Wow. It is Charles-Ingalls-would-have-to-chip-the-ice-from-the-horse's-nose-cold today. I read Melissa Gilbert's autobiography. not that she was any relation to Charles Ingalls per se, but she did play Half-Pint on T.V. And, hey, I forgot about her whole Tiger Beat with Rob Lowe relationship. And who knew she did drugs on the prairie?

My dad (abrupt subject change) always exchanges some type of acknowledgement with people who drive the same car as he. A lift of the index finger, a small nod. I used to think he knew all these people. Then I thought perhaps that was simply what one did when you spied someone with the same automobile. And then I chalked it up to just another random dad quirk. However, every morning I pass someone who drives the sedan version of the same car I drive. We both even picked the same color. And I'm beginning to think we should start with a finger lift salute or something. Because it seems like we should.

Abrupt subject change again. Mort has discovered "Smells Like Teen Spirit." (You would think I would know whether a song title should be italicized or in quotes, but I don't and I don't really feel like looking it up. We'll just have to deal with my decision to use quotation marks. )Except he does not call it that. He calls it the "Insert 5-year- old making guitar noise riff" song. (And again, can't recall if this is an instance where 5 year old is joined by hyphens or not. Good thing I'm not getting paid to write this.) I like Dave Grohl. Not that I know him, but speaking of Nirvana. Because he seems like he has a quick wit. And who wouldn't feel warmly towards someone that makes you laugh? I wonder if the Foo Fighters ever play Nirvana songs? Probably not.

I know this is not a popular view, but I didn't like Catcher in the Rye. I really really really wanted to. Who wouldn't want to love a book by someone who popularized the name Zooey? But I didn't love it. Or like it. I read it five or six times to make certain I wasn't missing something or that it wouldn't grow on me. I thought Holden was a bit of a whiny-pants ass. Along the train of thought of classics, I thought I would hate the The Sun Also Rises just because Hemingway was so heavily lauded. But that I ended-up really liking. We studied it in a class in college, and I was the only one who liked it. Everyone else thought Jake and co. were a bunch of self-indulgent drunk asshats. I guess it just goes to show that you like what you like and that's that. Or there's no accounting for taste. Or some other cliche. A stitch in time saves nine?

I read an article last night about a woman who was a reluctant stepmother. It musty have been fantastically written, because the author was a bit horrifying.(She flung cottage cheese in anger at her two-year-old stepson because he wanted Daddy to open it, not her.) And yet I found her to be sympathetic. And the only way that is possible is that she wrote so well that I found her more appealing than the helpless child. Interesting.

Neti-pot time.

I saw the documentary No Impact Man last night. In conclusion, I think it was a good documentary because I'm still thinking about it. However, I did find myself getting annoyed as I watched their journey and I think a conversation between Michelle(the wife) and a friend probably summed up part of it. As the project gathered steam and therefore press, Michelle was wondering why so many people hated them. Which is indeed a strange thing because after all, they weren't asking anyone else to make the choices they were making. They weren't preaching. They were just trying something out for themselves and if it inspired you to make changes in your own life, hey it was a bonus. Michelle's friend replied that she thought it was possibly because so many groups had been working to save the environment and promoting a sustainable way to live for a long time and yet Colin (the husband) seemed mainly to be doing it to write a book (and I'll fill in those blanks...become rich and famous?) Additionally, the friend suggested that people reading about this project felt guilty about their own lives. And i think that's true. Because I did. Which is good. Because it can lead to change and therefore a more sustainable lifestyle that benefits all. But I'll get back to that. Maybe.

