That's My Bix!

On Christmas Eve, Estrogen Happy Hour was doing its part to make Christmas bright. Man, I forget how little energy I have, between the cramping and the low grade anemia. I spent the better part of the morning trying to pull together wrapping materials and sitting on the chaise with a heating pad, moaning softly. I really hate being a girl sometimes. I was moving, just at 30 mph rather than 65 mph. I had to prep the nibbles for the Christmas morning get together with my Mom and her progeny as well as the fact that I had, very much like an idiot, volunteered to bring dessert for our Christmas Eve dinner with Ward and June. And you know, I don’t talk small when it comes to Christmas prepping. It’s all big talk here, ganache cakes and Morello cherry sauces, that kind of thing. I am stupid. But I did have a David Glass truffle cake in the freezer, so I pulled it out and then whipped up a very simple cherry sauce that came out looking and tasting a hell of a lot like canned cherry pie filling, only not as glossy. Did I mention that I am very stupid sometimes?

Around 2 o’clock, Esteban announced that he had finished the reports that he had to have done by Tuesday, so he was ready to perform his Elfly duties in the wrapping of presents. Which was good, because I had wrapped exactly four things, which meant that there was one million minus four presents left to wrap.

While Esteban wrapped, I did some sous cheffing, cubing cheese and whatnot. I had specifically purchased a bunch of very easy nibble fodder at Trader Joe’s, so mostly I had to just drag out my hostess trays and clean the kitchen, then sit on the chaise and write name tags for Esteban while we watched “White Christmas” and talked about scarily thin Vera Ellen (which was because she was severely anorexic and according to IMDB, all of her costumes were designed to hide her neck, which was prematurely aged due to her condition) and also wondered about the heights of the four leads. (The shortest was Vera-Ellen at 5’4″ and the tallest was Danny Kaye at 5’11”.)

By 3:30, we finished up and were getting dressed when the first plaintive ring of the phone happened. It was the traditional call from Ward and June, asking when we were coming. They get so antsy. It’s pretty cute, actually.

Christmas Eve at Ward and June’s, which was delightful as usual. June has introduced me to the wonder that is a Brandy Old-Fashioned (my traditional winter drink) that is made with apricot brandy instead of regular old boring brandy. I am totally a convert now, because damn. Damn.

After we opened presents and had dinner (and my homemade canned cherry pie filling), we headed over to the insane gathering of the Gigantic Relatives. It reminds me of an episode of How I Met Your Mother, where Lily and Marshall go to Minnesota to have some holiday with his family. Marshall is 6’6″ and, as it turns out, is the runt of the family, while Lily walks around looking very much like a toddler. This is exactly what it’s like to spend Christmas Eve with Esteban’s relatives. At 6’2″, he might be the shortest male in his generation. His cousins are all giants. I’m 5’9″ and I would definitely be standing in the front row for a group picture of the females, along with the second cousins who are all under the age of fourteen. One is 11 and she’s almost as tall as me. Next year, I’m going to have to wear heels.

I should clarify that when I said in the above paragraph that it was the ‘insane gathering of the Gigantic Relatives’, I am not saying that they are insane. But rather, I’m commenting on the fact that they insist upon gathering at the smallest house ever. There aren’t enough places to sit. People crawl over each other trying to find space. It’s like a life raft and we’re all just trying to make it out of there alive. And the cousins all keep having kids. A couple of basketball centers just had twins and by next year, I expect that they’ll be patting me on the head and calling me Wee Little Esteban’s Wife. Because I swear half of them don’t remember my name. Ok, just one of them doesn’t. But he makes a point of stumbling to remember it every damn year. I mean, I know it’s been fifteen or sixteen years since we were introduced, but come on man, weren’t you paying attention at our wedding? I’m pretty sure that they said my name at least once during the ceremony.

