Last One. No Really.

Months and months and months have gone by since I said I was going to take down this blog and I still haven't done it. Not because I'm too nostalgic, it's really not that, it's because I'm too lazy. I just don't want to deal with having to archive or download or copy-and-paste or whatever it is that's going to be required in order for me to not have Frosty-Licous up anymore. I just don't want to bother with it. And besides, I still dig this website. I dig the growing up I did when I was writing it, and I like to refer back to it once in a while when I'm writing A Serious Girl.

Which is why I've decided, once and for all, not to take down this blog. Also? You never know when I'll get the urge to post something supremely inappropriate on the Internet.

In case you're here for the first time, let me just warn you that what you'll find among these posts are the rantings of a Valley Girl in her early twenties, newly married, living in a tenement apartment in Hells Kitchen, Manhattan with her husband and four animals, and freaking the fuck out because she just moved three thousand miles away from everyone she's ever loved in her entire life. Of course she has her wonderful husband, so kind and gentle is he that he never even complained when she nicknamed him Poompy at one point, thank god she grew out of that. Anyway, that girl was me, and when I was thinking back over 2009 on the eve of 2010, I decided I wasn't that girl anymore and I wanted a new website.

Of course, as it turns out, I'm absolutely still that girl, I'm just that girl with a little bit more life under her belt, a better understanding of what she wants and enough confidence to finally go after it. You can read about my more recent antics on ASeriousGirl.com. Thanks for visiting!

One last time

I guess I'm having a harder time letting go of Frosty-Licious than I thought I would. For one thing, I'm afraid you won't come read about all of my adventures on A Serious Girl. Many of you have asked me what will happen to my sense of humor over on "that new site" (I imagine you're squinching up your nose when you write that) and the answer is: I'm taking it with me! I hope. It would be awful to lose my sense of humor.

Secondly, I'm not going to have time this week to take Frosty-licious down. Actually I will have time but I'd rather spend it writing, so I'm not going to take it down this week after all.

Thirdly, just a little reminder that you can always read me at A Serious Girl, I'm really excited about what I'm writing there, come visit!

Fourthly, I just updated my profile on A Tail At A Time: The Blog and I've posted a few new entries in the last week, so swing by there too.

I may be giving up Frosty-Licious, but I have two new blogs in it's place! It's like what they say about doors closing and windows opening and all that.

Miss you.

Goodbye. For real this time.

This is my last post as Frosty-licious. It's time to say good bye and move on for good. I just bought ASeriousGirl.com and that's where I want to be focusing my energy. (What little energy remains after I spend my days hauling a heavy suitcase around the five boroughs of New York City in the freezing cold.)

It's been fun, though, it really has. Good night and sweetest dreams.

I'll leave this up for one week and then au revoir! I hope you'll come visit me at www.aseriousgirl.com.

Welcome To A New Wiener, Outtakes

I'm surprised no one has said anything about my fabulous new banner, but I'm not going to get upset about it considering the wonderful outpouring of support I've been getting for the new website. I am so thrilled that you've been reading it! Your comments have been wonderful and very appreciated.

But let's get back to wieners. I wanted to share these outtakes from the New Years Eve photo-shoot because, HOW HYSTERICAL IS THIS?

I would've shared these sooner but I didn't get the files until last night. Adam was the photographer, I was the stylist and Theo, of course, was the very tolerant model. These shoots are so much fun that I think I'm going to do one every month. Maybe you can even help me come up with tag lines. Like, how can one express a Valentine's Day message while cleverly using the word 'wiener'?

Be my wiener?

Happy Wiener's Day?

Be mine and I'll let you touch my wiener?

A million dollar prize* to whoever can come up with something really funny.

In the meantime, enjoy these outtakes!

*a million wiener dollars

Come play with me, come play all day

A Tail At A Time's next opportunity to help save the homeless kitties of New York City. More info here.

Wet Hot Saturday Night

While you may not think a financial meeting is a good way to spend a Saturday night, for us it was much hotter than a night on the town. All right, neither of us really enjoys nights on the town, we'd both rather stay in and watch a Law & Order marathon, I'll admit it. If we're feeling really crazy we'll pick up two different pints of Ben & Jerry's and swap flavors back and forth until both cartons are empty.

More here...

A Serious Girl

Welcome to 2010! A shiny new year, a clean slate, a brand-new beginning.

