Measi's Musings

Archive for December, 2005

First… watch this. Make sure you give it time to load properly so it doesn’t lag. And have headphones.

Yesterday was one of my worst days of work here. I went home fuming, came back to work today in a slightly better mood, but I’m pissed off at some of my co-workers regarding yesterday. Thus begins my vent–

As an admin. assistant, I’m fully conscious that shit rolls down hill. I happen to be at the bottom of the pile, so therefore the shit usually winds up here at some point, and once it’s here, it simply doesn’t go further unless I manage to find the exit pipe. Traditionally, said exit pipe is generally labeled as “Mel knows her shit, and this ain’t it.”

I’ve been at my job for five and a half years now. I know my position. I know who to ask and who to contact to solve problems. I realize they come up, and that often times, I’m going to be the person pushed to deal with them because of my position. What I don’t get is when I solve the issue, how lately it seems to be Still My Fault, despite all of the evidence proving to the contrary.

The biggest problem I’ve had in the last few months is our accounts payable department. To fall into geek speak for a second– said department has taken on the form of a sphere of annihilation. Anything that touches it? Disappears. Gone. Who the hell knows where. I ask if they receive something, they say “never got it.”

I solved that little tidbit by avoiding our interoffice mail pouch, and going straight to trackable UPS envelopes. Oh really? You didn’t get it? How funny. UPS tracking #XYZ1230000X said you did, and that So-and-So signed for it at this time on this date in your mail room. And here’s the scan of the signature. Yes, that’s right– THAT invoice. I thought you had it.

You’d think that would solve it with my managers, right? But no… clearly UPS is making stuff up, and I’m not doing my job and sending things to accounts payable to get paid.

Why the eff would I do that? Really– would I seriously want to bring this bullshit on myself every day?

Yesterday was Another One of Those. Despite the fact that I’m in my final day of hell trying to get invoices out the door to accounts payable to meet their Dec. 23rd receipt deadline, I get dragged AWAY from all of my cross-checking to deal with two invoices. Neither is more than two weeks old, and no one will listen to me when I give them the date I sent it, and the tracking number. Nor will they listen to me when they hear that yes, AP does have the invoice. It’s entered in the system and is scheduled for the next check run this Friday.

No– the fact is that since vendor XYZ hasn’t been paid, clearly I haven’t done my job and it’s still somehow sitting on my desk undone.

All I do is continue to explain the facts. I forward the emails confirming the information from accounts payable. But it’s simply never good enough.

By two, I was so frazzled that I was on the verge of tears. And then my manager has the nerve to say, “Melissa, don’t take this personally… it’s just business.”

Like HELL it’s just business– you’re questioning my integrity to do my job. You’re accusing me personally of not doing my job, despite my proving the contrary. Don’t give me that shit.

At the end of the day, I managed to rush the payment, have the vendor thankful and cool with me– but my coworkers in my department? Nothing. It’s as if the blow-up and accusations never happened. Everything’s right with the world and with me– until the next time there’s an issue.

And then again, I’ll suddenly be completely incompetent in my job.

*sigh*

Another year is turning back into light. Despite the bitter cold in the air this morning, it’s the morning that reminds me that the sun’s strength is again growing. The cycle of nature begins again…

Today is Yule, one of the eight Sabbats on the Pagan calendar. According to most books, it’s marked as a “lesser” Sabbat (as is Ostara, Midsummer, and Mabon– the spring equinox, summer solstice, and autumn equinox). Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain are the major Sabbats by most of these sources. Personally, I don’t divide between lesser and greater Sabbats, and I disagree with many of the Pagan resources on what would aptly be declared “major” and “minor.” If anything, the equinoxes and solstices would be major ones—so many cultures around the world have celebrated them throughout the centuries. The “major” and “minor” division simply doesn’t make sense to me.

But unknowingly, Yule does seem to unintentionally take a bit of a backseat for me due to its proximity to the 24th and 25th.

Anyway… Krisztina asked that I talk about my celebration of Yule and the holiday history. Tonight, I’ll work on a history entry. For now, though, I’ll work through the awkwardness of Yule in my household, as it presently sits.

