Assorted Items

Yesterday I took my staff out for a Christmas lunch, and then we came back and worked until five. Well, I worked until four, they worked until five. It’s good to be the King.

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I found the most adorable Christmas snack/cereal/candy bowls at Kohl’s. I bought all they had and I’m going to fill them with all kinds of goodies, wrap them in festive cellophane and ribbons, and make party favors and give them to all my people who are going to French Lick for my birthday. That is—if we end up going at all.

1’s mad at 4
2’s mad at 7
3’s mad at 4
4’s mad at 3, 7 and 1
5’s mad at 4
6’s mad at everyone
7’s mad at 6, 2 and 4

It was so much easier being kids, getting mad at a sibling, hitting them upside the head then everything would be forgotten about in an hour. My Mom, in that Universal Mom Wisdom, used to say “If you’re Mad, so Sad, you’re just going to have to get Glad again.” Why isn’t it that easy when you’re adults?

And seriously, some of you women might not agree, but men get over things easier than we women do. Men, in my experience, don’t get too involved with petty family in-fighting. Maybe it’s that they’d rather sit on the sofa with a ballgame on the television, stick their hand into their belt and take a nap. Or maybe they don’t have the stamina we women have to hold on to a good, long fight.

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Monday night I’m going to a Christmas Dinner one of the women in my company organizes every year for the women employees. We were liberated about ten years ago and began sending out invitations to the male employees too, but no man has ever joined us. We have fun drinking, eating and playing that obnoxious Steal the Gift game, that Michael Scott in The Office called Yankee Swap. Why do people fight over $5 decorative soap, or a Christmas ornament?

A Recommendation

I bought Caroline Kennedy’s A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children (paintings by Jon J Muth) intending to give it to my youngest sister for Christmas so she could enjoy it with her three children. I loved reading poetry to LP when he was younger. But I’m keeping this book for myself. I’ll buy her a second copy.

At the beginning of each section Caroline writes a snippet about growing up and how important poetry was to her mother. In fact she says that she and her brother were encouraged for every one of her mother and grandparents’ birthdays and holidays, instead of giving a gift-gift they had to copy a poem and illustrate it to present to the person. Her mother would keep all their creations in a family binder. She writes that both she and her brother complained about it, but that she continues the tradition with her own children, and they have continued the tradition of complaining! Haha.

Her brother John’s favorite childhood poem can be found in a section entitled “That’s So Silly.” She said that she always knew he was thinking about her!

Careless Willie
(anonymous)
Willie with a thirst for gore
Nailed his sister to the door
Mother said with humor quaint
“Careful, Willie, don’t scratch the paint!”


My favorite poem Yeat’s Lake Isle of Innisfree is in here, as is Clement Moore’s The Night Before Christmas, also some Robert Frost, Gwendolyn Brooks, ee cummings, Nikki Giovanni, A.A. Milne, Lewis Carroll and Christina Rossetti and others.


Caroline also includes of few of her mother’s poems—which are actually quite good. Muth's paintings are just beautiful. So if you need a gift for a young family (or yourself) I’ll recommend this one.

A Naguala Welcome

Naggypoo,
Welcome to the State of Emmerica!

In the past, I, too, have had to explain myself to an Indian AOL employee. It sucks. I have only this one blog, but am a contributor to the Communal page (that's not a Mark Foley comment) and to Meme's Dog's Bollock's one.Why don't you sign up for a Blogger blog at www.blogger.com it's an easy process, then email TreeSquish@aol.com and ask her pretty please to put up a link to it on the Community Comments Page which is here: http://abookshelf2.org/blog/. I would enjoy reading your rants on politics, PBS shows, Scientific American magazine, and your George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grill Machine exploits. Seriously. You should have been here after the November elections--you could have celebrated with me and the few other Liberals who post here. We had a party!

I'd love to see a PTB blog too, and a Janeh56 blog (I miss hearing about her Jim and the Kisseys.)