Frosty-licious started in May of 2007. In the two years and seven months I've been writing this website I've shared hundreds of snippets from my life, dropped tidbits here and there, told stories and jokes, all the while hiding behind a mask I've worn my entire life: A Girl Who Is Pretty And That's All That Counts. The more I wrote the more I realized how I hide behind poop jokes, how I play dumb, that I'm the girl who proudly wears balls on her forehead. And frankly? I'm tired of it. I'm tired of being a cute-but-dumb joke. I'm tired of conforming to the image I think people want to see. Sure, I'll always laugh at my teabag photos, but I'm realizing there's a lot more to me than that. In 2010 I want to embrace my smart side. I want to grow up and become the role model I want for my daughters. I want to become the woman I know I can be.

This New Year is the year I will throw off the pretty little mask. This is the year I will explore and learn and wonder and fail and stand up again and be proud of what I manage to accomplish, whatever it is. This year I will let myself dream big, silly, wild dreams that could never come true because as much as I believe, unicorns don't exist. I will let myself dream sweet dreams and secret dreams and self-indulgent dreams and grown-up dreams.

This year I will stop saying mean things to the body I see in the mirror. I will feed myself and my husband healthy meals and I will exercise in ways that let me move and dance and feel good. I will love my body the way it is instead of wishing it would be different. This year I will cut out alcohol and caffeine, except for one cup of coffee in the morning and the occasional pint of beer with good friends. I will enjoy my life alone with my husband, so that when we finally have children we can say how much we looked forward to them while appreciating the time we spent before them. I will support my husband while he works and studies and I will do whatever I can to help him succeed.

This year is the year I will go back to school. My application is in, I'm just waiting to see if I am accepted and when I can start. I'm not sure what I'm going to study, but I'm leaning very far towards math and sciences. It turns out I really enjoy math, of all things, and Mike, who's been tutoring me, says I have an innate ability for it. And I've always secretly loved science, I just never thought I was smart enough to study it. I will also take a Spanish class this year, one that requires that I sit in a seat and practice with other students, out loud and in person. This year I will work and save money and we will pay off our credit card debt and start saving so that having a family won't feel like a financial disaster. This year I will go home at least once to spend time with my brothers and sisters, niece and nephews, cousins, friends, my Nani, my parents. I will fly to Seattle and spend time with my family there so I can remember where I come from.

In celebration of the new year and all I hope to accomplish, I have started a new website. A new blog. A place for me to stretch my arms without the superficial, saccharine-sweet label 'Frosty-licious'. I hated that name the moment I chose it and I've carried it around for nearly three years. I've been eager to shed that persona for a long time, I just didn't know how. Frosty-licious is too much the girl I used to be and not at all the woman I hope to grow into. She's too weighed down by the garbage I wallowed in the first two years I wrote here. It's time to clean house. Get rid of the clutter. I want room to spread out and explore. A bigger closet so I can try on different hats. A longer road for all the different shoes I walk in. An empty room so I can dance.

I'm really excited about the new website. I've been working on it for several months and I've had the opportunity to collaborate and receive guidance and advice from some wonderful people. It is an entirely new adventure and it is definitely a work in progress. I'm not sure what will happen with Frosty-licious. I may not be completely done here and the new site may turn out to be different enough that I could write regularly in both. We'll see what happens. In the mean time, I am very proud and very excited to introduce you to my new blog: A Serious Girl.

Thank you for being a part of my journey, for rallying with me, for reading my words. May 2010 hold blessings for you all. I hope to see you on my other side.

I've finally decided my future lies beyond the yellow brick road

I've been thinking about my New Years Resolutions for several days, but try as I might I can't write about my resolutions without writing about all that has happened in the past year. How can we look forward without first learning from our past?

In another life I was a Certified Family Law Paralegal. I was really good at it and the certification was something I worked very hard to achieve. I wanted to be a lawyer. I studied for the LSAT. I worked for several years at something that I didn't really believe I was smart enough to accomplish and every time I reached a new milestone I wondered how I'd managed it. I figured I was just doing a really good job of fooling everyone. I felt like a fraud. Only one person in my life saw me as I saw myself. She was a lawyer in the office where I worked, a bitter woman who, whenever I asked her a question, would snort and say, "It's a good thing you're pretty." Like I said, she saw right through me.

