May 3, Houston: The big one -- the Inprint reading -- occurs at the Alley Theatre on Monday, May 3. Do not miss it or you'll be sorry. I'm not kidding -- I'm going to say the craziest, most intellectual yet hilarious stuff I can think of, and I'll be sharing the stage with the ultra sexy Oscar Casares, too.
June 24, Houston: I'm one of the peeps scheduled to read at Poison Pen, at Houston's famous Poison Girl bar. Besides me, everyone there will be ultra, *super* sexy. Come see me and drink!
June 26, Washington, DC: I'll be reading at the American Library Association conference. Come on down.
My other blog: Go read my the Houston Chronicle parenting blog (or my ChronMomBlog, as I like to call it) and make sure my kids won't resent me more than other kids resent their own parents.
Buy my new novel, Lone Star Legend. Already did? Well, buy a few more for your friends, then. :)
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
afterwardsI went to Flickr, was disappointed that no one's posted many xmas photos, then reminded myself that I haven't posted any, either.
Our Christmas went really well. Hope yours did, too. We baked. A while back, my youngest son Rory, now 10, had found some retro recipe for cookies shaped like mice. He became obsessed with the idea of baking them for Christmas, no matter how many times we told him that a) they'd be a pain in the butt to make, and b) mice have nothing to do with Christmas. But he wouldn't relent, so we did. We took him on a special last-minute drugstore trip to purchase strawberry flavored licorice for mouse tails. We puzzled out how to get the tails into the cookies -- Tad thought of putting toothpicks into the mouse bodies to keep a hole in place while they baked. But we had no toothpicks, so I thought of rolling up tiny bits of foil. The mice had chocolate-chip eyes and peanut ears. While baking, they each doubled or tripled in weight. We decided they were mice preparing for hibernation. Or else, simply very fat mice. The aluminum tails popped out and the licorice tails popped in (with minimal inappropriate innuendo, heh), and the end result was awesome. Rory's cookies got their own display plate, and he enjoyed showing them to everyone who showed up at our party. And I hope I haven't created a baking monster now. Just kidding. We also made other cookies, and mini rum cakes, and white chocolate popcorn as gifts. And if I had known before how easy it was to work with white chocolate bark coating, everything in my house would have been dipped in it by now...
We didn't do a lot of gifts this year because, like a lot of people who drive cars in America, I'm pretty freaking broke right now, and there aren't any Black Friday sales worth the credit card interest, as far as I'm concerned. So we traded very small, inexpensive things, or else things that we'd made for each other. And, honestly, I think it came out just as well. The kids said it did. Maybe they were just being gracious, though. They're so gracious. My dad came over and gave them all Best Buy gift certificates. Rory asked him the amount they contained. My dad said, in the dry tone I know as his joking voice, "I'm pretty broke this year, so they're $8 each." All three kids thanked him. Then, my dad said, "Either 8 or [way bigger amount], I forget." And I understood that they were of course for the bigger amount. The kids thanked him again.
Then, the next day, Rory told me, "Grandpa gave us $8 each for Best Buy, so that's $24. Maybe we can get a game with that." And he seemed so excited. His brother Dallas somberly agreed that they should pool their $8 cards. I said, "No, babies. He gave y'all [much bigger amount] each. Not $8." And they go, "Oh-h-h-h..." Fifteen-year-old Josh rolled his eyes and laughed. He'd gotten the joke.
Okay, enough bragging about my kids. They're going to their dad's today, for his part of the holiday. It's kind of unfair, because our school district rearranged their calendar again, so I'm getting the kids for almost no time at all. But at least I got them for Christmas. Next year I won't, and that'll be sad. We'll have to bake for Thanksgiving, instead. Because I think we finally started the tradition of it.
I was glad that my boyfriend Tad liked both the inexpensive gifts I got him. Y'all know how mens can be hard to shop for. So it was a relief, to see him look sincerely pleased. He got me three very inexpensive gifts, one of which was the wrong size. ("Oh. I didn't see the sizes on them. I just picked the color.") But that's okay, because I already know what I'm getting for my birthday, which is tomorrow. I found out by accident. I'm excited. (But I hope it's the right size.) More on that later, after I come back a year older and hopefully wiser, too.
sad media agenda
This morning, on our local news, the newscasters were at the malls telling us that all the stores had extra, special, super, duper, slashed-prices after-xmas sales today. Because -- surprise! -- no one sold very much before xmas.
And I'm thinking, if people couldn't afford to buy gifts before xmas, why do the malls think they'll suddenly have money afterwards? And why is the news pushing the idea? Is media conglomeration that bad now? Does Time Warner own Wal-Mart now? I mean, I know you can no longer read magazines without fully expecting them to push the books/movies/music umbrella'ed by their parent companies, but dude. What's up with the newspeople encouraging me to shop today? Give me a freaking break.
It reminded me of the days after 9/11, when George W. Bush told us the best thing we could do for our country would be to shop our brains out for xmas.
Honestly? I like shopping as much as anyone. I'm a straight-up consumerist and it gives me the DTs not to shop on any given weekend, and the signs that say 70% Off call to me like sirens with long, well conditioned hair. But still. Even I have my limits. Don't ask me to shop when every not-rich person in America is broke. Tell Halliburton to shop. Tell Texaco to shop. Tell George W. Bush to shop. I'm not listening.
consumerism!