Enough with the bald snatches

I am copying Tree today. She reproduced some oldie posts on her blog, and I looked through my Word files and found the following. It was Halloween in the Shelf--the year I don't know-- (I was Razor in Apple) I had copied this apparently to use in the Gossip Column (don't you all miss the gossip column when it was good?)

Attendance at various times during the evening:
Charonsfairy
MennoniteBadArse
Doch an Dorrach1
Mmmhmmmmm yeah
EN0LAJ0Y
QuintIda
UndeadWreckoning
Atschimolsin
Razor in Apple
SoGhoulToMeecha
MinefieldDancer
JaneH56
Cyn9652
Lyin sack of
Ravinlunertick
WitCHazelle
Zippolighter
IlliterateFacade
Crapheadpuspot
HadaCho
Lax Fan1
ANCNTMARNR
Bronte On Crack
DameRecamier023
Lil drac sambo
Worshipmalyoung
Vanda52
Feralosity
ToohotsAssistant
TOOHOTLPGA
EatAWombat



ToohotsAssistant: I saved a baby sperm whale today...my director was so jealous
Lil drac sambo: if you're ever constipated, try putting on some neil young
TOOHOTLPGA: Not all female golfers are lesbians
QuintIda: (crossing self with elephant garlic)
Razor in Apple: Minefield dancer is Mrs. Paul McCartney.
JaneH56: Miss Trick or Treat is here
MennoniteBadArse: did anyone tell rosary and her left boob to come?
Zippolighter: i am just dressed up as zip
EN0LAJ0Y: Zippo, so creative! Strike a pose!
Crapheadpuspot: he was cajunassflamer last year....who was that girl who picked a big fight with him and everyone that it was vorhees
Lax Fan1: Things are tight. Including Enolas sphincter I guess
UndeadWreckoning: minefield dancer - wasn't that a song by tina turner?
ANCNTMARNR: Undisguised, I know, but Carmilla and Woman in White were both taken :)
HadaCho: Barry Bonds just hit another home run!
Vanda52: stock market is very scary at the moment
Vanda52: worship, i hate holloween, sicko holiday , teach kids to demand goods or else, no wonder there are snipers in the world
ToohotsAssistant: I'm eating buffalo chicken while I wait for the ambulance to come and rush me to the hospital to have my severed finger re-attached

Bald Snatches and Gwyneth Paltrow

Bert queried “Have you noticed that Britney Spears doesn't appear to be that good a mother?”
I have no doubt that she loves her kids, but she’s a hick. A hick with money and no one to tell her to stfu, and that when you have kids, you have to sacrifice and give up certain things. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of seeing and/or reading about Paris’ bal(le)d snatch, Lindsay’s bal(le)d snatch, and now Britney’s bal(le)d snatch (complete with Caesarian scar). And who said it was okay to shave your pubes? God gave us pubes for a reason, Girls. It’s protection . . . especially if you’re dumb enough not to wear underwear!

And here’s another celebrity thing that gets me. Gwyneth Paltrow is quoted in a Portuguese magazine, and reported in the main stream press, as saying that she’s glad she lives in Britain, and that Americans are dumber than Brits and Brits aren’t crass like us Yankees and that Brits talk about more than jobs and money over dinner. That may be true, but here’s the thing. Ole Gwennie is a child of privilege. She went to all the right schools and probably had nannies and maids and shit growing up, and mingle with the rich and powerful so what “real” Americans has she ever had contact with? Speaking for myself I don’t ever talk about jobs and money at all the smart dinner parties I get invited to.
I don’t care if she and Madonna live in England and have now obtained phoney British accents, but don’t go biting the hand that feeds you. If she thinks Americans are the Great Unwashed, then what’s that make her by accepting all that dirty cash for her second-rate movies that the G.U. went out and saw in theaters?

So, Miss Stank, live in peace with Chris Martin and your Apple and What’s His Name, and your pal Madonna and Stella McCartney and Posh Spice and hopefully you’ll discuss children’s nappies, baby poo, yoga and Pilates classes, world hunger and world politics over High Tea instead of that dirty nasty money you get from the Great Unwashed peasants over on this side of the Pond.