I experienced an extremely important revelation recently:
I should never be Santa.
I mean it. If by some terrible tragedy Santa falls off my roof and it turns out The Santa Clause is actually a thing and there’s a card in Old St. Nick’s pocket saying, “Yo dawg, put on my jacket!”, I am begging my friends, family and neighbors to keep me the hell away from that coat, because I guarantee that if I put it on and take over for the big guy, Christmas will be ruined forever. Continue reading
Today my WordPress reader appears to be a wall of blogs participating in this 50 Happy Things / Flood of Gratitude dealie, which is pretty darn neat and impressive since a) woohoo, positive thinking! and b) you only get 10 itty-bitty minutes in which to think up all your fifty things, so to everyone who pulled it off: You are awesome.
Anyway, since it’s been a while since I jumped on a list bandwagon (and because I can never resist a challenge) I figured I might as well join the party, pretend to be a real adult for a change, and actually take a moment to think about stuff in my life that’s good instead of being my usual fountain of sarcasm about the stuff that bites.
So here goes. 10 minutes, 50 happy things…oh god what am I doing…aaand they’re off!
1. My husband. Because holy crap, how did I find someone so amazing who actually wanted to marry this bucket of crazy?
2. Chocolate. Because chocolate.
3. DSLR cameras. I don’t know how a control freak like me got by for so many years with only little point-and-shoots, but I’m glad those dark days are over.
4. Canon L-series lenses. I finally got my hands on one of those babies this year and can I just say OH. MY. GOD. LOVE.
5. Looking through my photo blog archives and seeing how much my images have improved over the years.
6. Cute animals on YouTube, which are all kinds of necessary when you live in a building that doesn’t allow pets and your soul is suffering for lack of a dog to come home to.
7. Music.
8. A working car horn, which successfully prevented me from getting plowed into this morning by some dipshit who didn’t know how to check their blind spot.
9. Nobody I love got appendicitis this year.
10. Christmas trees.
11. Christmas lights.
12. Mountains, and the act of climbing them. Because nothing helps you feel like you’re on top of the world like actually being on top of it.
13. Bread. Bread is fucking delicious.
14. Geeky friends who not only don’t mind my never-ending pop culture references but actually encourage them.
15. Maraschino cherries. You sugary, addictive, unnaturally red magnificent bastards…
16. My fellow bloggers. Sometimes you guys feel more like family to me than my actual family.
17. Twitter. What did I ever do with my mornings before Twitter?
18. I did two separate month-long blogging challenges this year and didn’t die.
19. My husband landed an awesome job that he loves, where they recognize and reward outstanding work, and I am SO proud of him.
20. My owl hat.
To err is human; to owl, divine.
21. Fluffy sweaters.
22. Every time this year that a stranger didn’t approach me to say something unnecessary or inappropriate.
23. Japan.
24. Japanese convenience stores.
25. Japanese vending machines.
26. Onigiri.
27. Going to Tokyo Disneyland dressed as Joy from Inside Out.
28. Visiting a friend halfway around the world.
29. Being able to breathe again after getting over a cold.
30. NyQuil, for before #29 happens.
31. Oil of oregano, because post-nasal drip can kiss my ass.
32. Getting ID’d more at 32 years old than I ever did in my 20s.
33. Having a doctor who doesn’t suck.
34. Having blood test results that suck less than usual.
35. Books.
36. Forever, which I think ABC was nuts for cancelling.
37. Waffles.
38. Feeling confident that I know what I’m doing at the gym.
39. The whirlpool and sauna at the gym, to soothe my aches away when I get caught up too much in #38 and overdo it.
40. My parents not asking if I’m pregnant this year (so far).
41. My in-laws not asking if I’m pregnant this year (so far).
42. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
43. This hummingbird deciding to nest directly above my in-laws’ deck right when Nutty Hubby and I were visiting at Easter:
Proud Mama To Be © 2015 Glass Half Delicious
44. Squirrels.
45. More music.
46. Seeing Muse live, which was ALL THE THINGS.
47. Snow. Not that we have any right now…but it’s the thought that counts.
48. Hot stone massages.
49. The fact that people are actually reading this.
50. Not being afraid to be my own weird and wonderful self.
Ahem. Okay, so…reviewing these, I kind of feel like they’re part gratitude, part grocery list. But in my defense, it’s hard to be deep on a ten minute deadline even when you’re not hungry.
And bread really is fucking delicious. I’m not taking that one back.