It turns out she and I were both wrong. That's probably the most important thing I'm taking away from 2009. This was the year that I learned I'm smart. I've spent my entire life believing that I'm pretty, but I'm not very smart, so being pretty is the best quality I have. The very best thing about me is the way that I look. My favorite feature's are my eyelashes and my feminine little feet, but I also like how long my nail-beds are and the way my bellybutton is shaped. Never in a million years would I ever tell you that I like my sense of humor or that my favorite feature is the part of me that loves doing math problems.

That's kind of messed up, I realize. But this year I realized it. I became aware of it. That's pretty awesome.

This year I learned that the way I look doesn't actually mean anything. It doesn't matter. It's an accessory. I don't have to play dumb anymore. It isn't endearing or cute or funny and it doesn't feel good. I also learned a lot about my priorities. I learned what I will and won't do for my career. I learned that it's wonderful to make plans and it's wonderful for those plans to change. I learned that what I want will always grow and change because as I reach my goals they will undoubtedly shape-shift and that is the nature of the beast. That is being human.

This year was the year Mike worked his way onto the Deans List with a 4.0 GPA. He finished thirty-four credits and will be eligible for his AA by the end of summer 2010. He became a New York City Emergency Medical Technician. He unearthed all our art supplies and discovered a gift for painting and woodcarving. He spent twenty-one days hiking the JMT with his brother.

This year we learned how to be a family. We learned how to be our own, unique, special, crazy little family. We started talking about babies this year. It's still a ways off, for a variety of reasons, but for the first time in our six-year relationship we're on the same page about babies.

This year we began to explore parts of the City we'd never seen and in doing so, discovered a city we fell madly in love with. This was the year that I found space to stretch out and practice yoga. I rediscovered my love of writing. My blog went from being a place where I whined and ranted and wrote silly things I didn't really care about to being a place where I found peace and solace and comfort and joy.

This was the year I learned how much I love my extended family; my wonderful siblings and my parents, my niece, my nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles. I realized how important my roots are, and how much I have to learn about Michael's roots. I learned that I have a support group in my family; a pep squad and a team of coaches. That even when we make mistakes and hurt each other and get angry we still love one another and we are still a family.

This year I wanted a white Christmas and I got two.

The most memorable moment was when Mike said this is the year he's been happier than he's been in his entire life.

This year I fell in love with my life.

I'm really excited about the new year.

Hoarders

These are just a few of the treasures I discovered when I cleaned out Theo's wormy crate today. The items I chose not to photograph included a gazillion dried out worms and several pairs of dirty panties Theo has apparently stolen from my laundry hamper. I'm thinking of writing in to the A&E Show, Hoarders. I'm worried he needs professional help I can't provide. Maybe he needs a support group or a professional organizer. Maybe he needs a therapist to help him uncover his feelings.

Have you seen Hoarders, by the way? It's amazing. I cannot watch it without immediately cleaning out and scrubbing my fridge. I now have a ridiculously clean fridge.

Good News and A Story About Scones

The good news is that Theo doesn't have any parasites or creepy crawly's other than tape worm, which is apparently not a very big deal. We start his de-worming meds tonight and our vet said we don't need to worry about treating the other three animals since they are not exhibiting signs of tape worm (i.e. dropping worms out of their butts all over my bed) so it is highly unlikely that they have worms too. The other really good news is that Mike and I don't have to worry about de-worming ourselves since it is also highly unlikely that we contacted the worms. Even though they were in our bed.

Now to make up for yesterday's awful post, here is a story my mom sent me. It is true, about her, and may give you some insight as to where I get my quirks.

But first, let me preface the story by telling you that my mother loves scones. LOVES THEM. One of my happiest memories from childhood is of coming home from school to find that my mom had baked scones so that we could have a little tea-party, just the two of us. We spent the afternoon drinking pink tea and eating scones and even though I didn't like them as much as I liked marshmallow cookies, it was absolute heaven. So while my parents were in town for an early Christmas celebration, I baked a batch of raisin scones. At the end of the day there was only one scone left and I sent it back to California in a zip-lock bag so that my mother could enjoy it once she was home. This is what happened:

So, what does the Scone Lover do? What does she do, after she walks downstairs, makes a cup of tea, and turns toward her last scone (which she transported all the way from Sugar Hill, NYC)? What does she do as she turns toward The Scone with great anticipation?

And finds it, in it's plastic bag (where it was presumed to be Safe), Covered with ants? COVERED.

I'll tell you what she does. She curses, and then she puts it in the freezer. Freezes the many ant butts solid. Then takes it out, brushes the ant butts off of it, and puts the lovely scone in the toaster oven at 350. Then she Enjoys it (every mouthful), with Orange Marmalade!

