The Difficulty of Unexpected Simplicity

There are plenty of nights when I'm at home that I don't turn on my computer. Christopher and I have been known to have dinner, play cards, and spend whole evenings without any of our electronics on. Although we do usually have music playing.

I know. It's weird. But we both enjoy it.

Plenty of our friends have gone without internet and cable for long periods of time (for various reasons), and we've debated getting rid of aspects of our "plugged-in-ed-ness" from time to time.

The reason I'm mentioning this is because, last night, our Internet service was out. We've had plenty of problems with our service ever since we "upgraded," but last night apparently about 4 states were internet-less.

Of course, we had no way of knowing that it wasn't just us. We tried all of our tricks to get the connection re-connected, and finally - after literally hours - I tried calling the company. Five tries in (I kept getting busy signals) I got far enough along to find out that there was an outage in our area.

So I didn't do any work. And we didn't research any Christmas gifts. And we didn't work on any holiday plans.

Which means that last night both Christopher and I were fairly frustrated by the forced simplicity of the evening.

Simple? Yes. Difficult? Yes.

Confused? Maybe.

To Bake or Not To Bake

I've been thinking a lot about Christmas cookies, lately.

That's not very strange, considering the time of year.

What's strange is that I haven't started baking them, yet.

Usually, I start baking dozens and dozens of cookies around the weekend after Thanksgiving. But, this year, I'm kind of not feeling the spirit of the Holiday baking.

I think it's because the weather went from feeling like September to feeling like January. We really haven't had the December-y weather we usually have. So it doesn't really feel like it's the right time of year for the baking.

Here's hoping that I can shake that and get into the mood, soon. After all, Christmas is only 3 weeks away.

A Religious Experience

The online world can be a strange, yet religiously inspiring, place.

Today, on one of the social networking sites which shall remain nameless, I saw two things:

1) Someone stated that she hates traffic with the white hot intensity of a thousand nuns. Yeah. On second or third glance I realized it said "suns" but it makes me wonder what the intensity of a thousand nuns would be like.

2) An online ad came through promoting menorahs, pointing out "Hanukkah beings and sundown..." I re-read it a couple of times, but that one never got better. So I responded to the post-er of the ad (as did a couple other people) saying that the sentiment was nice, but that possibly proofreading would have been good. About half an hour later, the ad was re-sent stating "Hanukkah begins at sundown..." Definitely more what they were aiming for, I'm sure.

But I still wonder who or what the Hanukkah beings are and what they do at sundown with their menorahs. And do you suppose their menorahs burn as brightly as the intensity of those thousand nuns?

World AIDS Day 2010

December 1st, as many of you know, is World AIDS Day.

As such, it is - obviously - a day to consider how HIV and AIDS have changed the face of the world as we know it over the past few decades. To think of the lives lost or forever altered by a disease which knows no boundaries, no prejudices, no borders. A disease which simply needs blood to survive - blood which we all share no matter our colors, our sexual orientations, our heritages, or our religious or political leanings.

World AIDS Day is also a day to think about what we do in the world on a daily basis. To consider how important each and every action we take can be - in our own lives and the lives of those around us. To reflect on how important honest and open communication - between partners, between doctors and patients, between governments and people - can be. To remind ourselves that what we do with our lives is up to each and every single one of us.

It is also a day to think about how we can change the life of another person in an instant - knowingly or unknowingly. Whether we reach out to someone in need, speak up against a bully, talk about the possible consequences of unprotected sex, or make a donation of time or money to an outreach charity, we all make choices on a daily basis which impact those around us. Inaction is also a choice we all have to live with.

A few choices I would suggest for commemorating World AIDS Day 2010:

1. If you aren't sure if you have HIV or AIDS (or if you're simply "pretty much certain" that you don't), please take the time to get tested. Your life - and the lives of those around you - depends on it.
2. Help to educate others in your life about HIV and AIDS. Help them to understand that this is a non-discriminating disease which added another 100,000 people - both men and women, of all ages, races, and religions - to its roster in North America and Western Europe alone in 2009. If they think they don't know someone affected with this, you can bet they're wrong.
3. Consider making a donation to one of the organizations fighting against HIV/AIDS, or working to make the lives of those living with AIDS more liveable. (There are a LOT of organizations out there. For instance, without even thinking about it, I can name: Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, The Minnesota AIDS Project, Baltimore's Moveable Feast, or any number of other organizations.
4. Take a moment or two or ten to really look at the people you have chosen to have in your life and enjoy them for who they are, realizing that they may not always be there.
5. For one day. Just one single day out of 365. Truly try to pay attention to every choice you make in your life.