I’m one of the people to whom “Happy Holidays” applies on all levels. Without getting into the recent b.s. “war on Christmas” discussion too much—I celebrate a lot of holidays in December. “Happy Holidays” includes everything from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, in my mind. It’s not offensive, nor stripping of any particular holiday, and I really don’t care what form of goodwill someone sends my way. It’s simply acknowledging that there are a ton of them. On the 21st (and ONLY the 21st), I say “Blessed Yule.” Likewise, on the 24th and 25th, I say “Merry Christmas.” Because those are the days to express such greetings, in my eyes. BUT… if someone does wish me good tidings for a specific holiday, I return the wish in kind.

Yule and Christmas are pretty blended in my household as one long holiday. At this point, I really don’t divide between them. This is partly due to culture, and partly due to my admitted apathy toward sitting down for ritual on a regular basis (Pagans can feel guilty about not going to “church,” too, afterall). With such deep-set traditions already in place for Christmas, I admit that I still haven’t quite found my yearly tradition for Yule itself. I have a personal ritual written that I love, but I don’t sit down for it. It’s mostly due to my uncertainty as to where I’d be the next year, so I wasn’t able to really start founding yearly traditions to mark the holidays. For the first four years, for example, I was in college. December 21=final exams. Since then, I’ve usually been so crazy working on Yule (like this year), that other than a short session of prayer in the evening on my own,I just haven’t acknowledged the holiday ON Yule.

Part of it is that, despite loving my written Yule ritual, sitting down for ritual just doesn’t seem to meet my spiritual needs right now. I’m in one of those transitory periods with my faith, where a lot of things that I feel should be important just… aren’t. I know my foundation is still within Paganism, but I’m going down a bit of a foggy path at the moment with faith, and I’m honestly not sure where I’ll be coming from when I enter the next quiet meadow along my Path.

For the past three years, my observation of Yule has simply been put off until Christmas Day, where I’m guaranteed to be off work and can just quietly observe both holidays at the same time (newborn sun/son… to me, it’s the same thing). I don’t particularly like that I do that, honestly—I was annoyed with the two-holiday Christians as a kid, and I see myself slipping into being an eight-holiday Pagan now—a bit of a hypocrite.

I know that many families either celebrate on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. My family has always celebrated both, and Christmas is as much a cultural holiday as it is religious. Christmas Eve is when the extended family all gathers together for a huge meal together, complete with traditional Polish foods and carols at the table after eating. We open presents that night from one another, and whomever is going to Midnight Mass then departs. Christmas Day has always been reserved for the individual family to spend together. It’s much more low-key, but still a busy day with tons of food and celebrations with friends.

Now that I’m distinctly settled (and that still is an odd concept to me!), the Yule traditions can start growing comfortably along with the Christmas ones. I see Christmas continuing to be a day to celebrate with family and my extended family (both through relation and through friendship). For me, that’s always been the most important part of Christmas, and I can’t see myself ever dividing from it. While I love giving and receiving presents, it’s the togetherness that I really love about the Christmas.

I want to develop Yule into a personal day of reflection, much like Samhain has become to me. I’m drawn to the concept of death and rebirth, which Samhain and Yule represent. I’m very drawn to a day of quiet contemplation- desperately needed in the season of craziness that Thanksgiving through New Years Day has now become here in the U.S. I just need to figure out how to arrange it within the holiday season, and start forming the foundation of what will become a tradition.

And ultimately, I really just want to figure out where my Path is leading—or at least find a park bench along it that I can sit on for a while and watch other travelers go by.

Kat asked me to talk more about… cats. And I’ll put together a few entries over the next few days, but we’ll start with an easy one–

My life history, by way of our family cats.

In my thirty one years less three weeks of life, I don’t remember a time where there wasn’t a cat in my family. The gaps do exist when I was really little, but only by a year or so, and mostly because we had a couple of problem cats before the long-term cats came in. And other than the six years of dorm/college apartment life, I’ve always had a cat physically living with me and considering me his/her slave. The five I have now is definitely the all-time record for current catload. It’s about the max I’d want to have. I can’t cater to any more than this.

I honestly can’t imagine life without at least one of them, though. Those first few weeks of college without a cat purring on my pillow at night was probably the most difficult thing I ever adjusted to– even more than sharing a bedroom with someone else.