Think you can do better? Do ya, punk? (Calm down, Nutty, it’s not a competition…) Here are the rules if you want to take a plunge into the gratitude pool:
If you’d like to join in, here’s how it works: set a timer for 10 minutes; timing this is critical. Once you start the timer, start your list (the timer doesn’t matter for filling in the instructions, intro, etc). The goal is to write 50 things that made you happy in 2015, or 50 thing that you feel grateful for. The idea is to not think too hard; write what comes to mind in the time allotted. When the timer’s done, stop writing. If you haven’t written 50 things, that’s ok. If you have more than 50 things and still have time, keep writing; you can’t feel too happy or too grateful! When I finished my list, I took a few extra minutes to add links and photos.
To join us for this project: 1) Write your post and publish it (please copy and paste the instructions from this post, into yours) 2) Click on the blue frog at the very bottom of Tales From the Motherland’s post. 3) That will take you to another window, where you can past the URL to your post. 4) Follow the prompts, and your post will be added to the Blog Party List. Please note: the InLinkz will expire on January 15, 2015. After that date, no blogs can be added.
Please note that only blog posts that include a list of 50 (or an attempt to write 50) things that made you feel Happy or 50 things that you are Grateful for will be included. Please don’t add a link to a post that isn’t part of this exercise; I will remove it. Aside from that one caveat, there is no such thing as too much positivity. Share your happy thoughts, your gratitude; help us flood the blogosphere with both!
It’s that special time of year when our customers share the holiday spirit by bringing in homemade baked goods, boxed chocolates, and regifted fruitcakes for our employees to shamelessly stuff ourselves with (or regift in turn, in the event of fruitcake).
In fact I’m so used to our little coffee corner in the lobby being fully stocked with courtesy sweets in the weeks before Christmas that I find myself actively disappointed on the days when I wander over for a dose of caffeine and diabetes and there are no free goodies on the counter.
How dare you people, I think in silent hangry rage. You ungrateful scum, after all the money you’ve exchanged with us for services we provided, how DARE you come in here now without offerings of high fructose corn syrup!
Thankfully those lapses in generosity are a rare exception to the rule; more often than not the counter is laden with sugar and more sugar in all its myriad forms, of which I would normally readily partake without pausing once to consider anything other than YUMMY FOOD GOES IN MOUTH PORTAL.
Until today, when I had a thought.
(Yes, it happens occasionally.)
Remember how when you were a kid, there was always that handful of neighbors who passed out homemade caramel popcorn balls or candy apples for Hallowe’en, and your mom made you throw them straight into the garbage when you got home in case they were full of arsenic and razor blades?
Why was this suddenly not a concern around Christmastime? We used to find ourselves inundated with sugary foods from all kinds of random sources around the holidays, and never once did my mother advise caution. That weird hermit-type down the street unexpectedly emerged from his burrow in December and made the rounds with Christmas cookies? Sure, GO NUTS, KID!
Were my parents maybe hoping to get out of buying me presents, or are we really just that guileless and trusting once Noël is nigh?
I guess it’s because at Hallowe’en the idea of someone slipping a trick into your treat just seems to come with the territory, whereas at the Most Wonderful Time of the Year everyone’s supposed to be feeling joyous and charitable, and besides, people are too busy using their razor blades to open packages from Amazon to slip them into anybody’s plum pudding.
Still, you never know.
I was halfway through a slice of banana bundt cake this morning when a small corner of my brain piped up and remarked, You know, this could be poisoned. You could be ingesting cyanide as we speak.
Isn’t that a bit far-fetched? my inner skeptic ventured. I gave the cake a sniff. I thought cyanide was supposed to smell like bitter almonds. This just smells like banana.
And you’re certain you belong to the 40% of the population that can actually detect the smell of cyanide, are you? countered Alarmist Nutty. Besides, cyanide was just an example. There could be anything in ther- DID YOU JUST TAKE ANOTHER FUCKING BITE OF THAT WHILE I WAS TALKING?
…umh, mmhpmphlh…
What was that?
Sorry, had my mouth full.
*facepalm*
Look, I hate to burst your bubble, but we’ve already eaten half this thing, so I’m pretty sure we’re already screwed if there IS anything deadly in there. So if we are about to drop dead, let’s just enjoy the time we have left and eat some cake, shall we? In for a penny, and all that…
You’re dead to me.
Quite possibly!
Do you have to be so goddamn cheerful about it?
‘Tis the season.
I had a vision of my own death. It was delicious.