I love you, Mama. Thank you for making me laugh with such a funny story! And I'm glad you got to enjoy your scone, ant butts be damned!

Theo's Christmas Gift

The morning of Christmas Eve I woke up with Valentine curled against my back and little Theo in my arms. A perfect way to wake up, if you ask me. I yawned and blinked the sleep out of my eyes and Theo yawned and rolled over for a belly rub. I started scritching and scratching his belly and his chest and he wriggled all over with happiness. I reached down to scratch my favorite place on his little body - his teddy-bear bottom. I'm not talking about his anus, which is directly underneath his tail, I'm talking about the soft, padded, fluffy part behind his back legs. So I'm scratching that and then I notice what feels like four or five very small scabs. I can't see anything, but I make a mental note to keep an eye on the area in case he's chewing it raw. (When he's bored he chews at himself. I'm pretty good about keeping chews around to prevent self-mutilation-out-of-boredom, but sometimes he chews himself anyway, so I'm forever worried.)

Christmas morning I woke up the same way and gave Theo a similar rubdown. This time, I noticed more little scabs. I took a good look at the area and saw that some of the little scabs were hanging in his fur, so I plucked one out for a closer look. It didn't look like much and his skin didn't look irritated or anything, so again, I made a mental note to keep an eye on it.

At this point I should have asked my friend Val, who's home we were staying in, what she thought of the little scabs. Since she has both bred and rescued dogs, she'd probably have known. But I wasn't that concerned and by the time I'd made it into her kitchen for coffee I had forgotten all about it.

Fast forward to yesterday morning. We'd let the dogs sleep in bed with us again, and even though it was the third night in a row, it still felt like a special treat. Again I woke up with little Theo, sweet in my arms. I gave him his morning rubdown and made sure to check his bottom to see if anything had changed. The little scabs were still there, but no worse than they'd been. However, when I got out of bed I noticed that the bed was full of little scabs. Little scabs sprinkled all over my sheets like cookie crumbs. Did I mention that they were all over my sheets? The sheets on my bed where I sleep?

"That is very strange." I wondered out-loud.

"What is?" Mike asked.

"Theo is shedding little scabs all over our sheets."

I pointed to the scattering of scabs sprinkled all over my side of the bed. Mike had no idea what they were either, but he suggested we collect them in a small container and bring them to our veterinarian, just to be on the safe side. Then we changed our sheets and decided the dogs could just go back to sleeping in their crates, that would be perfectly all right with us. I checked Theo's bottom several more times throughout the day because by now I was a little bit worried, but nothing changed. The scabs didn't look any worse, I never caught him chewing the area, it was a complete mystery. And then this morning he shit a pile of live worms.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Six Days of Christmas

There are toys for girls and boys

Silver bells make merry noise

Yet, you should remember from the start

Christmas is a feeling in your heart

Lucky little me got to celebrate Christmas all week this year. From Sunday, December 20th, to Saturday, December 26th, Christmas was the feeling in my heart.

My parents attended a seminar in Massachusetts last weekend and so they swung into the city for two nights afterward. They showed up at the tail-end of a Nor'Easter that dropped more snow on the city than I've seen living on the East Coast for three years, their arms loaded with brightly wrapped gifts, as if they themselves were Santa's elves. It was a very merry White Christmas indeed. Mike made a turkey with all the fixings and we spent Monday and Tuesday eating, visiting, opening presents and basking in Christmas delight.

[Insert photo of Christmas merriment]

[Photo not taken because I was too busy enjoying the merriment to pause and take photos.]

Wednesday I had to work and catch up on chores and pay attention to my responsibilities, but I did manage to squeeze in a couple of hours to bake my traditional mutilated ginger-people:

By the time you read this, I will have eaten the last of them.

Thursday we packed up the dogs and headed to Esopus, New York to spend the holidays with some friends in their beautiful cedar house in the forest. Christmas Day included a real wood-burning fire, softly falling snow, eight Alaskan Malamutes, a herd of deer, and freely-flowing wine.

Saturday morning it suddenly occurred to me that our Christmas week was over and I hadn't taken a single photo. No pictures of my parents opening presents, none of Mike's turkey or my lemon meringue pie. No photos of the Malamutes or the wild turkeys roaming the woods or the beautiful stag and his herd of does. No photos of the perfect snowfall Christmas night or the look on my face when I ate my first oyster (which was a look of pure bliss, if you'd like to know). And I don't mind, actually. Most of the time the memories in my head are much more beautiful than anything my camera captures. But we did snap this, or tried to anyway, next time we'll at least drink a cup of coffee before we attempt any self-portraits.


