Highlight: Learning to breathe fire.

No really. I’m serious. Was at Jason & Laurie’s “Tween” party and Jules (who I know way back when from high school, but who it also turns out knows everyone else in the universe that I do) and her hubby, Brian (with an “i” I think?) showed a few of us (including Kim) how to breathe fire.

I never thought the ability to spray liquid effectively would be so useful (generally speaking, when I spray liquid in the aforementioned fashion it’s because someone has said something too funny when I had my mouth too full of Coke).\

Other good bits: Brunch Sunday with my friend David Matusiak and dinner Friday night with my friends Allan & Inez. Much knitting, some card-making and a little bit of jewelry-making thrown in for good measure.

Maybe the saddest song I’ve ever heard. I don’t often start to weep for no particular reason other than a song, but this one got me.

Hats of goodness (all made with Lion Brand Cotton-Ease, which comes in some lovely colors and is machien washable [truly important for baby stuff] and a sorta-version of this pattern.**)

My friend Jacintha has bought this one for her neice, Isabelle, who is in Spain, for Christmas.


This one is for Jeff’s friend Carolyn who is (a) pregnant and (b) really into racing and (c) not a fan of baby-pink. I found the applique at Jo-Ann’s or somesuch and just sewed it on with itsy-bity stiches.


This one hasn’t got itself a baby yet.


My boss, David, has gotten this one for his wee granddaughter.

** Turns out I’m not very good at following patterns. I start out well (usually) but then I usually get a wee bit off track and end up fudging it. Sigh. Will work on this. (I think it’s a counting issue. I lose track.)

Seen at the card-swiper thingy at Target last night:

The ANFDCS (Annual Norman Family Dysfucntional Christmas Shindig) was this past weekend, in Charlotte. It was pretty fun, actually, somewhat to my surprise (very confusing family history stuff here, which I’ll spare you, but suffice it to say that it’s been a long road to get here). Here are some pictures — I find it *hilarious* how similar my Dad and his brothers look. Jeff was a doll and (a) went with me (not easy for an introvert to deal with a passel of Norman-kin) and (b) helped in the kitchen (there was some sort of catering snafuu). The neat thing is that was probably the best of all possible worlds. *He* got to do something to keep busy and be productive (which is easier for him than straight-up solcializing) *and* super-huge double bonus points were awarded by my family for his all-around usefulness!

HOORAY!

This is my favorite pic from the evening: Barb (Dad’s wife), Jeff & I during the present opening

The scarf I knitted for the charity scarft drive at Get Crafty can be seen here. It’s in the bottom photo, almost square in the middle and is black with a manilla tag hanging on it! (Ok, here’s the same photo, but with mine circled… somewhat easier to pick out now, I bet… ;-)

So Jeff has some “gift exchange” at his work today (one of the ones where everyone brings a gift and they’re exchanged randomly)… and of course he didn’t think about it until last night (not his fault, really, we’ve been busy). At the point he mentioned it to me, Jeff had decided he was going to contribute a router (!) to the exchange, but they’re all geeks, so that might actually have worked, but I was a little… .um… confsed, as that doesn’t (in my mind) fall into the realm of “gift” so much as “appliance”.

So we started running through other possiblilities….

Gina: Do you have spare gifts?”
Jeff: “No”
(I do, of course,but they’re at my house)
Gina: “How about a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates?”
Jeff: “OOOH! I have a nice box of chocolates that my housekeeper, Dave, left me for Christmas. And I have wine!”
Gina: “Hey, that’ll work!”
Jeff: “You think that’s ok?”
Gina: “Sure… the likelihood that Dave will intersect with any of these guys is so low that you’re out of the Re-Gifting Danger Zone*.”
Jeff: “oh.”
pause
Jeff:“He cleans two of their houses”
Gina: “JEFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!”
Gina: “Um, yeah, that would be *bad*. ‘Cause I’m pretty sure that if he left *you* chocolates — as special as you are — he also left *them* chocolates….”

It *slays* me that he thought about the chocolates, but didn’t quite get to the point where he realized that at least two of the other guys would’ve gotten the same chocolates from the same source, thereby giving the gig away…

* ED NOTE: I actually almost never re-gift, unless it’s something like a White Elephant gift exchange… I’m just too nervous about the whole thing (and given the story above… understandably, I think! ;-)

The best boy ever just sent me a dozen red and white roses because he was “afraid [I] didn’t have Christmas decorations for the office.”

All together now… awwwwwwwwww!