The feline family lineage (from my side of the family) is as follows-

Moko- I don’t actually remember Moko, but I’ve always heard stories about her. My mom and dad adopted her in the summer of ’69 when they were living in a ratty apartment just up the hill from UC Berkeley. They were newly married. My dad was out of medical school and was starting his residency at Kaiser Oakland. My mom was a nurse. Moko was a “troublesome torti” in all senses of the word. She was cranky and full of mischief. But when I was only a few months old, she ran away into the night from our Dublin, California home one night and never returned.

Bilbo- Two years later, we’d moved to Montana where my dad was setting up a private practice. Mom brought home Bilbo, who was a male purebred seal point Siamese. I got along great with Bilbo. Tons of photos exist of me sitting in the toybox or on the couch (usually with something retarded on my head) with Bilbo. I’m certain that he taught me how to speak to cats, too. Being Siamese, he talked a lot. A bit too much for my mom. When I was five, we had to give Bilbo away, though– when my brother arrived, Bilbo became extremely jealous and would try to attack Scott.

Callie- Callie was the first cat I picked out when I was six. Mom felt very guilty that she’d had to give Bilbo away, and she knew that I had loved the cat. So she took me down to the local pound and let me pick out a kitten. I fell in love with a little calico (aren’t half of the Calicos out there named Callie?). For a while, she was the only cat. But she was extremely territorial, and once the next two kittens came in, problems started. It turned out that we simply weren’t the right home for her. One of my dad’s patients happily took her to her farm to become a barn cat, where she lived out her days growing fat on mice and having a ball.

Kelim and Kashan- The first pairing of cats. They arrived in 1982. They aren’t littermates, but we got them three months apart from each other, and they lived their lives as brothers.

Kashan actually came first– he was a beautiful shell cameo Persian (think all white with a sploch of coffee stain down the spine) with the deepest copper eyes I’ve ever seen. Unlike a lot of Persians, Kashan’s face didn’t look like he hit a door at 80 miles per hour– he was a purebred, but his face was a bit rounded.

Kelim was a purebred seal-point Himalayin. Over the years, his points expanded and he developed dark patches beyond the traditional Siamese pointing pattern. My father said that it came from his father. Kelim had mist-blue eyes that were slightly crossed, and definitely had the Siamese in his voice.

Kelim and Kashan, as well as the next two cats, were all named from an oriental rug book. My mom thought that since they were Persians (of a sort) that it was fitting.

Kashan was Scott’s guardian angel cat. He hung out all the time with Scott, soothing him when he cried, guarding him as he slept. Likewise, Kelim was my cat. He slept with me every night, letting me use him as a pillow. Both cats were indoor/outdoor cats and lived to healthy old ages (for the time). Kashan died at the age of 12 after a long illness. Kelim held on until age 14, finally dying of kidney failure.

Bijar and Kula – The day after the 1989 Loma Prieta quake in California, these two kittens were born. Bijar, or “Biji” as she’s called, is a seal-point Himalayin and a bitch-on-wheels (affectionately– she’s so small, it’s hysterical to watch her have temper tantrums). Kula, her slightly larger littermate sister, is a blue-point who is a complete and utter space cadet. Scott and I first met them for Christmas in 1989 when we spent our second Christmas with my mom after she returned to California. Kula has always been my mom’s cat. Biji seemed to be the “anyone” cat, but has always beelined for me whenever I’m visiting. At age 16, both girls are still alive, although they are now aging and in decline. They still live happily with my mom and the growing family.

Colorado – Colley is the first cat I’ve had as an adult. He’s a purebred Norwegian Forest Cat and is now six. He is the alpha male in our family, and lets everyone– including Erich– know that I am HIS human. Erich marvels at how Colley follows me around everywhere. He’s like a dog. And he’ll talk to me all day. The two features about him that always amuse me are his multi-colored toe pads (every single one is a different shade, ranging from light pink to black) and his mood nose– it actually changes, depending on his mood. The more hyper or stressed he is, the brighter pink it gets. Mom and I bought him in Philadelphia on Thanksgiving weekend 1999.

