Christmas

Home again home again jiggety jig

~ thedailydish ~ 1 Comment

Returned from Atlanta last night, about 1 am. It was a LONG trip. 13-1/2 hrs there and another 13 back, and it rained both ways. I don’t mind driving, but 800 miles in a torrential downpour is a test of wills. I made a point of renting audio books from the library to pass the time. We listened to Charlie & the Chocolate Factory on the first leg and a Wrinkle in Time on the 2nd. I enjoyed both greatly, but Wrinkle seemed to terrify as much entertain my older daughter and had her asking questions a little too perplexing for a road trip. Is it possible to condense a rudimentary explanation of Evil into a 5-minute potty break at a rest stop?? Note to self: throbbing disembodied brains not for 7-year-olds.

Christmas itself was lovely. We got way too many presents, my mom & I cooked and we all feasted merrily.

The rest of the week was spent relaxing. We hit the wine cellar, did a little mindless shopping, ate out a few times. Explored my parents’ property. Watched TV (my parents have CABLE!!) and I especially loved the holiday Dirty Jobs marathon. We also watched a bunch of episodes of Arrested Development from my sister’s box set (*Annyong*) – that show is absolutely hysterical. I got a new board game called EAT IT! which is a lot like trivial pursuit for snack food junkies. My mom, the eternal gambler, staked a $5 Starbucks card for the winner, which turned out to be my sister, Queen of Cookies. We played quite a few games, which we haven’t done as a family in a long time, and it was really fun.

Today we did just what you want to do after spending a day and a half in the car. We drove to Bucks County & back, returning the rented minivan and picking up our beloved pets.

Don’t I look thrilled? I think I may have carbuncles. Fortunately, we do have a whole host of new CDs to listen to. I have to say the best of new order is awesome. I must be old.

Unfortunately, we spotted this poor creature by the side of the road:


You might be able to swing this into a joke about Santa’s sleigh or some such nonsense, but I will not. I took it simply as one more reason to get the hell out of the car.

For the rest of the photos, click HERE.

A Christmas story

~ thedailydish ~ 2 Comments

My older daughter has been begging me for a Baby Alive doll for over a year.  For those of you without kids, Baby Alive is an especially coveted doll because she eats & drinks and then says “uh oh I made a stinkie” – and then the lucky owner gets to change her soiled diaper.  For a while my husband & I were able to stave off our daughter’s begging with the response that if she wanted to play mommy so badly we could easily have another baby and she could start changing some real diapers.  But for some reason this idea never caught on.

So at some point last year I went to Toys R Us to check out Baby Alive and see what was what.  A baby doll didn’t seem objectionable – unlike some of those other “little girl dolls” which in reality look like a bunch of libidinous ho-bags.  I’m thinking okay – a baby doll.  Not bad.  And I wasn’t mistaken, Baby Alive is indeed a baby doll – no objection there – but (last year anyway) she cost over $50(!!!) and was ugly as sin.  So.  My older daughter’s birthday rolls around and she’s wondering why No Baby Alive.  I’m frank with her – I know she’ll understand.  I tell her: Well, honey, I went to the store with every intention of buying you Baby Alive, but when I got there I found out it cost a fortune and was hideously ugly.  The brown Baby Alive was actually very cute, but she was still too expensive.

And surprisingly, she did understand, and dropped the Baby Alive beg-a-thon until just recently.  In this interim she had actually seen Baby Alive up close and personal in several stores and agreed wholeheartedly that White Baby Alive is indeed scarily bizarre looking, with its freakish frying pan eyes 4 sizes too big for its head.  But we both agreed that Brown Baby Alive is really quite cute.  So, this Christmas, you can of course guess what was top o’ the list for my older daughter.  Numero Uno: BROWN BABY ALIVE.

So, I go back to Toys R Us a month ago, and what do I find??  Every single one of the very cute Brown Baby Alive dolls are G-O-N-E.  And, of course, not surprisingly they are overstocked on the waaaay ugly White Baby Alive.  What to do?  Well, of course, as any good mother would do, I bought the ugly one before they sold out of that one too, took it home and wrapped it up.

So this morning when my older daughter unwrapped White Baby Alive (after saving her for the very last present because she had of course guessed that this was her longed for “big gift”), what does she say:

“BABY ALIVE!!!!

Oh man, it’s the creepy one…”