It was even crazier with the addition of the twins, although their presence tempered some of the materialistic bragging that seems to happen at this particular gathering. It did not, however, save me from the curse of the child-free. I already had to deal with one comment earlier in the evening when I was talking about a problem with my birth control pills and June said ‘Well, why don’t you just stop taking them then?’ implying that I should not replace them with anything. That’s pretty harmless, since I can just roll my eyes at her and life goes on, but at this Gigantic Cousin gathering, where everything is about which rings you are wearing and which cruise you just went on and sideways slams between three sisters about how fat they are or aren’t, it’s so on display and everyone just sits there and waits to see what I am going to say in rebuttal. This time, his Aunt Neat said ‘Weetabix! Look at how happy June is holding that baby! Do you see what she wants?’ and everyone laughed. I just nodded and smiled and then his Aunt Neat said ‘I can give her the other twin too… that would make her really happy! Weet! Do you want me to give her the other twin too? Because that’s what she wants! Are you going to give her what she wants?’ and everyone laughed again. I shrugged and then stared off into space. His Aunt Neat is an absolutely adorable lady and I like her and her husband quite a bit, but man, it is so not funny. Why do they assume that it’s solely me making this decision? What if I couldn’t have a baby for some reason? Or shouldn’t have one for some reason? What if we were trying and failing? Why this pressure is considered funny in a social setting? I just don’t get it.

This is the same group that made a point to comment about an 11-year-old’s weight problem and make her announce to everyone how much weight she’s lost since starting an exercise program with her aunt. And then one of the three adult sisters called another one a cow. Never too early to start kids out with body issues.

Normally, the tradition is that we all wait at the smallest house ever and then everyone packs up, gets into their respective cars and drives out to a second house. It’s the same people. The people from the second house are at the first house and the people who were at the first house go to the second house too. I guess it’s because no one wants to suggest that the Aunt’s house is too small and that her niece’s house is much bigger and, therefore, better. So we suffer through the first half of the evening with the promise of a large room and plenty of seating waiting at the end of the night.

However, I had settled into a nice Zen mind trance, staring off into space, when Esteban came out of the kitchen (where the menfolk were’ I am not even joking, it’s ridiculous) and announced that we had to go and sorry, we wouldn’t be going to the second house.

Could this be? I am usually the one who wants to leave early and skip everything, but since Esteban wants to be there, I suffer through it. However, an unexpected Get Out Of Jail Free card? Rock the fuck out.

In the car, Esteban admitted that he just wasn’t having any fun and really could only sit there and think that he’d rather be working than sitting there, which is a sign that it was time to go. Besides, we both had to finish wrapping each others’ presents to be ready to open in the morning.

We went home, took turns shooing the other out of the living room and stowing our presents under the tree, and then I headed off to bed while Esteban played his dwarf and troll game. Around 4 am, I woke up and Esteban still wasn’t in bed, so I got up and he had just started the dishwasher and was coming to bed. I asked him what he had been doing all night and he replied ‘Flying around the world in a sleigh, delivering presents to every good boy and girl.’ Normally this would be the part where I would offer witty rejoinder about coming down chimneys but given my abdominal stress, I just took another two Advil and went back to bed.

I am no fun at all.

It is raining here. On prom night. Ok, I don’t know where that came from. Wasn’t that a really awful song from the Grease soundtrack? I should haul out my LP and check.

It’s not just raining, it’s fucking pouring outside. What happened to a white Christmas, people? This is the reason I live in this state and suffer through some of the shittiest winters ever because by God at least I can count on December 24th being all Frank Capra and chilly white. But no, it’s going to be at least 40 degrees on Christmas Day, so while there’s a chance some of this rain will turn to snow, it will turn back into rain and wash every bit of elfin’ goodness away.

I finished up all of the Holiday Cards on Wednesday night and brought them to the post office yesterday morning. Or rather, I thought I did, because then I found that an entire box of envelopes were addressed and stamped but were still open because they didn’t have insides. Gah! So last night was Round Two of burning more CDs and then I ran out of CD liners, so had to print them off at home. Which is what I should have done in the first place, because the paper cutter I used at work did such a horrible job that I should have simply cut everything out by hand and had straight inserts that actually fit into the CD cases in the first place. I was clearly not meant for production work. I’m so much better at the conceptualization part of creation. This is why I’m not an artist. I fall apart when I have to actually use my hands to do stuff.

Last night, I pulled together a shepherd’s pie out of the roasted leg of lamb. While I was mixing the ingredients, Esteban walked in and asked if I was going to put’ going to put’ um’ pie clothes on it. I explained that normally a shepherd’s pie has just a topping of mashed potatoes, but since I did have one of those prepared pie crusts in the refrigerator, I gave it a bottom crust. The pie was good but Esteban resented my trickery of including vegetables in the mix, infused in such a way that he could not avoid them. He didn’t have seconds, but also said that if I made it again, he would eat it but no vegetables next time. Meh, whatever, it’s not going to kill you, kid. Next time, I’ll give it a full set of pie clothes instead of the potatoes on top, though. PIE CLOTHES! I am dying.

