Christmas in the Sandy Eggo

I got to San Diego on Tuesday evening to make the yule tide gay. My mom, grandmother (Bessy Bad Ass) and I went to Ruth's Chris for dinner- something that has sort of become a tradition when I come into town. Ever the festive one, my grandma wore the most fabulous red plaid pants that you could imagine - Something that would make our Scottish ancestors ripe with pride. She also donned a pair of boots that were about an inch and half too long for her and an inch higher than she was accustomed to. She readily admitted to this and as I helped her to the table she literally swerved like a 4 year old in her mother's high heels. This is not because she has become wacky in her old age, that wouldn't be funny to blog about - it is out of pure vanity. Grandma needed shoes - they did not have her size. She made it work. God forbid anyone say anything about the 84 year old's mis-matched shoes.

Dinner was delicious as it usually is and by the time we got home I wanted nothing more than to put on pants with an elastic waist, to park my lazy ass on the couch in the living room and to not leave that spot for at least two days.

When I make a goal, I like to stick with it.

We spent Christmas Eve hanging by the fireplace, watching reality television shows about outrageous murders and other unsettling crimes. I've been sitting here for about ten minutes trying to think of a legitimate explanation for why two white chicks from suburbia would do something like that under the twinkle of the Christmas tree lights and the reality is there is no good explanation. There is just something really interesting about people that go totally nuts. The "fucking Wackadoos" as Tony Soprano would say. We watched so many of these shows in a row it got to be sort of a joke. We even started to criticize the methodology of some of the crimes.

"Why would you ever use a credit card or a cell phone in any part of your murder plot??" I would say.

"Yeah" my mom would answer, "Or a computer."

"It's like so obvious that it could be traced." I mused.

Yes, Ho Ho Ho indeed.

By 8:00pm on Christmas Eve I could tell that my mom was just itching to reenact the Christmas Eve we had 3 years ago when, in a pure Christmas high, we opened all of our gifts before we went to bed. An episode that we regretted the next day. This year I insisted that we exercise some control.

So on Christmas morning we opened our gifts and we both totally scored this year. Some of my highlights include some cute Christmas decor, a great Banana Republic coat and the latest JK Rowling book- The Tales of Beetle the Bard, to name a few. I got my mom a whole new set of Clinique makeup, a digital camera and the Twilight books (Which I personally am almost finished with and though Jon Rose is my main man - Edward Cullen could be my vampire any day of the week. Straight up.)

We then spent the rest of the 25th watching Snapped; A show on the Oxygen network about women that commit murders because one day, "They just snapped". I also peppered in several naps because my excitement for Christmas woke me earlier than I had planned on getting up. It was truly magical. We had the Schuman tradition of homemade taquitos for dinner.

This morning I went to visit my Roo who gave me a great photo album with pictures of my brother, dad, Roo and I throughout the years. There were even some unsettling photos from the troubling middle school days that I probably will not be showing anyone EVER. That says a lot too because generally speaking I have no shame.

After Roo and I had breakfast and a nice chat I left to meet my mom at Balboa Park. We've talked about going to the Museum of Natural History during my last 5 visits and this time we finally went. It was awesome - although frankly seeing 65 million year old crustaceans makes me resent the fact that I have yet to find a single arrowhead. I LOVE Balboa Park - it's been so long since I was there - I forgot how amazing it is.



We got home and I took my 90th nap of the week. We watched a few movies (Charlie Wilson's War and Shawshank Redemption), ate In-n-Out and called it a night. And now, my Twilight book beckons me.

Tomorrow I head back to the fog San Francisco to see my darling boy and to reunite the Cavaliers. I'm excited to give Jon his gifts and to take down our ridiculously over sized Christmas tree (which is something I NEVER thought I would say.)

Pressure

I once wrote a blog entry about how my bathtub/shower has the worst pressure of all time. When you take into consideration ALL of the things that completely suck about our bathroom - the worst has always been the water flow. And quite frankly that is saying a lot. In order to take a hot bath I had to turn the hot nozzle all the way on and the cold nozzle ever so slightly less than one fourth of a turn. Not only was it a delicate balance, but the water flowed so slowly that I might as well have sat in the sink.

But something happened friend, and I can't explain it. It almost feels like it crept in - the change that is. There were a few days that I thought the shower felt a little bit better. That is to say that it didn't feel like something was lazily peeing on my head. And then all of the sudden we got AMAZING water pressure. For example, while I used to spend the first ten minutes of a shower trying to just get my hair wet enough for shampoo, I now spend the first ten minutes dancing back and forth in the water stream getting scorched by totally unexpected blasting hot water.

