english in damascus

My cousin was in Lebanon when Hezbollah announced that they had captured two Israeli soldiers and the bombs started to fly. All the Europeans left to Syria on buses, but the Americans in the country had a harder time getting into Syria. Finally, my cousin and the others he was traveling with were able to get 48 hour visas into Syria so they could land in Jordan. Along the way they stopped in Damascus and found this ludicrously funny box of cereal. I'm glad he was able to find some humor amidst the terror.

crab, salmon or tuna?

Baked brie and homemade sushi? 'Twas a good year at family Christmas.

mci to mke to dca

The airport run.

family feuds and fashions

Kansas City Christmas is always an interesting one - starting with the fashions. And this family is as diverse as the fashions they sport. In a family of nine children, I suppose that's inevitable. The "good old days" come up - each year a new story or a new version of an old story is told. This year I learned that she wasn't expelled in seventh grade for kissing a boy in the back of a church. Rather, she was expelled in seventh grade for kissing a boy inside the boys bathroom in the back of the church. And he didn't pass substances out the basement window. His customers came through the window after a series of taps to complete the deal inside. It wasn't a drive up deal at all. It was a walk up deal. And, well, she believed Clinton when he said he didn't inhale. He said in response to her, "What? He didn't inhale? What a waste." And, for the record, the car he drove was never a hearse. It was only a station wagon. During story time, the phone rang. "[insert last name of family here] morgue. You stab 'em, we slab 'em."

Family. You take them as they come.

circus family

My family should have joined the circus. Among the acts performed at our recent family gathering were the wall splits, elephant stand into handstand, valdez bridge up, poplock, eyelid flip, stomach stretch, c-walk, freestyle walk, tongue roll and the double tongue roll AKA the shamrock. I couldn't be prouder of my pack.

bowl by the book

Player Warning
Bowl at Your Own Risk
Risk of bodily injury is associated with this game. Do not cross the black foul line. Correct footwear must be worn and soles kept clean and dry. Keep hands out of ball return. Report any mechanical problems, spills or other concerns to center personnel immediately.

By pressing the 'RED' key you accept these conditions of play.

AMF is getting serious these days. When my cousin dared to cross that black foul line, the bowling pin patrol flashed onto the screen for some reprimanding. And for the record, if anyone wonders why my score is a mere 53, you must understand that as a group of three we had to shoot for 300. I was a martyr for the cause to keep us at that mark.

santa?

Driving home last night my sister, her husband and I found this Santa in the 'burbs of St. Louis. The wind was blowing him around, and it looked like he was throwing up on the sidewalk. He inspired Kyle to write a jingle, to be rapped as opposed to sung.

Two pints of eggnog on Christmas eve
A bottle of Merlot on Christmas day
A fifth of whiskey on Christmas night
Santa be sleepin' on the return flight

Santa's got a hangover ...
Santa's got a hangover ...

dawn to dusk

The beginning and end of yesterday's light. I cannot escape the Arch. It even shows up on my frosty windshield.

joys and toys

That's my new baby - a Graflex large format camera. If anyone wants portraits, I'll be needing [patient] test subjects. Can't wait to figure this beauty out.

My stomach is sore from laughing tonight and last night. My parents put all of our family videos onto DVD for my brother, sister and I this Christmas. GREAT PRESENT. Movie night, anyone?

stocking stuffer

"Mom, did you empty your purse into our stockings this year?"

My mom is a famous stocking stuffer. This year some of the usuals were missing - the Walgreens chapstick and the fuzzy socks. Oh, but there were some fine additions. Such as the lint brush, super glue and Sharpie. My favorite addition to the collection was the Weight Watchers snack. Only 1 point!

attempting tennis

Not all tennis players are created equal. As my mom said to my brother, "Last time I played doubles, I was pregnant with you." And who ever said you need a polo shirt and skirt to play tennis was wrong. We know true tennis fashion.

magic tree

I've been visiting this tree for years. It's my favorite light display in Columbia. I don't think the photograph really captures the way this tree looks. In person, it is like staring into a fantasy. You get lost in the lights and their oddly vibrant color. Magic is a good word for it. Some of the bulbs are hand painted. Others are LED lights. The first time I visited the tree, it was an undiscovered treat. Now, there are usually four or five cars driving by when I go. This year, for the first time, there was also information about the tree available, provided by "Will Treelighter."