I also realized at Thanksgiving that Esteban and I both love jellied cranberry sauce but we never eat it unless it’s Thanksgiving, so I bought a few cans and opened one last night, dumping it out so that it still was in the shape of a can (which is, of course, the BEST way to serve the stuff). Esteban took a pretty decent chunk of it as dessert and after munching on it for a bit, he announced that he had hollowed it out. I looked and said “Oh, so cute! It’s a little cranberry jelly basket that you could fill with something!” and he replied “Or it’s a bloody artery ripped from someone’s body!”

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the essential difference between the genders. I think edible gift wrapping while he goes straight to viscera.

My sister and I had originally planned to go to Ikea in Chicago on Sunday, but then she piked to catch up on work, so that left me a little screwed for long distance shopping opportunities. Because honestly, I needed to go to Trader Joe’s in the worst way, as we were out of red wine and I also needed to buy nibbles and nibble ingredients for our little family gathering on Christmas morning. It was probably a good thing, though, because I am THISCLOSE to buying a wardrobe system and while Ikea is certainly reasonable, I can definitely use the eight hundred dollars it would cost for other things, like paying down my exhausted credit card. I don’t know if it just seems like I spent more this year because I bought everything in box loads via the internet or if I actually did just throw money at my holiday-induced neuroses, but man, my credit card has gotten a workout this month.

So, I decided that I’d take advantage of the fact that everyone else had to work on Tuesday and make a Trader Joe’s run to Milwaukee. Not only would I be avoiding the People’s bi-weekly visit, I could visit my favorite mall and get a refill for my rediscovered Franklin Planner.* And maybe stop at the Hootchie Mama store and also my favorite little stationery store in the state. Woo!

I continued my vacation trend of waking up early enough that I could have feasibly made it to work with plenty of time to spare, showered, leisurely checked e-mail and then woke Esteban up. I wasn’t really in a hurry, but I still managed to get out of the house by a little after 8 am. The drive down was lovely. We lost all of our snow to unseasonably warm temperatures (but there’s no such thing as global warming, of course) but the sun had just started to come up and everything was still frosty and sparkling.

I made it to the Caribou in Mequon by 9:30 am and was scrounging the racks of the Land’s End Inlet in Brown Deer by 10. I was hoping for a cheap cashmere sweater and while they did have some crewnecks in my size, their pullovers are too cut way too short. But somewhere in the heavens, it is written that I will only find one cashmere sweater per year and since I already bought a grey v-neck cardigan this year with a gift check from an award from work, I’ve no hope for finding another one until Fall 2007. Even though that shouldn’t count against my tally because it was essentially free. There’s no reasoning with the Powers that Be, I guess. At least not about the fat girl cashmere allotment.

After that, I hit the Hootchie Mama store, but didn’t find anything. I also went to The Avenue, where I took back a wrap dress that was way too much like a dress that I already own, and ended up scoring some workout wear for my reluctant foray back into healthy activity levels. That was fraught with delays because the sales clerk couldn’t understand the price lookup code for the dress, comparing it to my receipt and then making fuzzy sounds in her throat as though I was trying to pull a fast one and she wouldn’t do the return, or didn’t want to deal with this and was just going to turn me away because it was the easiest thing to do. Finally, I leaned over the counter and showed her where the numbers on the shipping label matched up on the SKU on the price tag. Then she acted all skeptical, as though I had divined them from nowhere or was trying to trick her, because how do I know about their secret Avenue codes? Because it’s not that hard to figure out, lady.

While I was in the Avenue, a teensy older lady wearing a fur grabbed my arm and demanded to know what size I was. I squelched my instinct to bristle and I told her. She explained, as though apologizing for the impolitic, that I was about the same size as her daughter but this lady couldn’t remember the size the daughter had told her and thought it was a much bigger number. I explained that it depends, but really, if the daughter told her that she wanted something from the Avenue, then she must be in a size carried by that store, not the crazy number that the lady thought it was. I think someone else might have been insulted, but since I couldn’t visually judge the difference between a size six person and a size eight person, I doubt that a 98-pound little old lady can accurately gauge the difference between plus size women. I mean, my rack dictates the size of my tops and if I had a B cup instead, I’d definitely be down a size. It was unnerving to have someone walk up to you and demand to know what size you are, but at the same time, I was sort of relieved that her daughter had told her a size higher, because it’s always uncomfortable to break it to thin people that there are people walking around who are higher than a size 20. (Which always reminds me of the episode of the Simpons where Homer wants to weigh 300 pounds so that he’s too fat to go to work and the only thing he can wear is two bedsheets sewn together. Because clearly 300 pounds is Cut You Out Of The House territory) They just can’t comprehend. Poor things. I helped her out and also suggested a few other stores she could try and she was very happy, even calling out “Thanks again! I’ll see you at Catherines!” (while I thought to myself “No you bloody won’t!”).

