I forgot how much fun antiquing can be! What had once been a weekly scour had turned into a distant memory. But dang if I didn't score some treasures right away; including what I anticipate to be a welcome addition to someone's pile of Christmas presents. Woo-hoo!

And I'd also like to add how lovely it is to spend time alone with friends, be they relatively new, or hail from such days of yore that you can speak in shorthand. And sitting in my Mom's kitchen while she bakes Christmas cookies never loses its charm. And my new favorite drink just may be the winterberry mojito.

Merry Christmas.

Morning Mort

"Mommy, do people turn into angels when they die?"

"Well, no one knows exactly what happens, but I believe they do, "I replied. "What do you think?"

"I think it would be really cool! You'd get to fly! And be magic! And turn invisible! And shoot lasers!"

So, I yelled at a kid other than my own during practice for a Christmas play last night. In a church. Is your karma better or worse if you do something like that in a church? But wait--listen to how I have justified it! If my child was doing something like that, I would have yelled at him. So, since there was no other mom available to yell at this little boy, I was doing everyone a favor.

Mort is playing Joseph. What's that you say? That you thought we didn't attend any particular church on a steady basis so how the heck is Mort portraying Joseph in a church play? Well, true enough my friend. Furthermore, aren't you Catholic? True again. And I don't know what kind of Catholic you are, but I come from the school of Catholicism that would never want kids to enjoy God to such a degree that they deface the altar by having fun near it in a Christmas play. Just sit in your pew and pray that the devil doesn't possess you for sinning. And fork over some dough while you're at it. The priest needs a new Caddy.

Anyway, we have lovely friends who do attend church regularly and their play was short a Joseph. And Mort hear the words "costume" and "stage" and he was on that like white on rice. Win-win.

Anyway, one of the three kings kept standing behind Joseph and tapping him on the head and then pointing at an innocent shepard when Joseph turned his head to see what was up. And under normal circumstances, that would have ticked me off, but Mort would have handled it, so I would have been forced to defer to what he deemed appropriate. It could have been anything from laughing to hitting back to a verbal lashing that would have shut that kind DOWN.

However, Mort was in zombie land. If that boy misses his bedtime by even a few minutes, his eyes glaze over and he goes somewhere else inside his head. And last night he missed his bedtime by an hour and a half. Even someone who doesn't know the signs couldn't miss the fact that he was not all there. And so I had to sternly tell the king to keep his grubby hands to himself. And to also chide him for bringing a shivering baby sleeping in a manger some freaking frankincense and gold. Bring the Son of God a blanket, big shot, okay? Don't be dumb.

No one enjoys waking-up at 5:30 am to the sound of a ringing telephone and their former typing teacher's voice on the other end announcing there is a two-hour delay.

Perhaps under other circumstances, I'd welcome the heads-up. But I don't have other circumstances. If I awake prior to 7:30, it's a very early day. And also, we are denying our children the excitement of watching the very slow school postings on television. The waiting with bated breath to see if our school district is one of the lucky few to get the small reprieve. Inevitably, you would have narrowly missed whether or not you won the delay lottery and you would have to sit through the entire alphabet of schools, only to have it confirmed that per usual, your school district was the only one operating on a regular schedule.

Spell-check sometimes baffles me. The solutions offered seem to bear(bare? No, bear.) little resemblance to actual words. Do they have it programed to make themselves laugh? Haha! When they type in "hve," I'm going to put up "hippocratic" as a possible spelling solution! And yes, I cannot spell and I cannot type. So how my typing teacher has ended-up in such an exulted position is indeed puzzling.

Wow. I am a rusty writer this morning.

I didn't want to have to address this, but I also don't want to get on the treadmill. So, here goes:

Dear makers of the brassiere,

Once upon a time, bras did the job they were made to do. Period. No one had to give them a second thought except to make sure you weren't wearing a black one under a white shirt and vice versa. Now, however, I can not find a good old-fashioned bra to save my life. I do not want to "increase your bust by a full cup size!" I do not want to look as though I have gotten implants. I do not want to jack my chest-up to such ridiculous proportions that I cannot button a shirt. (That one is a true story, by the way, and should demonstrate how ridiculous the padding in bras has become.) Dude. I am fine with my natural self. Luckily, I have 107 years (in bra years that is) of wearing normal pre-Wonderbra, pre-Victoria's Secret proportioned bras. So, I know there was indeed a time when it was considered okay to look like yourself. Please, please, please can one stinking company return to that time? Or at least make a line of bras that hearkens back to the early 90s? You can call it The Prude line. For women who want to button their shirts.

On one of my marathon bra searches, I thought i had finally found normal bras, tucked away down in the corner of the store, closest to the floor. I laid flat on my stomach and reached back into he bowels of the bra rack, finally extracting what I thought was my size. Just a bra. No padding. No enhancing. No looking like I'm saving my pennies until I can finally afford those implants.

However, my hand emerged grasping...a training bra. The only bra that wasn't padded to high heaven was a mofo training bra. Good grief.

And the best tale from the Secret Santa Shop is courtesy of Mort.

Volunteer: "What do you want to buy for your mommy?What does she like to do?"

Mort: "Well, she likes to go out at night and get her hair colored."

Highlights from the Secret Santa Shop:

Volunteer: "What do you think your daddy would like for Christmas?"

Kid:"My mommy and daddy don't live together."

Volunteer:"Well, that happens. Do you think he'd like a coffee mug?"

Volunteer: "Let's look for something for your cousin Sherman."

Kid:"I just want to buy things for myself."

Volunteer: "What does your Grandpa like to do?"

Kid:"Mainly play whatever I like to play. We should probably get him stuff for me."