Here we are Saturday morning, our eyes still full of sleep. What looks like a snow-field behind us is actually an enormous fishing pond that is apparently one of the best places for bass fishing in New York state. In January and February you can go ice fishing here. I'm much more interested in ice skating, but at this point in the season that would be a very unsafe idea.

Merry Christmahanakwanzika to you and yours. I'm off to bed, warm, sleepy, and thinking all about New Years Eve. Which is in four days. What, what? FOUR DAYS. Have you thought about your new years resolutions yet? Because I have. And they're really good.

Greenlit

All signs point to GO!

Harlem, November 2009

Shameless

News! News! News!

Vincent Lin, the director of the film I shot in September, just launched a brand new website for the movie. Check it out HERE!

It's not a merry season for all.

I want you to meet some Bronx beauties. This is Gizmo:

This gorgeous boy is Mickey:

Here is Toby:

This funny girl is Lara:

Here we have Teddy:

And last, but certainly not least, is Elizabeth:

Every single one of these kitties was euthanized this past Monday morning to make more room at the shelter. Each cat was under the age of five, sweet, friendly, and perfectly adoptable. Their fates were sealed by the sheer number of animals stuffed into shelters on a daily basis.

I've recently started volunteering for A Tail At A Time, a no-kill animal rescue that pulls animals from the euthanasia lists at Animal Care and Control and takes in animals off the street. A Tail At A Time doesn't have a shelter location; instead we rely entirely on people willing to foster homeless animals in their homes. The rescue pays for all medical expenses; volunteers provide food and love.

If you're in the New York area and you have space in your life to give a temporary home to an animal who will otherwise be euthanized for space, please email info@atailatatime.org. If you're interested but need more information, you can visit the website at www.atailatatime.org or the blog, www.atailatatimerescue.blogspot.com. (This blog, by the way, is one of the ways I am volunteering. Since Mike and I have five animals, we are unable to foster. Instead I help out at fundraisers, adoption events, and this week I started writing the rescue blog. It was previously written by one of the lovely women who founded the rescue.)

Thousands of cats and dogs are euthanized in this country on a daily basis. Many of them are puppies and kittens born from animals who's owners didn't bother to spay or neuter. It never fails to amaze me when a pet owner doesn't want to neuter because they think it's cruel to remove their pet's testicles. I balk when I meet pet owners who think it would be "cute" to let their pet have babies because their pet is so cute! And the babies would be so cute! And it would be fun! It isn't cute. Irresponsible breeding results in the death of innocent animals, no matter how "cute" they are. Just ask the kitties pictured above. Oh, wait. You can't. They're dead.

No matter where you live, I urge you to think about ways you can help save animals in your community, whether it's making sure to have your own pet spayed or neutered, whether it's adopting instead of purchasing a pet from a pet store, whether you volunteer for a local rescue or petition for your local animal shelter to transition from kill to no-kill, do something wonderful before the year is out. Save a life.

Textures

I am so excited about this.

Weeks and weeks ago Michael and I got a beautiful new sofa. We were all too happy to toss our sad old sofa to the curb. I mean, I loved the old sofa when we bought it, I did. It served us for four hearty years. Four years of claw-sharpening, accidents, sick-ups, party-fouls and even a cross-country move. However, as excited as I was to get it out of my home and replace it with something bigger, newer and more beautiful, I am not one to throw things away if they may still have some use. Since the majority of the damage done to the sofa was on the arms and back and the actual sofa cushions were in fine shape, I took an idea my mother gave me and I ran with it. I cut the seat cushions off the sofa and kept the back cushions, then I made it my mission to find beautiful fabric with which to make new cushion covers, so the cushions could be used and comfy floor pillows and throw pillows, respectively.

The sofa is a white and brown design that reminds me of an antique wood engraving. I was already in possession of a red fabric that I thought very cleverly clashed with the sofa, so my goal was to pick three more fabrics that would also cleverly clash; three bold designs in bright colors that would be edgy and classy, at the same time.

Valentine poses on the new sofa.

Draped behind her is the red fabric I already had.

I love the way the color and pattern looks

with the wood-print design of the sofa.

