Here's an assortment of "Things I Like". Consider it a tray of goodies from which you can pick and choose, cruise by later, nibble from again, then ignore for three hours before finally succumbing to its creamy, chocolately goodness.
1) Cepacol cough drops. They numb your throat when it feels like Dorothy Hamill has been skating figure-8's over it.
2) Gifts that keep on giving: items for home and hearth that arrive from faraway places and line the pockets of impoverished women, men and children: giving gifts that benefit individual families and villages through their purchase is satisfying for the giver and receiver. Here are some of my favorites...
Handmade Rwandan baskets woven by Hutu and Tutsi women, side by side, at Macy's:
http://www1.macys.com/catalog/index.ognc?CategoryID=25524&PageID=25524*1*24*-1*-1
Handstitched Sari Bari blankets made by women escaping brothels in India:
http://www.saribari.com/
Jewelry, crafts, and nativity sets:
http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/
Organic freetrade Over the Rhine blend coffee - ships the day it's roasted!
http://www.overtherhine.portmerch.com/stores/product.php?productid=16263&cat=252&page=1
3) Dictators of the world moustache buttons, which my friend Emily demands for Christmas, and rightly so; why hasn't anyone thought of this sooner?
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7140§ion_id=5034369
4) This trailer for an upcoming movie, "Be Kind, Rewind"
http://www.bekindmovie.com/
5) The fact that Rachael Ray just commented on tv chef Nigella Lawson's new favorite snack, bacon chocolate. BACON CHOCOLATE. Heeheehee. How can two wonderful things like those NOT be put together?
6) Online Christmas shopping. No malls, no parking lots, no lost gloves, no cranky cashiers. The comfort of my own couch. You don't even have to brush your teeth. And with the price of gas, what's a couple bucks for shipping? Besides, there are piles of unique gift ideas online with just a little google browsing.
7) Propel fitness water. It gives you the good stuff of Gatorade - electrolytes, for the layman - that your body loses during exercise, but without the sickly sweet taste of Gatorade. Light flavoring makes it perfect for workouts or, in my current status, staying hydrated during a bad wintertime cold.
8) Who said hygiene isn't fun? The other evening sitting in the living room, friends and I raised our eyebrows and laughed at the six year old's bathtime antics we could hear all the way down the stairs. Apparently there was a storm at sea. I shrugged. Made sense. Many were the childhood times one of my toys nearly drowned in a torrential bathtub hurricane. His mother was not so amused, picturing the subsequent neighborhood flooding on the floor that might occur as an aftermath. It reminded me of the time in college my roommate got boats for the tub. I'd been whining for some for months. Come on, people, you can make tunnels through bubbles!
9) White noise. It's a Pavlov instinct for me now - space heaters, air filters, they all put me to sleep almost as successfully as Nyquil.
10) Nyquil. Wow. Work your magic, baby. (cough, cough, splutter)
11) Real mail. No ads, no bills. Real mail. Makes every day feel like..well..Christmas!
"Things I don't like":
1) Unlit Christmas trees are forboding to me, almost like the way clowns are to some people.
2) Sickness dishes. Who has time or more importantly energy to do dishes when you're sick?
3) The way water tastes sweet in the middle of the night or morning before you brush your teeth. It's not unpleasant, but it's...weird. Almost unnatural.
4) Dumb gift ideas that talk shows think are good ideas. A five pound portable telescope?
5) The fact that I don't have a talk show. Come on, I bet I'm not contagious...
6) The housing market. Seriously, housing market, you're messing up the economy and putting us all in a near recession that will springboard somebody's presidential campaign as they manage to emphasize domestic policy rather than foreign policy.
7) Iced over windshields. But I don't WANT to scrape my windshield in the morning. Mornings are rough enough as it is without the capricious weather gods laughing at me bumbling around a car with no gloves because I usually can't find them or forget to put them on while I almost spill coffee on myself and wonder why the defrost works so slowly.
Well, that's my naughty and nice list of things I like and don't like. Merry Christmas.
1 comment:
in CANADA (how many sentences have I started with that phrase?) we put an old towel over our car windwshield and the rear window at night. In the morning, pull off the towels, throw them in the trunk and drive! NO ICE and NO SCRAPING!
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