I think another problem with the dislike towards the project was simply Colin, despite his all-over positive journey that he was undertaking.He just doesn't come across as a likable person. He seems very selfish. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that my guess is that Michelle's work makes it possible for them to afford their lives because Colin is a writer who hasn't written any blockbusters that Oprah has touted, and doesn't seem to have any other source of income as most writers do. And yet when Michelle wants to have a baby, he doesn't want to because it will negatively impact his time. I'm pretty sure they have someone who cares for their daughter as she wasn't in a lot of the scenes, so I would take that to mean he is not a stay-at-home-dad and therefore has the length of the workday to write, which again, I don't think most writers have that type of luxury of time. I'm not saying that wanting only one child isn't a legitimate choice, I'm just saying that in the context of the movie and their life and his wife's amazing willingness to give-up everything consumerism in order to embark on this experiment with him, discovering that she had to talk him into marrying her and talk him into having a child with her seems pretty what the what?

Because dude, she is a gem and a half. She is clearly not a crunchy granola type woman. She readily admits she doesn't like nature. This is a woman who can afford to buy boots that cost $950 and she does. She has a closet full of designer clothes. She can identify the name of a Marc Jacobs bag at 100 paces. And she gives up everything that hints at consumerism, including toilet paper, in order to support your project. Additionally, she does so with grace and humor. And perhaps the way the movie was edited has something to do with this, but Colin just does not seem to appreciate it or her. When she's suffering from caffeine withdrawal(and that really hurts--anyone who has given up caffeine can attest that it causes migraine like headaches that SUCK) he seems disgusted and annoyed that they are even conversing about her trivial pain.

Anyway, so it is an interesting documentary. And i hope that in their private lives, he recognizes what a wonderful partner he has. Gotta make the doughnuts.

A Story in three parts.

Part 1: I went out to breakfast with my girlfriends. Because it was at a diner, we all left happy, our hair smelling like bacon.

Part 2: On the way home, I stopped at the grocery store to buy bread because Mort has become finicky to the point where he can now tell if I am using the "wrong" brand of bread to make his sandwich, in which case he cannot eat it.

Part 3: A man in the bread aisle lifted his head sharply as I approached and smiled almost to himself. "That perfume smells great!" he exclaimed.

Conclusion: Men love the smell of bacon.

Much amusement and merriment is made at Stella's expense around these parts. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to let her know that I do appreciate her willingness to jump-up at 4:30 a.m. when the printer is resetting itself for reasons unknown to humankind, in order to go scope out the situation.

Some may shrug off this type of behavior because she is a dog. That's what dogs are supposed to do. I know that Stella would strongly disagree with that statement, however. She feels that dogs exist to put the color in an otherwise black and white existence. (No pun intended, seeing as how Stella is, y'know, black and white. Oh, and probably at least partially color blind, right? I forget what the latest thought is on that.)

And so when I'm woken to weird noises, it's nice to have a little ball of muscle go rushing past as a first line of defense to see whether the printer is spitting out a repeat for a fish taco recipe or directions to a place I've been many times, but can never find. Thank-you Stella.

So, I suspect that I have the "lob." Also known as the "long bob" the groundbreaking haircut that revolutionized the nation by the likes of Gwyenth Paltrow and maybe even someone else. To break it down, you take fairly long hair and cut it off to right below the shoulders. I know, I know, it's pretty dang radical. And while I generally think it looks fine on...Gwyneth Paltrow (the magazines tend to make it sound as though it's sweeping the country ala the Farrah or the Rachel but I think pretty much just Gwyneth Paltrow has it), I have suspected that on a civilian it looks like a mom cut. And yeah, it pretty much does.

And yet, I keep waiting for my shock and horror portion of my brain to kick in and notice that I'm not even close to being able to sit on my hair and that you can see my entire shirt from the back, unencumbered by a curtain of hair, and y'know I guess I just don't care. My hair was still damaged beyond belief from the blonde to black to copper to black to brown to brownish fiasco and now it seemingly so healthy that I can actually get a comb through it (okay, I don't use a comb. I use a pick. A giant pick. From 1982 when we used Dippity-do. I have a lot of hair. Combs break really easily. And quite frankly, my pick is missing a couple of teeth as well.) Huh. Maybe...I don't need quite THAT much hair to hide behind? Who knew? Or maybe I'm just really tired.