One recent Saturday, I spent several hours nosing around in a fabric shop in the garment district. As soon as I walked in I was immediately overwhelmed by the choices in the tiny shop. I poked around, looked at a few fabrics, and then my eyes fell on a blue swordfish pattern.

Valentine demonstrates the luxurious ease with which

one may recline upon the glorious swordfish

sofa-cushions-reincarnated-as-floor-pillows.

I was in love. The fabric reminded me of my father. The walls of his office bear antique prints of whales and massive fish and giant squid. They are beautiful and I remember the afternoon in Maui when he bought them with great fondness. I wanted that swordfish fabric.

But I wasn't going to buy the swordfish fabric. That would be silly. It wouldn't match anything else in the apratment. It would look stupid. Mike would hate it. It's too nautical. It's too fanciful. It's too expensive.

I wandered around the tiny, packed shop, sweating in my coat, trying to find something for the pillows. After nearly an hour of hopeless wandering, a sales girl came to my rescue.

"Can I help you find something?"

"Oh, yes. I am having such a hard time. I feel like I don't know how to match anything!"

"That's Ok! It can get frustrating with so many choices. What are you looking for?

I knew I wanted three contrasting prints in bold colors, but that somehow tied in together and tied in with the sofa. I wanted something wild and loud, yet chic and mature.

"Something edgy and classy at the same time."

She gave me a tight smile. Then she showed me dozens of paisley, swirly, polk-dot patterns that were pretty, sure, but not at all what I was looking for.

"Do you think I could match this with this?" I held up something with yellow and green grasshoppers, and something else with yellow, green and pink stripes.

"Um, no. Absolutely not. That's a bad idea."

"Really?"

"Yes. How about this?" She held up a green-on-green tie-dye and a solid green fabric.

I sighed. She didn't understand my vision.

I spent another thirty minutes wandering from one bright bolt of cloth to the next before I finally decided, Fuck It.

Fuck It.

I wanted the swordfish fabric, I was just going to buy it. The moment I decided to let myself have the swordfish fabric, I immediately found a second print I adored. This print was gold and blue, the same blue as the sword fish, but the print reminded me exactly of the print my mother used to paper the walls in the downstairs bathroom in the house I grew up in. I grabbed that too.

I may be able to cleverly clash prints,

but my sewing leaves something to be desired.

After that it was easy. The next print I pulled off the shelf tied everything together with gold, red, touches of blue, green and purple, and the same shaped flowers that are printed on the sofa and the red fabric pictured above.

Theo demonstrates how easy it is to be classy and edgy, at the same time!

Voila! Bright, bold patterns that don't quite match, yet look great. If I'd just let myself get what I wanted from the moment I walked into the store, an hours-long errand would have been a fifteen minute errand. The lesson to be learned? Ignore sales people.

Ghost Hunters

My brother is lucky enough to be married to the hot blonde:



And also? Contrary to what the commentators (if they can be called that) are trying to say with their horrid spelling, punctuation and grammar, it's actually NOT fake. It's 100% real, folks. 100% real.

H1N1, The Sequel

The funny thing is that I started this post last week just after I'd gotten over a stomach bug that had me hugging the toilet after every meal for seven days straight. But then I ended up writing this instead. And maybe I'm psychic or maybe it's because I mentioned it on my blog - could I actually will myself ill by naming a post after the swine flu? - but lordy lordy I haven't been this sick in ages. I mean, my throat is killing me. And my ears hurt and my head hurts and my joints ache and all I want is for Michael to fix me tea and pet my head and watch Meet Me in St. Louis with me. But he's busy trying to finish up a very special Christmas present he's making for his brother and so I'm left to whimper quietly on my own.

Speaking of Christmas, Crazy Aunt Purl just likened December to -- hold on, let me just quote her directly:

December is a weird month anyway, it's like one of those trick clocks that you wind up and it starts to go faster and faster until the hands are racing around the face of the clock, speeding up each day like a cartoon of anxiety until it pops all it springs and flops over dead.

Just as I was oblivious to the anniversary of when Valentine grabbed ahold of our hearts and made us take her home, I've been pretty oblivious to the Christmas spirit. It's not intentional, it's just that time has developed this relatively irritating habit of flying by so fast that I can barely keep up. Wasn't Halloween just last week? And Thanksgiving, that's still a few weeks away, isn't it? No? I'm not ready to get into the holiday spirit because I can't wrap my head around the fact that Christmas is less than two weeks away.