I headed over to Mayfair, but so much for my assumption that everyone would be working on the Tuesday before Christmas. The place was insane. I drove around for fifteen minutes without seeing even one parking spot before deciding that if parking was this insane, the inside of the mall would be ten times worse, so I gave up.

I headed downtown to Broadway Paper. I freaking love that store, and it shows, since I always end up spending way more than I planned. But really, can I be blamed with Kate Spade and Crane combine forces to make holiday cards? No. I cannot. Plus, I am an absolute sucker for letterpress, vintage type faces and Snow and Graham wrapping paper. I did put back the bird print file folders, though. Really, I wouldn’t use them until after January when I started doing our tax stuff, so I’ll just save them for the next visit.

I also made a stop at the Milwaukee Public Market. It’s much nicer walking around there during the week as compared to the weekend. By that time, I was starving. The Power Bar I had eaten on the way down was long gone. I stopped at a Hawaiian food stand and got something called Manapua, which was a bbq pork sandwich inside a sweet dough bun. I had hoped it would be reminiscent of my favorite dim sum perennial, the steamed pork bun. It wasn’t, but it was still really delicious. Also, note to Milwaukee readers: they have Bea’s Ho-Made stuff at the Taste of Wisconsin stand! Garlic dills and Sauer kraut and apple pie filling and chopped cherry jam! Yum!

I then headed over to North where I made a pilgrimage to Whole Foods. I ended up buying a bunch of wine and then standing around the wine department, talking with the wine chick, who looked a lot like Audrey Tautou. She actually complimented me on my taste when I asked her if they only had Cakebread whites or if they were hiding the red somewhere else. I blushed and said that I’m pretty much a novice, figuring out what I like, but we like to try a couple of things every week. She then looked in my cart and said that she could tell that I had a sophisticated palate, and I said “Well, we like to try a couple of new things every week, and I also have relatives coming over who like crap.” And she replied “Hence the Reindeer!” and then we both laughed like complete and utter assholes. We both smacked on Bogle and Two Buck Chuck (I said it tasted like gasoline and she said the thing that really bugs her is the fact that the nose is like strong cat piss) and for a moment, it was this weird wine-centered mean girls club. Which was, of course, really fun, considering that I used to only like wine that tasted like Kool-Aid and now I’m still pining over our empty bottle of 2003 Chimney Rock Elevage. I ended up with eight bottles, including the maligned Reindeer Red for my mother (who likes Beringer White Zinfandel), as well as a tub of Whole Foods handmade vanilla marshmallows, which are one of my favorite treats of all time.

Then it was off to Trader Joe’s, where I was glad that I had stopped in December, since they were out of the liquer filled chocolates. I picked up two David Glass guilt free truffle cakes (which are completely awesome), some snacky type things like turkey jerky (LOVE!) and a few stocking stuffers from their froufrou food aisle, one of which was a box of Fleur de Sel caramels. Esteban likes to joke that even my choice of salt is snobby, since we have five different types of salt in the house (iodized for the salt shakers, kosher, generic sea salt, black sea salt, ultra fine and grey Fleur de Sel), but seriously, it’s a relatively cheap ingredient and at least three of those salts have a time and a place in which to use something else would destroy the intent of the recipe. But really, I’m in love with my grey Fleur de Sel. It’s so briny and smells like the ocean and I love it. Screw saffron! Give me fancy salt any day of the week. So Fleur de Sel caramels? Merry Christmas to me.

The new Trader Joe’s is in a revamped shopping complex on the way out of town. The complex reminds me a lot of the ones in Chicago or Emeryville, so after I was done shopping, I checked it out. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that we now have a California Pizza Kitchen in the state! And a Cacique store! Holy crap! If it hadn’t already been so late, I would have stopped in, but I will definitely be back after the holidays. How much do I love that Milwaukee is like a real shopping city now? In 18 month’s time, it’s gotten a Sephora, a Trader Joe’s, a Crate and Barrel, a Whole Foods and a Design Within Reach, and now a CPK and a fat girl’s Victoria’s Secret! If Milwaukee could lure Ikea and Nordstrom to the state, I would never have to go to Illinois again.