Here's hoping that someday in the future World AIDS Day will be a day of remembering a horrible disease that once was, and not one that is.

Muppet Movie Monday

No. Not "The Muppet Movie" Monday. Just Muppet Movie Monday.

I happened to stumble across a "marathon" of Movies starring Muppets this past weekend. Or... Well... Maybe not exactly a marathon, since I saw them on different days, but much Muppet mayhem, at least.

I got to see "Muppet Treasure Island," "The Muppets Take Manhattan," "Muppets from Space," and - no surprise - "A Muppet Christmas Carol."

It's been AGES since I've seen the first three, and they were great fun. I actually have a copy of the fourth of those, and I was planning to get it out this weekend so I was thrilled that I didn't have to.

I know I usually write a movie review on Monday, but today I fully admit that I'm just basking in the glow of all of the Muppet-ness that was the past weekend.

Definitely better than a frozen fish fight.

Colossal Black Olives

When I was growing up, all of our big holiday meals included canned pitted black olives and "jarred" green olives with red pimentos in them.

As I've gotten older, I've come to enjoy all sorts of olives, but there is something about those pre-packaged olives that still holds a special place in my heart - and on my table. So, early this week when I wasn't sure what Thanksgiving would bring, I decided that I needed to store in some black olives, at the very least.

Did you know that there are at least five sizes of pitted black olives? And I'm not including sliced or diced.

I immediately ruled out the "small" olives and started looking at the "large" olives. But after seeing the "large" ones then I looked and saw the "extra large" olives. There were something like 48 olives in a can of extra large ones.

Forty-eight olives sounded like fun, but then I saw the "jumbo" olives, with 36 olives in the can. Imagine how much bigger the olives are in that can. Well, I may never know, since I then noticed - at the edge of the shelf - the "colossal" olives.

Yes, colossal.

Only an average of 22 olives in the can. All for the same price as the other cans. I had to have them.

They were amazing. The size of... umm... well... kind of the size of dates. Or small plums. They were large enough that I could fit them not only on my fingers, but even on my thumbs without them breaking (well, without them breaking too much).

I suspect I'll be buying them again for the next festive occasion. In fact, I might even say they were a colossal success.

Thankful Tiz List

On this Thanksgiving Day, I figured it would be good to do a Thanks-themed Tiz List. (Can't remember what a Tiz List is? Click on the "Tiz List" tag at the bottom of this post and you can see the full list of the ones I've posted in the past.)

I'm thankful for...

1) Family and friends who invite me to spend Thanksgiving with them.

2) And for family and friends who understand when - due to weather and non-weather reasons - I opt to spend a quiet cocooning day at home.

3) A 10" pumpkin pie (made with Libby's pumpkin, of course, Libby) in the oven to eat all by myself while cocooning.

4) Cool Whip to put on said pumpkin pie. (Yes. Cool Whip. Which could have been #1 if I wasn't trying to be sentimental today.)

5) Musical theater, for its promise and joy.

6) Sunny snowy days, because there is nothing so glorious as a blue-skied day with white snow on everything. (I'll gripe about it later when I'm freezing cold while shovelling - which I'm already tired of doing even though it's only November.)

7) Real mail.

8) Phone calls.

9) Hand-made afghans and quilts.

10) And scarves. (Yes, even when the fuzzy yarn gets caught in my beard.)

11) See's Candy kiosks in the malls around the Holidays, even though the candy isn't quite as good as when it used to show up in a box from California along with lemons and avocados.

12) Warm flannel pajama pants.

13) Stores that are CLOSED on major holidays.

14) Programmable thermostats.

15) Tear-jerking Holiday commercials. (Which I prefer, frankly, when I'm alone.)

16) Stumbling across great old movies while scrolling channels on the TV.

17) Full-sugar, full-caffeine Coca-Cola.

18) The fact that there are different sizes of canned black olives. Not just different sizes of cans, but actual different sizes of olives. (I have a can of "Colossal" olives in the kitchen right now to put on my fingers later today.)

19) Dr. Seuss.

20) The fact that Christopher comes home in a couple of days - and that I simply have him in my life to miss when he's gone.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Thanks to all of you for reading!