Every year I swear that THIS will be the year wherein I am finally on top of my game. THIS will be the year that I have all my shopping done by October, I will have all my gifts and cards sent out by December 1st, I will spend my evenings baking pies and decorating cookies and I will enjoy a holiday season that is relaxing and lovely and perfectly joyful. And every year ends up being exhausting, frustrating and anxiety-laden.

It's December 13th and not only am I not done with my shopping, which guarantees that I will not get any of my gifts mailed out in time, but I just received an email that the holiday cards I ordered TWO WEEKS AGO have been delayed AGAIN and probably won't arrive for AT LEAST ANOTHER WEEK.

Merry F-ing Christmas.

You know what? I'm feeling pretty grinchy after all.

This will be our third Christmas in New York, the third year in a row we've chosen not to chance holiday travel but instead to have a cozy little Christmas in the city. The first Christmas here was very hard. We didn't have the money or the space for a Christmas tree and I was so homesick I spent nearly the entire day in tears. Our second New York Christmas started out with my love and I fighting over whether or not a tree and decorations were wasteful and materialistic or necessary ingredients for a happy Christmas. Then when Mike surprised me with a beautiful little tree and spent a day helping me make decorations he ultimately taught me that it's not the stuff that matters: What matters is the feeling in your heart.

I went there.

This year I'm not very homesick at all. A little bit, sure. But my parents are coming to spend a few days with us and since last year was so lovely, I'm actually looking forward to our very own little Christmas. I even went ahead and suggested we substitute a tree for a lovely poinsettia, and Mike was so thrilled he brought one home that very day.

A few nights later we bought some eggnog, brought out our Christmas mugs, and spent the evening hanging lights around the apartment. It looks a little like a college dorm now, but I don't mind.

Then we decided to have a little fun:

Ta da! Christmas tomato plant!

Who needs a whole tree when you've got an enormous tomato plant? This, by the way, is the same tomato plant that was given to us at the beginning of the summer. She's grown, no?

And then there's Gavin:

Gavin Elfkin

Gavin left West Hollywood last year to try to make it on the New York Christmas Elf scene. He booked a job immediately, as the Frosty Family Elf.

Grinchy, distracted, busy and oblivious, the Christmas spirit has a way of creeping in and taking over, much like H1N1, which hopefully is not what I have.

I hope you enjoyed this very un-merry post. I'm going to go back to bed so I can hide under the covers until January. Until then, drink lots of fluids, don't go outside with wet hair and be sure to get plenty of rest!

It's catching, like H1N1, only funner

How about a little vintage Valentine:

Christmas, 2005

Tuesday was Valentine's 4th Rescue Anniversary. I just realized that. Four years ago this past Tuesday, Michael and I were spending another afternoon at the Los Angeles Animal Shelter in Van Nuys. We had been fostering dogs from a local rescue group for about five months and we knew we were finally ready to adopt a dog of our own. We didn't want to adopt through a no-kill rescue because even though they are the rescues we support, we knew that those dogs were safe. A dog in a no-kill rescue is a saved dog. We wanted to go right to the source and find a city shelter dog close to the euth list*. Since all of our foster dogs had been large and cat-hungry, we wanted to find a dog small enough that if it tried to go after Toby or Amelia it would get it's little dog-butt kicked. We didn't care about the age, sex or breed.

We drove to the shelter on a cool Monday afternoon with the top down on the Mustang and Bing Crosby's White Christmas playing on the stereo while we held hands over paper cups of holiday coffee. We were in love and it was Christmas and we were adopting a puppy. Well, probably not a puppy, probably a fully grown dog, but still.

That afternoon we met lots of dogs who were sweet and terrified and each one broke my heart a thousand times. But I couldn't make a choice. They were all great dogs; how could I choose one and not the other? I fell hard for a ten-year-old blind three-legged chihuahua whom I wanted to name 'Scrappy', but Mike felt uncomfortable making a commitment to a dog that would clearly require medical care well beyond our budget. I couldn't argue with that. We went home that night with empty arms and heavy hearts.

The next day, December 8, 2005, we decided to try again, only this time we spent the drive to Van Nuys in silence. I was dreading the afternoon. I hated the cold corridors and full cages at the pound. I didn't want to have to wander from kennel to kennel listening to the terrified crying of hundreds of beautiful, discarded dogs. I didn't want to have to choose one and turn my back on the rest.