After TJ’s, I made another pitstop in Mequon, this time to visit the fancy grocery store for some botrytis wine. While shopping there, I discovered that they now carry the One True Wine as well, and at least two bucks cheaper than the store in town. June had listed One True Wine on her Christmas wish list, so I bought every bottle they had (three) and then also found Esteban’s Christmas Scotch much less expensive than in town as well. Awesome. Now I don’t have to fit a liquor store run in during the next few days!

I had hoped to be home around 6 pm and managed to miss that mark by a mere ten minutes. I was pretty exhausted and Esteban had a bad day: he found out that he had to do two more reports, so now instead of being merely swamped, he was completely over his head and couldn’t even take time to stop and go out for dinner. Since the People had been there, I didn’t really want to mess up the kitchen by making a shepard’s pie with Monday’s leftover lamb and veggies. So I ran out for some take out pasta and we had a quiet night, he in his office working and me in mine, burning more Holiday CDs. The days have really snuck up on me this year and mistakenly thinking I had enough blank CDs for everyone really set me back. I know that the Canadians are probably not going to get their CDs in time, but hopefully the US cards will arrive before Christmas day. Well, here’s hoping anyway.

*So, I lost my Franklin about two years ago. Two years without a Franklin! I didn’t die, as I would have suspected, mostly because I started using Outlook’s calendar reminders. But I did feel much less together, at least mentally. I’m a forgetful fluffy head, so the Franklin system really worked well for me. However, when I was unpacking from San Francisco, I noticed a weird bulge in my suitcase. I unzipped this extra little pouch that I never use and lo and behold, my Franklin Planner was hiding within. So it has visited California three times, Chicago twice and probably one other place. No wonder I’m always within a hair of going over the airline baggage allotment! Twelve pounds of organized living, that’s what. 2004 weighs a lot!

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 6:30 am and was completely wide awake, which sucks because what a waste of a Saturday morning. If it’s a weekend and I wake up early enough where I could plausibly make it to work on time, I feel as though I’ve failed my Monday through Friday self somehow. All those mornings when I just wished I could never leave the bed, all that angst going unfulfilled. A travesty, that’s what that is.

I got up and checked e-mail, which is my morning routine, but then I heard the alarm going off. Crap, did I forget and set it by accident? No, it was way too late for my alarm. I heard Esteban get up and turn it off and then he walked through the dining room and asked why I was up already. He was planning to work all day, since he lost so much time at his conference, but I had no excuse. We made plans to shower and get dressed and whatnot and then recon in the kitchen at 0730 for a mission to procure coffee.

On the way to fetch coffee, however, my stomach growled. The previous night, Esteban had made two perfectly marbled New York Strips and then created a bourbon pan reduction using Maker’s Mark and stock which was so delicious that it made one want to weep. Or so Esteban claimed. I wouldn’t know because my stomach was still experiencing horrible cramps and the sounds were truly frightening. Sometimes there would be a low moaning and then the sound of rusty hinges being wrenched open and then I swear to God there were footsteps. My gut was turning into the Haunted Fucking Mansion ride at Disneyland.

So I missed out on the perfect pan reduction, which was really a shame since he was so proud of it. But one extra night of bread and water (minus the bread, because hello carbs) was clearly needed. So when my stomach growled, actually growled from hunger the next morning on the way to get coffee, it was a beautiful thing. I suggested that we go out for breakfast instead. Bonus: We were up so early that we beat the typical Saturday morning breakfast stampede. I managed to eat two mini pancakes, scrambled eggs and half of a steak before reaching the limit. I was energized from the hearty breakfast, and after we swung through Starbucks, I ran over the possibilities for the day. Esteban barricaded himself in his office, so I decided that I would put the Christmas tree up.

This sounds a lot easier than it was. You see, all of the Christmas ornaments and paraphernalia was properly boxed and stowed under the basement stairs by yours truly, many many years ago. Some time in the last century, in fact. You see, Tilly is a tree killer. She killed our first artificial Christmas tree and every breakable ornament we owned. We rebuilt, because we were young and energetic, and bought a huge sturdy tree that would seemingly withstand the assault by the monster kitty, and it did. In fact, it is so sturdy that she was then able to climb it and perch on the highest stable branch, decimating any ornament in her ascent path. At that point, you get a little disheartened with the tree tradition, after you spend a couple of years redecorating the same tree a dozen times in one week.