While we used to use a big glass pitcher to help fill up the tub (because filling a bathtub should not be a 4 hour affair), I could now create hydro-power from the cubic inches the water flow covers in one second

I'm really not sure what happened. The maintenance guy I called when we first moved in was useless, I figured we would just have to suffer and I left it (sort of) at that. But we do have relatively new neighbors next door. And I wonder if they had the same problem and somehow they got a competent maintenance man that simply fixed one tiny little knob in one very simple motion.

I like to think that it is a little Christmas Miracle.

And there's also a lesson. If something needs to get done, eventually...Somebody else will do it.

Work Holiday Party Tomorrow

I am having a really hard time distinguishing between "White Elephant Gift" and "Shit I want to throw out-gift". But isn't that the fun of a white elephant gift exchange in the first place?

On the maybe list so far:

1. bike tire
2. half empty jar of pickles
3. that bag of temporary tattoos I inherited with my cubicle
4. the Fabio autograph that I also inherited with my cubicle
5. the Twilight book that I dropped in the bathtub tonight.

Affliction Allie

Aside from a terrible bout of Blogger's Block I have two other consistent afflictions.

1. I am convinced that I have what doctors might call a mild case of obsessive compulsive disorder. Of course not with the whole "cleanliness" thing - no - my obsessive compulsive disorder manifests itself in the form of a need to count things. Again, not constantly, but in moments of boredom or uncomfortable situations I am known to count the number of window panes on a nearby building (being sure of course that the sum equals a comfortable number divisible by 4) or the amount of strings on a set of blinds. When I complained to my mom about this back when I was in high school she very simply asked me why, if that was the case, I continued to do so poorly in math class.

2. My second and more constant affliction is pinche RESTLESS LEG SYNDROME. I think a lot of people consider it to be a false syndrome, made up by people that just want to feel bad about themselves. But I am here to tell you that it is not. Experts debate why people get it - from personal observation it could be any number of things: dehydration, unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, alcohol intake...But regardless of the cause, restless leg syndrome feels unlike anything that can be accurately described. For me I can only say that it makes my legs feel like rubber bands. Rubber bands that need to be stretched and stretched but no matter how much I stretch them they always feel like they need to be stretched a little bit more. There is only one solution and that is to go to bed. And luckily that is somewhere that I really enjoy being.

And that makes Al Gore sad.

When we drove from Auburn to Truckee this last Friday afternoon, we couldn't help but remark to one another how surprising it was that there was not a patch of snow anywhere to be seen. Global Warming Dude - we kept saying to each other. This is how it starts Man.



As I mentioned before, we were outside on Friday evening when the first snowflakes fell. Watching it snow is my most favorite thing to do - Next to arrowhead hunting, that is.



On Saturday morning we woke up to a break in the weather and took the dogs out to run around. I couldn't help but notice my long winter shadow.






It was good that we got a few minutes outside while the sky was blue because from then on it snowed practically the entire time - last night and today (Monday) being the heaviest. Trying to leave this morning was pretty challenging. Aside from the time it took Jon to dig the snow out of the driveway we also needed to do some cleaning so that we could leave the cabin as clean as we found it. In the time it took to clean the storm worsened. It was the first 100 feet of our drive home that made us realize that the car's windshield wipers were frozen solid. All the way up Donner Summit and back down Jon kept his window down and every few seconds he'd reach out and around with the squeegee we brought and he'd wipe down his side of the front windshield.

Once or twice we had to pull over and break the ice off wipers.



I know what you are thinking and the answer is NO. That is not an ideal situation. Especially not when it is white-out conditions. At a few points we thought that it might be safer to just pull over and wait it out. But the Schuman-Rose's are not wussies. And so we persevered.

Once we got to the foot of the mountain we saw that highway patrol had closed the pass - We were lucky to have been able to leave when we did - and thankfully we made it in one piece.

She Who Builds Something From Nothing

Ever since I took archaeology (and studied Anthropology, really) I have been determined to locate my very own archaeological site. Whenever I am somewhere Nature-y I find myself doing what you might call "a foot survey"- which means I just walk around looking at the ground. Occasionally I pick up a rock that looks interesting, perhaps a triangular shape, maybe an arrowhead once banged out by an attractive and young Native American male - approaching his much anticipated rite of passage. Typically when I pull said triangular shaped rock out of the ground it is not triangular at all. In fact, I may have the worlds largest collection of non-arrowheads. (I did however construct an arrowhead once for a school project out of the obsidian my mom, brother and I found in the outskirts of Mexico City - what's funny about that is that my teacher actually considered it a dangerous weapon. Very 1996. That is another story entirely)

During a "foot survey" of sorts yesterday evening along the snowy shore of Lake Donner I encouraged Jon to help me find ancient Native American fishing lures which are sure to be just littered amongst the rocks. He walked up next to me and looked down and said "Ummmm...."