Archie – Archie is my mom’s golden tabby Maine Coon. He’s a big boy– 16 pounds of solid muscle and fur. He’s a bit skittish, but still has all of the clownish qualities of a Coon cat. He’s five, and the big man of mom’s house, guarding Biji and Kula in their old age.

Ladigo, Susie, and Lily – At the same time Mom got Archie, two barn cats entered my dad’s life. Laddy and Susie weren’t littermates, but were born in the same barn only a few days apart. Lily came about six months later, when Susie decided that she much preferred the barn lifestyle. I’ve only met them once in person, but often hear them chatting away behind my dad whenever we chat on the phone.

Mephista – Fizzy is our little frail kitty. She’s four years old, although she’s fallen into middle age a bit young, I fear. She’s quite timid, prefers quiet spaces, and likes gentle rubs. Perhaps it’s because she’s originally a Harvard University feral– her mom must have enjoyed creeping around the library, I suppose. At first glance she appears black, although she’s actually a mink brown tabby with a grey undercoat. We’ve had lots of adventures with Fizz, starting with Pronoun Crisis of 2002.

Augustus – Two weeks after my grandmother died in 2003, Erich rolled a random encounter on the tiny table (sorry, gamer speak… but really, it’s the best way to describe it). We named him Gus. Gus, now aged 2, is proving all of the vets who age cats in “cat years” wrong. Gus has been a perpetual “troublesome two” since about six weeks old. Only now, he has somewhere around 14 pounds of weight to throw around to cause chaos. He’s a lover cat, though, with the most amazing rumble of purr you’ll ever hear. He’s also completely gay. He only loves the boys. He’ll settle for me in desperate times, though.

Nobanion and Eldath – The most recent twosome to come into our lives are now five months old. They’re also known as the Cow Kittens (reason obvious once you see their markings). These two tag team like crazy– usually on Gus, which Fizzy appreciates because he’s not pestering her as much anymore.

Noby is the larger of the two at about 5.5 pounds. He’s already a lap cat with me, and a big lover boy to everyone. His favorite way to express is to run right up and give you a full slobbery face rub. His most amusing feature is a group of spots that distinctly look like the Mickey Mouse logo on his shoulders.

Ellie is a gentler kitten than her rowdy brother, but she also has a tendency to romp wild at times. She’s the softest cat I’ve ever touched– her fur is so dense and plush, and she feels like a cotton ball. She’s also imprinted on Erich as a dry nurse. It’s quite amusing. No one believes me until they see it– and then they just crack up laughing. Poor Erich’s not sure what to do, but he often cries out for help because he’s being “attacked” by cuteness.

Thank Goddess I don’t have cat allergies (*knocks on wood*), eh?

Dear Readers–

With many days left on Holidailies, and a new year starting, I’m reaching out to get ideas for topics to write about for the next few weeks. I can ramble all day about the boring stuff I do every day– but is there anything YOU want me to write about?

If it’s one of those big, important topics, I may even stop my usual off-the-cuff writing style and actually COMPOSE entries for a while, editing them and cleaning them up.

So please– give me ideas! Chances are, I’ll use every one of them.

Or if you don’t have ideas, let me know you’re reading… because maybe I’ll come and get inspiration from you.

~ Mel.

I’m loving the Saturday and Sunday game schedule over the next three weeks. Between NFL and college ball, our TV is probably going to be on from morning until night on the weekends.

I was afraid for a moment, though, that my presence in front of the TV was jinxing the San Diego-Indianapolis game. Erich and I sat down in the 3rd quarter when the score was 16-0 Chargers. Within the next few minutes, suddenly Indy was on top. I was afraid I’d have to send Minarae and Petrouchka a personal apology for screwing the Chargers by watching the game.

Thankfully, they turned it around. But damn, that was a wild two quarters of football.

After the ups and downs of this season, I’m genuinely shocked the Pats are going to the playoffs, but it’s a simple case of how bad the division sucked. As much as I’d love it, I don’t expect them to get past the second round. It seems to be Indy’s year. Today, as my dad just said on the phone a bit ago, simply reminded Indy that they’re human. But they’ll keep steamrolling on, I think.