During the Kringle-less years, friends would ask if we were going to put up another tree again, and I would think about it and reply that we would put up the tree again when enough years had passed to make me forget the despair of pulling into the driveway and seeing a blank patch of window where the tidings of great joy were supposed to be.

The number of years required is apparently nine.

In the passing nine years, we’ve accumulated possessions, as one does, and also, Esteban has haphazardly just dropped things off in the storage area in a cluttered horrible fashion, which meant that in order to even get to the stuff, I had to reorganize Esteban’s camping supplies, de-spider web several cubic yards of head space, and consolidate the victims of his last trip in which he left all of his suitcases unnested and loitering around the basement in a weird luggage Stonehenge formation. Between that and running boxes up the stairs, that took about an hour. I made him wrestle the actual tree up the stairs, because it’s so heavy and in such an unwieldy box that I just can’t manage it. He ended up actually throwing it halfway up the stairs and then rolling it end over end because it was such a monster.

I got the tree together and then started on the lights. Esteban has a bunch of bubble lights from his childhood that he’s never let me put on the tree, citing my fear of seasonal house fires (In different years, my mother and my sister lost almost everything they owned in house fires that occurred within four and five days preceding Christmas) and the fact that they have to get hot enough to boil the liquid inside the tubes. But this year, fuck it. It’s not like I can handle leaving a lit tree unattended anyway.

After I untangled and used the last of the antique replacement bulbs for the nonworking bubble lights, I realized that we didn’t have an unused extension cord with a single off switch. I was wheezing from all the dust anyway, so it was a good time to take a break. I headed out to Target and ended up buying an awesome tree topper and a decent surge protector. Our tree skirt was third hand and looked so ratty and incongruous with our ornaments that it was time to get a new one, but the only one I liked was part of their Shabby Chic line and looked way too feminine. Esteban always complains that I go too classy with the Christmas decorations and that he likes some of the tacky kitsch. Hmm. WWMSD? Time to go to Kmart and find out.

On the drive over, I was singing along with my iPod, which was making its way through every single Christmas song, and found myself singing along to Yoko Ono on ‘So This Is Christmas’ when I was struck by what a good mood I was in. I smelled like sweat from wrestling with boxes, my hair had glitter in it and I was in the midst of a constant low grade asthma attack, but really, I was in a really good mood. Behold, the power of a good solid breakfast.

Kmart is such an odd retail duck. I probably only go there once a year and that’s usually to check out the Martha Stewart holiday stuff. They were almost out of tree skirts, but I did find a white one decorated with blue and silver snowflakes that seemed to be in line with what both Esteban and I like. I also ended up with my wrapping plan, a little by accident. I had purchased some black and white wrapping accessories when they first showed up at Target several weeks ago, but that savvy little minx Martha had really gorgeous Tiffany blue wrapping paper with white deer on it. I snagged every roll. I also grabbed a big wreath bow for our lamppost in the front yard and then headed home. I finished wrapping the tree in lights then went outside and did the boxwoods out front with the fairy lights I had unearthed. I also threw the wreaths onto the appropriate doors, threw the bow on the lamppost and then made a note to myself to buy bulbs since the last of the three inside the lamppost had finally given up, almost a full year after its brethren. I went back inside and hung our stockings by the fireplace thermostat and then put out my great grandmother’s ceramic tree nativity scene as well as Esteban’s grandmother’s little woodland elf thing.

I found tons of bags I must have purchased at post Christmas sales in previous years, loads of ornaments and whatnot still in their original boxes. After eight solid hours of holiday decorating, I finally had enough whatnot on the tree so that it looked more or less finished. Considering that this is the first time I’ve put the tree up using 90% of these decorations, I’m amazed by how really together it looks. Obviously, there are some outliers that don’t look quite right, usually things that were gifts from friends or family, but I think it balances it nicely. If I had a tree stylist, they would call them ‘accent pieces.’

Immediately I had to snap pictures, since I was certain that Tilly would see it and set out making plans to take it down, perhaps this time with a feline death ray or perhaps with a trebuchet constructed out of chopsticks.