Five years ago...was it five years? Four and a half? Hmm. Anyway, I ended-up in an emergency room in excruciating pain and it turned out I had a good old-fashioned bulging disc. Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of out-of-pocket physical therapy sessions later, I hobbled on my way. Since that day, I have never, and I do mean never, nit when I have a raging fever, or am on vacation or just plain old don't feel like it, have I missed one day of doing the back exercises that will supposedly keep all and sundry in place. Like putting on a girdle (or Spanx for you young ones) of muscle for my back. I mention this because every doctor with whom I spoke or who wanted to see how I can't raise my leg or touch my toes kept murmuring that if I was diligent about my exercises, this shouldn't have happened.

And yet a couple of weeks ago, I leaned over to spit out my toothpaste foam and ta-da! My back went out. I tried the things that have worked in the past, absolute rest in the form of lying in a contorted position bolstered by cushions ala the physical therapist's suggestion for putting the least amount of pressure on it. I tried not driving, not walking, not lifting. But,dang. It was bad. So, I was forced to resort to the doctor prescribed anti-inflammitories and painkillers and class 3 narcotics. And still the pain persisted to the point that last weekend I found myself in a public place with a floor so filthy that had one of Mort's mittens fell upon it, I would not have let him pick it-up. We would have bought new ones. And yet my back gave me no choice.I laid on the floor. In the filth. No questions as to why I was out and about, because isn't it obvious? I was on medication. I was better.

And then the doctor tried to sell me on the wonders of another round of physical therapy. Which was fine the first time around. And helpful. But unless you are hurt on the job, insurance companies seem to deem all back problems pre-existing conditions. Even if you are relatively young and healthy. Bitter, party of one. And unless they've come up with some brand new exercises, I'd just as soon move on to something else.

So now I am on the juice. The steroids. And they seem to be working, thank you Jesus. The side effects are a bit interesting. As in, for someone with insomnia and various anxiety induced issues, probably not the best mix. But really, who knew I could talk this fast for this long? It's amazing! I feel like an after-school special warning against speed. In a point of interest, the steroids are the same ones our darling Stella had to take when it turned out she had hurt her back to the point that her discs were fused together. Stella's advice is, "Don't play fetch on the stairs."

And I don't know about you, but there are many the day that is so hectic that I sometimes long for just a teensy illlness that would require me to lay around all day, sniffling delicately and reading and watching crap television. In reality, that sucks. It is so boring you can't believe it.

Whoa--just big time excitement while we rushed to get Stella outside before she threw-up.

And so, while I was laid-up, I wrote. And I completed a piece. And I submitted it. And that is all I will say about that until I get my rejection letter. I'm big on the jinxing.

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."

Hi! I know that you are reading this blog because the large sign outside your business stated that you are a psychic advisor. Therefore, I feel certain that you could feel the grave disturbance in the force that occurred when I saw your sign proclaiming, "Walk-in's Welcome!"

Now, because you are psychic, please either read my mind and/or look into your crystal ball and repair this crime against grammar. I can't trust you to advise me on how to best live my life if you can't fix this. Thanks!

Final exam is submitted. Cookies are baked and decorated. Flour has been removed from the floor. Some cookies look suspiciously like blobs with icing squiggles, but it was our first time using a rolling pin and cookie cutters for dough rather than play-doh.

Waiting on an author to fill in some blanks.

A shower is looking like a real possibility.

I'm very full of Mort tales, apparently.

Mort walks into a bar...except it was really the living room of our house and he and Duke were wearing vampire teeth. Duke decided that given the choice, he would not want to be a vampire because he wouldn't want to drink blood.

"But if you were a vampire," Mort explained earnestly, "you would think blood tasted really yummy!"

Correct, as usual, King Friday.

Another Mort-ism.