I don’t know why I’ve been so exhausted lately. Workwise I don’t really have any more on my plate than I did in November; lifewise, ditto. My Christmas shopping is done, gifts are wrapped and under the tree, party obligations fulfilled. Nothing left but to gorge myself on eggnog and imported iced gingerbread.
Despite all this, my body is acting like I just ran back-to-back Tough Mudders or something, because apparently if I can’t give it a legitimate excuse to complain then it’ll damn well just make one up.
Because it’s a douche.
So I grabbed a Groupon and hauled my douchey body to the spa to have a much too friendly and energetic lady beat the everloving shit out of it treat it to a nice, restorative deep tissue massage.
But before we got started, I paid their washroom a visit and was greeted by this:
I just love it when businesses find creative ways to incorporate their spare toilet paper into the decor.
Here we have all the makings of a great festive holiday basket: a bed of terrycloth and fragrant potpourri; a bare tree branch, signifying the bleak sparseness of winter; a handful of sturdy pine cones whose seeds will bring forth new life in the coming year; a roll of bathroom tissue, symbolic of pure white snow and the future act of writing one’s name in it…
Beautiful.
Okay, so it’s not exactly a museum-worthy work of toilet tissue art, but points for trying, right?
I do think the spa could elevate their decor efforts even further with the right choice of soundtrack. The standard soft flute melodies and rainforest noises they tend to favor are pretty, but predictable.
In my opinion you can never go wrong with a return to the classics. Personally, I think a little “Air on the G String” would complement their chosen theme perfectly.
See? Lovely.
I woke up this morning with one word on my lips: Muse.
This is the first work day in recent memory where I have been genuinely excited to get out of bed.
Nutty Hubby and I are going to see Muse play at Rogers Arena tonight and the anticipation is powering me like some kind of nuclear fusion reactor. To be honest, there’s a good chance I might just spontaneously combust before I even get to the venue, because I have the most unladylike hard-on for Muse’s sound and I’m already having impure thoughts about humping the nearest speaker when I get to hear that shit live.
I’ve always had a strong physical response to music I find particularly compelling. The day I bought Matthew Good’s Avalanche CD, my cells tried to explode in every direction in solidarity with the album’s unapologetically defiant tone. The first time I heard the Smashing Pumpkins’ Tonight Tonight, I was weeping uncontrollably four notes in from the sheer beauty of the strings. I could probably spend a year just listening to Clint Mansell’s soundtrack from The Fountain; mind suspended in a state of euphoria; heart, a glowing sea of molten gold pounding itself into surf against my ribs.
And then there’s the existence of people like Muse’s Matthew Bellamy, whose vocal cords apparently have a direct line to my G-spot.
I need a cold shower just thinking about this concert.
Google tells me my sense of heightened arousal caused by music is a paraphilia called melolagnia. Yikes. Normally I like to be able to put names to the faces of all my little oddities, but is it just me or does “melolagnia” sound like some terribly unsexy medical affliction, like a suspicious mole’s lazy no-good brother-in-law who’s 41 and still lives in his parents’ basement?
“Oh yeah, baby, you send my melolagnia into overdrive.”
“…you probably should go get that checked out.”
“LOL, it’s not-”
“LALALALALALA can’t hear you, busy showering in bleach…”
Yeah, thanks, Google, but I think I’ll just stick with “prone to the occasional soundgasm”.
On a related note, I’m really hoping they’ll play Hysteria tonight, partly because it gives me a big ol’ bass guitar boner but also because I find the title delightfully apposite on a personal level, considering the whole female hysteria craze of yore.
Also on that note, fair warning; should this prove to be my final blog post, it means I died of a colossal excess of pleasure during Knights of Cydonia.
Please, do not mourn my passing.
It’s how I always hoped I’d go.
I have a love-hate relationship with the Zamboni at my ice rink. Or any ice rink, really.
On the one hand, public skating sessions always leave the ice horribly chewed up within minutes, as people who have no idea what they’re doing scratch and scrape their blades along torturously while hotshot hockey kids duck around them at Mach speeds and deliberately mark up every last pristine inch they can find by practicing sudden stops and irritating passers-by with showers of snow.
On the other hand, I instinctively consider anything that makes me get off the ice to be my natural enemy. Even if I was literally thirty seconds away from leaving on my own, how DARE you suggest I go sit down?!
You know how when people experience the loss of a loved one, they go through the five stages of grief?
That’s me every time that Zamboni bullies me off the ice. Continue reading
Spoken Like A True Nut 