Still, it’s nice that there’s some routine to Pats football. If it’s December, the Pats win. If it’s snowing, the Pats seem to have divine help on the field. We love the snow for a football game. The Raiders helped create that love for us with the Tuck Bowl.

Meanwhile, my dad is quietly mourning his sacred Eagles yet again. He’s a devoted Philadelphia boy out in the region of the Denver Broncos. The “there’s always next year…” chant has begun yet again.

Mmmm… football.

Fear not, all of you who aren’t done with your shopping for next Sunday. You are not alone. I, for example, haven’t even STARTED my shopping. It’s a new record for me, I believe. I’m usually not done until a couple days before Christmas, but this year has taken procrastination to an entirely new level of patheticness.

Did I notice a calendar, perhaps? The invisible, yet LOUDLY SCREAMING date that signifies one week until Christmas?

Why yes, I did. And yes, I’m concerned. But it really couldn’t be helped, honestly. Between my cash flow and a lack of ideas from the few people who I will be buying for this season, it simply hasn’t been feasible until this weekend.

Erich and I will be rushing out tomorrow, our holiday shopping padded armor strapped on, to purchase the rest of the presents that don’t have to be sent anywhere. Then we’ll come home and drop the obnoxious money for Amazon to hopefully (!!!) get presents to their destinations on time (although I doubt it’ll happen at this point).

And then, after all of that insanity, I’ll get that last batch of cards addressed and stamped, and quite possibly get them over to a post office box so they can shuffle out with the rest of the card procrastinators who hope their cards will arrive by the 24th.

And then… I’ll need a drink.

(Yay! I got a “Best of Holidailies” nod for my New York entry! *beams*)

The silent auction at our company Christmas party was a huge success. Tons of items were brought in, and the bidding was fierce on a few items. My cookies turned out to be good items. One basket went for $50, the other went for $45.

I’m not sure which was which, but I saw the auction organizers walk one basket over to the president of my company. THAT should be interesting. I hope she likes them!

It was strange being in the Park Plaza hotel for the Christmas party. The only other times I’ve been in that hotel have been for Arisia, and the hotel is a much different place when a couple thousand geeks aren’t taking over the joint.

Everyone looked fabulous. Although officially it’s not a formal event, almost everyone dresses up. I wore a black blouse, red silk embroidered jacket, red skirt, and ruby velvet mary jane style slippers (which I LOVE, by the way… I highly recommend that every woman on this earth splurge in at least one pair of ruby slippers. You’ll feel like a princess.)

I left the party with a basket of cookies from my competitor and a wonderful gift basket of handmade candles and bath fizz balls scented with tea. I plan on having a wonderful soak in the tub at some point in the next few weeks! I tried for a couple other things, but quickly was outbid and the prices were going up a bit too fast for my tastes.

As things were winding down, I gave Erich a call to see what he’d like to do after work. He agreed to meet me at the hotel bar, have a drink (which we so rarely do after work that it really is a treat), and then grab dinner at the oyster bar before heading home. It would work out perfectly since I drove the distance from Providence to Boston this morning to avoid going out in the rain as much as possible. By around 5, the rain had almost stopped, but traffic would still be bad for a while.

Erich arrived at the hotel sometime just before six. We had martinis, and Erich mentioned that although oysters sounded good, he really wanted sushi. We decided to head back to the car and find something around Providence.

We returned home just before eight o’clock. While I freshened up upstairs, Erich turned on the TV– the Charlie Brown Christmas Special was on, which we both plunked on the couch to watch. Some weird newer one followed, which we weren’t interested in since it didn’t speak to our childhoods. The TV went off, and we headed back out into the cold.

One stop down I-95, we came to a Japanese steakhouse and sushi bar. Erich had never experienced the extremely entertaining steakhouse style cooking before, so we sat at one of the tables surrounding a grill. Our chef went crazy with the cooking– I always love watching the hibatchi cooks and the beautiful art of their grilling style (I know there’s an offical name for it… but it’s past midnight and I’m at a loss).

The food was great. We brought tons of leftovers home.

And now I only want to crawl into my comfy bed with Erich, the cats, and sleep until whenever my brain decides it’s time to get up!

‘Night…

~ Mel.