"They won't jump right out at you" I said, instructively.

After awhile I had picked up about 3,000 rocks that all had, what I considered, absolutely no level of archaeological importance. I told Jon, in frustration:

I'm looking at these rocks and all I see are stone tools!

To which he replied: You'd be a very optimistic Native American.

And I have to tell you that that notion is really comforting.

Winter Splendor

I took today (Friday) and this next Monday off of work to acompany Jon to work. He had some stuff to do in Auburn - which is where his mom lives - so we drove up there last night and he worked most of the day today. I hung at the farm, chatted with Pat and took the dogs walking around throwing the frisbee and the tennis ball. We are lucky enough to be able to stay at the cabin here on Lake Donner this weekend in between Jon's work engagements. It is supposed to snow most of the weekend and in to next week. I just love watching it snow. We were standing outside on the deck tonight to feel the wind that is supposed to really pick up as the night goes on, and we felt the first flakes of snow that fell, It was awesome.

Snowy and Sammy Update

We got a photo of Snowy and Sammy - the cats that we rescued from our neighbors. While at first they were a little unruly, batting Christmas ornaments off the tree and hissing at the humans in the house, they are now comfortably settling in to their new adopted home.



My cat on the other hand is flying around our house like a bat out of hell as though this were his first ever holiday season. I think the tree is messing with his senses - making him think that he is outside - He has been tearing around the bottom floor of our place, launching my tree skirt in every direction on the hard wood floors. Lucy, our resident nut case is even shocked at this behavior. Normally she would chase him around and engage in a little playtime, but as of late she just looks at him like "Dude. you are so fucking weird"

Shortcuts

Whenever I get blogger's block (which is quite frequently) I still try my best to think of something to write. It's healthy to exercise the brain, you know? So today, rather than regale you with stories of how Big Foot is real or about that one time I stole two balloons - I shall offer up a bit of potpourri:

1. The new Vanity Fair is great and I suggest you pick it up and read not only the Tina Fey article, but the article called "The Man in the Rockefeller Suit". It is truly amazing.

2. I am currently sitting on the couch waiting for delivery ravioli.

3. I made a very small but significant boo-boo on a work project last week and have been kicking myself since - only to realize that the same project this week (its a weekly thing) is also semi-fucked. Making this the first and second time in my life that I have ever made a mistake.

4. Okay, you can't tell but the ravioli was just delivered and I took a brief break from blogging to eat it. It was pretty good but it was no Mario Vitale.

5. Today, a military airplane crashed into the suburban neighborhood that I attended Kindergarten through freshman year of high school in. Actually, in photos of the crash you could see the playing fields at the high school. While it was very real to the people that were there, and sad for everyone, It all felt very Donnie Darko. Did it not?

6. Jon has been flipping through the channels and he has landed on PBS's study of Luciano Pavarotti. He just put the remote down which leads me to believe that he intends to leave it here for awhile. I meanwhile am secretly delighted but won't mention it because then he would definitely change the channel. Not that I give a what about Pavarotti, but I love a good musical documentary.

7. I just spoke with my boss again and confirmed that the thing that was semi-fucked (see #3) is definitely still basically fucked.

8. I am torn by my addiction to E!Online and am willing to hear arguments as to why I should be ashamed of myself for contributing to the tabloids with my readership. This might all be coming to my mind because I watched Britney 4 The Record this weekend and I'll be damned if B didn't have me crying by the end! Seriously, I think she and I could obvy be best friends.

9. Best line of all time in a great work of fiction: "Now come Harry, let us step into the night and seek that flighty temptress, Adventure." Jon likes to say that the only books that I read are Harry Potter. This is only true for the last 2 years of my life and in my own defense several very good books were peppered in between the various times I read the entire Harry Potter series (for example, Eric Clapton's autobiography was quite good). An individual not having interest in reading Harry Potter, in my mind, is akin to attending a secret communist get-together.

10. In the time it took to write this bloggers blocked entry (3 hours), the work issue that was semi-to-perma-fucked is fixed. Praise Jee-zhus!

Are you on our list??

I pretty much did everything Christmasy that I could think of this weekend. Including my standard: Choosing a tree that is at least twice the size of the tree that would have fit in our living room.



I also actually made a list of presents that we need to purchase for people. Ordinarily I wouldn't dream of being so organized, but when you add my small family to Jon's ever-growing family we end up with like 15 people to (happily) buy for.