(I’ve found many more untouched ornaments that have to go up, and Esteban needs to look at the final strand of bubble lights, because they haven’t fared well over the years and need some maintenance, so pictures will be posted later.)

After tree trimming, I suggested take out, because there was no way that either of us could cook anything. There were boxes all over the kitchen that still needed to be taken downstairs again, and I was exhausted and wheezy. I was in the mood for ribs, so I pulled one of my classic high maintenance moves and drove to Appleton to get take out from Famous Dave’s. I didn’t really care, though. It was nice to sit still and I don’t mind the drive. The ribs were not piping hot by the time I got home, but they were definitely delicious. Esteban popped a bottle of merlot and then we settled in to watch a DVD of Da Ali G Show. After dinner and the DVD, Esteban played WoW. I had clearly overcompensated for the past week’s meager rations and had eaten way too many ribs (although man, they were delicious), so I sprawled in bed and watched something on Tivo, then woke up several hours later to Timberlake on SNL. Esteban came to bed shortly thereafter and said that he could see my face in the dark because of all the glitter and then mentioned that the living room floor looked as though someone had thrown a rave.

Any day that stages Christmas and comes out smiling is a very good day.

On the fifth day, I rose again and seem to be doing better, as was projected by Esteban’s course of this mystery illness. Last night, I was able to drink a nice cabernet at my work Christmas party and didn’t throw up at the smell of food. I did manage to get through half of a steak without having an unfortunate incident, although the standard gag while swallowing my nightly vitamins turned into a rather dramatic event that made me run for the trashcan and stand there, waiting expectantly for what turned out to be only a false alarm. Perhaps the norovirus wanted to go out with a bang and not a whimper. Today, my tum still sounds a little like Golem and I don’t exactly have an appetite back yet, but this morning, my soldiers were more or less in formation. A cheer filled the Bix household, because frankly? I am really over all of the sicky sickness.

(If you’re hungry for more, however, check out this week’s 3 Fast 3 Furious podcast.)

While Esteban was gone, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. It was all the non-cooking and non-talking, I think. Even though I was sick, I managed to get through the five loads of dishes he left untouched when he flew out for San Jose (thanks hon and also fuck you) as well as started going through my closet to pull out items for the Minicon clothing exchange/drive (more info in the forum. I had to fight with my urge to clean everything out of the house and rip the carpeting out of the dining room, which is quite ridiculous, because it took me half an hour just to change the sheets on the bed and the effort it took to put the duvet back on the down comforter had me panting. I really wish I had minions who would go out and do these tasks for me at such moments. Actually, minions would be handy any time, all the day long.

I chatted a bit with the Senior VP at the work party last night, and he told me that he was impressed with my performance on my big hairy project this year, more specifically on the fact that I kept asking questions and ended up uncovering and fixing some inefficiencies that weren’t even attached to the project at all. And as my boss had mentioned, he wants me to work on another project in 2007, if not a second one. Man, it sucks to be good. One kind of awesome side note though: at some point during our discussion, he mentioned that he couldn’t believe it when someone mentioned that I was a few credits shy of getting my MA in English. He said that he knew I had an undergrad degree, but had assumed that it was in engineering or computer sciences or chemistry or something, because I’m so logical. He never would have dreamed that I would be so well-rounded. And the fact that I refrained from asking if he just called me fat really speaks to some amazing self control. I should get a fucking degree in that.

The conversation was sort of amazing, though. I have gotten so accustomed to wearing the two extremes of my personality between work and my social life that I forget how crazy it is that most people aren’t equally comfortable talking about post-modern narrators as they are talking about business models and making statistical root cause analysis my bitch. At one point, I was talking about my visit to the client a few weeks ago and the opportunities for 2007. The words coming out of my mouth were making sense and all businessy and I thought “who the fuck are you, chica?” because I sounded exactly like some kind of executive or something. And I was making sense. He was engaged by what I was saying and nodding and we were for a moment two ball busters standing up against a bar, drinking cabernet and talking about bottom lines and I swear to God, we were just a Powerpoint deck shy of being in a board meeting. It was sort of awesome for a moment and I can’t believe how much I’ve changed in the almost ten years of working at this company.

I probably lost all credibility when we were talking about the company changing its name and he asked what I thought it should be called. I replied, “Sparkles! Wait, no, Sparkle Co! No, Sparkle Co, Inc! Yes. Sparkle Co, Incorporated!”

If that’s not upwardly mobile, I don’t know what is.