On a miserably rainy day much like this one, I visited New York for the first time. Driving into work this morning reminded me of that strange trip that is perhaps one of my fondest memories of college.

Two guys on my dorm floor and I were developing a fairly close friendship by December of 1993. We were the three geek outcasts on our floor of communications majors, and as most outcasts do… they find the other outcasts and join up, even though they didn’t have much in common. One of them, Sean, was a journalism major from Stoughton, just south of Boston. Early in the semester, the three of us began heading down to Stoughton on some weekends, spending the nights at Sean’s house, and doing a little exploring of New England.

In early December, Sean stopped by my room and asked if I’d be interested in tagging along for a trip to NYC. Apparently his mother and two friends went down every December, but the two friends had to cancel due to some church event at the last minute, and Sean’s mom had given him a call. It was a tour package that couldn’t be cancelled on, and she figured that maybe the two of us would like to go.

We got up before dawn that Saturday to climb into an express bus to New York. (I’d never been on a coach-style bus before, either, so that was… weird). Four hours later, the bus went over a bridge, and I saw my first glimpse of New York as the road wound its way through the Bronx, and then the bus took a turn into Manhattan. I’m not sure what route we took, but I remember seeing a sign for “Harlem” something.

My eyes were glued to the window in fascination. I was in New York. Look at it all! All of the old buildings. People walking everywhere. Neighborhood markets. Little bistro restaurants. A sea of yellow taxis.

I drunk it all in.

You have to realize that while growing up, New York was literally a mythical city of wonder. It was so far away that it existed only in movies, books, and dreams. I honestly wouldn’t have been able to see a difference between the exotic locales in India and New York as a child. Now here I was, looking out at the city with my own eyes. It was a complete rush.

The bus finally reached the Port Authority, where we exited the bus and started a walk to get to Radio City Music Hall (another fabled place). We were going to see the Christmas Spectacular and the Rockettes.

Radio City Music Hall is huge. And incredibly detailed in a way that can only be in New York. As we went to our seats in the balcony, I could only gape up at the towering ceiling and consciously fight to keep my mouth from dropping open.

And then the show started. It started as a normal play. Pretty cute. I started to recognize songs with a reaction of “Oh, so THAT’s what that’s from…”. And then the weirdness of New York, and of that amazing stage at Radio City, came in. An ice rink came up from the underbelly of the theater– and a couple began ice skating. (on stage! Goo!). The Rockettes danced several numbers throughout the performance, bringing memories of quick costume changes to my mind from my position in the upper troupe in my dance recitals. I honestly wish I’d had a chance to see them as a child– because all of a sudden, I understood why my dance teacher had been emphasizing all of the formations. From up in the audience, they really did look amazing. Perhaps I could appreciate them that much more than Sean, since I’d spent my Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights in junior high and high school trying to do similar things on high-heeled tap shoes.

At the end of the show, the stage went dark and the veil curtain closed, providing the stage crew a way to change the scenery while action continued in front of the curtain. A story from the Gospels about the birth of Jesus was read over the speakers and accompanied by soft music from the orchestra. As the story continued, an actor playing Joseph led a donkey, carrying Mary, across the stage toward the unseen Bethlehem. The actors moved behind the curtain into the darkened stage, past the ghostly outline of what would become the stable.

The spotlight widened as the announcer finished the story of Jesus. The holy family was complete as a baby was placed in the manger. It was quite touching, honestly.

A choir begain to sing “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” as the backlit stage lights began to slowly brighten. People began walking on stage, leading animals on to the stage- goats, donkeys, camels (they had camels!!). The actors positioned themselves and the animals as the song continued. As the crescendo of the song crested, the sight before me literally thumped my chest, and for the first time at a theater, tears came into my eyes.

I was looking at a life-sized Nativity. Every peace was there. Every. single. piece. With humans as the pieces, perfectly still. The effect was instantaneous. The audience roared in applause- clearly others were moved as I was.

My life was moving into a non-Christian path by this time in my life, but everything about what I saw was so beautiful and spiritual, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t doubting my choices at that moment.