There are 68,500 lights on the tree. They are powered by eleven 20 amp circuits. It is plugged into 19 outlets. Putting the lights on the 30 foot tree took more than 100 hours.

And for the record, no more than 72 sets of conventional mini lights can be safely plugged into one 20 amp circuit :-) Merry Christmas eve to all.

day digest

Things I learned today:

My brother is fascinated by pirates ... and has ambitions of becoming one.
Dreidels are hard to find in Columbia, Mo. (No, I'm not Jewish.)
At Walgreens you can have photos stitched into blankets. It looks creepy.
I need to play more tennis.
Blockbuster's credit card system was down today.
Homemade caramel and Chex mix make a wonderful breakfast.
My parent's neighbor used to take photos for the Army with a 4 x 5 camera, and he's giving it to me.
Jesus was actually born in May.
Good hot cocoa is also hard to find in Columbia, Mo., so el cheapo Swiss Miss wins.
My road atlas includes Mexico. Who wants to go?
La Casa Grande changed their look and menu, AGAIN.

And now for some jokes straight off the Laffy Taffy wrapper:

Why was the boy covered in gift wrap?
His mom told him to "live in the present."

What do you call a lazy baby kangaroo?
A "pouch" potato

What is a vampire's favorite food?
Neck-tarines (Ah, darn, not the clementine!)

My brother informed me that I no longer have to lock the doors to my car. "If a thief saw the mess in your car they'd say '%$*# that' and move along to the next car in the lot." Thanks, Johnny. With that said, I'm off to clean my car.

home sweet home

Now that's my kind of television watching. : )

it's clear now

I drove to UPS earlier tonight to pick up a Christmas package. I waited in a long line of people. An older woman told me stories about how her children were the only ones without cavities in kindergarten because she didn't let them eat much sugar. The security officer had handed a young girl a candy cane, sparking the conversation. I checked out everyone around me, men and women, young and old, up and down. It was an eclectic group. I was most entertained by an older man with a fake Burberry scarf and wallet. What made him entertaining was not the knock offs but his flashy gold Razr phone, which rang in a goofy galactic style about every couple of minutes. Oh, people, sweet people.

The package was from my best friend in North Dakota. She's a thoughtful and good gift giver. I made it to the car without opening the box but used my keys to tear it open once I got in the car. Peanuts, tons of packing peanuts. In an effort to not make a greater disaster of my already disastrous car, I decided to wait until I got home to dig in. Well, I almost made it out of the parking lot before I had reached into the box and grabbed the wrapped gift from the middle of the peanuts, sending them everywhere. It felt good letting those white puffs fly all over. The gift was nicely wrapped - no surprise coming from a former intern at Martha Stewart Magazine. I held it in my lap the rest of the way home. The ribbon and paper were not devoured by my hands until I hit my driveway.

There was a beautiful, sleepy fog as I drove around the South City area. I thought about taking some photos. When I finally got around to making the photos, the fog was gone. Clear alleys are still pretty cool. Let the four day weekend begin.

gettin' down

A down comforter, that is. This is my Christmas gift to myself this year. Last night we had our first night together. I think I'm in love.

clementines

They aren't just for eating anymore. Are these guys journalists or jugglers? Both, I guess. I'm no juggler. Maybe that's a skill I can learn. What I can tell you is that a clementine is a cross between an orange and a mandarin orange. I can also tell you that they are delicious. Another interesting clementine fact: If bees cross-pollinate other fruits with clementines, the clementines will have seeds. (They are generally seedless.)

my gerunds

Thinking: Crap, I still have some folks to shop for.
Watching: SportsCenter
Feeling: Tired
Reading: Love in the Time of Cholera
Playing: Waiting on an Angel by Ben Harper

Also waiting on photos to move from the Braggin' Rights game played between Illinois and Missouri. My alma mater lost ...