He wanted to know what my job was and he wasn't pleased when I replied, "Mommy."

"No," he said with exasperation, "your real job."

"That is my real job. That's my most important job. Ever."

Stony silence.

"The one I get paid for?" I asked.

"Yes."

So, I tried to explain to him what I did as an editor and how I fixed other people's words.

Mort was nodding sagely. "Like if someone wrote 'dog' but they meant 'cat,' you would put a red X over 'dog.'"

And so I agreed that that was pretty much the gist of it.

A couple of months later, Mort was telling people he was an author (he's very busy writing books that have chapters, so I'm going to have to agree with him on this one).

"You're a writer like your Mommy!" a lovely grown-up said to him.

"No. My Mommy is a fixer."

Duke and I had an event to attend this weekend that required us to don dress-up clothes. Mort studied me for a bit and then asked, "Why do you look so beautiful? And clean?"

I am so close to finishing my current job, so close to finishing my last exam before the final...I know that this is true because I am wearing my glasses and working on this year's Christmas card. And checking to see if the Foo Fighters are touring anytime soon.

I must take a moment to post a note of happiness. You may suspect that this is because I'm thinking I can convince everyone to have pizza for dinner. You would be partially correct.

I am happy because I have a job that I love. A job in which I can work whatever hours I choose so long as I get said work accomplished. And that means that today I got to help out in Mort's classroom. And I love doing that. I love the kids that pass me in the hallway yelling, "Hi, Mort's Mommy!" I love the kids who respond so joyously to the slightest amount of encouragement and praise. I love the kids who look worried and watch their faces shine when they realize they have correctly sounded out and spelled every word on their own with no hinting on my part. I love their sticky little hands waving good-bye. I know that I do not have what it takes to be a teacher, but when everything goes as it should, what a rewarding job that must be.

And then I went shopping for the 742 upcoming birthday parties Mort is attending. And then I received the results of my latest exam and I finally did well. Maybe because it was the closest thing to actual editing that we have done this semester and I wasn't required to identity any phrase or clauses or parts of speech. The professor actually wrote "Good job" on my exam. You are never too old to be immune to the smiley face sticker equivalent. And as much as I've wrung my hands over this course, it has absolutely improved my skill set.

And then I worked. I caught errors and rewrote sentences and marveled at my good fortune. I'm nearly done with this particular job and I'm feeling confident that I will be hired again by this client. At least I feel that way today. Because today is the day that I shall suggest pizza for dinner. A very good day indeed.

wow. Wacky tired today. went grocery shopping and then worked my editing arse off for hours upon hours. I honestly thought at one point that the book I'm editing was a joke, like maybe it's really some kind of editing test. because that is the only reasonable explanation. and the when I was done, I went to pick-up Mort. We drove home behind a car that bore a sticker reading: Jesus May Come Today. Were will you be?

Apparently my life is one bad editing joke today.

1)It's WHERE, not were.

2) Do they mean to say "where will you be going?"

Because if Jesus came right then, I would be sitting in the car behind someone lacking in basic English and I would probably get to see Him shake His head in disbelief.

And while I was laughing, Mort, of course, wanted to know what was so funny. So, I tried to convey my amusement to him, ie, I read the bumper sticker and explained that it wasn't even close to proper English and I had been editing all day and it struck me as funny. As in , on the verge of hysteria funny.

Mort thought it over for a bit and then said"Oh! I know; you'd be going to Heaven. Is that what they're asking?"

I agreed that pretty much, yes it was. I left out the part where the person who has that kind of sticker on their car obviously feels that THEY are going to Heaven; the rest of us, probably not so much.

"Why do they have that on their car?" Mort asked. How much do I love my son?

I actually tried to explain about fanaticism before just downgrading it to a lyric in a Beck song: Some people just like to get crazy with the cheeze whiz.

And then we went home and cut back the fall foliage and made a turkey-in-disguise for school.