I think the worst kind of Doing A Stupid Thing is the kind where you think about doing a Thing (in this case opening a padded mailer envelope by ripping into it with abandon), then thinking that perhaps that’s not such a good idea after all (what if it’s full of messy bits that will fall all over your kitchen floor?), then convincing yourself you’re being silly and paranoid (don’t be rediculous, Gina, it’s an *envelope*, not something messy like a mostly-full vacuum bag), doing the Thing (ripping the mailer open, with abandon, of course), only to discover your weird little paranoia was, in fact, some sort of prescient warning that you had, in great folly, ignored. And there are little grey fuzzy bits (not unlike, BTW, what you might find in a mostly-full vacuum bag) scattered all over your kitchen floor.

side note: apparently heavy drugs (of the cold medicine sort) affect one’s ability to correctly type/speak. So far today I’ve used a “to” in place of “too”, extraneously apostrphied three S’s, nearly confused “affect” and “effect”, and (worst yet) very nearly used you’re when I meant your.

If I start “quoting” things I will resign myself to grammatical incompetence and go straight to bed.

I have a cold. A miserable, feeling-sorry-for-myself, but-really-know-that-it’s-not-a-big-deal cold. I am soooo stoopped up… it feels like my head is full of cotton batting. The only reason I slept at all last night was because I took an Ambien and washed it down with Nyquil. Ok. Pity party over. Back to work.

background The cereal in question is a high-fiber sticks and rocks mix that we concoct)

ginathelintqueen: The big tub of cereal spilled in my car on the way home
jb4422: :(
jb4422: I’m sorry!
ginathelintqueen: s’ok
ginathelintqueen: will make a bunch of birdies happy at any rate
jb4422: birdies!
jb4422: you threw it out?
ginathelintqueen: the stuff that spilled into my car floor?
ginathelintqueen: yes
jb4422: was all of tub? just some
ginathelintqueen: some
jb4422: birdies will be regular!
jb4422: :)
ginathelintqueen: OMG that’s funny

The week before Thanksgiving Jeff and I went to Ian Anderson (lead vocalist and flutist for Jethro Tull). It was an interesting format show… sort of a semi-talk show semi-concert. Bob the Blade, an WRDU DJ who has been on radio stations around the Triangle for as long as I can remember, co-hosted. Here are my take-aways:

1) the guy can really play some flute
2) after a certain point, an affected singing style (as much as you might like it to start with) becomes a wee bit annoying
3) no one seems to be able to answer the question: “Is Jethro Tull a ‘guy thing'”?

On the last, Ian had asked for questions from the audience. Given my propensity for keeping my mouth shut (none), you’d figure that I’d have one.

Background:
a) Looking around the audience, it was 65-70% male
b) There were many “clumps of men” who attended the show as a group. Going to shows as a single-sex group is fairly common, I think, amongst women (at least the ones I know), but (perhaps because of the shows I tend to go see), seems to be pretty rare for guys.
c) At several times in my past (most memorably in high school) people have been surprised that I like Tull(1) . Now that could be a *me* thing, but it has alwasts seemed to be a “surprised that a girl likes them” thing. (Same thing happens with Rush).

(1) Tim (sung in response to something about having a cold or something else that was a good segue): “Snot running down her nose …”
Me: “Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes…”

At that point several people turned and goggled at me, surprised, I think that I knew a Tull song.

So my question (after having told the story above) was: “Is Jethro Tull a guy thing.” I don’t think Ian “got it” as his answer seemed mainly concerned with whether Jethro Tull was a guy *name* (duh). Bob the Blade “got it” though, and asked (after Ian had explained that Jethro Tull was a male name): “No, but really, do you think it’s a ‘guy thing’.” The answer, I admit, was unsatisfactory (something about sex and something about rock, but nothing really useful).

I, however, felt validated as several women cheered when I first asked the question (perhaps also having had the experience of people being shocked upon discovering they liked Tull too).

Ok, what do you do if there’s just *one part* of you that you don’t like? I am pretty happy with my shape and size overall these days… since starting yoga I’ve gotten stronger and even more flexible (BendyGirl) and the curves are something I’ve learned to respect (if not adore) for the most part.

But. I hate my tummy. Hate it. Bulgy-out-and-makes-my-pants-not-fit-right. Situps (/other ab maipulations) don’t help. I am completely off “dieting” (for good, I hope), though I try to watch what I eat, etc. etc. Sure I could exercise more (who couldn’t really…well except for maybe thebroomecloset or ovrclokd..) but I really don’t want to … my priorities are elsewhere (like making jewelry and knitting)

It’s just this one damn bulge. Sorta like a mole you don’t like. I *know* how to get rid of it for good… I just don’t know quite how I feel about that. I dye my hair, trim my fingernails and exfoliate… those are all body modifications (not to mention the ear piece and laser eye surgery). Yes, this is different. But how much different? Is this “cheating” (Is cheating bad? I certainly cheated on the vision thing…)

It *really* annoys me that I can’t open a standard 16oz soda bottle without assistance from the jar-opener thingy (or a boy, which in this case works out to be roughly the same thing).

It hurts! It’s not that I’m not strong enough (I am plenty strong), it’s that the little ridge-y things on the cap hurt my hands. (Ok, maybe I’m a wuss). Have they made them harder open so that they’re more thoroughly “Sealed for My Protection”?

(And don’t even get me started on “twist-off” beer caps.)