My friend arrived in Tanzania today, where he will live for a year. I was also infected with the wanderlust (and flu) bug today. Meg came over, and we plotted about what we will do and see in la República Dominicana. We made reservations at the best place ever for the first two nights in Santo Domingo for super cheap. I did all the negotiating in Spanish :-) Check it out. For the rest of the trip, we plan to go where the wind takes us. No reservations, no must dos. Hotel Atarazana is operated by a lovely couple who will cook us breakfast and advise us on our travels. If anyone has D.R. suggestions, I'm all ears. Sixteen days and counting. Who wants me to bring them back cigars?

chopper

I got my hair chopped off tonight. Really, it's chopped off, almost all of it :-) I figure it's just hair. Besides, that's what I get when I say, "Aw, do whatever you want. I'm not afraid of it being too short." It will grow on me. [Haha, bad joke ... ]

happiness in a can

I love spray paint. Spray paint = automatically cool furniture. Thanks to a little inspiration from a friend, I've picked up a couple of pieces in recent weeks. I started with a nasty coffee table, which we retrieved from a dumpster. Then, for $5 I found myself with a small shelf unit. I've used one and a half cans of $1.98 spray paint to do both projects. Yippeeeee. I may sound high from the spray paint, but, don't worry, this time around I learned to do the spraying outside. Ventilation is a very good thing.

heartbreakers

Man, oh man. I had a tough time leaving this pair today. They sat with their innocent faces, as if to say, "Don't leave us, you devil." I thought of those faces as I drove off. I even felt a little bad. But when I returned to the house later, their innocence was gone. Parker's food bag had been broken into and these pups had a royal feast without limitations. I guess they were giving me what I deserved. And they did work off the calories on our morning walk - look at those worn out doggies.

soul food santa

Just when you think he's gone, he shows up again. Nothing like a send-off meal of soul food with Black santa at Jaden's Diner.

walkin' the dog

Parker looks a little sad, but don't let him fool you. He's had a pretty good day. No scraps or treats but a good walk and some very good pats. I took him to see some of my favorite Christmas lights in the neighborhood during our late night walk. For a second, he thought those deer were real. Sorry, Parker, not this time.

all in a day's work

Bubble blowing? I didn't know it was in the job description, but who needs a bubble blowing machine when you have seven people piled into the studio - one photographer and six professional bubble blowers. We did our jobs well.

Boss's word of the day:
swell

the latest

"Princess Di sells papers."

holy moldy

My bread greeted me tonight when I got home. Yummy. I don't think I've ever seen such massive and beautiful amounts of mold. Who wants a sandwich?

hey, miss dj

Tonight some friends and I chatted about plurality and dualism ... and the cultures that align themselves with each. This came out somewhere, "Everything is gray. Nothing is black and white." Then minutes later, "Wait, I'd like to correct myself. Zebras and milk cows and Daudi are black and white."

I saw a school bus get towed today. It was cool.

a collection

I sit next to a fellow who smokes cigars. Every weekend he goes to the same shop to buy his fix. Every weekend I send him with $1 to buy me a new cigar box. My collection is becoming quite nice. The vendor is loving the game and saved my co-worker a black velvet box (top middle) this weekend for the collection. The boxes keep getting better. This weekend's catch also included three boxes, as opposed to the usual one. So the boxes came complete with a carrying bag. Pretty fun walking through the newsroom with this bag today. Quite a conversation starter. Perhaps I'll keep the bag for another rainy day, another conversation.

i want one

mall mulling

On one of those email surveys my friend once answered a question about me. The question - favorite things to do. Her answer - "NOT shop." I cannot articulate my feelings about shopping and malls very well because maybe I don't understand them myself. And for clarification, I don't dislike shopping. Malls are my conundrum. I grew up 42 miles from the nearest mall, 120 miles from a "real" mall. The mall was a special place for back-to-school and summer shopping.

Halfway through high school I moved to a town with a mall. My friends and I would frequently hit the joint on week nights and weekends, when we needed things and when we didn't. It was a place to go - just like the restaurants or movie theaters. My junior year I wanted to work at the mall, badly. I filled out numerous applications and got called back from one place - Gadzooks. They called because my application said I was from North Dakota. The manager thought, "Ha, maybe she'll talk funny. Let's interview her."

Despite my lack of piercings, funky clothes and platform shoes, they hired me. I loved my job - helping customers, meeting people, laughing with my co-workers while trying on the fun and risque clothes I'd never buy. The folks I worked with educated me. They gave me my first Newport Menthol. They talked about the "forbidden" things that I could only pretend to know about. They invited me to "college" parties. Going to work at the mall was fun, but shopping at the mall became less and less attractive. When I clocked out, I didn't want to stick around.