It's a blurry photo for a reason obviously. Santa asked me not to share. Those who are close to me insist that I am the ultimate "Peeker" when it comes to Christmas gifts. They say that I stay up until after everyone has gone to bed, that I gingerly slide my finger under the scotch tape and peel back the wrapping to catch a glimpse of my Christmas boon. I resent this and insist that anyone that claims such a thing is simply projecting.

Today was a fun day at the mall, doing my part to help the economy by purchasing a great number of presents for each and every loved one. If she who has the most shopping bags at the mall wins, I am the Michael Phelps of Christmas shopping.

Wrapping is always the best part for me. I have never been very good at art - you know, painting, drawing, making things look pretty, but several years working the mall at Christmas has made me a cracker-jack wrapper. This year I even involved rubber stamps into the mix.




Yeah, I'll wrap your presents. For a fee...

Consistently Inconsistent

I have never been good at sticking with things. You know, following through - finishing what I've started. Not my strong suit. I once overheard my grandmother saying that I "flitted from thing to thing" never committing myself fully. (That was right after I quit the piano.) And while that doesn't sound like a very nice thing to say I think you have to give it to the lady for calling it like she saw it. When I started learning piano I envisioned myself as the world's most talented concert pianist. When the odds of that happening were revealed to me I was kind of over it.

In college I was fairly certain that I would become an Underwater Archaeologist. But the scuba class meant I would be at school until 10pm. Thanks but no thanks.

I decided to read a biography of every president of the United States. I read Washington, Adams and Jefferson. Well, most of Jefferson.

I was 100% sure I was going to write a book about ______________. (Fill in the blank)

Design and sew my very own, very elaborate, massive flying kite? Probably not. (Why really?)

And don't even ask me about my hard-body workout routine that has been on the back burner for 12 years.

Number of Craft Projects started and not finished: 587

And, I don't know if you know this, but Mount Everest isn't all that hard to climb. No, it's the altitude that's hard - otherwise the climb would be easy. Then why not? Yes - for a short spell in middle school I thought that if I wanted it enough I could do it. I can tell you now that that is categorically untrue - never mind that I also did not want it enough.

Just today I started reading "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. He said something interesting about a book Isaac Newton wrote. I was convinced that I would buy it and devour it. Odds of that: slim. Odds I finish "A Brief History of Time"?: also slim. (See also: "Voyage of the Beagle")

Instead of being an A+ "student" in all of these various arenas I have half-assed each and every one. I am sort of like that C student that always leaves during the breaks and only regularly shows up around test time.

But just like that student, I like to think if you know a little bit about a lot...You're doing okay.

Snowey and Sammy

For awhile when we first moved here we were the resident Doolittles of the 300 block of Gonzalez Drive. With two semi-large dogs and one cat we were in violation of our complex's limit of pets by one animal. But our cat has been so low maintenance lately that in our minds we are compliant.

I say he has been low maintenance lately to suggest that it has not always been that way. After we had our darling kitty for at least a year we made the mistake of letting him spend some time outside. At which point he realized that outside was much much cooler than inside. It got to the point where he was outside for the majority of the afternoon and would only come back at dusk. I'm not sure what he was doing that whole time but to feel like a better mother I like to think that he was out delivering meals to homeless cats.

But there came a point when his preference for the outdoors became a hindrance. If he didn't come home by the time we went to bed, he slept outside. Occasionally when we wanted to take a weekend trip to Pat's, we would be delayed by our cat's daily adventure because we didn't want him to have to stay outside for too long at one time. And then of course he was outside for two weeks straight when we were in Europe and when I got home and got him inside I said NO MY LITTLE FELINE FRIEND. NO MORE OUTSIDE FOR YOU.

The Doolittle title was passed on to a young couple that initially moved in to their one bedroom apartment with two cats - two doors down from us. The new Doolittle's were TOTAL cat people. After being here for several months they bought a puppy and then shortly thereafter yet another dog. Their cats began spending all day every day outside and would rarely go inside. They hunted rats and had fleas and were generally thought of as "outdoor cats". But they were exceptionally friendly and cute.

So when Mr Doolittle told Jon that they would be moving by the end of November it took several minutes before Jon realized what their plans for the cats were. They said that the girl cat was going to get dropped off at the animal shelter and that the boy cat needed to be put to sleep because he was sick. This diagnosis was not based on so much as a Google search, and it definitely struck Jon and I as a totally irresponsible quick-fix. We gave the cat a de-worming pill and his owners said he was miraculously cured.

Jon asked his mom if she might want to adopt two nice cats for the farm and she said YES!

So of the (what seems like) million things we did this last Thanksgiving weekend, Rescuing our neighbor's cats is one of them...We put the cats in our car and met Pat in Orinda on Sunday afternoon. She took them to her farm and I think it's safe to say that they ended up in a better place than they could have ever hoped for!