Chicks' Night Out



I went out to dinner with friends this evening (standing monthly get-together), so I am sneaking my Advent book in under the wire -- which is hilariously ironic, considering that I bragged to one of those very friends that I had been listing Advent books for two whole days without a gap!

Whatever. I had a great time tonight -- thanks, ladies!


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Today's Advent book is The Cricket on the Hearth, by Charles Dickens.  This novella is one of Dickens's five Christmas stories (the most famous, of course, being A Christmas Carol). I always liked this one, which centers on a poor toymaker and his blind daughter.  The plot is very Dickensian -- so you should keep that in mind; you will encounter lots of conniving trickery and misunderstanding on the way to forgiveness and redemption. Of course the miser sees the error of his ways at Christmas time, and true love conquers all -- except for the blind girl. The Victorians wouldn't have stood for that.

This would be a great story to be read aloud (the best way to read any Dickens); I don't know if it will hold the interest of very young children, but the rest of the family will love it.


Why I suck OR it really does take a whole damned village

OK, so here's the thing: I have so many things I want to tell you that I think my head might explode. We spent a week at the beach so that's a whole lot of fabulous to discuss; and I still owe you a report about the sparkles and glamour that the girl in charge and I experienced at the CAPPIES Gala.

But first I feel obligated to share with you a sort of tragic math equation. It turns out that:

the sum of dogs X (fine and delicate tulle of a ballerina tutu)
minus [absent and oblivious Liz] / the square root of "shoot me now"
= $$$ + Reason #57 why (I SUCK)

See, the sunny girl was supposed to wear this lovely confection of satin and tulle in the big year-end recital. Unfortunately the hellhounds did not receive the memo about how the recital costumes should be wearable for the actual recital. They came upon the fluffy and delicate tutu in the sunny girl's closet and proceeded to dig into its fragile beauty with all eight paws.

What should have looked like this . . . .

. . . ended up looking like this when the hellhounds were done "exploring" the tutu scene.

People, when I saw that tattered tutu, I had a true out-of-body experience; believe it. And the sunny girl cried, which should tell you something , since -- as her nickname implies -- she is typically pretty Pollyanna-ish about the way of the wily world.

I, of course, assured her that I could "totally take care of it" and she immediately regained all of her sunny good humor and faith in humanity.

Meanwhile, I attempted to safety-pin the shredded costume together, and quickly began to hyperventilate, as I realized that 1) I did not have the skill or wherewithal to fix this disastrous situation by myself, and 2) we were scheduled to leave for a week-long beach vacation within 48 hours and would return just in time for the sunny girl to perform in the recital. There was no time built into this schedule for a costume disaster; I needed to make this problem go away -- fast.

And here's the thing: there are so many wonderful people in the world. First, Memere (Lisa's mom -- I named my sunny girl in her honor) immediately and calmly said, "Don't worry, Liz. I've got this." She can fix anything. And then a lovely ballet mom who doesn't even know me said, "Don't worry, loser mom that I don't even know. I've got this." Apparently she can fix anything, too. So this means two people immediately volunteered to repair the tragically damaged costume.

And then the sainted Miss Linda (director of the ballet studio) said, "Don't worry, Liz. I've got this." And Miss Linda got on the phone and worked multiple miracles, and a brand new lovely costume was delivered to the studio within 72 hours, with no drama. And Coleen (who said, "don't worry, Liz. Your friends have got this.") picked up the new tutu and delivered it to my house while I was at the beach.

So the sunny girl and I returned from a relaxing vacation, and she danced in the recital ( she was terrific, of course) and neither one of us even broke a sweat. Because when it comes right down to it, Hillary Clinton was right: it takes an entire fricking village to raise my child -- or at least to get her through a damned ballet recital.

Peanuts and crackerjacks means a baseball game!

So the husband and I went to a Nats game this weekend with some of our besties -- a fabulous time!

The Nationals lost, which was to be expected, but we had fun for the afternoon anyway. Some of us had traveled down from Delaware, so it was good to catch up with each other and bond in between yelling at the umpires and eating peanuts and funnel cakes. Our cheap seats were under a big pavilion cover, so we were even (relatively) cool on a hot, hot day.

This bestie recently had a medical scare -- and can I just say that as medical scares go, it was the scariest. Doesn't he look great?! A beautiful sight, I'm telling you.

There is something about that beautiful green field, and the crisp white lines glowing in the infield, that makes me really happy. I am not one of those uber-fans who keeps the book and knows the stats for all her favorite teams. I just love me some baseball, though.

Everyone should have a Lisa

So this week the husband and I went out to dinner with Lisa and her husband, Ali Hakim. Not really. I mean, yes. We went out to dinner. And yes, Lisa and her true love were our companions. But his name is only sometimes Ali Hakim. Whatever -- if you're not from Oklahoma you wouldn't understand.

But really, I just want to tell you how lucky I am that Lisa is in my life. She has been my best friend since I was thirteen. Think about that, my people. I don't know about you, but when I was thirteen I was a complete pain in the ass. I think it's part of being thirteen, but still -- I'm not sure why my parents didn't sell me to the gypsies. So I am eternally grateful that Lisa was willing to ride it out and stick with me, even though I was a) a giant mutant, freakishly tall; b) painfully shy and more comfortable with my nose in a book than engaged with actual people; c) new to the school and thus totally toxic in terms of coolness; d) did I mention freakish?

Lisa, on the other hand, was athletic and pretty, with curly, curly hair that she hated and I coveted, and a giant smile that said to the world: "I am here to have fun, so step aside!" She was always the one who said, "Let's go skating!" or "Meet me at the basketball game!" And whatever she told me we were doing, I did. I even managed the gymnastics team, so I could hang out with my bestie every day after school. It cracks me up that I "lettered" in gymnastics that year.

It's weird that we are even able to be friends, because we are biologically so different. She is up before dawn, ready to go for a run, or play a round of golf, or wrestle a bear. Meanwhile, I feel that a day spent lounging in bed is a day well-spent. And when I am ready to stay up all night watching Fred Astaire movies, or the fabulous "Ishtar," Lisa just kisses me on the head on her way to her bedroom.

On paper we should not be friends, but I thank God every day for her.