots, I mean) and made up a word to fit his needs: heurisyntropy.

He promptly rejected it.

He was the sort of guy who preferred questions to answers.

I know someone who uses the phrase, "an amazing god-thing." Heurisyntropy is what I think she means.

Wanting to get rid of some things in my closet that might be more useful to someone else than they have been to me, I started a happy little purge five minutes into which I stumbled across an old set of WinterSilks long underwear that MrZ gave me years ago.

This is something I need.

Three pair of long-johns means fewer launderings than two.

I'm wearing them, right now, beneath a Wedgwood blue cotten pull-over imprinted with a Matissie-Picasso-ie sort of curled-up and snoozing kitty-cat and a pair of Gap clearance sale denim carpenters. No idea whose socks I've hijacked. I need a haircut but hate to expose my ears any more than they aleady are exposed.

Is it cold where you are?

It's cold in Alaska.

This I know because I'm recently back in touch with Kate, a high school friend who now lives there. She's been on a wild ride. She's so different now. She's still absolutely the same as she ever was when we palled around smirking disdainfully at all the idiots in our little town. We did one hundred and one bad things, some of them misdemeanors, and we never got caught. Since we kept our grades up, we were left to our own devices. She's the same person she always was, just, you know, she's given up some bad habits and the bad relationships that tend to go with them, so she's the same and a little bit better.

I'm asking myself if two good finds on Facebook in six months is a fair trade for all the bullshit that goes on there. Bloggers, former bloggers, Wordscraper partners aren't who I mean; sad-sacks, complainers, manipulators -- how many of those does it take to cancel out a couple of real gems?

How many more gems are out there?

I'm back on my health-kick, partly because of Kate, mostly because it was time. Kate helps because she gets it, accepts it, does it, supports it, and, frankly, the people around me can be pretty adversarial when it comes to ... well, food, mostly.

But!

I did serve tofu rather than animal flesh in last night's stir-fry and it was eaten without complaint.

The key, I recently discovered, is dry-frying the tofu before adding it to any dishes. Once you eliminate the mushy-slime factor, there is nothing not to like about tofu. Serve it with an orgy of nicely sauced and still-fightin' vegetables over a mound of long-grain brown, Wehani, and Black Japonica rices, and ... whatever. If you're into it, you already know; if you're not, you stopped reading a long time ago.

And that's okay.

Before I go

I promise, when I return from my trip (a short one, just a couple of days on the road) I will stop in to visit all who've visited here.

Takin' Beanpole's mom to a bigger city for pre-op appointments before she has part or all of her something-or-other removed and biopsied.

As much as I despise attention whores on Facebook or Blogger or ... doesn't matter the venue, they're everywhere ... I want to relay this on my own attention-whoring behalf:

Three nights ago:

I was in an airplane, the interior of which looked like the burnt orange shag-carpeted den of a 1970's split-level. Every person who relies on me was in the plane. The flight attendant was requiring us all to change into our jammies for the overnight flight. There were no private dressing rooms. I was irritated, not for myself, but for all of those with me who felt embarrassed and uncomfortable.

The plane taxied to the runway and accelerated for take-off. Just as the nose began to lift, the pilot eased the plane back down and slowed to a stop.

The flight attendant said, "I'm sorry. There's just no way the pilot can make it through this ceiling."

I looked out the window to see a thick, low expanse of gun-metal gray cloudcover.

I was as relieved as I was disappointed.

Two nights ago:

I rode my bicycle from Zillahenge to Zilla Flats. The moment I dismounted the bike, the front tire came off the rim, the rim crumpled and the spokes snapped like brittle spaghetti. I was disappointed and angry.

Last night:

I was ascending a staircase to help some of the most important people in my life. Before reaching the landing I saw one of the people had a bloody leg, one had a battered and bloodied nose, one was berserk, and one was just plain missing. Everyone else at the top of the stairs - dozens of people-like ghouls and trolls - flung accusations and judgments at me.

I tried to reach the landing anyway. The stairs began to fall away beneath me so I grabbed the railing on each side. It came dangerously loose.

I felt frustrated.

And doomed.

But the overriding feeling was a crushing realization: I can't help these people.

Now.

Let's just get the hell on with things, shall we?