During college I rarely went to the mall. Occasionally, I would get a sudden urge to go browse at the mall. But I'd get there and the excitement was quickly killed. Too many people. (But I like people, a lot.) Too many lines. (But I'm not impatient, I could sit in traffic for hours and not be irked.) Not enough niceties. I'd hit one or two stores and run. I cannot pinpoint the feeling. Stress is probably the closest match. Usually I only feel this way when it's just me and the rest of the mall. I can go with friends and family and be fine, fine, fine.

But today I had to do it on my own - face the mall and finish Christmas shopping. I mentally fed myself positive thoughts before I went. You're going to enjoy yourself. You're going to relax. Somehow, this power of positive thinking thing worked. I went in at 1 p.m. I left at 2:14 p.m. I got what I needed, even browsed a little and left feeling ... good? And yes, I went to more than two stores. In fact, I stepped foot in seven stores.

[I ditched the shirt in the photo. Baggy in the belly, tight in the bicep. You know me and my muscles ... :-)]

game on

Game Night tips:

Trivial Pursuit is tough - even the Baby Boomer version I protested. It also takes forever to play a game. I don't recommend this one for gaming parties, especially when there aren't enough pies and slices for everyone to play. People start resorting to crazy things, such as broccoli and keychains. Wild!

Scrabble is fun, albeit a little intense. The Pursuiters gabbed and ate more, although the Scrabblers actually finished their games.

Scattergories wins the Game Night Award. Everyone was playing in teams of four and five. Great words were flying around the room - boysenberry, rutabaga and that vegetable called rhubarb. And who knew Singapore was a country?

ah, the sun

I love the sun and its friend, the shadow.

crown candy

Finally hit a local joint called Crown Candy and ordered up a BBBBBBLT and a hot fudge malt - yum. If you can down five shakes in 30 minutes, they're free. Half of one was plenty for me. We opted to take the stairs up to the fifth-floor newsroom after the feast.

m & m mitosis

a week-old memory

It was late and cold. We were walking from a toasty apartment to a soon-to-be warm car. She was walking alone and shivering underneath a heavy, saturated fur coat. She moved our direction, then hesitated, twice. I broke the awkwardness and asked if she needed help. Lost. She was lost. She stuttered and sputtered. Her car wouldn't start. It was more than the battery. The alternator wasn't working. It would cost money, money she didn't have. Her car was on Pershing. Where was Pershing?

Minutes later she rode in the front seat of my car, the air turned from cold to warm, then hot. My friend rode in the back. Her hands hugged the warmer we gave her. Her body and voice shook, from more than the cold. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," she said. "I work for ElderCare. I just moved here from Kansas City. I have my identification." I was sad that she justified herself. I believed her, before she tried to convince me.

We found her Explorer and the man who had tried to start it earlier. The car was dead for the night. She lived with her daughter on Connecticut, not too far from my friend and me. We offered to take her home. She refused. She needed to be at work in the morning. She needed to be with her car. The man said it would cost $15 to fix. He could do it in the morning. A loud crash made us jump as we tried to solve problems that weren't ours. A tree loaded with ice landed a few feet from my car.

We didn't have cash, just a check with too much information on it. We called another friend who lived nearby. We waited for the cash to arrive in the warmth of my car, at her suggestion. She called us angels. She told us that she would pay us back. He came with the cash and gave it to her without a second thought. After hours of poker playing, I believe it was his safest bet of the night. An arrangement was made, and she stayed with the man who would fix her car the next morning. He got permission from his wife. She paid him the cash he needed. He put a roof over her head. She would be at work on time.

The time, the money, the gamble - all worth it. On one of the coldest nights of the year, I felt more warmth than I had in a long time. I hope she did too.

oh well

I may not be the best poker player, but I can make yummy chocolate dipped pretzels. There's always next time.

keep 'em coming

Boss's words of the day:
What up, G?

Another funny quote from last week said by a photo editor. I guess people wanted pictures of the storm before the storm.

"You can't photograph tomorrow morning until tomorrow morning."

a shopping trip

He bought a diamond (necklace). I took the free tin pins. I didn't know that the Helzberg jeweler came up with the "I AM LOVED" catch phrase seen on those cute little buttons. Well, he did. Spread the message of love and read the whole story here.

Boss's words of the day:
Take a gun and kill me, please!*

*He wasn't serious.

kwaheri rafiki