I didn’t want it to end, but it did have to, as all great performances do. We shuffled out into the street and headed over to Rockefeller Center. People were leaning over the wall to look at the skating rink below. People were everywhere. There were lights everywhere, and the largest Christmas tree I’d ever seen placed before us. It was quite cold and raw, though, and Sean’s mom led us to Sak’s Fifth Avenue for a little browsing (no shopping… dear lord, the costs were deadly!). Sean and I noticed that they had Santa at Saks, and decided to get our picture taken (my last one, of course). He was, in fact, a very upscale Santa… wearing the finest of velvet clothing and was a man with a real Santa beard.

Only the finest Santa can be found at Saks, after all.

By the time we were done with photos and shopping, it was starting to get late. But Sean really wanted to go back to the ice skating rink. We walked right up– completely oblivious of the fact that there was probably a line to get onto the ice– and got right in. We rented skates, and were swirling around Rockefeller Center’s ice rink in front of Prometheus within a matter of minutes. It was softly raining, which helped keep a fresh zamboni’ed surface on the ice as we went around. Music from the Christmas Spectacular played. A few more talented skaters did perfect spins in the center of the ice.

We headed back up to Boston that evening on a return bus. Both Sean and I slept most of the way back.

I’m sure the visions of sugar plums came dancing in my dreams.

Every year, my company’s holiday party includes a silent auction for two employee-picked charities. I find it to be a refreshing mix of celebration while also thinking of others less fortunate, and trying to make a small difference somewhere en masse.

About two weeks before the holiday party, the call goes out via flyers and emails for donations for the silent auction. A little bit of everything gets donated- bottles of alcohol, glassware and serving platters, toys, sports tickets, a hand-knit scarf or two.

Two years ago, a new entry joined the fray- a big basket of homemade gingerbred cookies. The bidding was fierce, if I recall– and the winner dropped a pretty penny for that basket of goodness. Last year, three of the baskets were entered. I was lucky enough to scurry home with one of them (where it was consumed pretty quickly). This year, I kept in touch with the baker, and we jokingly decided to both enter cookies and have a friendly “cookie battle.”

I talked to J. last week and asked her how many baskets she was planning on including. She said four. I decided to enter two. Last night, I ran over to Michaels to pick up a couple of cute baskets, shreddy stuff to fill the basket, some ribbon, and some individual cookie bags. I then set up shop in my kitchen to make a bunch of cookies, bag them up, and then make gift baskets to enter into the auction.

Erich came down about an hour into the process, and remarked on the one-woman assembly line I had going. My key was making sure that I started the next set of cookie sheets as soon as the first set went into the oven. That way, I could do a quick switch every 15 minutes. In two hours, I did a double-batch of cookies, bagged 36 of them up, and divided them between two baskets.

One came in to work with me today to be put in the silent auction preview. I also brought in some sample cookies for my department– they were inhaled within an hour and a half. (I credit a department of 38 women and 6 men to that record). The other basket will come in tomorrow morning, and then the bidding begins.

I wonder if a cookie basket will go higher than the $50 from last year.

It’s all for a good cause, after all. And calories this time of year don’t count.

Blaming unquietsoul5 for this one…

Rules: The first player of this “game” starts with the topic “5 weird habits of yours” and people who get tagged need to write an LJ entry about their 5 quirks as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next 5 people to be tagged and list their names.

I always carry a backpack with me, even if I don’t need anything in it for the day and don’t open it at all that day.

I have conversations with my cats, interpreting their meows at will.

I generally walk behind someone else when walking in a group. Even if it’s just two of us, I’m usually subconsiously positioning myself about two strides behind.

I chew on my hair when stressed (translation= most of the time these days)

I’ll take the long way if I have to drive somewhere, even if it takes me to the middle of NOWHERE and back and actually wastes time, just to avoid sitting in stop and go traffic.

And I’ll tag…

eadwine_rose, ugotnothin, whishastar, max_und_moritz, and tfcocs

It’s crafty day! Due to NaNoWriMo last month, I wasn’t participating in the Stitcher Blogging Questions on a weeky basis. I also didn’t have my camera to post updated photos of my work, so I’ll have those updates, too.