However.
I do have a couple of gift certificates to spend, so I will do that. First stop: Barnes and Noble. Also, I would like to have my nails done in the trendy style -- short ovals with nearly-black polish. We'll see. I have to count my pennies first.
Last night we caught the tail end of Bad Santa, and I watched Billy Bob ask his fellow criminals why they needed all the crap they were stealing from the department store. Why, indeed? They were stealing tacky trash. I would've stolen way better.
The other day, as I told y'all, my boyfriend Tad and I went to Neiman Marcus, which is an expensive department store, as some of y'all might know. I don't go there often, because their target market seems a little older than me. When I do go, it's to purchase the occasional Bobbi Brown product, and their cosmetics sales peeps are always very cordial.
But we went there the other day to look at the clothing, as I told y'all, and ever since then I keep dreaming about it. I dreamed we were suddenly rich and my boyfriend went to the office of the CEO to speak to him about merchandise. Meanwhile, I waited in the wood-panelled waiting room, and South American women struck up conversations with me in rapid Spanish. I thought, "They think I speak Spanish, and they think I'm rich." Then, I thought, "Oh, but I do, and I am." And then we talked about how much we liked shopping at Neiman Marcus. It was funny.
Tad's brother and s-i-l are rich, and they shop there often. So Neiman Marcus sends them beautiful Vogue-mag-sized catalogs, which they flip through and discard. Tad asks if he can have the catalogs. Then he takes them to my house, where he and my youngest son and I peruse each page and laugh or sigh at the insanely expensive stuff. Tad wants a mink dinner jacket. Rory wants a diamond skull-faced watch. I want a python bag, but I feel sorry for the pythons, that they spend their lives growing so thick, only to end up a bag for some lady. So I'll take a diamond Hello Kitty watch, instead. The one with the white ceramic band. Even though it has Kimora Lee Simmons' name on it, and she's not my type.
Wanna hear a dirty secret? Even though I'm not a teenager anymore, I do still cherish a fantasy that I was meant to be rich. That I'm destined for it, sheerly by virtue of my impeccable taste.
The longer I live, though, the more I suspect that I'm not meant to be rich, because it wouldn't be as much fun. If I were rich, I wouldn't have a reason to shop the most run-down thrift stores anymore. I'd have to do "vintage boutiques," instead. If I were rich, I'd miss the obscene joy of rescuing someone else's Neiman Marcus catalogs from the dumpster.
Labels: Christmas, dreams, fantasies, materialism
12:00 PM #Comments:
The reason the stores have all those sales? Is for people to go use their gift cards. Because the stores, apparently, don't get credit for any money spent on gift cards until it is used on merchandise. So, to increase their bottom lines before the end of the calendar year, they want everyone to go use their gift cards.I only know this because I listen to NPR as I'm doing my hair in the morning. If the news isn't on in a fifteen minute span in the morning, I don't know it.
# posted by
: 2:19 PM
The reason the stores have all those sales? Is for people to go use their gift cards. Because the stores, apparently, don't get credit for any money spent on gift cards until it is used on merchandise. So, to increase their bottom lines before the end of the calendar year, they want everyone to go use their gift cards.
I only know this because I listen to NPR as I'm doing my hair in the morning. If the news isn't on in a fifteen minute span in the morning, I don't know it.
# posted by
: 2:19 PM
We also were in the inexpensive gift mode this year.... but that's ok some years are better than others.
Hope your Birthday is the best one yet, and many more follow!
# posted by
еdë §téè£ : 3:23 PM
Well, happy early birthday, can't wait to hear about that too! (And I've got some Christmas photos up :).
# posted by
tina : 5:10 PM
I know what you mean about modest gifts. Through the year Hubby and I buy things for each other when we can, and at a certain age and after 20 years..we have all the krep we need. I told him when asked that I wanted " Peace and quiet," and that is what I got...a few days off to watch movies, stay in jammies and chill...it was perfect.
We have made it a habit to avoid the mall..any mall at all costs this time of year. I either shop early or on line . I don't need something at 70 % off today that I sisn't need lst week. The crowds..the attitudes ..the traffic...pffft..no way.
Glad the holiday was nice..take care .
Still toiling in 2A
# posted by
: 5:21 PM
Oh Happy Birthday! I guess I'm late now, but Happy, Happy all the same.
# posted by
That Chick Over There : 4:47 AM
I LOVE those Neiman Marcus catalogs too.
# posted by
ShoeGirl : 12:14 AM
There's no better yardstick for measuring parental success than your boys' awesome response to eight-dollar gift cards. That is great. And I love that your son was bent on making those cool mouse cookies. That's adventure baking.
# posted by
Marigoldie : 12:06 PM
Anon: Yeah, I heard that story, too. NPR is my constant companion in the mornings.
Dude Steel: Thanks. :)
Tina: I saw. Thanks for having photos for me to look at!
Boschka: I agree with you 100%.
That Chick: Thank you.
Shoe Girl: How can you not, right?
Marigoldie: Thanks. And, yeah, I have to hand it to him. He inspired me to bake more adventurously, too.
# posted by
Gwen : 8:57 AM
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