We hadn't been at the pound for very long when I found Mike squatting in front of a little, yellow, rat-like mutt. I had had enough. I buried my face in his shoulder.

"Let's go. I'm done here."

"What do you mean? We just got here." He looked surprised.

"I can't do this right now. This was a terrible idea. Let's just go home." I'd lost hope.

"Hold on. We can go if you want, but before we do, did you see this one?"

He was pointing at the little yellow dog, a scrawny thing with a terrible over-bite, big sagging nipples and a rat tail. She was stretched up against the chain-link, her paws hooked so that she looked like she was hanging on for dear life, but her tail wagged happily. There were eight other dogs in the kennel with her, every one cowering in the back corner.

"Can we just go? Please?" I turned to walk away.

"Wait, wait, wait. Let's just take her out and say hi."

I turned back to him. The little dog cocked her head to one shoulder. I took a step closer and knelt down. She was kind of cute. Kind of ugly, but kind of cute. One of her little cellmates crept up beside her, tail wagging, looking for some love. She whipped her head around, bared her buck teeth and snapped at the perceived intruder.

"Whoa. Did you see that? She's all, Keep away, Bitch! These are MY people!"

Mike grinned at me. "You want to take her out?"

I did.

That was how we met Valentine. All we know about her life before us is what we read on her kennel card: She'd been picked up off the street on October 26, 2005. No tags, no chip. No one had claimed her, no one had come looking for her. She was an unaltered female, one to two-years-old. In bold red ink the card warned, "To be handled with CAUTION."

She hasn't changed that much. She looks less like a buck-toothed rat and more like a dog, but I'd still recommend handling her with caution. Why we chose her over all those other dogs? We didn't. She chose us. If you've ever adopted a pet, you know exactly what I mean.

Please note the rat-tail.

But actually, I didn't even mean to tell you that story, this was supposed to be a post about Christmas but then I sat down to write and found that photo of Valentine and remembered what day it was** and I ended up writing this. The title of this post actually refers to the post I intended to write, only now it doesn't make any sense at all.

Anyway, my point is that there's been a lot going on lately and time is passing so quickly that I cannot even believe Christmas is in less than three weeks. It's not that I'm feeling grinchy or scroogey, I just don't feel like it's Christmas yet. It can't be. It was just summer YESTERDAY.

Only it wasn't. Yesterday it was freezing and I had to wear six layers of clothing under my heavy wool coat and I was cold anyway. Yes, I'm completely exaggerating, but it is in the low thirties and even though Mike, who was raised in Michigan, keeps telling me that it's not cold out, I grew up in the San Fernando Valley where it is currently seventy-five and beachy and I say that it is VERY COLD OUT.

So apparently Christmas is going to be here in a minute and I'm completely unprepared. But I am getting into the holiday spirit anyway, and even beginning to enjoy it, as you can see with my new holiday header.

Isn't that great, by the way? That would have been our Christmas card this year, but Mike was worried about offending people, so instead our Christmas card is completely benign and completely boring. My dream Christmas card would be all of us at Frosty-licious doing the nativity. Theo could be the baby Jesus, Mike would be Joseph, I'd be Mary, the cats would be the angels and Valentine would be pooping in the corner***. Wouldn't that be great?

This post is now so full of random segue's that if I don't sign out soon I'll start writing about the audition I have tomorrow for my favorite show ever and I wouldn't want to do that, so I'll say good night.

Coming up next: A post about why Christmas is like the Swine Flu!

*Euthanasia list

**We don't actually do anything in celebration of the pets adoption days, it's just nice to take note.

***In case you didn't know, in Catalonia, Spain, it is traditional for the nativity to have a little pooping man. His name is El Caganer and here is a blurb from Wikipedia if you don't believe me.

Spain

El caganer

In 2005, the city council of Barcelona, Spain commissioned a nativity scene which did not include the region's traditional nativity figure, elcaganer, a red-capped defecating character which is not a part of the nativity narrative but simply an expression of the irreverent scatological humour of southwestern Europe.^[51] The council claimed the character set a bad example as sanitation laws against public elimination had recently been passed.^[52] The council's decision was viewed as an attack on Catalonian tradition, and, following a campaign against it, el caganer was restored to the nativity scene in 2006. In addition to the traditional caganer, other characters have appeared assuming the caganerposition. In 2008, a "pooper" of Barack Obama was made available just days after his election as the President of the United States of America.^[53]

Contemplating a blank canvas