Measi.net was being extraordinarily cranky with photo uploads last night. I finally gave up at 11:50 p.m. and moved everything onto my old Kodak Gallery account. Over the weekend, I’ll work on posting photos and updating my Work in Progress (WIP) pages on the site, since they haven’t been updated since before my house move. For now, though, all of my updated WIP photos are here.

I’ve been working almost exclusively on The Castle this month and have ditched my rotation for the time being. I’m so (-oooo) close to finishing. The tail is almost completely done. Then I have a small section of rocks to do, and then a mess of backstitching. It definitely won’t be done by the end of the year, but the end of January is very feasible, and I’d love to get it done to start 2006 off with a great finish.

The week between Christmas and New Years will most likely be spent between stitching and sorting through all of my projects to prep a plan for 2006. I already know that 2006 has two wedding samplers (so far!) that are must-completes. Everything needs to rotate around those for now.

Onto some of my backlog of Stitcher Blogging Questions…

9/28/05- Have you ever just quit a project while in the midst of it? (We’re not referring to UFOs (unfinished objects) here, rather projects that you know that you’ll never work on again.) Why? What did you do with it – throw it out, give it away, put it away?

I’ve had two projects that I’ve completely stopped. One was put away, but eventually thrown away because it became damaged. The other was just tossed immediately. I didn’t like how it was looking at all.

10/6/05- When you have almost finished a pattern and start thinking about the next one to stitch, how do you select it? (a list, most recent purchase, etc.)

Ironic, since I’m focusing on this right now. First comes any “obligation” stitching (for example, the wedding samplers I know are in-line). Then I go to my list of projects that I’ve kitted with all supplies. Since I love Teresa Wentzler’s designs and have a dozen or so that I want to stitch, any TW project I finish will almost certainly be replaced with another TW.

10/12/05- How do you `non-hoopists’ who use a rotation system handle it (as it seems to be lot easier if you are in good terms with hoop)? Do you have several scroll frames? Do you use Q-snaps or maybe something completely different? Or do you just have one or two big projects and others are small enough to be kept in hand while stitching?

I usually prefer a hoop, but a couple projects just won’t work with one, so I’m adjusting. One project is on a scroll frame. The other is an in-hand project. If I were to move into stitching on multiple projects on hoops or stretcher bars, I’d probably adjust my rotation so I had a travel piece on a hoop for my commute and keep the larger scroll frame pieces at home to work on in the evenings.

10/19/05- Do you mark or hi-lite your patterns or can you follow them without any markings? Do you make copies to mark up, or do you mark originals?

I make copies of all of my projects to work from. I usually set the photocopier so that the pattern is enlarged and easier to read. If it takes more pages to copy, it doesn’t matter to me. My photocopies and the original pattern are then kept in poly envelopes with the tie-button closures to keep everything together. (Kitted patterns that I haven’t started have the bobbins of thread enclosed in the envelope, too).

As I go, I highlight. I can follow without markings, but when working the more complex patterns, it’s so much easier to work with a marked copy.

I then use the original copy to follow for backstitching (but don’t mark it as I go).

10/26/05- Have you ever stitched something as a gift and later realized that receiver doesn’t respect your stitched gift a bit (for example it’s never on show, or you have other reason to suspect that it may even be nonexistent or at least placed in some dark storage room corner)? If so, what have you done? If you’ve been lucky enough to avoid such people what would you do if it’d happen to you?

Hasn’t happened yet. But to be honest, I don’t see myself doing a lot of gift stitching for people that aren’t either stitchers or knitters themselves—people who will appreciate the time that goes into making something by hand.

11/2/05- If you have stitched for a while, can you usually pick out the DMC colors you need from memory when you go to your LNS? (For example, you know that 610 is a brown.)

(LNS, for those reading and not stitchers, is a Local Needlework Store)

Not all, but there are a couple strings of numbers that I know. The 500 greens that are common in TW projects. The 790’s that are my favorite colors of blue. The 3345-48 string of green because I have TONS of them for some reason in my excess stash and probably won’t ever have to buy them again in my lifetime. I usually just bring a written list to the store, though.

11/9/05- When comparing large projects versus small projects, which do you get more excited about finishing?

Definitely larger projects, due to the time involved.

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More SBQ questions in tonight’s entry to get me caught up on questions!

~ Mel.